Losing your Job

I think most people stumble into their career paths. I would love to be involved in music for a living but almost all my friends from college who ended up pursuing that are pretty damn broke. Or they make just enough money to live in their little corner of the world. The ones who moved to NYC and LA are the only ones I see finding any real success but it's not like they're living it up.

Never imagined that I would end up as a sales engineer, but I really dig this job. It suits me well. And it pays well so I can continue to take multiple extravagant vacations a year. And keep up with my absurd concert-going habit.

Sometimes I sit in pointless meetings and I just scream inside my head, sometimes random or sometimes just think of the most obscene/racist/inappropriate thing I could possibly say, and walk through a scenario in my head of what would happen if I said it. Or screamed it. At the top of my lungs, nonstop. How long would it take someone to get physical in that situation? Or would they all just sit there quietly waiting for me to stop? BUT I WILL NEVER STOP OH GOD WHY AM I HERE THIS IS THE WORST

grumblethorn said:

Mine was pretty tedious. Started out in early 2000s doing the small business IT shit, building desktops, servers etc and wiring and setting up networks for small businesses and lawfirms, and worked a few help desk jobs at small ISPs. Went to college got my 4 year degree in useless, got out got some entry level network engineer shit, and in 2008 saw a friend take 1 course in InfoSec and get a job for 92k with no experience. Followed that got a masters and been in InfoSec since.

Click to expand...

How did you decide what to specialize in within infosec? Or did you? That is an interesting problem I see a lot of people within the industry grappling with.

I got pretty lucky that I decided I wanted to be a software developer pretty early in my life. I started getting the bug simply doing HTML pages in Angelfire, moved over to VBScript and again was lucky that my high school offered programming/CS classes. So I took all of those offered where I learned VB6 and C++. I knew exactly the GPA/ACT I needed to get into the college I wanted -- got that and applied to that school and only that school where I got accepted. Started to do Java in college but I still wasn't a very good straight up programmer at that point. I started my internship where I met some really amazing programmers and learned everything I could from them.

Graudated as what I would consider an extremely above average Java programmer. I targetted a certain company in Ohio I wanted to work. Applied for only that job and got an offer. This is where I met even more great programmers but then I started to really become a software developer. I kept getting better and better. Stayed there for quite a while (by developer standards) and then got an opportunity to apply for my dream job. By some stroke of luck they thought I was pretty alright so here I find myself on the West coast wondering how exactly 8th grade Tenks' dreams came true.

Imagine the balls on the guy who is like "yes, I would like to accept that position as CISO of Yahoo".

My current job has involved me doing a lot of ISSO/ICD 503 compliance shit because of several factors. I have to say, I'm not a fan, but I think a lot of that is organizational. After months, it seems like that is starting to change, which is good. But not good enough to keep me there.

I'm always interested in origin stories from people in infosec. With the rabbit holes you can go down, it seems the capacity for specialization is pretty crazy. Seems similar to certain science fields. Watched a nature thing with the kids last night that had this scientist who specialized in a specific kind of praying mantis and focused his research and career on that.

Tarrant said:

My current job rolled out a new commission structure this morning. I was tld to come in early for a meeting that would discuss it (I live 90min away so this involved me waking up at 4:30 this morning to get here in time)

I get to the office and am told I can't attend and I would be sat down after.

So I'm already a bit salty since the time we finally sat down was my normal start time.

Anyway, I get told the new commission structure is being used to motivate those who are mediocre at what they do, when then is stressed that I am not in the group. I'm told under the new structure I would "blow it up" and that they wouldn't be able to afford that. I am then given the option of being capped at half of the new commission structure (because no one else I work with will come close to hitting it, they aren't worried about them. They just put those numbers up as a driving factor), or I can take a 20% pay decrease and be allowed to hit the cap...which would cause me to come close to breaking even with what I do now.

They can tell I'm irritated and then tell me to take some time to think about it.

I'm thinking of a lot of things at the moment, taking either one of their offers isn't among them.

Click to expand...

Argue that you should be allowed to hit the cap as a motivator to others to strive to do as good as you. Then begin training others, and have others approach it. Then shift your position to sales training/management with a fat ass salary check.

Tarrant said:

Oh, all that was brought up. My company is all about wanting big numbers but isn't all about paying for big numbers. While they dangle a carrot out on front of you, ideally you will only get a bite or two, they don't want you eating the whole thing month after month.

Click to expand...

I mean, my understanding of commission is essentially, you earn x% of what you sell. So shouldn't it essentially be without cap regardless? Since the more you make, they are making exponentially more than that?

Speaking of commission, I got my performance bonus projection for Q1 today. Being a director has a massive fucking benefit. Not only is it based off of what my division does, but I get to dip into the other divisions too, like the other directors get to dip into my slice of happyness.