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Take Charge of Your Career - You Don't Have a Choice

Take Charge of Your Career -- You Don't Have a Choice

by Richard Stooker

A few months ago a high school student sent me an

AllExperts question which boiled down to:

Which computer career pays the most money and has

the most job security?

I was floored.

Job security?

Does this 16 year old kid write term papers on a

typewriter? Call her friends on an AT&T Princess

phone? Twirl a hula hoop? Listen to a transistor

radio?

Make the most money?

Does anybody really give credence to those

tables showing that in Boise ID the average

programmer makes $1544 more than the average

networker?

Who cares? Do you want to be average? Is

anybody average?

The truth is, although it'd be irresponsible of

me to have advised her to study COBOL, she'll

make the most money at whatever career she

enjoys, given some reasonable demand in the

marketplace.

The more she works at giving her employers her

best, the more money she'll make.

The more she uses her skills to solve more

problems for more people -- and this can

and should be some activity far beyond normal

employment -- the more money she'll make.

Chances are, by the time she graduates from

college the highest paying computer skill will be

something nobody has yet heard of.

In the long run, she'll make as much money as

she sets out to make. No more and no less.

Some computer programmers are now on welfare.

Bill Gates is the richest man in the world.

The more you *create your own job* -- whether

you're formally an employee or not -- the more

security you have.

In THE MILLIONAIRE NEXT DOOR, Thomas Stanley

and William Danko compare the "security" of

employment with the "insecurity" of

self-employment.

Work for a company and you get a paycheck at

regular intervals, as long as the company

needs you, does not go out of business and is

not merged or bought out by another company.

However, the owner of a pest control business

has irregular income, but from maybe 1000 or

so different customers.

If one of those customers moves away or switches

to a competitor, the pest control owner still

receives income from the other 999.

Given reasonable management and marketing,

pest control businesses will survive as

long as the world contains mice, roaches and

others.

I wonder how many Enron employees now wish

they were pest exterminators?

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I don't expect techies to kill fleas.

I do expect that the techies who understand

they must constantly search for new ways to

help people -- whether employers or customers --

will make a lot of money in this the third millenium.

Techies who just want management to leave them alone

to code will have a niche when the economy is booming

as in 1999. In bad times, pray for good luck.

It's up to us to shape our futures by the actions

we take now.

Do the minimum, reap the minimum.

Do a good job, receive your fair share.

Take the initiative and use your creativity and

hard work to far beyond where you are now, and

harvest the abundance of the Earth.

Your choice.

Copyright 2002 by Info Ring Press

I hereby grant permission to all website owners

and ezine publishers to reprint the above article

as long as long as it is reprinted as is in full,

including this contact information.

Email Richard Stooker: rick@inforingpress.com

About the Author

Richard Stooker is the author of Secrets of Changing to

a Computer Career.

http://www.inforingpress.com/

Learn the 5 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom

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