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Posted by Alfred on 12/13/06 02:59
If you're a PHP fan like I am, I have a word of advice. Don't live
where I have relocated near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, USA. It's
probably the most backward place on the planet, where IT workers are
not respected, are highly underpaid, and gigs are few and far between.
I used to work in Raleigh, NC (the Research Triangle area) USA and IT
and programmer jobs were plentiful. Then, all of a sudden, my wife had
this desperate need to move back home with her folks in rural South
Carolina near Myrtle Beach. Her father donated a bunch of land to her
so that the idea was that we could sell our North Carolina house, build
a fabulous mansion in South Carolina (because the land was free), and
make a decent living out here. Boy, was that stupid! It's a miracle I'm
here after 5 years.
First, while we were building our house down here, the Raleigh housing
market was overbuilding and house values were depreciating too much. We
ended up with a house that wouldn't move and so we lost $50K extra
investment we had put into the home in order to offload it. Then, after
we built our home as general contractors, we ended up with a seriously
faulty foundation because a foundation huckster took us for a ride. The
house began to sink by 1 inch, so we brought the builder back to repair
it. Unfortunately, the builder ended up doing major damage on house by
shattering a column and causing severe cracks throughout the house. The
back of the house then continued to sink to where it is now 2 inches
lower there than in the middle of the house. We ended up burning
through $20K of retirement savings to get RamJack to jack the house
back up. They weren't finished and to my disgust came back and had the
audacity to ask us for $20K more to finish the job. We kicked them out.
Next, I was traveling back and forth with a gig in Manhattan, with a
company still riding on dot com era venture capital money oddly enough,
and then to my shock was laid off when 9/11 happened. So I ended up
being 4 months unemployed and ran up some credit cards.
Next, I finally landed a gig near Myrtle Beach, SC, but was highly
underpaid. I was doing okay, with good salary prospects for the future,
doing that for about 2 years, when all of a sudden I was told my job
was outsourced to another country and I could either hit the road or
move over into IT operations. I did the unfortunate thing of becoming
an overworked slave in IT operations because then my wife could remain
happy and I could perhaps get some semblance of a chance to do PHP work
here or there. At least my primary task would be Linux work, which I
appreciated. (I love Linux!)
The job compounded, however. The pressure increased, I rarely had any
opportunities for PHP work, they added heavy security auditing and
documentation tasks on to my workload, I had to go "oncall" in an
"oncall rotation", the server room's server count tripled, and a whole
range of other stressful headaches were added to my life from the job.
Meanwhile, my manager was a freshman while I was a seasoned 15 year
veteran of IT, and we began to bang heads out of his personal
insecurities. Some days I tell you I am very frustrated with him and
want to just walk out. However, I have no where else to go. If I move
away, first I have to figure out how to sell a faulty (but beautiful)
house. Second, I have to get my wife to agree to it, and she's not
interested because she's got the best job she ever had and she is close
to her relatives here. My children, as well, are on a scholarship track
as long as I remain in South Carolina.
I've looked for PHP telecommute opportunities, but I cannot find them,
or I find project bid sites that pay too low. All I need is to make
about $60K a year -- it's not too much to ask, is it? My PHP skills are
very sharp because at home I have continued projects that I plan to
release as part of a company some day far, far in the future.
So whatever you do, do not relocate anywhere near Myrtle Beach, South
Carolina to think you can get a web development job of any shape or
form because most of the good jobs are sucked up. You won't get paid
well, or people will want too much of your work for free. They won't
appreciate you. They will be rude with you and be combative, regardless
of what they say about Southern USA hospitality here. And those IT
people you meet here are often phonies with nothing more than a college
degree and the ability to write HTML web pages, nothing more.
It's also unfortunate that my phone rings with recruiters for
Linux-based PHP gigs, and my inbox is flooded with them, but not a
single one is for telecommute or for nearby locations within several
hundred miles.
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