Ask A Progeek – The Job/Experience Issue

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And our question this week is one that a lot of people ask:

How do you make the jump between “mall/retail/survival job” and “real job,” considering the chicken-egg situation happening with jobs and experience?

This is a question everyone has asked for decades, and is probably going to keep asking for a long time to come.  How do you leap from your lousy job to a real job – and how you get the experience you need.

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Steve’s Kill Your Cable Adventure

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In late 2011/early 2012 Steve decided to see if he and his household could go without cable, and documented his experiences.  The roundup is below!

Kill Your Cable and Habit – The post that started it all, as Steve speculates if he really needs cable.

  1. The Device Experience And Discussion – Steve’s initial plans to try Killing Your Cable lead him to think over the technology and issues of the post-cable world.
  2. In-Depth Psychology and Stuff – Steve looks at the psychology of planning to – and trying to – Kill Your Cable.
  3. Oh, Wait – Steve finds Killing Your Cable requires you to rethink and evaluate a few things.
  4. Into The Abyss – With his roommate out, Steve tries going without cable and shares his findings.
  5. Finding The Off Switch – Steve and his roommate make the decision to kill their cable, and he reviews his findings.
  6. Not With A Bang, But A Spare $90 – Steve finally cuts the cord and finds there’s no revolution to be had.

– Steven Savage

More Cuts At AOL

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You can get the skinny here.  It’s 100 employees being laid off.

What’s most interesting are the cuts to super-popular AIM, which an insider says is basically support staff.  Surely that will be fixed, but my guess is AOL sees AIM as a cash cow and doesn’t plan to do anything new with it.

A good deal of AOL’s activities seems to be seeking to maximize the numbers in profit, so I don’t see any actual plan so much as calculations.  Not sure where this is going to end up.

TAKEAWAYS:

  • AOL is probably going to go for some radical rebranding soon.  OK further radical rebranding – they really aren’t “anything.”
  • AIM will probably survive, but it’ll be just a service that doesn’t really grow.
  • I wouldn’t send a resume to AOL.
  • Bonnie and I?  WAY wrong on AOL in the past.  Just apologizing.

– Steven Savage