My work history in turnings

[sbarrera]

I notice there is no personal updates type forum like there was on the old site, so I'm putting this here. This is a repost from fb. I just wrote my work history down one day when I had a little spare time and then thought of my own life and the nature of the companies where I worked from a turnings perspective. I found it to be a fun and enlightening exercise you might want to try yourself.
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In my life I've had many jobs and moved around a lot. The Nomad life course. I have a bachelor's degree in computer science and have mostly worked as a contractor. For fun, and because I like categorizing, I wrote down every company I've worked at and the year the company was founded. Some interesting patterns emerged.

The majority of companies where I have worked were founded in the 2T or 3T of this saeculum. Many of these were startups that failed or got bought out. Not surprising since I am a software engineer but too old to be in on the ground floor of any 4T unicorns.

These jobs were all in the first half of my career, pretty much coinciding with the 3T of this saeculum. The other places I worked in this time period were two venerable public institutions founded in the 1T of the Great Power saeculum: Virginia Tech where I went to school and the United States Geological Survey where I interned.

Then in the second half of my career, starting just at the tail end of the 3T, I started getting contracts at more established companies, founded in the 3T or 4T of the Great Power saeculum (IBM for example). This reflects both my increased work experience and a life course related desire for greater work stability. This is my Nomad settling down in the 4T phase.

[beechnut79]

(08-07-2018, 09:04 PM)sbarrera Wrote: I notice there is no personal updates type forum like there was on the old site, so I'm putting this here. This is a repost from fb. I just wrote my work history down one day when I had a little spare time and then thought of my own life and the nature of the companies where I worked from a turnings perspective. I found it to be a fun and enlightening exercise you might want to try yourself.
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In my life I've had many jobs and moved around a lot. The Nomad life course. I have a bachelor's degree in computer science and have mostly worked as a contractor. For fun, and because I like categorizing, I wrote down every company I've worked at and the year the company was founded. Some interesting patterns emerged.

The majority of companies where I have worked were founded in the 2T or 3T of this saeculum. Many of these were startups that failed or got bought out. Not surprising since I am a software engineer but too old to be in on the ground floor of any 4T unicorns.

These jobs were all in the first half of my career, pretty much coinciding with the 3T of this saeculum. The other places I worked in this time period were two venerable public institutions founded in the 1T of the Great Power saeculum: Virginia Tech where I went to school and the United States Geological Survey where I interned.

Then in the second half of my career, starting just at the tail end of the 3T, I started getting contracts at more established companies, founded in the 3T or 4T of the Great Power saeculum (IBM for example). This reflects both my increased work experience and a life course related desire for greater work stability. This is my Nomad settling down in the 4T phase.

I was always of the mindset that the 4T is the time of greatest upheaval and that the desire to settle down, even sans spouse, if a hallmark of the 1T as witnessed during the Leave it to Beaver years. The 2T came and proved a great disrupter although that term was less widely used then than it is today.