23 Oct 2005, 8:54 pm
23 Oct 2005, 10:42 pm
24 Oct 2005, 12:02 am
24 Oct 2005, 1:43 am
24 Oct 2005, 2:35 am
To the original poster:
As someone who actually works in IT (and has done for the past 8 years), I would say all the original points are valid, but only to a point.
For instance, the threat from China/India is real but is not as pronouced as you might think. There are still vast numbers of IT professionals employed across the western world, most enjoying very healthy salaries.
Many companies are moving away from outsourcing, back towards insourcing as they realise the supposed benefits were not as great as promised.
The situation will not likely get worse. Communications infrstructure already allows for all IT to be moved abroad, and there are plently of talented graduates to employ out there. And yet there are still new jobs being created in IT outside of China/India. That suggests that we may have already reached a stable balance between exporting IT jobs and the remaining number that should/must be kept in the country of origin.
Also, one must remember that as demand for these skills increases in the low-wage economies, the workers there will inevitabely demand higher wages and better benefits, thus eroding the cost base advantage they currently have.
As for the social skills thing, whilst having such skills would undeniably be helpful, it should go without saying that is a bit of a crass thing to suggest to an Aspie, is it not? I am pleased for you if you do have good social skills, but please remember that a fundamental aspect of AS is impairment in social understanding and social communication. That will obviously have implications on ability to learn and correctly use whatever social skills that may be applicable to the job.
With the best will in the world, you can't just make these problems go away, no matter how useful they clearly are to your occupation.
As for the selection of computer programming as a career, I'm afraid IT chose me, I always wanted to be a musician, but I'm tone deaf! 
Seriously though, I started programming when I was 7 years old, far too young to be deciding careers on the basis of what would or wouldn't be demanding! 
I do it, strangely enough, because I enjoy it. The nature of programming is highly appealing to the way my mind works, nothing more, nothing less.
24 Oct 2005, 2:54 am
24 Oct 2005, 3:13 am
24 Oct 2005, 3:14 am
Whatever their reasons, I think they often don't develop their social skills like they could. AS is not an absolute disability. Yes you probably never will be "normal," but that doesn't mean you can't improve your deficiencies and get closer to that. I have learned many times that you cannot use your AS as an excuse. In the end, we are all judged in the real world by the same standard as the NTs. If we choose to not improve, and let our social skills stay deficient, we will continue to lose opportunities and be unsuccessful at things. Honestly, I think a lot of us are afraid of not going into an area a little more pragmatic due to uncertainy and being afraid of what else might be out there. AS people also seem to not always make the most pragmatic decisions.
Aaah! I get it, this isn't about IT at all. You want to tell us how great you are and how rubbish the rest of us are because we haven't made the same improvements in social skills you have?
Trust me, as someone who's only recently learnt about AS and spent all my life trying to improve my social skills and wondering why I kept getting nowhere, it is really not as simple as using AS as an excuse. We all have to work within the limitations of what we can and can't do. Sometimes those boundaries can be moved a little or a lot, often times not at all. The wise person will learn to make the most of their strengths and not spend their lives in futile attempts to change what they have already learnt from experience cannot be changed.
Yes, try to improve your social skills if you can, but I don't think anybody should even be making the implication that somehow we Aspies are lazy for not conforming to NT standards of communication.
Some of us have spent an entire lifetime tormenting ourselves as to why there is never any progress with these areas and resent being told the equivilent of "just try harder".
24 Oct 2005, 3:25 am
I disagree. Given I do not work in the field, but what you are saying is that companies are now chosing to spend more money on labor than they have to. Outsourcing is here to stay. Outsourcing does not just refer to sending IT jobs to China. If a company has its payroll work done by a domestic outside provider, that is outsourcing. It is done all of the time in the business world. It is done with just about every task you can think of. If the task isn't directly related to the company's core competency (building cars if you are GM for example), then the work is outsourced. This type of thing has been done for a very long time and has only increased, because companies realize that they can save money by doing it this way.
On the contrary, companies are always trying to reduce their bottom line. They have just seen that sometimes the most cost efficient method is to do things in-house, and not automatically outsource/export the work.
The statement "they realise the supposed benefits were not as great as promised" I must disagree with also. There has been no lacking of quality in work done by people in India or China. They almost always do the work at least as well as someone domesticly.
If you read what I said carefully you will see that I not once complained about the quality of work from China/India, merely that it isn't alway as cost effective as one might assume. I have worked with many Indian contractors and found the standard of their work to be at least as good as UK based IT professionals.
Over the next year or two it probably wont get worse. As the economy improves the situation may even improve some. But over the next 20 or 30 years, as the world gets even more globalized, it will likely get far worse. People in all fields, throughout the economy, will have to compete for jobs in the global marketplace. This will not be confined to IT by any means. Other professions might have to start worrying about losing their jobs. But as this is a continuum of sorts, IT will always be on the edge of this outsourcing and globalization continuum. The effects in other areas will be felt by people in those fields, but they will be felt by a far larger magnitude in IT and other tech fields. Already IT provides no job security, and people are laid off all of the time. Over this next 30 years this will be amplified many times.
I think you've answered your own criticism of IT here, the globalization pheonomenom is not merely constrained to IT, but to the whole service sector. Therefore, IT is no worse a choice of career than any other, on that basis alone. I would disagree with the statement that IT provides no job security. It is no better or worse than any other occupation. IT people may simply complain more about it!
Don't forget that salary is just one overhead. The additional cost of infrastructure and management to successfully export IT jobs is a major factor too.
Plus, Indian salaries are already sky-rocketting, hence the addition of China as a new player, who are themselves stealing work from India, because the wage basis is even lower. So it's not just us in the western world that needs to watch our back!
24 Oct 2005, 4:45 am
24 Oct 2005, 4:58 am
Good point - I missed that.
Me thinks there is some "bendiness" in those figures. Probably by a factor of 10-100...
24 Oct 2005, 6:33 pm
Me thinks there is some "bendiness" in those figures. Probably by a factor of 10-100...
I found the numbers, 1.5 million US and 7 million India/China in an article on this topic in Business Week.
24 Oct 2005, 6:38 pm
Aaah! I get it, this isn't about IT at all. You want to tell us how great you are and how rubbish the rest of us are because we haven't made the same improvements in social skills you have?
Not at all.
I agree. I don't think any of us are lazy in the slightest. I think people who have substantive disabilities sometimes get discuraged. I know I have. My only opinion here is that we improve our social skills as much as we are able. If one is not able to improve their social skills beyond what they already have, then I completely understand. There is nothing wrong with that. I think for many people (including myself), there is always a little more we can improve. I honestly don't know what you have against me suggesting that people always try to make their social skills a little better.
I never said anyone is being lazy. Nor did I infer it.
I am not saying just try harder. I am saying never give up. Always try to improve, however much you can.
24 Oct 2005, 8:29 pm
Outsourcing is almost never more expensive. That is why it is so widespread. If one group you outsource to is too expensive, someone else will do it for a cheaper price. Often these firms specialize in certain things, such as programming. They have more of a core competency in this area and are more efficient, because this is their business. No everything will not be outsourced. But many things can be, and are.
Yes potentialy all fields can be affected by outsourcing and these supply/demand imbalances. However, as I said, the effect is always multiplied by several factors in IT. It has been in the past, is now, and will be in the future, worse in IT than it is just about anywere else. As globalization continues, and more fields become vulnerable, they will still never be nearly as vulnerable as IT. Globalization will hit IT harder than just about anywhere else.
Plus, Indian salaries are already sky-rocketting, hence the addition of China as a new player, who are themselves stealing work from India, because the wage basis is even lower. So it's not just us in the western world that needs to watch our back!
Indian salaries will not be anywhere near American salaries for the next 50 years.
25 Oct 2005, 2:04 am
A link for those figures would be nice Hugo, because I can't find them anywhere!
Take your point that we should try to be all that we can, however what I was trying to get across is that most of us do all we can and yet life is still tremendously difficult. Just acquiring the neccasary social skills may be straightforward for you, but for others it is an impossibility. That's not letting yourself be constrained by the AS label, but to be resigned to ones limitations after years of hard experience...
As for the IT thing, well you have your view, I have mine. We'll see how it develops over time, I'll stick with my optimistic view thanks... 
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