Robbie
PowerDork
6/29/18 10:11 a.m.
GameboyRMH said:
Man I wish I could get some of these high-paying remote-work SQL jobs. I've never even seen them advertised, personally.
- Guy who works with SQL databases every day for peanuts.
The remote work is harder. Generally when I hear "fully remote SQL support" I hear "India". Also, I don't know how visas and citizenship work with remote work (I don't remember if you are US citizen or not - Canadian maybe?). But if you live in a US city and go to work in the office every day, there are plenty of well-paying SQL jobs. Most are hidden into other fields though. Like you might work in the accounting department. Or healthcare patient financial services. Regulatory or contractual reporting. Legal department. Sales even. Etc.
In my role I often see that the "IT" SQL guys are so bogged down with meaningless report requests from everyone and their mother and with putting every report into some silly "enterprise" format that the business area owners just get fed up waiting on reports and hire their own SQL person. Those are the SQL jobs I would look for.
If you like I can mention you to a couple of our folks. I have no idea if we have open positions at the moment, but you never know.
Also: I witnessed this happen with my wife’s sister: Her husband was always “between jobs” or “work had dried up” etc. After bleeding his folks for years, and facing foreclosure on their house, his parents gave him an acre of land to build on.
Literally a couple payments away from being mortgage-free, my Father-in-law took out a second to help them build a house (WAY nicer than his own,) on the property. As the SIL’s husband was (lol) a “carpenter/woodworker,” he “was gonna” do a lot of the work himself. YEARS later, the house was still bare sub-floor with no cabinets and plywood countertops.
...I digress.
Even with the free house on free land, every month there was a crisis, (car broke down, power/gas cut off) and every month FIL was there to bail them out, to the point where he postponed retirement and kept working his ass off for the sake of the grandkids...until he found out dude was “double-dipping” from the aunt (My FIL’s sister.) Every time there was a “crisis,” he’d hit both of them up, asking both of them not to say anything to anyone because he was so embarrassed, and socking away cash or blowing it on dumb E36 M3.
About six months after FIL got wise, daughter got divorced, moved in with him (because the house was built on dickhead’s family land,) and my FIL was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and basically died penniless, because of the son-in-law.
Not drawing any parallels. Obviously everyone’s situation is different. Just saying it still breaks my heart that this man I loved and respected more than most humans got milked for hundreds of thousands of dollars with nothing to show for it, and never got to enjoy a single day of retirement.
As stated above, by many. Ol' Sonny Boy needs a gut check. All agree raising a family properly is not easy. Doing it broke, should not entitle you to familial handouts. I worked 2 jobs in the early stages of our marriage/child rearing years. My wife worked after the kids were in school. We still made time for our kids, raised them to be respectful, and successful.
No genius here, for sure. But one has to do what one has to do.
mtn
MegaDork
6/29/18 10:29 a.m.
This situation isn't pretty. Going through a similar one right now--my BIL is a trying person. Good guy, but he has to be bipolar or have some other mental condition. In any case, he currently has a job, but thinks he should have a better job, but has been let go from every entry level job he's had. In his defense, it has been a LOT of bad luck--first company was bought out, entire division was canned. Second company eliminated the entire division. Third company did the same. As a result, he is 32 years old and still in an entry level job.
He also has crippling credit card debt. Bad spending problem. Cares wayyy too much about image. Well, MIL had been helping him out for a long time. All the excuses, blah blah blah. He asked my wife and I for $1k. To be fair, he has helped the two of us out significantly in the past couple years, and likely saved us about $2k. I told my wife that we were going to give him the money, one time. If he paid us back, maybe we'd do it again. I also told my wife that we were treating it on our end as a gift. FIL found out about it a while later and deposited the money into my wife's account without telling us.
I don't let it get to me because my FIL and MIL can't retire anyways due to medical conditions, and when MIL does retire, they'll need to find a creative way to go bankrupt to afford care for my MIL, unless something changes. My one insistence is that any real estate is sold prior to gifting anything to my wife and BIL. FIL had mentioned passing the house on to the two of them. I about had an aneurysm at the thought of co-owing a house with BIL--he'd move into it, trash it, and insist that we keep it because of [whatever reason] and I wouldn't be able to do jack E36 M3 about it.
Robbie said:
The remote work is harder. Generally when I hear "fully remote SQL support" I hear "India". Also, I don't know how visas and citizenship work with remote work (I don't remember if you are US citizen or not - Canadian maybe?). But if you live in a US city and go to work in the office every day, there are plenty of well-paying SQL jobs. Most are hidden into other fields though. Like you might work in the accounting department. Or healthcare patient financial services. Regulatory or contractual reporting. Legal department. Sales even. Etc.
In my role I often see that the "IT" SQL guys are so bogged down with meaningless report requests from everyone and their mother and with putting every report into some silly "enterprise" format that the business area owners just get fed up waiting on reports and hire their own SQL person. Those are the SQL jobs I would look for.
If you like I can mention you to a couple of our folks. I have no idea if we have open positions at the moment, but you never know.
I have Canadian citizenship, my experience with SQL is mostly as part of full-stack web dev but I've written some elaborate queries to generate reports too.
Driven5
SuperDork
6/29/18 11:29 a.m.
I refuse to be a party to any of this type of codependent failing at life BS. If family 'needs' money, they should still have to 'earn' it in their own way. And no, I'm not talking about manual labor around my house or anything. More like show me what you're doing to change this situation of needing financial assistance in the first place. I'm also a firm believer in compatible parenting beliefs being a requirement for a strong marriage when kids (and grand kids) of any age are involved. As such, I say confront her (or better yet the both of them) and let the chips fall where they may. If they haven't responded to gentile nudging, and if they don't respond to a bit of tough love, then there simply may be no saving them from themselves...Just don't let them sink you in the process.
My one concession would be limited and conditional financial assistance that is exclusively towards critical situations in advancing the grand-kids' future prospects, be it for high level athletics or education. Accepting it would mean it might not be exactly how it's being asked for, largely as a means of keeping sonny boy less "distracted". For instance, maybe the financially assisted travel becomes more of a grandmother-granddaughter activity until the parents can cover their own family finances for themselves.
In reply to frenchyd :
This isn't a problem of your making but unfortunately you're being drug into it. Just out of curiosity you made some vague reference as to him getting the short end of the stick in his mother's divorce? What is your relationship like with future 40 year old step-son? What is his relationship like with his own father?
It's a dangerous path, but if he respects you perhaps you could have a confidential between the two of you man to man come to Jesus discussion. Perhaps he needs to hear that he's probably not impressing his daughters by running to mommy for every crisis. Perhaps he needs to learn to be a hero in this situation and not a zero. Ymmv
Driven5
SuperDork
6/29/18 11:37 a.m.
In reply to Ovid_and_Flem :
Perhaps he needs to get slapped in the face (or better yet, kicked in the plums) with his throwing away not only his own financial future, but that of his mother, his wife, and his kids as well...Unless he simply doesn't care because he see's frenchyd as his entire family's financial savior.
In reply to Driven5 :
I was trying to be tactful. I know how easy it is to set Frenchy off. LOL
Mike
SuperDork
6/29/18 12:00 p.m.
I've kinda been this guy. No kids and wife, but completely burnt on a job, and thus floundering.
If you give him any support, it should be a strong shove into a job that is in a field slightly different than his old one.
My wife thinks I hate what I do now, but it's so much better than the crap I did before. I'm now earning a good living, and respected by my peers. My finances are good. My farts smell better.
If I were him, I'd look into trying something related where the SQL experience will provide an interesting perspective. Maybe tune the resume to highlight the parts of his work that touched a field he's interested in moving into. Finance or medical statistics, information security - particularly in web application testing. Get into a small org where you can get your hands into everything so there's some variety.
Driven5
SuperDork
6/29/18 12:41 p.m.
In reply to Ovid_and_Flem :
What is this 'tact' you speak of, and where can I get some of it?
D2W
HalfDork
6/29/18 12:47 p.m.
Could you clarify how an almost 20 year old gets the short end of the stick in the divorce of his parents? Just curious.
Kids likely don't know where the money comes from. Most live in their own little worlds till at least high school age.
I know someone (now late 50's) who has lived his entire adult life mooching like the SIL in the OP. Works occasionally at odd jobs, never held a regular job more than a year or so and that was 30+ years ago, no regular jobs in the past 20 or so. Fired from most jobs for disrupting the co workers. At the repeated requests of his parents I hired him on more than one occasion in his teens & early 20's only to have to fire him for disrupting the workplace. By his mid 20's he said taking a regular entry level job was beneath him so stopped trying to even get any regular job. Gets vehicles for free from relatives that would otherwise just trade them in. Lived at his folks house till he was in his late 30's. His dad passed away & then his mom got a boyfriend (eventual husband) who moved in moms house while the son continued to live there with no real income. Mom bought him his own house eventually to get rid of him.
He found a girlfriend who works multiple entry level jobs and he does odd jobs like pet sitting once in a while. Their combined income doesn't meet their expenses. Never had kids. His mom still bails him out regularly for taxes, vehicle repairs, medical, etc. So he's happily living life in his own home at a very modest level and has two primary enablers (plus other small ones providing used cars, furniture, appliances, etc. who may not realize they are) allowing him to exist with little effort on his part. He's happy to do whatever he feels like every day with a safety net. Ya, we judge, but who's really the smarter one? hmmmmmm
D2W said:
Could you clarify how an almost 20 year old gets the short end of the stick in the divorce of his parents? Just curious.
He just graduated from high school at age 18. Dad ran off with a girl less than 1/2 his age and left mom with nothing. Mom had to scramble to sell house before the banks foreclosed. Mothers parents took in three kids 15, 8, & 3 no room for oldest who had grades good enough to go to college but not even enough money to apply.
Other three kids wound up able to go to college as mom went to work and back to school. Mom wound up able to repay her parents, get her other kids into college etc.
Son went out on his own and starting from the bottom learned IT but missed promotions without the required college degree.
In reply to frenchyd :
Mom must have had a E36 M3ty lawyer.
Ovid_and_Flem said:
In reply to frenchyd :
This isn't a problem of your making but unfortunately you're being drug into it. Just out of curiosity you made some vague reference as to him getting the short end of the stick in his mother's divorce? What is your relationship like with future 40 year old step-son? What is his relationship like with his own father?
It's a dangerous path, but if he respects you perhaps you could have a confidential between the two of you man to man come to Jesus discussion. Perhaps he needs to hear that he's probably not impressing his daughters by running to mommy for every crisis. Perhaps he needs to learn to be a hero in this situation and not a zero. Ymmv
I’m in the background. His father is the bad example he’s followed. I try to help if asked but not in any position to give life advice.
spitfirebill said:
In reply to frenchyd :
Mom must have had a E36 M3ty lawyer.
Expensive but effective, in the end it took almost 2 years to get her ex to pay anything. Then he went to his parents to bail him out. ( where his son learned the habit in the first place)
Driven5
SuperDork
6/29/18 5:26 p.m.
frenchyd said:
...who had grades good enough to go to college but not even enough money to apply.
Excuses. He could have gotten an education if he wanted one, and even still can. It's never too late.
He chose to not follow in his mother's footsteps.
frenchyd said:
mom went to work and back to school.
He is choosing to follow in his father's footsteps, even with the advantage of hindsight. She needs to stop holding herself accountable for all of his poor life choices.
Mike
SuperDork
6/29/18 8:36 p.m.
Some places will care about the degree. Many won't. Tech is heavily driven by professional certifications. I'm overgeneralizing here, but my experience with hiring has been that, when working in practical parts of tech, the degree shows you're well rounded and deeply understand the underlying principles, the certification shows you can put that to work on an Acme brand turboencabulator, and you know how to minimalize side-fumbling while you're at it.
If he doesn't have any professional certifications, have him get them. If you pay for anything, pay for those.
I'm living this. I have a whole circle of friends, and almost all of them lack a degree, are well regarded in their jobs, hold professional certifications, are smart and skilled. They make very good money, and support their families. They work inside, at a desk. They're not the bottom rung, and they don't hate their jobs.
Seriously.
Seriously.
Looking at this from the SIL angle, I've had problems myself. I've made bad career choices. I was a E36 M3 husband and, by extension, a E36 M3 father. When my marriage crumbled, when my home was close to foreclosure, when my folks stepped in to save my ass, I WOKE THE berkeley UP and went to work wherever they would have me for the most I could make. Still doing that to this day.
I'll forever live with the guilt of being a horrible husband and father in my son's early years. I'll spend the rest of my life being the best father and ex-husband I can.
This man just hasn't heard his wake up call. Yet. I pray he hears the call before he loses nearly everything like I did. There's life (and it can be a good life) after this but the pain of going through it changes you profoundly.
sirrichardpumpaloaf said:
Looking at this from the SIL angle, I've had problems myself. I've made bad career choices. I was a E36 M3 husband and, by extension, a E36 M3 father. When my marriage crumbled, when my home was close to foreclosure, when my folks stepped in to save my ass, I WOKE THE berkeley UP and went to work wherever they would have me for the most I could make. Still doing that to this day.
I'll forever live with the guilt of being a horrible husband and father in my son's early years. I'll spend the rest of my life being the best father and ex-husband I can.
This man just hasn't heard his wake up call. Yet. I pray he hears the call before he loses nearly everything like I did. There's life (and it can be a good life) after this but the pain of going through it changes you profoundly.
Thank you. I forgot about that part.
Maybe because after a lifetime of hard/ successful work I came so close to losing everything myself. At that time I didn’t have anyone else to fall back on. My parents were dead, my children struggling themselves. And my wife dying.
Yet somehow I made it. The idea that when the economy is booming someone doesn’t work smart enough to save for the future just has me upset.
frenchyd said:
I’m in the background. His father is the bad example he’s followed. I try to help if asked but not in any position to give life advice.
I would say he chose to follow that example. There's nothing built into one's DNA that "makes" you follow someone's example and you can chose otherwise. My step dad wasn't exactly the best husband or father either, and I chose not to follow his example even though it would've been easier. I assume I turned out OK.
SVreX
MegaDork
7/1/18 10:30 a.m.
In reply to frenchyd :
An observation...
You are not actually venting against your stepson. You are venting against your girlfriend.
I know you have marriage intentions. This wedge will be more than you can tolerate.
Proceed with extreme caution.
I am not hearing you say a single word that indicates you can put up with this.
SVreX
MegaDork
7/1/18 10:31 a.m.
...and if you do proceed without a prenup, you’re CRAZY.
