2008/7/16 Richard Smedley <smedley358(a)btinternet.com>:
Chris,
According to the headers you've just sent this one to me,
so I'm forwarding it to the list so that Kevan can answer...
Cheers Richard :-) The answer is yes, I do speak from experience. I
worked at Wolverhampton Uni. Though I left back at the end of the
year 2000 I have kept up with job vacancies there. Pay is atrocious
for the work involved. I used to run a department with about 6 or 7
staff. I was responsible for ordering new computer equipment for the
staff of Learning Resources at the Telford Campus (where is was
based). I ran a lab of 120 PCs with any running updates, repairs,
installs etc. I also set up new PC's on the network at our end
(involving cabling where necessary, allocating IP addresses and some
switch gear work (low level stuff). On top of that I also did campus
wide staff IT assistance together with student help and also ran a
video editing suite. There were myriad other little jobs that I had
to learn at the time including setting up an early video conferencing
suite (proper business class).
For that little lot I was paid less than £15,000 per annum. Private
sector would have probably been double that amount easily. Of course
my biggest problem was then (as it is now but it's no longer a
'problem') that I did not possess a degree. Add to that I really
enjoyed the work so carried on. It was when I started to get hassle
form my bosses that I had simply had enough. I had an offer that I
couldn't refuse (would you turn down going to Australia?) Sadly a few
months later I developed arthritis in more than just my neck (car
accident back in 1992) and was then unable to work again...
--
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Kevan Farmer
Linux user #373362
Staffordshire