Unless you like work better than anything else — i.e., your job is more fun than sex — a decrease in working hours is likely to lead to an increase in life satisfaction, which is not the same as job satisfaction.

Do you really enjoy work more than sex or gaming? If not, are there any jobs you could conceivably get that *would* be more fun than anything else you do? And if you currently enjoy work more than anything else, but you currently have no spouse or partner, is it possible that if you *had* a spouse or partner, you might want to spend less time working because your priorities would change?

Life changes, and your job needs change, too

Your needs are different when you’re 24 and single than ahen you’re 34, married, and have children.

Eventually, kids grow up and leave home. Once again, your needs change. If you always wanted to buy a 36′ ketch and live on board in the Caribbean, this is the time of life when you can do it, especially if you have kept your nose to the grindstone and saved your money for several decades.

In the work context, you may have risen into a supervisory position, and you happily accepted it because you the additional pay helped feed your constantly-hungry children. But now I’m going to give you a bit of heresy:

Is it possible that you might be better off rejecting promotion, and looking for more job satisfaction instead?

Assume you’re married. Can you cut your standard of living — not to starvation, but to where only one of you has to work? You almost certainly can, if you and you spouse center your job searches around that goal instead of trying to maximize income.

If you’re single and enjoy coding more than supervising other coders, you can almost certainly manage to live on a coder’s income. If you don’t get a new roadster this year to impress girls, the girls you meet will be more worthwhile than ones who only want you ’cause you have a cool car. And you will meet more worthwhile girls (or guys, depending on your taste) in coffeehouses and libraries than in $5-a-shot, too-loud nightclubs.

Many years ago, the Army realized that many soldiers in the E-4 rank deserved promotion, but neither wanted to be troop-leadinf sergeants or would be good leaders. So the Army created an E-5 (but not sergeant) rank for people in tech-type military occupations so they they could get the promotion and additional pay they deserved, while still doing useful work they enjoyed.

There are civilian equivalents to this concept, although they aren’t necessarily spelled out in written regulations the way they are in the military. The trick is to find them, whether in an employment interview while answering one of those “where do you see yourself in five years?” questions or during an annual performance review by your current supervisor.

And yes, there’s always the self-employment option, although it may not be right for you if you’re an introverted, code-all-night person. But that is another column I’ll write in the next week or two, with specific advice on how to become a good salesperson, since a large part of tiny-business success is sales, no matter what kind of business you’re in.

• Long term employment, defined as those jobless for 27 weeks or more, increased by 200,000 workers in September.
• The number of “discouraged workers” –- those who have given up looking for jobs — increased by 23,000 workers last month now stands at 1 million total.
• The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) rose by 500,000 in September and now totals 9.3 million workers

None of this bodes well for job-seekers in general. But for IT job-seekers, and currently-employed IT workers who want to change jobs, the job market looks pretty good despite the economy’s overall poor condition.

On October 7, we received an email from Foote that said:

• Foote Partners reports a net gain of 11,500 jobs in two IT services job sectors — Management and Technical Consulting Services and Computer Systems Design and Related Services — representing the sixteenth consecutive month of positive job growth in these job segments.
• “There have been 76,200 jobs added to these segments in the last six months, and nearly 130,000 in the last twelve months. There’s no question that consulting firms and systems integrators are befitting from current corporate staffing strategies for acquiring needed pure technology skills—which is to rent them, not to buy them,” says David Foote, CEO at IT analyst firm Foote Partners.
• “The broader trend continues to be employers hiring hybrid IT-business professionals with combinations of both business and technology knowledge, experience, and skill sets unlike those found in traditional IT organizations. It’s nearly impossible to track these hybrids in the monthly federal jobs reports because they’re found in the business lines, corporate departments, product development groups, and in a wide variety of implementation and support functions throughout the enterprise. But make no mistake,” insists Foote, “It’s a very robust job market for them at the moment.”

Note that David Foote talks about “hybrid IT-business professionals.”

At the same time, we read about “hybrid IT.” Does this mean that, if you are serious about climbing the IT ladder in the career sense of gaining promotions or moving from your current employer to one that offers you a better position, you want to become a hybrid hybrid expert?

That sounds funny, but it makes sense when you think of it. Employers are looking for hybrid business managers/IT people with both cloud and local computing knowledge.

Chances are, you are skilled in at least two of these four areas, and probably three of them if you have even a few years of IT-oriented work experience. This means that some self-study, and maybe an evening or online class or two can help you learn what little you need to present yourself as a fully modern hybrid-hybrid IT person.

And as my old friend Ray Shaw points out, “The demand for security people who know what they’re doing is definitely endless. Outstrips the supply, anyway.”

Keep working, keep learning, and don’t let friends who are in less gung-ho employment fields (like, say, journalism) get you down. Overall, things are pretty good in the IT… I mean Business Technology… sector.

Well-trimmed long hair is better than messy short hair in almost any professional environment outside of the Department of Defense, where short, easily-managed hair is de rigeur for both men and women even if they’re civilian employees, not active duty military.

“I’m so good at my job, nobody cares how I look.”

When you say this to yourself, the only person you’re fooling is you.

Another great self-delusional statement is, “If they don’t like the way I look, it’s their problem, not mine.”

You’re kidding, right? If the person who thinks you don’t dress up to standards or that your grooming isn’t all it can be is the one who decides whether or not you deserve a raise or promotion, your appearance most certainly is your problem.

Simple clothing rules

Pick a color. Any color. Then ask the best-dressed person you know whether that color suits you. If the answer is “no,” ask what color your friendly fashion plate recommends. You’re probably better off following someone else’s advice than going with your own taste, except for one thing: you are the one who will wear your clothes, so you need to be comfortable in them.

As along as your preference isn’t bright reds or other outre colors, you’ll probably be fine going with your own preference.

Now find one or two colors that go along with your favorite one and each other.

Congratulations. You can now build a simple, professional-looking wardrobe without a lot of thought by sticking to two or three compatible colors, and since everything in your closet goes with everything else, you can get dressed for work in a few moments.

What kind of clothing? Shirts have collars, and pants are slacks, not jeans. Men wear socks — and can save a lot of sock-sorting and sock-picking time by buying a dozen pairs of identical black socks. Black is a good colors for shoes, too, whether they’re Florsheim wingtips or unfashionable (but comfortable) Crocs.

Women may or may not wear stocks or stockings, depending on footgear, but should always stick to “sensible shoes” not only because they present a professional appearance, but because they will leave your feet feeling better after a day’s work than high heels or platforms will.

This advice doesn’t apply if you’re Lady Gaga (or, after the sex change, Gentleman GaGuy). But it should. My wife shakes her head at Lady Gaga’s shoe choices. “She’s going to have major foot problems when she gets older,” says Debbie.

Neckties

I am personally against ties. Even when I drove a limousine and wore a tux* to work every day, I tended to use a decorative collar stud instead of wearing a tie. Since I owned the limo company, my boss thought that was just fine. But in many cases, including limo-driving as an employee and becoming a manager in some companies, ties are part of the uniform.

Female ties? I think they tend to look stupid, but that’s just me. I am not an expert on female clothing, and there are thousands of Web pages with advice on how women should dress for work already, so I see no need to add my (uninformed) opinion to this oversupply of information.

Dress one step up

If you want to stand out from a crowd of fellow coders or admin flunkies, dress one step better than your peers, right up to a sport coat or equivalent. Note that I don’t say “suit.” I have always avoided suits as everyday work clothing because they typically need to be dry-cleaned, which costs so much more than a wash and dry that it’s tempting to put it off until your suit is a bit smelly, which is never good.

But a sport coat? Why not? It can spend most of its time on a hangar or hanging on the back of your chair. So can a tie. The point of these two articles of clothing is to have them handy so you can throw them on if a client or regional manager makes a suprise visit.

Job interviews, especially, are a time to dress one step better than your perception of the job suggests. With a little research (Google Images is good for this), you can probably find a photo of one or more of your prospective coworkers at a conference or some such. Fine. Dress at least as well as they’re dressed in the photo and you can’t go wrong.

Overdressing

An old-fashioned piece of advice: “Dress for the job.”

This is correct in the sense that it’s silly to wear a suit if you’re applying for a job as a truck driver or dishwasher — or jeans and a t-shirt if you’re interviewing for a CIO position.

Again, back to “one step up,” but within bounds. And knowing a bit about your prospective employer’s corporate culture helps. A friend of mine here in Florida — a confirmed t-shirt guy and motorcycle rider — got a job (through a referral) as an IT person for the local branch of a stodgy financial institution. A tie was a daily-wear requirement unless he was actively engaged in some sort of physical work, like crawling under a desk to replace a tower or soldering a cable on his workbench.

Did he adjust to this culture? Amazingly, yes. Before you knew it, my friend had become, if not a snappy dresser, at least much neater than he had been. Then he started losing weight. Now he’s in a different (better-paying) job, and (gasp!) he’s found that women who would have ignored him a few years ago now seem to think he’s desirable (or at least worth dating or flirting with).

“What if I like dressing down?”

I’m writing this column in my home office, wearing swim trunks and a really old “talk like a pirate” t-shirt. But I’m alone, and the only person likely to walk in on me is my wife, who has seen me in almost all possible clothing states in the last 19 years.

I have coder (and writer) friends who dress the same way. But the smarter ones put on long pants, shoes, shirts with collars (we’re in Florida, so polo shirts are fine) when meeting with clients, bosses, first dates, and other people they want to impress.

Do they dress up for me? Nah. We’re friends. We BBQ together. We don’t dress up for each other — nor do the people I know who work with friends they’ve known for many years, which is a common situation in the not-large towns (Bradenton and Sarasota) around here.

However, adherence to an “I dress down because I can” code may limit your employment options, and can absolutely freeze you out of a lot of corporate jobs, especially in management.

But hey! If you’re happy where you are, doing what you’re doing, why change?

————–

* A tuxedo doesn’t need to be expensive. And for any kind of formal event or fancy date — or when presenting a paper at a conference — a tux is the best outfit a man can own. The secret of buying a tux (a true gentleman never rents one) is to get it from a uniform store, restaurant supply or online specialty vendor instead of from a formalwear shop.

Our goal is to make GNU Free Call ubiquitous in a manner and level of usability similar to Skype, that is, usable on all platforms, and directly by the general public for all manner of secure communication between known and anonymous parties, but without requiring a central service provider to register with, without using insecure source secret binary protocols that may have back-doors, and without having network control points of any kind that can be exploited or abused by external parties. By doing so as a self organizing meshed calling network, we further eliminate potential service control points such as through explicit routing peers even if networks are isolated in civil emergencies.

We do recognize this project has significant long term social and political implications. It also offers potentially essential utility in public service by enabling the continuation of emergency services without requiring existing communication infrastructure. There are many ordinary public service uses, such as the delivery of eHealth services, as well as medical, and legal communication, where it is essential to treat all with equal human dignity by maintaining privacy regardless of race, religion, or political affiliation. Equally important is the continuation of emergency medical services even when existing infrastructure is no longer available or has been deliberately disabled.

Ah ha! This is more than just some free software that can save your company money on telecommunications. It’s a project that might help freedom-loving rebels work around Internet restrictions set up by repressive regimes — and that can help maintain communications in the face of natural disasters, too.

Haakon says the Norwegian government has awarded the Free Call project 100,000 Kroner (18,182 USD) as “entrepreneurial support” for “best eHealth solution using free software.” So this is a project that has resources, not just something that might happen “someday.” This is a good time to get on board, not only because it’s still a new and exciting project, but because if you’ll be working with it on behalf of your employer, the earlier you get involved in a free software project, the more influence you tend to have in its future direction.

Meanwhile, while work on Free Call ramps up, you should be looking at the mature, production-ready GNU SIP Witch project. This project, overseen by GNU Telephony guru David Sugar, is in wide use all over the world, and has well-developed community and commercial support channels. SIP Witch is something you can present to your boss or bosses right now, today, as a way to save money on telecommunications. And this is how you are going to use GNU Telephony to increase your corporate value, right?

The point here isn’t GNU Telephony, even though it’s a series of projects that can help a lot of companies save money. The point is that picking out a specialty or niche within your company’s IT heirarchy that others can’t fill without some special training or knowledge makes you a more valuable employee.

Another classic way to make yourself valuable to your bosses is to hold passwords hostage. A City of San Francisco sysadmin, Terry Childs, famously did exactly that back in 2008. The story did not end well for anyone involved, and if you try to concoct an updated version of it, you probably won’t have any more luck than Terry did.

GNU Telephony knowledge or expertise in any IT niche where you can save your company money, downtime or both, is a more effective way of building your perceived value than Terry Childs’ method.

It will let you sleep better at night, too.