Yeah, and Semiconductor Mfg is considered by many to be the worst of the worst. "If you can make it in SEMI..." There are heart attacks and breakdowns. Lotta people gotta leave.I agree with your comments about Silicon Valley. There is a lot of money to be made there but without question it's the survival of the fittest. Those that don't work in the business or live in the area have no idea.
I had 28 great years with the same company but there were times I was hanging on for dear life, if for no other reason than computers aren't perfect. Sometimes they misbehave, and when the company is an international bank or stock exchange, things get tense fast.
And there were the deadlines, constant deadlines, one after the other deadlines, over and over again.
That said, I kind of miss the rat race and think I always will.
Scott
I had it easy, because I was the programmer analyst for the Novellus corporate forecast. The C-Level had the business need, but left it 100% to me how to get it done. Discussing (arguing?) with those stone-eyed execs made my words stumble, but I had to make sure we were on the same page. I had to disassociate myself from the C-Level use of the world wide numbers, because if I focused on the decisions I would have been paralyzed by fear. Those guys play hardball. Our president had multiple homes in Atherton and Blackhawk...
What an incredible opportunity! I was lucky. My favorite quote, when new functionality wasn't quite ready, was, "Then what are you doing here? Get back to work and don't come back until it's done." Meeting over. They had other fish to fry.