I know there are a few IT people who like me turned to the dark side and started driving for a living (computers really do drive you nuts it seems), so how about a job that combines both jobs into one.
Amazon are now offering a service whereby they’ll bring a truck to your business which is essentially a vast number of hard drives in a container to backup your data and copy it to an Amazon datacentre near you.
In numbers for the geeks, it holds 100 petabytes or about 200,000 average (500GB) computer hard drives or approx 5x the Internet Archive.
trevHCS:
I know there are a few IT people who like me turned to the dark side and started driving for a living (computers really do drive you nuts it seems), so how about a job that combines both jobs into one.
Amazon are now offering a service whereby they’ll bring a truck to your business which is essentially a vast number of hard drives in a container to backup your data and copy it to an Amazon datacentre near you.
In numbers for the geeks, it holds 100 petabytes or about 200,000 average (500GB) computer hard drives or approx 5x the Internet Archive.
There’s a scarily large number of companies who use Amazon for all their data storage under something called AWS and EC2 and even more use it for copying their data - you can send them an individual hard drive if you want and have it copied or archived into their system.
It says it’ll take around 10 days to “unload” a full truck load of data to their datacentre and since this is 3rd party data, it’ll likely end up somewhere similar to that RDC 3 in Doncaster buried round the back of Morrisons. This time it’ll be one guy with a USB cable and will take a day just to get connected, then another 9 days to unload. Hope their coffee machine is well stocked!
As for IT vs driving - only at 4am after a 15 hour shift involving unloading in the rain having had to use the M62 twice because the A66 was shut again and I then run out of hours somewhere near Sheffield so have to wait for a van…not even chauffeur driven either. Can’t speak for anyone else however.
trevHCS:
There’s a scarily large number of companies who use Amazon for all their data storage under something called AWS and EC2 and even more use it for copying their data - you can send them an individual hard drive if you want and have it copied or archived into their system.
It says it’ll take around 10 days to “unload” a full truck load of data to their datacentre and since this is 3rd party data, it’ll likely end up somewhere similar to that RDC 3 in Doncaster buried round the back of Morrisons. This time it’ll be one guy with a USB cable and will take a day just to get connected, then another 9 days to unload. Hope their coffee machine is well stocked!
As for IT vs driving - only at 4am after a 15 hour shift involving unloading in the rain having had to use the M62 twice because the A66 was shut again and I then run out of hours somewhere near Sheffield so have to wait for a van…not even chauffeur driven either. Can’t speak for anyone else however.
I’ll have a word with Buck’ house, chauffeur’s there’s shortly
Hasn’t that slogan already been taken “I can deliver a hard drive”?
Speaking as a former actual programmer (left because there was no money in it during the late 80’s) I ended up having to work “up” to driving a truck, since I didn’t even have a car licence in the days when I was writing software, and delivering courier orders of computer stationary to Mayfair Mews to earn a living (own business)
Because there are not that many drivers from a pootah background, I suggest that the Jury is still out as to our small motley crew in the larger scheme of things - actually being any good to the industry as a whole, or not.
These days, all I’m trying to do is get a shift in without coming home all stressed up, which of late is becoming harder to do, the playing field far from level as it is. Carrying slackers upsets me a lot, even though I realize that I shouldn’t let it do so.
I try to avoid “Executive Stress” as a general rule of thumb. Having said that, I know of no “white collar” bods I used to be at school with having died by this point, except the ones succumbing to non-road related accidents. One guy in my music class got electrocuted whilst working in a chippy for example, another died of alcoholic poisoning, and a third from “complications with routine surgery”. I don’t consider any of those deaths “unavoidable” which, of course - makes them all tragedies.
Compare that to drivers and other transport staff I’ve known who’ve become a cropper - and there’s been three in the last six years during my agency sojourn. One a C+E driver. a Warehouse guy, and the third a Transport office girl - all died on the road, but only the artic driver from “Natural Causes”.
In a world of “trying to keep up”, I suggest our lot might be not as bad as many of us think. ‘Driving safely’ as one gets older surely is easier to achieve than “keeping up with corporate targets” as you move to the wrong side of 50.
Winseer:
Hasn’t that slogan already been taken “I can deliver a hard drive”?
Speaking as a former actual programmer (left because there was no money in it during the late 80’s) I ended up having to work “up” to driving a truck, since I didn’t even have a car licence in the days when I was writing software, and delivering courier orders of computer stationary to Mayfair Mews to earn a living (own business)
Because there are not that many drivers from a pootah background, I suggest that the Jury is still out as to our small motley crew in the larger scheme of things - actually being any good to the industry as a whole, or not.
These days, all I’m trying to do is get a shift in without coming home all stressed up, which of late is becoming harder to do, the playing field far from level as it is. Carrying slackers upsets me a lot, even though I realize that I shouldn’t let it do so.
I try to avoid “Executive Stress” as a general rule of thumb. Having said that, I know of no “white collar” bods I used to be at school with having died by this point, except the ones succumbing to non-road related accidents. One guy in my music class got electrocuted whilst working in a chippy for example, another died of alcoholic poisoning, and a third from “complications with routine surgery”. I don’t consider any of those deaths “unavoidable” which, of course - makes them all tragedies.
Compare that to drivers and other transport staff I’ve known who’ve become a cropper - and there’s been three in the last six years during my agency sojourn. One a C+E driver. a Warehouse guy, and the third a Transport office girl - all died on the road, but only the artic driver from “Natural Causes”.
In a world of “trying to keep up”, I suggest our lot might be not as bad as many of us think. ‘Driving safely’ as one gets older surely is easier to achieve than “keeping up with corporate targets” as you move to the wrong side of 50.
What are your thoughts folks…?
I started driving class1 in 1991 and drove until 1999. I then went into software development for 16 years.
I am now back driving and must admit I am far happier for it. The constant stress of having to keep up with the latest buzzword technology was a pain in the ■■■■.
Constantly exploring new languages/methods for writing software took up a lot of my spare time.
I am a happy truck driver (besides the numerous Prius drivers who are constantly trying to ■■■■ me off. Why do they have to drive so slow on dual carriageways and motorways!) .
I’ve been a programmer for over ten years now and, well, I still am… I got my C and C+E earlier this year (hence my reason for being here), but don’t really have any intention of taking it up full time. I was hoping to do some limping every other Saturday in the run up to Xmas – it seemed like a good chance to get some experience – but I’ve failed to find any work locally.
Anyhoo. I can understand how programming gets stressful, but I think there’s some cross-over with the world of trucking insomuch as it comes down to the company at which you work. Some companies will have you working countless hours over-time (and weekends), constantly forcing you against arbitrary deadlines and pushing the latest (and sometimes not production-ready) technology just because it’s new…
Thankfully, where I’ve been for the past few years is incredibly relaxed and I get none of that nonsense. Sure, we evaluate new software that comes out and see if it’s worth trialling, but it’s a case-by-case basis and done based on science rather than whether it’ll earn us more money from investors who like buzz-words. That’s one of the main reasons I don’t want to change career at the moment; I imagine it would be many years (if ever) before I get to a similar place in the world of trucking. I’ve heard that there are haulage firms analogous to where I’m working (i.e. hard work, but you’re trusted to do your job, get paid well and don’t get shouted at by PHBs), but they don’t seem to be the norm these days.
Another similarity between the industries is the eagerness of some companies to ditch their older (read: experienced) employees only to replace them with younger people who ask for a lot less money. Again, not a problem where I am - we only hire coders who know what they’re doing and they tend to be older (not always, of course).
It’s good to see other truckers who are/were also developers around here. Well, I say “other truckers”, although I guess I’m not technically a trucker, I just have the licence… Wanders back over to the newbie forum…
Yep, constantly keeping your IT skills up to date becomes tiring, tedious and stressful when you’ve completely fallen out of love with it!
But the biggest thing for me was feeling like I could never properly clock off, as I technically I could always be working, as you’re never that far away from a computer anymore. At least with truck driving, when I clock off and leave the yard, there isn’t a thing I can do until I start my next shift…
theres plenty to do between shifts…you can read all the waffling breaking news pish on here…be 1st to start using the latest buzzwords as they get invented and introduced into the mainstream hub of truckers world like robroys ((prickhead))…as soon as you start using it in the next stalag rdc waiting room,then you will be regarded in awe (for a limper) for being up there as a forerunner of up to the minute truckie lingo.then you can come back on here and post about it…then keep checking every 5 mins to see if anyones replied,or bit…( or is it just me that does that again)■■
dieseldog999:
theres plenty to do between shifts…you can read all the waffling breaking news pish on here…be 1st to start using the latest buzzwords as they get invented and introduced into the mainstream hub of truckers world like robroys ((prickhead))…as soon as you start using it in the next stalag rdc waiting room,then you will be regarded in awe (for a limper) for being up there as a forerunner of up to the minute truckie lingo.then you can come back on here and post about it…then keep checking every 5 mins to see if anyones replied,or bit…( or is it just me that does that again)■■
Wasnt Robroys new made up word ‘prickend’? Havent read back through the threads though…
What we need is a new thread with the truckers dictionary
Can’t speak for anyone else however.
