A lot of them went into academia, the poor fuckers. My old university tutor comes to mind as the best of what they can hope for from that path. He did relatively well for himself as a scientist, but I reckon he was a far better scientist than what his level of prestige in that area would suggest.
There’s one paper he published that was met with little fanfare, but then a few years later, someone else published more or less the same research that massively blew up. This wasn’t a case of plagiarism (as far as I can tell), nor a conscious attempt to replicate my tutor’s research. The general research climate at the time is a plausible explanation (perhaps my tutor was ahead of the times by a few years), but this doesn’t feel sufficient to explain it. I think it’s mostly that the author of this new paper is someone who is extremely ambitious in a manner where they seem to place a lot of value on gaining respect and prestige. I’ve spoken to people who worked in that other scientists lab and apparently they can be quite vicious in how they act within their research community (though I am confident that there’s no personal beef between this researcher and my old tutor — they had presented at the same conference, but had had no interactions and seemed to be largely unaware of the other’s existence). Apparently this researcher does good science, but gives the vibe that they care more for climbing up the ranks than for doing good science; they can be quite nasty in how they respond to people whose work disrupts their own theories.
I suspect that it’s a case of priorities. My tutor also does good research, but part of why he left such an impact on me was that he has such earnest care in his teaching roles. He works at a pretty prestigious university, and there are plenty of tutors there who do the bare minimum teaching necessary to get access to perks like fancy formal dinners, and the prestige of being a tutor — tutors who seem to regard their students as inconvenient obstacles to what they really care about. It highlights to me a sad problem in what we tend to value in the sciences, and academia more generally: the people who add the most to the growth of human knowledge are often the people who the history books will not care to remember.
As a teenager, my friends and family always told me I was the nicest guy they knew… and they were genuinely shocked when I joined the US military.
I came home after Basic Training for a couple weeks before moving to my first assignment and everyone was surprised I came back successful. They expected I would’ve been kicked out for being too nice. In fact, I earned Honor Graduate.
I didn’t know much about the military when I joined, except for what I’d seen in old war movies. But they had some amazing benefits that I couldn’t pass up, and my uncle, a retired service member himself, highly encouraged it. I got free medical and dental, free college education, my initial career field training qualified me for most of an associate’s degree in my field, free travel around the globe, free food/housing… and they paid me to do it all. It was the best deal I could get right out of high school.
My whole military experience was a lot different than I expected; I spent a lot of time correcting stereotypes about military service with my friends and family. I actually had a pretty good career and retired after 20 years of service.
I’ve noticed anecdotally that people who join the military are mostly either really nice people or really terrible
That is very true. Leaning more toward the terrible side, in my experience. However, the terrible people usually get out pretty early in their career, while the good people tend to stick around longer and make a full career out of it.
Not always the case; I’ve definitely met some terrible high ranking leaders in the military. But generally speaking, You need some solid core values in order to go far in your military career.
One of the only people I’ve heard actually recommending the military. Maybe it’s a generational difference, but all my friends in the military absolutely do not recommend it. We’d throw a DD214 party every time one of them got out
The only person I know who is more positive about it was medically discharged after ~15 years. Despite loving his time in the Marines, he doesn’t recommend it to anyone, and wouldn’t ever allow his kids to join when they get old enough because of how much he got fucked up from it
The branch you join does make a difference in experience. I was in the Air Force, which is one of the most chill branches to serve in.
Despite the name, most Air Force members are not pilots. In fact, only about 5% are pilots, while the rest work in careers that either directly or indirectly support those pilots. We have doctors, lawyers, accountants, police, cooks, engineers, teachers, etc. I was an IT professional in my service, so my job was basically to sit at a desk and fix computers.
The Army and Marines tend to abuse their members, both mentally and physically, so I wouldn’t be surprised if those guys don’t recommend military service to others. I’ve heard horror stories from my Marine buddies, and I’ve personally witnessed some of the harassment/hazing rituals Army members go through.
They have a lot of toxic behaviors that keep getting passed down to the next generation. Surviving it and promoting above it is more a badge of honor than anything, so they subject the new guys to the same abuses to “toughen them up” or something.
The Department of Defense also uses it as an excuse to give them the worst equipment and hand-me-downs in the military, so they tend to operate with old and barely serviceable gear, while the Navy and Air Force tend to get the newest equipment.
But the Air Force was pretty fun. The Navy is pretty good too. They have some of the best technical schools in the armed forces, so they set you up with plenty of opportunities when you leave the service.
The Space Force is basically Air Force 2.0. All our space programs were under the Air Force until the Space Force was officially created, so they just transitioned those members into the new branch and copied Air Force regulations over until they could define their own unique requirements.
Considering it was still military, how much different was your experience working as an IT professional from the usual experience of someone working in IT outside of the military? I imagine there still is some tension, maybe occasional harassment? Or is it just like any regular job? Sorry if it is a stupid question, I literally know nothing about the military
Being in the Air Force, the job was mostly like any civilian IT job. We worked off a ticket system to resolve computer issues, dealt with “customers” (other military members), managed servers, satellites, networks, etc. The specifics depended on the exact job; it seemed like every base I was assigned to had different equipment or mission requirements, so I was always learning some new system to manage.
Probably the biggest difference from the civilian sector was that military networks were severely locked down. There were approved software lists that were managed from much higher levels in the Air Force and only that software was allowed to be installed on computers. Half the time, even us administrators at the base level couldn’t mess with installed software.
There were software scans that would detect unauthorized software and boot computers off the network until it was resolved. Most places I worked, you couldn’t bring CDs or flash drives with your own programs on them. USB devices would be flagged instantly and get your account kicked off the network until you completed remedial training through your local IT office.
Our web browsing was severely limited too. Some bases only allowed official military website access; others would allow access to the web but only from an approved white list of sites. It depended on the job and the classification of the network.
Also, they believed that the best security was older systems that had been thoroughly tested for vulnerabilities, so we were usually a step or two behind the civilian sector in terms of operating systems and software/hardware. They preferred that new systems were thoroughly tested in the civilian sector first, most vulnerabilities identified and remedied, and then we would trust it. So I rarely got to learn about modern IT technologies unless I researched it myself in my own free time.
EDIT: In terms of harassment, there was sometimes a lack of respect for the IT guys. Lots of higher-ranking officers made unreasonable demands, expecting us to make some impossible network requirement magically work because “that’s your job.” Or just getting mad when things were broken, because “Why do we have IT guys if things are always broken?” Or the same if things work: “Why do we have so many IT guys when nothing ever breaks?” We had our own leadership in the IT field whose job was to explain to other leaders exactly what we did and how it benefits them, so the rest of us could focus on the job.
That is very interesting, thank you for the detailed response!
they believed that the best security was older systems that had been thoroughly tested for vulnerabilities
Oh no 😅 I am not a cyber security expert but that seems to me like a recipe for a disaster
Speaking of systems, what OS do they use in the military?
what OS do they use in the military?
It depended on the function, but most computers were Windows. Historically, Windows has had the most versatility with other common file systems that we and our allies/enemies used, plus it was easy enough for any service member to pick up and use with minimal training.
However, we always had custom-configured Windows images; we didn’t just install a blank copy. Like I mentioned, our systems were severely locked down, so there were plenty of registry configurations and custom software suites that would take us a few days per computer to install manually. So we would build one that met our requirements, then create an image of it and copy that to every other computer in our unit.
Depending on the unit, there might be custom software builds to meet a particular mission requirement, so there were always several images ready to be pushed to specific computers.
they believed that the best security was older systems that had been thoroughly tested for vulnerabilities
Oh no 😅 I am not a cyber security expert but that seems to me like a recipe for a disaster
It worked well enough for a while, but computer technology kept evolving, so we were constantly playing catch-up.
For the first half of my career, we were always at least one OS behind the civilian sector. When I joined in 2002, we were just phasing out Windows 95/98 and replacing it with Windows 2000.
Then in 2008, we were on Windows XP and Microsoft was trying to get us to upgrade to Windows Vista. Vista was a terrible OS, so we decided to just skip it and go for the new Windows 7 that was supposed to be coming out a year later.
Then Microsoft announced an end to support for Windows XP in a few months. We can’t have an OS without any support, so we quickly signed a contract to upgrade to Windows Vista. Before the ink dried on the new contract, Microsoft announced that they would be extending support on XP for 4 more years.
So we got suckered into a Vista contract, and as soon as Windows 7 dropped, we switched to that. We stayed mostly caught up ever since, although it could take up to a year before we switched to the latest OS. Our own cyber security teams did their own vulnerability assessments before pushing out a new OS across the Air Force, and that could easily take them months of testing and research.
In the last few years before I retired, the Air Force started testing the concept of handing computer support functions over to civilian companies. This was something they had been talking about long before I joined the military, but they were finally pushing forward with it. My last base was one of the test beds in the US, and AT&T took on the contract at that particular site.
Our base-wide IT unit had to hand over administrative access to our unclassified network to them, and as the civilian company took charge of more functions (and had security clearance investigations completed), we started handing over classified networks too. Which seemed wrong to me; we had always kept our classified networks secure by managing them ourselves, so handing it over to a civilian company felt like trouble.
It was even worse when Trump became president the first time and started discussing classified operations on Twitter. Dude had no concept of security protocols and messed up a lot of missions we had overseas, putting our members’ lives at risk so he could brag about secrets he knew.
He ordered us to give security clearances to a bunch of civilians whom we had already refused in the past for being a threat to national security. But you don’t say no to the president, so we started handing over classified access and before long, a bunch of our foreign operations started getting compromised. It was an absolute clusterfuck.
Things mostly went back to normal under Biden and I soon retired. I can’t imagine how messed up my old career field must be now, since Trump got back in office. All I can say is I’m glad it’s not my problem anymore.
DD214?
Nvm, I asked ai
They are all in medical or medical-adjacent careers: nursing, radiology, pharmaceutical R&D, medical device R&D, etc. These fields seem to attract empathetic people who want to do good.
You would think so but it’s not my experience. You don’t get to be a nurse unless you truly despise people (here in Czechia at least)
Let it be known that nursing saps your empathetic energy faster than any other customer service job. The main reason being that it’s just another customer service job (in the US)
My heart goes out to the good nurses. Putting up with people in general is incredibly draining, especially when they’re acting out while you’re trying to help them.
It helps knowing that you’re seeing people at their worst. Most of us know not to take it personally when we’re insulted, or even attacked, because we know the person in front of us isn’t acting like themselves. It’s the person who’s back in the hospital every month and consistently a jerk that wears us down the most IMO
👆
and in the ways that’s it’s not customer service focused it’s so focused on flowsheets and tracking metrics that you have to constantly consciously remind yourself that the human in front of you isn’t just an object that you’re doing things to. It gets to a point that you’re wiping people’s genitals with the same efficiency as you’ll wipe down the bed when they’re done with it and some patients can tolerate that well enough but then every once in a while you get someone with sexual trauma. And that’s just one example.
Genuinely curious: do you tip your nurses in the US?
No, it’s not a tipped position. Not really supposed to accept gifts either (flowers/treats for the team are sometimes given but never supposed to be an individual gift of any real value.)
The other reply was correct. I’ve had to refuse tips and gifts both as a nurse and as a bank teller. I understand why the bank can’t accept gifts, but it was never very clear why I can’t accept gifts as a nurse
Maybe related to the Sunshine Act? The intent of the law is to prevent companies from bribing doctors to use their products or drugs. I have seen companies extend it to other employees to be extra cautious.
That’s silly if that’s the case, it’s not like nurses have any real authority or decision making capacity when it comes to products or drugs.
All those jobs are the most in demand to boot.
One’s an AUSA and the other is a stay-at-home dad.
Librarian. They love their time on the reference desk. Their main work is in discovery services.
What are the discovery services?
They have access to a bunch of digital content. However it can be hard to find what you are looking for or even know what databases and other services are available.
Discovery services try to make that more available to end users. Kind of like a index of all the digital content the library has available.
Oh, that’s cool!
anchor on relay race teams. /s
Hallmark store retail worker. I swear it requires a very particular type of person to work there.
One is a teacher, one works in a college applications office and one works in a helicopter parts factory.
They deal with parents, helicopter parents, and helicopters. neat
Lol
The nicest people I know are nurses and teachers. Although I think there are genuinely nice people in all professions. I know nice people in HR and IT too.
The nicest, sweetest, friendliest but also strangest people I know are all circus folk
Interestingly… an insurance assessor. Proper good human.
Works at a dog daycare. Seriously she’s the sweetest woman and super socially awkward.
Several of the most kind hearted people I know got into social work. My mom is one too and is the reason I know so many.
Nursing.
The kindest most caring person I know works in a toy store. Second most is a phlebotomist
I worked at a strip mall that used to have a toy store run by the grumpiest old bastard you’d ever meet.
I always wondered why the hell he was in that business when he clearly hated kids.
I’m sure a bit of it was all the years of kids getting boxes sticky and what not but damn maybe retire or something. I used to compare him to a character in a movie a saw back then “nobody tells DJ Request what to play!”
Get a different job man lol
