Just as I could see the writing on the wall regarding the “outsourcing” business of a couple years ago, I can read the Djarling tea leaves and see that corporate I.T. is going to move to India and other “best shores” over the next ten years. I actually worked on a project to assist a vendor of application development services in shipping, over the course of the next year, something to the tune of 750 web application developer and application support jobs to Bangalore as part of a “pilot program” to begin the transition to increased offshore participation in The Business. Call centers have already begun the move. After application development gains a beach head, infrastructure support, managerial and other highly skilled positions will begin the long march to best shore. It’s a fallacy to believe that only low-level or unskilled labor is going to hike outside of the United States and Canada.

This is not a reason to panic, but it does make one realize that the road one travels has a definite end point. The bursting bubble has not totally worked its way through IT. IT, as a whole, is still horribly overstaffed and under skilled. A lot of the lower-level folks, people who, as Daring Fireball says, “aren’t smart enough to program,” will shake out, as will many of the people who are smart enough to be the rats who scurry from the foundering vessels of Big IT Shops.

Working for “The Man” is never going to get one “ahead” in life. It is, at best, the way to a “good life,” qualified by adequate food, shelter and relative security. For the select few, with hyper-inflated egos and unrelenting wills to succeed, corporate America can produce large paychecks, but will squeeze every bit of life from you during the pursuit. For most, corporate existence is a relatively easy way to make a go of it. It’s nothing to scoff at, yet hardly most people’s idea of the American Dream. I know it was never MY dream to be average.

I am now actively soliciting suggestions for a new career. Already I have thought up some possible areas based on my expansive interests and eliminated some based on practicality:

• archery (requires too much skill)
• venture capitalist (requires capital)
• landlord (always the first to go in revolutions)
• record producer (I have big ideas, but is this a dead end?)
• sausage maker (but I have a vegetarian wife)

So what do y’all think? I guess one can see by the sheer number of categories contained in this here weblog that I have a lot of “interests.” I guess my main problem is that I never decided on ONE that I could focus on long enough to turn it into something worthwhile in terms of a career. My high school teacher all thought I was going to be a writer, but, of course, I didn’t continue writing and lost all my skill. Then I decided I would rather be a “Musician” but never studied music. So here I am, a “technologist.” It’s not my passion, but it pays the bills. My brain is so jammed full of technology crap that I no longer have any ideas or thoughts. So what IS my passion?