Live to Work? Or Work to Live?

Right now, I am struggling with this question: do I want to "live to work" or "work to live"? Right now, my career is at a crossroads. Either I can rededicate myself to trying to "get ahead" in my career, or shall I continue to collect a paycheck so that I can seek fulfillment from non-work pursuits? I think most people face a similar choice, and it really comes down to where one finds meaning in their life from their career, or from activities outside of their career.

In my last post, I mentioned that I am a software engineer by trade. For as long as I could remember, I really didn't give much thought to my career. I enjoyed my work and got a lot of fulfillment out of it, but I never really gave much thought to the long term direction of where I wanted my career to go. However, several factors have started to get me thinking about where I want to end up in the long run. The main catalyst is the fact that I am not getting any younger, so if I really want to make a "go" of something, then I need to do something now before time runs out on me.

Basically, I have two choices. If I continue to "coast" in my career, I will certainly be playing it safe, but most likely I will be giving up on serious career advancement. Eventually, I would retire after a comfortable but unimpressive career. On the other hand, if I decide to take a more active role in advancing myself, I might end up saddled with more stress from the extra responsibility, and I could have less time for my extra-vocational activities.

The other issue is the fact that if I did dedicate myself to my career, I would most likely have to leave my stable position for the uncertainty of a new workplace. My current job is like a comfortable shoe: I know what to expect and I can probably stay there for as long as I want to. On the other hand, my current company does not afford much upward mobility. Promotions are few and far between, and at the current rate of advancement, I would probably end up being close to retirement before I could ever become a Project Leader, let alone something higher. If I wanted to advance in my career, it is clear that I would have to leave for greener pastures. However, if I forgoe any aspirations for getting into a leadership role, staying where I am would be perfectly fine.

The last thing that clouds the issue is the fact that I graduated from Princeton. You see, having graduated from an Ivy League school (with honors I might add!), I am starting to feel a certain pressure to put my education to good use. I have tried not to let that affect me in the past, but lately it has become something of a burden to me. In the past, I could shrug it off by saying that I am just in the beginning stages of my career, so I still have a ways to go. However, now as I get older, it seems like there is some internal pressure within my soul to do "something" with the exceptional education that I was lucky enough to obtain. I guess the main question is whether or not this "something" should come from my work, or from something else.

I have gotten some clarity from an article that I read on the web written by that esteemed scholar, game show host, and actor: Ben Stein. The basic message is that if you want to make a name for yourself at something, you have to give 100% of yourself over to it. Otherwise, expect to coast by without reaching your potential. It seems like the key thing is to find something that you are so passionate about that giving 100% of your effort towards it doesn't seem like a burden. The question we all have to answer for ourselves is what in our lives do we want to give that type of effort towards.

Offshore Snakeoil?

About 10 years ago, people were flocking into the software field. Everybody and his mother who knew what a font tag was decided to jump onto the dotcom bandwagon. It is so funny how the tables have turned since then. Nowadays, nobody wants to come near the software industry, for fear that the industry will be outsourced to India or China or some third-world country. As someone who is in the software industry, this trend is somewhat unsettling. If my job can be picked up and moved to Bangalore at a moment's notice, that certainly doesn't make me feel very safe. The main question is whether or not the offshoring frenzy is just a short-term fad or a long-term trend. I tend to believe that it will end up being a short-term fad. Hopefully I am right.

Others have quite eloquently discussed the pros and cons of offshore outsourcing of software development from the point of view of individual companies. Basically it boils down to cheaper labor versus inefficient production with a dash of abdication of intellectual assets. However, I do not see much discussion of the viability of offshoring from a macro-economic point of view. That is, is large scale offshoring feasible for an entire sector of the economy.

I think the main macro-economic issue is whether or not the third-world economies where offshoring is popular have the capacity to support the demand from the first-world software industry. At the moment, the answer seems to be yes. You never hear of companies whose offshoring effort fails because they cannot find workers. There are plenty of body shops that stand ready, willing, and able to provide cheap software developers. That is because the demand for such services is still quite low when compared to the supply. However, if the offshoring trend continues to grow, there will eventually reach a point where body shops cannot locate enough educated workers. That means that at some point, the price of obtaining such workers will increase as competition for this limited resource intensifies. Because the main benefit of offshoring is lower costs, any increase in the price of offshoring will offset this benefit, making the case for offshoring weaker and weaker.

Literary Ed: But India and China have such huge populations. Certainly there is very little chance that there will be a labor shortage, right?

That is an interesting argument that I hear from time to time. The fact of the matter is that these countries have a huge amount of poverty, by Western standards. Technology has not penetrated into these countries. In India, there is something like only seven computers per thousand people, which is low compared to Western nations. This is not the type of economy that can produce a large number of tech savvy individuals. Also, higher education is a limited resource that is only open to the "best and the brightest", so there is a limit to the number of educated software engineers that these countries can produce. This is in contrast to here in the West where higher education is available to pretty anyone who has the desire to learn.

On the other hand, if these economies were ever to improve to the point where they were on par with the US, there would no longer be a wage gap between the US and these countries. Again, this would pretty much wipe out any benefit of offshoring.

The other issue in terms of the supply of labor is the fact that a lot of the best and brightest are lured away from these countries by the promise of higher wages in the West. Here in the US, there are thousands upon thousands of educated software developers coming into the country on H1-B visas. These people end up making several times the salary that they would make in their home counties. It is not unheard of for these workers to work for a few years, make a killing in the US, and then return to home with a king's ransom, comparatively speaking. This only compounds the issue of the limited supply of educated people. The only way to curb this brain drain is by closing the salary gap.

Finally, it would seem like at some point, the software companies would emerge in these countries that would further siphon off the resources used for offshoring. With all of this supposed talent, why just be the cheap labor force for American companies. Why not start your own software companies and sell your own software, rather than just writing software for others? That's where the "real" money is, after all. It would seem as if this would have other ramifications for American software laborers like myself. If the American software industry were supplanted by the Indians or Chinese, I might be on the unemployment line, too. On the other hand, maybe these foreign companies would offshore their work to the US, in the same way that Japanese companies now employ American factory workers.

In summary, I have my doubts that offshoring will end killing the American software developer. There may be some limited amount of offshoring that will end up taking away jobs here and there. However, I do not think that large scale offshoring of the entire industry will be a viable option. The costs would just be too great as the demand for offshore labor drives up salaries.

Tis the Season to be Litigious

Our town has been embroiled in a holiday controversy for the past several years. For the last N years or so, our town has decorated our City Hall building, as well as a large evergreen tree which sits on the front lawn of the building, with holiday lights. Obviously the lights and the tree are in celebration of the Christmas holiday, so several members of the Jewish community have approached the town hall with the proposal to place a menorah in front of City Hall as a gesture in recognition of the sizable Jewish community within our town. For several years, the town council has rejected this proposal, causing some amount of ill will within the community. However, this year the town decided to allow the menorah to be displayed on public property.

However, a Christian group said that if the town is placing a menorah in front of City Hall, then they should be allowed to display a Nativity scene on public property as well! The town had no choice but to grant this request. In addition, the town decided to put up some candy canes and a blow-up Santa Claus in order to complete the display. Now instead of having just lights, which represent the commercial, secular side of Christmas, we have a several expressions of overt religion, as well as some additional tacky commercial secular expressions as well!

The interesting thing about these holiday displays on public property is that the courts seem to be quite clear about what is allowed. Secular symbols, like Santa Claus, Christmas trees, candy canes, and the like are allowed. Religious symbols are allowed if they are displayed along with secular symbols and if the governing body allows equal access to all religious groups to display their symbols. Obviously when my town was just displaying lights, it was not in violation of the courts, since lights and a Christmas tree are considered secular symbols. Likewise, now that they seem to be allowing equal access for all religions to display their symbols, they are also consistent with what the courts have rules.

Basically the choice for the town is whether to:

1. Only show secular symbols without allowing any religious symbols.
2. Allowing any religious group free access to display their religious symbols along with secular symbols.

The question becomes which choice is more appealing to the community.

Before I continue, let me say for the record that I am Jewish so feel free to take that into account when you evaluate my opinion.

My own personal feeling is that I would rather err on the side of not displaying ANY religious symbol on public property. For me, religion is not something that I feel the need to broadcast to my neighbors, and I especially feel that it is not the government's place to broadcast it for me. The government's job is not to provide land for my own religious expression. I think part of this opinion comes from my Jewish background. Historically, Jews have been the target of prostelyzation by other religious groups, so I feel that there is something in our genes which opposes us to overt displays of religion, particularly when those displays seem to be emanating from the government. In addition, the Jewish religion does not place any emphasis on missionary-type activities, so there is no imperative to advertise our beliefs to the outside world.

On the other hand, my understand of Christianity is that there is a strong emphasis on seeking out converts, so that may explain the Christian sensitivity towards any activities which seem to quash religious expression or discourse. It would seem like this would explain the need to fight to protect Christmastime religious expressions.

Now the interesting thing to me is that this whole issue of introducing religious symbols in the public space in my town was initiated by a Jewish group, which seems to go against my analysis above. It would seem more likely that a Jewish group would be in opposition to overt expressions of faith in a public space. The Christians of the town seemed to be content with secular symbols, but because of the Jewish response, they were now mobilized to provide their own religious counterpoint to the menorah.

My guess is that the Jew who proposed displaying the menorah probably felt that the lights were a religious symbol of the Christmas holiday, so he wanted to add a Jewish symbol in order counterbalance its perceived Christian overtones. I can totally understand this line of thinking. Here is a town that is something like 30% Jewish and yet our town government is only displaying Christmas decorations on public property. On the surface, it does seem somewhat exclusionary. However, if you stop and think about it, a lot of what is associated with Christmas really has nothing to do with the religious holiday. Most of it is secular "junk" that has accumulated over the years. The effect is to morph Christmas into this American, secular holiday. A similar thing has happened with both Easter and Halloween in this country. To a certain extent, Hanukkah has suffered the same fate in that it has taken on several secular characteristics that have nothing to do with the holiday's original religious origins.

I think it would be better if people separated "secular Christmas" and "religious Christmas" into two separate holidays. That way, we wouldn't get all hung up in trees and lights, thinking that they are actual religious expressions. Let's think of a new name to represent all of the secular aspects of Christmas - the lights, the tree, the gift giving, etc. For now, I will just call it SecChris, until someone comes up with a better name. Then let Christmas revert back to the religious holiday that it once was.

Opening Salvo

So like everyone else in the Western world, I have a blog. Why? Well, honestly, it is because I am a vain human being, and I am doing this in the hopes that one day my memes will spark a worldwide cultural revolution that will bring me some measure of fame and fortune. Think of this as sort of a twisted 529 College Savings account for my kids. Maybe by the time my offspring are knocking on the door of Princeton, the proceeds of this blog will provide for their higher educational costs.

On the other hand, I could be doing this just for fun!

I bring up that option so that 15 years from now, I can rationalize the fact that I didn't achieve my goal of worldwide cultural domination through the excuse that it was never my plan to begin with. Such is the length I will go in order to deceive my ego.

I chose the name "Intilekchoouhl" for this blog because it seemed like quite a clever coup to use a "Little Rascals"-esque spelling of a word usually associated with ivy-covered ivory towers. Also, it was the first site name that I tried that wasn't already taken. I tried "somethingclever", "insertclevernamehere", and a few others before hitting upon the choice that you see before you. [Editor's Note: I hope the owners of those blogs appreciate the pub I am giving them!]

I am not sure what form this blog will take. Basically, I am going to employ the "stream of consciousness" literary technique for this site. I am going to stray away from stuff of a personal nature - not because I am ashamed of my personal life - but because I doubt that the masses would be very interested in hearing about the mundane stuff that they already experience in their own lives. There is a reason why reality TV is not about real life. Real life doesn't get good ratings! I will from time to time reference something that is happening in my life if I feel that it would make for an interesting topic.

Also, I should mention that, like Johnny Carson, I have a sidekick whose name happens to be Ed. Well, actually Ed is just a literary device to represent the thoughts and feelings of the "everyman" as a counterpoint to my own personality. From time to time, I will post statements from the Literary Ed (I like that moniker - maybe I will use it from now on) in order to further the discussion and to offer some amusement to my gentle readers.

Literary Ed: So why should the folks at home read your blog?

That is a good question, Ed. Our Creator endowed us with the ability to choose our own actions without intervention from a Higher Authority. Therefore, who am I to intervene in your life in order to compel you to read my words. Use the Free Will that the Almighty as given you and do what you wish. On the other hand, if you are Atheist, you should read this because it may add some amusement to your fleeting existence. Finally, if your religion does not grant you Free Will, I hope that your deity will direct your actions towards reading this blog; however, I cannot argue with the will of a deity if reading this blog is not part of the Grand Scheme(tm).