Fat Cat Cash
Growing up, I enjoyed reading Choose Your Own Adventure stories. I’d reverse engineer the story to see the quickest route to finish because every time I finished a story I was rewarded with field time. I enjoyed field play much more than research. However, after being forced into landscaping as an early teen, I decided against field work and chose to works with computers.
Working with computers is like doing a new puzzle everyday. There’s is always something new to learn because the underlying technology rapidly updates. It’s a beautiful puzzling life!
Computer helpdesks should employ the best and brightest. A helpdesk technician is the first line of help; most users are idiots and need a simple fix. Smart techs can easily recognise and perform simple fixes to leave lines free for more serious challenges. The military usually puts their dumbest and/or least experienced technicians to man the helpdesk, so the dynamic is idiots helping idiots, not very good customer service. Military intelligence is an oxymoron after all, haha.
Along the way I worked with many different types of government employees. 90% of government employees to include myself were uber lazy. For example, military helpdesks will typically employ 10-20 overpaid lazy civilians and military personnel responsible for a few hundred users. By contrast, the regional European USA military hospital systems use contract workers; there are usually 4-5 contract helpdesk techs responsible for 100000 regional users. They operate just fine with as low as 3 workers because every technician knows their shit and is highly paid and motivated to become a lazy civilian.
In mercenary contract work, computer techs typically start out at a helpdesk. The regional EU hospital military contracts starting pay was around USD$70k/year tax free up to $98k in 2014. A helpdesk manager will typically get paid $150k/yr.
Hospital helpdesk work is a shit job because you’re dealing with computer idiots with medical degrees who routinely believe they are God and can do no wrong. 99% of all computer challenges were caused by the idiot between the computer and their work chair. Helping smart people dumb in computers is the worst.
Contract technicians will gain experience points as helpdesk technicians. Motivated techs will study for advanced certifications to include the golden security standard, GSLC, then move to lazier pastures. After a year or two of experience points have been earned as well as advanced certs, contract helpdesk techs move to gloried babysitter jobs in SCIFs.
Most of my contract buddies earn low to mid 6 figures USD and do nothing technical per 12-24 hour shift. They are there in case stuff breaks. SCIFs usually house the most advanced computer systems that are self-maintaining. The techs are there because it provides the government a scapegoat in the event the system does crash. Most of my buddies enjoy the booze juice while bullshitting with whoever online while babysitting the multi-million dollar equipment. Some even earn advanced eduation degrees to make even more money.
The highest paid USA military contract jobs are in Southwest Asia. Nearly all of Southwest Asia is considered a hostile fire area. Contract techs usually work in SCIFs. SCIF techs have a significantly better chance of getting struck by lightning while a great white shark is gnawing on my buddy’s leg than getting blown up in a SCIF. However, the USA government pays these techs $250k/yr starting wages and up because the area is hostile. Contracts are major reason why the USA defense budget is overly bloated, but I digress. For example, one of my buddies is an open source intel analyst for mandarin business ops in Africa and Southwest Asia. Open source means he gets to read a mandarin news paper all day then report his interpretation. For $250k/yr, he said it’s the easiest job he ever had. Every job not helpdesk was the easiest job I ever had too, making fat, fat cat cash.
The one catch of contract work is experience. The typical contract worker had 4-6 years of military experience with a minimum grade of E-5 and a bachelor’s degree from a regionally accredited university. If no military experience then the candidate typically needs many certs plus 8-10 years of technical experience. The baseline certs most valued are CCNA, MCSE, and GSEC. See DoD8140 for full list.
https://www.sans.org/dodd-8140/
The most efficient route to contract work is via military experience working for the US Army because it’s stupid easy to make grade while gaining technical experience. If techs want the easiest life then choose the US Air Force. The US Air Force has a much longer promotion system, but you’re 100% less likely than the US Army personnel to get killed while gaining experience points sans spec ops.
For those smartly opposed to world domination and adverse to violence then earn a computer engineering bachelor’s degree from a respected regional university. (not University of Phoenix or any for-profit universities for that matter) Gain experience points at Best Buy’s geek squad or the like.
If no military experience then prospective employers require many more experience points. For example, helping with open source technologies such as blockchain tech, Mozilla Firefox, Apache’s OpenOffice, etc will earn good experience points along with a stable steady job. Jobs should also include increasing responsibility levels.
To sum and earn fat cat technical government contracts, a technical bachelor’s degree with basic tech certs are a must. USA technical military experience is ideal. The USA government’s USD$600 billion plus defense budget gets spent primarily on MNC contracts. If you want to reap the lazy benefits and get paid loads for gloried babysitting then do the early smart work by joining the USA military.
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