Despite everybody and their mothers getting online, the state of IT jobs market remains somewhat grim. There are just not that many interesting positions available anymore.

The problem is that large companies only want to hire either code monkeys (so that thay can outsource their jobs later to India or Romania because of budgeting issues) or gurus who are capable of replacing entire departments. Such gurus want (and deserve, trust me) huge salaries that are, however, still offsetting salaries of few average programmers. The problem, though, is that such gurus are rare and hiring them means doing things in a certain specific way.

Let’s say you hire a guru for a project, the project gets completed, your guru moves on to another project at another company. Three months later you need an update to your existing software. You can’t hire same guru - he’s somewhere else and not interested. So you hire an average Joe (after all - the job isn’t that complicated, right?) who spends three times more time trying to figure out what’s going on. By the time he’s done there’s a new update pending, so you keep paying him three times more for figuring things that were done in a certain unique way.

Personally, I am neither a code monkey nor a guru, so I am sort of in between the bandwagons here. Can’t say if it’s a bad thing or a good thing. By the way, my own dream job of the moment is some large development project on which I will be working alone with a good and understanding project manager and business clients who don’t tell me how to write the code. Oh, and I prefer free bottled water in pantry, thank you.

Popularity: 29%

There’s this phrase I use quite often. “Generally speaking” is one of my word parasites. I use it when I need to describe something in general terms or in layman terms. Draw a big picture. Get on a same page. Simplify things.

Interesting enough is that not many people get it. The big picture, as it turns out, is an entity that isn’t quite “gettable”, being too large or too complicated for some. So I have to use “generally speaking” to explain what I mean and how to take it. As a result I usually get much better attention and understanding from people I talk to. Which helps get things done.

There are not that many cases when people who want something actually know what they want. You can dig deeper if you try to see what each ad is trying to sell. Look at any ad that sells shampoo. It shows you the shampoo bottle, the hair (that most likely belongs to an attractive woman), the process of hair getting better and so on. But it doesn’t quite sell the shampoo or hair improvement. Rather it sells happiness, or sex appeal, or attractiveness. Which, essentially, leads to happiness. So the ad isn’t selling you a bottle of shampoo, it sells you something that will make you happy. Generally speaking, by buying a bottle of shampoo you are buying happiness. There, now you have it.

Ability to be “generally speaking” is rare. Most of the times I hear someone “generally speaking” I get very quiet and listen all the way to the last word. It’s about the big picture, so it must be important.

Popularity: 34%

There is a common agreement that it is bad to buy perishable goods online. Whether it’s flowers, food or something like it - bad. Don’t do it and so on. Always curious how FreshDirect makes money…

Well, it ain’t that easy. I had a chance to speak to a guy who sells Russian food. Not just Russian food though - any ethnic food that sells in Russia now. This includes Armenian, Georgian (wines, sauces and dressings, Ukrainian and even Polish stuff (some cookies, I dunno). Point is - you can buy food online and have it delivered. If you’re in Manhattan - that’s one thing, but if you live in Pennsylvania and your kid is in some University of Nebraska - you can still have it sent.

Always amazed me how that food survived the travel, but it turns out - it does. Amazing. I wish I could send something to someone…

Popularity: 44%