I am posting this for my friend, who recently quit his job because he was bullied at work by new management. He is in a dilemma now - to choose between programming or support job.

My friend started working for a shipping company right after he finished his Advanced Diploma. My friend didnt come from a very well family. When he decided to start working much earlier than all of us, we advised against it but he went for it still because he thinks he is not studying-type of person so he should go work earlier to help his parents lighten the family burden and save money for his sister who was coming out from school to study Biotech in college.

For 4 years, he struggled and managed to save enough for himself to further his studies to degree level and to get himself a Honda City. He completed his online degree (Univ of Portsmouth UK, by Informatics / Sunway, not sure) in 2005. Due to working and studying at the same time, his result was poor and he only got a Third Class Honours Degree. Soon after that, using his own money, he paid for his own MCSE and CCNA.

My friend recently resigned 2 months ago after being bullied by the new management for several months. Apparently, while he was still serving the company under the previous boss, he was very happy because the boss has made him travel across Malaysia to setup other branch offices. He was also sent to Myanmar and Indonesia to setup their branch office there. He does all the support and maintenance of their servers, PCs, printers, CCTV, keyphone system, etc. He is also the ones who makes decision on all IT based matters like new hardware, new software, antivirus, meeting with custom software programmers, etc. The old management treat him with respect and care even though he didnt have a degree but is very hardworking and always willing to learn. *Trust me, he's my friend, I know.

Earlier 2006, this company he worked for shifted their office, he was the one who dismantle, pack, transport via lori, reconfigure and re-setup all the hardwares in the new office. Of course, Penny and I helped him out but we wont take credit from it because we only setup a few PCs for him while he did all the other hardwork.

After settling down in the new office, his boss told him that the shipping company needed a new custom software. The boss look highly upon him and told him to setup a team of programmers and write this custom software based on their own requirements. He learnt ASP.NET and C# diligently, did a trial run on a warehouse management system using ASP.NET and C#. I was the one who taught him, haha!! But halfway through his project, the new management took over, scrapped his idea and bought an off-the-shelf software that was already tailor-made for this industry. He was very disappointed, thus the resignation.

Now, he grew tired of handling idiots at work doing the dirty support job. He wants to go into programming field because IMHO, he had always had talent in programming but never had the time to study or look into it in detail. The reason why he wants to do programming is that he can earn extra money doing freelance job on his free-time after work.

In programming aspect, he have knowledge in Pascal, Foxpro, C++, ASP.NET, C#, ADO.NET, SQL, HTML, XML. I will be teaching him Java next. Design aspect, he knows Photoshop, Illustrator, Fireworks, Dreamweaver and I think he is working on a personal website as his portfolio now. He do not have a portfolio to show his artwork yet, neither does he have any experience working on large-scale programming projects. Most programming projects that he had worked on are helping friends with freelance work and doing degree projects for those students who are willing to pay.

Is this a good point for him to take a turn into programming and probably start out as a Junior Programmer? How much does a Junior Programmers earn? As for Support Engineer job, his last pay was ~RM3k+ and the last offer was RM4k. Should he work for the money (support job where he have plenty of experience) or the interest (programming job where he has some experience but no exposure)?

We are both 26 years old. I am thinking of asking him take a professional certification for programming like MCSD or something but I am not sure if it will do him any good. I only know that MCSE and CCNA is useless if he does indeed go for a programmer's job. He has been out of job for nearly 2 months now. Kindly advise. Thank you.

This post has been edited by Casanova: Aug 4 2006, 03:53 AM

Hey, thanks for being the first to reply.

I cant explain the disappointment he felt because I am not him but according to him, the shipping company initially wanted him to pioneer and lead this group of programmers, to make a custom software for this industry and be sold as their own product.

Imagine your boss giving you an opportunity of a lifetime. Make you the team leader or senior manager of IT department in a MNC company, your own team, to develop a software but be sold as their product. I am quite sure you will be happy too, right?

Now imagine it taken away from you, sure you will be disappointed by the empty promises. Of course if you judge it realistically, he dont have the experience to develop an entire suite of software but he was already assembling his team but in the end, it was scrapped and cancelled.

I can imagine how halfway we semangat trying to achieve the best for the company and the company plays you out with what I'd call, empty promises. I know that hurt him pretty bad, cause he was still tolerating all the other shit he was thrown with until this point, he quitted.

He needed a good car because he travel nationwide. Imagine he have to drive up and down in a Saga.

I think Pennywise posted a topic about him in "Cinapek Company." People who are too busy working, making sure there is money to feed the family will not have time to learn to do what they want - this case, programming.

Maybe I highlighted the wrong facts in my first post but I look at things differently than you do. The fact that my friend is capable of buying his own car, not being look down by others, not being discriminate, sacrifice for his siblings and go out to work make me respect me, make all of us friends respect him.

I know he should not have turned down the RM4k job. Sure he has his reasons, I do not doubt his maturity. Anyway, this topic isnt started about money or how he survive. It's about which path he should take from now on.

Money wise, I believe he is much more capable and richer (in savings) than all of my friends. Though he has many responsibilities, he carry them out flawlessly and hardly ever he spends on unnecessary items (except maybe the car which some of you think so).

The reason he probably couldnt take the job is because he didnt want to be an irresponsible person, going in for the money, quitting and leaving when he finds something better. As he always say "boh steady..." and he man his words.

True, now is not the time to be jobless. Sure all of us has bills to pay but I know him as someone who is not immature about all this, who never calculate or plan before he takes the next step. He just probably see it differently than all of us.

Sorry the discussion slanted towards the motive of buying a car. Apparently his father is making some money now so he can slack off a bit and do what he wants to. It's not about putting food on the table like it was before.

Be fair, how others have enjoyed their youth, he sacrificed it. Now, if he wanna slack off, not even his parents can say anything about it. IMHO, he is a good son, a great brother and a fantastic friend.

This thread is bullshit.

Not only did it not solved any problems but a$$holes come in here to brag how much they make and how to spend their own f**king money!

I had a simple question - PROGRAMMING or SUPPORT?