Hi Tom,

Let me say I understand your feelings, because I felt the same a few years
back, in a more severe way because the HPe3000 base in France is much
smaller than in the States, so HP3K related opportunities here are pretty
scarce.

What *I* did (this may or may not be valid for anyone else) was along
several lines of conduct :

- Diversify, diversify, diversify : HP-UX, networking, SAN and, more
recently, Linux, come to my mind. While I totally agree with your 'lost in
the crowd' feeling, long-term survival in a smaller job market was at stake,
and to some extent, still is.
- Be curious : not systematically blindly follow supervisors' advice, but
investigate other possibilities. Look what other people do. Look what 15-
and 20-year-olds do, what their interests are. This may imply supervisors'
hostility (it has in my case, a few years back), but it's rewarding in the
long term.
- Switch to non-technical fields : while graduated from a business school, I
never really worked in business fields or management. 1996 was an
opportunity for me to open my technical skills (or supposed) and discover
marketing, sales, etc. This is by far the most rewarding diversification
effort I have attempted so far.
- Be ready to move, work with people of different backgrounds and cultures,
be intellectually open and curious, and ready to relocate if necessary:
While I easily admit that my relocation to Germany in '97 was a dubious
effort and almost cost me the maximum price (a divorce was very narrowly
avoided), my international exposure has been highly rewarding in both
professional and intellectual terms.

I've done that for almost 5 years now (I left HP support in '96) and I no
longer feel constrained or limited by my MPE skills (or supposed skills). In
fact, what was viewed by others as a constraint (the shrinking French
HPe3000 installed base in late-90s) was for me an opportunity to discover
new areas, take on to entirely (or almost entirely) unexplored fields, and
dramatically widen my expertise.

Useless to say, while I regret HP's now official decision to get rid of the
HPe3000 and MPE, I don't feel terribly worried as an individual by that
decision.

Tom, don't feel constrained. The sky (and your own mind) is the limit.

Of course, I am speaking for myself. Depending on what you look for and are
ready to do, YMMV.

Best Regards,

Christian "Flame suit ready" Lheureux

> -----Message d'origine-----
> De : HP-3000 Systems Discussion [mailto:[log in to unmask]]De la
> part de Tom Emerson
> Envoyé : samedi 17 novembre 2001 04:40
> À : [log in to unmask]
> Objet : [HP3000-L] "...and would you like fries with that" [revisited]
>
>
> Like the rest of you, I've seen, read, (and generally started
> to ignore)
> many of the posts regarding the issues & aftermath of "The
> Announcement".
> But there is still one issue dogging the back of my mind:
> what will become
> of *me* in 5 years?
>
> Actually, I have an answer for that already: our company has already
> decided to migrate away from the HP3000, and so far as I know
> it was NOT
> due to any prior knowledge of an impending "doom-n-gloom"
> statement from
> HP, but rather a desire to consolidate our computing platforms [yes,
> plural] into either a single platform, or at the very least,
> convert our
> primary application into a "platform independant program".  The other
> platforms we use in our day-to-day business includes Unisys
> (someone was
> pondering if they were still used -- here's your answer...),
> Tandem, and
> Stratus.  (actually win/nt/2k exists as well, but for
> "administrivia" like
> e-mail & word processing, not the core of our business)
>
> So, all that is a long-winded way of saying that *I* will be
> learning "some
> other platform" in the next 5 years, even if it weren't
> mandated by the
> lack of support from HP.  As noted by others, this is probably "a good
> thing"
>
> or is it?
>
> In five years, after leanring & mastering one or more
> platforms (that might
> be deemed as ancient and proprietary as the 3k was...) I'll
> be one of the
> hordes of "general unix programmers", rather than a
> well-versed guru of the
> HP3000 -- in other words, I'll end up blending into the background...
>
> Thoughts like that scare me when I read week-after-week about
> out-of-work
> programmers and H1b-visa'd replacements (or worse, simply
> outsourcing to
> other countries without the need to have them work "here" in the U.S.)
>
> I suspect a few others are thinking the same or similar
> things -- I invite
> coments (and will endure flames) and would certainly
> entertain suggestions
> on what specifically I should be looking into for
> (re)training over the
> next few years...
>
> Thank you for your time,
>
> Tom Emerson
>
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