My job is as a computer programmer for the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). On the surface one might think that I make a lot of money because computer programmers make a lot of money. Well, if that's what you think, let me correct you. Admittedly, I make fair money, but I am far from well off. As a matter of fact I make a lot less money than I did back in 2000. And the state governmaent just took away 2 1/2% of our salaries in addition to making us take 6 furlough day per year. A furlough day, if you don't know, is a day off without pay. Thus, I have enough money to put food on the table, but not much more.
What do I do for my meager paychecks. My duties are many and varied:
- I repair database errors that the programs our department operates under (which is called NCORS)
- I repair the data for invoices where the data was put into the database incorrectly
- I write and repair COBOL programs
- I write and repair Dot Net programs (VB.Nethttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Basic_.NET specifically)
- I act as technical writer, documenting much of our systems because virtually no one else will. Programmers are notoriously poor documenters because they would rather write code than documentation.
- Other task too numerous to mention.
Also, the state gives us 15 days of PTO (Personal Time Off) per year and 15 sick days per year. Good thing the do too since I was out sick quite a bit last year (Before I had gotten past probation).
