"but once you leave the sphere of companies ... the atmosphere can become rather absurd"
Total agreement here. A lot of the issue is ignorance. Most small to medium business owners and managers do nto code and do not know how to. They see a CS grad as a white, male, 135 lbs., pasty, skinny genius. Just like Bill Gates, Zuck, and countless movie 'hackers'. They expect your skills to be just as good to, ie. able to 'code' a website in minutes and hack NORAD as well.
Why? They just plain do not know anything about the discipline. They have to go on what little they do know, and that stuff oversells the CS degree by a lot.
I had a boss once that thought I should be able to program a microcontroller in an afternoon. Mind you, the spec sheet is ~650 pages. But he really really did think that it was that easy. Like it was speaking Spanish, it just took a long time to get up to speed, but when you are there, it's super simple.
Its the same disconnect as with dentists, accountants, lawyers, and mechanics. Most people can't begin to think in the way required, and they are helpless without you. That breeds resentment and suspicion.
To help with these issues, a level of trust needs to be established. You have to trust them, and they you. Many employers think that the trust comes from the degree granting agency. University vetted you, so I can at least trust that you know how to do hacker stuff.
Unfortunately, the gulf is so wide between the layman and the professional that trust is ALL you have to go on and a degree is not enough. Possibly a better testing agency, like the Bar, AMA, or ASE is needed as 'hackers' are more and more needed.
Total agreement here. A lot of the issue is ignorance. Most small to medium business owners and managers do nto code and do not know how to. They see a CS grad as a white, male, 135 lbs., pasty, skinny genius. Just like Bill Gates, Zuck, and countless movie 'hackers'. They expect your skills to be just as good to, ie. able to 'code' a website in minutes and hack NORAD as well.
Why? They just plain do not know anything about the discipline. They have to go on what little they do know, and that stuff oversells the CS degree by a lot.
I had a boss once that thought I should be able to program a microcontroller in an afternoon. Mind you, the spec sheet is ~650 pages. But he really really did think that it was that easy. Like it was speaking Spanish, it just took a long time to get up to speed, but when you are there, it's super simple.
Its the same disconnect as with dentists, accountants, lawyers, and mechanics. Most people can't begin to think in the way required, and they are helpless without you. That breeds resentment and suspicion.
To help with these issues, a level of trust needs to be established. You have to trust them, and they you. Many employers think that the trust comes from the degree granting agency. University vetted you, so I can at least trust that you know how to do hacker stuff.
Unfortunately, the gulf is so wide between the layman and the professional that trust is ALL you have to go on and a degree is not enough. Possibly a better testing agency, like the Bar, AMA, or ASE is needed as 'hackers' are more and more needed.