It's true, you always remember your first.

First job.

My first "real" job was at Bloomberg, in beautiful Skillman, NJ. By real, I mean it was the first Monday thru Friday, Nine AM until Five PM job I had up to that point. The pay sucked, and in a lot of ways it was like working in kindergarten, but it was 2 years of experience to slap on the resume. I really don't have any regrets about the job, except perhaps quitting 'cos it was about the most stable job you'd find.

However, if you take a lookie here you'll see the bloomberg listing on thevault.com. If you browse the message boards you'll see tons of people bitching about how repressive and controlling the job is, and they're fairly spot on for the most part.

The funny part is right on that link tho'. The "Pros and Cons" of the job.

• Excellent pay
  
• Brilliant co-workers
  
• Snazzy annual company parties
  
• Well-stocked kitchen
  

Well, they're right about the last one. The kitchen is seriously well stocked. The annual company parties are pretty snazzy, if you don't mind sitting on a bus for 4 hours to drink for 90 minutes.

The brilliant co-workers part is pretty debatable. I spent my two years there surrounded by people who definetly didn't qualify as brilliant. Some were smart, some were borderline braindead, same as anywhere else. The smart ones seemed beaten by the Bloomberg system, which was designed to crush innovation and creativity.

And the final plus point would be that excellent pay. Which was, and perhaps still is, lower than a teacher's salary in NJ. And if you know anything at all, that's pretty freakin low. But that's not the entire story, I know that the 'berg has those hefty certificate bonuses. My last year there I had 12 "new" certs due me. When they gave them to me at my review, they were projected to be worth about 10K. Which is a pretty nice bonus for a guy who'd been out of college one year. By the time I left the 'berg (one month before I would have actually gotten the bling bling) they were worth approximately 4.7K. Still not bad, but when you consider that they're treated as part of your salary, and even with that I wasn't making much more than... well, it was pretty low.

So let's look at the cons...

• The insecurity of working alongside rocket scientists
  
• Difficult to get in without experience
  

Personally, I never found any difficulty in working with the rocket scientists at Bloomberg. Then again, I wasn't aware that we had a secret missle program going on. If by rocket scientists, they mean the guy who used to sing "My Way" at the urinal while touching himself and grunting, then we've got a slight disconnect over the definition of rocket scientist.

As for the difficult to get in bit... I got in, with no experience. From what I remember, the 'berg used to specialize in hiring college students, working them for a year or two, then watching as the brighter went on to better paying jobs. Maybe they've changed that policy, dunno.

Anyhow, despite all this, it wasn't a horrible place to work, you just had to take it for what it was.