[fatjokes]

Did IBM use to have "great wages" as the article says? Because it certainly doesn't anymore. A friend had an offer from IBM Research. It was practically a grad student stipend and a drop in the bucket compared to GoogFace wages. It was even worse than Amazon wages, which is already a painfully low bar. (Though AFAIK at least they let you pee in the bathrooms).

[RickS]

Anecdotally, yes. My grandfather worked at IBM, retired comfortably, had many hobbies, and notoriously packed the christmas tree every year. I was shocked to find, only this year, that despite a basement full of oscilloscopes and tape equipment, his role had been... customer support? Maybe this was less "call center" and more "embedded engineer". I'll never know.

How much of this effect was IBM, how much was the economics of America at the time, and how much was specific to this one man is debatable. But he definitely appeared to live well, whatever it was.

[IshKebab]

Customer support engineers can be a really skilled job - you have to get highly skilled engineers who know the product well and can explain it and answer technical questions, but that also have really good social skills and are good at sales. A pretty rare combo in my experience.

Maybe that's not what he did but I wouldn't write of "customer support" so easily - it could mean a wide range of things.

[oceanghost]

My grandfather had an AA from a city college. Worked for Rockwell his entire life. My grandmother worked 2 years her entire life. They retired with pensions, investments, a paid for home, and three-quarters of a million in cash.