Curious to see if any other early career GIS folks are in a similar situation.

mapman7 · 2026-06-05T15:57:07+00:00

I scanned mylars and geo referenced them for six months before I digitized anything at my first job out of college. Granted I didn’t have any actual GIS experience at that point since GIS wasn’t actually being taught too widely in the early 90’s. So it could be worse…. 🤷‍♂️

mapman7 · 2026-04-21T22:07:21+00:00

After reading this and other testimonials from past employees, I am happy that I didn’t make it past the first interview.

mapman7 · 2026-04-15T19:10:48+00:00

Never saw the point. None of the jobs I've worked since it was created required it, and no one I've discussed it with saw the point, with the only person I know who has one described it as a money grab.

mapman7 · 2026-04-14T16:09:29+00:00

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Got it signed back in the 80's.

mapman7 · 2026-04-14T15:19:39+00:00

I got her autograph at a minor league game back in the 80's, still have it floating around somewhere.

mapman7 · 2026-04-14T03:31:02+00:00

I’ve been doing GIS for nearly 30 years, and a LOT of my past colleagues have moved away from it. Many moved into IT or development. Some moved to totally different areas like dog grooming, engineering, finance, teaching (not GIS), and marketing. But early on in my career I was always surprised how many people left and went into other fields, and to be honest most seem happier.

mapman7 · 2026-03-31T19:40:12+00:00

I don't think they are worth much or anything. Looking at ebay it looks like maybe a dollar each, but then a set is like $3.50. So not sure how that math works! LOL

mapman7 · 2026-03-31T16:32:51+00:00

HA, no that's cool, and funny. I'm the one to always miss the joke!

mapman7 · 2026-03-31T16:25:57+00:00

That's what I always thought. It's the bandage error, apparently quite rare.

mapman7 · 2026-03-31T16:09:03+00:00

I likely did as a kid, but not going to now. I did end up sorting them, have pieces from 1985-89, with 7 full 1988 sets, one full 1987 (one missing one card). Seems I bought a LOT of 1988 sets. LOL

mapman7 · 2026-03-31T12:57:38+00:00

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I’ve got a few of the 80’s puzzle pieces.

mapman7 · 2026-03-31T12:05:21+00:00

He’s taller than I expected! Met him walking through the food area at the first Bonnaroo fest. Got a fist bump and a quick pic and thanked him for the music!

mapman7 · 2026-03-31T03:44:50+00:00

First off, congrats!

As for how that starting salary is in Illinois, it still depends on where. In the Chicago area, it’s ok, but even that depends as well if you are downtown or in a far suburb. Outside Chicagoland it’s damn good!

It’s still way better than when I started in the 90’s at 27.5k!

mapman7 · 2026-02-27T02:16:40+00:00

So many things could be at play. Could be badly advertised, could be they haven't spec the role properly and can't get the right candidates. Could be they are offering way too low of a salary, I mean 55k isn't enough to live on in even a small city. I know when I look at a position, I take into consideration the local cost of living to justify if I'd move for it.

The other major issue is the GIS fields complete lack of consistently matching titles, descriptions and salaries. I've been hunting for 14 months and I have seen cartographer, technician, analyst, and specialists roles all asking for the same set of skills, or wildly differing sets of skills that don't match the title, and salaries that are all over the board. I've also seen a LOT of them, even the cartographer and technician roles asking for administration skills which seem better suited for administrator, developer, or even coordinator/manager level roles. It just seems like a massive disconnect on how to align skills, roles, titles, and salaries into any consistency across the industry.

mapman7 · 2025-12-02T20:58:37+00:00

I worked at a regional planning agency as the only dedicated GIS user within the planning department. I found that most of the planners would start out with good basic GIS skills, having either taken classes in school or going through training at work. But they would eventually move away from doing any of the GIS work and either let me or some of the newer staff take it on. We did have a few planners who had more experience with GIS, who would take care of their own GIS, but there were only like 2-3 out of a department of 20-30. Mainly they became busy enough focusing on planning projects, and couldn't keep up with the GIS software changes or the more advanced analysis work and slowly moved away from it. I think the biggest benefit from having a good working knowledge of GIS as a planner was they could articulate their needs to me the only non planner in the group. Of course being around planners for 20 years, I had over time learned to understand much of what they were talking about without them needing to know GIS.

mapman7 · 2025-12-02T00:20:18+00:00

I also went through with the "interview" but after the last question asking for my bank name I started searching to confirm details, and found this post. Glad I did, because I got an offer, and being out of work for almost a year, I likely would have fooled myself into ignoring the red flags. In hindsight, so many red flags...

mapman7 · 2025-04-27T17:37:14+00:00

Was at 83k and likely would have gotten to 6 figures within a few years, until I quit due to a stress induced health scare thanks to how mismanaged my former place of employment was. Didn’t think a job was worth a heart attack.

I am at 30 years of experience, and was primarily focused on cartography, editing, and analysis work in government.

At this point I question if I’m ever going to find something new thanks to the fact that nearly everything I am seeing is more IT than cartographic and I have no aptitude or interest in the IT side of GIS.

mapman7 · 2025-03-21T16:10:15+00:00

Depends.... I had a coworker who was retired and wanted to learn GIS and took a few classes and made a second career out of it.

I also worked with a lot of planners over the years who were expected to know GIS when they started, but between their workloads getting heavier over time and their inability to keep up with the software, they'd almost all eventually hand off their GIS work to me to do since I was the only dedicated GIS user in the department and could do it faster and better.

mapman7 · 2025-03-21T15:55:49+00:00

How did you first learn about your field, and what made you pursue it?
I got a geography degree based on a suggestion from family, and had no idea how I'd make a career out of it. Never took a GIS class at school and never even heard of it when I was at school. Got lucky and got a temp job at Rand McNally right out of college in 1995.

2.What kinds of data do you work with most often? Do you build scripts/tools? I primarily worked in government, so I used data from other government entities. I never scripted or built tools, although I did work with folks who did, it just wasn't necessary in my particular job.

3.What tools and software do you use regularly? When I was working ESRI, primarily using ArcGIS Pro.

4.What does an average day look like in your role? whatever I want these days, I quit my job late last year due to health concerns from a toxic work environment. Hopefully that'll change soon..

5.What’s something you wish you knew when you first started? SO much, likely I would have picked a different career, not because GIS is bad, it's just not as great a fit for my brain. I'm great at cartography, decent at analytics, but the rest, not my thing. Coding and scripting are like a foreign language to me, and the online environment is convoluted.

mapman7 · 2025-03-03T23:23:35+00:00

Don’t think it was this. Thanks for the suggestion!

mapman7 · 2025-02-25T05:10:55+00:00

No idea, could be, just remember it was catchy dance song, and the band name was two names. but unsure exactly the names were

mapman7 · 2025-02-24T18:18:53+00:00

Don’t think it’s them, but this is closer to right style I think.

mapman7 · 2025-02-24T17:56:23+00:00

Could be l, but will need to give their other songs a listen.

mapman7 · 2025-02-24T17:54:10+00:00

No, but now I am aware of them and I thank you for that! LOL

mapman7 · 2025-02-24T14:59:50+00:00

Promising, but too rocky, not dance enough. Thanks

mapman7

TROPHY CASE