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Do You Like Your Job?
G-shock asks: "I've worked for the government (NASA), large public companies, and small startups as a software engineer. They all have something in common. It seems like management at this company is just winging it. I find myself putting all my energy, both mental and emotional, into a project only to be disappointed by decisions made by management. I really feel like management at my current employer is disconnected from what is actually going on. They manage a project, but not the people. They also seem to lack any real vision. Direction is constantly changing and proper time is not given to engineer these changes correctly. This leads to mandated quick and dirty solutions that end up being maintained with great pain for long periods of time. All this leads to me feeling cynical about the work I'm doing. What I want to know is, how can I feel good about the work I'm doing if I don't have confidence in my management? How many of you are happy with your management? Why? Why not? What can I do about this? Thanks in advance for your insight." Considering that this seems to be a common problem in technology companies, and seeing as we have been producing software for basically half a century, do you think that managing software projects is a different beast than the management of anything else? How many of you have had this problem in your career and what did you do to adjust?
The gods created managers to keep our species from competing with them.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
i just got fired monday. they wanted a mission critical piece of an application. it was a protocol gateway, and one of the protocols was totally undocumented. i told them six weeks at best. they told me three i said no, they said you're fired.
so, yes, somtimes they are crazy, and *you* need to decide if you want to be absorbed into the madness or retain your sanity. and the outcome aint always pretty. you got to decide what its worth.
four-oh-four
... at this point, I wish I had a job.
Less Talk, More Beer.
You ask me if I like my job? I absolutely love it! Being a garbageman is the best profession in the world! You wouldn't believe all the wonderful things have discarded, and I get them all, _for free_!! Plus, I get to see cute little racoons and bacteria and greet them every day at work. It is really fun when I find a discarded banana, then I get an extra special snack.
Plus, being a garbageman gives me lots of time to think about the universe and discuss it with clients like Dilbert!
I'm a technical writer for a relatively stable software company. I work with computers *and* get paid. In this economy, that's a rare and wonderful thing.
Got Rhinos?
because they understand what is needed.
When I started at my current job, I was not sure what to expect, being under the assumption that management knows nothing. But later finding out that most of the management here has done some programming before. In fact one of the main managers was the only programmer here when the business started up.
I believe this makes for the best workplace as a programmer because everyone above you knows how you are feeling. What to expect from you. What is hard/easy etc.
Atleast that's my view on it anyways.
Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try. -- Homer J. Simpson
Why does this apply to only tech companies?
During my short history on this planet, every single place I have worked seems to have this problem. Not just tech companies.
It seems to be human nature to not want to deal with the messy social part of management and handle only the relatively easy business part.
Just my 2 cents I guess.
"It's comin' back around again..." -RATM
1 year jobless San Jose.
Has anyone else noticed how Pro GWB the jerry springer show has become? Guess the only one's with jobs are strippers and trailer park trash.
In the end I've been fortunate to have good managers... what have they had in common? They've become my friends outside of work. That isn't to say managers and employees must or should spend time away from work but working with people you LIKE really helps. In practice manager's I've liked have worked hard, valued by input and been able to contructively criticize me in a way that has helped me grow.
Software development may be 50 years old... lots of things have changed and one could argue that the pace of change is only getting faster. What doesn't change is that development of any kind is a whole bunch of people individually developing themselves- the end result is (or isn't) some kind of product. Manager's that are technically-minded work best with software developers because developers are technically minded.
Seems obvious but has not been the norm as far as I can tell.
I worked at .Bombs .Coms and .Profitable Motor Companies and a lot of other places as everything from Technical contractor to a "Scientist" to Director of New Business... I now work at a non profit and I have to say I never felt better. I hate the tedium of some of the stuff I do but everyone seems to care here. As soon as you take good old fashion $$$$ from the equation (I still get paid, just not at market rate), everything seems to work better. Human Service organizations are just great to work at mainly because getting a project done has something very visual and positive in its outcome... just my few cents (literally)
Know what pisses me off most? It isn't my boss or my coworkers or the clients... it's the perception of the industry in general. Mod this as offtopic if you must, but what's killing me are those damn MCSE commercials that make people think that anyone can better their life by going to school for 6 months to learn MS products. Talk about scams... they promise outragiously high salaries and give the impression that if YOU possess the urge and desire to better your life, then YES, ANYONE can learn this stuff... just another make-money-quick scheme.
"Just tell him ya did it! That's what he wants to hear anyway..."
Everywhere I've ever been has been like this except for one, and that's the company that went belly-up this past May. I don't know if there's a connection there or not, but it does seem to be the rule rather than the exception.
The important thing to remember is that management personnel -- like everyone else -- do not get promoted because they do a good job. They get promoted because they managed to convince their superiors that it's to their advantage. Actually doing a good job is one way to do that, but so is ass-kissing, lying, intimidation, submission, being related to the boss, having good internal connections, making coffee and giving head. If you want to go far, you need to ignore the management propaganda that Arbeit macht frei and actually look around to see who gets promoted and why. This doesn't necessarily mean you have to give up your devotion to quality, but it does mean that you have to come to grips with the fact that you may be the only person concerned with the quality of your work and you need to figure out what your superiors are concerned with.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Work your way up to management and you too can spend your days on the golf course.
God I hate them^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hbless them.
Looks can be deceiving. Or CAN they?
That seems to be why many professional programmers work on open source projects. You get to spread your technical wings without managers.
I work for a company that practices draconian software at it's finest. I have to fight for weeks, nay months, to get some improvement on the tools available. And the list goes on.
Many hours are spent on something that is casually swept aside by some new marketing spin
What do I do about it? I don't care that much really. Call me apathetic, call me brilliant. But I do the work, learn some stuff and get paid for it. I am not interested in running the company and the company is not interested in what I see as important or useful. We co-exist in a symbiotic relationship with both sides agreeing not to have too many conversations. Management and Code do not easily mix. Especially in the typical management environment
I recent left a job however, that had one good manager that knew how to balance these projects out. The one's that he saw as important where prioritized, and the one's that had hype where given a somewhat longer schedule. That way, then the ship had to do an about turn, there wasn't as much mass to move.
I think it's a matter of following the important projects with more zeal than the hyped projects and leaving at all behind you, no matter what, when you walk out the door. I get paid so that I can run my own server at home and play PlayStation. I enjoy both -- but to think that my work is all that important that it won't get cast aside in a moment is folly.
Managers should provide the idea and what they want the produce to do. The can specify what the GUI should like like and how other UI parts may work. They should also manage the development team members and get what positions are needed (security, UI, scalability, general programming, etc). They can check up on the coders and make sure their progress is decent and try to get the dev team to work together in the best possible way.
Coders should manage how the code is structured and how things are implemented.
File formats, etc could be determined by either. Sometimes management wants their own proprietary format, while coders may have better suggestions which are easier to impliment and/or more efficient.
I find I work best when the pressure is low and management isn't trying to make all my decisions for me.
I'm going to come along and ask you shift yourself into positive mode, mmmkay?
If you could plow through those TPS reports, that'd be great... Yeah, okay, and I'm gonna need you to go ahead and come in on Saturday, mmmkay, greaaaaat...
Unfortunately, the longer I've worked, the more I've come to realize that *many* (too many) companies are run exactly like this.
Infact, I've not yet worked for one, or contracted for one, that wasn't.
It's frustrating to work for these places. Sometimes degrading, but most of all back breaking. Nothing's ever finished 100%, there's no time for proper design, nor implementation. And sometimes you just have to wonder what the fuck goes on behind the door in those management meetings!!
I think I'm slowly giving up. I'd always hoped that I'd find that "one place" where things were done *right*. Each job I take, I get a little closer. But I'm not there yet.
Luckily I'm approaching that middle-management-age, so at the right place, I may be able to change things for the better (for the developers). That'd be a huge accomplishment, because at most places all the other department's (publications, marketing) are hindered with similar management/policy/timeframe problems. Except they sometimes get a sense of finality - when a print publication is printed and sent - they can sigh in relief. Ours - well, there's always something that needs to be changed on one of the websites, the code, the network, security policy, servers, hardware... just add it to the to-do list. It's the neverending beast.
http://slashdot.org/~tf23/journal
I've found that if you are in an engineering field, competent former engineers make the best managers. They have first hand experience about what it takes to do a job and do it correctly. Of course, not all engineers make good managers, but most good managers were at one point a good engineer. This applies equally well to other diciplines, of course.
The reason for this is because they have good working knowledge from both sides of the fence. They are aware of the buisiness concerns (time schedules, money, the competition) and engineering concerns. For instance, they can take the long view and recognize that putting a little more design and documentation work up front usually results in a better, more maintainable project. It also keeps the engineers happy (and by extention more productive) which is better for the company.
However, there are occasions where it does make better business sense to kill or rush a project. Former engineers are much more capable of conveying this to the workforce in a manner that they can accept.
--
I've been out of college less than a year and I'm on my second Tech Job. Both have been professionally satisfying, but like many others will probably say, management seems to be constantly 10 or more steps behind. I'm too inexperienced to speculate why, but it seems to me that rather than let the specialists take 5 minutes to plan and prepare to tackle whatever the critical error of the moment is, management wants results NOW NOW NOW.
It's like I overheard the other day: do something now and apologize for it later. Even if it was a joke (which it was), I feel it's a rather good way to describe the situation--not only where I work but all over the place in IT. It seems everyone's just a bit crazy to me, but hey, they pay us to play with computers. I'm still trying to figure that one out.
Maybe I'm wrong.
Poor management plagues nearly every industry. Ever pay attention to Dilbert cartoons? Through some fluke of nature, the incompetent and less knowledgeable human beings somehow end up being in management.
The computer industry is exceptionally vulnerable to poor management. The industry moves quickly. A company is likely to go nowhere when under the leadership of incompetent individuals. In my case, I work at software company lead by old gray haired men that literally think DOS is the future. Think my career is going anywhere? And thats just the point. Its not just the company that suffers, but the careers of the individuals at the company that also suffer.
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
Unfortunately, your comment on the commonality of "missed-management" is not limited to your experiences. This phenomenon is sadly common.
I used to know a retired Army Airborne Lt. Col. The words he used to describe both the problem and the solution were, "Managers manage things. Leaders lead people".
This inspired me, a Sr. Network Admin, to pursue my MBA just so I could speak the language of business. Luckily I was able to skip the class where they performed the labotomies, so I think I managed to hold on to my grip on reality (relatively speaking, of course).
In short (too late), my degree has given me some credibility to implement change. The old saying, "Wherever you go, there you are", doesn't exactly apply...you aren't the problem. You will, unfortunately, find the problem wherever you go...unless you take strides to make change where you can and learn to live with the areas where you can't.
Probably not very helpful, huh? Is it at least practical?
In answer to your original question: Yes, I love my job...but only since I started speaking my mind, nicely, of course (and in my MBA voice), and helping decision makers identify the bobbles.
Regards...
Did you ever stop to consider that maybe, just maybe, the reason that you disagree with the decisions managers make is because you simply don't have the same perspective on the issues surrounding the project and its context within the entire corporation?
That being said, you're probably right that most managers are just winging it. I often have the same kind of feelings about management where I've worked, but I try to give people the benefit of the doubt that they're not as dumb as I think. Maybe they are.
Every unemployed tech worker can sympathize with this guy
If it always seems like management is out of touch with you, perhaps its you that are out of touch with management. I think that a lot of tech people are out of touch with management, and just think that Dilbet==Reality. In some cases, maybe it just SEEMS like Dilbert to you.
I don't mean that in a 'bad way'... I'm just saying that there are pressures on management that can be more varied and complex than the stuff you deal with... I mean, have you ever really considered WHERE those dollars in your paycheck come from? Really... I mean, WHERE do they COME FROM?
But, I have worked for the same company for over 6 years... a lifetime in this industry. I work with some people who have been here 15 years, even though my company is just 15 years old... We have a turnover rate of less than 6%, and EVERYONE loves working here. I am a software engineer (actually, I consider myself a craftsman), but management does not insulate us... they educate us.
It's not the rant you think.
When I was young, I looked down on politics, figured I didn't need to deal with it, etc.
By the time I finally started to understand it, most of my working life was gone.
The thing to know is that politics is more than a game: it is the essence of working with and through other people to get things done. You don't have to become Machiavelli and you don't have to stab backs. Learning what people -- even managers -- cherish, and understanding the real power subordinates have over their bosses will lead to a lot more "wins" and a lot more sensible decisions than doing the typical "I don't care about politics" schtick.
What's sad is that we don't have to be as good at it as the managers are, though some of us do have tremendous potential.
We just have to be smart enough to listen and get listened to.
Techies will never win them all, or even all of the ones we should. Nice to win some, though.
There's a skill you must have to enjoy investing yourself in a complicated, demanding, intellectual job - and I wish I had advice for developing this skill, but I don't - you have to be able to tell who's a competent, visionary administrator (yes, such people do exist, god bless them) and who is, to be frank, an idiot (lots of those, as I'm sure you've all noticed.)
So, before you take a job, go and meet the management. Even if it means taking a pay cut, my advice is to work for smart people, and enjoy your work.
If you don't have the luxury (I'm a computational biologist, so I do) of choosing your employer / PI (that's what a scientist's boss is called) / project manager / what have you, then, well, you can't expect to be happy at your job. Most people are in the position of taking whatever job they can get, and they're unhappy with what they end up with. So, if you're one of the few people with the luxury of choosing where to work, get your priorities straight and at least consider the competence (to say nothing of worthiness) of the prospective co-workers, in addition to the economics.
I'm happy at my job, by the way.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
A month and a week ago, I was laid off from here. I've been at my new job now for three weeks; I've had a little bit of time to get my bearings and I can already see striking differences.
At my old job, management (not my boss, but management) was abysmal. We were constantly being handed something that needed to be done yesterday, being told to get it done ASAP and drop everything else we were doing to come up with a solution given inadequate resources. We were always short on machines, manpower, time, budget, and respect. In the midst of the latest Hot Project, management would walk in and tell us there was something else we should be doing instead, and why the hell weren't we doing that?
At my new job, there are a few levels of management. I'm only really directly affected by the level directly above me. This is similar to my old job, but with one important difference: so far, my boss has sheltered us from most of the crap raining down from above (the raining of crap is to be expected anywhere, really.)
We actually have money to get our tasks done. We have the time to get them done in (more or less). We also aren't reassigned all over the fucking place because management fucked something up.
I like it so far. Plus I got free money from my old job, w00t!
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
That's what I did. Like most people here, I've been playing with computers most of my life. I knew I wanted to get into computer SOMETHING, and I did.
:)
I spent almost 5 years at an ok job, with crappy management, just like you're describing. BUT, the reason I stayed, was to learn as much on the job as possible (Just because they SAY they'll provide training, don't expect it).
What experience did I get?
Netware
General Networking
Cisco/CSU's/bridges
MORE OS/2 than I had previously (oh and REXX)
TCP/IP (only IPX when I started, migrated everyone)
C
Foxpro
PERL
PHP
Fujitsu PBX
wiring
Hell.. I've got a whole slew of stuff on my resume on my website - www.havokmon.com . No, I'm not an expert on all of them, I don't need to be. Just enough to be dangerous, as they say. The trick is being competant enough that you don't have to revisit what you've done to fix it
I bided my time. What did I get? I'm an "IT Manager" now, but I'M the ONLY IT person, at a smaller company. Suits me just fine. I STILL do everything from programming (much more Foxpro now) to Networking, and I've added EDI, and a Norstar (yuk!) PBX to my list. PLUS, I MAKE ALL THE DECISIONS. If I don't get something I want, I only have myself to blame. I only need to convince the VP of Finance.
Suggestion: Find out what you like to do, andq what you don't like, and just be patient. The job will come to you.
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
I find myself putting all my energy, both mental and emotional, into a project only to be disappointed by decisions made by management.
This Is The Story Of My Recent Life.
It's actually *pleasant* to hear that others have to put up with this. I switched to computer science from mechanical engineering so all of my friends are working in a completely different field and I have nobody to vent on.
Moving on...
[text deleted]... I had written a manifesto of my experience as it relates to this topic but removed it based on the fact that all was healed when I realized that nobody cared except me and I found myself pissing (literally) off of the top of a large building.
This actually helped set my mind at ease. I'm not sure why but I would recommend it.
The funny part is that I am serious...
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
Because only one thing counts in this business gents...get them to sign on the line which is dotted.
Boy am I glad this topic came up. This post might start a flame war, but I am sick and tired of this happening - poor management.
First, I would like to congratulate the poster for most eliquently describing a situation that is occuring everywhere in our culture.
Now, here is why this is happening:
Engineers are not supposed to manage people, nor do they have the proper education to do so.
Libral Arts graduates are not supposed to manage people, nor do they have the proper education to do so.
Computer Science graduates are not supposed to manage people, nor do they have the proper education to do so.
History graduates are not supposed to manage people, nor do they have the proper education to do so.
Are we getting somewhere? So, you might now ask, who are supposed to manage the employees? Commerce Graduates. NOT MBAs. Very few MBA graduates have the required theory and experience to properly manage people. As a commerce graduate we have a clear understanding of what people need. We know how to motivate them. We can identify conflicting personallities quickly and know how to resolve them. We go through hundreds of case studies that cover many classical scenrios that come up in product development, manufacturing, HR, etc.
We are educated to manage people (4-5 years of education). Just because you have a degree saying you can code linux in your sleep or build a bridge over a mile-wide river does not mean you can manage people.
Now, there are some great exceptions. Many great managers are not Commerce grads at all. What they are able to do is respect their employees and identify their needs. By seeing what the employees need, they are now able to motivate them properly but fullfuling them to the best of there abilities. Everyone has needs. Fullfilling these needs leads them to happiness. Anyone can be placed in a management role, but very few have the patience (or are able) to identify the needs of their employees.
There are surveys that state needs on a general level. Many are inaccurate because the needs of an individual vary from nation to nation, city to city, job to job, or from time to time.
So, how do identify their needs? You communicate. Yes it is that easy. Few people are now thinking, "This is common sense." But what we learn in Commerce is that common sense is not so common.
Even communication needs to be defined. You have a sender who sends the message. There is the ether where the message travels and noise is added. The noise could be physical barriers, language, culture, speech dialec, idioms, preconceived notions, physical distance, non-verbal gestures etc. Then you have the receiver to whom the message is directed. But that's not it. You see, the biggest problem in commmunication is all that noise. How do you resolve that? Well, part of the communication model has a wonderful little component. It's called feedback.
So, poster, I again congratulate you for addressing this all important topic. But here is what you MUST do.
1) Go to you manager that is ineffective.
2) Communicate your needs clearly.
3) Listen carefully at the feedback you will receive.
4) Repeat steps 1 - 3 until you are satisfied.
Now, I am a geek like you. I just happen to have a Commerce degree. So I ask all geeks to never be afraid to communicate their needs. If you must, be careful when you do, try to assist you manager in clearly understanding what you need, and what the project needs for success. Now there are many times where they will not do what you want them to do. The reasons here are many:
1) The company is under tight constraints and needs to cut corners to get the project out the door and make some (any) money. The manager can't communicate this to you due to confidentiality.
2) The manager is not a good listener - these are the worst types of managers and they are very difficult to change. Some people actually have to LEARN to actively listen. There are many very good courses for these types of people. Check with your local colleges.
3)The mansger does not respect your judgement, advice, etc. In this situation to need to carefully analyse what caused it. Always look at your past actions first, then the manager, then external factors.
4) The manager is having problems balancing the needs of their employees vs. the needs of the organization. The best they can do here, is communicate what these barriers are to their employees. Remember the communication model here.
There are other reasons why they can't do what you want but these are some of the main ones I came accross so far. But always, always make sure they know and understand what you need to make you happy. Then you have done your job as an employee.
----
This
I'm workin in a 2 person partnership right now.. but hope to move on to something bigger. :)
Having only 2 ppl kinda kills some flexibility, either I have to do it or he does. But committee decisions are quick and easy
I've dealt alot with compaq and other larger corps.. VERY screwed up management systems.. and branches of the company might was well be different companies. Absolutly no communication.
I'd like to do something that has enough ppl that can cover/take over for a bit. But still keep enough communication and teamwork as possible
and OT.. 96 comments in thread.. NONE at -1 !!! wow either the -1 mod isnt working or ppl are finally able to have a positive, constructive discussion around here %-)
IMO, many complaints from designers are whiny bullshit (what's that noise? Could it be my Karma spilling away?...). Why would I say such a thing? Because most purely technical complaints ignore business reality, and ignore organizational concerns. If you don't like the way things are going - stop whining and get involved! Don't bitch, fix! Be persistant, make yourself heard, and, before you write off your management, actually listen to them. Just like you feel misunderstood, so do they. Most (yes - most!) managers are reasonable, overworked (just like you), and damn good developers in their own right. Before you write them off, try working with them.
Now, all that being said, there are some situations where there are real problems in management. If your honest, earnest attempts to fix and contribute don't work, apply your professional talents towards making some other company famous. Have the balls to move on.
In the end, any job is a balance between the company's needs and your own. Find a balance you can live with.
Its time for a new poll anyways...
Do you like your job?
-Yes!
-No!
-What job?
--SONET
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do. --Benjamin Franklin
a lot of people claim the managers are people who know a lot about the product, and engineering specifics, etc...my experience has not been that way.
if anything, i've found experienced software people/engineers make less than ideal managers...often digging into details, making errant decisions that take months to fix, etc.
my best software manager (previous job) got his masters degree in mnagement from a small, private technical school in california. he was one of those guys who has a somewhat priveleged childhood, but you would never know it from working with him.
primary focus : "what do you need to get the job done?" He know more about software design and programming than he ever let on, and rarely got involved in techinical details unless our design group was missing something obvious.
very big on communication; no secrets allowed. get problems in the open, etc. absolute gem of a guy...no problems, only solutions, very positive attitude, etc.
at the current job i have two managers that are former military and one is okay but the other is a bleeding, incompetent idiot. complains, yells, makes stupid decisions and won't reneg on them, wasting much time and money.
left the previous manager because i felt the dot-com bust coming...but they are still in business and have projects...probably because of him.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
Research in situations such as mine in academic institutions is very different from work elsewhere... you work usually by yourself and just with the higher ups (really, only the professor) and get a lot of work done, by yourself. Thus, there is a self achievement factor involved that motivates you, and a "I must do this so I can figure out if this works and I discover this" driving you to work. You are not slowed down because you are not dependant on other's (directly that is) so you know everything that is happening on your part of the project. Such factors motivate me and even allows me to not even worry about money, but just the work. Setting your hours is another plus, it is a very flexible environment really, and I would not mind research in my future (though, in a slightly more engineering field for myself).
Also, everyone in these workplaces, like academic instututions, are all smart (at least at Yale University); "management" is good and everyone is happy and is willing. What one can do about poor management is something I'm not sure about, without getting yourself fired that is. A new job in a different place/field may help, or getting the courage to do something radically differrent (be creative) may also help. Really, you need to find a job that you will like with management you will like and not move out of it once you find it... little idealistic, but it is possible. Maybe a company is simply not the workplace for you.
I had exactly the same problem at my last job (which I quit partly because of exactly this).
In that job, I ended up being the jack of all trades, running around and patching things up (not so much code, but design decisions, manager awareness, team skills, etc). And even though I put in a considerable amount of effort, the project still ended up slipping the dead line by a long shot (which was waaaaay too tight in the first place).
All throughout I constantly tried to look ahead and warn the project manager of dangers and difficulties that lay ahead that could endanger the project. Only to not be taken seriously, or simply being too late for management to be able to do something about.
To me it appears that management doesn't know the software development process very well. They expect things to be easy, quick, and impactless. Documentation is required, but no real time set aside for it. Design before coding is of course mandatory, but if we get any time at all that's a real surprise (in my experience). Getting the development environment set up with daily builds, automated regression test (and integration tests where possible) is given no attention. In my last project we were four weeks into the coding before we got a semi-working development environment. Go figure.
So well, my experience is that most project managers simply lack awareness of what is involved in a software development project.
One of my goals is to get around to writing a book; "The software development process explained" (or something) targeted directly at managers to help them get an understanding of what's involved and how it all interacts. And no, it won't be a tome, I'm hoping to keeping it to 2-300 pages, so a manager doesn't feel too intimidated by it.
As a bottom note, I am now employed doing second line global technical support, and while dealing with some customers can be quite frustrating and painful, the management here has a good idea of what they are doing. It makes a world of a difference. Even though I'm more or less on call 24/7, the stress levels are nowhere near what I had in my last development position.
I think that when you really look at the situation, the world around us changes so frequently, that the stuff we create rarely lasts more than a couple of years. So by the time you are finished thinking about a problem, the question has changed.
So hack away. The chances of any one of us writing something that will actually make a difference for any significant period of time is practically zero.
That might sound pessimistic, but I look at the software projects I've been on over the last seven years, and while all of them were the rage for about a year or two, something better came along and that was that.
I think this has more to do with the fact that the real players in this world (MS, Sun, IBM, Oracle etc...) neeed things to change often so they can continue the revenue stream. We are stuck following and never really leading.
Worse off is the fact that even if you wanted your stuff to work for more than a couple of years, the chances of support if soemthing is wrong with the infrastructure you depend on is not that good.
For example, I have in my office Installshield 2000. I upgraded my work PC to Windows 2000 about six months ago....I needed to load a Installshield project and guess what...Installshield 2000, purchased just 18 months ago, no longer works. I call support and they say it will cost me $250 for custom support because...and here is the kicker....my version of Installshield is sooo old! Its only 18 months old!!!
My advice is roll with it.
I'm still working on a clever footer.
I've been working for myself since 1989.
I always found it incredibly difficult to suffer the incompetence of "managers" who, more often than not, get paid far too much money to do far too little work -- at least that's what I thought.
Since becoming self-employed however, I have a much greater respect for the time, effort and skill required to "manage" a business.
In fact, I've deliberately kept my own operations small whenever possible so as to avoid getting caught in the inevitable drift towards management that occurs when you start expanding and employing others. I'd rather remain down and dirty at the coalface.
One unfortunate side-effect of being self-employed in a fast-moving and highly competitive industry is that you can find yourself working 12-14 hours a day, 7 days a week.
I haven't had a vacation for over a decade and most years Christmas passed by almost without me noticing.
This type of thing is okay when you're young and you can survive on 4 hours sleep a night with a constant diet of Coke and pizza -- but I'm knocking on 50 now and it's getting bloody hard.
Sometimes I dream of retiring to become just another employee. Let someone else worry about paying my salary, keeping the overdraft topped up and filing endless government forms -- I'll just pop in for 8-9 hours a day and go fishing on the weekends.
If you're thinking of bitching about management, don't forget the old saying "never judge a man until you've walked a mile in his shoes."
There are some real asshole managers out there -- but then again, there are also some real asshole employees.
If you're really ticked off -- break away and start your own corporation.
The problem with IT is there are two completely distinct types of manager.
Type 1 are the people who are trained to be managers. The problem with them is that they have no clue what they are talking about when it comes to the technology.
Type 2 are the techies who have been promoted up. They may have been forced, kicking and screaming, to go to an afternoon management seminar or two, but they ignored it anyway. The problem with them is that they have no clue what they are talking about when it comes to the management.
The Type 1s get employed because the Type 2s are so bad at managing. The Type 2s get employed because the Type 1s are so bad at understanding the issues.
In most other careers it is accepted that while you work your way up the ranks, you also go and get MBAs, take management classes, are judged on your demonstrated managerial abilities, etc. In IT it is accepted that you are one or the other and that's just the way the world is.
Fortunately there are a few Type 1s who at least try to learn and can also accept that there are some things that they don't understand and they ask the opinions of those who do. There are also a few Type 2s that realize IT management is screwed up and want to make it better so actually buy and, more amazingly, read books like the One Minute Manager, talk to other people from other industries about improving their abilities, etc. Unfortunately there aren't that many of either sub-group. Fortunately, that does seem to be changing.
Don't get me wrong, I largely agree with the comments that say, "You don't understand - management is a whole lot more complicated than you realize, you just don't see it all." But, while that is also true, it doesn't make the two "Types" issue any less real.
Or at least that's my personal fantasy.
Anyway, my point is that if by "politics" you mean the fact that you have to deal with other people, some of whom are very different from you, and that it pays to be friends with as many of them as possible, and that it pays to understand the business imperatives of your company aside from just your narrow world of code, then you are very much correct.
When politics expands to include empty suits kissing each others asses and jerking each other off as they drive a company into the ground with nepotism and promoting their friends until the organization goes out of business at the expense of the truly competent, hardworking people who were there, then I disagree. That just shouldn't happen, in a company that is properly managed at the top levels and has accountability throughout the organization. This unfortunately seems rare.
So essentially, one reason you don't have hardware is because you don't have good looks? I should think that it would be a shortage in software (of the feminine variety) that would result...
Dyolf Knip
What I really hate about jobs -- especially those in the IT field and especially those where product development is involved, is managers who are more procedure oriented than they are concerned about our project. They're the "can't see the forest for the trees" type people.
Most of the time they're so preoccupied with doing things by what the 'book' says, even when it's horribly inefficient and not suited for the specific task.
Most of the time managers who don't know what they're doing and those who come from managing non-IT backgrounds. Beleive it or not, HR in some companies will hire managers who have simply been trained to manage in any type of business -- be that retail, industrial, even restraunt! They have no clue what it takes to manage a group of programmers, how to descpline them, hire & fire, etc. Most don't even have a firm grasp of what it is the project is doing.
When faced in these types of situations, I have found you can do three things. The first would be to gradually take the place of the manager. Start to pick up things that the specific manager is doing rather poorly, out a "special respect" toward that manager. They'll think it's flattering -- while you'll be moving in on their turf. Pretty soon you can plead your case to HR once you have eliminated them completly, and they'll get fired while you move up a position and take command once and for all. Unfortunatly, many managers can sense this, although not all, so I would be cautious, as when they since their job is in jeopardy, yours will be soon.
The second is to ride the boat. If you don't care about your resume for this position or intend to simply blame it on management, here is a good option to relax and enjoy personal projects while realizing you're working on a project that will never come to be. It's a bit dishonest, but it pays.
The third is simply to find some place else to work. Do a combination of #2 while you look for a job.
Those here who say change your attitude simply have never worked with a really bad project manager. One who seemingly makes arbitrary decisions in development, and calls meetings to discuss the thing they heard about on the news called "P2P" and wonder how we can integrate it into our word processor. These managers need to have their position pulled right out from under them and put where their only concern is managing people, not a living project (e.g. a retail environment).
"I'll just chip in a bit for RedHat: I actually have that installed on my university machine." - Linus, '95
Have you been on those things lately? I figure close to 75 percent of all the jobs listed on Monster and Dice are body shops trying to fill their skills databases, and the other 25 percent are the same old job listings that have been there for MONTHS.
A clueless friend of mine keeps me "updated" on all of these great jobs that he keeps seeing on the boards, yet he fails to make the connection that the reason the same ones keep showing up is that the companies who post are either
- clueless on how to attract/retain quality employees,
- sold on this cool, new thing call the "web", or
- have no idea what they want and are fishing for answers
Either way, they're losers; why waste time with losers?Yeah, right.
Can I borrow your soapbox for a minute? Thanks.
Fro the past 2 years I've had the opportunity to work for a "technical" manager. My boss can code right next to me in the office and hold his on with all the projects we work on. (Even though his office has a window) The real plus is he also knows how to handle both his technical and non-technical subordinates as a real manager should. He makes all the interactions between other groups in my company, and does it without sharpening his teeth on anyone's spine. So, any techie other there who feels smothered by their incompetent boss... make a run for the position yourself if you feel up to it.
I do love my job.
But I have learned to detach myself from the managers and the results that my work "should" produce.
I have programmed for over 13 years in a professional sense and come to realize that the work that I do, although I do very diligent work, much of what I program will never come to fruition or even be seen by more then me and my co-workers. I have lost sight of making a killer-app or even making an impact on any of the many industries that I have worked in. Most of my great work has been lost in miss-funded, under-funded projects, mismanaged projects, companies that go under before the product comes to market.... etc, etc.
I have not lost faith in my abilities by other's problems or misfortunes, I know that I can make a decent piece of code if needed, and meet deadlines, without sacrificing code quality, if needed, my work is still my own. Hell, toss off other's problems as their own and not yours, poor management is not a fault of the people below the managers, DUH!
Just work your ass off, like your job (or get another if you don't like programming) and in the meantime, do your own projects that you can at least have a REAL impact upon, and stop complaining about business, you can't change it (unless, of course you become...URG! a manager!)
heh.
http://www.codewolf.com - Just good stuff to waste time
In the first of my last two jobs, my direct report manager was excellent. Always on top of the situation, fully aware of what, why and how, never crowding but always there to lend a hand to get some issue moved out of my way (You rule Russ!
In my last job, the situation was considerably worse. None of my managers had a clue, no matter how goddamned often we'd explain it to them. Constant changes in focus caused by a dying business made it just about impossible to get any real projects done. I'd finish one project, then be told we would no longer need it and could I get started on this new thing right away?
In both cases, it is my opinion that the problems were always caused by management not taking software engineering seriously. These managers need to understand that the engineers and programmers are trying to do their jobs with diligence and focus, and that the success or failure of a project can control the fate of the entire company. It's that serious. It's never taken that seriously, at least so far in my experience.
"Avast! Prepare for the rodgering!" THWACK! "Arrr.. me nards.."
While the parent post might be a bit on the agressive side, I agree with it.
ALL JOBS SUCK!
At the very best, your job will suck sometimes. At the very worst, your job will suck every minute of every day. When it sucks badly enough, you quit.
Why do you think that lottery winners don't say, "well, I'm going to donate my $32 million in prize winnings to the EFF, and keep working until I'm dead or have Alzheimer's"? Because working for other people is an inherently sucky proposition. You've given up the power to make certain decisions in return for a paycheck.
Sure, I'd love to work in some perfect Nerdvana, but it doesn't exist.
This only really applies to free software developers, but say you have a day job doing one thing, and by night (or weekend or what have you) you put time into a free programming project. Since you actually work two jobs, you could say either one is your "true" job.
It doesn't matter what your day job is. You could be a waiter or a pr0nstar or a programmer in a cubicle. If you enjoy your night job more, then consider that your true job. After all, your "job" is nothing more than simply doing your part in society. If you consider free software to be more of a calling than your day job, then so be it. It is even possible that your free software project is better for society. The downside is that it may not be the job that is bringing in the money, but it is your job nonetheless. Think about it this way: if you had to choose between losing your job or losing your free software project (the latter is sort of impossible, so lets just say that it disappears in a puff of smoke), which would you choose? Which is more important?
So before you tell your friend that your job sucks, or tell your uncle at the family party that you work at a dead-end computer job, why don't you say you work on free software instead? It's a much more enjoyable job, isn't it? It also reflects what you truly want to do, and because of the impact it makes, is a much better candidate to represent your place in society.
Anyway, I got into this discussion with one of my friends the other day. I am a free software developer, but I have not finished college, and my day job sucks. He said something along the lines of: "What do your parents think about this? Are they angry you have not aspired to more? What greater plans do you have?" And to that I answer: "Greater plans? I'm doing exactly what I want to do _right now_. How can it get any better? Maybe I can improve my day job, but my night job is where the fun is."
-Justin
I think one major difference between managers at tech companies and those elsewhere is that at the tech companies they don't understand their domain. You can be an effective manager at Ford or Chrysler without knowing any automotive engineering, but same does not hold for a software company. The reason for this is that software is a new and evolving field. It needs to settle out before the managers can get a grasp on it, but in the meantime the domain keeps changing on a yearly basis.
The stereotypical software manager will want to use Windows, because that's all he knows. For some applications that's an appropriate choice, but for a great many is certainly is not. Where we work we build embedded realtime invasive medical diagnostic equipment. Management made the braindead decision to base all of our new products on a piece of medical workstation software developed at another division.
Another problem, whose source I haven't discovered, is the strange idea that you can create a quality software product in one or two years. Go look at any other industry and you'll see that it takes around five years to get a product from initial idea to the sales floor. Everyone in the automotive industry knows that new designs don't magically appear, but I've seen too many managers in software that think I can magically pull a feature out of my ass on a moment's notice.
These problems will go away, but I don't expect them to for another ten years at least. But there are companies that are on the ball. Some listen to their engineers. Some send their managers to software engineering classes. Some are in niches where the industry has settled down somewhat.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
You describe "management" as an issue, but you aren't specific. I can think of at least three things that the managerment should be doing that can be problems.
1) Process management - there's no excuse for a problem here. If the manager(s) don't understand the software development cycle, it's bad news.
2) People management - this is very much a personality issue. Some people are great at personal interaction, keeping up team morale, recognized personnel problems before they happen, etc. Others aren't. Depending on the situation, it can range from heaven to hell, with all variations in between.
3) Product management - this is the one where you have to give the most leeway. Yes, direction will change, after all, you are trying to sell something, and you've got to provide what the customers want and to do so, you're either anticipating their needs in advance, or trying to interpret them. If #1 and #2 are solid, you can live with some uncertainty here.
All that said, someone who's truly horrible in any of the categories above can do a lot of damage. If you're lucky, you get someone who's excellent in one category and can get by in the other two. Mostly, however, you get people who are just muddling along in all three.
Politics is just good common sense.
Imagine walking into a computer store with no idea of what you want or what the different technologies are. You walk up the salesman and say, "I want a good computer." You'll walk out paying twice as much as you need to, and probably not getting what you need, right?
Same goes for dealing with people. If you don't know what they want, what they value, and what you can get away with, you're likely to get screwed. I've seen perfectly intelligent techies blatantly insult their bosses (and bosses' boss) because they didn't understand who stood where on the issues. And other stupid mistakes just as bad.
And politics, irritating as it might be, is the way to not make stupid mistakes when dealing with people. To negotiate from a position of knowledge rather than a position of ignorance.
-Esme
I've been working for twenty five years for people that I wouldn't trust to know which end of a [expletive deleted] to suck.
I have come to the realization that the ONLY people I ever worked for who had a clue as to what management is about, what projects are about and what the deliverable was supposed to be were in the military.
Not that they were all that great but you could count on them not to try to 'fix' the steering on truck while its careening around a curve and heading for a cliff.
That's why a military toilet seat costs six hundred bucks. Because you can at least be sure that your ass will fit, that its over a latrine and that it will have a hole in it.
With civilian (mis-)management, they'd skip cutting out the hole and justify it as cutting out the cost. And there'd be shit everywhere.
Read "systemantics." It'll clue you in on why things are so screwed up. It won't help a damn but at least you'll know why you're getting reamed.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Both teams provided visibility on what they were doing to the execs, so the execs only had to step into the details when they thought that there was a problem. This way, the execs could treat the various departments more like black box units, and deal more with steering the ship.
It helped that the engineers were all good friends and the head of marketing for the project was smart AND reasonable....
Why is Grand Theft Auto a much more serious crime than Reckless Driving?
"I find myself putting all my energy, both mental and emotional, into a project only to be disappointed by decisions made by management."
I have a little saying I like to use in meetings or with co-workers who are taking things too seriously: "we're not curing cancer here". (needless to say, I'm not working in cancer research). Work is work - it's something I do to pay my rent, keep food on the table, and support my other interests. If you find yourself putting all your emotional energy into work, you should seriously re-evaluate the priorities in your life. I am fortunate in that I generally like what I do, but I will not drain myself emotionally for any job - the sum of money required to turn me into an emotional wreck far exceeds the market's willingness to compensate me.
--Gus
"You don't have to become Machiavelli and you don't have to stab backs."
Machiavelli has nothing to do with stabbing backs or being an asshole. If anybody ever takes the time to read and understand "The Prince", they would understand that it outlines common archtypes(sp) of people, how they can be dealt with, and how to switch power from them to you. It's to politics (personal and otherwise) what "The Ancient Art of War" is to battle (both physical, mental, and emotional).
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
I hunker down and code most of the time, plan stuff, and handle inevitable admin tasks. I have another IT guy I've worked with before coming on board soon to handle networking and tech support. My budget is whatever I need, within reason. I'm a tightwad - most-bang-for-the-buck kinda guy, but if I need to spend $20,000 I can. It's nice.
While I made a good living for rural Louisiana, I'm not driving a Porsche or anything. I make about half of what I could make in a major metro. But I work 45 minutes from my home town, telecommute a day a week, have deep local roots, and get to hang out with my friends and have a life. Don't mean to rub it in, but life is great.
God don't let me fuck this up!
Be glad you have a job that pays reasonably well.
If you're a man, you do what you gotta do to provide for your family.
Quit your bitching, suck it up, and try to make things better yourself instead of complaining like a little baby about stuff that doesn't even matter.
So because people die, we shouldn't try to find cures for diseases?
Just because all jobs suck to some degree doesn't mean you don't try to find ways of lessening the pain, and making the work you do more meaningful.
Doug
Venn ist das nurnstuck git und Slotermeyer? Ya! Beigerhund das oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!
Those who can't do tend to teach/lead. A corollary to this fact is that if we follow too close, we all fall into the ditch together. I don't mind the work I'm given. The processes we are measured by (ie SLAs, projected dates met for projects, etc) doesn't accomodate for team members measurement making them appear as though they are lazy bums. We lose one person to a competitor, they give the complimentary 2-week notice and my management takes 4 to 6 months to justify even having the position the individual held. Meanwhile, the SLA is going to hell in hand-basket with only a few people left in the team. They are stressed out from going to "pep- talk" meetings about working smarter . . . requested to work at 200% with fully documentable work performed . . . the ever tightening budget forces us to abandon even the most rudamentary office supplies: pens and paper. I have become a clepto stealing pens without even knowing I'm doing it. My co-worker hordes his supplies in a 1962 filing cabinet with a makeshift padlock system (I think I know where he hides the key). The entire building got recarpeted except . . you guessed it . . the I.T. dept. Tiles are coming loose from the floor and our storage area has the relative temperature of the outdoors. I swear the critters that share the wonderful space we call "The Hell Hole" aren't paying rent. I believe we have some pigeons in the area by the frequent disgruntled blanket of poo covering the boxes. I guess that would be the lack of REAL windows barring the elements and wild from coming in. Oh, did I fail to mention that our little storage room houses the only fire extinguisher for that building? Also, it has the only access to the breaker panels. It was a wonderful time to get written up for several safety violations. Who could miss the boxes stacked to the ceiling in the hall causing the fire marshal to frown? I can't complain, I still got my hair I suppose. We have complained, written requests and it just falls on deaf ears. You know, I should ask the earlier poster about a job with the garbage crew.
Part of of the philosophy if (mis-)management is to ONLY give you as much information as some ignorant fool thinks you need to do your job.
Since they don't have to do it, they feel that things like knowing WTF you're supposed to be doing and how you're supposed to be doing it is not important. You don't need to know that.
Of course they then get pissed off that you couldn't read their minds afterwards.
But NEVER quit! NEVER! Even if they offer to let you or get really disagreeable at a meeting.
Quit and you're kissing your unemployment cheques goodbye. That's something they DON'T tell you while they're berating you. That's a lesson for experience. And a fuckin' bitter one at that.
Get nasty. Go Postal on their asses. Get fired for being a total prick but DON'T EFFIN' QUIT.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Libral Arts graduates are not supposed to manage people, nor do they have the proper education to do so.
Computer Science graduates are not supposed to manage people, nor do they have the proper education to do so.
History graduates are not supposed to manage people, nor do they have the proper education to do so.
These are ridiculous generalizations that have absolutely no bearing in the "real world". Check out the backgrounds of the great corporate leaders of the last half-century. Read "Good to Great" or another book that describes their qualities.
Where they all "commerce graduates"? Was there an engineer in there? An arts grad? How did that happen? They weren't "supposed" to be there?
You are taking a deterministic approach that says the degree you choose when you are seventeen determines if you ever have the capacity to lead. How absurd.
doubt it. "those who cant program manage?" .
i think you really have to program for a while first, understand whats right/wrong in the management, prepare yourself, and only then go into management. merits of the MBA are debatable (although i am not denying the usefulness or anything like that)
and i definitely agree with many people who don't equate good programmers with good managers. i do believe, though, that if you were to sample the level of request from the programmers, then managers who used to program would come out on top.
Of course I love my job. Where else could I spend so much time on Slashdot?
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Good managers are few and far between, as I can honestly say I've only had 3 solid managers in 25 years. I'll end my rant by saying 'hang in there', as I've been out of work over 6 months. (Still hacking every day!)
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
Hi there.
Your post has all the classic elements of the "I have no power, the world is spinning out of control and I'm along for the ride" complaint which people seem to enjoy.
Perhaps the best thing you can do is to understand that you are in control of your own destiny, and to take charge of it.
To give you a work-related example, I tend to do the same basic job day-in, day-out. I used to have to code for each specific case, and it was a royal PITA. Eventually, I got so fed up with that, I decided that I would throw a solution together which didn't require me to do custom coding; instead, I would simply reconfigure the one program to suit the problem.
Nobody told me to do that; nobody really expected me to do that. However, now I've shared that little tool with others in my company, and everyone loves it because it reduces their tedious workload too.
Self-empowerment is a good thing.
Quite possibly for a lot less money, and quite possibly trapped in that job under threat of having to leave the US and go back to their home country if they complain. And they certainly can't shop around for a better job even if there were any.
Managers are bad in general because they can get away with it. What? The programming staff thinks they're incompetent and leaves? Hire someone else. In these days when jobs are scarce (despite false industry claims that the shortage continues), managers don't have to satisfy their underlings; they have to satisfy their own boss, or it might be them out on the street. This is one of the reasons why so many companies totally suck, but it's all about brown-nosing, and never about doing good work.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
You can find a cure for a disease, but you can't find a cure for a sucky job.
Sure, you can improve the conditions that you work under. You can make your work "more meaningful", but you cannot eliminate the fact that, no matter what your job is, there will be times that you don't like it. You can't get around it -- no matter what job you have, at some point it will suck.
It's a balancing act. Does the money+self-gratification balance out the suckiness of your job? If the answer is "yes", you stay. If the answer is "no", you leave.
My point isn't that all jobs are always miserable, it is that every person needs to define what an acceptable amount of work-related misery is.
I read a Cutter article the other day that said something like the following:
>
> approaches. For example, it may be necessary
> to tell the business that IT cannot meet all of
> the commitments it has made, but it wants to
> meet the top three or four. If -- and this can
> be a big "if" -- the business will at least
> identify its top three or four needs, then IT
> must meet its commitments. As the first
> commitments are met, the next most important
> are addressed, and they too must be met. This
> is the only way to build a record of success
> that can anchor a better business-IT
> relationship
Interestingly, this is similar to the approach taken by XP in matching requirements to functionality over a fixed release cycle.
This observation has lead me to a new idea that I am tossing around which I am calling "Extreme Management".
XM Key Features:
- "Extreme(ly) Testing"
The patience of engineering staff is tested
time and time again as clueless techno-
philistine managers argue the toss over such
business-critical issues as:
- "Is my data interchange format XML?"
- "You should be using Sybase tables as a
persistent message store!"
- "That's easy - it's just a matter of
turning on replication."
- "Messaging! Rubbish, what's wrong with
FTP?"
- "You Aren't Going to Need It (YAGTNI-tm)"
Strategy? What strategy? We don't need no
stinkin' strategy!"
- "Continuous Reorganisation"
Bored? Have a meeting? Better still,
reorganise your team, group or even division!
It's easy if you follow these 4 simple steps:
Step 1: Create new, sexy acronyms for your
team, group or division
Step 2: Move people around, preferably
between buildings and floors
Step 3: Reduce available employee desk space,
particularly for support and
infrastructure staff (ie those with
the most kit)
Step 4: Watch that bonus figure climb!
So, get an XM programme working in your team today!
You probably say "Duh! Tell me something I don't know!", but the important thing in this statement is to define what office politics is. My definition:
Office Politics: Occurs when a portion of a company, be it a division, team, or single individual, competes actively against another portion of the same company instead of working for the good of the company.
Think about it. You and the people you work with are supposed to be on the same team, working towards the same goal. As long as this is the case (the situation with my currect job), work is great, exciting, and productive. When this is not the case (e.g., divisional infighting, backstabbing, etc...) things start to unravel. Why? Because now people have to waste their time defending themselves against the people they work with, efficiency drops and production shrinks to next to nothing.
How does this happen? I've witnessed the following reasons, in no particular order (there may be other reasons I have not witnessed):
This happened where I currently work. Team A decided that it would secretly create software exactly like what Team B (my team) was working on. They decided they could do it better. Team A got away with it for a few months (that's a few months of wasted resources), until the VP noticed and said "what the hell do you think you are doing?" Team A no longer works for the company. This also happened at my previous employer, except that Team A was not kept under control. The resulting conflict led to the mass resignation of most of the developers in Team B.
These are all related. If left long enough (1) becomes (2), which will eventually lead to (3). I personally am lucky enough to work for a company which does not suffer from (2) or (3), and is taking steps to correct (1).
OK, I've rambled for long enough. Thanks for reading this far.
Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
When I got out of college I had a hard time transitioning to the real world. Sure I was technically doing a job I liked and was good at, but I hated my job. I realized it was because I didn't really get along with the people I worked with, either because of attitude, management style, ineptness, etc. No matter how much I liked the actual work, the people I worked with somehow turned me off.
Then I realized why it was so hard for me at first. When I was in school, I spent most of my time w/ my friends. I chose my friends. We could do anything and have fun. When I joined the real world, I spent most of my time w/ people that I would never become friends with, nor want to even associate with outside of work.
I also remember thinking back to a time in High School when I worked at a major resort in the laundry room. The job itself was crap, but the reason I took it was because a few of my friends worked in the same place. I did this for two summers and it was a total blast.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that people tend to put a lot of emphasis on "what" they're doing and not as much on "who" they're doing it with. I've come to realize over the years it's really the "who" that matters more (at least to me anyway). I'd pretty much take any job if I could work with a lot of people I get along with and actually want to hang out with, both in and out of work.
But then again, different people have different priorities in their jobs. Mine is just to have fun, and that usually starts with the people I interact with every single day, moreso than it is what I'm actually doing that day.
>Machiavelli has nothing to do with stabbing backs or being an asshole.
You are correct.
Looks like I wasn't very clear. A better way to put it:
We don't need to be as insightful as Machiavelli nor as ruthless as the back-stabbers.
Is it the stress? Is it the interpersonal conflicts? Is it the impotent feeling when you're halted at every turn? Is it perhaps that you don't feel you are contributing or even allowed to contribute to the Good of Humanity?
Now that you've identified exactly what your main beef is, and what specific event is causing you unhappiness, you decide your course appropriately... Since life's never perfect, with every relationship you get into (business, personal, etc) you have to decide what you're willing to put up with for what you get out of it. Then, how you deal with any given situation is entirely up to your limits.
I mean, when you get right down to it, you really only have three options:
So, for example, say that you make a perfectly valid and technically sound solution to an old problem at work. Management tells you that they don't want to expend the effort, so they tell you to just concentrate on maintaining the old, buggy, solution. You realize this effective dissing is your main problem with work because it makes you feel underappreciated. Whether management is right or not is not the issue... they could be dead wrong, or there could be external circumstances which make them 'right' -- it doesn't matter. All that matters is if you are willing to put up with this on a consistent basis. Like I said, it all comes down to what you are willing to put up with.
The really nice thing about this sort of introspection is that it can often illuminate flaws in your thinking, and flaws in how you emotionally react to events in your life. You might think you're miserable at your job for one reason, when it turns out it's an entirely different thing that's causing your unhappiness.
If this sort of thinking lifestyle appeals to you, check out Feeling Good , by Dr. David Burns. It's kind of a handbook for cognitive behavioral therapy which is based on these types of concepts. Really interesting stuff.
Anyway, hope this helps.
- Jonathan
To me, this sentence is quite telling. What's going on here is two mistaken assumptions. Your manager incorrectly assumes that you are not a thinking, feeling being who cares about anything. You incorrectly assume that your manager does perceive you as a thinking, feeling being.
At NASA, you probably ran into some fine managers. They probably acted as mentors to less experienced folks, and could interact with almost anybody with a high degree of compassion. You'll probably find that, uniformly, these were people with strong technical backgrounds, which inclined them to connect in a human way with their subordinates, who also had technical backgrounds.
Non-technical managers come to the engineering world not for intellectual stimulation, but because there is money to be made. To them, you are a means to an end, and a necessary evil they'd prefer to do without. They are uncomfortable with technology, and they resent you for being comfortable with it. They would prefer to think of you as an appliance. They don't want your thoughts, input, or passion. They want your behavior to be predictable, and ideally controllable.
What do you get in compensation? You get to avoid a bunch of activities that you would probably not enjoy. You don't need to put together a sales pitch for the technology you make, and you don't need to entertain and suck up to a bunch of potential customers, most of whom will disappear without providing a dime of revenue. You don't need to keep the supply cabinet stocked, or make sure everybody has their medical benefits and their W2 form.
What compensation do the managers get for the unpleasant world they live in? They stand close to the portal whereby money enters the company. When money comes in, they're the ones who get to decide how much goes to whom.
how can I feel good about the work I'm doing if I don't have confidence in my management?
Start by being objective about your situation. I've described some unpleasant experiences I've had in the past, but discard whatever doesn't apply to your own situation. Discriminate between the situation itself, and your own wishes and thoughts about it: your curiosity, your urge to contribute and be recognized, your craving for a sense of belonging, all that stuff. There isn't a magic formula for happiness, but if you can recognize the mechanisms at work, you have a better shot at it.
WWJD for a Klondike Bar?
I'm currently an intern at a telecommunications that competes with MaBell. I must say, it is a great opportunity!
I get to format computer HDDs and stick Linux on them to be set up as Linux servers for useful things like SIP (VoIP stuff) and creating web servers. I've learn a ton of stuff about Linux and what's better is I get paid $9/hr! It's like paid training! Of course I do administer Windows2k Servers, but it's still good to learn other OSes. Also I get other benefits like free 2.7mbit DSL with 5 static IPs, and two domain names.
I have only four complaints. First of all, I take it for granted all the time, and I need to realize that I'm truly lucky. Second, things can be a bit disorganized and the boss just wants things done, fast. Third, security isn't really big deal to them, but I think it is, of course this goes back to them just wanting things done. Finally, since it's a telecommunications company I have dealt with many co-workers getting laid off and it sucks. It sucks seeing hard working adults with families having to leave their jobs, while I'm still here and I don't *need* the job. What's worse, is that I've also gotten a job offer from another company (that I now also work with) that deals with wireless internet access.
It's crazy having all these opportunities at 17, I just hope they're still here in the future. Of course I'm careful with my money (cheap) and I've saved most of my money that I've made. Unfortunately because of this (at least I think so) I don't have a girlfriend or a car (I'll wait.)
So to keep this post ontopic, I would say I love my job (internship) and I agree management can be a pain in the ass if they don't know what they're doing, don't take input from workers, and become nazis. Basically, you should have the proper qualifications for the job.
Sometimes it's not the managers, sometimes it's life that sucks. The managers are trying to make business run in a chaotic world. Economies, the competitors, the shareholders, the investors, the ceos etc are constantly throwing curveballs at you. The engineers and the rest of the geeks would like to be shielded from all that but it's just not possible.
War is necrophilia.
Sure, I'd love to work in some perfect Nerdvana, but it doesn't exist.
Only because you don't have the balls to make it exist. If you hate the hampster wheel, go start your own company doing consulting or something. You might make less money, but screw it. What's more important to you? Being happy or having expendable income to waste on gas-guzzling autos, bleeding-edge geek toys, and a two story suburban energy drain?
This is not meant as a direct flame, only a general response.
I am completely happy that you have a job that you love. I also have a job that I love. It makes it tough to think that when I move on I most likely will not be able to find a job that I like as much as this one. This job provides me with people I like and that like me, fresh challenges that are fun to solve, and general work that I find engaging. Of course this job pays me (and not to bad), but money is low on my reasons for liking my job. I often go into the office well after hours to play with different ideas.
I would gladly forgo the large house or the expensive vehicle for a job that I love for these reasons. I am not in this industry to make money, I am in it because I love what I do. While your comments cannot be used as a direct reflection on Microsoft, it's interesting that you quickly jumped to monetary reasons for liking your job. A new truck, expensive house and good benefits can all be nice things, but they only display the quality of your job, not the quality of your work. Ask yourself if you would still be there if you made less money and had to drive an older car. Microsoft itself seems to be more interested in inacting world dominance then it is concerned with the quality of it's products. It could stand to reason that they try to keep that mentality within the company as well.
This probably paints a somewhat incorrect picture of you, and you're welcome to rebutle and say that you also enjoy other things about your job. But the deed is done and you've already given in to money as your first, instinctive reaction to why your job is good. No matter what I do for a living I want to be able to say I like it for it's inherent qualities, not because it makes me a lot of dough.
I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.
Well, thats not quite true, I move to managment, then ran like the wind to tech support...
;), anyway the boss liked it, and it was used natation wide, the Project manager was _still_ nowhare to be seen, so we othered to expand the training system to become gerneric with a fancy GUI builder, so we worked on that untill TWO WEEKS before project ended, then (and only then) we actually MET the Project Manager (*MS TaaaDaaaa*), and was told that this cool sounding-buzzword-compatable system we are suppost to develop was some web pages, and a little drop of java. Poo! Two weeks, and the pages are done (baddly, we were developers, not fscking artists!) and we were and we ran away from that job, never to speak of it again. :)
:)
Well, heres my story...
First Job (code monkey (3) & part time DBA(we had a full time DBA who doubled as Project Manager, but his time was limited)): At a uni, developing a Java based student regrestation system. This was good, we got the project done, but it was far from perfect.
Code Monkey's Team Leader kept scrapping the code base every few weeks (in the end, I moved my stuff to very generic code, that could be placed anywhere).
The TL & CM#2 throw chairs at each other.
The last week of the project the project manager when off home, and the TL was talking about scrapping the code base and moving on, we (the other CM's) were dead against it (and backed up our code), TL had just completed the GUI we'd even seen, scrapped the code, and developed one half as good, then (2 days before project end) scrapped the code again (rm -rf jreg!) and said he was off to see his mum for a week!!!
so off we went to see our SA, who, as luck would have it was on hols, and (as it was the summer holiday, no one else thought of making backups!!!).
So, two days, we throw together a GUI, and russed it out the door (thank [the] [g|G]od[dess][[es]s] for the back up's of our code we made)!
Job Number Two, Code Monkey again, but this time in a team of two code monkeys.
I went to the interview, went, yeah that sounds cool, i'll do it! This was at a Hospital
Came to work, was given a laptop, told you can work from home as there is no room here, Ohh the Project Manager is on holiday! We'll start the project next week, but in the min time, could you create an "Online Nurse Training System for [some long medical term]" Here is the pamplet, a week later, we have the basics out (needed a lot of working, but basicly worked, they had to hire a Java programmer to change it
It had some plusses thou, knowing that your work (both the shitty web pages and funky online testing system) were being used by people all over the medical community, and the work-from-home == lots_of_halflife.
Job Three: IT Manager
This was cool to begin with, I had POWER and a company credit card.
But with abolute power, comes abolute responcability, any problems, the MD's shout at ME! Dam it, I can't even rm -rf ~md, and I'd just get it in the neck! Well, a year and a half latter, and I can't stand it any more, also the project I which sold me on this job gets canned, I move from project to project (ranging from Web to Access to VB (uck)) which was fun, as when yr get board of PERL so move to VB
So, my contract is running out (it was only for 1.5 yrs) and I say "good bye, thanks for the drinks", do some interviews for my replacement, say "she would be Great!, what you need down to a T" (and bloody sexy too). So they hire some bloke that, well could do the current project, I guess... just...
So off I move again. Pissed of people blaming me when it all goes tit's up, pissed of at people scrapping code i've worked hard on, just pissed of really, work is not for me...
Well I get othered a job as "On-site IT Support Executive (Night)" At first I though, Hmmm night, no cuddling my g/f (which is still a BIG problem) but then the magic words were spoken... More Money and only work four nights a week.
Sold me.
It must be near 6 months now, and it's great. Don't do much work. Something goes wrong, we (me, and the "users") blame the day staff. It's great.
Even better sence I've downloaded NTEmacs, Cygwin and ProxyTunnnel (woo, SSL (and more importently CVS.sf.net) access!)
So there you have it, managers are a PITA for developers, (I've not had a problem with my current IT Manager, Project Leader, or EVEN CTO), but then it's a crap job at the top, people you can't fire blame you), so be kind your manager, say "I Quit", and find a nice cusshy job like Systems Support and some SF projects that sound like fun
mlk
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
But there are plenty more cases where management is bad. That's why there's such a rise in chain and franchise operations in retailing - there's such a shortage of people with real management skills at the local level that a cookie-cutter approximation of a solution can actually perform better on average than a solution based on intimate knowledge of a particular market - the franchise operation retains the cookie-cutter while cutting down on peer-level conflicts between managers. If management talent were thick on the ground local ownership would do best, followed by larger organizations with good internal communications and local autonomy, and franchises would be dead last.
Bad management is also rife in non-profits and educational settings - it's not just the profit motive that brings it out.
Is there an "as above, so below" aspect to it? Are so many people bad managers of other people because they are not doing so well at "managing" themselves? In my experience, the best managers are the least neurotic; and we're in a society, as Freud noted, in which most everyone is neurotic (although there's a shift to borderline disorder since his time). Can our culture increase the numbers of capable managers without somehow finding a way to increase the incidence of psychological roundedness that's required to be a capable person, period?
And would shifting the culture out of the prevalence of neurotic incapability threaten social systems which somewhat depend on neurosis as a point-of-leverage for social control?
____
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
< turn sarcastic voice on :-) >
.... many (most?) commerce grads make very poor managers especially in the tech industry. Being non-technical they have little appreciation for what really drives tech people (no, reading case studies does not count) and hence they have no real clue how to handle or motivate techies.
... which we all know as the PHB.
Typical of a commerce student to write screenful after screenful of text without getting to the point!
Let's put it simply: The best manager is someone who understands people, who understands the business, and who understands what happens in the business.
That's it - no other description or explanation required.
Now for the record
Worst, having read all these wonderful case studies, these commerce grads think they know how to handle tech people and just come across as these pompous arrogant know-it-alls
Yet Steve Ballmer is a loudmouth with a temper who berates employees and not only leads the world's most powerful tech company, but he is also one of the wealthiest people in the world.
For every "communicator" I can show you a goose-stepper who gets results (and vice versa).
We've been trying to solve this problem since the days of Fred Brooks, and we probably never will.
A more difficult problem for job seekers is the phase shift that is happening in the industry right now. i.e. the wholesale move from infrastructure (OS's and applications) to services (support, training, script glue work, etc).
I pride myself on being a "Hacker of the Old School" (HOTOS). But there simply aren't any jobs for HOTOS'es any more. It's all gone to MCSE's, sysadmins, and PHP/Perl/SQL script monkeys.
A few days ago, I hired a career consultant to help me find a new career away from programming. It's either that or slowly go mad in the declining IT industry.
I love programming, but the industry doesn't love the kind of programming I do anymore. :-(
Anyone else find it funny that these are the people that end up managing the CS and CPE graduates when they get a job after college? Maybe this is the reason why management sucks so much.
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
Your point, on the other hand, sums it up well.
he probably caught that. thus the smile in his statment.
I have no idea what they are teaching people in business school, but it sure as hell isn't logic. In my last ten jobs (as a contract worker, I get to see a LOT of different managment techniques), I have seen one theme that never seems to go away. Short term gains are always prefered over long term gains. This is basically the problem with the business world. This is the reason why a slapped together 5 minute patch that solves the problem for a week is almost universally preferred by managment to a wll thought out 5 day patch that will solve the problem permanatly.
I call it the "100% tax rate" syndrome. If you are looking at the super short term, a 100% tax rate would balace the budget, remove the deficit, and give us trillions and trillions in surplus. We would be the most powerful and prosperous America ever. Look rosy and wonderful to you? Well of course not, becuase you know that the end result will be that everyone will be dead of starvation after the first year. But the kind of thinking that management uses today convieniently ignores the second year, and just presents the first year as a utopia.
That's why a time consuming code review is never done, becuase the *short-term* gain of code review is negative. That's why you are forced to maintain shoddy, spaghetti code, becuase a formal rewrite would not buy you anything fast enough. That's why business ethics and integrity are a thing of the past...those kind of assets are viable for companies that have thier eyes set on the future, not the now.
The end result of all this is that to us engineers, who are ALWAYS thinking about the bigger picture, is that we view out management as completely incompetent. We don't realize that they are actually doing a *wonderful* job at accomplishing thier goals: realizing meaningless short-term gains.
The *other* end result is that we see things like the dot-com boom-to-bust cycle, where a new startup seems to take off like a rocket, causing everyone to jump on board, and then swiftly take a nose-dive.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
Even if I worked for myself (and was happier and made less money) there would still be times that my job sucked. It might suck less, but it would still suck once in a while.
/. would love to hear how it's done.
You can't derive perfect happiness from your job. I don't care what you do, if you're doing it for money, there are going to be days that you wished your job could be different in some aspect.
If you're working for money (even if it's coming from a company that you own) you are on "the hampster wheel". You're providing something for someone else in order to make money. Some people run on a hampster wheel filled with lethal obstacles while being chased by management; some people saunter along the wheel and get off and on as they choose.
The fact remains, they're all still on the hampster wheel chasing after dollars.
I can't work in a perfect job. (Unless someone is going to start giving me money while I do whatever the hell I want to do). There is no perfect job.
There are better jobs and worse jobs, but -- my point remains -- all jobs will suck at some time or another. Every person has to determine when the suckiness of a job no longer balances out with the paycheck+enjoyment of work.
If you can make the perfect Nerdvana, please let us know how to do it. I'm sure that every single person on
If you're working for a large corporation the single biggest mistake to make is to derive your job satisfaction from your "accomplishments". Very few companies develop cures for cancer and despite what your company says, if they are not in this field then chances are they're still stalled at the "find uses for opposable thumbs" stage.
I always recommend people consider whether they are being paid well, and whether they have the opportunity to be promoted. If they pay you well, shut up and get to work. If there is REAL opportunity to advance then ignore the current situation.
However never stay if your career path is compromised, and don't think your great performance will turn crappy pay into awesome pay. If they don't appreciate you at a low salary then they are GUARANTEED not to appreciate you for twice the price...
how can I feel good about the work I'm doing if I don't have confidence in my management?
First ask your self these questions?
1 -- Who the Hell am I to judge Management? As brilliant as I am did I have the fortitude and cash to start a company that employs enough people to have managers?
2 -- Why do I need to _feel good_ about my work in a non quantifable way? Why can't I simply be satisfied in the work I accomplish? Do I honestly believe that that every person who has a job _feels good_ about their work? Do taxi drivers; warehousemen; burger flippers; lumberjacks; DCMA lawyers; Senators; sys admins need to _feel good_ about their work or can they just get it done? Can knowing you're good be enough satisfaction? Can doing your job to the best of your abilities be the bronze ring?
3 -- Other than the deadline and some parameters; what do I really need to know?
4 -- When the economy totally tanks and no one is wiling to pay me to manipulate text in a way that a computer can understand it; will I care about _feeling good_ about my work or will the fact that i haven't had to sell any organs this week to make my mortgage be enough?
5 -- Am I insane to be caring about how I feel about managers in this economy?
See how those five questions get answered and then Q-Tip the shit out of your brain and get a job.
This
hard core geeks don't like to manage stuff, they just like to be geeks. some of the best and most famous geeks are lousy managers (linus, and theo come to mind).
likewise, managers don't enjoy the little things that goes with being a geek. like when some kick-ass algorithm is finally working nicely (how about getting a pre-emptable kernel patch to work). the manager will want to know is it on schedule, on budget, are there any issues that you see that can/will prevent those two sacred things from coming across? maybe they'll want to know if it meets the requirements, but that's a toss up.
you're right that most managers have worked up the ranks, starting as a developer/pseudo-geek, but once they're out of it for a year or so, they stop drikning coffee, stop drinking jolt cola, quit the all-nighter coding binges, and they get a girlfriend (small side benefit to management i assume; this part could be corporate sponsored i don't know).
It seems like management at this company is just winging it.
They are. That is to say, we are. I recently was promoted from senior engineering to management. It's a different perspective, to say the least. But your basic impression is the right one: we're making this up as we go along.
The people in management aren't smarter than you. They're just people, like everybody else. They make some good choices and some bad ones. They go home at the end of the day and complain about you to their wives and neighbors. They feel bad when the company is doing badly, and they feel good when things are going well.
In other words, they're just like you.
I find myself putting all my energy, both mental and emotional, into a project only to be disappointed by decisions made by management.
I think that's kind of the point. Way back in high school, us American kids were taught that our government is basically, and deliberately, adversarial. The various parts of government argue and bicker all the time for a reason: out of the arguing and bickering comes a consensus that is the vector sum of all the separate factors that went into the decision. At least, that's the idea.
Companies work the same way. Marketing says, "Deliver all features, immediately!" Engineering says, "We need six months for quality assurance testing." This isn't a symptom of something wrong with the system. This is, in fact, a sign that everything is as it should be.
If we all put our egos away for a minute, we could admit that a company run solely by engineers probably wouldn't do very well. Either it would go out of business before it could ship a product (if the engineers were anal retentive about QC and testing) or it would fail because its products were shabby (if your engineers were mavericks who aren't interested in QC and testing).
Engineers and managers, like cats and dogs, will always be at cross purposes. If you're disappointed by management's decisions, that may not necessarily be a bad thing.
Of course, it you take it too seriously, and find yourself believing that you could do things better than your management could, then maybe it's not the right job for you. Or, more accurately, maybe you're not the right person for that job.
OK. I'll start with a disclaimer that my techniques to adapt to management are bases on the fact that I'm not afraid of my boss and that I'm never afraid that he'd fire me because my time estimate was too long. That said, how I deal with any given manager varies by the individual and typically includes many different tactics.
For one, I almost always base my time estimates on how long it will take to do the job the "right way" (the time usually works out to double my gut reaction to the question, "how long will it take you to do this?"). If I'm dealing with a manager who doesn't want it done the right way, I add another 50% to the estimate then I take it off when he "forces" me to get the job done sooner. Oh, and I should mention that the preceding flies in the face of what comes naturally to software engineers - the urge to give an optimistic estimate. Because, for some reason, it makes the engineer feel good to say that "I can do it in *this* short of time". Well, you're boss will be more impressed if you can meet your deadline, even if it was padded to meet with reality.
Another thing that I do is pad my estimates to make time for refactoring. I pretty much stick to rewriting modules that communicate with the new code. The rewrite typically involves design improvements and removing dependences that crept into places hey shouldn't have. In my 11 years of software engineering, this over-engineering has always resulted in SHORTER development cycles. Sure it doesn't feel that way early on, but by time your done with bug fixing and last minute feature changes, you'll be glad that you over-engineered the crap out of it. BTW, don't ever tell your manager that you're over-engineering, tell your manager what he/she wants to hear, work a few extra hours each week and watch him kiss your feet when you're able to incorporate those last minute changes w/out destabilizing the software and without pushing the release date back even further.
I could go on-and-on... oh, too late...
As a famous engineer once said, "you can't gain the reputation as a miracle worker if you tell him how long it actually takes."
Also, the last time I checked, CompUSA payed about as much as the fast food places.
------ Work is so much easier when you don't
We have a large population of MIS majors at my school..... having no concept of why anyone would want to be in a management position iask them at every oppurtunity to explain to me, why they want the job.
Answer is always, MONEY.
Fact is, it pays well. MIS majors don't go into it because they want to lead, norbecause they have the capacity to lead, they want the fast cash. Most MIS majors that have taken some classes with me are disagreeable, standofish, and very disrespectful of other's opinions. It reminds me of two kinds of people:
1) people who want lots of money.
2) managers
Quite frankly, I don't even think MIS should exist as a major ANYWHERE, in my own, humble, few years of work as a part time contractor, the best managers, with the happiest staff, and the best results, are former programmers themselves. They can cod, which earsn them respect from their team members, plus they know what is reasonable and what is not. They have been pulled into the position because someone with a brain above them saw that they had a flair for taking charge. So you get a guy who can motivate, and get in the dirt and lend a hand on the task at hand.
Your average manager unfortunately, is like a stereotypical 90 day wonder in the army. The Lt from Good morning Vietnam is a classic example, thinsk because he outranks you, and makes more money than you that he commands respect and is better than you. very few people command respect, and when a person thinks they are better than you, they usually aren't commanding respect.
but again.... management.
not spell checking cause its late, sue me.....
--Nuintari
slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.
this is slashdot. you're a network admin. the real reason is you don't want your pager to go off, telling you in shrill tones that every router you own has just gone Tits Up due to inbound traffic... ;-) You can be honest here, you're among friends.
(And yeah, I agree with you, working in a casual atmosphere rules. It's worth the pay cut if you have to take it, to show up wearing what you want and know that you have a good chance of making it through the day without getting screamed at.)
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
Dude, what are you smoking?.. There are heaps of jobs out there that can be enjoyed.
I'm a linux software developer, doing game related stuff. I absolutely love it. It has my two pations, games and linux...
There is absolutely nothing I love more than the feeling of success of getting something working (yah, geek, no life, no gf).. And I also love the problems I have to get around.. Everyday I work I feel my mind expanding, learning more cool stuff.
A job _should_ be enjoyable.. a job will be anywhere between a 1/6th and a 1/3rd of your life, including sleeping - so you better enjoy it... The "put up or shut up" attitude of yours is quite pathetic.
If you goto your job and dont like it, you dont want to be there, you want to be anywhere but there - then either you need to get a new job or improve the current one. Who cares where the pay is comming from? Whats the point of a life thats unhappy..
stuff
Unfortunately it seems to be the nature of the game. Of the organizations I've worked for and consulted for I've yet to run into a management team that was more than barely competent, at best. Most of the time management at all levels was truly pathetic. The larger the corporation, the more likely I was to discover an army of brain-dead morons at the rudder of the corporate ship.
Of course, nothing beat government. Even Symantec wasn't as bad as government. I learned over time that government is where management went when they were too stupid to hack it in the real world. The corporate world often reflects Dilbert to a startling, and disheartening, degree; the government world makes Dilbert look *reasonable*.
(Aside: vast personal experience with management has convinced me that conspiracy theories a la X-Files are a complete crock of shit. You add one managerial-type to your conspiracy and you might as well shoot yourself.)
What I've noticed about management is that it tends to attract people interested in wielding power over others. People like this get into a managerial position because they're willing to do the things that professionals find annoying (e.g., coordinate schedules, do payroll, sell to clients, etc.). Once one of these boys has his foot in the door he works overtime to get more of his kind into the company; after a certain critical mass is reached you no longer have a prayer of reversing the trend. The PHB's outnumber the normal folks who originally took up the position because no one else wanted it, and they maneuver to get rid of competence in favor of people who're more like them.
And then, of course, they sit around playing power games with one another and with their employees, wasting valuable resources trying to impress themselves and everyone else with just how important they are.
In my experience - and this is completely, utterly anecdotal - a corporation is always somewhat inefficient. This inefficiency grows with size. But the inefficiency is *compounded* by managerial fools whose primary role is to gather resources around them like one massive penis enlargement pill, so that when they whip it out in meetings everyone else will say "ah!". In effect, these 'managers' are nothing more than balding frat boys, counting budgets and personnel for prestige points rather than the number of women they've bedded during the last semester.
I'm sure there are exceptions. There has to be, somewhere. I've just never run into them in the for-profit or government arenas. The only time I've seen something in management approaching an actual concern with the efficiency of the organization is in non-profits. The most efficient organizations I've ever seen have all been open-source projects with project leaders who do their best *not* to manage. But the latter are hobbies and money has been taken out of the equation, so they don't qualify as models for business.
Having painted that depressing picture, what do you do? Not a whole lot. That's just the way things are and if you want to keep a job playing 'outraged revolutionary' is an incredibly naive thing to do. The people who tell you "if you don't like it then quit" are the ones who've never gone hungry in their lives, or don't have families to support - generally the young and stupid who've yet to be bitch-slapped by life, or who can run home to mommy and daddy if they think the world is treating them unfairly.
For the rest of us, who know what it's like to miss a meal or three, or who've had times in a bad economy when the checking account is low and the panic over the rent starts to set in, being young and stupid isn't an option. You kick back and make the best of a poor situation because the alternative is much, much worse than the shitheads you have to put up with at work.
In an effort to end this rambling rant, your job is pretty typical. What you're experiencing is the norm. Cultivate cynicism now and avoid the rush.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
One scary moment that everybody should experience before they consider themselves an adult is the final realization that everybody is just winging it. People like Bill Gates or Thomas Jefferson or [insert your hero here] are simply better then winging it then others.
It's scary. Your government is winging it. Your doctor is winging it. The CIA, FBI, FDA, FCC, the Supreme Court, the Russian Government, Al-Qaeda, they're all winging it. Some a little less then others, but don't kid yourself; how often does the Supreme Court decide based largely on logic, versus based largely on their gut feelings (a.k.a. "political philosophy")?
Your managers, being human, are winging it. They have no more bandwidth then you in life. You can barely keep up with your projects and the industry. They have their own problems, and they aren't keeping up with your projects or the state of your industry.
Everybody's winging that. Carry that around with you. I wish everybody realized that; the world would be somewhat safer if everybody acted with this knowlege.
(Boy, it's scary. Really scary. But there's no compelling evidence to the contrary, only isolated counter examples.)
This does not mean that you should have zero confidence, but I would say low levels of confidence are in order. (Boy, I hope my future employer(s) don't see this, or if they do, I hope they understand what I'm saying here.)
You can't fight this, so don't. Roll with it. Don't commit your soul to your job. You must cultivate the ability to detach from your job, so if one VP's decision wipes out your last six years of coding, try not to be too upset.
Like all good advice about managing one's inner self, this is impossible to apply fully, and I'll be the last to claim I have. But like all good advice, at least trying helps more then not trying at all.
This is one of the many reasons I hobby program. Nobody can do that to me, except myself.
I was in your position about nine months ago. I had worked at a university for about 10 years, in IT. Dilbert applies there as much as it does anywhere. I was paid relatively well, but it wasn't enough to make up for the amazingly shallow human drama that our management was hellbent on creating. I felt that my soul was being siphoned out of my existence, one tedious day at a time.
After spending way too much time (years) pondering what to do, I quit. I gave them a generous notice, then left. I don't miss it and I feel like a relevant human being again.
Now that I've had time to reflect, I've come to believe that:
- while it is a noble and romantic notion, attempting to find meaning in one's IT work is really hard and potentially dangerous for your mental stability, because
- the IT work force is filled with people who occupy the middle of the bell curve and who just don't give a hoot.
If you want to make a difference in the world, don't figure on doing it through your employment. I think our generation has been brought up with the idea that the road to happiness is found by loving your work and doing work you love. That's a pretty picture, but the real world doesn't make that a goal that one can really achieve.Today's work place, probably any work place actually, it's like playing on your grade school class' PE kickball team. You don't have a team of the best players; you have a team with every player of every skill level and interest. What's the point of being concerned about the quality of your work when you're just one of a few people who could give a shit? Now, if you're playing on a team/working in a job where everyone wants to do their personal best, solving problems and kicking ass, it would be different (kind of like Star Trek...).
You asked how can you feel good about your work when you don't have confidence in management? That's the wrong question. How you feel about your work doesn't hinge on what you think of management? They're probably not qualified to really judge your work anyway. Your management is as smart as they're ever going to be. They're doing the best that they can. It may not be the best possible job; it probably isn't what you would do, if you were the manager. But that's not the point of the exercise. You're not supposed to do the best work that you're capable of; nor are you supposed to expect that management wants you to do this! Rarely is one rewarded for being smart or clever. Getting from point A to point B in the shortest or most efficient way? Not relevant.
You'll have a hell of a time changing the people in your work place. It's a lot easier to change yourself. If you think your management is clueless, they probably are. If it is important to you that you work with people who aren't clueless and actually share your values about work, you'll probably have to bail on this job eventually and seek out an employer who better fits your idea of reality. Or, you can change your own point of view about work. Yield and conquer. Let work be the place that supplies you with cash so that you can live life with people who actually care about the things that you do. It's definitely easier to find a group of people who'll share your passion about something outside of work than within it. Especially IT work.
I've learned that the best use for employment is as a spigot for cash to fuel a stylish, mysterious, and dangerous life. Fill a position, show up, cash the paycheck. Use the cash to go out and build a fulfilling life. Don't look for meaning or personal fulfillment at the work place. It's not there to be found.
I quit my soul-reaping IT job to write my own software, on my own terms. That makes me happy, but hasn't made me rich yet. I also started playing music and discovered a community of people that I really enjoy spending time, some of whom also equally share my passion. Now that's cool and fulfilling. That's the hokey-pokey. You probably won't find the hokey-pokey in the workplace. Work is work and life is something different. If I ever go back to employee situation again, especially in IT, I'm going to keep this foremost in mind.
Do the best work that the situation permits. You'll not be able to do any better and wasting cycles worrying about it is futile. It may not be spiritually satisfying, but you'll earn the same pay in any case. When the day's over, go off and live your real life.
She sat on the board of directors at my last employer? Wow, small world, dude!
From my own experience (not at MS, btw) I'd say it's more likely to be the other way around - happy workers are a symptom of success.
sic transit gloria mundi
I love my job, when I have it. I have, for the last two summers (the rest of the year is reserved for school) worked for the Forest Service as an archaeologist. Plenty of time out in the field, surrounded by sage brush and Great Basin wild rye with no one else for miles. Vistas that go on forever. Warm sun and cool breezes. And a legacy at least 7,000 years of history and culture at my feet.
Then, of course, the hours in the office to report on field findings, but even that has its highlights. Deranged locals complaining about the latest actions of the Feds (some of the rants are really quite enjoyable). The company of several fellow archaeologists. Books detailing every kind of bottle, can, or plate known to man. Information of thousands of sites at my finger tips.
Really, I have a great love of the work that I have had the opportunity to do. It is quite lucky that I have fallen in love with a field that is so open and accepting to undergraduates. Not only do I have a chance to work at a proffesional level, helping to make decisions that acctually affect policy, but I get to prove myself before the people whose jobs I would very much like to have. Verily, I love the work that I do!
Rhapsody in Numbers
Just go about your business and when things seem to be too much to take, blurt out "Serenity now!" at the top of your lungs.
> ALL JOBS SUCK!
Otherwise, you would be paying them instead of vice versa, and you'd call it "entertainment" instead of "my job".
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
What is it that you would do all day, in a perfect world?
I am quite happy with the work that I do (at the moment, seasonal work with the Forest Sevice as an archaeologist, when I get my Masters, hopefully I can get a full time position). I get paid to do what I would willingly do for free, or even pay to do. I love archaeology. I love the fresh air and miles of arch survey. I enjoy the little bit of excavation that I have the opportunity to partake in. I adore the people I have worked for. I take great pleasure in explaining why archaeology and historic preservation are important and dealing with the public.
Your claim that all jobs suck is a terrible generalization in the highest order. Perhaps the problem lies not in the job bering terrible, but in your ability to choose the field that you work in. I am honestly sorry that you do not enjoy the work that you have chosen to do. My feeling is that one should always to work that they enjoy. If the work is not pleasing to a person, then find something else to do and let some one who wants to do it, do it.
On the other hand, if you are in it for the money, or the power, or the reputation alone, then you have no right to complain. You want huge amounts of money? Fine, you are going to have to do something you don't like to sate your greed. Power? Again, you are going to have to do unpleasant things, or stop you quest for power. If your goal is simply to take pleasure in life, find a job that you actually like doing, no matter the pay (almost any professional field will pay a living wage, at the very least), then there is something that you can do in the world that will fufill those needs.
We live in a world of our own making. We have power over our actions and our own ability to take pleasure in anything that is put before us. Ultimatly, it is your choice to dislike where you work. However, you also have the ability to change that environment. You, much like the fox failing in his attempts to reach the sweet fruit of the grapes on a distant vine, complain without trying alternatives. You waste your time, and the time of all that have to hear your selfish complaining.
Unless you are willing to take responsibilty for you world, shut up and sit down.
Rhapsody in Numbers
Actually, around here most lottery winners keep their jobs. A job gives an identity.
I am defining "job" as "things that I do becuase people give me money."
Very often, the things that people are willing to pay me for are also things that I would do on my own time for nothing.
The important point is that I'm doing a "job" because they're giving me money.
If I'm just getting money to do what I want (and the money-givers have no expectations or demands about what I do) then I'm "getting money to do whatever the hell I want to do." But, in every case that I know, the money-givers do have expectations...show up at a certain hour; do certain things; don't do other things. Maybe every single thing that your money-givers want is exactly the same thing that you want. But I don't think that's possible (ever had to wake up and go to work with a hangover?). The hangover is a trivial example, but it's definitely an example of things you wouldn't do if they weren't paying you. If you didn't have the job, you'ld go right back to sleep.
You might love your job -- "the fresh air and miles of arch survey." Very often I enjoy my job as well. The point I'm making is that the money-givers can, and at some point will, cause you grief. And since it's a "job" you have to decide if you are going to take the shit or leave. If the "shit" ever becomes more than you can tolerate, you quit.
The only reason that I have ever had a "job" is because people pay me. If I lived in a world where everything I wanted was provided to me, I assure you, I would not walk up to some manager and say, "Hey, Bob, can I work for you?" But, unfortunately, to have the things that I want (a five year old Saturn, a house built in 1968, food, clothing, an internet connection) I have to have money. If I want to have money, I have to have a job. Which means, that at some point, I am going to have to do something that I don't want to do in order to keep the money-givers happy.
You said, "...find a job you actually like doing, no matter what the pay..." You've restated a crucial point in my argument: "if you want to make money you have to have a job." My premise is that no job will be perfect forever. At some point, one of the people who is giving you money will want something that you don't want to give them. If want they want you to do is worth you keeping your job (for the money and the enjoyment of it) then you'll do it. If it balances out on the other side then you'll quit.
i love my job. karma whoring is a great field to be in.
I'm not sure I agree with your statement. Ex-programmers certainly would seem to be great managers for current programmers, but are they really good managers? We give them high marks because they understand us and speak our language. They may even be a bit more reasonable about delivery dates and all.
The problem is, that's not really what makes a good manager. A good manager is someone who motivates you, listens to you, fights for you, and is occasionally willing to tell you to go get stuffed. Management isn't just making your work day more fun, it's hopefully about making the company a little bit better.
Probably the toughest thing a manager has to do is to kill ideas and projects. Especially ones that they find interesting. How many of us will willingly stop work on something that we are enjoying because it won't turn out how we originally planned?
So, yeah, it's great to have a boss who understands you and even understands Dilbert. But in the end, that boss also has to be willing to go out there and fight for the department and the company and make the tough decisions.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
Think of all of the people that you know who don't work in IT (exempt any doctors, lawyers, accountants or self-employed people -- these professions are similar to IT in regards to the necessary knowledge base). How many of them have to regularly spend their personal time in order to stay up to date in their profession?
Well, it all depends on what they do. If you're talking about family-practice doctors, divorce lawyers, or small business accounts, well, they don't have to do all that much to stay current. (My father works in ligitation on construction contracts for the state government. Not much changes.) However, if they're on the cutting edge of the field, they probably spend a lot of time keeping up to date.
I'm sure that a lot of intellectual property lawyers are working quite hard these days to keep on top of changing legislation. Doctors at research hospitals often work very hard keeping up-to-date on the latest changes in medicine. And I think a fair number of accounts for consulting firms are working really hard to change practices now in the wake of Enron.
As for me, I'm not an "IT" person, per se. I've moved into the realm of a project manager. However, I read four or five magazines a month, buy big thick tomes to read all the time, and yes, most of it is directly related to my work.
Basically, it all comes down to whether or not your work is a commodity. IT isn't yet, but when it is, things won't change as quickly. The real question is one of why people who do routine crap all the time get paid big bucks just because they're doctors, lawyers, or accountants?
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - G.B. Shaw
--
You seem to be missing one of the fundamental qualities of life: everyone learns all of the time. There are things that are extremely difficult to learn on one's own: the in depth knowledge, which must often be learned in the classroom.
Other things can be obtained with a less in-depth analysis, often based upon a more simplistic understanding of the hard stuff.
For example, once you understand statistical analysis of Neural Networks, economic formulas can just be light reading from the library; you've got all the needed skills.
As far as managing people, that's certianly not something you need to train for in that manner.
When I got to college, I took a program called L.E.A.D., which teaches basic leadership and management skills. I felt like I was learning rudimentary psych stuff - stuff you could teach a 10 year old.
So, whats the difference between a driven Computer Scientist, or a driven Communication Theorist, or a driven Mathematician, and someone trained as management or in Commerce? The commerce guy doesn't know anything that is difficult to learn by simply reading.
Why do you even need a college degree for that?
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
The best Project manager I ever had was a Guy whose previous experience was Project Managing the construction Oil Refineries. He listened to me, made me justify my estimates, both phases where completed on time to a high standard and with the minimum of stress. The worst was an ex-carpet shop manager, (Yes I know absurd). In my experience to many PM's from an IT background are failed Technical Staff.
So rather than selecting a job, I now try to select my PM.
I've worked in a number of different industries, in capacities from grunt to general manager, and my take on this is that *every* business project goes through multiple changes, last-minute "fill the gaps," SWAG, misdirected and incomplete thinking, and all the management problems that software engineers love to hate.
The difference between software and most other types of projects, is that usually there is no empirical test of the outcome of the project vs. its intended outcome, as there almost always is with a piece of code.
Did the marketing project achieve its objectives? Was it functionally complete? Does it have bugs? Does it break under stress? Who the heck knows? It's simply impossible to measure the results of most other business projects, because they don't have the defined inputs/processing/outputs of software.
Consequently, bluffing at the micro- and macro- level is inserted into almost every business project, from prepping for the meeting with the boss, to buying the competitor. And far from this ever being revealed, most people don't even realize they're doing it themselves. It's just human nature.
When you apply that sort of mentality to software, and technical project management in general (does the 777 fly or not?) you almost invariably a) run over time and over budget b) de-scope the project or c) end up with an unholy mess on your hands, because your fuzzy thinking has been exposed by the rigors of the product.
So you blame technology, blame the technologists, and never examine the root of the problem -- the fact that you've been, consciously or unconsciously, half-assing it all your business career, just like everyone else in business.
If business people in general applied to business processes 1/10 the conceptual and practical thinking, constant learning, and focus that software engineers put into their code, the entire enterprise would collapse in a heap of disbelief and self-loathing, and then re-emerge like a phoenix, unrecognizably well-run.
Look for it about 2110, at the earliest.
I am still in high school but work as a technication for a local computer store. They send me on mostly house calls or give me any job involving unix, mac or networking. For the most part I only work when I feel like. My boss is never rude to me and understands I know more than him. It sure as hell beats what my friends do. They all work at a grocery store or something like that. I bet all you out there wish you had my job when you were my age, so I just want to rub it in all your faces.
They wouldn't *be* middle managers if they had drive, vision and talent.
Leave. Become a consultant and read Dilbert.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
I know this is about the tenth time I've said this on Slashdot, but it's true. Japan is so desperate for IT people, the government is considering "importing" about 700,000 foreigners per year to fill these jobs.
'Course at present time you need to be able to read and speak Japanese and handle your own visa, but I have yet to be turned down for a technical job here.
Heck, my department just hired a kid to work in the networking department who barely knows how to work a mouse. He'll be configuring our Cisco routers. We're desperate I tell you!
Come to think of it, in both jobs I had here no one ever asked if I could read and write before giving me the job (most Americans can't), and were suprised afterwards when I could.
See for yourself on the Japanese national job database (Hello Work).
I just did a national search for general IT jobs and turned up 294724 hits.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
I don't think people are wired to work in companies. If you think about it, the world only became urbanized about 100 years ago.
I wonder what it would be like to be a farmer.
My only boss would be the soil and the elements.
I would get some excercise, which always improves my mood.
I imagine it's quite mentally stimulating and challenging and requires a great deal of intelligence to succeed. (what the hell is killing the radishess??)
I imagine it's very low stress.
And I imagine it's not terribly repetitive.
What's not to like?
Course I'm not a farmer, so what would I know?
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
Now tell me again that programmers make good managers, and I will laugh in your general direction. The best managers I've had knew nothing about programming, but they knew how to ask the right questions (when will it be done, what do you need to do it faster, how can I help you achieve your goals) and leave the programming to the experts.
The interactive way to Go -- http://www.playgo.to/iwtg/en/
Is this fun?
How does this contribute to my resume?
What is the difference between what I am being paid currently and what I am worth/could get elsewhere?
No company has or ever will look out for my personal interests as well as I can. There is no job security, in fact there never was such. In the long run only your own professionalism and competence really counts
These three factors juggle - If it's not fun, then money becomes more important and comes up in priority. If it is fun and contributing to a long term future (is adding to the resume in impressive ways) then money becomes third as in the list. Stupid mindless tasks demand more money and more fun either in the tasks themselves or somewhere else.
Also part of what I will put up with is what other possibilities exist. So far I have found another job first before resigning, I always keep my resume up to date, and I think looking to see what you are really worth and who will really hire you is vital to managing your profession - makes negotiating for a real market valued increase much easier when you do not feel trapped - plus interviewing is its own skill and worth keeping on top of anyway. If you are really unhappy (i.e., it's not fun) go see what else is out there, then decide whether or not it is worth putting up with (resume?, money?) You may have to stay where you are and try to bring up two of the three factors without changing jobs.
I created my current job, basically network guru at an engineering company. I work on the fun, hard interesting projects, then turn over the implementation and day to day operations. Right now the priorities align as above, it is FUN, it is contributing rapidly to a cutting edge resume, and I am paid well. I still look at other jobs and postings, but only as a matter of principle right now.
I also have the occasional nightmare where I dream I came into work and was locked out... Again, the only true assurance of any security is your personal competence and value
Every once in a while you really have to be able to look up and wonder, "And they pay me to do this?", and have that be a good thing, 'cause you would probably do it for fun and the challenge anyway.
My manager is a psychologist gone programmer. He reads a lot about anything that has to with management and new technologies, I often find him knowing more about a subject than me (computation science major).
These kinds of people are the ideal managers, they know about people and they know about the work that has to be done.
The client is quite different from the corporate system. Granted, I could get paid more in a corporation, but working at a University has several benefits.
1. There is no real pressure to *make money* when directing a project. In the technology sections, the point is generally to make things more efficient, more stable, and more cost-effective. This means upper management decisions are slightly less inane.
2. Easy access to education. I'm one of those people who think when you stop learning, you're dead. Now, this doesn't require formal education, but 3 free credit hours doesn't hurt.
3. Easy job mobility. If I get tired of my job, I can just move to another position, another department, or another line of work entirely. All of this, while still keeping the same health,retirement,etc benefits.
A couple of recommendations (if you're looking for a new position)
1: Never work for a non-technical manager.
Rather: never work for a manager who doesn't know that your tech abilities are more up to date than his.
3: Make sure (s)he does at least some of the software.
No no no! A manager does not have to do software. In fact, it's almost better if he doesn't do it. He needs to trust you and your estimates, he needs to spend his time talking to the customer with your estimates in hand, educate the customer with respect to the risks, and manage the expectations when the customer decides that other aspects than the technical ones have a higher priority.
4: Make sure (s)he has a spine, and is capable of forming relationships with other human beings.
This one is very important. He needs to work on a level of mutual respect with the customer. Sure, try and be friendly, but when he stoops to kissing ass, respect will be lost and the customer will not accept any negative reports, estimates or risk analysis.
It's just about enough to make you scream.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Yeah, but I live in Japan, not Sweden.
No factory farming here! Just a bunch of really old guys who work really hard.
I SHALL HAVE my dream. And I will post pictures of it on the internet for all you cubicle dwellers to look at.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
Not sure I agree with that one. While the l337 hax0r crowd might have poor social skills and be very proud of what they can achieve single-handed, real projects are rarely the domain of a single person any more. I'd rather have a team of five competent programmers with good interpersonal skills than a team of five top hackers who didn't speak to each other, and it's a very easy decision to make.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
He should have just called on the BOFH!!! No more project, no more manager, and infinitely more fun! :^)
I'm done with sigs. Sigs are lame.
It's scary how well the story captured my own feelings about work.
I thing the major reason tech companies are like this is the environment they "grew up" in. Consider:
Most tech companies started in the 1960's to 1980's. While there were some downturns during this time, the overall pattern was growth growth growth. So, no matter how incompetent the company management, many companies survived just because the environment wouldn't let them fail.
Now, your typical manager will feel that all successes were due to his decisions (and, by the way, so will the average tech, or indeed the average human). So, consider a company that is still around today - the manager will feel that he must be doing something right.
Now, consider the rate of change in the tech field. It is almost impossible to have any foresight in this biz without a GREAT DEAL of technical knowledge. Being able to see the 3-5 years down the road to be able to make good plans is just about beyond the average manager. Instead, they focus on making plans 6-12 months down the road.
When times are good, this is enough.
Times are less than good now.
So, companies that have been able to survive are starting to die off. The managers are frantic - get me something NOW, OR ELSE!
It's like animals - when times are good, even the sick, lame and stupid can survive, can get enough to eat and avoid being eaten in turn.
Then the drought hits. The animals ALL get frantic about finding food.
Wait until after the drought, then look for the survivors that are healthy. Work for them.
www.eFax.com are spammers
A post here mentioned the satisfaction of a non-profit job, where people really seemed to "care". I've been loosely following the whole indymedia phenomenon, and I figure that that would be one of the most interesting types of situations to work in. You know - showing up The Man (tm), giving people a voice, revealing the truth, hacking together ad-hoc information networks from donated/scrounged hardware. You know, actually doing "Stuff that Matters".
Anyway, does anybody have any other reports from the non-profit trenches, or from indymedia itself. Is life sustainable, or do you just do it as a hobby/volunteerism?
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Your damn right I love my job.
END COMMUNICATION
The VP of IS where I work, use to be a lower-level manager for us. But he knew how to work the system. He quit from here and was hired back as the VP. (I guess he had some sort of Business degree). What's nice is that we got to now him on a relaxed level, before he had power. So now it's still very easy to talk to him, and he knows our abilities. So unreasonable demands just don't come up. But since he is the one who signs our paychecks we definitly give him the respect he deserves. It's kind of weird, but all of us in my dept (we're not at headquarters), look foward to seeing him visit. It's a nice feeling.
This is of course because he's naturally a nice guy.
But I could definitly see that if a BOFH became head. uhg...
Sean D.
"Hmm. I am to metaphor cheese as metaphor cheese is to transitive verb crackers!"
> That's why a military toilet seat costs six hundred bucks.
:^)
> Because you can at least be sure that your ass will fit, that its
> over a latrine and that it will have a hole in it.
>
> With civilian (mis-)management, they'd skip cutting out the hole
> and justify it as cutting out the cost. And there'd be shit
> everywhere.
Believe me, as an employee of a gov't contractor the reason a toilet seat costs $600 isn't because it's going to work, it's because the military/gov't will pay that amount. Cash heavy, expertise shy; that's been my second-hand experience of the people that award government contracts.
Naturally we don't make nearly enough where I work.
I envy the order that exists in the military, but they seem to have only [perhaps knowingly] shifted, rather than eliminated, their mismangement from the work that gets done to the amount they're willing to pay for it. In an "economy" that doesn't measure success from the bottom line but also from ensuring every dollar gets spent in order to get funding the next year, "worth" is a very weirded bit of langauge.
To briefly tie back in to the original topic, this is what makes working at a gov't installation so difficult. We can go two years and hundreds of thousands over budget (ie, extra years of funding) if it makes everyone "happy". Form over function. There is no bottom line for the customer [wrt dollars].
The fact that people can deliver a [proverbial] low-bid toilet seat for $300 with no hole shows just how skewed the economics of gov't contracts have become. I hate it when economists say that "the market will sort it out", but the open market is certainly a more efficient, if ultimately horribly more confusing, method of determining worth.
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
As it happens, I'm giving my boss one month's notice today. I'm a Systems Engineer at a large office document corporation (some people call us The Document Company) and while I like the work, I hate the culture. It's like time warping back to 1960. Anyone know of any good software firms in the Boston/Providence area that could use a Systems Engineer? My one weakness is that while I can program, I have little direct experience doing so and I'm not sure I want to develop for a living. But Systems Engineering is rare in most small companies. Am I screwed?
Was that out loud?
Honestly, guys/gals, out of the 5 software companies I have worked for - only 2 have had clear visions. That resulted from program managers (some might call them producers) who (a)knew the area of software we were dealing with from the user side and (b)were capable of producing a spec that didn't change once it had been approved (occasional change control requests happened but they were few and far between.) That was it, that was the key. People who knew their field. They weren't necessarily good managers; however, because they were confident in their desires for the product, they found it easy to communicate their desires and their enthusiasm was infectious. They didn't need to read '14 points' or other dumbass management books to supervise the outcome, or micro-manage us. They simply gave us a clear vision and let us engineer a solution to their needs. The other 3 places, they had no real idea what they wanted except to be a software company... LOL!
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I work for a company just like the one you describe. The programmers are miserable.
I, however, am a system administrator. My job consists of keeping servers running, and then when something breaks, I figure out whose code broke, page them, and go back to bed.
Thus, the bad decisions management makes about the programming projects result in greater need for my services, but don't really frustate me directly that much on a daily basis, with an occasional exception.
Where I work, The management actually has a clue! Most former developers (some were even good developers!!), they understand the line between getting the job done right and getting the job done on time and under budget.
But it's the customer demands that get in the way. We have years of metrics to back up our productivity. Yet, the customer decides "we don't like those numbers, make your lines of code estimate smaller."
So what does one do? You document your original estimate, say "fine, we'll try for this new estimate" and when you fail to meet it you are already 80% done (no sense in cancelling) and you are, oddly enough, on track with your original estimate. Funny how that works!
Can your management can handle a shizophrenic customer who's needs change on a whim? Bad management will propagate the insanity down to the developers. Good management will bear (bare? Bayer?) the stress themselves and insulate the developer. That is the mark of good management.
And yes, my manager is da bomb!
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
I'm actually giving my boss notice today, because we're moving out of the area, but I won't be sorry to get out of here. Everything described in this post is true for me as well - no vision, no creativity, no organizational skills, and no attention paid to the quality employees who make this place work. As my father-in-law is fond of saying, "Mediocrity is incapable of recognizing excellence," and it's very, very true.
Anyone in the Boston/Providence area want to hire a Systems Engineer with CMM and embedded software design experience? Worth a try. :)
Was that out loud?
My dream is to own my own business. That is currently a reality, but I do not make enough money from the business to bring home the bacon, in fact, I make nothing because all of our profit is rolled right back into the biz for supplies, advertising, etc. So, for the time being, I am working full time, which takes away from time I could be using to generate sales. For now, this is a "Catch 22". However, someday I think I will be able to break free of my current position and be self sustaining. Unfortunately, part of the problem is that we picked the "worst" time economically to start our business, which is computer sales and service. So, to make a long story short, I voted "Yes", but someday, I really want to be my own boss.
Is this "Linux" anything like NT 3.5? Cause I'm a freaking wizard at NT 3.5. My brother in laws a dentist, and I setup a nice little 3-computer network in there so his receptionist could email him directly with patient info and such. NT 3.5 Server on a 1Ghz machine to handle all the "back end" stuff (technical term).
If you're still looking please let me know. I can do some research and find out if Exchange/Outlook is available for Linux.
It hurts when I pee.
I'm a college student. That's my job. I love being a college student because despite all the work for class, most of my time is spent in my kick ass apartment with all my cool stuff doing whatever I damn well please. And when I'm not at home or in class I'm out with my friends doing cool stuff.
When I get out of college (CS Major) I plan to get a job. Actually I'll be required to go on co-op before then. Co-op is a paid internship at a real company. You actually get a real job for 10 weeks, I need to do it 4 times to graduate. No matter where I work I know one thing. My job in some way will involve writing code in some computer language. Therefore I will always like my job.
You people complain about stupid management decisions, stress, all this other bullshit. I just don't let it get to me. If I'm given an assignment I do it, and I have fun doing it, because I like writing code. If someone comes up to me and says yeah, we're cancelling your project, or we're changing it, or whatever, I don't care. I tell them all the true and relevant information and continue to do whatever is necessary to get paid. The only things that can possibly happen are me writing more code, or me writing less code. Either is fine with me.
Yes I know my job wont be ALL writing code. But that's what I will spend the majority of my time doing. The other stuff is just sauce on the spaghetti.
If I'm doing something I like to do, and I get money for it everything else just doesn't matter.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
I work for AOL.... need say no more... ggghhhhh
Cruise TT
Why would I want to kill myself when there are so many other people that deserve it so much more?
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
In all my experience I have learned one thing about manager: I owuld rather have a good manager who has never programmed then a mediocore manager with programming experience.
A good manager knows how to manage. knowing how to manage means listening and understanding what your people need, and being able to tell there boss it ain't going to happen when they ask for unreasonable goals.
I have also learned that the "layer" above my managers have been far more reseptive to input about reasonable timelines then my imediate boss.
The best manager is one with good managment skills who did programming for a while and hated it. They seem to respect the programmers skill set more.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
In this tough times? I am quite happy to have a job, liking it is optional.
------ Curiosity killed the cat. {satisfaction brought it back | it didn't die ignorant | lack of it is killing mankind
As a software development manager and programmer, I'll throw in some ideas:
1. Your real "job" is to feed, clothe, and shelter yourself and your family the best way you can. This is most often done by working for a company.
2. Your real "job" at the company is to do whatever it takes to maintain the short and long term growth and profitability of the organization. Sometimes this means hacking together some crap to close a deal which will make enough money to keep you and your coworkers employed a bit longer.
3. Your real "job" as a programmer is to put together the absolute best product you can given the constraints of time and money. Don't assume you understand all of the constraints, or the implications of the constraints.
Finally, while you are doing the best job you can, it is in your and the company's best interests to always try and make your manager aware of the downsides of his decisions in a polite and intelligent way.
the problem with my job is I got involved with my boss romaticly. That is a big problem since when we fight it affects my job so now I have a great job but a shitty relationship
http://Lenny.com
Ive worked for myself and still hated my boss. I just can't win
http://Lenny.com
"If we didn't have PHP, it would cost us six to seven times as much to operate [our] IT environment," says Kevin Crothers, head of corporate Web systems at WorldCom Inc. WorldCom has used PHP for several major Web projects, both internal and external, including the front end to a searchable database of employees and contractors that contains more than 100,000 records. "It's all LDAP-based," he says, noting that PHP had "the strongest LDAP integration we've been able to find."
Then you have to ask some hard questions. Can you get what you want working for someone else? For real? Are there decisions that are typically or likely going to be made that will ruin your dream?
Lastly, what's it worth? Do you have the tools to do it?
I worked at IBM. It's a great company. You can very easily get in to a nice routine there, never need to work a lot of overtime. Put your 40 in, get a decent raise every year, pick up your spec and churn out the code, show up to some meetings, go home raise some kids and a dog, buy that house with the picket fence.. It's safe and tame. You won't get fired but you probably won't work on really sexy stuff either. At age 23, after 5 years as a regular employee there (yes, I was a salaried software engineer for them) I wanted something more exciting.
I went to a medium sized company with hands off managment. It's awesome in ways. We have a goal and some deadlines and complete freedom to build the product. And it's linux based. It's a dream come true, or is it? It takes radically different skills to work in that environment, you can't have team member who simply want a spec and a dark office with no interaction, team dynamics are critical. You need people who take initiative. You need bold people who are good communicators. With just a few "roll players" who want that 40 hours, pick-up-spec-drop-off-code-never-talk-to-anyone job, it becomes nearly impossible to make it work. Likewise, you can't work 40 hours a week, it's not enough time to "do it the right way" you find yourself working 50-60 hours a week and still not having enough time becuase you've got complete engineering freedom and you want to make it perfect as you see it. It's hard, it has it's rewards, but it takes a lot way from life also.
After 2 years of that I walked away from that and started my own business.
Running your own gig is different. There is a lot of work that has to get done before you can do the work. It's a lot of work. It has its moments and rewards, there are also times when I'd love to be back at IBM working my safe little 40 every week watching the stock options earn value. Is it worth it? I can't say yet. I can say that if I go back in to the corporate world it will be a safe and tame 40 so that I can easily put 10-15 in to something else outside of that.
You'll never be completely fullfilled building someone else's dream or vision. Remember that. There will always be decisions and tough choices to make and ultimately they are going to want some return on their investment in you and the dream they have. As cool as the product may be, if you're not calling the shots then there are probably going to be times when things are going to upset you. It's also supposed to be work and you're supposed to have a life outside of that.
No. I don't like my job. I don't remember the last job I liked. But, like the subject says, who cares? "Work" by definition is generally something that you do for money. "Like" doesn't come into the equation. So what if your project is stupid? Do the paychecks bounce? If no, then shut up. Do your job however they tell you to do it, and be happy to have a job right now.
I don't understand IT people expecting to like their jobs. Do you think that 99% of the people on the planet "like" their jobs? No. Of course not. They do it to pay the bills. That's life. Grow up and deal with it.
While the jobs I used to have were OK, I never really felt motivated to work extra hard just to maybe see the benefits trickle down to me, the lowly employee.
Having just started my own computer consulting firm, I can say that at least for now it's been a blast. You make your own hours, you can turn away clients that are too stupid to work with, and you basically work to make your life better--direct feedback between what you deliver and how it affects you.
Risks? Sure, there are risks, but ask all of the dot commies who were just laid off about risk. There's also this myth that businesses are all about luck and most people will try to discourage you from starting one. It's bullshit. If you're smart and clever you can get by just fine. Haven't you ever come across complete idiots who run successful businesses? That's an insult to you if someone tells you that you can't do better.
It's more work than I ever thought would be involved, but in the long run I think it's /so/ worth it.
What if this doesn't work, even after a year? What if you swear at your director constantly during your quarterly review telling him exactly what you think of him and nothing happens? (Come to think of it, I actually got rated above average on that review - sick.)
I finally quit (hitting that magic 100%-turnover-in-three-months number for our department), was unemployed for 10 weeks, and now make more and am much happier. Of course, I had great references from my previous managers who got tired of the place before I did, and I had enough saved up to take the risk.
Just Over Broke.
First off: management is just as difficult as coding. There are lots of people writing code who are just 'winging it', you likely know a few where you are right now. The consequence of their mistakes is usually visible only to them or a handful of people on the development team (they or someone has to fix the bug, rework the code). Mistakes or poor choices at the management level are often visible throughout the organization.
You want to feel that you are contributing towards a greater good, i.e. the successful completion of a useful application/system/product. That's a pretty normal desire. It looks like you're not getting this desire, or expectation, fulfilled at your present job. You never (or too rarely) get the sense of satisfaction and pride of finishing a project that's well designed and coded. What to do?
One solution is to find a company where you can get those expectations met. Use your network of friends, find out who's working for "clueful" management.
Another solution is to revise your expectations at your current job. If you are constantly disappointed by management decisions, quit expecting management to make decisions you like. Find another focus where you can derive satisfaction. Maybe you can become a mentor to those around you. Maybe you can find a project outside work to focus on, or a hobby. Maybe you can get satisfaction out of the code you write, and ignore whether it actually goes to production.
These are just suggestions to get you thinking. Your answer will come from introspecting, thinking about what really satisfies you and motivates you. And then you have to figure out how to get it, in spite of your present situation at work, or again, by finding a new job.
I do wish you good fortune in finding a place/way to be happier. It's difficult to do something when you aren't feeling motivated or rewarded.
Regards,
Thomas
From reading the posts here, it's clear that (nearly) all managers are idiots and (nearly) all companies are mismanaged. Therefore, to make a bazillion bucks, all you need to do is put together a business with smart managers instead of dumb ones, so that all the techs will be tickled pink to go to work, and product quality will soar. Right?
Well, basically that's true, but if this were easy to do, everybody would be doing it. Companies don't deliberately make themselves inefficient. As a few posts have reminded us, management is not a precise science. Training can help but only to a certain extent (and the best training is probably running a Boy Scout troop rather than going to B-school). It's hard to be a good manager, hard to measure management performance, hard to balance the competing priorities that most managers face, and hard not to wind up shooting yourself in the foot.
Which is not to excuse stupidity nor to discourage you from ridiculing morons; but just remember that if YOU were doing that job, you'd probably screw it up just as much, and maybe more.
-- We all have enough strength to endure the misfortunes of other people. La Rochefoucauld
I have found that the solution to the problem you describe, and it is pervasive in ALL fields not just programming or engineering, is to do what you love to do. That way you have the opportunity to refine (or complete) projects to your liking long after they were 'done' at work. As a bonus you don't feel like your employer is stealing your free time if you do take some work home because 'hey, its not work, this is what I do.' That said, I know many of us are not lucky enough to find that special niche in life, but keep looking, it IS the solution you seek.
"Waitress I need two more boat-drinks..."
"Blame" is what people call "responsibility" when they're trying to make it look bad. Sure, fix the problem at hand. AND THEN FIGURE OUT WHY IT HAPPENED AND MAKE SURE IT DOESN'T HAPPEN AGAIN! Too often I see the immediate problem fixed, and then when I ask why it happened and whether it's going to happen again, I get a lot of mumbling and hand-waving.
Sadly, even if you work in a field you enjoy there are many things that can ruin the experience for you. In my chosen field of programming and engineering most jobs are frustrating to the extreme. Usually you work on projects that are mismanaged and are treated as 'just a basement troll' so that your advice is ignored. Then if you try to be a contractor you have to deal with customers that don't really know what they want, don't have the budget for what they need, want an unrealistic timeline, etc. What I'd really like is to be able to find a sponsor or business partner to let me work on projects with well defined goals, realistic timelines, etc and then market those products once completed but I don't see that happening anytime soon.
For you to understand working in the software industry I guess I could put it like this. Your employers want you to excavate something but they don't tell you what. Every time you dig about 2 foot into the ground they tell you they've decided that they had you digging in the wrong spot. And oh yeh all they give you to dig with is a plastic sand shovel. Then they blame you that they never got what they wanted.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Well, like Pekka Himanen says, there's a paradigm shift that's taken place in certain sectors, replacing the "work isn't supposed to be fun" concept with a "life--including work--should be fulfilling" concept. I thought that made sense. It has certainly made the whole idea of working much more bearable, now that I know it's okay have these feelings of wanting a fulfilling job.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
I would definitely leave it on your resume. The faster you get the first few years under your belt the better. When a potential employer contacts your former employer there are only certain bits of info that your former can legally give (in the U.S.) and reason for termination isn't one of them. If asked, you don't (and shouldn't) go in to detail about it but focus on what you've learned from the negative experience and how it will help you increase your value to your potential employer.
No
"It takes many nails to build a crib, but one screw to fill it."
They mostly come out at night....mostly.
(Oops, sorry, wrong poll!)
You're using her as bait, Master!
I don't think I'd put it quite that strongly. Not having major standards like ISO under your belt can be a serious commercial limitation. For example, if a government department will only deal with ISO-certified groups, that means those groups can only deal with other ISO-certified groups (hence the common "plague" description of certification). It sucks, but if you don't have the paper, you're ruling out a lot of potential business.
'Course, most ISO-a-like certifications just say you have to have procedures; they don't say that those procedures actually have to be any good. :-)
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Unfortunately, Radio Shack is really blowing a prime opportunity for their stores to excel.
... but the other *big* reason I kept coming back was one particular salesperson. This guy was a big ham radio and electronics buff, with seemingly endless knowledge. He'd suggest parts I could buy to build circuits/projects to accomplish a task, and kept me motivated by asking how the projects were working out when I came back later.
Why? Because they're small stores, with only one or two salespeople working there at a given time. This makes them prime candidates for keeping only the most knowledgeable people, and impressing customers with that knowledge.
Instead, Tandy Corp. seems to believe that they're better off economically to hire at a very low pay-rate and encourage sales with "spiffs" and commissions. Commissioned sales and "spiffs" don't at all motivate a true electronics geek. They only motivate a true "salesman", who wants to sell as much of anything as possible, and cares very little what it is he/she is selling.
A long time ago, I bought *loads* of items at my local Radio Shack. For starters, this was back before IBM became dominant, and so I did a lot of my Tandy computer purchasing there
He didn't care if what I needed was a 5 cent resistor -- it got the same level of attention as a big product, and that wasn't lost on me.
I quit buying at RS not long after he left (got hired at Chrysler as an electrical engineer, last I remember). The other sales drones I ran into at RS drove me away with their lack of knowledge and flat out wrong information.
I think you put too much faith in companies, all in all. I'd love to believe they understand this fact - but I think only a minority of them really do.
What happens, more often, is the actual manager of the programming dept. and his/her staff grasp this idea, but the other people doing the interviewing (H.R., etc.) don't. They're trained to serve as a "screen", filtering out the undesirables before they waste anyone else's interviewing time. Lack of a college degree is a prime reason to get "filtered out" after the initial interview.
Believe me, I know. I don't code for a living, but I do system administration and PC support - and I fought for a *long* time before finding a (small) company that cared about what I could do instead of what credentials I walked in with.
I've still not been able to break into employement with a large company, and I really believe the lack of a degree is the primary reason.
Nonetheless, I refuse to put myself thousands in debt and expend all the time/effort to get that piece of paper, just to satisfy those who aren't enlightened.
*exchanging cape of lurking for cape of Flame resistance* In the defense of some (hopefully good) supervisors that are getting a bad rap. I have recently been promoted to supervisor from a technical position. In wanting to fix a lot of the problems at my company (many of which are mentioned here). As I began working on these problems I came to a simple realization.
;p
Most companies are large enough that it is often difficult to communicate/think of all of the problems that will come up in a project. Plans change, as does the market in field, and this requires flexibility. Unfortunately companies are run by profits. If they don't make the profits, they can't put food on your table.
Perhaps looking at it from your manager's/supervisor's point of view can help you to understand what is going on and therefore make you "happier". Mentioned above, getting to know your manager/supervisor outside of the work place, also helps you to gain perspective on their personal goals, failures, and successes of that individual. This may explain defensive attitudes, or sudden changes.
Certainly, this is not a blanket disclaimer for all poor management decisions. But I'd like to believe that most people don't try to do their jobs poorly.
*Lurk Mode = ON*
How right you are!
My wife decided she wanted to go back to school, and got suckered in to attending ITT for their 2-year EE degree. What a scam!
After her first semester, they changed their curriculum, eliminating the old track to their EE degree and replacing it with some sort of "computers and electrical engineering" degree. Of course, they said those students who already started out on the old EE program could finish it up - but here's the kicker! If you missed too many days, you had to re-take that semester later, and in this case, you had to start over with the new degree program.
My wife has problems with getting sick quite often (she has an immune system deficiency, called IDD), and so she was very concerned she might need to take off a semester before her EE was finished. Therefore, she thought it safest to just start over on the new degree track from the get-go.
Here's where all the B.S. really begins. They made her take several classes over which she'd already taken (same textbook even), but said her other credits didn't count for the new degree program, because the courses she was taking over were called slightly different things.
I told her to bail out of ITT and cut her losses, but they refunded her grant money to the state as soon as she quit, and are now trying to bill us for the amount of the whole 2nd. semester, in full. No way we can afford to pay that, nor do I think we really owe that much anyway. (She was only a couple weeks into her 2nd. semester when she quit. Why isn't it pro-rated?)
And don't you think there's a pretty hefty level of this "accountability" in I.T. too?
Oh, sure - you're not cutting somebody open, but you are responsible for pretty much all of the company's important documents. (A sysadmin can pretty much access anyone's email and personal documents at will, after all, and controls security to who sees what on the systems.) If your server goes down, productivity at most businesses comes to a screeching halt. Therefore, the I.T. people maintaining it are ensuring all the other workers can keep doing their jobs.
I think it will be a sad day when this is overlooked or forgotten, just because some management-types and business owners decide that "computers are now a commodity".
I work for a small technology consulting firm, and the peons in my company recently got together for a b*tch-session about management. It certainly helped clear the air, but I was amazed by some of the things my colleagues were saying.
:) Sure, I'd love some more independence, and to get out from underneath management's thumb, but I also think that independence, and the responsibility that goes with it, is earned over time. They call this work, people, not recess.
The biggest issue people seemed to have was about management breathing down their necks and questioning their every move. Interestingly enough, the biggest complaints came from the people who have screwed up the most recently. They didn't seem to grasp the concept that if you and your work are consistently reliable, management leaves you alone more.
At least our managers are techies and understand what it is that we're doing out in the field. Of course, that means that they know enough to be dangerous.
"What's more important to you? Being happy or having expendable income to waste on gas-guzzling autos, bleeding-edge geek toys"
;)
You mean there's a difference?
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
> My premise is that no job will be perfect forever.
I don't diagree with your premise. What I disagree with is the statement that all jobs suck because at some point, they won't be perfect.
> At the very best, your job will suck sometimes.
I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but at the very best, your entire life will suck sometimes. To ascribe this only to work for money is more than a little foolish. To wit, if you were handed all the money you needed to pay for the things you want, and you quit your job and never worked for money again, do you truly think your life would be perfect from that point on? If you do, you need to think about it a little harder. Simply put, a life spent in pursuit of nothing will get boring in a hurry, which will suck. A life spent pursuing something, but not for money, will still put you in the situation of having to do something you don't like, or not do something when you want to do it.
In short, expecting to be happy all the time is unrealistic whether or not you do work for pay. Jobs do suck sometimes, but then, life sucks sometimes. Saying that this means all jobs suck is overarching pessimism.
Virg
One of the key things is this: there is always a trade-off between cost, time and functionality (including quality). Furthermore in most cases it is better to be 50% over budget or missing 50% of your functionality than 10% over schedule. This varies according to situation of course, and there are plenty of counter-examples (e.g. air traffic control). But most project managers know that the success of their project rests in getting it in on time regardless of cost and quality.
And they are right.
If you miss a market window your potential market share starts to drop exponentially as competitors take the lead. But of course all your competitors know that too, and are desperately trying to hit the market window defined by your launch date.
So when the PM comes down and tells you to get it shipped by Friday no matter how buggy it is, its not because he doesn't know his business, its because he does.
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
I think that many people feel that a technical manager is better, but I disagree. I don't totally disagree, but I do to some degree.
A technical manager is good iff they know the limit to their knowledge. They shouldn't make decisions outside of their knowledge.
A manager is good iff they support their employees to do their job (aka run interference).
There are many qualities that make for a bad manager so we should best leave those alone.
int main() {
while (Manager_EMPLOYED) {
for (int i=0; iDIRECT_REPORTS; i++) {
if (employee[i] != HAPPY) {
root = findRootProblem();
correctProblem(root);
}
for (int i=0; iDIRECT_REPORTS; i++) {
if (employee[i] == jobComplete) {
giveRaise(employee[i]);
}
else {
if (employee[i] == blocked) {
runInterference(employee[i]);
}
else if (employee[i] == resourceStrapped) {
realignProjectPlan();
}
}
}
doProjectPlan();
doBudget();
hire();
fire();
}
}
Probably needs some work but it is at least better than most I've worked with.
rev
I can't believe how much of whine factory Slashdot has become. Seems like a bunch of really young Gen-X'ers just come to this site to ask dumb questions. Of course people hate their jobs. Most people do. But you do it every day because you have a mortgage, a wife and a baby at home, and you want to maintain some semblance of a stable lifestyle. Of course management has different ideals than you do. They're managers. They understand the business/accounting/bottom-line part of things and you don't, although you think you do. Just do your job to the best of your ability and worry about what YOU have to do. And if you don't like it, go somewhere else. The next place has a high possibility of being very similar to the last place you worked. Flame on.
When millions disappear from earth, it's not aliens, it's the rapture.
I had a choice a few years ago to either get a job at Priceline.com or join a Fortune 10 company. With all the dot com hype a few years ago, I almost picked Priceline. The idea of working for a young company, lots of young people, great stock options, Capt Kirk almost lured me over.
In the end, I went with the Fortune 10 job and am I ever glad I did! I consider myself lucky that I work for stable company and still have a home life. They let me work one day a week from home, which allows me to spend the day with my daughter.
Some people thing that big corporations are evil, but I find them to be very stable with deep pockets. Plus, if you do a good job, exhibit a professional manner and act normal [you be surprised how many people I seen who got turned down for a job because we thought they were a little flakey] you'll excel.
Live web cams
Not saying your case of getting fired was right. Probably wasn't, but I'm not going to say it was wrong either. Could be (Just COULD) that someone had already told him _they_ could get it done in 3 weeks, and he gave you first chance at it, and you said you couldn't hack it... COULD BE, probably not, but could be...
As for the main post, "Managers Lack Vision" I would have to say, well, 75% completely lack vision, and the other 25% had vision once, but lost it. How many projects can you love, make great, and pour your heart and vision into, only to have it bastardized by either 1) Bad Marketing 2) Bad Upper Management Decision (managers have managers too!) or 3) Complete failure of the people working under you to deliver your visions. When you have vision, and never see it materialize, eventually you just give up.
Realize, there are TWO sides to most stories.
I mean I would really want his job. All you /. people (as in the head folks) get to sit around and work on your website and code whatever you want. Sounds good to me.
Spilled.net
I work in an entry level technical position. Even though my expertise and experience is much greater than that which is required for my job, I took it because hey, the market sucked and I have a family to feed.
The company I work for is very large and very stable. It's a bank, and even when the tech market "adjusted", the overall impact on my company was negligible.
So I do my job to the best of my ability, which is far better than most in my department, and for the most part I am recognized by being granted more responsibility and more say in the things that happen in the organization. I was even given the opportunity to coordinate the largest, fastest rollout the company has ever seen.
3600 Windows 2000 PCs across 120 locations, installed and configured by out-sourced techs who have no idea what our systems or proprietary applications are like, all completed in less than 8 weeks and me as the only single point of contact for all of the techs. I put out about 50 fires per night ranging from Server issues to Network outages and not once did a location have to fall back...not once.
I was told that it would be my ticket, my way out of my current boring, mindless position as a first-level support person.
I did well, better than anyone expected. I rarely escalated any problems past the point of a phone call. The entire project was called, "the most successful project in the company's history." One week later the company went through a massive re-org and where am I now?
Still changing passwords and asking retards to reboot when an application hangs on them. I attend the occasional meeting where my valued input counts towards the benefit of other departments and still sees me in the same place I have been for over 2 years.
So why do I hate my job?
Because no matter how many times I am commended for my excellent work, how many times my manager receives emails from our users that I went "above and beyond", no matter how many times my suggestion in a meeting gets implemented in the next production release, etc...
I am still in the same entry level position. I give this company everything it needs and more, and I get sweet fuck all. That's why I hate my job...
"You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake."...Tyler Durden
The moral of this story, only half told, is "fulfillment comes from within".
But morals, when condensed into pithy sayings never quite have the impact of a story unfolding.
Perhaps the author may find someday that even the community of people who share his passion is not really a necessary ingredient to happiness, more like frosting on the cake.
Indeed. One of us has the cart before the horse...
Yes, but everything you mentioned is also true of office jobs.
At least as a farmer there would be different jobs at different phases of the growing season. You don't sit in a combine for 12 hours every day all year, just when you're harvesting. (I forget, can a combine be used to plant?) So at worst you'd drive the combine for about 2 weeks twice a year.
Cow milking is over in about 45 minutes. But then you have fresh milk! Tell me that isn't rewarding.
And about the radishes... If the same thing kills them every year, I'm not going to be stupid enough to replant them every year.
Besides, it's not the same every year. Some years are good, some years are bad. I know companies are the same way, but at least as a farmer I would have some control over the outcome. And I would be outside some of the time.
I don't care, I'm going to do it anyway.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
My girlfriend had been pushing me to go to Hello Work this summer and I was damn reluctant.
Being unemployed is depressing enough without having to go to some dreary government beaurocracy and staring at a green terminal or flipping through grimy printouts of manual labor positions.
Boy was I wrong - I went to the Iidabashi branch and found it to be clean, well-lit and running modern computers. The staff was helpful and the job listings well-organized.
I was truly impressed.
This is how this sort of thing should be done. The US should have this sort of system.
Before you say "well, Japan is so much more technologically advanced", take a look over here - In most areas, Japanese business is technologically 20 years behind the US. They are famous for making computers, not particularly for *using* them.
Thanks for the link, I didn't know they had a website.
Cheers,
Jim
-- My Weblog.
I like the analagy. And I do feel sorry for folk who don't like their work. There are times when any job can be a pain (getting up at 5:00 in the morning to drive for two hours to get to a survey location can be frustrating), but the overall job itself is a joy.
I guess I really can not empathize that much, as I have never worked in the "private sector," though I have heard horror stories from contract archaeologists (long hours, little regard for science, no passion for history, &c.).
Rhapsody in Numbers
I am not a manager, but I have worked for a few of them in my time. From what I can tell, there are two separate tasks that any manager must perform.
First, they must handle all of the administrative/business stuff. This means doing things like schedules, purchasing, calculating ROI, budgets, etc. From talking to people that have gotten their MBA's, this is the sort of thing that they learn about in their "management" classes. Most managers that have gone through some sort of formal management training seem to have this part of the job down pat.
The second aspect of managing is motivating and leading the people who work for you. This doesn't seem to be taught in any sort of formal way (note that MBA stands for Masters of Business ADMINISTRATION, not Business Leadership). It seems that most managers fail at this aspect of the job, and failing seems to be at the heart of most complaints that we technical people have about our managers. Most of the complaints on this topic are the result of managers who either don't know how to motivate their techies, or who do things that actually DE-motivate their techies.
Apparently, this is a subject that isn't taught in those management classes.
Steven McConnell's book _Rapid Development_ devotes several chapters to the subject of motivating developers. He makes the case that developer motivation is the number one most important factor in determining whether or not a project succeeds. He then goes on to discuss ways in which developers can be motivated, and ways in which they can be de-motivated.
One of the the more interesting things that he mentions is that surveys have shown that managers and developers are motivated by different things. He suggests that this may be one of the reasons why there is often a disconnected between managers and developers. For example, while managers are often motivated by "rah-rah" speeches, technical people are put off by these sorts of things because they seem phony. On the other hand, developers are often motivated by working on interesting projects where there is the possibility for growth, while managers are less concerned with this sort of thing. The trick is to motivating developers is understand what motivates them, and then to deliver.
Also, he mentions that developers are often motivated by the work itself, meaning they want to feel "good" about the work that they are doing. Developers derive a lot of satisfaction from a job well done. However, managers often undermine this by demanding that developers cut corners, that they do not get to use the latest tools and techniques, that they do not have any control over the techical decisions, etc. There is nothing more de-motivating than when you do not feel good about the work that you are doing. Nobody ever felt a sense of accomplishment over a mass of spaghetti code that was thrown out the door.
Anyway, if you are looking for a good read about motivating developers and technical management in general, I suggest you read _Rapid Development_. In my opinion, it should be required reading for all technical managers!
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www.moneybythenumbers.com
Glad to hear you love your job. I love mine too. I live computing (this is not to say that I don't have a life outside of computers- I do, but it never quite goes away from my thoughts...) and I've been in the industry 12 years now- getting paid to play for all intents and purposes. It's been a blast and the money's been really good too.
As someone pointed out, your first thought was of money, which is all well and good- but money is a fleeting thing at best. Realize that if the rest of your peers are scrounging for work, there's going to be less of that which you seem to consider the most important thing about for them to pay you with. You think your job is secure, but I can tell you right now that if Gates or Ballmer thought you were costing too much on their bottom line, they'd spend no more than a heartbeat's worth of time before ejecting you. Only in a startup where you are one of the principles are you even remotely close to being indespensible- and the past has shown even that security to be fleeting at best.
Also, I'd have to beg to differ about Microsoft being the "World's greatest software manufacturer"- they are only one of the more successful ones. Culture is another important metric and I don't think that it's a good thing to be working for a company that lies, cheats, steals, and kills small companies for sport- and that IS in the Microsoft culture, through and through.
Do not confuse financial success with greatness- it's only ONE of the many metrics for the concept in question.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
If you're shrewd enough, you can get them to release their ownership on selected projects that might overlap with your own. I got 10 of my projects specifically stated in my NDA/NC agreement that deny my current employer any claims on the work done, even if it's overlapping with stuff they're doing. Since they're all open source projects (or they're going to be...) they had little issues with allowing me those consessions in IP ownership.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Management is a necessary evil. One recent experience made that ultimately clear when I started working for a newly opened branch of [company name]. Upper management told us to find our own work then yelled at us for not being billable. They finally hired (suckered?) an ex-military R&D manager for us (a very cool guy) who made me realize just how good he was -- he had vision, knew how to use the employees, and fought upper management when they made bone-headed decisions. In the end, they closed the branch just before out options matured.
Customers are very often like bad management -- they have no clearly defined vision, and they tell you how to do your job when they have no (or worse, little) clue -- so I will lump them together.
Here's my Cliff's Notes(TM) Guide to Happiness in the Workplace:Interpersonal skills are a must. Anyone who says they want to program in isolation is a moron. Management is not a one-way street. You have to be able to clearly (if simply) describe to management what you are doing so they can make the appropriate decisions. Is most cases I find that when I can get management/customers to understand what I am doing and why I made certain design decisions they end up agreeing with me 100%.
Perhaps the hardest thing to do is what I call Requirements Mining. It's a dirty, hard, labor- and mental-intensive process whereby you extract the vision from management/clients. This process can take lots of time and meetings. You have to be able to listen to what management says and, more importantly, to listen to what they're not saying. After mining, you have to cut and polish the gems to present back to management for further review.
Permit me a brief example:
Boss come to you and says "build me X". You have no idea what "X" is, so you schedule a meeting to find out: 1) what is the status quo, 2) what is the problem, and 3) what is the proposed solution. You write up a report with rough sketches and schedule another meeting. More people attend, the vision is further refined. You ask direct and pointed questions. Repeat two or three times till you can come up with a solid understanding and schedule. Present your proposal (design, schedule, estimated cost (if applicable)) to management. Include some options in there to make management feel important but try to convince them that they should pick the one you already decided was the correct one. (After all, you should know your job better than they, no?)
The project is proceeding smoothly with regularly scheduled meetings to display progress. Suddenly, a boss (not your immediate manager) comes to you and says he needs "feature Y because it was promised by sales, so we have to have it." First, redirect him to your immediate supervior. Second, come up with the cost (schedule slip) and inform your manager of the consequences of his choice. Document (even if it's via e-mail) that you told him what would happen when the choice was made and do whatever it is that is decided.
It doesn't matter that the project is now four months late due to feeping creaturism. Why? Because you've already documented the consequences of other people's poor decisions on choices that were never your to make in the first place. You can go home at the end of the day with a clear conscience.
It's only a job.
My job consists of testing new portable systems that won't be sold for months. I get to rip them apart, use them, and just have a lot of fun. I also get to be the wired and wireless networking guy. I wouldn't want to work anywhere else.
Huh -- I just think your job sucks. :)
:p
Honestly -- if I wake up with a hangover, I sleep in and go to work late. There's very, very little shit I've been given as a part of my job, and most of it (ie. baby-sitting the CEO's neighbor's kid) is stuff I could have gotten out of if I tried. Rather, I liked it -- or, in the case of the CEO's neighbor's kid, at least needed something to complain about.
When I was interviewing, I mentioned some of the stuff I did for fun (packaging-related stuff, as it happens). The lead engineer (who I happened to be chatting with) was shocked -- I'd named the task they were planning to assign me to (and they hadn't told me yet).
When I decided that Python was now my favorite scripting language, guess what -- they happen to need folks who know Python.
When I came up with a nifty idea for automatic package testing, guess what -- they thought it was great; I now maintain an internal rpmlint fork with many added features.
When I came up with a way of testing a graphical program on many different targets at once, guess what -- their HHG (now MVG) product needed just such a thing for its QA cycle.
When I wanted to play with the network stack, they were considering different VPN solutions, so I got to spend some time porting MPPE to the (as yet unreleased) 2.4 kernel.
When I thought of a way to make one of the aforementioned tasks easier involving some kernel-level code [inserting events directly into the input core for the graphics testing system, fwiw], guess what -- one of my coworkers (tremendously clued, almost to an individual) happened to have the time and inclination to teach me to debug kernel code (hardware-level debugging using BDI hardware, might I add -- lots of fun to learn).
Heck, my first year there a coworker and I brought our work machines home for a LAN party at his place, with The Management's blessings ("What are you asking me for? You're impowered, aren't you?").
Now, the specifics of these projects are different than what I'd be doing if I were left to my own devices, but the general concepts are pretty darned similar. While there've been occasional directives and such that affect how I work (ie. "let us know when [FOO] will be done as it'll gate our release... okay, you say [DATE]... we've handed that to S&M (sales&marketing), so [FOO] must be done by [DATE]"), I can't think of any that I consider "grief". Perhaps it's just this -- ones' definition of what constitutes "grief" -- that results in some people liking their jobs more than others. The worst thing I can think of The Management doing in terms of affecting the product we put out is removing the audio tracks from our product CDs (we have our own in-house band; if I played blues or jazz I'd be a member) -- but that was an action of the marketing department, not engineering or the high-level staff; the latter group was, I understand, quite unhappy with marketing over the infraction.
To put it simply: If money were a non-issue and my choices were to go in and work or to stay home and goof off, I'd go and work. Since money isn't a non-issue, I go to work largely for the pay -- but if that factor were removed, I'd still do much the same thing just for the joy of creating a valuable product and working with such insanely cool folks as my coworkers are.
Some products are just too complicated to build as just one person, so if you want to be able to create beyond a certain level you need to be with others like you... and if you want to see your creations used, having a marketing department helps. And if you want cool toys, having a sales department helps. And if you want to have someone else who can support the users, having a support department helps. And if you want someone to do all the damn paperwork and scheduling and other Things That Aren't Part Of Building The Product, having a management group to do that for you is pretty darned useful too. I don't like hounding IT to get something done, and I don't need to -- I tell my manager when IT gates my ability to Get Something Done, and she hounds them for me. Managers are useful when thought of as a resource rather than as overlords -- and here, at least, that's what they are, at least when they don't need to be something else. At least, that's what my (most excellent) manager is; I can't vouch for all the others.
Anyhow, my point is that Jobs That Don't Suck exist -- and while no job may be perfect forever, I've had this one for about three years and it's stayed pretty close. I've worked for myself before (almost all my experience other than this is in consulting), and this job is far better than consulting ever was.
This seems like an appropriate time to mention the Slackers Guild.
.sig doesn't mention it for me.
Not that my
I noticed this poll right after a presentation on "restructuring" and after we were invited to apply for voluntary redundancy... I'm sitting thinking "how much do I REALLY like this job..?", learning new phrases such as "displaced employees", and then I flip to slashdot... how poignant.
Also, it's interesting to note how many people say no, they hate their job. How sad!
Personally I love the _role_, or I wouldnt be a geek. I even like making customers happy - but don't tell anyone >:) Whether I am happy _where I work_ really comes down to the organisation and management. In the worst cases, they dont manage - they just try to control. That's when you know it's time to go.
I suppose this poll doesn't bode well for Slashdot's demographics. When a huge percentage of the readership is unemployed I'd venture to say that ad customers might raise an eyebrow or two.
The job itself is ok, I like what I do, but its the management and atmosphere I don't enjoy. I work for a small college in charge of all web design and development. The catch is I work in the department alongside fundraisers and other such positions, not in the IT department. That means nobody knows what I do really, we don't have much in common at all except the same boss, and most of them are quite a bit older than I. The boss doesn't understand much about my position either, just knows that it fits into our strategic plan. For the most part that's ok, but my biggest gripe is that I could easily do this all from home (and with a nicer machine) and even if there's a blizzard, I am expected to come in just because that's what everbody else has to do. I am also required to dress up and come in early because that's what they all do. Atmosphere at a college is so different from that at a business.
I guess I shouldn't complain because I do have a job, but I feltlike contributing to the discussion.
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
nope =)
Actually, the nick (obviously from hackers) was from back when i knew jack schitt about computers, and i picked it to use on IRC when hanging out. I know it's lame, but i'm too lazy to change it. Anyway,
The company is Netmar Web Hosting. The web page is nasty, but the service is good. We're working on a new layout - beta.netmar.com - but.... ya know.... anyway,
Linux web hosting $10/mo, unlimited bandwidth, 100 MB space, unlimited email aliases, PHP, MySQL, Perl, etc.
~Z
sig?