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Good Job Experiences?
alexkj asks: "Do you remember a situation that made you feel good about your job? There's a lot of moaning and complaining going on about peoples jobs these days. It's probably no wonder with all the downsizing going on, but it still gets me down. So lets turn it around, and find all the good stories. Tell everybody else about a good experience on the job. Try to be specific, and relate an actual story of a situation that made you happy on the job."
My first real tech job was to build a LAN for my former High School, which naturally involved lots of running and capping of wires, etc... I was a youngin at the time, and not especially experienced, and along comes Net Day, in 1997 or 1998.
We had about 25 volounteers come to the school on a weekend, to help string wires all over the place, most of them not having the slightest idea what they were doing.
It was a bit of a pain, but it was nice to see some of these older cats looking to me for guidance as to what to do. The few experienced people I simply deputized, and let them handle a crew of about 4. They still came back to me for advice or a say-so.
In all, it was a very long day, but I got a nice fuzzy feeling that maybe I knew what I was doing, moreso then I originally thought.
The other great thing about that job was I got to smoke on the roof while I was measuring ye olde cat 5 cable. Good times...
"Inattention makes clowns of us all" -Bean
As a programmer though, the things where I've felt the best have been where we've pulled together as a team and delivered on something tough, where I've been in a more competitive environment and charged ahead of the other guys enough that it was clear who was top dog a while, and where I've had a tough problem thrown at me and been left with enough time to do some research and lay out a clean and elegant solution.
it's really tough to find an environment where you're working with good people who are all already dedicated. It's tough to enjoy competition in an environment where management aren't very clueful about measuring accomplishments, or are so touchy-feely that they won't vocalize that this guy's leagues ahead of that guy. And there's not much joy in constant-pressure environments where managment won't let you invest time in creating quality, reusable systems.
The team dedication and energy you can create yourself, if you spend some time on building relationships with the people around you and learning their skills. A good programmer knows who shares interest in what kind of problem, and can leverage that to get buy-in and support. I'm sure that's true in other kinds of work as well.
The second and the third, competition and deep work, are tough to create, unless you're willing to take charge yourself and rally coworkers around while still pushing credit for most things off on your manager so he doesn't stand in your way.
The folks who complain about their work the most tend to be the passive kind who are idly waiting for things to get interesting. That doesn't happen most places. You've got to create that if you want to be part of something big and interesting, or if it's really not possible to do that where you are, start figuring out how to get out.
Make it happen, dudes.
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However, as my first (or second, depends on how you count) job out of uni, it's a great experience. For all the wrong reasons, sure, but a great experience nonetheless.
So sure, I don't feel good about my job or happy on the job, but I do feel good knowing that I have all this experience on What Not To Do(tm) in the future. I do feel good knowing I can take very real experience in a large software project into the future.
Call me a masochist. I don't care.
I have a great manager.
We work in a field (Information Security) that not many people 'get'. He truly grasps the technology, understands the issues we face, and tries to improve the situation in the company.
He understands that people have families, and that work is not life (at least, not an ideal life). He seriously urges people to better themselves through education (I start back up in 3 weeks).
He is reasonable about people working from home on occasion, and supports us trying and doing things a step away from normal (My second desktop at work is a linux workstation).
On top of all of that, he is an MBA, and has a fantastic ability to handle the politics of a huge company.
He even quotes movies, and considers Ghostbusters "The greatest source of 1-liners ever".
I am one of the VERY lucky, and my family regularly lets him know how much we appreciate everything he does.
What can I say, he rocks, and thus, my job rocks. You couldn't pay me enough to leave.
He even knows (and accepts) that off-hours I work on a...
GPL'd web-based tradewars themed space game
Just having a job makes me feel good and happy! I hear more stories everyday of people being laid off, tech workers can't find jobs, etc. and I wonder how stable my position is. I am however very fortunate to work at a great company with a lot of great people. We're small with only about 100 people total, so everyone knows everyone and we all seem to get along great. I really couldn't ask for more.
As far a specific story about happiness on the job? I'll relate a bit about my first assignment with my current employer.
I had just started with the company (March 2000) and was doing a lot of boning up on Frame Relay
(which I had never even heard of before starting this job) and one month into working here, I'm in a meeting and we are told about a project in Africa (Ghana to be exact) and my manager is asking for volunteers. Surprisingly to me, people weren't jumping at the chance. Well, I did and it turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life! Myself and a senior engineer were going to go to Ghana and setup a WAN (over fiber) between to cities about 100 miles apart and then within the two cities setup MANs using line-of-sight microwave. ATM for the backbone. Frame for the MAN and IP running over the entire thing. We got to set up video conferencing and VoIP equipment to demonstrate the full capabilitiy of the network. It was the most amazing learning experience for me.
As great as this sounds, things were a little shaky for a bit. It turns out that the senior engineer had to return back to the states twice during the three months we were supposed to be there, which would have meant that I was to be left alone for a couple of weeks and have to carry on by myself. I was still very green of course and I had my doubts.
The first week he was gone was no big deal. I was basically to learn about the routers were going to use and get a frame relay circuit and IP connectivity over a T1 link during that week. I made that happen by mid-way through the week he was gone.
He returned and we spent the next month building this network. Just the two of us. I did most of the grunt work like making cables, etc. I also handled the routers I had just learned about which was cool, because he new nothing about them.
Well, we got the entire thing up and running in time for the demo that the company was putting on for local banks, govt. officials and other important people. The senior engineer then has to leave for his second trip back to the states. The only thing is, he doesn't return. No big deal right? Everything was setup and running well, right? Well, wrong of course.
The day after the demo, the customer tells me that they would like the network re-designed/installed/etc. for another demo. Well, this was Thrusday evening and I was to leave on Saturday afternoon. This meant that I had to travel once more to the other remote city, change shit all around on Friday and come back late Fri. night. Get a bit of sleep and then change everything around there in the local city and of course get it all running again.
Well, needless to say, I now had serious doubts. I called my manager and she was too fucking cool! She said, "Well, do your best, but whether it's working or not, you're coming home." (Remember, I had been there for 3 months by this time.) She also said, "It's on them for making changes last minute." (Too cool! A boss that's actually sticking up for me instead of "Whatever the customer wants." or "Well, you stay there until you get it done."
Well, Friday came and went. I got the remote city (three MAN sites there) setup and headed back to the capitol city. I woke up Saturday, got everything done by about 11:00 am. Now it all just had to work. Everything was pretty easy to get up except the damn video conf. system! It was what I had had the least amount of time and experience with too. Damn!
Well, as it turned out, I got it to working at the last minute with just enough time to get back to the hotel, grab my shit and get the hell outta there!!
Needless to say I was (and still am) very happy with my job. Things haven't been quite as exciting since and the travel hasn't been as exotic, but I love what I do and that's the most important part.
Co-founder and designer at Music Nearby: http://musicnearby.com
As I was leaving I heard my boss say to the marketing guy, "I've seen the full demo...this is gonna be alot cooler than we thought it could." That made me all proud.
:) All people in this story have long ago left the company.
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
The first work term I ever had in my Computer Engineering degree gave me one of my most memorable experiences. I worked for two sumemrs at a chicken plant which was assembly line labour consisting of 8 hour shifts. If anyone has ever done this before they will know it's very hard on the body to do any repetative motion for 8 hours. Then I entered engineering and lined up a great job with Nortel Networks (God rest their soul) for the summer. Let's just say I was amazed that I didn't have to tell anyone I was going for a break or that I was able to take off early and work flex hours. Hey I was young and it's a big step from a chicken plant to the Tech Industry.
:) So many other good stories but that one stands out in my mind.
Anyway I did a lot of cool stuff that term and I still use it on my resume. But the best feeling I found was at the end of the term when they offered me a job in either Ottawa or Toronto for my next work term. Now it doesn't seem that big of a deal but to me at the time I was pretty freakin happy
"I believe in everything in moderation. Including moderation." -Dean DeLeo, Stone Temple Pilots
I work for a small company currently and for the first time I can say everyday is a good day. There are pressures are like any job, but I can honestly say I have the utmost respect for everyone I work with, morally, and intellectually. I have never been able to say either one about the people I've worked with in the past let alone both. That alone makes my job the best situation I've been in in years.
:)
Even when things don't go quite right, I know that everyone is invested in improving the situation. I have friends in the field and I do not know a single one that can say the same thing about their work environment. That, all by itself makes coming to work everyday a pleasure.
BTW: I work at McDonalds
Seriously, the biggest complaint is the communication barrier between the client and ourselves. The solution: stop bitching and find a better way to communicate with the client. Dissenters be damned. That sure beats the hell out of bemoaining a bad situation.
Hamburgers and [fill in the blank] to all my men.
One of the best jobs I've had was working for a small consultancy company (in Melbourne). Because it was such a small company they were very few boundaries of "this is your job... do this and nothing else" and plenty of opportunities existed to get involved in liaising with customers, installing and supporting systems ... all the "other" activities that surround just "developing" a system - some people considering them boring activities, but I've had some pure development roles, and the lack of variety in the day to day work does grind you down a bit.
But, from a job satisfaction point of view, what really made this job a rewarding experience was working on real systems where you could see the immediate benefits they provided the customer. A case in point was the airport logistic systems we developed for one of the airlines ... it always gave me a buzz to walk into the airport terminal, look up at the flight information screens and know that the system that is putting all that together is one you have worked on.
On the other hand, no matter how much "latest and greatest" technology you are getting your hands dirty with or the amount of TLAs piling up on your resume, if the system/program/application you are working on never actually sees the light of day, the buzz just ain't there.
Ironically I've just resigned from a job at a telco, working on "cutting edge technology" that is becoming less and less likely to see the light of day to go back to work for this previous small company - because for me the payoff is in the variety of experiences on offer and the sense of professional and self-worth that comes from actually seeing somebody make use of your hard work.
Recently I was fired (well actually my contract had expired and I was not hired again). That made me feel very good about my former job. I had a great time and I want it back!
-- Cheers!