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What You Should Know When Taking a University Job?
FyreWyr asks: "I've been working professionally for more than 10 years, and recently returned to school to refine my skills, and potentially, to change careers. In the meantime I'm seeking income from my University in the most practical fields, i.e., my old technical career (programming, networking, etc). So, a programming job has become available, and with it, questions. While I've done my share of business consulting, I've never worked within a University pay system, and further, project interviews have not revealed a clear project scope. Wanting to accept the project, I'm now working on a basic project overview WITHOUT compensation so that I can (get it reviewed, and) kick out an appropriate time estimate and salary. Can anyone provide 'wish-I-would-have-known' issues regarding the politics, expectations, and monetary realities of working for a major department within a large University?"
(1) smile, nod... repeat...
(2) While doing (1), watch out carefully for impossible/stupid features proposed by the middle management
(3) Return to (1).
Freshmen hotties, drunk sorority chicks, raging parties that involve underage drinking and streaking.
Holy shit, what the fuck am I talking about? I am getting old :)
Please go thru the last week or so of http://userfriendly.org/static/ cartoons. It will prove enlightening.
-Charles
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Userfriendly has gotten stale, but this week's User Friendly seems to be relevant...
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
You have to know how to ask. Instead of asking for the University to pay for your housing, ask if you can sleep in the lab.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
If you're working for the University, forget all that real world experience.
Okay...
Just do what you feel like, look busy, and program something crappy right before they ask for it.
How can I forget my real world experience when you won't stop talking about it?
Myself, another sysadmin, and some lab supervisors installed SETI@home on every machine on campus, and ran them each night. We were number one for a while.
Then one of the most arrogant and despised academic staff members on the planet (then a PhD student) demanded that it stop because he needed the network for a distributed computing project he was working on.
So the administration told us to remove the SETI client and turn the campus network over to the academic each night.
The academic then reinstalled SETI@home and shot to number one. The difference between himself and us was that he used his SETI user info to *advertize* the distributed computing Linux-cluster based system he had created.
At least SETI@home ordered him to remove the advertizing message eventually. But he's still a faggot motherfucker.
Clearly you've never worked with a linux admin :)
I.) You will be poorly compensated with regard to similar salaries offered in industry.
... ... ...
II.) You will be asked to help spend an absurd amount of departmental/university money on all sorts of things: poorly-engineered solutions, glitzy glamour tech toys, and other moneypits that your stupid PHB/faculty want to see off the ground even if there is no reason for such. This will include but not be limited to the following: wikis, group blogs, thin clients, clusters, blades, network appliances, VOIP, RFID, SSI, Exchange, Exchange, Exchange.
III.) Students will be bad users; faculty will be worse.
IV.) You will see that it takes upwards of three to twelve times to get any technical done on a state university campus.
V.) You will see that management outnumbers the workers. You will see that as time progresses, this class gap grows and grows.
VI.) You will be asked to spend more time "planning to plan" than implementing anything.
VII.) You will see that there is no "bottom line". The name of the game will be "spend it before they take it from us". Every project budget you see will be broken in an order to justify being allocated a larger piece of the money pie for the next technical project.
VIII.) You will see that the students really are getting less than they bargained for. The amount you see them pay in any variety of fees will disgust you at the yield they reap from the fees spent so carelessly by your PHB.
IX.) You will get a state-issued Blackberry, and you will be expected to be available 24/7/365 to remedy any issues. You will realize that this act is just an effort to glamorize your position to other organizations (more importantly, other PHBs) on campus and that the tiny facet of campus technology you are responsible for is not entirely mission critical enough to warrant such a handcuffing device.
X.) You will not win. You will find out more on this after your 94238234th meeting.
You can choose to
a.) be a conventional state employee. In doing so, you will be able to keep your poorly-paying job, but you will be able to shirk a lot of responsibility and workloads. You will be able to do virtually anything you little heart desires, and you will continue to hold down your job until you are six feet under. You will not be held accountable, but you will enjoy it. More than 98% of state university employees become this in under 18 months. There is also the option of
b.) working to defy the stereotype of the lazy, worthless university employee. You can take on tasks and projects other co-workers have shirked. You can think that you will dazzle your PHB/faculty/chairman/dean/president with your sk1llz, but
c.) you will realize that you will not be compensated for your work efforts. In a short amount of time, you will realize that there is zero motivation to operate as any other type of employee other than the aforementioned point "A" employee. At this point, the circle will be complete and you will just be one cog of many in a huge machine responsible for perpetuating a lot of injustice.
At CSUN we had a small school that closed next to the campu so people started parking there. One of the lots, the one nearest to CSUN had only one entrance so of course during finals some moron parks his/her car right in the entrance and blocks everyone else from leaving. Fortunatly for the car owner there was never a big enough crowd of pissed of students to roll the car. By the end of the day nothing look like it worked on that car, busted lights, bent antenna, flat tires and of course a parking ticket. HAHAHAHAHAHA Ooooo the sweet memories of school life.
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!