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When to Leave That First Tech Job
An anonymous reader writes "Chris Wilson has an interesting piece about a scenario all CompSci/Engineering students dread, getting a job out of college and having it quickly turn sour. He writes: 'The first layoff is tough. After bending over backward, after being a loyal employee, this is the reward? To summarize how I felt: Disillusioned.' He discusses warning signs you should look for in your own work environment that point toward "Getting out". An interesting read, especially for aspiring engineers or engineers out on their first job."
I work for a Doctor who owns his own practice. I recognize that he went through years of medical school to get where he is, and I respect that.
However, med school does not teach you Programming/Networking/System Diagnosis and Repair. It appears to have barely taught management.
When your boss thinks he knows how something should be done because he is a professional in another field, it is time to type up the resume and start passing it around. When you can't convince him of something because he "Knows" how it "Should" be done, your sunk.
Physics is nothing like religion. If it was, we'd have an easier time trying to raise money!
> Don't work in cubicles, ever. Working in cubicles is the sure sign that you're not working for a successful company.
This a big fallacy. When I started my job I shared an office with a coworker, but due to various moves to different buildings through the years I'm now in a cubicle. In fact, almost everyone in my building (all 5 floors) has a cubicle. The only people with offices are either high-level managers or executives. I would hardly say my company isn't successful, and the cubicle isn't so bad considering that I can work from home any time I want.
And I think you've heard of this company, it's called IBM.
besides it's no fun how can you have nerf wars in offices? and what happens when your neighor's gear catches fire while he's at lunch (happened to me) you'll notice in cubes (sniff sniff .... something's burning ...) maybe not in offices ....
How about OSISoft, creators of the largest, most expensive data historian (that I am aware of). They have several client apps and service-based things that are built in .Net. They have a .Net SDK. They don't write their historian or interfaces in .Net (at least they didn't a year ago). Everything on the control side is non-.Net, everything on the client side is moving to .Net.
.Net also, ad you can set your local plant up with this for under $100k (unlike PI which I think starts at $150k without client tools).
.Net OPC tools out there? Many control system devices can talk OPC now (it's an open standard) and there are tons of tools that will collect data from them or allow read/write connections, many in .Net. Several OPC .Net SDKs are out there for sale to let you write your own .Net software that ties into your process data.
.Net software on their process network. Course, last time I was there they also still had windows NT boxes on the process side (they have since upgraded to 2000 though, they stay 3-4 years behind on purpose).
.Net apps that tied into it.
:P
How about Wonderware, another prevalent suite of process control and data tools. They are moving to
How about all of the
And yes, I know for a fact that the nuclear power plant about 20-30 miles from me has
How about Mole? I have no clue what is running to actually collect the data (I did at one time, but it's been a while). It uses a SQL database as it's historian, so I would be incredibly surprised if someone wasn't developing or running some
As far as fear of nuclear plants goes, I don't have much. My fear is paper plants. Especially old paper plants that run the entire process from wood chips to paper. I'll never forget almost being forgot in one of the control rooms the day before christmas when they were evacuating half the plant due to a chemical leak...I don't remember what it was now, except that it was insanely deadly, in extremely small doses (.5 ppm?) it would kill your nasal receptors in a few seconds, so while it wasn't odorless it wasn't exactly something you could smell either...not to mention that that same small dose was capable of killing, not just you, but the person that tried to save you (clothing, skin contact), etc. There wasa case at a paper plant in SC or georgia where 5 people were taken out. Two ambulances took two of them each, bythe time they gotto the hospital the medical personal were already showing symptoms. The 5th guy was taken by his boss who had followed some safety procedures (get rid of the clothes, wrap in another cloth, then go to the hospital) and they still had to replace the backseat of his car...
Lastly, it would take a lot more than a computer crash to take down a reactor in such a waythat it would go critical, somehow ignore the multitude of safeguards, etc. I'm not sure you could purposely cause tht to happen, as so many safeguards are engineered in (there is no "Make it go boom" button). On top of that, there is a significant difference between sending a set of commands to a specific device in it's manufacturers specific protocol for that device and sending a burst of gibberish. What you do lose is some of your monitoring. I don't know as much about the monitoring at nuclear plants as I didn't work on that part at all, but at standard turbine plants they have two systems, the computers in the control room (Windows, Solaris, VMS, whatever) and either whatever equipment is left form the 50's (analog (pneumatic?) equipment, yes it's still out there) or LCDs. Either way it runs completely seperate from the data control software and systems.
Sorry for the extra ramble
Whee signature.
They shouldn't use it for anything else involving nuclear power, either. Scheduling, getting parts, monitoring security cams, even just turning the lights on in the parking lot can be a problem for security reasons. .NET has been a minefield since Peter LaMacchia at Microsoft, who wrote the first good book on it, resigned from the project over the security changes management was making to it in the next release over his direct objections.
Here is what you do. You graduate as a computer or electrical engineering student. You move to Northern VA. You contact a big defense contracter like Lockheed or Northrupp. You get them to hire you contingent upon you getting a clearance. You work on project X when you get your clearance. You now hate your job but guess what you have a clearance so you can basically be a warm body to fill a slot and have about a thousand options open to you. (Btw I hate the warm body slot filling thing but god do I see it all the time!)
News Reporters Make Tasty Polar Bear Treats!
It's a dumb reason to complain anyway...I've got my own office. It's pretty nice. But I'm in a busy department, and there are offices all around mine, and unless I shut the door (which isn't done around here, unless you're gone, or having some scary meeting), I can hear stuff going on in 6 or seven other offices. Adding to that, I'm one of a few programmers in an environment filled with DBAs, Netadmins, and tech support guys, so there are always people moving around working on system problems, chatting, etc.
In short, office != quiet.
My advice is to get an iPod and a pair of noise cancellation headphones. Make sure you turn your desk, or put up a mirror or something if you're easily startled...Every place I've ever worked, someone has thought it would be funny to try and "scare" me while I was doing this, and while this has never happened more than once, the reputation that goes with being a tightly-wound stress hound whose "fight" reflex beats the crap out of his "flight" reflex is no fun to live with, and hard to live down.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
You're absolutely right. I don't know of a single large company that *doesn't* use cubes. It makes me question the writer's knowledge of...anything. He admits he didn't do anything to look for a job, didn't even bother to listen to alumni dispensing career advice because it was "all very, very dry." He grabbed the first one that made an offer, and got disillusioned when they canned him. Well, duh. Put a little effort into that job search, you'll have less chance of that happening.
There are other signs that make me think I'd like to hear management's side of the story. For one, he sounds like a prima donna. His sole qualification is a Bachelors in CS from a middle tier school, and he acts like he should be given the golden boy treatment in his first job. An office for a kid who knows .NET? Company car?!?!? Sorry, Charlie, the 90's are gone and that crap's over.
Also, he sounds a bit arrogant - implying that anyone over 40 doesn't know what they're doing, mentions that management didn't take his advice, etc. That could be true, or it could be that he's an arrogant little man who can't constructively work as part of a team.
I also wonder how good he was at his job - he says that management told him he wasn't picking up the work fast enough, and that he was just "barely middle of the pack." He says that was them "setting the employees up for failure." Yeah, that's one option. That or they don't think he's getting the job done.
Finally, this wasn't a mass firing. The impression I got was that he was selected to be let go among the team. He claims they blamed it on finances, but legally they would anyway, in all likelihood.
We only have one side of this story - it could well be another case of a kid coming out of college with a ton of arrogance, no respect for people who have a ton more experience than he, skills that didn't translate to his job, and a problem working with others. Perhaps there's a reason he was canned?
Videogames, pizza and movies all day... Hell, one of the guys didn't even show up for several months, and when he did come to the office, he was doing work for the competition on a contract basis while still getting salery from our company!
-TheDawgLives suckitdown
There are several lessons that the author--who is clearly little experienced in the work force--should take away here. For one thing, posting about the "signs" that he should've seen, particularly when those signs are generally wrong, doesn't come off as good advice to people who've been professionals for awhile. It comes off as sour grapes. Why is he wrong? Let's find out.
Cubicles are of the devil
Repeat after me: No, they're not. With proper soundproofing tiles on the ceiling and carpetted floors, you should be able to hear only your closest neighbors, and drowning them out is what comfortable headphones are for. If you can't get into the zone and do quality work, that's a personal issue, not your employer's. If you are having a hard enough go of it, you should talk to your manager about the problem.
Management is stupid
Generally, you can't get away from this. However, the cases that he cites as management incompetence really weren't necessarily icompetence at all. The author was upset because people like working the way they're most efficient. He seems to think that every new piece of technology makes people more efficient, which is a belief that is only held by recent college graduates. The problem with new technology is that it requires time to retrain your brain. And if the technology really is more efficient (and I would argue that few new languages truly have resulted in massive productivity increases), the question becomes: is the new technology so efficient that the retraining costs will be overcome by the productivity increase we'll get when everyone is running full speed? Usually, the answer is no, or at best "maybe." That's not something you want to stake the future of the company on, which is what you're doing at a small company.
Further, he was upset that after he studied for a few hours, management wasn't convinced that he was the right person to do a full reformat/install of their primary development server. WHAT A SHOCKER! If he were a real go-getter, he would've come in anyways, so he could've learned what the actual problems were going to be during the procedure. Then next time he was somewhere where this came up, he could've at least had cursory experience with the issue.
Personal Growth
I can't really disagree when he says companies should provide mechanisms for personal and professional growth. But what I can say is that when management is telling you that you are in the middle of the pack, look inward. If they're telling you that you're middle of the pack, you're probably actually closer to the bottom. If you feel you're working your hardest and management is telling you that you're not doing a great job, it might be that it's time for a career change.
Compensation isn't everything
That's true, but on the other hand, no one wants to be paid less than they're worth. The key here is that if you're at a job that makes you happy, you'll be more productive and a better employee. Consequently, you'll be recognized by your employer, and generally compensated more.
Final thoughts
It seems to me that what happened in this situation is the author was inexperienced and didn't realize what he'd gotten himself into. His job was a high-risk, high-reward situation. The company promised him ground-floor entry into what they thought was going to be a big hit. Turns out they weren't right, and he hadn't done his due diligence first. The theory with startups is that you churn and burn, and when you're done you can retire at 25. Of course, the reality is that 99% of startups fail and employees are left with nothing but the experience.
When interviewing for a position, the most important thing is to realize that you're interviewing them as much as they're interviewing you. During the interview, when asked if you have any questions, ask if you can meet some of the other team members you'll be working with alone. Tell them you'd like to get a feel for the l
I currently have no clever signature witicism to add here.
Here were the signs that led me to leave:
IANAL... But I play one on