Slashdot Mirror
The Living Dilbert?
AirmanTux asks: "Next march I will be separating from the US Air Force, after six years wearing 'the uniform', working in the closest thing to IT that the military has. For certain reasons, I've come to the conclusion that I will be more effective in serving the US public out of uniform than in it. There seems to be a common belief that the civilian sector is just as disorganized and mismanaged as the uniformed services. Do you think this is true? Are there any 'honest' places to work any more (where promotions/awards are based on work preformed and bureaucracy, and politics aren't encouraged to supplant the 'mission), or has America become one big living Dilbert strip?"
did you try searching for a GS job at usajobs.com? I plan on getting a GS job when my enlistment is over. if you have a clearance try clearancejobs.com. hope that helps.
I just made that switch myself not long ago.
It really depends on the place where you end up working (their size, what type of company they are, etc matters a lot).
Regardless, I *don't* ever want to be "promoted" to a management job. I like coding, not paperwork, meetings and managing people.
I work for a large organization, which as a result of it's size, has a sizeable ammount of beaurocratic BS. Perhaps I've been lucky, but I don't feel my management is as pathetic as portreryed in the strips...not even close. I think it helps to work for a company that takes IT seriously, as a genuine method for improving the business and not a dreaded tax to be paid like waste removal or maintenance. Unfortunately I have no insight as to how to determine this from the outside.
But, people are people. I might make a vague generalization about the personality types that join the military, but that probably won't be productive.
Blar.
Short answer: No.
Longer answer: Not really...there are places where performance and ability advance, but they are few and far between indeed, and primarily in small establishments. To most employers, employees are disposable commodity, a necessary evil that is to be pruned or removed at the earliest possible convenience. Management has become the science of keeping up appearances, with many managers being completely ignorant of the trade they are in, or the tasks of the workers they supposedly manage. Color me a pessimist, but the way I see it, Dilbert has gone from a sarcastic parody to a photorealistic portrait of the American workforce.
After 4 years in the Marines I was ready to get out to the "real" world... a world free of BS and well paying cool jobs. Well I got my degree in Comp Sci and was ready to face the world. Upon getting a job with a large corporation, I was amazed at the amount of BS there. It made the military look like an efficient & well-oiled machine. After 5.5 years now in the corporate world I ahve come to one conclusion... you alone can't make a damn difference. Either you will like it or you won't. I have finally realized that being my own boss is the way to go and thus I am pursuing that vigorously.
As for you my friend, take a walk through the corporate jungle and see if its your kinda thing. You can always do your own thing!
http://psychicfreaks.com/The more in-depth knowledge you have of some area, the more immune you will be to having to bow to mindless political requirements. I'm not saying that will go away, just that it will be lessened.
Consider focusing on specific areas, like perhaps IT security work or perhaps programming related to military applications. It seems like you should be able to use your time in the services to your advantage.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I value nothing more than being the master of my own destiny - which should explain why I live in the South Pacific and am more or less retired from corporate life at 42. Here, in a nutshell is the modus vivendi I've developed:
Any organisation beyond a certain size inevitably becomes pathological in its behaviour. It sometimes reverts to normalcy for periods of time, but it will swing, and you will swing with it. Avoid long term commercial commitments to any large organisation. Working with groups or individuals within them for finite terms is fine, and sometimes really enjoyable, though.
Find a niche where you can work with a number of trusted individuals (perhaps as a consultant or contractor) and either work for yourself or work in a small company of less than 50 staff. The material benefits won't be as easily accessible, but your life will be infinitely more enjoyable, because you'll actually have some control over it.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
But that can be avoided! If, instead of working at a large company, you seek out a small fledgling business to work at, you will find that the benefits are proportional to the results and not to politics. A small business, especially one with 20 employees at the most, cannot afford to play these political games. These businesses are usually owner-operated, and the owner cares about moving forward in life. That's why he is taking the tremendous risk and creating jobs for his employees. These organizations usually have one boss, around whom the whole business revolves. There might be one other manager, but usually, everyone runs around the boss asking questions and finding out what he wants them to do. This is the perfect business to work in, if you're a people-person. You go over there, and start at whatever level you can get. Since there aren't thousands of employees, the owner of the business will quickly see how you learn and operate. If you do a good job, you'll find yourself earning a lot of trust and capability in the company. Your opinions will be heard. And if you can be a team member, not just by doing your job, but by learning a bit about everyone's job, learning how the owner thinks, what he wants to accomplish, etc., you can take a lot of that pressure off the owner.
By doing all of this, you can help the business grow in terms of profit, which will make it grow into a larger company. Eventually, that means the office will become a Dilbert strip, or something out of Office Space. You'll have a Lumberg working under you a few levels down. But who cares? At this point, you will have helped the U.S. economy, you will have created jobs, you will have grown the company into something successful and long lasting, and you will be at a high position at the top, earning a high salary, and no doubt owning a good portion of the stock. You'll be laughing all the way to the bank.
You can work at a Start-Up. In those types of jobs, there's not a lot of money to go around so there's no room to slack off. Thus, everyone around you should, in theory, be top quality. Your reward for long hours and lower pay is a lot of stock options... But if the company doesn't work out, all you're left with is toilet paper. (No, I'm not bitter, not at all)
Or you can work at Big Corporation. All of them are the same, with varying degrees of B.S. Some have very little office politics and your hard work is noted and rewarded. Others are just one big C.Y.A. environment. Even worse, even if you do work hard in your local I.T. area, upper management may decide to oursource your job, so you get screwed anyways.
Remember, the goal is not to work hard. The goal is to work smart. Put in a lot padding on your estimates so you can slack off and still meet the deadline. If your co-workers in other areas / departments ask you to do things for them, pretend you don't know so they won't bother you anymore. (After all, you only answer to your boss.) Be sure to take the credit when something works and pass the blame when it doesn't. Don't complain about new projects or moved up timelines. You'll still have to complete them anyways if you still want to keep your job. Instead, agree with management and discuss how much more revenue the company will make once the project is finished. It gives the impression you actually give a shit about your clients and you'll be remembered as the "can do" person instead of the "can't do" complainer. I do all of these and have steadily advanced in position & salary.
I happen to be in the Air National Guard currently and am well on my way to making it my career, though not in IT. I have my Master's Degree in Computer Science, and had the privledge of doing my research work with the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nevada. I can tell you with a great amount of certainty that the driving forces between government and public IT are worlds apart. In Air Force/Government IT, there is little motivation to strive to learn more skills. Pretty much anyone can enlist into a technical field and they're all put through the same relatively short, simple training. In my opinion, they're amateurs on an unjustified power trip. There is significantly higher motivation for learning new skills in the public sector because it will actually make a difference for the individual. When you become invaluable, your status and pay reflect that, generally, in the public sector. Definetly not so in government positions. I do completely agree that an individual with a strong desire to learn and expand skills and knowledge can be of immense use in the public sector. However it takes a supernatural kind of driving force to penetrate the mundane aura of government IT.
After six years at a large international engineering outfit in the aerospace sector, I was very fortunate to find an IT job at a small, commercial-software-making outfit. The change in attitude and valuation of my skill set is like night and day. (Of course in favor of the small company.) That being said, opportunities in such companies aren't all that common, and you may trade some of the perks that larger companies can provide you. I took a $5k/year cut from the previous job, and my insurance coverage isn't quite as favorable in the smaller company, but I wouldn't think of going back since my input and experience is very much needed and appreciated here. Yes, I got d*mn lucky. Not all hope is lost.
Stay away from state-run universities if you want to avoid the same sort of red-tape and bullshit you find working for Uncle Sam.
I'm working for a very wealthy private univesity and it's much better than the state one where I worked before. It's easier to get fired at a private place so do you work and obey the rules. If you like total job security despite the BS factor, you might enjoy working for the state--here in Texas, it took an act of God to get fired because the managers (at least where I worked) never kept enough of the right paper work to do the necessary documentation to terminate an employee.
However, universities have a bad habit of higher their own graduates and favoring them in promotions--they've never been anywhere else so changes come slow if not 10 years behind everyone else. The management types are usually not as sharp as the managers in the corporate world--mostly because they wouldn't survive out there so they're also playing the job security card.
There's also little upward mobility. But, in the right position, you're an 8-5, weekends off, extra week off between Xmas and New Years Day kind of cush job.
Oh, at the pay scale is usually lower than the corporate market bears--but you won't get laid off.
There's lots of trade-offs but you have to decide what you want.
Good luck--having "USMC" on my resume qualified me for prison guard, police work, or mall security. Hope USAF is more helpful to you.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
short answer: no
long answer: hell, no
Every big company works exactly the same way. Instead of having prima-donna base commanders, the civies have CEOs. Instead of blow-hard group commanders, the civilians have CIOs, CFOs, etc. Instead of incompetent leutennants, you'll be faced with stupid managers.
The biggest difference? You can actually get fired from a civilian company.
Being in the military sucks sometimes. But it sure beats working for a living.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
In my experience, a small company is the best place to focus on the work at hand, rather than the overhead. It's also easier to get permission to do things, because there aren't as many people to have turf wars. Plus, at smaller companies, you'll see more of the mechanitions of real business decisions, rather than the fodder of low-competence managers and colleagues.
Dilbert can be classified as a form of observational comedy, similar to Seinfield. The reason why this is so funny is because it takes observations from real-life situations, and exaggerates them. Therefore, they aren't a 100% mirror reflection of reality, however they start off with a kernel of truth to them. They bring about a representation of the way we feel about situations, but just as New Yorkers aren't quite like portraied on Seinfield, the private IT sector isn't exactly like Dilbert either.
There is one place that is as honest as you
want it to be... working for yourself.
It's a shitty thing to say, because starting your
own business (or more realistically a partnership with
others you know) is not easy. Maybe you have to slog through
some soul crushing bullshit at a large corporate job to get the
money and contacts you need to do it.
But once you do it (success of failure), you will know what
it is to work for an honest organization where true merit counts.
Once you do, you never want to go back.
It was something that would happen to Dilbert.
No. In Dilbert it would have been done intentionally at the behest of a consultant in order to increase your productivity with "(Per)cussive (T)eam B(u)ilding The(r)aputic Vi(b)ration mass(age).
KFG
AF has the best reputation of all the services for enlisted MOS and computers. if there are any contractors in your facility/base in your field then let them know you are getting out. most of them will get a referral bonus if you get hired. I can honestly say that nobody treats ex-military better than the DOD contractors. On the flipside, at the highest ranks they all prior service officers and as a former enlisted you may rise far into middle management but the senior positions for most DoD contractors will be out of your grasp. There is some Dilbertisms going on but for the most part its the Dilberting that you know as opposed to the ones you don't. As fas as going government, I did that for 5 years went through grades of GS9-12 as 0443 now changed to 2210. Inside DOD, is about 90% Dilbert with most of them trying to pass off their work to co-workers, subordinates and/or contractors. In and out of DoD, most of the supervisors took this career path; either data entry or secretarial work ->office automation specialist->information technician->supervisor. truly bizarre. on the flipside, i saw a lot of supervisors try to fire people and one person in particular was blatantly malignering, i.e. using sick leave to take days off and come in late, claiming doctor's appointments but never having any proof. after 3 years of documentation and counseling, the supervisor managed to get the person transferred. it was the best he could do. if you really want to go government; if you don't have a bachelor in something get one, if you do get a masters MBA or just generic MOM (aka Masters of Management) somewhere and skip the GS and apply straight to the SES http://jobsearch.usajobs.opm.gov/ses.asp beyond the military-industrial complex, I don't know I have never really left it.
I will paraphrase a story I heard around the campfire in the Boy Scouts:
An old man sat sipping iced tea on a bench in front of the little drug store in a small town. After a while a young man pulled up in his car and got out, and stopped to chat with the old man before going into the store. The younger man said he had just moved to town, and he was curious about how this new town would compare. "I hope it's like the place I just left. The people were friendly, and everyone looked out for each other."
"I've got good news," the old man said, "You will find that this town is just the same as the one you left!"
After a while another young man came along, and stopped to chat with the old man. He too was curious about what this town was like. "I hope it's better than the place I just left. The people were petty and self-centered, and everyone was out for himself."
I've got bad news," the old man said, "You will find that this town is just the same as the one you left!"
Evil is the money of root.
Having spent 5 years in the military myself and the last 18 years in the civilian sector, I can say with great confidence that the civilian sector in no way is anywhere near as disorganized and incompetent as the military. The military is another branch of the federal government. That means it falls to the same economic problems the government has. No accountability for output or productivity.
No competition in govt. means the quality of output is not compared to a competitor. There are no standards nor metrics that have any independant oversight. The result is obvious. Poeple in govt. tend to get lazy and do less and less for more and more pay because they can. What standards can they be compared to? Who holds them accountable? The govt. is too big to have any real accountability.
In the civilian sector you have to make money. Yeah there is plenty of fat/red tape/ incompetance in large corporations. But it doesn't last forever. Any company that gets fat, happy and lazy will eventually lose in the marketplace. Just look at any large tech company in the last 10 years to see what a difference competition makes. When was the last time the military or fed govt. laid off a _large_ portion of it's workforce because they stopped bringing in enough income? The last time I checked, the govt just borrows more and more money when income goes down. It'd be nice in the civilain sector if companies could just borrow their way out of financial woes but unfortunately the civlian sector has to budget and follow normal economics.
Therefore no waste, incompetance and lazy tenured people who are mean, lazy and disfunctional (been to get a drivers license lately? Imagine millions of poeple in one organization just like that. Now think of the fed. govt.).
Hopefully getting into the civilian sector is not too much of a shock since you will now have to justify your value by production and not by how much "time" you have put in (unless you go union - that has the same problems fed govt has).
My $.02.
-- Mean People Suck
I'm an information architect who works for a consulting company that has major contracts with both the military (portals, both secret and non) and teh private sector (special focus in financial services and ecommerce). The answer to your question is an emphatic NO, not in the slightest.
A project that the private sector will complete inside of 9 months will take 2 years inside the government. The reasons for this are fairly straightforward.
1. Contractors (the big boys, not my company necessarily) have NO interest in efficiency. The longer the contract lasts the more money they make.
2. Government personnel have no motivation to be competitive or efficient. Promotions are few and far between, there is a low expectation to begin with, and the aforementioned also holds true for this group as well.
3. The politics doesn't lend itself to efficiency. You have to worry about all sorts of buy-in on an enormous scale, in some cases ACTUAL politics comes into the game, etc.
Yeah, you'll see some inefficiency and idiocy in the private sector, but NOTHING like the government. At the end of the day the private sector business owner (PM, CEO, whoever) is responsible for the net result, and he has a serious interest in the success of the project.
If anything the only thing I would tell you to expect is to be ready for the more aggressive and demanding environment you're entering. Long turnarounds are gone, you will be responsible for what you come up with, and you likely won't get funding for what's perceived as "nice but unnecessary". For example, the best usability testing I've gotten funds for havre been from governement projects. Why? Its not their money, and the bottom line is more or less irrelevant.
Best,
rt
> Are there any 'honest' places to work any more (where promotions/awards are based on work preformed and >bureaucracy, and politics aren't encouraged to supplant the 'mission),
The United States Military is many ways a highly inefficent organization in the micro, and lord knows it is filled with bureaucracy that is phenomonal. That said, one of the strong points of the military is the promotion structure.
I have worked at a lot of different jobs in the 17 years since I have been out of the military, from very small shops to enterprise situations, and have never seen anywhere that the promotion situation is as clear-cut as the military. The rules for promotion in the military are phenomonally well definied. There is no guessing and the need for promotion politicing is *by far* the lowest of any organization I have ever been in or even heard of.
It is also completely color and gender blind, which is getting to be the standard in the US, but sure isn't in every shop I have seen.
That said, to be fair to the poster, in the critera for promotion, work performed tends to come about the middle of the list of things that determine your promotion status. Military bearing (a catchall for how well you meet the basic military requirements for behavior and action) for example, is often at least if not more important than your actual job performance at the lower ranks (which the poster is if he served 6 years). But if you are joining the military in the first place, you pretty much know that unless you aren't too bright. At least I sure did.
I am not pushing the military here, nor disagreeing with the poster's basic tenent that the military can be a phenomonally frustrating work envrionment. My decision to get out was definitely the correct one for me and I haven't looked back. But once I got a good taste of civilian experience, the one thing that kept impressing me about the military was the promotion system. Of course, that said, I have gotten a *lot* further in civilian life than I ever would have in the military rank structure. I sucked with the military bearing stuff, but that wasn't the fault of the military, I am the one who signed up to wear the green suit.
7. What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.
"I'm 110% convinced that the only way to avoid the bozos is to be your own boss."
Thing is, everyone is somebody else's "bozo", had you been sucessfull in your start-up the "bozo's" would be working for you. The only way to avoid "bozo's" is to live like a hermit and even a hermit does stupid shit to themselves every now and then.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
A marine officer friend once told me the military was operated and run like a big business, except instead of turning profits, they export bodies of bad guys.
And he was serious, he went into details on the similarities of his training and an MBA program, though I suppose the MBA didn't involve automatic weapons.
There's red tape in any large organization. I've you've developed an allergy to it, go into business for yourself, or a small company with good people.
I went into the Army straight out of high school and served about a decade. I went a lot of places and was exposed to a lot of very exciting technology. I doubt I will ever again come close to doing anything as cool in the civilian sector. Outside of the technology, I miss the sense of purpose I had while I was in. I miss knowing exactly what I needed to do to get promoted. I do make waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more money than I did then, but I am not as satisfied with the kind of work I do now. I program for a living (which I did not get to do then, so that is cool (I think)), but I don't particularly enjoy the fact that it is in support of an endless hustle for greenbacks.
Anyways, I don't know if maybe I didn't know any better at the time, but I still haven't seen the level of organization out here that I witnessed while I was in. A lot of the companies I have worked for in the 12 or so years since I got out were growing ones though.
Dilbert was written by Scott Adams from his IT desk at Pacific Bell about his daily work environment in cubeland. Having worked developing IT for businesses and governments on all 4 coasts of America (OK, Great Lakes in Canada, not the Arctic), for over a decade and a half, I can tell you that his cubeland stretches from sea to shining sea, as well as from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli. And it's always been that way.
Which is good news. Many thousands of people have found careers doing interesting, lucrative work among the sea of nonsense that is the business world. It just takes a sense of humor. If you still want more after a military IT career, you're probably qualified.
--
make install -not war
In my opinion, they're amateurs on an unjustified power trip.
First of all, my hat's off to all who have served our country in the military, but something is very, very strange and wrong going on with the way the AF and Army train their IT folks and what quality of actual usable knowledge, experience and attitudes those people have when they leave the service and apply for their first civilian IT jobs after leaving the service. I used to be a hiring manager for an organization that primarily did systems integration, installations and support for state and local government and we interviewed a lot of newly ex-mil IT applicants and the above statement generally hits the nail right on the head. Of course there were exceptions to the rule, but by and large it seemed like most of these applicants got very little broad-coverage training in the real IT world, but instead were all pidgeon-holed into little isolated sub-sections of IT training and knowledge without being able to be immediately competant at the "big picture" without substantial re-training and what I'd call "reverse brainwashing". Yet every one of them thought they knew it all better than everyone else, and one of the most common answers in the interview questions about where they saw themselves in 3 to five years of working for us was "to become the senior manager/director of the whole IT department"... in other words to run off the existing boss and take over. Wrong answer.
Amateurs on an unjustified power trip indeed.
We did hire a few of these over the years and they turned out to be some of the worst IT employees we ever had. A recurring theme was a lack of respect for proper software licensing. One particular worst offender would take a master copy of the full corporate MS Office Professional edition and install it on every desktop he touched regardless of whether the customer had purchased the full version for that machine or not. Of course the end-users loved it, but when the tech was confronted with what he was doing he said that he knew he would not be the one getting in trouble for it, but rather his boss would and the sooner he could get the boss in trouble or fired, the better chance he thought he'd have to move up, take over and "rule with an iron fist".
I'm posting A/C because now my company considers ex-military IT techs at the very bottom of the list when hiring due to too many problems we've had with them in the past. We actively discriminate against them due to getting burned too many times.
The best quality IT folks we've been hiring the past couple years now come from two radically different groups of people. The first group is the young Computer Science geeks right out of college who are still trainable/mouldable before they can pick up too many bad habits, and the second groups is older college degreed people (late 30's to early-mid 40's) who have had one non-IT professional career for a while (but were above-average proficient as technology users) and then have gone back to school to get their CompSci or MIS degrees and have changed careers to the IT field.
I think I have a pretty good perspective on the "Dilbert factor". I have worked for Chevron (9 years), IBM (3 months) and McKinsey (2 years) and was 1 degree of separation from Scott Adams when he was at Pacific Bell. So there's my big company experience.
On the other side, I am the owner of a 15 person IT consulting firm which services only companies of 10 to 200, and so I have worked with over 50 companies of this size - in addition to owning one.
Here is the simple truth of the matter:
If a small company runs on politics, rather than business sense, it goes out of business. Yes there are exceptions - owner has a huge chunk of cash to burn - but this is very largely true. So there is very little b.s. in small business.
In large businesses, sad but true, it becomes very very hard to distinguish the true business contribution of one person from another. Also, the consequence of a good / bad decision may take years to come to light. So, whether people say so or not, you are judged on how well you fit into the culture. If you know this, understand it and accept it, you will do fine. If you act like a typical engineer and say "but my idea was better", you will be miserable. Instead of being upset at the fact that the MBA's are running the show, sit back and ask yourself why that is. If you are as smart as you think you are - you will figure it out.
The fact is that the success of big business depends on people working together. And this quality, one of fitting in, is easier to pick out than what the true ROI of converting all those Windows servers to Linux is.
Think really, really hard on this. Don't reject reality and say "it stinks" - use a bit of ju jitsu - accept reality, understand why this reality exists, and use that understanding in an effective way to achieve your personal vision of success.
A way of thinking
This reality stinks
It shouldn't be this way
I can't affect what happens
A better way of thinking
What is really going on here?
It is this way, why is that so?
I can affect how I react to what happens.
Do this and you may be very happy at a big business since you will learn how to rise within it to the point that you have real influence. If you don't understand this you will be frustrated regardless of where you work.
Consider everything you've ever heard about the two best bases in the world. That's true about who you work for as well.
I did 4.5 yrs active and another 3 with the guard. I've worked in the private sector and for state and local government. Here's how I see it:
When I was "in" there was one thing I knew for certain, the USAF was the most disorganized Mickey Mouse operation in the world. Not a doubt in my mind. It's amazing how I knew everything when I was between 19 and 24.
After working for all these other places and governments I am now certain that the USAF is one of the most organized teams anywhere in the world. They have a plan, they train for the plan and they execute the plan. Nobody anywhere else does it as well as they do.
If you want organization and logic, it doesn't get any better.
No, I'm not joking.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
Upon getting a job with a large corporation, I was amazed at the amount of BS there. It made the military look like an efficient & well-oiled machine.
I agree. After leaving the Army, I moved through several jobs. The nonprofit world was amazing. Determining accountability for anything was like trying to nail jello to a wall. Government contracting made me realize that people who create small contracting companies and latch onto a contract or two are on the gravy train. The way government spending works, you pretty much *must* spend the money your contracting agency has allocated for you. If I had the stomach to put up with Inside-the-Beltway bullshit, I would have gone into government contracting. Big businesses (I speak only from experience with the Silicon Valley kind) are often full of energy, but the biggest problem, as with the rest of the civilian world, is that organizational leaders simply do not have much leadership training.
I don't know how it was for you in the Air Force, but I was in general impressed with the leaders I worked for in the Army. I'm sure to some degree it's a matter of your specialty, plus luck of the draw. But when you find a set of good leaders in the civilian world, in my experience it is a rare treat. Even the juggernauts of the Information Age have a great deal of employee churn, and they seldom devote necessary resources to adequately training leaders (mid-level managers in particular). That's where the Dilbert Factor is nurtured and brought to full bloom.
Others have mentioned this, but you may truly find that going small and/or going it alone may work for you. If you can maintain the military work ethic, you'll probably have an advantage over most of your competitors, at least in the areas of initiative, attention to detail, knowledge of the importance of planning, and ability to prioritize.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
When Bob got his project greenlighted when my supervisor did not, because Bob was capable of making a business case for it at a meeting chaired by the guy he'd been grooming for months, was that B.S? Seems to me like thats "creative use of resources". You can either continue to laugh ruefully at the world and scorn "small talk" and "politics" and "useless meetings and reports and that bureacratic "#$"%" or you can be like Bob.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
I'm posting A/C because now my company considers ex-military IT techs at the very bottom of the list when hiring due to too many problems we've had with them in the past. We actively discriminate against them due to getting burned too many times.
My last company was just the opposite. About 1/2 our IT team was ex military (myself included). Navy and Air Force. No prima donnas, no ego trips.
Not voting is no good.
I will happily grant you that both major candidates may suck in any given election and that you might well want to protest by not voting for either one. (I do not agree with your idealistic "sullying my hands" position - I think if one of those candidates is less bad to you you should vote for them, and I think in most real cases one candidate is less bad to you if you bother to check. But that's not my major point, so I'll assume they're exactly even for now.)
But the _biggest_ consistent problem we have which makes the two candidates both suck is that the two incumbent parties have a strangehold on who we get to choose from. Voting for a third party candidates drives up the visibility of third parties existing and drives up the likelihood that OTHER people will vote for third parties.
As a bonus, if enough people do it for a presidental campaign then they get federal election money.
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
You can achieve a similar effect in a large organisation by keeping an eye out for intelligent people who are seeking to achieve meaningful things. Every large organisation is made up of smaller groups and the dynamics and suck/un-suck factor varies between them. My old boss is working for a different government department entirely, but has managed to attract a pool of taleneted, motivated people and they have a good project to work on where they reall have a chance to make the country a better place (I'd go join him, but I'm already working in quite a nice team on some rather cool stuff).
The goal is to work for people who appreciate your skills and talents so that when you apply for work elsewhere, you have a cool resume and a bunch of people who really like the work you do.
Similarly, there are also wastelands filled with disillusioned people who spend 12 hours each day stressing over pointless management failures. If you end up in one of those, consider it a platform from which to find something less awful.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
There are good jobs in IT that aren't as Dilbert driven. There is always some of it no question no matter where you go, private industry, universities, etc. Don't fool yourself into thinking "oh that industry has to be better!" I've found a great job doing networking/security work after working in large corporations, universities, and start ups. All of them had their inane moments, some more than others. I've got a job now that pays well, with good co-workers, and a CIO who is very tuned into his people and backs us up. Smaller organizations do help.
If you find a company which pays pretty well, doing something you like, even if there are a few Dilbert moments, stick with it. Changing jobs won't make the problems go away.
You asked: "Are there any 'honest' places to work any more (where promotions/awards are based on work preformed and bureaucracy, and politics aren't encouraged to supplant the 'mission)"
The answer, sadly, is a resounding no.
Your individual skills (troubleshooting, coding, organising, selling, whatever) are the stuff that you _do_. The "work" part of work IS the politics. The "work" part of work is dealing with 9-5, 5 days a week on the books, and 8-7 and sometimes on weekends in reality.
That's why it's called "work" and not "play". That's why you get paid money -- because while we would probably all continue to code, mess with hardware, organise, conceptualise in our free time should we not be working -- we expect a big pay packet to deal with the bullshit.
It's the difference between micro-evolution and macro-evolution. You can micro-evolve in any company -- go from Programmer 3rd Class to Programmer 2nd Class, for example -- but to completely move up or even across the ladder is rare, precisely because if you're actually good at what you do, you won't be good at the things that guarantee promotion.
Google the "Peter Principle". Look up the "60% rule" (60% of your time inside any company bigger than 10 people will be spent on servicing "how things are done around here" -- not actually your "job description" stuff).
Work is work, and if you're lucky the stuff you're actually good at will align slightly with it.
Jus FYI... most of the world has become a "big living Dilbert strip". If you are not a part of the strip you are probably dying of hunger or some commercially non-interesting disease somewhere deep in Africa, Asia or South America.
Maybe someone else actually answered your question, but I scanned the top-rate responses and didn't see it. So here goes.
/.'ers: before you burn me, consider the class of issues that this guy raised. If you want to gamble on getting rich, join a startup. If you want to move into management someday, join a big technical company. But if you want organization, stable management, and merit-based rewards... good luck finding that anywhere. Sadly, IMHO, the best that this world offers, as a whole, are defense contractors and well-funded colleges.
No. Given your concerns - disorganization and mismanagement, merit-rewards and bureaucracy - non-military employers are, in my experience, always worse in every category.
This is simply the nature of the beast. The military loves to plan, and is allowed to. Its budgets are set ahead of time, its goals and standards are relatively well-defined and stable, its policies and merit system relatively clear cut.
The closer you get to a purely commercial venture, the farther away you get from all of those things. An aggressively company in a competitive market is much more reactive than pre-planned. Budget and goals can change instantly as management's perception of the market changes. One twitchy exec can wipe out a whole division in a heartbeat. Even when the business is stable, standards and policies tend to be ad hoc. Such standards and policies that do exist, exist only to make your life harder. If you try to do something new, you have to convince the bureaucracy first; but if something non-standard and anti-policy does get done, you will have to accomodate it: nobody is going to pay the replace a working dohicky with a compliant dohicky that does the same thing.
As for merits and rewards: while your supervisor may try to be fair (or may not), the bigger issue is that he can only split the pot he is given. If you do brilliant, excellent work for a company, (or division of a company, or product line within the division) which is not profitable "enough", you get nada. Conversely, if you are a lucky screw-off who works for a group that fell into and owns a particularly profitable niche, you can do pretty well even though you and everybody else are almost worthless. Whether that is good or bad, it's hard to argue that it's fair.
In my opinion, having worked for a range of employers, you will find the easiest transition at defense contractors or well-heeled acedemic institutions. They tend to plan and have stable budgets, and don't worry to much about competively pressures. If you are spectacularly brilliant, you might find that one of the big, successful high-tech companies you. They can be horrible places, but if they are big enough, rich enough, and you are good enough, you can be insulated against much of that horribleness. But, most important of all, stay away from startups - especially privately-held startups - double especially family-owned startups. The unfairness and disorder found there would leave you absolutely breathless.
Note to
"Lord, grant that I may always be right, for Thou knowest that I am hard to turn" -- A Scots-Irish prayer
Subject says it all. There are good people everywhere, and even the most corrupt workplaces have pockets of good. Outside the military you have much more control over your own fate. You can almost always immediately change your job and location, and fairly rapidly change your profession as well.
Looks like you are going to have to get used to that. Don't fall into the trap of blaming your environment for your own lack of drive and initative.
Good luck.
With that kind of attitude, I guarantee you that you won't get very far in business. Politics is part of any organization, and it serves real and important functions in actually getting things done. You better get used to that and learn to live with it.
Being aware of politics doesn't mean that you need to turn into a Machiavellian maniac, it means that you recognize how things work, try to improve things where you can, and still have the smarts to survive when other people screw up or conspire against you (and always keep in mind that screw-ups are far more frequent than deception).
Having said that, there are some bad organizations out there that really don't function well; you can try to spot them before you get into them, but if you find yourself in a bad situation, just start looking for a new job.
I'm a Network admin getting out of the Navy here in a few weeks and have pretty much the same thoughts... I will say though, that I haven't lost touch with any of my IT friends back home so I'm not to uninformed... as for a few of the comments I saw earlier about the training Air Force / Army techs received... well, I tell you, it's not any better in the Navy. I'm an electronics tech (ET) by training, not a computer tech (IT), and yet I still do IT work, and do it better than the ITs. Granted, I am a geek, and I was doing desktop level IT work before I joined, so I guess i cheated; but dealing with all these Navy ITs for the last 6 years has made me sad. 80% of them are flat out idiots, from E1 to E9. The next 10% are capable, but haven't been trained or trained right. The last 10% are the true geeks that would make it just about anywhere... and this last 10% usually gets out before they make E6 (sometime around end of 1st or 2nd tour) because they know they can make twice as much in the civilian world. ... *shrug* it makes me sad, but every one of the idiots that were in change where I came from, had plenty of warning as to what would happen when I left... 2 years of warning, 2 years of "we need to do this to keep that from happening" ... no one listened, and I'm sad to say, I was right... 2 weeks after I left, the poop hit the rotary propeller. *shrug* oh well. Loved the Navy, hated my command. If only stupidity was painful to the stupid person.
Sadly enough, the Navy IT system is clogged with the 80% (the type I'm surprised don't strangle themselves in the morning with their shoelaces), and mostly it's because of their IT training program.. they take people who've never touched a computer before, give them 6 weeks of training, and expect them to be MCSE/CCNA/whatever level quality (not paper cert quality, but actual techs) and it doesn't work for a variety of reasons... most of which I've typed up in a multi-page email and sent to my CO once I was on terminal leave (and DD214 in hand)
However, after working as a clerk for a non-profit at the University of Iowa, Widernet, it seems to me that there are at least a few opportunities for tech positions that put mission over politics. Widernet hired programmers as their main workforce...the pay wasn't great, the work schedule was very flexible, and the environment was great...particularly since it was a fairly regular part of the job to meet with students and teachers from Africa who were making use of the project.
It seems to me that non-profits would be in need of skilled and experienced IT profs (being an Air Force vet would definitely, IMO, qualify you in both those areas). The drawback would be that you would be making a fraction of your corporate potential. The advantages would include less politics, a sense of worth about what you are accomplishing, and potentially a better-grade of co-worker.
Websites to check out:
Charity.org
Idealist.org
Non Profit Jobs
There are numerous other sites, just check Google. Additionally, if you get in contact with your local United Way (or similar group) that dispense funds to non-profits, they should be able to give a detailed list of local non-profits.
I spent 6 yrs in the AF, got out 15 years ago, and even back then in most places the tech was obsolete. I was very lucky and was stationed in two different shops that were actaully dev shops and learned a lot about software development. Pure luck, and rare at that from what I understand. I then spent 8 or 9 years doing gov contracting for agencies around D.C. Since 2000 I've been doing commercial development in Austin, TX.
This experience has taught me alot about big organizations and small companies. Some of the gov. contracting companies I worked for were 5000. I've worked in startups and largish SW deve companies. Through all of this I have noticed a couple of things.
1. Dilbert and the PHB's do indeed continue to live and prosper.
2. Bureaucracy sneaks in insidiously via "Professional HR" people and MBA's once a company grows somewhere between 200 to 500. Mostly because "thats how other companies do it, so we should to." & because they use arbitrary rules to show that they have power.
3. A publically owned company is legally mandated to be loyal to its stock holders profits and NOTHING ELSE. This means NOT TO YOU. but they do expect you to be loyal to them without understanding that loyalty is a two way street.
What does this mean? Well, I have interpreted it to mean that the very best (and very worst too *sigh*) companies to work for are privately owned companies of between 50 to 150 employees that are not actively working to be bought out / go public.
Just my 2 cents.
-- More Smoke! The mirrors aren't working!!!
but by and large it seemed like most of these applicants got very little broad-coverage training in the real IT world, but instead were all pidgeon-holed into little isolated sub-sections of IT training and knowledge without being able to be immediately competant at the "big picture"
Most of the job listings I have encountered seem to call for specialists. They read like this. The listing is obviously the resume of the guy who just left. So tell us, is this sort of listing a bluff? Do all managers really want broad-coverage people and figure asking for the opposite is the best way to get them? Or are you the only one who wants broad-coverage staff?
"by and large it seemed like most of these applicants got very little broad-coverage training in the real IT world"
Like how? Do military computers run on different electricity that the rest and do they breakdown differently also?
`in the interview questions about where they saw themselves in 3 to five years of working for us was "to become the senior manager/director of the whole IT department"'
No-one in their right mind would ever say such thing at an interview. Especially after coming from such a hierarchy like environment like the US military.
"One particular worst offender would take a master copy of the full corporate MS Office Professional edition and install it on every desktop he touched regardless of whether the customer had purchased the full version for that machine or not"
Since when would an ex military go about doing what he pleases. Did you pause here merely to inject a little 'your IT staff cannot be trusted' fud for the PHBs who might me reading this.
'the sooner he could get the boss in trouble or fired, the better chance he thought he'd have to move up, take over and "rule with an iron fist".`
Without any corroborating evidence to back up these anecdotal tales I suspect your whole story is a work of fiction.
Repeat after me: "There is NO JOB SECURITY" Everything should be considered a "temp" job or project due to mergers/acquisitions and general imcompetance in business. Avoid public companies like the plague!
Some industries are already facing up to this reality, which is why there is more talk about "employee retention strategies" these days. I have a friend who does human resources at a hospital, and they basically never fire ANYONE, unless they are unusually and pathologically bad at their job. It's nearly always cheaper in the long run to invest in a bad employee and bring them up to an acceptable level of performance. Health-care is an extreme case, of course, due to the chronic labour shortage in that field, but the principles do apply elsewhere.
To summarize, although I agree that no one has a right to retain their job (nor should they -- that's why we have unemployment insurance, job placement services, retraining programs, etcetera, and, in a pinch, welfare), many businesses are quite self-destructive in their tendency to fire anyone for any reason, ignoring the costs and inefficiency that this will incurr.
What! You are only 14 years away from a government pension!
If you don't want to stay military, consider a government job and work yourself toward retirement.
No corporate jobs have pension or retirement any more, and the US government benefits have got to be better than most big corporations.
This is a good time to look at the long view.
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't