When I first started in I.T. my group manager left after a a few months, and they never bothered to replace him, so our group started reporting to the PHB, and he pretty much forgot about us. At first I thought it was great, I was coming in late, leaving early, working on my own projects, but eventually it just got me down. I was doing nothing productive, and my skills were stagnating, so I made the decision to up anchor and leave. What followed was a rollercoaster tour of various office hells and nirvanas.
hells:
*The startup with lots of work to do but insane micromanaging boss who never leaves you alone long enough to get anything done.
*The established company moving into a new field with grand ideas, but which never gets around to actually signing anything off and wastes your time and theirs.
*The agency who just puts you somewhere and doesn't care if your not suitable, as long as they can bill for you.
All these places drove me mad, and I spoke up about it, and I had the balls to get up and leave if they weren't right for me and vice versa.
heavens:
*Companies who recognise your skills, and trust you to get on with the job.
I'm currently contracting right now, and today I haven't wrote much. I've surfed the web, replied here, etc. But, we are in a downtime, I'm waiting for feedback and I'm refactoring bits of code, etc. The main thing I am doing however is thinking about how to make my product better, and seeing how others do things. And that looks a lot like doing nothing.
Some companies are a complete waste of time, full of people happy to sit on their butts and cash money they don't earn. If your happy with that go with it, but sooner or later reality will bite and you will realise you know f**k all about anything.
But, the main part of a programmers job in my expereince is thinking before they code, and if your in a company that recognises that then your are in a good position.
Sounds to me though that the OP is in a sh**e company though and needs to move ASAP.
Slashdot Mirror
When I first started in I.T. my group manager left after a a few months, and they never bothered to replace him, so our group started reporting to the PHB, and he pretty much forgot about us. At first I thought it was great, I was coming in late, leaving early, working on my own projects, but eventually it just got me down. I was doing nothing productive, and my skills were stagnating, so I made the decision to up anchor and leave. What followed was a rollercoaster tour of various office hells and nirvanas. hells: *The startup with lots of work to do but insane micromanaging boss who never leaves you alone long enough to get anything done. *The established company moving into a new field with grand ideas, but which never gets around to actually signing anything off and wastes your time and theirs. *The agency who just puts you somewhere and doesn't care if your not suitable, as long as they can bill for you. All these places drove me mad, and I spoke up about it, and I had the balls to get up and leave if they weren't right for me and vice versa. heavens: *Companies who recognise your skills, and trust you to get on with the job. I'm currently contracting right now, and today I haven't wrote much. I've surfed the web, replied here, etc. But, we are in a downtime, I'm waiting for feedback and I'm refactoring bits of code, etc. The main thing I am doing however is thinking about how to make my product better, and seeing how others do things. And that looks a lot like doing nothing. Some companies are a complete waste of time, full of people happy to sit on their butts and cash money they don't earn. If your happy with that go with it, but sooner or later reality will bite and you will realise you know f**k all about anything. But, the main part of a programmers job in my expereince is thinking before they code, and if your in a company that recognises that then your are in a good position. Sounds to me though that the OP is in a sh**e company though and needs to move ASAP.