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I'm in my current job for 13.5 years now. It started out with less than I could handle but has grown out of control. Every year they come to me with more duties (major projects) and responsibilities. I have asked for help repeatedly and all I get are excuses. The best they come up with is for me to train one of the other people (in another dept -- not IT) so they can "HELP" me. I have found at least 3 instances where their judgment was bad -- at best. Did I mention that I don't have time to do my job let alone train someone to have good judgment? Thanks for letting me talk about it -- I feel better for the moment...
I was in the same situation, and I eventually had to leave. My stress level was just off the charts. It wasn't worth it anymore.
Two comments on my subject header, one relevant to OnTheEdge's comment.
I have been a victim of watching my responsibilities expand as the number of employees declines several times. Each time the company benefited on the bottom line at the expense of customer service. The last time that happened, unfortunately I was the one terminated... but my colleagues there were actually envious of my leaving, both because of the stress from the increased workload and because they felt bad they could not keep up with the work at previous staffing levels, let alone with a staff cut in half.
The second comment: the statement "do more with less" is both logically invalid and grammatically incorrect. Since the number of people is a number, not an amount, the statement should be "do more with fewer". It is logically invalid because there is a limit to what one person can do but no limit to how much work there is, therefore a "breaking point" will soon be reached where work will not be completed.
Ah, the wonders of business ethics (profit above all else).
I have been a victim of watching my responsibilities expand as the number of employees declines several times. Each time the company benefited on the bottom line at the expense of customer service. The last time that happened, unfortunately I was the one terminated... but my colleagues there were actually envious of my leaving, both because of the stress from the increased workload and because they felt bad they could not keep up with the work at previous staffing levels, let alone with a staff cut in half.
The second comment: the statement "do more with less" is both logically invalid and grammatically incorrect. Since the number of people is a number, not an amount, the statement should be "do more with fewer". It is logically invalid because there is a limit to what one person can do but no limit to how much work there is, therefore a "breaking point" will soon be reached where work will not be completed.
Ah, the wonders of business ethics (profit above all else).
The assumption here is that management can always blame *you* for being unable to keep up. Having limitations is not acceptable You would be the scapegoat for falling revenue, and you would eventually be terminated for "failure to achieve corporate goals".
It's a personal victory to deny them the chance to victimize you. You probably have gained more skills working against the current for so long. Keep that part under your hat when you look for other employment and use it as a "concealed weapon".
It's a personal victory to deny them the chance to victimize you. You probably have gained more skills working against the current for so long. Keep that part under your hat when you look for other employment and use it as a "concealed weapon".
Time for a "Come to the River" meeting with management. "Here is a list of what you asked us to do." Draw a line somewhere on the list. "Here is the budget and manpower we have. We will accomplish only this, and continue to do less with less. thank you for your time and Make it a Great Day!!"
In December of 2005 I was outsourced OUT of Aon Group, along with 140 others, when CSC came in for .... well, we won't remember that. Aon got what it now pays for. For a few weeks in early 2006 I hunted and found a job in Manhattan with a major hospital group. Paid well, and the skill set was well within my scope. Happy? Well, this hospital group was outsourced to First Consulting Group (later bought by CSC ... enough there too). And quickly I learned the truth. Stats: 11,000 computers, Windows NT, 2000 and XP. Hardcoded IP addresses, no DHCP here. Subnet madness, no inventory at all. Gets worse. Staffing was low compared to the ticket call we received daily. One tech went to India. For only 3 months while he got married. True. Virus, porn and malware were RAMPANT!!! We would ghost image an infected system and within 1 week it was infected again and again and again. Educational systems for children? Same thing and THAT is actionable by the parents. Doctors could not access patient data through PRISM, the care system. COWs (computers on wheels) received their IP addressing from a university across the street!!! And systems were stolen! 30 from one roo and FCG just adjusted inventory report on that so that none were stolen. True.
Eight months is all I lasted here and damn glad of it. I think I really had a nervous breakdown, and everyone should have ONE job from hell so the appreciate the other jobs that come along.
The Secaucus data center was NO BETTER by the way. An IBM mainframe was covered with a blue tarp because there was a leak in the roof. True too.
Eight months is all I lasted here and damn glad of it. I think I really had a nervous breakdown, and everyone should have ONE job from hell so the appreciate the other jobs that come along.
The Secaucus data center was NO BETTER by the way. An IBM mainframe was covered with a blue tarp because there was a leak in the roof. True too.
I think I know just the hospital/university you're talking about. I know other IT people who have had similar stories.
For any medical place, RUN, don't walk away from the job. Hospitals are notoriously siloed and have about the worst IT practices I've ever seen.
For any medical place, RUN, don't walk away from the job. Hospitals are notoriously siloed and have about the worst IT practices I've ever seen.
I quit looking at medical practice positions back in the "want adds in newspapers" days. The ads would just blither on about patient-first mentality, teams of doctors with advanced degrees, nurses who would be in charge yadda yadda yadda. Nothing about the actual IT position. At one interview I went out on I was told that the "geeks" reported to the director of nursing instead of a CIO.
He was several years as a Service Desk administrator in a central FL medical center.
From my viewpoint, if directly working for a hospital is bad, working for the IT contractor to a government hospital is even worse. I'm looking at you, SAIC.
From my viewpoint, if directly working for a hospital is bad, working for the IT contractor to a government hospital is even worse. I'm looking at you, SAIC.
Oh yes indeed, TriCare fiasco is a big one as is the CityTime disaster. Some bad jobs can indeed land you IN JAIL.
IT-guy: "It's my job, I guess"
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"Cubicles sure are roomy, here..."
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"Cubicles sure are roomy, here..."
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And, it has always felt like the best thing that ever happened to me. I've been able to move on to better opportunities. What keeps me at a place is new technologies and the ability to work on them and an opportunity to make the place better -- whether it is through technology or my inter-personal skills. I look at all of the difficult experiences as an opportunity for me to learn something about myself. There was this one time I was working on a low performance team for an organization. There was a reorg, and morale was low on the team. Where I saw it as an opportunity, others felt defeated. I felt like I had to pick up the slack for 10 people until I had my own breakdown and realization that it is okay that I'm just one person and can't possibly do 10 people's jobs. I really learned how to allow people to do their jobs. I hope you find your way in this industry.
Nowadays, considering the actual conjuncture of employment market, sometimes you have to abdicate from some of your qualifications for entering in one organisation and start from the bottom, hoping that someone realise that your profile is underestimated. With time if you are seeing that your hierarchical superiors are with their eyes blind, giving the opportunities based not in the merit but on pistons and external influences, it???s definitely time to leave and search your happiness and realization somewhere where you belong.
Have been working at an auditing firm as a Network administrator for more than 3 years. When I started I needed to sort out the IT mess that was left by the previous IT company. On any given day I do up to 5 people's work, have asked for help, received help for about 30 minutes, the one responsibility was taken away but was given back after 30 minutes. There are also other branches that also need support and it gets quite hectic. There have been a number of mess ups because I'm overworked. At least I could get this off my chest.
Maybe it's time to start looking for a [better] position elsewhere; sounds like you may be getting taken advantage of.
I've been in the same situation. Asked for help, got only empty promises. I finally left. Replacement lasted 6 months. After that, the company finally decided that it was more work than 1 person could handle.
I've seen that attitude at more than one employer; won't believe that a change needs to be made in a job until two people leave the job.
I've seen that attitude at more than one employer; won't believe that a change needs to be made in a job until two people leave the job.
It began as fun, hard-work-fun, but fun. Long hours, new tech to learn and deploy, tools to use, the works.
Then things changed. ???Thank you??? became a rare commodity, people got fired for saying that they???d call back after they???d had supper (Ya, we???re funny that way. We like to rest after 12 hours), and some backstabbing??? bad???
Furthermore, you know it's a bad environment when your team lead (We called him Casper, as we rarely saw him, like the ghost
) says one thing to the staff and a totally different thing to his boss, and both stories are false.
After a while of these bad vibes, people started leaving left and right, and so did I. Those who stayed behind reported of massive dismissals at the management layer (our ghost team lead, IT VP and HR VP for not being pro-active about the situation). The company???s reputation suffered for a long time before it started to get somewhat better. Head-hunters would, for a long time, stay away from them. Imagine??? vultures ignoring the dead meat!
A friend of mine got a job at management level and hired me shortly thereafter. I never looked back.
Then things changed. ???Thank you??? became a rare commodity, people got fired for saying that they???d call back after they???d had supper (Ya, we???re funny that way. We like to rest after 12 hours), and some backstabbing??? bad???
Furthermore, you know it's a bad environment when your team lead (We called him Casper, as we rarely saw him, like the ghost
) says one thing to the staff and a totally different thing to his boss, and both stories are false.After a while of these bad vibes, people started leaving left and right, and so did I. Those who stayed behind reported of massive dismissals at the management layer (our ghost team lead, IT VP and HR VP for not being pro-active about the situation). The company???s reputation suffered for a long time before it started to get somewhat better. Head-hunters would, for a long time, stay away from them. Imagine??? vultures ignoring the dead meat!
A friend of mine got a job at management level and hired me shortly thereafter. I never looked back.
I work for what used to be a small software company, but that grew quickly and ended up merging with a spinoff from a much larger company. This spinoff has a lot of legacies, both system-wise and culturally, from the old company, and it shows in the attitudes of the management and the approach of users to dealing with technology. We've been struggling to implement a major ERP system, and while the system itself is often to blame for our difficulties, the larger problem is that users and management have a basic attitude that software = IT's problem. They don't understand the system, they don't take the time to write up good requirements, and there is almost no real definition of roles and responsibilities within the project team. The end result is that we (the tech team) often end up spinning our wheels trying to interpret vague requirements and spending a lot of time fixing things when the users change their minds over and over again or it turns out our guesses about their requirements were wrong. I as the manager spend an inordinate amount of time doing damage control, trying to improve communication with the business, and plugging the dykes wherever I can.
Between the frustration of fighting an uphill battle with the users and the ongoing takeover of our small-company culture by the top-down red tape approach of the corporate parent, I'm starting to question the long-term value of staying here. Unfortunately, I have a lot of life factors at the moment that are pushing me to do exactly that. What I really want to do is figure out a way to turn the tides instead of just giving up.
Between the frustration of fighting an uphill battle with the users and the ongoing takeover of our small-company culture by the top-down red tape approach of the corporate parent, I'm starting to question the long-term value of staying here. Unfortunately, I have a lot of life factors at the moment that are pushing me to do exactly that. What I really want to do is figure out a way to turn the tides instead of just giving up.
Even worse where there is no time to step back from the never ending tasks and make a critical assessment of the system. I work in mainframe land. So hugs around.
6 1/2 years and I'm still firefighting for the penny pinchers.
I should of left years ago but I've stuck it for 2 reasons:
1. Lack of official training means my on-paper CV looks increasingly rubbish. Our VMware environment exists because I did it off my own back for example.
2. We urgently need to move the VM's onto shared storage, the backup needs complete overhaul (getting tired of SDLT's) and I'm getting desparate to perform an AD migration. I'm in the middle of researching and planning a replacement gateway infrastructure and I know it'll be a fantastic step forward. With so much knowledge gained and still more to come how could I possibly leave and get the same 'experience' elsewhere?
Of course I know it's likely that no matter how hard I slash the costs of each project and drive down the requirements to a bare minimum they're very unlikely to happen.
I work in manufacturing and IT is not seen as critical to the production process (despite proving otherwise many times over) - ably illustrated by our lack of any fixed budget and the fact our estimed leader primarily runs HR.
Hell yeah I should leave but where could I go?!
I should of left years ago but I've stuck it for 2 reasons:
1. Lack of official training means my on-paper CV looks increasingly rubbish. Our VMware environment exists because I did it off my own back for example.
2. We urgently need to move the VM's onto shared storage, the backup needs complete overhaul (getting tired of SDLT's) and I'm getting desparate to perform an AD migration. I'm in the middle of researching and planning a replacement gateway infrastructure and I know it'll be a fantastic step forward. With so much knowledge gained and still more to come how could I possibly leave and get the same 'experience' elsewhere?
Of course I know it's likely that no matter how hard I slash the costs of each project and drive down the requirements to a bare minimum they're very unlikely to happen.
I work in manufacturing and IT is not seen as critical to the production process (despite proving otherwise many times over) - ably illustrated by our lack of any fixed budget and the fact our estimed leader primarily runs HR.
Hell yeah I should leave but where could I go?!
I totally agree with Scott. It's not until you sift through some job ads (just do a search on a main job site for Networking and see what comes up) and read what people are looking for that you realise how to put your abilities down on paper. It's taken me about a month to work this out! But now I'm a lot happier because I know I can send something meaningful to any prospective advert. You need to take an evening or three to look into it without thinking about the current job. Look up from the fog of where you are so you can start scanning the horizon for where you might like to be.
Over the last 10 years, my job has migrated from "getting stuff done with a well qualified local team" to "work round the clock trying to get poorly trained, ill paid off shore teams to produce the same kind of work". The teams are in Europe and Asia.
Since I have to stay on top of these teams, I find myself doing the European teamwork from 4am to about 10am my time, then I have my own work to do, then I have to catch the guys in Asia after 11pm my time. The whole thing has completely wrecked any sense of family/life balance I used to have.
It's time for a change but where in the IT world can you work just ONE timezone these days, keep fairly decent hours (I'd be willing to do 50-60 hours per week, but really, 90-100 on a regular basis is too much) and still earn a decent living that sustains a family of 4?
Since I have to stay on top of these teams, I find myself doing the European teamwork from 4am to about 10am my time, then I have my own work to do, then I have to catch the guys in Asia after 11pm my time. The whole thing has completely wrecked any sense of family/life balance I used to have.
It's time for a change but where in the IT world can you work just ONE timezone these days, keep fairly decent hours (I'd be willing to do 50-60 hours per week, but really, 90-100 on a regular basis is too much) and still earn a decent living that sustains a family of 4?
Her time obviously is, whether she realizes this or not. No human being should be expected to keep up that kind of production day in and day out for 5 days a week. I'm surprised she (assuming gender by the handle) hasn't keeled over.
technomom, uh....yes, I think you need to high tail it out of there and recapture some work/LIFE balance!
technomom, uh....yes, I think you need to high tail it out of there and recapture some work/LIFE balance!
I agree it isn't the money.
If they work someone 100 hours a week, for no compensation, they don't value their employees enough to ensure they won't burn out/flame out.
If they pay someone 100 hours a week on a consistent basis, someone in HR is going to notice and they will either have to spread the work around or hire another person.
If they work someone 100 hours a week, for no compensation, they don't value their employees enough to ensure they won't burn out/flame out.
If they pay someone 100 hours a week on a consistent basis, someone in HR is going to notice and they will either have to spread the work around or hire another person.
At one time I supported European and US clients. This meant starting a work day six to eight hours in advance of the normal work day (as with you, about 4:00 AM) and was then expected to put in a full day for US hours (i.e., until about 5:00 PM). After a short time of that I put in a request to change my US work hours from "9 to 5" to "4 to 1", offering the additional hour to accommodate my US clients.
Although my manager agreed to that change, my West Coast US clients began to complain they were not getting my full services because my "quitting time" of 10 AM (their time) was too early for their taste. After a month or two of complaints I was told to start working until 6:00 PM (often later).
I then tried to have my schedule changed (with the approval of my European clients; I smartened up this time) to 7:00 AM. This worked reasonably well, with certain exceptions (sometimes meetings in Europe were 9:00 AM their time, so I still got up at 4:00 about three times a month).
Still, a 7:00 AM to 6:00 PM day is very long... eventually I left that job. As for Asian clients, if I had had to support clients 24-7 on a job which was not designed for on-call I would have refused (and likely been terminated, but saving my life is more important than a job).
I think the problem with the US economy is this: what made us strong in the last century (hard work) is no longer compatible with a world economy where your job could be anywhere and everywhere. What is needed by company owners is to work within the system; that is, if you support Asian clients then those are your hours, and don't also ask you to support US clients (who are on a time zone 12 hours apart). In other words, companies need "an Asian crew, a European crew, and an Americas crew" (three sets of employees, if you will).
Simple example: if your staff has nine people, three support Asia/Pacific, three support Europe and Africa, and three support the Americas. it's better for the workers; please, employers, think about it.
Although my manager agreed to that change, my West Coast US clients began to complain they were not getting my full services because my "quitting time" of 10 AM (their time) was too early for their taste. After a month or two of complaints I was told to start working until 6:00 PM (often later).
I then tried to have my schedule changed (with the approval of my European clients; I smartened up this time) to 7:00 AM. This worked reasonably well, with certain exceptions (sometimes meetings in Europe were 9:00 AM their time, so I still got up at 4:00 about three times a month).
Still, a 7:00 AM to 6:00 PM day is very long... eventually I left that job. As for Asian clients, if I had had to support clients 24-7 on a job which was not designed for on-call I would have refused (and likely been terminated, but saving my life is more important than a job).
I think the problem with the US economy is this: what made us strong in the last century (hard work) is no longer compatible with a world economy where your job could be anywhere and everywhere. What is needed by company owners is to work within the system; that is, if you support Asian clients then those are your hours, and don't also ask you to support US clients (who are on a time zone 12 hours apart). In other words, companies need "an Asian crew, a European crew, and an Americas crew" (three sets of employees, if you will).
Simple example: if your staff has nine people, three support Asia/Pacific, three support Europe and Africa, and three support the Americas. it's better for the workers; please, employers, think about it.
Hate to say this but you are being taken advantage of unless you are extremely well compensated. What a system we have...people that are working who are doing a job that two or more people should be doing. They have money but no time. Then there are others who can't find a job...plenty of time but no money.
It was a stupid thing to do. I made the erroneous assumption that my extra effort would be appreciated, but when local politics entered the mix I found I was no more valuable than a twenty year old patrol car.
I loved my job, but after 30 years, management decided the sidewalks had more people who could do it. I should have seen the handwriting on the wall, and should have quit when it might have left a message. Nobody noticed the good-bye wave. ):-P
I loved my job, but after 30 years, management decided the sidewalks had more people who could do it. I should have seen the handwriting on the wall, and should have quit when it might have left a message. Nobody noticed the good-bye wave. ):-P
Just because you don't have formal training... don't think that your CV is rubbish! If you took it upon yourself to learn enough about VMware, you know the product well enough to include on your CV. In fact, to me, it's more impressive than if you'd been to formal training and then did nothing with it. I'd say that you have a lot going for you if you decide to look for another job!
Scott
Scott
Anyone here in Higher Ed IT? I saw a comment about how bad hospitals are, but I think higher Ed give hospitals a run for their money. Siloing is SOP here. No leadership. No governance. No accountability. If this place were a business it would've failed decades ago. Sad.
I've spent a whole lot of time in Higher Ed IT. Some places are great and others, well... not so great. I actually like Higher Ed IT in general but I agree with you that siloing is pretty bad. I've seen siloing as the SOP but then almost removed from the organization and then, due to serious leadership failure, put back into place almost as a defensive mechanism. It's damn sad to see an organization practically ruined by just one or two people with unchecked power (which, to me, equals serious leadership failure).
But, is this really just higher ed or it is this way in some places in every vertical? Not every higher ed organization has these issues.
But, is this really just higher ed or it is this way in some places in every vertical? Not every higher ed organization has these issues.
I came very close to leaving to go to Emory Univ. in Atlanta, which I heard was tip top. But I couldn't quite get that sense from the interviews. My fear is leaving one frying pan to jump into another frying pan filled with acid. I've heard some higher ed situations are decent, but I don't know where they are. Got a map?
I left the U after the 4th time they tried to get me to do something illegal and unethical, which means after the third time I'd shown them the statutes they were violating.
In the context of this conversation, part of the violation involved the inverse of siloing; they were tossing around personal private information to people who had no actual need to know it, but found it convenient to know (and handy for coercing some students). One of the worst admin/recidivists failed upward, resigning as dean and becoming president at a smaller, women's university in VA.
In the context of this conversation, part of the violation involved the inverse of siloing; they were tossing around personal private information to people who had no actual need to know it, but found it convenient to know (and handy for coercing some students). One of the worst admin/recidivists failed upward, resigning as dean and becoming president at a smaller, women's university in VA.
The experiences above all tend to be about being over worked and under resourced. How about being under worked?
It may sound nice not to have a whip cracking above your head but very slowly you go mad. In my last role with a major mobile operator in the UK they refused to invest in any networking equipment what so ever. As a result I ended up living on eternal promises of increased budget and investiment in new hardware whilst maintaining the end of life kit in our DC's. Life was attending design meetings only to be told that some no face manager in bigger office had refused to invest. As a result my working day was to process ad hoc access requests and surfing facebook.
And all the while you aren't using the skills you developed. You're not honing new skills, not developing new solutions, not keeping you exitsing skills sharp.
I got out as soon as it became apparent that the reason for the lack of investment was that the management had been arguing for years on whether to out source the operations. At that point I decided to leave, and leave them to their fate...
It may sound nice not to have a whip cracking above your head but very slowly you go mad. In my last role with a major mobile operator in the UK they refused to invest in any networking equipment what so ever. As a result I ended up living on eternal promises of increased budget and investiment in new hardware whilst maintaining the end of life kit in our DC's. Life was attending design meetings only to be told that some no face manager in bigger office had refused to invest. As a result my working day was to process ad hoc access requests and surfing facebook.
And all the while you aren't using the skills you developed. You're not honing new skills, not developing new solutions, not keeping you exitsing skills sharp.
I got out as soon as it became apparent that the reason for the lack of investment was that the management had been arguing for years on whether to out source the operations. At that point I decided to leave, and leave them to their fate...
I was in the same situation not too long ago (before the last re-org. For once I was happy about it).
Luckily, I had a PC (monster of a machine) running Win2008 on which I ran Linux and Windows VMs. I also ran GNS3 which simulates Cisco routers. As a telco architect, I have the firm conviction that I have to keep my skills up to date. I won't be installing physical machines (sniff sniff), but I HAVE to be able to know what I'm talking about. I'm happy that I had my own personal lab to practice with, or I would have gone mad with boredom.
Bottom line is (finally), if you can, find a way to keep busy in a positive manner that will both benefit you and your employer even if he doesn't do squat with it. It'll beef up your r??sum?? should you choose to leave and you won't feel like your cheating your boss out of productive time (give me some slack here...
).
My setup is both inexpensive and under the radar (various lab policies
) and kept me busy when I needed it most.
Best of luck.
Luckily, I had a PC (monster of a machine) running Win2008 on which I ran Linux and Windows VMs. I also ran GNS3 which simulates Cisco routers. As a telco architect, I have the firm conviction that I have to keep my skills up to date. I won't be installing physical machines (sniff sniff), but I HAVE to be able to know what I'm talking about. I'm happy that I had my own personal lab to practice with, or I would have gone mad with boredom.
Bottom line is (finally), if you can, find a way to keep busy in a positive manner that will both benefit you and your employer even if he doesn't do squat with it. It'll beef up your r??sum?? should you choose to leave and you won't feel like your cheating your boss out of productive time (give me some slack here...
).My setup is both inexpensive and under the radar (various lab policies
) and kept me busy when I needed it most.Best of luck.
As I said in another post, my job was limited as a network admin, but I learned other skills in the company. One of them was to take over the SQL-based business applications server. I went as far as to build a test machine, even copying the database to my local hard drive, so I could break it and learn how it worked.
This actually did pay off for the company because when it came time to create the new year on the live server, we had practice on test system. We had that time, and plenty of it, to go through the parameters and switch settings prior to going live. So, when Jan 2 came along, we were able to edit the live server, and we were up and running the next day ready for finance to do the reporting.
I agree this too has a nice value-add too for the CV because it showed that I took the initiative to learn something new, and to implement the final results into production. My MS-SQL classes paid off because I was able to also rebuild the live database after a database crash, which was rare but after 10 years of continuous operation, what would you expect!
This actually did pay off for the company because when it came time to create the new year on the live server, we had practice on test system. We had that time, and plenty of it, to go through the parameters and switch settings prior to going live. So, when Jan 2 came along, we were able to edit the live server, and we were up and running the next day ready for finance to do the reporting.
I agree this too has a nice value-add too for the CV because it showed that I took the initiative to learn something new, and to implement the final results into production. My MS-SQL classes paid off because I was able to also rebuild the live database after a database crash, which was rare but after 10 years of continuous operation, what would you expect!
I understand being underworked, in my case I do not have the tools to do my job as effectively as I could. It is not a case of desire, I want to hone my skills and do a good job, but it's difficult when you have a mad dictator for a network administrator and management who won't spend any money to get a test environment going. I am getting tired of being locked down and told to get in line. But I have tried to improve any way I can. MIT Open courseware has some good stuff.
Tough going when you have an administrator believes everyone should have least privileged access except themselves.
When I was making the conversion from Sales in IT to tech support (much more rewarding) I spent about 2 months in 1997 at IBM doing .... I have never been able to figure it out and THIS after two years with a successful IBM Business Partner in AS/400 systems. Underworked? How about "I Dunno" Got a copy of OS/2 WARP though. A keeper for a smile or two.
I was the network admin for about 10 years with the company. As they downsized, I did less IT and more other things, which in the long run wasn't such a bad thing.
But anyway, during the heyday, I too was given all kinds of "new projects" to look into, but we did nothing with them. The management would never invest in anything, period. We were still running NT 4.0 SP6a on a majority of the servers, which at the end were about 11-12 years old. The old Compaq Proliants were still operational (a testament to their quality), but we couldn't replacement them either if anything died.
I too went through skill rot to put it mildly. It's a good thing I took the impetus to go back to school for my IT degree, which I'm still working on today. I felt I had to do something otherwise my brains would rot too.
But anyway, during the heyday, I too was given all kinds of "new projects" to look into, but we did nothing with them. The management would never invest in anything, period. We were still running NT 4.0 SP6a on a majority of the servers, which at the end were about 11-12 years old. The old Compaq Proliants were still operational (a testament to their quality), but we couldn't replacement them either if anything died.
I too went through skill rot to put it mildly. It's a good thing I took the impetus to go back to school for my IT degree, which I'm still working on today. I felt I had to do something otherwise my brains would rot too.
I've walked away from a few jobs.
One, they were in total upheaval and couldn't organize themselves out of a wet paper bag.
Two jobs I left because they were late paying me. Bad sign.
But if its possible, its best to wait till you have another job lined up, signed offer in hand.
One, they were in total upheaval and couldn't organize themselves out of a wet paper bag.
Two jobs I left because they were late paying me. Bad sign.
But if its possible, its best to wait till you have another job lined up, signed offer in hand.
Iv'e walked away twice in my career, once for a new job, once for voluntaryish redundancy, which is not bad in 30 years. I put it down to an extremely low level of expectation from my job and even less from my employer.
Don't let them obscure why you are there slaving over a hot keyboard, it's not so you can have a work/life balance issue to address....
Don't let them obscure why you are there slaving over a hot keyboard, it's not so you can have a work/life balance issue to address....
I walked from two non-IT jobs. On one, I was (I thought) the number three man in the company. One day a customer came in and asked me about a business change I didn't know about. It turned out to be true. The second time a customer told me about a major change and the one owner had not told me or his partner yet, I knew it was time for me to go. I was out of there in 48 hours.
The other job instead of using the most recent quarters numbers for our review, we were told to go back two quarters, to when the whole place was being torn apart for remodeling. When we needed to close for half a day because the fumes put three employees in the ER. What a surprise, our numbers sucked, no raises, written warnings on performance. My resume was out the next day.
The other job instead of using the most recent quarters numbers for our review, we were told to go back two quarters, to when the whole place was being torn apart for remodeling. When we needed to close for half a day because the fumes put three employees in the ER. What a surprise, our numbers sucked, no raises, written warnings on performance. My resume was out the next day.
When you're pretty much fed up with the organizational structure the corruption of managers and the covert business adventures. Suddenly realize you dont fit in. Time to go. Oh and you dont like anyone on the management staff because theyre all doing each other then hint around to thinking they're going to do me to. I dont think so. Not my cup of tea.
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