Yeah I’m enjoying it.
I’m being given the maintenance jobs, so basically correcting things on existing websites.
A fair bit of database work and today some struggles with a wordpress theme that didnt want to display things properly.
Turns out the solution was a really obscure css setting deep in the css file, which has some 4000 lones of code lol.
Glad to hear all the jobs are going well. And that’s a great story, @Aleck. I was in a hospital admin room recently and they had cabinets with slanted tops, probably to make sure no one put stuff up there.
I’m about seven months into a new job, myself. I moved from agency work to a SaaS company that’s owned by its customers. Super nice people, conscientious teammates serious about mutual respect and support, etc.
My only complaint is that this team lost a 10- and a 17-year veteran (one quit to make his own app, the other was promoted) and the bus factor was two. We’re struggling to master the codebase, deliver, and keep the culture where we want it to be. It feels great to be working with people also trying to fix those things, but we need more than good intentions.
My wife says I seem a lot less stressed than when consulting. I’ve found it easier to help my kids with school and work on projects. I still get nervous when I see next week’s personal calendar has too many commitments, though.
I agree with all of this, and I’d add that so very much of that stuff is all about the attitude you approach it with. For me(and those I’ve seen do well), that attitude is all about flexibility. Being flexible when things aren’t technically ideal(they never will be). Being flexible when you start a new project that throws all kinds of curveballs and new stuff at you. Being flexible when somebody on the team read a book and really wants to try out some new technique that you aren’t yet comfortable with. Being flexible when you’re the person who read the book and your teammates are pushing back against trying the new thing.
To be clear, being flexible doesn’t mean that you don’t push back on bad ideas or designs. Or that you don’t consistently push for better ways to do things.
That’s a really cool story, thanks!
Agreed that was really interesting. I have been on various forums with Triggercut for what seems like ~25 years, so I was curious how you made the jump. Very belated congrats.
Any call center is the ass end of a really scarred animal. The CRS people at the IRS don’t last very long.
I am an archaeologist, have been for about 23 years. If I were to describe my previous- and current job in any detail, every archaeologist in the Netherlands would know (or could find out) who I am (which isn’t much of an achievement considering how small the archaeological community is in this country, and they might very well be able to do that without any details as well, but still: I’m not going to encourage it). So I’m not going to go into details here. I did make an interesting career switch though, when after many years of working for a boss I started my own company and became a self-employed archaeological consultant. That switch happened to coincide with the start of Corona (not ideal…), but still I have not regretted that choice for a second: I absolutely love being self-employed. Of course, at first, there are concerns about getting enough assignments, and there is a lot of administration to take care of that I could do without. But being able to do what I want when I want it, is priceless. Even more so now that I know I don’t have to worry about getting enough work: things are really running smoothly!
Interestingly, my best friend, who has been self-employed all his working life (like me: about 23 years), has recently switched to working for a boss, and he also says he doesn’t regret that for a second. So I guess a large part of the satisfaction comes from doing something different…
Does starting a new business count?
My son and I are going to be opening multiple Tint World auto styling centers. Bought a building for the first and have signed a lease for the second. Had hoped to have the first location open by July/august, but current timeline is January, which has been pretty frustrating (and expensive). Going on 11 months since we started the process.
Don’t know a thing about window tint, ppf, 12v electronics, etc, so finding good employees will be important. But leading a team and customer service are things I know.
Starting a new business such as yours, with all the investments involved and the employee side of it, is, in my opinion, really brave and something I wouldn’t dare do. But good on you, hope everything works out!
Just past the 6 month mark at my new job in comp and data analysis, aka a life of Excel and Access. And I am enjoying it for its simplicity and being able to google stuff if I need help. Previously spent almost 20 years doing data center support and IBM mainframe operations, where I almost never used Access nor Excel, and Rumba was life, and the documentation was from the 1980s in massive binders.
This was my first real job change since I was hired out of college.
Went from driving 500 miles a week for work, down to around 50 miles. LIFE CHANGING.
Just found out this week the person who has been training me for these past 6 months has put in their resignation. So… indirect promotion for me! Should be a fun couple of weeks ahead.
I won’t lie…it’s felt rather scary at times, mostly because of the sba loan. I’ve jumped through so many hoops, and the real work has yet to start.
I left my job as a PACS Admin at a small radiology center where I’d worked for 16 years to do at home support work for the very product I’d administered. The money is much better, I’m totally remote, and yet…I’m not happy with the job. For one thing, this type of job is better in a communal setting where you can shout over cubicles asking for help on a particular issue. Being reliant on Teams makes it difficult to learn and feel comfortable. For the other thing – and I can’t believe I feel this way – I actually miss working with people face-to-face. And finally, I blame my wife, God love her. She also got just a new job at our local college and loves her job. It’s made me realize that it would be nice if I did, too. I’m very lucky to have what I have, especially living in rural Appalachia. I just wish that at age 48, I had made a better plan for myself. The plan used to be “just make a living”. But now I find that I want to help people, or work in my community, and I’m not “qualified” for either.
That’s it. I needed to get that out. I’m not about to arbitrarily quit my job or anything like that, but I’ve realized that a change needs to be made. Fortunately, we’re in a better position than most where I can explore options to make that happen.
Yep. One of my friends is our freaking mayor right now. He’s helping people, and he’s also making more money than me. He had a ten year plan to get there that he started while my head was still spinning that anyone would pay me to do programming.
Um, that’s true at a lot of places outside Uncle Sam’s circus, too. Like, most of the places I’ve worked…
Maybe, I haven’t had a lot of civilian jobs. I worked finance for a global chemical company, people were fired easily, there was quotas that had to be met, there was no idol chitchat, etc. The place was very much about getting the job done. I started at a civilian gov job, first day two girls in my office were 30 minutes late, came in, then left to get coffee. We had quotas, but it took almost no effort to meet them. Our software was about 25 years old and we had boxes of paper files every where. To get fired you have to kill someone. My new office isn’t that bad, but it is incredibly inefficient. I am currently doing a special assignment. Turns out a guy just didn’t do his job for years, so now I am cleaning it up. He was not fired.
There’s a balance between raw production and quality of life that is tough to maintain. I’ve worked in places where it was frustrating to see deadweight continue on sucking up space and money without contributing much. I’ve also worked in places where people were hounded constantly to “be productive” at a high cost to them for no benefit except perhaps to the owners, and even then the benefits were often short-term because over time people just left. Also, way too many manager types focus on metrics like time in chair and number of people in the office or quantities of X over time when the job really is about number of X at quality Z.
In general, I prefer places where there is a clear understanding of what the job is, clear metrics for whether the job is being performed properly, and clear rewards for doing the job right. Any place that focuses on punitive measures (threats of job loss, punishments, fines, harassment) to “motivate people” is usually a terrible place to work, and often enough not really that successful over time.
Of course, the opposite can be unpleasant as well. It drives me nuts sometimes in academia where at a teaching college in particular it is hard to pin down anyone on just how we assess our performance, and some folks take that as an excuse to do as little as possible, while others do a lot more than probably is required (or healthy).
My civilian job at the chemical company was stressful. Meeting quotas was stressful, seeing coworkers fired was stressful, and our CFO came out and said we are expendable (they only cared about their salespeople, the rest of us were cogs in the wheel). They weren’t always efficient, but they were always looking to make things quicker, easier, and more cost-effective. No one seems to do that in the government. No one cares about efficiency or saving money. It can be extremely frustrating to watch.
On the other hand, I don’t work past 8 hours, I don’t have any job-related stress, and I get a ton of time off. I work with a CPA who used to work at one of the big 4 accounting firms. He said the government job is worth making less money because of the work-life balance. I completely understand that. At this point, I care about that far more than I care about the money.
Yeah, it’s always a trade off. Ideally, it wouldn’t have to be perhaps, but there it is.
Back in 2013, my work gave me a machine that ran XP. So, the private sector.
We were still using Windows 95 on one computer in the AF in 2010 when I worked at this one job. It was air gapped from everything so it wasn’t a big deal, but using it was always like a blast from the past.