Quite surprised compared to yesterday. I managed to get stuff moving forward on a project i've been wanting to get out of the way for a while now... On top of that, my manager called me into another office and told me i've been given a raise. It wasn't a huge amount but i appreciate the gesture.
A good end to the week, really.
Terrible day. I had to cover court for an advocate who has hurt her ankle and claims she can't do court work as a result. She hasn't broken it, and isn't off work. The court would have let her sit down, for god's sake.
The court consisted of 5 trials in 1 day. I spent 3 hours reading them yesterday, got to work before 7 and spent another 3 on them this morning, photocopying, drafting my arguments and so on.
2 of the victims refused to give evidence. Those trials were dead in the water. The other 3 all pleaded guilty at the courtroom door.
6 hours of prep that I shouldn't even have been doing, wasted. Not to mention the 10 hour working day, and the immense waste of public funds. Not a good day.
I don't usually talk about my job much but I don't really have this hard line of delineation between work and my personal life, so I guess it's all one big blobby experience for me. Running GWJ and doing the podcast included. I try to bring the same energy and attention throughout the day, whether it's work or a weekend. At work, we do security cameras, access control, burglary and remote video monitoring stuff for commercial/industrial clients. We also outfit narcotics vehicles for unattended, undercover stakeout work.
I've been going through this slow transition from IT/customer service/a thousand other things guy to Vice President of the company over the past year or so. It's been really, really busy since I'm working all day and over seeing our night staff who works 6PM to 6AM. A lot of days/nights spent at the office. I'd had enough about four months ago so I hired a night manager and I've been slowly delegating/training my way out of this pit so I can find some more personal balance again. It seems counter-intuitive to think that working less is going to have a positive impact on the company, but it does. I'm more rested, more focused and more present and attuned to the people around me. You can't make good, long term decisions if you're trying to juggle a thousand oranges at once. Especially if managing people is a big component of the job.
At this point I've managed to draw back to a regular 8 to 10 hour work day with one or two nights a week at the office for a couple hours. I know even that can sound like a lot, but compared to what I was pulling off before it seems like the purest luxury.
I really do like my job. I bought part of the company a few years ago, I have total autonomy to deal with my to-do list as I see fit and I have a guiding hand in growing the business. I have a good relationship with my business partner and we compliment each other well. There are near constant challenges but I love wearing different hats every day and tackling something new. On a given day I might be doing a presentation of IP camera tech to cops, helping sales pitch a project, dealing with staff issues, figuring out marketing plans or working on new procedures for the video monitoring staff. Or maybe I'm R&Ding new tech for testing in the field. I also still get to roll up my sleeves and fix computers and do client visits for a change of pace. It's kind of relaxing.
At this point our staff count is about 20 people and we're growing into some exciting areas and possibilities. Like any business these days, it could grow like crazy or all fall apart tomorrow, but that's part of the fun 
Pay cuts, all around. 
Stuff
Well done on pulling back and being able to hire someone on. You're a lucky guy to be able to pull that off.
Tell me more about your Fridays off? They sound dreamy.
I can't complain job wise. I love doing what I do and that's being a radar operator on a coastguard plane. Employed by the navy (Dutch), and deployed in Curacao, the Caribbean. Things could be worse. But I am (still, and it's taking too *&#!$@ long) in transition to move to another country. As my two daughters are not with me here, but living with their mother.
That fact kinda sucks out all the fun in live atm. But like I said, things could be worse and my job and career have been awesome so far.
We're coming up on our 30th anniversary and just had a really nice article in the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/ar...
Tell me more about your Fridays off? They sound dreamy.
I've been backing off from that as I've come in on nights less. Hard to lose a whole work day when "normal" people are working and expect you to be available. I take Fridays off (or part of the day) depending on what's going on and how busy I was. Kind of a self-regulated thing.
I work as a programmer for a pretty decent web application company in DC (the company I work for is ngpvan.com, working on the fundraising software, not voter-targeting). We service Democratic Candidates and non-partisan progressive organizations. The environment is very west coasty: come into work by 10, wear shorts to work, beers in the office on fridays. I should love my job, and I do love coding, but I've been there three years and am starting to itch for another project. Our software is finally being released out of beta, and it has been an exhilarating ride over 3 years developing it. But I imagine that even our crunch times to make it to release are not nearly as painful as the game development industry.
Apparently there are some serious horror stories in game development. Anyway, in summary: love job as spoiled unappreciative programmer in fairly economically-insulated industries (software, political fundraising).
After an extremely stressful and unfulfilling couple of years, my time at New Job has been kind of amazing. I'm heavily involved in the writing and editing of text, something I had no idea I missed as much as I did. Apparently words have to be a part of my professional life forever. My time away from Massively and those sites was cancerously bad, and a big part of it was because I didn't get to include my love of words in my day job.
I now get to wake up every morning honestly looking forward to what the day will bring. I had to come in late this morning because I was trying to get new tags for my out-of-state car, and I was disappointed I'd be missing some time on the clock.
So. That's pretty cool.
I'll admit: I'm partially writing this so that when the inevitable crunch boulder falls, I can look back on this and giggle.
Just over 2 years ago I was in IT sales. I called Silicon Valley, talked to asses who worked for asses. Everyone lied all the time. I was an honest man adrift in a sea of scoundrels, and the comission checks began to dry up.
Now, I made a change from our corporate business unit to our US government business unit. I'm a Proposal Manager for a national IT reseller. When the red phone rings it's sales on the other line, they have a massive RFP to complete for a major Federal customer. I get on the phone, line up multiple specialists and OEM partners, and together we hammer out a solution. Sometimes, I feel like the host of the very worst radio show on the air.
I read through all the Federal Acquisition Requirements, I set deliverables for the various stakeholders, and then hold their feet to the fire so that they turn them in to me on time. Near the end of the process I create massive documents, with lots of fresh writing in them, to sell our solution in the most compelling manner possible. It's complex, high stakes, has huge visibility within the company, and I love it to death.
Just got a promotion a few months ago. But, to be honest, I'm being paid about 60% of what people at larger systems integrators usually make. The tade of is that I'm salaried, not contract, so during slow times (like now) I still get paid.
To make ends meet my wife is busting her ass with a photography business, shooting children and families, weddings, and births. I play roadie and B-cameraman when I can, and generally watch our daughter when she can't. I'm so glad she's able to stay at home with her during the day though. Our daughter is blossoming into an incredible kid, and I can't thank my wife enough for giving up career as a corporate photographer to do it.
Additionally, I'm trying to create a freelance writing portfolio. The team here have been kind enough to give me a shot, and working with them behind the scenes has been an amazing pleasure.
Today? I'm working from home, reading a teaming agreement for a local SI we're trying to make friends with in order to win more Department of Defense business down the line.
It's been good, actually. Had some off days, but have put out some quality features lately. Doesn't hurt to have a developer that can design, either.
Now we're looking at leveraging the cloud to do some cool stuff, and it may be the chance I've been waiting to introduce Ruby on Rails to everyone. I can probably do the project in the timeframe that I would quote for PHP but in RoR with learning a majority of it on-the-job.
Work is crazy for me. Being the sole developer (on this side of the country) for the entire IHH project for a behavioral health care company as well as other projects that pop up, peer reviews, code reviews, etc is killing me.
I posted a while back about an incident I had with a co-worker. Since then, things have been increasingly passive/agressive. Nothing I can really bring up w/ my boss, but little things. Insinuations that I don't pull my weight and all. The thing is, I have definitive proof that not only do I produce as much work as her, I sometimes double her work load. Add to that, I'm sitting on a nuclear bomb that could destroy her self-esteem and I really don't want to drop it.
I posted a while back about an incident I had with a co-worker. Since then, things have been increasingly passive/agressive. Nothing I can really bring up w/ my boss, but little things. Insinuations that I don't pull my weight and all. The thing is, I have definitive proof that not only do I produce as much work as her, I sometimes double her work load. Add to that, I'm sitting on a nuclear bomb that could destroy her self-esteem and I really don't want to drop it.
I can sympathize. I was in an extremely similar situation (including being told a dirty secret that they had shared with a different co-worker). It kept getting worse until management finally listened to both of us and put us on different shifts (probably not an option for your job though). I'd recommend letting your boss know about all the little things, otherwise they'll keep piling up until you decide to drop your bomb, which will most likely only serve to make you look just as petty and difficult in the eyes of your boss.
Tell me more about your Fridays off? They sound dreamy.
I'm the "acting" manager at the moment and that should have been resolved last week with me being locked in and moved across to a different award. That hasn't happened yet so I'm still on the employee award for conditions so I still get RDO's. I was meant to have Friday off, but had to go in for Business development meetings, so instead I'm taking Monday off 
In hte office I've worked really hard to boost morale and create a nurturing and supportive culture. Often this comes across as me behaving a bit (okay a lot) like Michael Scott.
I have two very able lieutenants overseeing the two government programs we manage and mostly I let them manage their teams, but they know when it comes to the crunch I'll step in and take over if something gets too serious.
I'm also enjoying my new north aspected corner office with water views
I got a pretty sweet freelance job revising the corporate brochure for one of China's largest film production companies, now looking to make some headway in international markets. They had a translation firm "translate" it into English, but the quality is impressively terrible, despite claims of having a native English speaker on board. I gave them three options for the level of work I could do for them, asking for about 25% more money than I expected to get for each option. They chose the middle option and offered the upper limit of the price range I listed. Considering how much money this company is rolling in right now, it will be well worth my while to do a good job on this.
I like my job. I generally do. It may be because it's the second job I've had since being out of college, and my first one was so incredibly bad that I went home depressed almost every single day because I felt like my entire existence had been for nothing.
So yes. Life is good.
My job is a f*cking gauntlet.
10-hour days or more, five days a week and four hours every other saturday. I wake up at 5:40am every morning, scramble to be (marginally) presentable and "office professional," commute for an hour, and usually work from 7:30am until 6:30pm, ~!$ALES CUSTOMER SERVICE $ALES!~ before commuting for another hour before crashing into bed and doing it all over again.
This isn't unusual for anyone at my work.
Therefore, the shelf-life of your average employee isn't very long. Since we're just coming off the summer rush (I work for a rental car company), people are quitting. We just had three managers and two ticket-writers put in their letters of resignation within the last two months. I think once things get calm, people wipe their brows in relief and think "Now that that's over, I can move on."
It sounds like I might be complaining, but I'm not. My sales numbers kind of suck, so this means...
JOB SECURITY, BABY! Hello there, over-overtime dollars.
That being said, we've been running really thin on people for the last few months. If people applied barely meeting the minimum requirements for staffing here, I bet they'd be hired pretty quickly.
I work for a large Engineering company in their Process Automation division. I was in some training before and for the last few weeks have been at a IP Paper mill doing some on-the-job training. Just got recommended to be a permanent guy there (that was my goal). It is very interesting with a lot of room to move up and the company has just incredible benefits.
It is amazing how much science and engineering goes into making a sheet of paper (or other paper products)!
I work on the architecture team for one of the largest websites on the planet. (You have used it.) I am exactly where I want to be.
I just work as a grunt in a popular retail store. Some would call it a waste of my time and my newly acquired bachelor's degree but honestly after doing nothing but attemd school for the last 17 years, "menial labor" is an incredibly refreshing change.
My organisational hierarchy goes like this.
The Pope
^
Archbishop of Brisbane
^
CEG Director
^
Regional Manager
^
Me
So that's kinda cool.
Sith Pope or Space Pope?
So it goes from God.. to Jerry, to Kent.. to the laundry?
I work on the architecture team for one of the largest websites on the planet. (You have used it.) I am exactly where I want to be.
IF YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT AMAZON THOSE PURCHASES WERE JUST FOR RESEARCH
Anyone want to know the hard-limit uptime for an HP Procurve 5406 switch? It has one. And you don't want to find that out the way we did =/
Sure. Can you just reboot it solving the issue or is it a replacement type of thing?
You can reboot it. It's advisable you do so within 2054 days if you don't want the excrement to hit the aircon.
That's an interesting tidbit. Can you give me the particulars of this issue? Because we have one and it's been up for about half that now but if i tell my CTO just what you said here he's not going to take it well.
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