Problems Problems

[Symbology]

So here is my mid life crisis. I woke up about 6 months ago, to yet again another day filled with constant computer problems. You know the kind. The ones that nobody else knows how to solve so they send them your way, cause you're the "tech guy".

 

In my twenties I awoke to the same kind of day, but I was proud of what I could accomplish, and reveled at all the new challenges. I had lots of boundless energy and lack of respect for authority and managed to change my little corner of the world. I still enjoy going back to Texaco/Chervon on occasion to see my old codes still in use on the consoles 17 years later.

 

But these days I have pretty much seen it all. And I really am getting tired of everybody saying "where's my code?" and "why don't you have that fixed yet?" when they have no clue what it is that I am doing.

(Anyone remember the Dilbert where the pointy haired boss says "I don't understand what you are doing so it must be simple") :shrug:

 

So I keep thinking, is there some job out there that has some less change to it that isn't totally boring? Is there something that can let you just do your work without

- ok now we don't have enough memory for it

- well that syntax worked last week!

- I don't understand, we already tested this 14 times

- wow... that is totally bizarre!

- can you grab me a Dew while you are there? I buried deep in this debug session

 

Do I have to get out of computers to find some relief for my tired old brain, or is it just that I need to get out of the business sector and into something more scientific? I hear that can be alot like working for the government though.

 

I know from talking to game programmers that they deal with intense deadlines like the rest of us. Though at least you know everyone is enjoying the fruits of your labor. And Lord knows Testing takes on a whole new slant! (ok I know the truth, testing is the same repetitive crap wherever you are ;) )

 

In my twenties I always wondered looking at the old guys (the forty year olds) how it was that they lacked the will to fight anymore, and just grinned when I would go off on another crusade. Now I understand :phones: And it thrills me to know end to see a young upstart headed my way that I can point things out to and let him go take it out ;)

[LaurieAG]

In my twenties I always wondered looking at the old guys (the forty year olds) how it was that they lacked the will to fight anymore, and just grinned when I would go off on another crusade. Now I understand :shrug: And it thrills me to know end to see a young upstart headed my way that I can point things out to and let him go take it out :phones:

 

Hi Symbology,

 

You can probably move up and build on your own field of speciality, to something like a (senior) consultant, if you still feel up to the fight. But watch out, if you try to change your field of specialisation, you will be competing against all of those younger crusaders, one of whoom will probably be the boss, just to get the job in the first place.

[Tormod]

Is there something that can let you just do your work without

- ok now we don't have enough memory for it

- well that syntax worked last week!

- I don't understand, we already tested this 14 times

- wow... that is totally bizarre!

- can you grab me a Dew while you are there? I buried deep in this debug session

 

Get into consulting, man. Non-programming as such. That's where I am atm and it is a thrill to see all the above...as the client's representative in meetings with the developers. :confused:

[CraigD]

But for the enterprise details - I’ve worked mostly (on-and-off for 32 years, full-time for 21) in academic, business, and clinical medicine, not whatever it is Texaco/Chevron does – one could swap Symbology’s midlife crisis manifesto for my own, and not notice any poorness of fit, adding a new layer to the angst: not unsurprisingly for a profession with an acronym – IT – as recognized by the general public as any, we’re typical.

So I keep thinking, is there some job out there that has some less change to it that isn't totally boring?

I don’t completely follow the “some less change” part, but think I get the gist of the question.

 

In my experience, in the non-academic sector, the goodness of a job is almost completely an artifact of the relationship between the technician (which I mean in the positive sense of “one focused on the technical”, not the derogatory sense of “a mere technician”) and the boss (the one who signs the check, and, to some degree … bosses)

 

In my organization, the average lifespan of a boss is a couple of years, meaning that the same job can be a delight one year, an abject hell the next, then back to delightful. The new boss’s first impressions are crucial. Senior management types are, for the most part, intuitive and stolid. Their assessment of their high-performing (ie: old) technical staff tends to be either gut level, or based on some secret private metrics, and can categorize the nature of your next years’ work as anything from “keeping the lights on” drudgery to “blue sky” visionary stuff. As old bosses are often recycled into new with decade+ periodicity, and bosses talk to each other (mine frequently go on retreats to ritzy locals to do so) this “relationship management” (real personal/professional relationships, not the buzzword term for the myriad systems for tracking an enterprises interaction with its customers) can become … Byzantine, Machiavellian – you pick the term for “bizarre, complicated, and potentially stressful”. Though it’s to some extent unavoidable, I’ve found it key to avoid at all costs making professional enemies – even ones you’re certain have bit the dust have a tendency to rise, zombie-like, back into a position of bosshood to make your life hell, and contrary to conventional wisdom, revenge is often a dish best served hot and hectic. Woe be unto you if you’re a large part of the reason for their bygone fall! :(

 

Then there’s the question of becoming a boss. At some point in most experienced programmers’ careers, you wind up effectively managing a gaggle of other programmers large enough to be a decent size software house in its own right, and, assuming this isn’t antithical to your being or entirely outside of your skill set, gaining a reputation as potential boss material. The combination of novel experiences, less work-y + more money (and the aforementioned ritzy management retreats) can be powerfully enticing. So far, except for a couple of years in which I was orgcharted as a mid-level manager, but other than having to sit though (and actually prepare for) a dozen semi-annual performance reviews rather than just one, behaved no differently than before or after, I’ve stayed on the “indian” side of the indian/chief divide.

 

From conversations with people outside my org, I’ve come to realize that I was fortunate to be in an org that early adopted the now standard personnel practice of “technical career tracks”, a scheme that basically lets programmers keep on with the same ‘ole coding while getting roughly the same pay increases they would had they become managers. It works well for many orgs, as its senior technical folk are to some extent prisoners of their high pay. I, for example, would have a difficult time finding a coding job outside of my org that would pay me what I make – and in true consumer fashion, need just to survive – without becoming a manager. And, having avoided true senior management experience, I’m not really qualified for a senior management job – though, like most technical people, am confident I could pull it off without much difficulty if I had to :confused:

You can probably move up and build on your own field of speciality, to something like a (senior) consultant

LOL!

 

I’ve literally lost track of the various job titles attached to the imaginary grades of employment I’ve been in on the “technical track” I mention above. A couple of months ago, as part of a project driven by the infamous SOX mandate, I rewrote a couple of security systems to assign privileges based on job, and was startled when I stumbled upon my own title – “Senior Application Solutions Consultant”. The title is basically a hodge-podge of words assembled in an attempt to make the title look incrementally better than whatever it was before. Fortunately, I work in a healthcare org with a policy of including only medical professional titles (MD, RN, LCSW, etc.) on badges, so I can make up any title for myself I wish, and usually just go with “Programmer”.

 

As my org’s HR policies evolved (like DNA, invisibly to the naked eye) I’ve encountered, and for all I know, had some weird titles. Several years ago, a CIO who was aggressively pushing the tired old “buy, don’t build” paradigm tried to stick folk at my grade with a title along the lines of “world-class integration specialist” – the implication being all any of us IT folk would need to do was make sure all the bought apps “integrated” nicely/magically with one another. My favorite titles, though came from a period, toward the end of a couple of years in which I and most of the rest of the on-site staff of the vendor for which I’d formerly worked had been “purchased” along with the software we’d developed, but our purchaser had not yet figured out that we belonged in their gargantuan national IT group. Our then effective top boss – a mere director-level manager – decided that self-invented titles with a medieval/renaissance flavor (and printed on new name badges) would improve morale, leading to some like “Baron of the North and South-of-the-river MUX network” and “Overlord of the C, D, E and F machines”. It was a credit to our printer that they could manage to fit such text on engraved plastic name badges.

 

All but a few of those badges were somehow stolen – most people used their as cube-wall decoration, or tucked away in a desk drawer - a couple of years after they were made. I suspect the manager responsible for the idea, but could never get him to admit to the crime, instead blaming the management of the beomuth national IT group that eventually consumed our little crew. I think it may have been a pack of disreputable-looking consultants. Which ones, I don’t know – there were so many, all tending to run-together in ones memory.

 

I’ve followed, without much conscious decision, a strategy of “stay in the position, and hope for a boss that lets me do what I like”. Another approach I’ve seen, and been tempted to follow, is “follow the boss”, where, when you find a boss you really like, after his couple of years lifespan is up, let him to recruit you into his next company. Just yesterday, my org lost arguably its top data modeler/miners to this approach – humorously, in an open/lazy/in-your-face manner, the recruiting boss emailed all of his former direct reports, copying their new manager. One of the reasons he was a liked manager was his extreme openness. :shrug:

 

Yet another approach is to be your own company. Though many of us have at some time been a “consulting firm with one employee” (to some extent, a euphemism for “unemployed programmer”), here I’m referring to a genuine software shop with real products sold for real money to real customers. One of my best programmers did this, making and loosing over US$1M at it with a cool webapp suite he hoped would be bought by the IT department of the state of CA’s public library system. He wound up working on my team when his savings were nearly exhausted, and lived an interesting existence of making and waiting for phone calls telling him this sale had gone through, and he was again a millionaire. Though fun to watch from the sidelines, I’m pretty sure I lack the entrepreneurial drive needed to be happy in such a life.

 

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention academia. One can do a lot of heady programming as staff or faculty at the right school. Though I know a few people in this boat, and was a sort-of academic for a little less than two years, my firsthand experience in it is so limited and peripheral, I don’t feel qualified to more than mention it a possibility.

 

Ultimately, IMHO, technical folk need to make some very important fundamental, “what are you in it for?” carreer decisions:

• Money. Not necessarily avarice, but possibly just a desire to have a comfortable and secure life, support a family, etc.
  
• The subject matter (eg: medicine, engineering, games). Computers are, after all, tools, distinct from the use to which they’re put. "Are you a <blank> who works with computers, or a computer person who works in <blank>?"
  
• Pure geekish pleasure
  
• Shaping the technology - what folk like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Alan Kay, and Octo Barnett, and many more obscure folk, did, or are doing.
  

These are clearly not mutually exclusive categories, but I think having and knowing a single primary career goal may be critical in having much success in reaching any.

[Symbology]

Wonderful response CraigD. As I get time tomorrow I will work at responding to individual points.

 

Two things I wanted to add. One was that I got into "artificial intelligence" with the hope of working on really cool problems. What I eventually found was that (at least in the field of Expert Systems) it is just implementing company procedures really fast with a really powerful inference engine. It still ends up dealing with a domain of well work analysis, banking approval procedures, or underwriting procedures.

 

I think you have hit upon a key point of being a slave to the money.

 

The second point is that I have a friend from a former job who has made an important observation (that was new to me at least). That when a programmer works in company where the product is software, he is treated much better than when he works for a company where the product is business related. In that case IT is a necessary evil, and unless you are one of those rotating manager that rotates out of IT then you basically have a Dilbert environment.

 

His blog for those that might be interested is

The Tech Dark Side

he is a very direct kind of guy. So if you are offended by jokes about body functions then best to skip it :confused: Otherwise there is lots of stuff there to make you go "hmmmm"

[Buffy]

Seconding all of what Craig said, but I'll add a couple of more thoughts...

 

I went the opposite direction, but I've got a slew of friends who successfully transitioned from development into marketing. I got my CS degree and then went to Business School and found out that I was in tremendous demand as a marketing manager, so that's what I did out of school. Because I could actually out-program many of the developers I had to work with, there was little they could get away with terms of the typical "the marketing people are idiots, so if we don't want to do what they're asking for we'll just tell them its really hard to do."

 

At first they all hated me, then they figured out that I could save their butts half the time by negotiating the "desired feature" from something that made no sense into something that was really elegant before it even got to them.

 

You can do this too, but it requires tremendous effort to turn your brain upside-down and inside-out from what you're used to thinking.

 

The other thing that's out there that most people are only vaguely aware of is being an "industry analyst". Its hard to get these jobs unless you know someone, and what it means is that you stop writing code and start writing English in more massive quantities than you ever did in school. In line with Craig's theme of asking yourself what you want to do with yourself, this might be an option, but its a *gigantic* change, and unless you're a really good writer, its not worth trying. On the other hand it can pay much better than what you're making now, and while its largely "consulting" its something that's refreshingly different than "fixing someone's PC"....

 

I myself went *into* development after that long stint in marketing, and while I code, its only because we've got a very small team and even the management has to roll up their sleeves and produce useful stuff!

 

I'll second all the scary stuff Craig said about going into business for yourself: do not do this unless you've got at least two other people who are going to hang their hides out over the edge with you and who you know you can live with through the worst circumstances...I've spent most of my career with startups and it is not for those who are risk averse! Its downright scary most of the time and you have to live off the adrenaline (often because there's no more money for the Diet Coke...)!

 

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it,

Buffy

[Symbology]

Here is an interesting set of commentary out of today's Houston Chronical that ties in with many of the comments regarding consulting. This is not my question, but it seemed relevant to the issue:

 

QUESTIONS: "I was terminated from my job, and the only reason I was given was that they were restructuring and that there was no longer a role for me there. I'm not devastated, but I am shocked because I have contributed greatly to this company. I've worked in computers for 14 years and have become disillusioned with this market (jobs moving overseas, workloads always becoming harder). I feel like I can make a new start now but want to avoid another situation like this. What's your advice on whether or not I should stay in this field?

[/Quote]

 

ANSWER: Time builds experience, and experience builds expertise. You were laid off, but you walk away with specialized knowledge. Abandoning your skills for another field is not an option -- re-packaging your skills for a field you feel more passionate about is. Why not consider starting your own company? Following an entrepreneurial track could be an incredible growth step for you. When the hand of fate reaches into your life, it opens worlds of opportunity, too!

[/Quote]

[Biomajor]

I can't be of much help...I am almost 30 and I have been working on computers (software & hardware tech) for about ten years and I'm already sick of it. When i realized that I was going to be doing the same ole sh** for the next 30 years i decided to go back to school and do what i really wanted.

 

Don't get me wrong...I'm pretty good at what i do...but I bore easily I guess.

[alexander]

So I keep thinking, is there some job out there that has some less change to it that isn't totally boring? Is there something that can let you just do your work without

- ok now we don't have enough memory for it

- well that syntax worked last week!

- I don't understand, we already tested this 14 times

- wow... that is totally bizarre!

- can you grab me a Dew while you are there? I buried deep in this debug session

yes, become a nix admin?

 

lol Biomajor, that post didnt contribute to this thread at all...

 

but out of curiosity, what do you do that you are so good at? cuz i may have questions :)

[Biomajor]

lol, I know...it was just what came to mind.

 

What I do...that's a loaded question. LOL I design and maintain websites (around 6 total for different organizations/businesses), I work on computers (hardware and software), and I do general graphic design work (before I started school full time I was a Graphic Artist & Marketing Manager for a large real estate firm).

 

The graphic work I still do on the side and it isn't so bad...but the techie stuff...I get bored fast with the same ole problems that people bring me.

[alexander]

ok, so i would say an average techy arsenal.... pretty good, we finally have techy people joining our ranks. I hope you stay around, there's lots to be learned ;)

 

I think you have hit upon a key point of being a slave to the money.

I have hit upon that key many times to many people, i hate money sooo much, and i constantly feel enslaved by it. I think there are 2 ways out, either be rich, or go away from money all together and go primal.... :)

[Biomajor]

yeah, I like this forum...i'll be around.