This Business and Moment...

malachi said:
I moved to Switzerland in 2019, 6 months before covid was even a thing. Lockdown happen and yeah, couldn't see my family/friends for 2 years.

Did it bother me? Not really, as I made friends and found myself a girlfriend while here.
Would I do it all over again? Yep, making away more money here than in the UK. While gaining new skills along the way.

Yeah, I was talking to the recruiters on the phone. I told them all, Im not taking a paycut.
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Good man! Getting a pay rise may be harder in the current economic climate too, so that £6k could roll on-and-on for a few years as businesses freeze or scale back wage increases. Hard pass!

Sounds like I would have been moving to Sweden around the same time as you. Looking back, I would have been stuck over there without the ability to see my young daughter (10 at the time) for 2 years. They agreed to allow me to fly home once a month as part of the package but obviously it would have been completely annexed with COVID :(
 
-- sorry for lengthy rant

I've been through many up and down phases throughout my IT career and I think I'm currently in a sort of down phase. Not down like things are bad...more that I'm lacking motivation to do much. I would almost describe myself as having quiet quit at times. I've started to distance myself from the daily stand ups and meetings and try not to sign up to much of that stuff as I feel the majority of these daily calls just waste my time.

The company I work for pay me adequately (although pay rises and bonus will dry up now in the current climate) and I don't really have an issue with any of that. It's not market leading pay in my sector, but it's competitive which is fine. The company look after us really well. Office is nice. Boss I get on with well. He's hands off, if anything sometimes I wish he was more ballsy and tackled some of the issues.

The things that are getting me down are just that we like to think we are agile and use the latest things but we're not. We are stuck using some old legacy systems and software and to truly move forward, I don't think it's possible. We have had a new CTO come in a while back and he wanted to make a load of changes aggressively and did a head count shake up of some managers. Fine. My job is secure anyway. But I think he is now realizing that if he wants to be one of these CTO's that comes along, makes a load of change and leaves with his head held high about improvements after 2-3 years as they go on to the next one, well... they can't. We are not agile despite using agile methodologies and sprints and high cadence releases. The number one thing that slows us down and causes a lot of pain in our company is our infrastructure/ops team. Everything is funnelled through them for control.

I cba to go into the details, but I've never worked anywhere as incompetent. Can take over a month to get a single port opened as an example of what we're dealing with. Some of the pipelines I have written are so fragile, because I have to place workarounds and hacks in there just to get **** done. Half my life is spent raising tickets to get X unlocked or opened up. The thing is they can't see it this way. To them its business as usual and more evidence that they are supposedly so important and needed for things to function. If the business come up with an idea to implement, infra team often literally just tell the business nope, not on our watch. Not doing it. Stuff like that. It doesn't help that the boss of said department is very much of the military type focusing so much on security. Very ticket driven. Everything has to be a ticket. You can barely have a conversation with them now without raising a ticket.
This is becoming a rant now apologies...

Anyway basically I tell my boss all this stuff and that all the devs/engineers and apps guys are blocked and he's like.... yeah, and doesn't ever tackle it. Nobody in the business wants to address these fundamental inter team issues. Having been here now for 4 years, I feel it's time to move on to truly unlock the potential of working with new tools and Azure cloud. I'm meant to be training and learning Azure stuff but guess what...locked down by infra guys so we can't do anything anyway.

We recently moved to cloud and it was very much driven by the infra team. Rather than the application specialists driving the best ways to do things, it was them telling us how it has to be done. All the benefits of new cloud tools are locked down to us which hampers our progress.

My commute is into London and means 3 hours a day on train and tube when I do go in. I only do a couple of days a week but it's got to the point where I kind of want to go fully remote or 1 day a week, or something closer to home. I know before COVID I would have bitten someone's arm off for 2 days a week compared to the 4/5 I was doing. But times change. I've seen the light as have many that commuting 3 hours a day to tick a mandatory attendance box, is just lame. In the office I get less done anyway. More distractions and noise.

I looked at contracting but now with the current economy and U turn on the IR35 stuff I kind of want the security of where I'm at. So I thought to skill up in Azure stuff then look at moving next year. I just really lack the motivation to care right now about training on top of day to day work. No major projects going on or interesting stuff. Been in the game nearly 2 decades now... a bit of a lull. I guess I should stop complaining and be thankful really.
 
malachi said:
I moved to Switzerland in 2019, 6 months before covid was even a thing. Lockdown happen and yeah, couldn't see my family/friends for 2 years.
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Where are you in the land of the cheese eating fence sitters again?

I echo this though, too. I am Basel and earn way more than I would in the UK, with a much better pension as well. Sure I pay for healthcare. Sure things can be expensive (hence living in France :P ) but on balance I think I see family more now than when I was 30mins away because we plan trips / weekends together much more.
 
The week has started off beating up procurement. We're almost at lockdown for the PI ahead of planning.. So it's complete noise of project manager in various states of panic escalating for what should have been done a while ago or constant reprioritisation has left them with nothing.. should prove interesting.. the next quarter should be better but at the moment I'm getting a little bored..
 
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jaybee said:
-- sorry for lengthy rant

I looked at contracting but now with the current economy and U turn on the IR35 stuff I kind of want the security of where I'm at. So I thought to skill up in Azure stuff then look at moving next year. I just really lack the motivation to care right now about training on top of day to day work. No major projects going on or interesting stuff. Been in the game nearly 2 decades now... a bit of a lull. I guess I should stop complaining and be thankful really.
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Cloud skills are much in demand. You could send off a CV to a few places and see what comes back, specifically the rates being offered.

I've taken a role inside IR35.. bit of a vertical learning curve as the previous guy simply left without any handover. However 10 weeks in I'm starting to feel more at home.
 
NickK said:
Cloud skills are much in demand. You could send off a CV to a few places and see what comes back, specifically the rates being offered.
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I'd do this, too. Sounds like you need a bit of a shake up or challenge @jaybee if that's what floats your boat. Or, take on some things outside of work that give you that fulfillment you are looking for? I don't get much fulfillment through work stuff 80% of the time, so that's what I do.
 
I provided some feedback to my boss today. The whole US toxic attitude to always working really ***** me off and has previously done so when my Boss got on one because they couldn't reach me while on holiday. I got **** when I got back and I was not happy.

So I'm on our team Leadership Team and in the weekly leadership team meeting agenda email we get this:

5ZTQXBb.png

Now, every part of this ***** me off. The wink for one. Like, you should be there ;) the ... just in case (but we won't need to, because I've told you it's worth attending ;) ) and the whole "see you there"

It was today. 3 people who are on vacation dialed into it. And her as well. She mentioned she was on vacation, too. Like some ****** up badge of honor. That was number 1 point to me. **** management example to set. All the 3 people who dialed in are also directors and people managers, who would see their manager working on vacation. **** example.

Then, in the meeting, when these guys had presented they left. The team (which, although I'm not being PC, is mostly older women) basically started ******** all over the presentation. One of them said we should stop the recording just after they started ******** on it. They then said we should remove the guys from the chat as well... and proceeded to complete pull the whole thing apart, but completely unconstructively. This team has a habit of just sitting about bitching and moaning about stuff but never any constructive feedback or tangible action points to add. Nothing. These guys had stated that this stuff was very early and more to prompt discussion points, so to add all those to the Miro board. Instead these guys just stopped recording and had a bitch session round and round in circles.

I found the whole thing completely backwards and against every ounce of what the company states are their values and behaviours, so I told her this. I worded it in such a way that it wasn't ****** but the whole place at the moment is such a corporate political BS I just dont' have time for. Just say it how it is and move on.

That's my rant for the rest of the year lol
 
jaybee said:
Anyway basically I tell my boss all this stuff and that all the devs/engineers and apps guys are blocked and he's like.... yeah, and doesn't ever tackle it. Nobody in the business wants to address these fundamental inter team issues. Having been here now for 4 years, I feel it's time to move on to truly unlock the potential of working with new tools and Azure cloud. I'm meant to be training and learning Azure stuff but guess what...locked down by infra guys so we can't do anything anyway.

We recently moved to cloud and it was very much driven by the infra team. Rather than the application specialists driving the best ways to do things, it was them telling us how it has to be done. All the benefits of new cloud tools are locked down to us which hampers our progress.

My commute is into London and means 3 hours a day on train and tube when I do go in. I only do a couple of days a week but it's got to the point where I kind of want to go fully remote or 1 day a week, or something closer to home. I know before COVID I would have bitten someone's arm off for 2 days a week compared to the 4/5 I was doing. But times change. I've seen the light as have many that commuting 3 hours a day to tick a mandatory attendance box, is just lame. In the office I get less done anyway. More distractions and noise.

I looked at contracting but now with the current economy and U turn on the IR35 stuff I kind of want the security of where I'm at. So I thought to skill up in Azure stuff then look at moving next year. I just really lack the motivation to care right now about training on top of day to day work. No major projects going on or interesting stuff. Been in the game nearly 2 decades now... a bit of a lull. I guess I should stop complaining and be thankful really.
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I give you tip, get some Azure certs through self studying then leave.

I had the same problem, got bored of my role. Showed interest in doing Azure by self studying and getting one cert, even my boss at the time congratulated me on passing the exam. So it wasn't as if he didn't know.

Towards the end of last year I had a talk with him about working with Azure then he gave me the excuse "oh XYZ is working with Azure so maybe you can help them maybe in 2 or 3 years time on a few projects" .........yeah, the hell with that!!! I left the company 3 months later. Now I work with Azure everyday but I am aiming towards working in Azure full time as an Cloud Engineer.

randomshenans said:
Where are you in the land of the cheese eating fence sitters again?
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Good old Zürich :) but some of my friends are pushing me to move to Zug. Im not moving to Zug anytime soon or anywhere else in Switzerland at the moment even though my current job is based in Zug.
 
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randomshenans said:
I provided some feedback to my boss today. The whole US toxic attitude to always working really ***** me off and has previously done so when my Boss got on one because they couldn't reach me while on holiday. I got **** when I got back and I was not happy.

So I'm on our team Leadership Team and in the weekly leadership team meeting agenda email we get this:

5ZTQXBb.png

Now, every part of this ***** me off. The wink for one. Like, you should be there ;) the ... just in case (but we won't need to, because I've told you it's worth attending ;) ) and the whole "see you there"

It was today. 3 people who are on vacation dialed into it. And her as well. She mentioned she was on vacation, too. Like some ****** up badge of honor. That was number 1 point to me. **** management example to set. All the 3 people who dialed in are also directors and people managers, who would see their manager working on vacation. **** example.

Then, in the meeting, when these guys had presented they left. The team (which, although I'm not being PC, is mostly older women) basically started ******** all over the presentation. One of them said we should stop the recording just after they started ******** on it. They then said we should remove the guys from the chat as well... and proceeded to complete pull the whole thing apart, but completely unconstructively. This team has a habit of just sitting about bitching and moaning about stuff but never any constructive feedback or tangible action points to add. Nothing. These guys had stated that this stuff was very early and more to prompt discussion points, so to add all those to the Miro board. Instead these guys just stopped recording and had a bitch session round and round in circles.

I found the whole thing completely backwards and against every ounce of what the company states are their values and behaviours, so I told her this. I worded it in such a way that it wasn't ****** but the whole place at the moment is such a corporate political BS I just dont' have time for. Just say it how it is and move on.

That's my rant for the rest of the year lol
Click to expand...

Ahh you need the good old executive FU and thanks for the fish email. Or like an old finance director - slammed the glass door so hard on his way out that it shattered :D

Time for a new company methinks..


Company execs are always on for the most part however the US seem to think anything that isn't work is a sackable offence and stealing the company's money. My personal view is - work hard, take time off and recover to work hard again. All that macho BS is not condusive to performance.
If I have my own company - 2 weeks of consecutive leave is mandatory for all each year. No company contact. That way you can detox and if people can't hand over for 2 weeks then there's a serious issue..
 
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jaybee said:
-- sorry for lengthy rant
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Not like it's a competition or anything but sounds very similar to my situation.

This time last year I got asked if I could help out in our Inf team as the one person who does the majority of things (DB work, deployments) for the dev team kept getting snowed under by day to day Inf stuff and random project works.

Through a combination of naff stakeholders and major infrastructure blocking and control we went from 2 releases per week to 1 per week, then 1 per month now it's been probably 6 months since the last release.

I went over with the view of helping improve things from a continuous delivery point of view as well as a shopping list of things we (dev) wanted to achieve and to achieve those things they'd fall under what you might consider to be a traditional infrastructure remit.

Of course I haven't been given access to do anything nor been asked to get involved with when something relatively simple has happened. I've just been doing what I was doing before I moved teams and telling the dev manager we should do stuff ourselves and not involve the Inf team. But apparently that might upset a few people.

To give you an idea of Inf team controlling nature they want to handle everything manually, they removed our access from the UAT server for months so we couldn't actually deploy stuff to it ourselves so that we could get users testing and even after they relaxed it they wanted us to submit change requests that would need to go to CAB for the deploy to happen. Fortunately our manger sorted that out so that doesn't need to happen. I once setup a bash script (because as above we have no way to do actual nice delivery) on our dev server to automatically pull and start new container images nightly at some point the conjob that deletes the old images stopped running and a few GB of space got filled up by docker images and I was basically involved in an inquisition as to why I had setup such a thing - it was mental. They don't even have streaming replication for the PG databases or any sort of HA environment setup, it's just 1 VM with tiny resources allocated, because heaven forbid we use over 100gb of data when we're developing apps to manage and use national gazetteers and process hundreds of incidents a day.

So like yourself I need to sort out doing some Azure or AWS certs and move on but at the moment getting by doing my usual stuff and trying to push a shift left approach while having very good flexibility in terms of working time and the number of days off I get a year is way too easy of an option.
 
Tearing my hair out this morning,

Working for this current place is doing my head, in.. Bunch of complete amateurs

Got dragged into an argument, because I suggested that if we're going to make non-standard changes to a live environment, to ensure we don't cause any impact to customers, we need to 1: Test it to make sure it works, or 2: Get some sort of signoff from the vendor, that what we want to do makes sense. Basically - just do a reasonable level of due-diligence, to ensure the assumptions are correct.

Apparently we don't need to test anything, apparently it's all just a waste of time - just login and make the changes in the middle of the day, if anything breaks just roll it back and pretend nothing happened.

******* half-baked..

/rant :(
 
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Anyone hiring?

The son of our HR manager is looking for a role - experience limited, but he knows his way around the following:
  • Diploma in Full Stack Software Development (E-commerce Applications)
  • HTML/CSS
  • JAVASCRIPT
  • PYTHON
  • DJANGO
  • FULL STACK
  • POSTGRESQL
  • SOFTWARE TESTING
  • WED MARKETING
  • SEO
  • E-COMMERCE
 
Busy day.. I think it will end up in senior escalation bunfight (ie 2 BUs+IT vs procurement).. I've got last minute regulatory vs group deliverable fights and I've got an interview (as I'm a contractor). Oh and someone thought it would be a good idea to give everyone 19th onwards as mandatory vacation.
 
Lopéz said:
Anyone hiring?

The son of our HR manager is looking for a role - experience limited, but he knows his way around the following:
  • Diploma in Full Stack Software Development (E-commerce Applications)
  • HTML/CSS
  • JAVASCRIPT
  • PYTHON
  • DJANGO
  • FULL STACK
  • POSTGRESQL
  • SOFTWARE TESTING
  • WED MARKETING
  • SEO
  • E-COMMERCE
Click to expand...
Send me his CV
 
Another Microsoft exam passed this morning by finishing the AZ-500 exam. Now I am an Azure Security Engineer Associate.

Hopefully this will up my changes of getting into the cyber security field next year.
 
Possibly a decision to make soon. I currently work as a consultant in a discipline I know well with clients from industries I don't know well. I am reasonably paid for my role, which is more junior than positions I've had in the past when working outside of consultancy. I feel my skills/knowledge are currently underutilised, both in terms of the types of activity I'm involved with (I do little strategic work now, pretty hands-on day-to-day instead) and tacit knowledge (I have over 10 years of experience in an industry sector we don't really work in).

I'm interviewing for a senior management role back in the industry sector I know well. If this progressed to offer stage then the pros and cons of moving as it see it would be as follows:

+More money, probably about +25% base
+Able to leverage my industry knowledge
+More seniority / ability to influence stuff a lot more
+Good role to have on CV, avoids my career stagnating / going backwards

-The impression I get is there will be a lot to do in this role relative to the resource available. I'd be overseeing a much smaller tech team than I have in the past, so would likely need to get my hands dirty a lot (not a problem per se, but I can see it impacting on the leadership side of things). More generally I worry they might not have the budget to deliver on their ambitions (although obviously hard to say without fully exploring their ambitions)
-My current employer is rapidly growing, I have seen others progress quickly. Maybe I could be successful if I stuck around.
-I'd be giving up share vesting options, not sure how much they are potentially worth tbh but I doubt it is a huge sum
-Would be resigning shortly before bonus is due, so giving up a lump sum (although I should break even in 6 months due to increased salary). Might use this as part of package negotiation if it comes to it (e.g. if I successfully pass probation would they pay a one off in lieu of the bonus I'd be forgoing by joining).
-Would need to commute (4.5hr round trip when trains are running to schedule) once or twice a week
-In some ways the lack of seniority where I am now is a positive in that I have quite a narrow field of responsibility. Expectations on me are pretty reasonable, there's something to be said for earning 80% money for less than half the responsibility.
 
HangTime said:
-Would be resigning shortly before bonus is due, so giving up a lump sum (although I should break even in 6 months due to increased salary). Might use this as part of package negotiation if it comes to it (e.g. if I successfully pass probation would they pay a one off in lieu of the bonus I'd be forgoing by joining).
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Eh? Don't make it conditional, if it's a significant bonus part-way through the year then you tend to negotiate a guarantee for your end-of-year bonus at the new employer (otherwise you're likely to get a pro-rata one), if it's nearly due to be paid as in your case it's perhaps better to wait for it to be paid if it's a large amount or you negotiate for them to pay you a sign on bonus.

You already "earned" a bonus, if they want you to forego that then they need to pay up, that's not something that becomes conditional on performance, it's something they're compensating you for simply for taking the risk of leaving your existing job and moving to them.
 
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