July 7, 2008 at 12:58 pm
A journalist Deb Perelman asked this question on Linkedin. Since it seems to me I always ended up with the worst jobs. I want to know if anyone else has any bad experience in their job.
July 7, 2008 at 1:27 pm
9 months at a start-up run by Harvard grads who's operating phrase was "Think Outside The Box." This extended to every single part of the company. One of the more interesting out of the box thoughts was, "Hey, this database stuff is easy. Rather than have to count on one or two people to do everything for us, we'll give SA rights to everyone, including the receptionist." Funny thing is, the receptionist was the only one with enough sense to not touch stuff she didn't know anything about. It was a frigging nightmare of a company and the worst of it was, they made diagnostic software for doctors. During a particularly bad QA session where everything was going wrong, a nurse turned to me and said "We're going to kill someone." She meant it. I quit.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt
Author of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning
July 7, 2008 at 1:41 pm
I've had a few doozies, but I've heard of so many of these from other folks I just think it's almost par for the course.
I'd have to say my worse was when I was "lead support engineer" on the Lotus Approach support overflow line (a long way back, when there still was an actual Lotus Development Corp). Meaning - when everyone else ran out of ideas, they passed the calls on to me..... If any of you have ever played with Lotus Approach, I'll just let you guess how many calls that amounted to (and how many of them with essentially nothing we could do to help....)
Then again - that was a huge step up from my worse job ever (not IT....)....
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Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on my part...unless you're my manager...or a director and above...or a really loud-spoken end-user..All right - what was my emergency again?
July 7, 2008 at 11:15 pm
I don't think I've had any horrible jobs. Some were hard, some required lots of hours, some had lots of stress. But I learned something from all of them and they taught me to either look for a better job, or I learned more about the work I enjoyed.
Constant firefighting at one place, with lots of legacy, poorly written code and bad developers wasn't a lot of fun for almost two years, but I did learn quite a bit.
July 8, 2008 at 12:47 am
Grant Fritchey (7/7/2008)
I quit.
I don't blame you.
My worst (and it wasn't all that bad) was the previous bank I worked at. We went through three IT Dept heads in 10 months.
The first was clueless (he managed out of a management textbook on his desk) and his ideas and priority projects changed on a daily basis. He was tolerable as we could and did work around him.
The second was just temporary in that position and knew it. He made no decisions of note for just over 2 months.
The third was arrogant, thought he knew better than his staff and wasn't afraid to tell them that. He also though we were highly overpaid and started hiring cheap resources to replace the people who were leaving. The event I remember clearest was going back to the office at 8pm to help fix a production crisis (I'd been working on it all day, but had to leave for a very important meeting. I had been helping out by phone while away from the office) and he greeted me at the entrance to the IT floor with "We fixed it. No thanks to you."
When I left he offered me a generous hourly rate if I wanted to do some work for them in the evenings or over the weekends - R100/hour
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability
July 8, 2008 at 5:28 am
GilaMonster (7/8/2008)
"We fixed it. No thanks to you."
I can't honestly say that I wouldn't have hit the guy. Nice exercise in restraint.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt
Author of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning
July 8, 2008 at 5:38 am
Grant Fritchey (7/8/2008)
GilaMonster (7/8/2008)
"We fixed it. No thanks to you."I can't honestly say that I wouldn't have hit the guy. Nice exercise in restraint.
I very nearly put the pizza I was carrying into his face. Thing is, it was my supper.
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability
July 8, 2008 at 6:47 am
Not that I want to talk about something different but .....
9 months at a start-up run by Harvard grads who's operating phrase was "Think Outside The Box."
So the Best university in the world 'Harvard' grads could not do anything that makes sense!!!!!! Why do people fight to get into that college?????
This year they received over 20,000 applications and the acceptance rate is 7%.
One time there was a Princeton PhD in Psychology applied a contracting job in my company, my boss thought he was over qualified plus he did not have any real programming experiences.
But each year all the high school graduates still fighting to get into those IVY leagues, are they worth the money and efforts?
July 8, 2008 at 6:55 am
I thought about the worst jobs that I had. Of course there is no perfect job or perfect company, (if you know one, please let me know), however the one that made the list of the worst jobs were all related to people. Either you had a money oriented management team, a lousy manager or arrogant, insensitive co-workers.
I remembered the best job I had, it was the people that made the difference.
Maybe the time has changed, these days the economy is not good, layoff, outsourcing, people do not trust the management and they worry about the security of their jobs. The corporate culture has changed and in most cases, your co-workers become your competitors. This leads to other questions that I saw in Lindedin - Can your co-worker be your friend?
July 8, 2008 at 6:59 am
Based on nothing by my own personal experience...
What getting into Harvard gets you, these days anyway, isn't a superior education, but a superior name. You're a Harvard Grad (capitols required). This means that the easily impressed will kow-tow and other Harvard Grads will support you. I worked at two different start-ups run by Harvard people. I mention that because they always did. They constantly made a point of pushing their Harvard credentials to the front during discussions. They also got really ticked at a bunch of the geeks working for them that didn't come from "Top Schools" but seemed to be competent none the less. It really irked them that some of us could do things, anything, without having graduated from an Ivy League college.
BTW, we, the geeks, used to get the biggest kick out of them. Every time we ran into technical problems, their answer was "Think outside the box." We never could figure out how to ignore the laws of physics, the boundaries of our software and of the universe itself, so we could "think outside the box" to solve each and every issue. We'd get the request to build a Saturn V on the lawn by Friday. Saying that, based on our budget, the number of people and the time, this just wasn't doable... Well then, think outside the box...
After those experiences, I started asking during interviews, how many people in management were Harvard grads. I turned down one start-up that had too high a percentage to make me comfortable.
Full disclosure, I'm a college drop-out. Worse than that, a film school drop-out.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt
Author of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning
July 8, 2008 at 7:14 am
I started out in IT on a internet helpdesk of a failing local ISP. Money was always short, so the various bills of the company were always behind. Sometime the phone bill would be bad enough behind that the phone company would turn off the Internet Circuits, but for whatever reason they always left the Support lines on, so we would get flooded with irrate customers calling about the lack of service.
Jonathan Kehayias | Principal Consultant | MCM: SQL Server 2008
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July 8, 2008 at 11:21 am
I almost hit a guy once. Paged me on a Thur night while I was out with my wife, just to see "if I was available". The next morning he told me he didn't think I was working hard enough, that my 60+ hours a week weren't getting things done.
Fortunately the COO walked in to calm things down.
July 8, 2008 at 11:35 am
I'd have to agree with Steve. I actually enjoyed every IT position I have had to date. Things got really bad at my last employer during that last year, but that was a corporate culture change (and my ignoring the writing on the wall during that time). I was getting my work done in about 40 hours a week, but others were working 60+ hours a week, and I "should be" also.
One thing I have learned, you have to have a life outside of work, especially with a family. I work to live, not live to work.
😎
July 8, 2008 at 11:58 am
Steve Jones - Editor (7/8/2008)
I almost hit a guy once. Paged me on a Thur night while I was out with my wife, just to see "if I was available". The next morning he told me he didn't think I was working hard enough, that my 60+ hours a week weren't getting things done.Fortunately the COO walked in to calm things down.
I almost hit a guy at a job. This actually wasn't a bad job, but I had a bad day right near the end of working there...
I had handed in my notice at a small company in NYC (nice place, so I won't name them). I was instructed to do no work, but to simply train my replacement. I got in a little early and was waiting for the replacement. One of the VP's walked up. This guy was a serious drunkard. He was sloshed at 8:30AM. He demanded I do some work. I told him my instructions and that his work would get done in about 10-15 minutes, no problem. Vodka-boy didn't like this answer. He began calling me every name in the book... No big deal... He then started screaming at me... No big deal. He then slurred he was going to come over and kick my ***... That pushed my button. I stood up. He ran, I followed. For some reason, I noticed I wasn't moving after him fast enough. I looked left & right to see what the problem was and noticed a co-worker on each arm and another holding me by the shirt. I didn't even feel it until I saw them. Needless to say I didn't catch the guy so I didn't hit him, as much as he deserved it.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt
Author of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning
July 8, 2008 at 12:43 pm
I have a hard time thinking of a terrible IT job compared to horrible non-IT jobs.
I got a temporary job once where we went to a site for some “digging”. When we got there, we found it was a 6 foot diameter sewer pipe that was plugged with, well, the stuff that goes into sewer pipes, and they wanted us to dig it out. This was in August on a 100+ degree day. One person actually attempted it, and was puking his guts out within 5 minutes.
I helped a veterinarian de-horning yearling cattle where my job was holding their head while the vet cut off the horns and cauterized the arteries. I got covered with spurting blood every day, and came home looking like a killer from a slasher movie.
There were worse jobs then those…:crying:
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