IT/Software career thread: Invert binary trees for dollars.

Noodleface

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I did switch to the train and it feels better, but that's 5 hours of my day immediately gone
 
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Big_w_powah

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Well, I told my Boss he needs to get off his ass and make something happen about the raise I've been promised. We'll see what comes of it.
 

moontayle

Golden Squire
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The thing I talked about earlier took a weird turn. Seems the previous developer also added in three additional Parts to every call that aren't needed. Small, maybe 600 bytes total. But with an average of 8 calls per check-in, a little over a hundred check-ins per day, per device, and well over a thousand devices... the brief napkin math I did was like :eek:
 

Tenks

Bronze Knight of the Realm
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I've been biking to work and it's real nice. It's a good start to the day and an enjoyable finish. It helps the bike commute is under 10 minutes and 95% of it is on a bike path then the other 5% is in a bike lane.
 
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Big_w_powah

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Thats good man, you sound severely underpaid.

Oh trust me, I am. I'm making fresh outta college greenhorn pay (I reluctantly accepted a lowball ass offer to get some kind of income flowing) at 8 years of industry experience. I SHOULD be 20k, at least, above what I am. I'll be happy to see 9-10k above what I am right now.
 

AladainAF

Best Rabbit
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One thing I've learned in my 20 years I was in corporate america -- most management now has the mindset that you "NEED" the job you have to survive, and will sacrifice, and give up anything to keep it. It shows in the way they treat their employees (things like lateral pay moves to harder positions, or doing "extras" beyond the scope of your job, or forcing so much teamwork but rating you still as an individual, etc). Obviously, most people do need their job, but it's a completely different ballgame when you are in a situation in life where you don't need a specific job in order to make ends meet (eg: you can afford to leave the job and live on the time it takes to get a new one). Even if the company needs you, they will treat you as if they don't until you threaten to leave. Build work capital and make yourself valuable and then you hold all the chips.
 
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Big_w_powah

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One thing I've learned in my 20 years I was in corporate america -- most management now has the mindset that you "NEED" the job you have to survive, and will sacrifice, and give up anything to keep it. It shows in the way they treat their employees (things like lateral pay moves to harder positions, or doing "extras" beyond the scope of your job, or forcing so much teamwork but rating you still as an individual, etc). Obviously, most people do need their job, but it's a completely different ballgame when you are in a situation in life where you don't need a specific job in order to make ends meet (eg: you can afford to leave the job and live on the time it takes to get a new one). Even if the company needs you, they will treat you as if they don't until you threaten to leave. Build work capital and make yourself valuable and then you hold all the chips.

I made no overt threats to leave, but I told my boss that I'm burnt out busting my ass for what amounts to a pittance compared to my workload, complexity of work, and experience level. Said for me to be okay continuing to put forth the effort, I needed him to, at minimum, get in contact with the ultimate decision maker and provide proof he tried to make it happen. He asked what I'd do if he couldn't and I said I'd cross that bridge when I got to it.

/shrug..He said he'd bring it up during their Monday meetings, and give me a formal report when I get back from my (now weekly) install trip.
 

a_skeleton_06

<Banned>
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That sounds like a veiled threat tbh but who cares. They will probably weigh out the burden to replace you compared to satisfying you and act accordingly. Like Aladain said, management always likes to think it's you that needs them. In IT at least, that's not really the case. We had some director level dick wagging not too long ago and I basically just shrugged and said I could replace my job by the end of the business day.
 

alavaz

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I'll be honest, I'd bail and get a 20-30k raise somewhere else. I stayed at a job one time because my boss pleaded with me to stay and gave me a title promotion and a 10% pay raise - which wasn't as good as the offer but got close and not having to deal with switching jobs was appealing at the time. It turned out to be a big mistake and I left a year later anyway. I was constantly being reminded that I was "done a favor," and it was sort of implied that I should be going the extra mile for them and all this.

Dallas is rich with tech jobs. Just looking at GD (and I understand if you don't want to do the defense thing, just providing an example) they have several jobs in the Dallas area that will pay at least 65, probably 70 on average. Submission Error this one doesn't even require a clearance.
 

radditsu

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That sounds like a veiled threat tbh but who cares. They will probably weigh out the burden to replace you compared to satisfying you and act accordingly. Like Aladain said, management always likes to think it's you that needs them. In IT at least, that's not really the case. We had some director level dick wagging not too long ago and I basically just shrugged and said I could replace my job by the end of the business day.


Right now my boss could MAYBE do my job, but he has no idea about any sort of granular knowledge and thought I have put into the design. And for damn sure he wouldn't want to get a dirty as I have to sometimes. But I actually like my boss.
 

Big_w_powah

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That sounds like a veiled threat tbh but who cares. They will probably weigh out the burden to replace you compared to satisfying you and act accordingly. Like Aladain said, management always likes to think it's you that needs them. In IT at least, that's not really the case. We had some director level dick wagging not too long ago and I basically just shrugged and said I could replace my job by the end of the business day.

Yeah, probably thinly veiled...But my boss has had a fucking hard time finding a fresh outta college greenhorn--He'll spend a year trying to replace my skill level (which he has admitted is the highest he's ever hired) for anything under 70k.
 

Big_w_powah

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I'll be honest, I'd bail and get a 20-30k raise somewhere else. I stayed at a job one time because my boss pleaded with me to stay and gave me a title promotion and a 10% pay raise - which wasn't as good as the offer but got close and not having to deal with switching jobs was appealing at the time. It turned out to be a big mistake and I left a year later anyway. I was constantly being reminded that I was "done a favor," and it was sort of implied that I should be going the extra mile for them and all this.

Dallas is rich with tech jobs. Just looking at GD (and I understand if you don't want to do the defense thing, just providing an example) they have several jobs in the Dallas area that will pay at least 65, probably 70 on average. Submission Error this one doesn't even require a clearance.

The work I get to do is something I like enough to stick around if I'm put close to 50k. I'll grab a 100k DBA job after I've got 2-3 years managing an extremely complex RDBMS setup. Both with multiple instances in house, and on client site, in development and production.
 

Noodleface

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The only time I've been offered anything substantial at work is when I said I was quitting. It puts you in a shitty situation because you're known as the guy that got a raise for quitting if you stay.
 

Big_w_powah

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If I get to the point where I have to say I quit...I'm done. If I want to leverage anything, I'll be up front. "I got this job offer. I was wondering if you could match it?"
 

Chancellor Alkorin

Part-Time Sith
<Granularity Engineer>
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So, guys. I've been trying for a promotion for a while. Bit of a rigorous process in government. I wrote the exam, got into a candidate pool (that's how government job selection works up here most of the time), and now it looks like it's going to happen, finally, 6+ years after I passed the exam. I've been told that there is a spot for me to move up and that I'll see the paperwork soon.

Caveat: I'm going to have at least one direct report, because that's part of the deal. And here's where it gets fun.

A short while ago, my former manager was moved out of his position due to something batshit crazy that he did in front of senior management. Wasn't the first time he stepped out of line, but apparently, this was the last straw. None of the people working for him knew that he was being moved out of that job until well after it had been decided. His boss (the guy promoting me) made the decision right before taking off for 1 month + of leave, and the action was taken when he was already gone. Before he did leave, though, he let me know that my promotion was incoming -- and that I'd have to take on a management role. He told me this two days before we found out that our boss was being moved (but he obviously already knew what was going on). Two days later, the big boss is gone, and we all find out that our boss is being moved elsewhere and that no replacement is being announced yet.

So, connect the dots, and it looks like I may actually end up supervising my peers, and that's why it's going to get fun. This is still a hypothetical situation as it hasn't been confirmed yet (big boss is back on Monday, so I'll hopefully find out next week), but the guy who is standing in for the big boss has confirmed that this is possible. The question is: Is there actually a way, in an IT shop where all of the traditional personality disorders are in full swing, to deal with the likelihood that I'm going to have to manage people that are currently my peers? I don't necessarily have a problem with it, but they might, and it's likely gonna be tough to get them to do any meaningful work for me if that's the case.

I haven't taken any fancy management courses, so I can't draw on that. I don't know if anyone has any experience with this.
 
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Chancellor Alkorin

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The only time I've been offered anything substantial at work is when I said I was quitting. It puts you in a shitty situation because you're known as the guy that got a raise for quitting if you stay.

I can't see how there's anything wrong with playing hardball if you know that you're being taken advantage of. If they're willing to pay you substantially more for the job you're currently doing, you're either a rock star at your job, or you're being bent over. Either way, no one should really fault you for asking for what you should be getting in the first place.
 

alavaz

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The only time I've been offered anything substantial at work is when I said I was quitting. It puts you in a shitty situation because you're known as the guy that got a raise for quitting if you stay.
The one time I stayed for the promotion and raise my peers and direct supervisor generally thought I deserved it and were still cool. The problem I had was with the big boss who ultimately approved it wanting to pull the I did you a favor card all the time and load me up with all the projects that others didn't want or were failing at.
 
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a_skeleton_06

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I feel like the normal peers will adapt and do their job. If you have extra salty ones who are dipshits about it will sort themselves out with a bad review down the road. No need to go in with your dick swinging around imo.
 

Chancellor Alkorin

Part-Time Sith
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Oh, definitely not the plan, and it wouldn't work anyway. Government jobs are iron clad safe up here. Union-backed and you have to fuck up hardcore to be let go, so unless they are literally threatening my life, they will be around for good.

Basically, if this ends up happening the way I'm thinking it will, I need to understand how to deal with the salty ones without being a dick. Reviews are irrelevant. No one reads them, and even if they did, no one would care to action them. Put another way: How do you convince someone who's that butthurt to forget about it and do the work anyway? I'm not looking to threaten anyone. I think it's bullshit when that happens to me, and I don't want to be that guy.