Some thoughts about jobs in general and employers for that matter...

[fhunter]

I may be haven't mentioned, but I am a contractor for a big American company, working in computer hardware/IT. I would not say anything more, to protect the innocent.

As I spent the last 9 months there... the more I look, the more I think, that the source of inspiration for the management is a "Story of O", you know, with contractors starring as O herself. Lots of arbitrary restrictions and so on.

I would not say much more, as I am under an NDA. Ok to be fair, working in a team parts of which are up to 11 hours apart is difficult. But... the more I work there, the more I feel like a fish flailing on ice.

Small example:

I was asked to setup mirroring of some data.

I have done it, but it was slow, due to protocol limitations and high network latency.

I reported results and got:

-Do not worry, we will get you faster connection.

Ok. I answered, that faster connection would not work, and you can not beat latency, if the server is located across the globe. You only can change download protocol, to the one, that is not affected by latency (giving example, and asking for the access to that server).

No effect. Same line about faster connection solving all of our troubles... Ok, I spent about an hour, doing simulation and made a report,to prove that what I have claimed was not an empty claim. What have I got?

-Oh, wow! Good engineering.

And nothing changed. It was 4 months or so ago, results are still the same. Connection is twice as fast, mirroring speed had not changed.

And that approach was the same in many other things.

Oh, tech support spent a month to resolve my inability to access my mail (closing the request, I reopened it, then they bounced it from place to place). Damn it.

At least salary is good. I cared, I wanted to do something good. Now I just don't care much.

And after recent idiocies, I am now thinking if I want to search a new job, or if just "working to the rule" and waiting would be sufficient.

I just hope there is a good place to work... somewhere out there. But it looks like managers in a lot of companies are the same. Just magnitude of effects differ.

PS. Ok, it can be SAD or winter depression or something... but still.

[Losethem (imported)]

It's the same mentality in many other fields as well. I work in healthcare, and we're expecting our state audit to start today. We've been getting inserviced (educated) about things constantly for the past month, where we would only get one to two items a month prior. It's been a huge "Jesus is coming, look busy" type of gagglefark going on for a month now. I'm expecting them to get their ass handed to them on a platter when the state is done.

I simply go in, do my job, go home at this point. I can't do anything to change it as the managers are in charge and I see what's coming. In our situations (yours and mine) all I can say is that we can lead a horse to water but we can't force it to drink. Professionally this means we can identify issues and propose solutions, but if they do nothing it's not our fault. Just document and keep records of what you did so that when they try to pin it all on you there is something you can point to and say, "I brought this to your attention and nothing was done about it..."

The only thing I can see in your case is perhaps the managers needed a bit more education about how things worked. It wasn't going to matter how much bandwidth you had between locations if the transfer protocols couldn't take advantage the higher speed. It's like having a huge lake full of water and saying we need to move it all to another empty storage lake 30-miles away, only to discover you are pulling all that water through a drinking straw. Yes, you have infrastructure in place on both sides to store it all, but it's not going to go well if you have to move it all through that straw to get it between the two locations.

--LT

[bobover3 (imported)]

The problem may be new technical complexity. The things we do with information and with medicine change so fast and grow so intricate that it is beyond the ability of even the smartest and best intentioned people to keep up. Large organizations with many functions and departments whose work must be integrated make the problem even worse. We're exceeding human ability. Perhaps artificial intelligence will one day help. I remember Atul Gawande in a New Yorker essay about his field of medicine saying that "to do" lists had proven effective in improving hospital performance and reducing errors; the problem was that many doctors and nurses were too proud to use them. When I worked at AT&T, there was a Methods & Procedures department. Their job was to produce written instructions for the best way to do things. Their work was often ignored, but there was still something to work from.

Blaming your managers, who are doubtless blaming you for your opacity and unreasonable demands, accomplishes nothing. Better to apply your skills to developing small-scale solutions to problems. (I don't mean the specific issues you write about, but the systems that lead to problem after problem.) Bring these to management in the form of controlled experiments. Say you want to make changes for a limited time in a limited way, so that the risk of failure is reduced, and so that the results can be evaluated. Get buy-in from all managers and departments involved, not just your own. Start with your own bosses, so they don't accuse you of undermining them.

I don't say this will be easy, but you know the problems won't get solved any other way. Most people do what they do because "that's how it's done." They don't have the nerve or imagination to try something else. You can make a difference by being brave and creative.

[Losethem (imported)]

Blaming your managers, who are doubtless blaming you for your opacity and unreasonable demands, accomplishes nothing. Better to apply your skills to developing small-scale solutions to problems. (I don't mean the specific issues you write about, but the systems that lead to problem after problem.) Bring these to management in the form of controlled experiments. Say you want to make changes for a limited time in a limited way, so that the risk of failure is reduced, and so that the results can be evaluated. Get buy-in from all managers and departments involved, not just your own. Start with your own bosses, so they don't accuse you of undermining them.

So bringing up the fact that I didn't have bandages and whatnot to treat peoples wounds for five days (yes, FIVE DAYS) isn't doing enough? I would bring items up, offer solutions, and get ignored. Our supply chain (central supply) was so f-ed up. Instead of being passive we were supposed to notify them when we were out of something. Well, when you're out and needing it to treat a person THAT'S TOO LATE, the supplies are gone and it often takes a day or two for new supply to show up. I've also had situations where I wasn't able to send out a person for dialysis treatment because I couldn't get their ostomy pouches changed prior because I didn't have the supplies. So they did not get their dialysis treatment and, voila!, they suddenly are developing complications and need to be sent to the hospital to be treated because we didn't have supplies.

The managers saw NOTHING wrong with this. I kept advocating for my patients and these managers would get upset. They finally nitpicked me to the point I quit. I wasn't going to have my license yanked because they are able to hide their misdeeds and poor management.

For me this wasn't complaining for the sake of complaining. Nowhere above do you see me complaining about overwork or wages. In this situation I'm simply saying I was putting my professional license on the line for things that were outside of my control, and I got to a point where I was no longer willing to do that. I shouldn't have to fear for my license because the managers don't care enough to give me the supplies so I can do the job for which I was hired.

--LT

[Paolo]

When all else fails, there's always sabotage.

[Sweetpickle (imported)]

They really hate it when you point out coming problems that end up biting them on the ass.

And as for tales from the trenches, I was once called to the site of a very expensive industrial

accident. After investigating I decided I knew what the problem was and made a change in some

safety equipment. I then ask if we could run a controlled test to see if that did indeed cure the

problem. After much consideration the answer was "No".

[~Tiamat~ (imported)]

And when you warn them beforehand and bite your lip when it goes wrong they still never listen :S

Fhunter my place employ me because it's cheaper. They don't care about efficiency. None of the managers have any technical ability or knowledge and from what I hear from friends it's getting to be the same everywhere. They'll keep me happy because they want to keep me but when it comes down to making an actual change to the way they do things it's like trying to turn the tide, and any changes to the way I work are generally ridiculous and arbitrary. They generally forget what they've told me to do anything from a week later, or change their minds because they make decisions far too quickly, and it's not like what I do isn't important to the company but they know I'll happily work all night picking up the pieces when it goes wrong for the four thousanth time because I want everyone to be able to do their jobs the next day and I know who they'll be blaming, even if they don't say it. A friend working at a university says it's gotten exactly the same in the last few years so it's not just corporate jobs anymore. IT jobs really feel like they're becoming an assembly line process where we can be expendable

Losethem that's absolutely terrifying and it sounds enough to give you a nervous breakdown!

[Losethem (imported)]

Losethem that's absolutely terrifying and it sounds enough to give you a nervous breakdown!

This was a recent event and I was waking up in the middle of the night with panic attacks. I feel sorry for the people I was caring for who have to stay at that place because they are not receiving the care they deserve.

It sucks not having a job at the moment, but strangely I have less stress than I did when I was working and doing everything I could to care for up to 35 people at a time. If anyone knows of freelance data analysis opportunities that are telecommute, I'm all ears. I'd much rather do that (which is what I used to do) than what I was.

--LT

[Arab Nights (imported)]

IT jobs really feel like they're becoming an assembly line process where we can be expendable

Six months ago I was seated at the same dinner table as a family on vacation. He worked in IT in CA. It did not sound like fun. His company was international and when one team finished their work day, they passed the work on to a team in India and when they finished their work day they passed it back to the US for the next morning. His wife made some exasperated comment about the calls in the middle of the night when they have a problem in India.

I asked him if in his company there was an exalted executive perched on high and observing the trends and new technologies and trying to position their company for the future. He said that was a really good question, but that as high as he had observed, there was no planning, only reacting. Like riding a bull.

[butterflyjack (imported)]

All of these problems might be traced back to management being attuned to profits only...Will it hurt the bottom line? Apparently to the point that they don't care for the well-being of the patients, if it's going to cut into profits...Health care shouldn't have to care about margins. Unlike many other companies, what they do can and is life-threatening...They run it like a trash hauler... Some of this might be what leads to socialized medicine...

Thanks Jackie