Thankful for...

[dreamshark]

Well, all the usual things: family and friends and warm happy holiday gatherings. But this year I'm feeling particularly thankful for my job. Not just having a job, but having such good people to work with and for. We're having one of those schedule crunches this month - everybody in the high-tech industry is familiar with this, I think. Due to newly opened marketing window /demanding customer / unforeseen technical difficulties / whatever we all have to work extra hours to hit an arbitrary project deadline of Jan 31. The differences here are: 1) Management has made a big point of presenting the business case that made the schedule change necessary 2) they don't pull this all the time. 3) bosses are making a point of being there on weekends and late nights, ordering pizza, helping with technical details that are within the capabilities of a manager, and when all else fails handing out chocolate. In the test department (which has been particularly good about not expecting weekend work in the past) one of the managers comes around personally on Monday and thanks anybody who was working the weekend before. Aww. Okay, it's sort of obvious and manipulative, but I appreciate it anyway. At the very least, it sends the message that this is a special circumstance, not just business as usual from now on. Most of us don't mind putting in some extra effort as long as it isn't taken for granted.

I'm always a little nervous about saying how great my job is, because invariably I find myself looking back a year later (as the company goes out of business or gets acquired by a monster company from California) wondering how I could have been so naive. Well, I'm not naive. I know that all work situations deteriorate in the end. That's why I try to appreciate things when they're good.

And that's why I'm working this weekend.

Comments

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

It sounds like you've got some decent people in management. That always helps. I'm glad you're liking your job.

[nancymcc.livejournal.com]

I too have to remember to shout out when things are good, not just complain when they're not good. And perhaps it helps me in later circumstances -- when I say "this situation could be better," I can compare to an actual, experienced good instead of to a hopelessly idealized good.

I also latched onto your phrase, "all work situations deteriorate in the end." Since I freelanced for nearly two decades but have been trying the salaried-job concept, that statement makes me feel sad. Is it that no organization can hang onto good times? Is the arrival, someday, of bad management destiny? or probability? or a cyclic phenomenon?

My current job came about shortly after my 50th birthday, and I noted a few months after starting that there's some possibility I could reach "retirement age" (whatever that is, these days) working for these folks. But you make me realize that this is not my father's workplace, and the odds are against that outcome.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

"all work situations deteriorate in the end....Is it that no organization can hang onto good times? Is the arrival, someday, of bad management destiny?"

Well, I suppose it all depends on what kind of work situation you like. It is still possible to find a large, stable company and work for them for years. Not as easy as it used to be, but clearly possible (ask davidschroth). I don't like working for very large companies, so I generally consider it a deterioration of my working circumstance when the company I'm working for gets swallowed up by a much larger one. And it has been my experience that there are only two alternatives for a small to mid-size company: it goes bust or it does so well that a larger company buys it (and then they close the local office). So I've pretty much resigned myself to changing jobs every 3-5 years. YMMV

What's the new job?

[nancymcc.livejournal.com]

Well, I work for a software company now! I find it somewhat amazing that graphic design has brought me here, but in fact I still get along much more naturally with geeks than with anyone else.

I am the "creative director," which means I do anything graphics-oriented: web site, ads for trade pubs, data sheets, animated banner ads, splash screens for the product, etc. The designs I produce are so much better than ads by the CEO and web by the developers that they love me. My boss (the VP of Marketing) like me, used to write code! So it feels very comfortable.

I started in January and we've grown from about 20 to 26 people this year. As one of the "top 50 fastest growing companies in Oregon" (based on 2005 revenue) we may well be ripe for a takeover

Do you write Java? Our products are tools for developers working in Eclipse-Based IDEs. http://www.instantiations.com

Instantiations also has Smalltalk products, so we partner a bit with Martin's company, GemStone. He works there in Smalltalk -- the job that brought us to Oregon exactly 10 years ago. (Of course, we won't mention the period when they planned to abandon Smalltalk for Java, were bought by Europeans, who laid off 3/4 of the engineers -- including Martin, who had been moved to Java -- after which the Europeans went out of business (you may well know that Cobra goes away when the company does!) and spit GemStone back out, where he later got re-hired to work on the Smalltalk products that, in fact, still provide most of the income. Sigh.