Octopus Overlords

Paingod wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2020 7:40 am

LordMortis wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2020 7:32 amSome people can and do do it. I got burnt out 60-70 hour weeks and now I have a very hard time putting in 45 while they always want more. I am not one of those of those people and I'm not sure I can bounce back. I could do it when I was younger but now I'm just tired all of the time and my focus is too often dead by 14:00 or 15:00.

Hear hear. When I was 20 I thought nothing of working 90 hours in a week. I liked the overtime. When I was 25 I was working full time, had a part-time 30hr/wk internship, and going to school to finish a CS degree.

Today I put in my 45/wk and only begrudgingly do weekend work because it's when systems aren't in use. 50 hours is too many. I could probably still do 80, but I'd hate every moment of it.

I wouldn't just hate it, I would be ineffective and take a long time to bounce back. It happens on occasion still and the results are less than optimal for everyone involved.

LordMortis wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2020 7:54 am

Paingod wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2020 7:40 am

LordMortis wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2020 7:32 amSome people can and do do it. I got burnt out 60-70 hour weeks and now I have a very hard time putting in 45 while they always want more. I am not one of those of those people and I'm not sure I can bounce back. I could do it when I was younger but now I'm just tired all of the time and my focus is too often dead by 14:00 or 15:00.

Hear hear. When I was 20 I thought nothing of working 90 hours in a week. I liked the overtime. When I was 25 I was working full time, had a part-time 30hr/wk internship, and going to school to finish a CS degree.

Today I put in my 45/wk and only begrudgingly do weekend work because it's when systems aren't in use. 50 hours is too many. I could probably still do 80, but I'd hate every moment of it.

I wouldn't just hate it, I would be ineffective and take a long time to bounce back. It happens on occasion still and the results are less than optimal for everyone involved.

This is exactly why I'm waffling on the new job offer. It would be 60 hours minimum. It could move up retirement significantly but what good is that if I'm physically a wreck and a stranger to my then-grown kids? It's also deep down the business end where I want my career to go more in the clinical quality direction.

While I can't empathize, I could definitely see that. I am working for retirement. Quite frankly, if I saw a six figure increase (which for me would like holding down 2+++ jobs), I'd be done in two years. If you told that means 3,000 hours labor and an additional 250 hours of commute time a year, I'd know I couldn't make it those two years. And I wouldn't be missing out on my wife and kids.

May it all work for the best. That's an opportunity I can't fathom deciding.

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2020 8:59 am

LordMortis wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2020 7:54 am

Paingod wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2020 7:40 am

LordMortis wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2020 7:32 amSome people can and do do it. I got burnt out 60-70 hour weeks and now I have a very hard time putting in 45 while they always want more. I am not one of those of those people and I'm not sure I can bounce back. I could do it when I was younger but now I'm just tired all of the time and my focus is too often dead by 14:00 or 15:00.

Hear hear. When I was 20 I thought nothing of working 90 hours in a week. I liked the overtime. When I was 25 I was working full time, had a part-time 30hr/wk internship, and going to school to finish a CS degree.

Today I put in my 45/wk and only begrudgingly do weekend work because it's when systems aren't in use. 50 hours is too many. I could probably still do 80, but I'd hate every moment of it.

I wouldn't just hate it, I would be ineffective and take a long time to bounce back. It happens on occasion still and the results are less than optimal for everyone involved.

This is exactly why I'm waffling on the new job offer. It would be 60 hours minimum. It could move up retirement significantly but what good is that if I'm physically a wreck and a stranger to my then-grown kids? It's also deep down the business end where I want my career to go more in the clinical quality direction.

Choose one;
Live to work, or work to live?

Archinerd wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2020 9:49 am

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2020 8:59 am

LordMortis wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2020 7:54 am

Paingod wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2020 7:40 am

LordMortis wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2020 7:32 amSome people can and do do it. I got burnt out 60-70 hour weeks and now I have a very hard time putting in 45 while they always want more. I am not one of those of those people and I'm not sure I can bounce back. I could do it when I was younger but now I'm just tired all of the time and my focus is too often dead by 14:00 or 15:00.

Hear hear. When I was 20 I thought nothing of working 90 hours in a week. I liked the overtime. When I was 25 I was working full time, had a part-time 30hr/wk internship, and going to school to finish a CS degree.

Today I put in my 45/wk and only begrudgingly do weekend work because it's when systems aren't in use. 50 hours is too many. I could probably still do 80, but I'd hate every moment of it.

I wouldn't just hate it, I would be ineffective and take a long time to bounce back. It happens on occasion still and the results are less than optimal for everyone involved.

This is exactly why I'm waffling on the new job offer. It would be 60 hours minimum. It could move up retirement significantly but what good is that if I'm physically a wreck and a stranger to my then-grown kids? It's also deep down the business end where I want my career to go more in the clinical quality direction.

Choose one;
Live to work, or work to live?

I've never liked that view. It boils things down to black and white, and there can be a lot of gray in between.

ImLawBoy wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2020 10:46 am

Archinerd wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2020 9:49 am

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2020 8:59 am

LordMortis wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2020 7:54 am

Paingod wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2020 7:40 am

LordMortis wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2020 7:32 amSome people can and do do it. I got burnt out 60-70 hour weeks and now I have a very hard time putting in 45 while they always want more. I am not one of those of those people and I'm not sure I can bounce back. I could do it when I was younger but now I'm just tired all of the time and my focus is too often dead by 14:00 or 15:00.

Hear hear. When I was 20 I thought nothing of working 90 hours in a week. I liked the overtime. When I was 25 I was working full time, had a part-time 30hr/wk internship, and going to school to finish a CS degree.

Today I put in my 45/wk and only begrudgingly do weekend work because it's when systems aren't in use. 50 hours is too many. I could probably still do 80, but I'd hate every moment of it.

I wouldn't just hate it, I would be ineffective and take a long time to bounce back. It happens on occasion still and the results are less than optimal for everyone involved.

This is exactly why I'm waffling on the new job offer. It would be 60 hours minimum. It could move up retirement significantly but what good is that if I'm physically a wreck and a stranger to my then-grown kids? It's also deep down the business end where I want my career to go more in the clinical quality direction.

Choose one;
Live to work, or work to live?

I've never liked that view. It boils things down to black and white, and there can be a lot of gray in between.

How dare you try to bring complexity and nuance to an internet discussion!

Agree or not, you must choose.

Serouisly though, I think it really depends on if you like your job (or think you would like your job) or not.
60+ seems like a lot of hours to me though, but then again, I've never really liked my job.
If I could spend that much time doing something I really enjoy, then I might go for it.

Finding a job during COVID times is difficult indeed. I've applied to over 20 places, and it seems only a few ever bothered to write me back.

Above-average merit increase of 4.5%, effective on tomorrow's paycheck.

Nice. Let's just leave at :envy: from where I sit.

Congrats!

Kasey Chang wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2020 9:52 pm Finding a job during COVID times is difficult indeed. I've applied to over 20 places, and it seems only a few ever bothered to write me back.

I lost my job in mid-June. Dozens of applications made and resumes sent out, not a single response.
We finally had to make the decision to pack everything up and move back to Omaha.

A couple of things make this somewhat easier to do:

1. The wife can transfer from the Banfield Animal Hospital she works at here to one of the Banfield's in Omaha
2. We still own a home in Omaha

Now that the decision is made, the U-Haul has been reserved, move-out date settled with the apartment company, and the transfer paperwork is completed...I've been contacted by three companies in the last two days.

It's been utter chaos for the past 3 months.

Our fiscal year ends next week. In the midst of a pandemic, I'm (somehow) going to have the largest single month (August) and largest Q4 (Jun-Aug) in my 15 year career here...by quite a wide margin.

As frustrating as it often can be, I consider myself wildly fortunate in times like these to be selling into the one entity that is actually still spending money (federal government). Of course, that's all going to grind to a complete stop once this government fiscal year ends (September) and we head into an election season.

Will definitely be squirreling away that bonus check.

hitbyambulance wrote: ↑Tue Jul 21, 2020 5:29 pm i'm on some kind of track to getting hired - and continued contract extensions until that does

meeting yesterday informed me that VP of Finance _still_ doesn't know if the org 'has the budget' for hiring me on FTE - check back in two months - so my contract was extended to December 31 of this year.

Did I mention that Nvidia hired me to edit their fall GTC descriptions? I basically doubled my rate and they didn't balk; in fact, I will probably be doing winter and spring, too. This might turn into a semi-permanent gig.

Kraken wrote: ↑Thu Aug 20, 2020 4:22 pm Did I mention that Nvidia hired me to edit their fall GTC descriptions? I basically doubled my rate and they didn't balk; in fact, I will probably be doing winter and spring, too. This might turn into a semi-permanent gig.

Good deal!

I've been applying to jobs that I would appear well-qualified for, but so far not a single response. And trustworthy economists tell me this can be the case for the next couple of years, at which point I'll be in my 60's and completely unmarketable.

Jeff V wrote: ↑Thu Aug 20, 2020 5:09 pm

Kraken wrote: ↑Thu Aug 20, 2020 4:22 pm Did I mention that Nvidia hired me to edit their fall GTC descriptions? I basically doubled my rate and they didn't balk; in fact, I will probably be doing winter and spring, too. This might turn into a semi-permanent gig.

Good deal!

I've been applying to jobs that I would appear well-qualified for, but so far not a single response. And trustworthy economists tell me this can be the case for the next couple of years, at which point I'll be in my 60's and completely unmarketable.

I would not want to be in your shoes. This is the worst job market in living memory, as I'm sure you're painfully aware. I hope you have a good professional network, because the Drazzil approach isn't going to do it. Meanwhile, maybe you could turn over some self-employment/contracting ideas?

I did interview with a couple of staffing companies, including Robert Half, who I have a good history with and they've been helpful in the past, but I've heard nothing after the interview 6 weeks ago with their new-ish regional manager. Wife is already suggesting I consider things outside of my career, but I can't think of anything that really interests me (and certainly nothing that will pay me 6 figures to do it). If I could land a WFH gig, I wouldn't need nearly the salary I had before, but so far not getting much interest. I had a recruiter call me a few weeks ago with a job located in Wicker Park -- she said the job would eventually come back to the office, and that's a "you can't get there from here" location -- probably a 2 hour commute on average, with longer commute times possible. She sensed my hedging I think and just dropped the conversation without presenting me to the client.

I've had two that wrote me back that wanted to talk to me, but after writing back, NOTHING. WTF...

And that's out of dozens and dozens of applications online. Some didn't even bother sending you a rejection notice, it just says "position closed" on ZipRecruiter.

And some are obviously re-listed later with the exact same specs.

Right now I'm not even looking for full-stack webdev any more. But not even tech support jobs are giving me callbacks. I am thinking of spending some of my cash reserves for A+ and Network+ certification. And I think I got community college email address so I can get cheaper exam vouchers. And maybe take a community college class, even if online. Better than sitting at home doing jack ****.

10% paycut for the month of August - less than what has been expected. On the plus side, I was asking if I would get the extra week of vacation next year. HR looked into it, and I get the extra week this year. I will give a 10% cut across the board for another week of vacation if I could, so win! I now have 25 days for the reamainder of the year to plan for.

Things can be pretty different regionally, as I work with a bunch of folks that jumped ship since the pandemic started, getting new jobs they weren’t even looking for.

If you’re a developer willing to work in the People’s Republic of NJ, for the DoD or one of their contractors, it seems like there’s lots of options.

Yeah, we are still actively hiring for Tech down here. On the other hand, many of the candidates we are talking to are coming from local COVID-related workforce reduction so it's sort of balancing out I guess.

Were I a developer things might be easier, but I'm an infrastructure and support manager. There was lot less need for both of those as my prior company was in the process of closing 26 production plants and other facilities at the time of my elimination.

Jeff V wrote:Were I a developer things might be easier, but I'm an infrastructure and support manager. There was lot less need for both of those as my prior company was in the process of closing 26 production plants and other facilities at the time of my elimination.

I can’t speak to those kinds of opportunities, but was more addressing Kasey Chang’s dilemma. Overall the tech market here in NJ seems strong, but my awareness is focused mostly on developers.

San Francisco is hiring, but only for senior staff, nothing junior. I've been looking every day, multiple sources.

Why does it have to be in San Francisco? Look for remote positions.

gilraen wrote: ↑Fri Aug 21, 2020 5:03 pm Why does it have to be in San Francisco? Look for remote positions.

Been looking at that too, but remote is even worse... Nobody hires junior remote positions.

The places that advertise junior positions are like Revature and Indecomm... where they want to place you all over the US, i.e. "must be willing to relocate". Thought I found one... English/Mandarin, various technologies I know... Until I read the part where they place people, not hire directly. Bull**** position. Nope, not willing to relocate at this time.

Somehow I keep getting saddled with fresh outs here in NJ. The last five developers added to the team are all junior devs (and we are paying the price for that), but things seem like they are available here at least. But that doesn’t help you. I would want to relocate right now either.

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2020 8:59 am

LordMortis wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2020 7:54 am

Paingod wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2020 7:40 am

LordMortis wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2020 7:32 amSome people can and do do it. I got burnt out 60-70 hour weeks and now I have a very hard time putting in 45 while they always want more. I am not one of those of those people and I'm not sure I can bounce back. I could do it when I was younger but now I'm just tired all of the time and my focus is too often dead by 14:00 or 15:00.

Hear hear. When I was 20 I thought nothing of working 90 hours in a week. I liked the overtime. When I was 25 I was working full time, had a part-time 30hr/wk internship, and going to school to finish a CS degree.

Today I put in my 45/wk and only begrudgingly do weekend work because it's when systems aren't in use. 50 hours is too many. I could probably still do 80, but I'd hate every moment of it.

I wouldn't just hate it, I would be ineffective and take a long time to bounce back. It happens on occasion still and the results are less than optimal for everyone involved.

This is exactly why I'm waffling on the new job offer. It would be 60 hours minimum. It could move up retirement significantly but what good is that if I'm physically a wreck and a stranger to my then-grown kids? It's also deep down the business end where I want my career to go more in the clinical quality direction.

I agree on the 40-50 hour limit, and even during my youth, I've tried hard to maintain that limit outside of weekend network changes with potential impact. I have made it to almost 50 without being layed off and have a great relationship with my children compared to some of my other colleagues.

And, after working at the 2nd largest oil company (Ch--ron), we have been told they are outsourcing 75% of network infrastructure to A--enture and another large provider. It's not even based on seniority or position...just straight cut. I feel sorry for the diehards who DID work long hours. In the end, it can change overnight with a new manager, reorg, or company sale. Fuckers.

Buatha wrote: ↑Sat Aug 22, 2020 12:09 am I agree on the 40-50 hour limit, and even during my youth, I've tried hard to maintain that limit outside of weekend network changes with potential impact. I have made it to almost 50 without being layed off and have a great relationship with my children compared to some of my other colleagues.

It's been years since I've been willing to work more than 40 hours a week outside of emergencies - at age 47 time with my family is far more valuable than a few hours of overtime. It did not take me long to learn that employers don't really care if you put in more hours other than being happy they don't have to hire enough staff to get the work done in a 40 hours work week.

I started a new job with the city around the first of the year. It cut my commute from 45-60 minutes to 5-10 minutes and came with a nice pay bump as well. When COVID hit I got a little worried but we're actually adding a few more techs and I got a glowing review at the 6-month mark. The time off accrual rate starts at insane and increases from there and I've got 2.5 years before PERS fully vests. I'm hoping this will be my last employer and I can retire with a nice pension even after the inevitable cuts.

My boss is our former PM, so he's big on resource allocation, looking at the other Cs, and telling them that we don't have the resources to deliver what they're asking for. As much as I might be able to parlay title, experience, and education into a more lucrative position, I doubt I could find a company that would be as willing to honor a 40-hour workweek. Especially given that I appear to be slated for a promotion when my former boss retires.

As a reminder, I work in an alarm system monitoring center. One of the staff recorded this in a customer's account the other day:

FALSE ALARM. [customer name] SAID A CARTON OF EGGS IN HIS FRIDGE HAD CAUGHT FIRE, UNKNOWN HOW, BUT ALL OK.

Should have asked if he wanted us to dispatch Scully and Mulder.


That's a pretty good analogy for how the company in general is going at moment. Well, except for the "all OK" part.

I hate when that happens.

I'm enjoying being "furloughed" this week. I didn't even boot my work machine today. My day job, MIT News, moved to a new web platform and CMS and locked down story submissions during the migration. I got paid to help port stories over, but that finished last Friday and there's no more work for me until they reopen the floodgates this Thursday, if everything went well up to then.

I expect they'll be deluged when that happens and I'll be working up to my hours cap. My Oct. 1 paycheck for August work is going to be real skinny, but I'll make it up in November.

Brian wrote: ↑Thu Aug 20, 2020 4:00 pm

Kasey Chang wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2020 9:52 pm Finding a job during COVID times is difficult indeed. I've applied to over 20 places, and it seems only a few ever bothered to write me back.

I lost my job in mid-June. Dozens of applications made and resumes sent out, not a single response.
We finally had to make the decision to pack everything up and move back to Omaha.

A couple of things make this somewhat easier to do:

1. The wife can transfer from the Banfield Animal Hospital she works at here to one of the Banfield's in Omaha
2. We still own a home in Omaha

Now that the decision is made, the U-Haul has been reserved, move-out date settled with the apartment company, and the transfer paperwork is completed...I've been contacted by three companies in the last two days.

Well, that's too bad. Welcome back to the land of humidity. Here in the midwest you can go 20 days without rain and the humidity is still 90%. But at least you've got some prospects for work.

Sudy wrote: ↑Tue Aug 25, 2020 9:53 pm As a reminder, I work in an alarm system monitoring center. One of the staff recorded this in a customer's account the other day:

FALSE ALARM. [customer name] SAID A CARTON OF EGGS IN HIS FRIDGE HAD CAUGHT FIRE, UNKNOWN HOW, BUT ALL OK.

Should have asked if he wanted us to dispatch Scully and Mulder.


That's a pretty good analogy for how the company in general is going at moment. Well, except for the "all OK" part.

Or Ghostbusters.

company i actually do work at decided to give everyone an extra Labor Day holiday this year (Friday Sept 4, in addition to Monday Sept 7), so that's cool. however the contract agency i _technically_ work for doesn't do holiday pay, so that sucks.

hitbyambulance wrote: ↑Thu Aug 27, 2020 6:41 pm company i actually do work at decided to give everyone an extra Labor Day holiday this year (Friday Sept 4, in addition to Monday Sept 7), so that's cool. however the contract agency i _technically_ work for doesn't do holiday pay, so that sucks.

AKA 1-day furlough.

hitbyambulance wrote: ↑Thu Aug 27, 2020 6:41 pm company i actually do work at decided to give everyone an extra Labor Day holiday this year (Friday Sept 4, in addition to Monday Sept 7), so that's cool. however the contract agency i _technically_ work for doesn't do holiday pay, so that sucks.

My company decided to do that too. Fortunately I work for them, so I get paid. Unfortunately, I'm salary so if I have to work on that day for some reason (we have a weekly update that another team does, but I support one of the validation processes they run; if that finds problems, I have to check it out; not real common but happens sometimes), I don't get paid extra.

Having had TWO branches of the same company wanting to talk to me, then completely chickened out (never wrote me or called me to schedule) I FINALLY got one call-back for a preliminary phone/Zoom interview tomorrow of something else entirely. *sigh* First "interview" in 8 months. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. I think I will continue my A+ prep just as a backup.

EDIT: Just had my first Zoom interview in 8 months. I think I did okay. She was impressed with how much I had researched the company and understand what it offers already. But I have at least three more rounds to go (yikes). But they are here in San Francisco, and I really hope I don't screw this up.

EDIT2: Thank you note sent. They claim if they want to call me back I'd hear back from them within 2 weeks. We shall see. In the meanwhile, keep sending resumes...

I think I may have just outsourced the IT department in our consulting firm.

We work with utility companies in an analytical, risk analysis, logistics, etc capacity. One of our biggest clients is giving us 2 million to develop a reporting system for them. A highly customized one, but also one they don’t want to own. They’re literally paying for us to develop this system...then paying us to maintain it AND we can resell the core components to other utilities if we want.

Flash forward a month and we’re severely understaffed due to a VERY overworked head of my division who has been pretty much gobbled up by the nuclear energy team. He’s been trying to hire a project manager to take his place, but he hasn’t had the time to interview for that and some of the basic development team staff we need.

So I went to him with the name of a contractor firm I’ve heard good things about and the partners are excited because they’ll solve most of our staffing issues on this project at a reasonable rate.

And then today I realized I may have just outsourced my job somewhere down the line.

7 to 8 more years. That’s all I need. Then it’s retirement time.