[IngeniousHax]

Is the tech industry like the movie Office Space or is it something a lot different?

Share the way your career is and explain to the rest of the community who may not be currently in the job field what it is like.

Is your boss like Lumberg or something completely different?

[TMKCodes]

My boss is awesome and friendly. I can sit at home and bang the keyboard in the darkness.

[hookiethe1]

I'm an intern and have several bosses. I hardly ever see any of them. I start whenever, leave whenever, and it is assumed that while sitting in my cubicle I am doing some sort of productive work. The only things that are required of me are estimates of how long a job will take that has been assigned to me, and satisfactory results of those jobs, or timely questions for help, or a very good explanation of why neither has occurred. I love my job.

Oh yeah, and when I do see any of my bosses, they're not scary, they're laid back and friendly. I usually have to steer the conversation away from football and back towards work.

This post has been edited by hookiethe1: 31 January 2011 - 12:29 PM

[Brewer]

I always enjoy reading topics like these, hopefully we will get some more replies soon!

[eker676]

I don't have a dev job. Hopefully I'll have one when I graduate.

Currently I have a minimum wage job at a local retail store. My bosses are fine, but the work is the same old thing over and over. It gets boring and the part about not getting a raise after 2.5 years of service is a bunch of crap.

Would I quit if I found a new job? In a heartbeat.

[Nakor]

My job is definitely not like office space. Right now I work in the office two days and work the other three from home. Like hookiethe1, once I'm assigned a project the only thing my boss is really concerned with is how long will it take and the results once it's done. We do have progress updates from time to time, but it's all pretty laid back overall.

@eker76: I hope you're putting in resumes/applications anywhere and everywhere. If you haven't gotten any raise in 2.5 years that's either saying something bad about the place you're working or something bad about you. If the problem's not you then it's time to move on, in my opinion. Of course don't leave before you have something else lined up though.

This post has been edited by Nakor: 31 January 2011 - 08:34 PM

[Dogstopper]

My boss is wonderful. She owns her own consulting company, and I do websites for her clients, who tend to be law firms. I have not yet needed to pull out my PHP/MySQL skills, but hopefully that will change soon, as static sites are so boring. She is the nicest person I have ever been around, we are great friends, and we work well together.

[no2pencil]

My job is not like office space because I'm not updating bank software for Y2K.

Basically, I get paid to fix peoples problems. Be that hardware or software. My office is a small room with a divider on the 2nd floor of a 2 floor office building. The assholes in the room right next door come in hours before me & jack the thermostat up to 1 billion. By the time I get into my office everything is warm to the touch. I can't adjust the vent because it's got 10 coats of paint on top of the lead based paint from when the building was erected in 40's.

I generally work by myself, so I get to play my own (horrible) music. Most of the people that I talk to or see are standard citizen customers with average, everyday computer problems. Broken components, or otherwise dead operating systems or file systems. Most of the time they are extremely happy to pay me for my services because I am honest with them, treat them like human beings, & charge a reasonable rate. Every one in a while I get some goof-ball that wants everything for nothing, & they are going to act like an ass regardless if they get it or not.

[eker676]

Quote

If you haven't gotten any raise in 2.5 years that's either saying something bad about the place you're working or something bad about you. If the problem's not you then it's time to move on, in my opinion. Of course don't leave before you have something else lined up though.

The company claims it's a 'pay freeze'. I have a relative that manages a software team at a university research center but I can't start there until I graduate high school. So for now I'm just waiting until the day I graduate.

Word of advice: Don't work in retail unless your starving.

[macosxnerd101]

I've had a few jobs doing something IT related. At my school's computer help desk, my boss is really laid back. As long as we keep things running smoothly, he's happy. Towards the end of the year during laptop collection, we can usually skip some class to help out, and he buys us pizza for lunch one day. Plus, while we don't work a ton of hours, it's painless to get paid time (half an hour before or after school). Last year, I got to put my Java skills to use by writing a program to collect student statements electronically and store them in a text file to be emailed.

I also worked for my dad in the summers at the family business in the warehouse. A couple summers ago (my last summer there), I was put in charge of getting inventory under control in terms of cycle counting. I saw a lot of waste in ordering, so I designed an algorithm for my dad to implement in his program (he didn't want me touching it) to help streamline inventory. Even though my dad paid me minimum wage, I got a free lunch everyday and time off whenever I wanted or needed (though I chose to work 36-40 hours a week for my car fund).

At my internship this summer, my boss was really relaxed. He said I could work from home half the time, come in whenever I wanted, and work however long I wanted up to an alloted 240 hours. There were no restrictions on what technologies could be used, so long as it ran on the desired platforms. Probably most importantly, my boss gave us the latitude to fail. He viewed it as an opportunity to redirect. The work was fun as well, because we were developing new technologies rather than standard business-database applications. I'm looking forward to going back to work there this summer!

[Jstall]

I did a work term before I got out of school for the company I am working for now, they kept me on after I graduated so this is the only place I have been. I do PHP based web dev, some Javascript/html. The company is small, and all my work has been on one large project that is sort of a side project for the company, they don't develop websites, this is a first for them.

I spend my time re factoring old, very deprecated code and building new parts. The other people on the project are mostly part time, we also have a design company contracted to do the graphics and make things more pretty. They do some presentational logic via Javascript as well. We may have someone full time for a couple week or a month but it's usually just me. I often have to coordinate the other devs, I sometimes find it intimidating to have to tell people with decades of experience what to do. I also sit in on meetings with marketers and PR people and try not to let my thoughts drift when they start talking about market trends and target demographics

Overall it has been a really good experience, I have learned allot. My boss is awesome, I can work from home some days and he is ok if I need to take a day here and there.

I would like to find a entry level Java job when I am done with this so have started brushing up on my Java *crosses fingers*.

Soooo that's what it is like for me so far.

[calebjonasson]

At my office I am the only web applications developer and I sit in a room with 3 other programmers that all work with Flex. Everything is pretty relaxed and most of the time that I spend talking to the boss is usually focused on sites like the oatmeal or clients from hell. There is no micro managing.

There is a bookshelf above my desk and a big nerf gun in the book shelf.

[fromTheSprawl]

How did it go?
What did you do?
What is the nature of the business of your internship company?
Perks?
Things you hated about it?
Stuff you learned?
--
I'm asking because I'm taking up my internship right now and I'm curious on how each one of you spent your internships,

[Choscura]

lately, for my work, everything seems to happen by accident. I sell wine to people and land graphics gigs because of it: I do graphics for people and they end up interested in a website. I do a website and somebody asks us about cheese- or olive oil- for their restaurant because of it. I do nothing and people ask me to help with code.

[IngeniousHax]

Very nice. I currently attend college and have probably 3 years left before I get my Comp. E. degree.

I was really hoping I wasn't going to end up like Office Space, so this sounds promising...

And I know what eker676 is talking about with the job thing, I work at a bar and deal with drunken depressed old men all the time, but I think im gonna go down to two days there and start tutoring math at the college adn start a tutoring company with a friend of mine so that will be good. Maybe land a summer internship in the next year or so once I get some more programming under my belt.

This post has been edited by IngeniousHax: 04 February 2011 - 11:28 AM