To follow on from what Jesse said: when I'm being interviewed by a
technical person who will be doing work similar to mine, I insist on
hearing about an area where the person is currently or was recently
frustrated (and if they try to tell me about a purely technical problem
they can't figure out, I redirect them to something where external factors
are frustrating them rather than the problem at hand).
Either a) they'll refuse to answer or say nothing frustrates them at the
company, in which case my takeaway will be that the culture of the place
discourages open thinking or criticism, or b) they'll tell me something
enlightening about what the company values.
An example of a frustration that I will get a good vibe from (and I've
heard this exact story from three different companies, so I'm not spilling
any confidences by mentioning this in vague terms): hearing that the group
in charge of rolling out a new VPN has clashed with the group in charge of
development tools, because the best tools for the developers run on
systems that aren't compatible or stable with the new VPN system, and so
compromises had to be made on one or both sides. Frustrating, to be sure,
but showing that the clash came about because both groups were trying to
give the best possible service is a good sign. You can work with that,
and that's the sort of thing that happens at companies you want to work
for.
A bad sign of frustration would be being told that "management always cuts
the budget just to see if we can do it for less" or "non-technical people
altered my solution to something worse without understanding the problem"
or other things of that sort that show that conflict may be directed at
you in ways you can't constructively respond to. You can't expect in a
lucrative job to have nothing but smooth sailing, but you can't allow
yourself to be a punching bag, either.
Trey
In a message dated Thu, 6 May 2010, Jesse Trucks writes:
On Wed, May 05, 2010 at 12:35:21AM -0500, Matt Lawrence wrote:
I keep hearing about these mythical places that are dedicated to
excellence, I just never seem to find any of them.
I've worked in places mostly as you've described in the removed part of
your post.
My current job is extremely different. We really do strive to refine our
technical infrastructure and improve operations and design every day.
It's far from perfect, but we understand the current state of things and
we work to make a series of small improvements that, over time, lead to
major improvements.
Though certain aspects of my particular employer are quite uncommon,
that desire to improve exists in more places than people realize. The
easy and stereotypical examples of Google, Apple, and the like come to
mind, but there are many others.
Keep looking, and be very probing and savvy in the interview process to
really discover if the culture is what you are looking for. Make sure
you can talk freely to the people you would work with before taking the
plunge on the next position.
When we purchase things, we give the provider of goods or services our
vote of confidence by spending money.
When we work for an organization, we give the employer our vote of
confidence by working there.
As much as we can, we should be voting for places that should be
encouraged. Those places that aren't interesting, challenging, or
fullfilling to work in shouldn't be getting our votes.
That all being said, the job market is a rude and scary place right now,
so sometimes we can't vote how we like when we like.
--
Jesse Trucks, GCUX
jtru...@lopsa.org
Director, LOPSA
http://lopsa.org
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--
Trey Ethan Harris (/t͡ʃreɪ ˈiːθən ˈhɛrəs/) http://www.lopsa.org/
President, LOPSA -- The League of Professional System Administrators
Opinions expressed above are not necessarily those of LOPSA.
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