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I had an interview yesterday for an engineering consultant firm. My god was their poo poo awful. Bare-metal servers, on-prem Exchange cluster, no support services for the last 10 years. Three locations all duct-tape VPN'd together. No documentation for anything, the guy interviewing me barely knew how anything worked. "Sometimes email doesn't work, but we figured out if we hold the power button and boot it back up it works again." Ok buddy here's my astronomical number to get me to take on this stress!
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# ? Feb 15, 2018 19:23 |
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# ? Jun 13, 2024 01:52 |
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Judge Schnoopy posted:I had an interview yesterday for an engineering consultant firm. My god was their poo poo awful. How big was the org? Could be a fun project modernizing everything, but probably not worth the headache or what they were willing to pay.
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# ? Feb 15, 2018 19:33 |
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skipdogg posted:How big was the org? ~40 in the main office they just moved in to, ~40 in the downtown office, ~15 in a satellite office nearby, and ~15 field workers. They did not seem like the organization that would be willing to pay for new poo poo. Interviewer said they'd been waffling on the cost of moving to Office 365 and asked me if that would be a good idea for them since it would be 'a lot of money'.
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# ? Feb 15, 2018 19:37 |
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Oh yeah, run from that poo poo.
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# ? Feb 15, 2018 19:43 |
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Yeah if somebody thinks £15/month/employee for the Office software and all the online stuff is a large expense then they’re probably paying the staff really badly as well.
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# ? Feb 15, 2018 19:50 |
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Thanks Ants posted:Yeah if somebody thinks £15/month/employee for the Office software and all the online stuff is a large expense then they’re probably paying the staff really badly as well. I asked in email before the interview what range he was considering for this new position. He said he hadn't made any considerations for pay yet and wanted to interview a few people and see what they were asking for, and then they would pay for whomever they felt had the best fit / experience for the money. I told him my requested salary at the end of the interview and he just blinked at me a few times, and then asked "Um, so how did you get to that number?" So clearly I'm way off the charts on the high end of their candidates, but to be fair their dumpster fire of an environment needs some extra special attention.
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# ? Feb 15, 2018 20:02 |
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Judge Schnoopy posted:I asked in email before the interview what range he was considering for this new position. He said he hadn't made any considerations for pay yet and wanted to interview a few people and see what they were asking for, and then they would pay for whomever they felt had the best fit / experience for the money. Sounds like it's worth a lot to pass on this great opportunity.
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# ? Feb 15, 2018 20:03 |
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Out of curiosity, what were your requirements, and I guess what city/area is the job in?
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# ? Feb 15, 2018 20:04 |
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funmanguy posted:Out of curiosity, what were your requirements, and I guess what city/area is the job in? West of O'Hare in the Chicagoland area, ask was 105k.
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# ? Feb 15, 2018 20:14 |
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yeah that seems reasonable.
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# ? Feb 15, 2018 20:49 |
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Judge Schnoopy posted:West of O'Hare in the Chicagoland area, ask was 105k. If they're not willing to spend that much on someone who will fix everything, they're not willing to spend enough to fix anything. But of course we all knew that the instant they balked at the cost of O365.
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# ? Feb 15, 2018 20:53 |
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Show them a Solarwinds quote, my god.
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# ? Feb 15, 2018 20:56 |
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Avenging_Mikon posted:If they're not willing to spend that much on someone who will fix everything, they're not willing to spend enough to fix anything. I find it really interesting when I find out the salaries of the kinds of people who balk at o365 license costs. These people generally have no qualms about making 250+ a year.
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# ? Feb 15, 2018 21:00 |
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Judge Schnoopy posted:West of O'Hare in the Chicagoland area, ask was 105k. I just gave a figure for 85-90k, depending on benefits, to be Network/Systems admin for a company of ~350ppl that had 1 IT person (his title? Director of IT lol) based out of greek town, 300 in their office there and 50 devs in austin; I never heard back after that, they wanted Cisco experience, F5 experience and something else.
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# ? Feb 15, 2018 21:02 |
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Judge Schnoopy posted:West of O'Hare in the Chicagoland area, ask was 105k. Your job search woes have been going on for a while now and this is the second or third post I’ve seen about and interview that went about this way. Have you actually had any good interviews?
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# ? Feb 15, 2018 21:03 |
Why can’t I get top employees and revamp my entire IT infrastructure for 20 dollars
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# ? Feb 15, 2018 21:07 |
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My company spent millions on commercials but balked at 120k for a generator setup for the building.
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# ? Feb 15, 2018 21:08 |
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My company has spent several hundred grand this year on new operating equipment but an ERP re implementation is "wasting money" or at least it was
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# ? Feb 15, 2018 21:12 |
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YOLOsubmarine posted:Your job search woes have been going on for a while now and this is the second or third post I’ve seen about and interview that went about this way. Have you actually had any good interviews? lol gently caress me I absolutely have not. The problem is I'm asking too much money for somebody with 4 years of experience, despite everything else I have going for me. I either get hits for MSPs who believe 'work life balance' means I work for life, or for companies trying to create their first in-house IT position and have absolutely no idea what it will cost them to do it right. The other recruiters hitting me up for cool jobs all report back that the companies are looking for somebody with more experience. Which means I could probably get those jobs if I agreed to a pay cut, but gently caress that. e; One company I interviewed for (that bought brand new servers but couldn't migrate vmware 4 to 6 to utilize the new hardware) is likely going to sign a contract for the MSP I used to work for, on my recommendation. So at least I'm putting money in other people's pockets and building strong industry relationships.
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# ? Feb 15, 2018 21:23 |
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Judge Schnoopy posted:lol gently caress me I absolutely have not. The problem is I'm asking too much money for somebody with 4 years of experience, despite everything else I have going for me. Sounds like where I'm at, except that I'm stuck at an MSP that pays me decently (and I've already decided >40 hours is not a regular occurrence, I only do more work if there's a major outage), but I am also sort of stagnating and not learning anything new on the job, but I don't have time to learn new things on the job unless they are handed to me so I can't sit and read books or fire up things to test with etc.
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# ? Feb 15, 2018 21:25 |
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Sickening posted:My company spent millions on commercials but balked at 120k for a generator setup for the building. Or power distribution in the offices
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# ? Feb 15, 2018 21:26 |
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MC Fruit Stripe posted:Show them a Solarwinds quote, my god. Then show them the call logs showing how many times a Solarwind rep called to "follow up" or "just chat about upcoming projects".
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# ? Feb 15, 2018 21:47 |
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MC Fruit Stripe posted:Show them a Solarwinds quote, my god. No but actually get them a solarwinds quote.
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# ? Feb 15, 2018 22:08 |
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Judge Schnoopy posted:
When the company I am still at rolled out the 'new values' almost 10 years ago, Work Life Balance was one of the values. Immediately after the announcement meeting, my boss at the time pulled us aside and said, verbatim, "There is a reason in Work-Life Balance the word Work is first. I expect you all to abide by that." We also had "Investing in our people" which to him meant "We pay you, there's no budget for training or conferences (for the scrub tier)" so of course he went to Blackhat and VMworld that year.
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# ? Feb 15, 2018 22:09 |
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Antioch posted:When the company I am still at rolled out the 'new values' almost 10 years ago, Work Life Balance was one of the values. Immediately after the announcement meeting, my boss at the time pulled us aside and said, verbatim, "There is a reason in Work-Life Balance the word Work is first. I expect you all to abide by that." gently caress that. I work for money. Full stop. I just can't care about the business beyond my ability to continue working for money. I don't expect the company to care about me beyond my ability to contribute to their success in exchange for money. That's my definition of work-life balance.
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# ? Feb 15, 2018 22:29 |
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I am so glad this server finally fell apart. Running SQL 2005 on WS2003 for this long was ridiculous and the people who use some lovely access front ends for stuff howled for years they'd have to update links in their stupid programs if we updated to a new instance. Now they don't get the choice and I get what I want anyway, suck it
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# ? Feb 15, 2018 22:56 |
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Kashuno posted:the people who use some lovely access front ends for stuff howled for years they'd have to update links in their stupid programs if we updated to a new instance For some reason, if this exchange takes place... Them: Our ordering software only supports IE7, no firewall, and needs full internet access You: Then I guess we don't use that ordering software anymore ... then you're the one who is joking, somehow.
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# ? Feb 15, 2018 23:16 |
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For a brief period of time I had a great manager who did not shy away from explicitly and often literally telling vendors to gently caress right off if their product didn't fulfill at least basic security requirements such as being usable on a modern browser, not requiring admin rights, etc. He left after a year because his decisions were often overruled by the CIO who just wanted the cheapest solution possible, regardless of capability, security or suitability.
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# ? Feb 16, 2018 00:55 |
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Collateral Damage posted:For a brief period of time I had a great manager who did not shy away from explicitly and often literally telling vendors to gently caress right off if their product didn't fulfill at least basic security requirements such as being usable on a modern browser, not requiring admin rights, etc. That guy sounds like a good dude. I occasionally have to manage a couple devices that can still only do SSLv3 on their management interfaces on the latest available software and it makes me mad. Windows XP can do TLS 1.0 (which has its own problems, but still). Why do I need to keep a copy of Firefox 25 around to talk to your stupid bullshit appliance?
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# ? Feb 16, 2018 01:24 |
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Docjowles posted:That guy sounds like a good dude. I occasionally have to manage a couple devices that can still only do SSLv3 on their management interfaces on the latest available software and it makes me mad. Windows XP can do TLS 1.0 (which has its own problems, but still). Why do I need to keep a copy of Firefox 25 around to talk to your stupid bullshit appliance? I turned off SSL3.0 for a client, 2 years ago, I believe, that's when I found out that their ERP software that contained information on 30000ish employees could only use SSL3.0; I died a little that day when the real world slapped me in the face. It took them about a year to move to TLS2 or 3 I forget what they use now since I barely work on that client anymore.
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# ? Feb 16, 2018 01:43 |
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MC Fruit Stripe posted:Isn't it amazing the ways a company can justify vulnerabilities?
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# ? Feb 16, 2018 02:00 |
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Docjowles posted:Why do I need to keep a copy of Firefox 25 around to talk to your stupid bullshit appliance? e: Not even 5 years old?! Pfft, that's near mint!
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# ? Feb 16, 2018 02:16 |
Antioch posted:When the company I am still at rolled out the 'new values' almost 10 years ago, Work Life Balance was one of the values. Immediately after the announcement meeting, my boss at the time pulled us aside and said, verbatim, "There is a reason in Work-Life Balance the word Work is first. I expect you all to abide by that." Our boss was like "Don't just put in your time and get paid, either commit or move on". Little do you know I intend to skate because I know recognition isn't going to come even if I completely go balls to wall . This is why I tune out anything about values because almost nobody actually follows them. And holy hell what is he thinking being that blatant about it? That's the kind of thing that makes me wonder what I could do to gently caress him over personally on purpose.
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# ? Feb 16, 2018 03:53 |
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I keep getting contacted by Indian recruiters on LinkedIn about taking a 3 month L0/L1 assistant to the support engineer contract on the other side of the country. So far none of them has agreed to my demand of two months sign on bonus, three months severance pay after my notice period, 12,000 dollars per month salary and reimbursement for relocation costs.
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# ? Feb 16, 2018 08:19 |
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Judge Schnoopy posted:Friendly reminder to immediately cut off access to any adminstrator who gets fired. Jesus Christ whatever happened to just getting pissed and calling the BSA
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# ? Feb 16, 2018 09:16 |
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Kashuno posted:I am so glad this server finally fell apart. Running SQL 2005 on WS2003 for this long was ridiculous and the people who use some lovely access front ends for stuff howled for years they'd have to update links in their stupid programs if we updated to a new instance. Now they don't get the choice and I get what I want anyway, suck it Hi here is an update on this wonderful scenario. Someone in the office has an 8 year old laptop that I wasn't even aware existed that runs jobs related to this SQL server at night. What the gently caress
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# ? Feb 16, 2018 14:07 |
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skooma512 posted:Our boss was like "Don't just put in your time and get paid, either commit or move on". These are the companies who wonder why they can't keep good talent. I don't even know where this mentality comes from any more. Like studies prove that happier workers with a good work/life balance are more productive and less likely to shoot up the loving office.
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# ? Feb 16, 2018 15:40 |
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We don't even have free loving coffee. But all the execs get SUV's.
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# ? Feb 16, 2018 16:45 |
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GreenNight posted:We don't even have free loving coffee. But all the execs get SUV's. Free coffee and decent toilet paper, 2 things I look for in a place to work.
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# ? Feb 16, 2018 16:48 |
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# ? Jun 13, 2024 01:52 |
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It's review time. Giving one of my team a $5 an hour raise, feels good to see him thrive.
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# ? Feb 16, 2018 17:05 |