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During the quarantine, a particularly dumb political fight took place between my manager and her peer. As a result there are some cool projects I wouldn't be working on or learning the skills from any more. As I was sitting at home in my underwear staring at some dumb Excel tables once again I realized that this sucks and sucked for some time. I've been with this company for a long time, and now in my early, soon mid 30s I realized that I could've and should've been doing much better. There's some E/N aspect to this too, I've been feeling aimless and unmotivated and possibly depressed for a while now in general, but I think it's a two-way relationship with the job. I'll be seeing a therapist about it next but I want to get started on improving the career situation anyway. Sorry this is a bit long but I don't have anyone unbiased to talk to IRL so I'd appreciate any comments.
Buuut. Because I'm not a "people manager", I don't get a company car even though my manager claims she wants to give it to me. The money could've been better. But mainly I feel like this still isn't a "big-boy" position with real impact and responsibilities and I that I've dug a hole for myself and don't know how to get out of it. During all of this I've picked up SQL, R and some Spak python, as well as database ETL stuff and BI (our proprietary tech and MS SSAS). On the business side I'm well familiar with sales and marketing processes, business planning, performance management, GDPR, market and customer intelligence data and have done some unofficial project management in those areas.
mobby_6kl fucked around with this message at 09:01 on Aug 15, 2020 |
# ¿ Aug 15, 2020 08:59 |
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# ¿ May 14, 2024 17:20 |
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Yeah the car doesn't really matter, I mean it's a significant perk here due to high costs and gas prices but I just get mad about it because if I stayed put I would've had by now And it's probably the only way I'll ever have a respectable new car, otherwise I'll keep buying old sports cars and weird stuff. I think not knowing what exactly I want to do was part of the problem that got me here. But yeah something tech and client facing would probably make best use of my mix of skills. I'm tired of this operations nonsense, but I'm neither an MBA six-sigma dork nor a god-level programmer (should've mentioned I got into electronics and consequently programming in C and C++ as a hobby) so it'd have to be a niche that takes advantage of what I do know. I'd really want to try sales somehow, but this is B2B software stuff, that's where the big bucks are and the stakes are pretty high so that ship might've sailed. I talked to the friend in the Customer Success team, they don't have an FTE position now but I might do some job shadowing or something to strengthen my case. Hoping to speak with the McKinsey guy this coming week. I'm updating the resume now and will post it here. Thanks.
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# ¿ Aug 16, 2020 07:25 |
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Why do you want to be a consultant KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:alternatively, are you willing to work like a fuckin dog at a MBB? doingitwrong posted:Do you? That was certainly not great but feels more like an exception rather than a rule. There are probably always some political power plays happening behind the scenes but in general people are supportive, willing to cooperate to achieve goals and work-life balance is taken reasonably seriously. doingitwrong posted:I think the behind the scenes question you want to ask is what the point of working is for you. You mention the work is high prestige and low stress but you also mention that it feels like you are coasting. I'd like it to be more engaging and a (temporary) pay cut could be ok to get me there, but I don't mean like becoming a freelance cat trainer or something. That could be fun but I'm ok with corporate life as long as it's reasonably meaningful and well compensated. I think your last highlighted point gets there - I'd like to live more outside of work. I'm of course grateful I don't have to worry about money on regular basis and can afford a lot of the things I like, but there's always a high opportunity cost. E.g. I can afford to get a private pilot license as I've wanted at the back of my mind for a while, but then every flight hour would be at the expense of other things I'd like to do too. I can only visit my friends & relatives in the US and Canada once a year in the best case, instead of just popping over whenever for a birthday or housewarming etc. And that's without children (which I should start thinking about soon too btw). I understand the importance of being happy with what you have, but OTOH, I don't want to keep making these difficult choices if it's totally within my power to improve my career and get more out of life. And as I said, there's probably also some E/N background like not wanting to feel like a failson and to try to make up for some poor choices in the past. Shrimpy posted:So a sales engineer/solutions architect?
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# ¿ Aug 24, 2020 20:50 |
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Ok this was a lot digest so sorry this took a while. Really appreciate your feedback.Arzakon posted:Where are you? With your Data Warehousing/Analytics experience you could probably land a job at Amazon, Microsoft, or other cloud provider in a customer facing role as long as you aren't a complete people skills disaster. Technical Account Management is that "yell at the right support person to fix some poo poo" role you were helping a friend do. Solutions Architecture is "tell customer to do the right thing and give them some ideas on how to do that". The latter is also likely to have data/analytics specialist roles. I made the transition from "do IT ops" to "tell other people how to IT ops" 6 years ago and have not looked back and not only because I make four times as much money now. Crazyweasel posted:I had an effort post I lost, but my recommendation is to get pen to paper and identify some real factors you want in a job. What youve written so far is juuussttt I focused enough to allow a bad move, in my opinion. I'll be taking a couple of weeks off in September and October so I'll hopefully be able to tune out all the bullshit and think about it the way you suggest. Oxphocker posted:I'm not trying to be a jerk, but I do have several blunt questions so apologies in advance... 1. I get the time/money is a trade off, of course, but I think it's highly unlikely that I'm maximizing the income possible within 40-45 hour workweek. Even if it does take some more time, it might be worth it to put a bit more effort. I know my manager works more than I do, but it's physically not possible work that much more Ideally of course I'd be like that Office Space guy and just do two chicks at the same time, but that's not on the cards yet. Yeah could be an age thing too, the covid lockdown made it very clear that the clock is ticking and I need to get moving if I want to change something. 2. I really think I need a change, not just for money reasons but I also feel like it's become stale and I'm not learning or developing much. This is a huge company and it would be very arrogant to think there isn't anything good enough for me, so I'm not against moving up within this company. You're right I don't have a plan yet, I was hoping to see what sorts of options might exist in this area because I've been stuck in a pretty specific niche for a few years and might not see all the possibilities. 3. Tech don't give a gently caress, thankfully. While a friend of mine was laid off from a (lovely) company, he found something else within a month. I should've been thinking about this a year or two back of course, but alas. That said I'm not handing in my resignation right now, I just don't want to put off preparing. 4. Yep jumping companies would definitely help a lot more, and I'm sure I've lost quite a bit of money by sticking around. 5. I liked the team lead / manager role I've had before, despite being your goony dork, working with people was quite nice. Obviously being some middle-manager cog is probably an entirely different pain in the rear end which I don't have direct experiene with but can observe in my manager. I definitely need to figure some poo poo out for myself, but with literally no one to talk to IRL it's very helpful to at least get some general direction like this to get started. Devian666 posted:There are a couple of approaches I would look at. Firstly you can feel like you are floating around without direction. I hit this point myself after I completed all the goals I set when I left high school. Thing is I never set more goals so I lost my direction and it was easy to focus on my work. Set goals of where you want to go in life and then create the smaller goals to lead you to that point. Yeah I think changing the company might be necessary for optimal $$$ because there's a lot of baggage tied to my current job grade which all goes out of the window if I go elsewhere. KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:if you become a consultant and you're sufficiently senior you can trade staring at a lovely excel spreadsheet for staring at a lovely deck! I think I'm at like 3/3 of that list. Political games haven't always worked out in my favor and I'm still amazed at what bullshit some of my colleagues manage to sell like it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. As for what is engaging... I think it's having some variety and opportunities to learn things, as well as seeing the results and concluding the project. One thing that's getting on my nerves is that some areas here have been an issue for years, like it was a problem when I joined and it's still not solved, though thankfully it's not my problem any more. Yesterday I talked to my former team member who's now a consultant for one of the companies I mentioned above. Of course it's a tech consultant role but I think he got into this "rental body" situation because he complained that he goes to the customer and does all the work solving their problem, and then everyone else takes credit for the success of the project That said some of the other aspects sounded much more interesting, like talking with the customer to understand the problem, researching solutions, learning whatever is needed, etc.
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# ¿ Sep 6, 2020 22:12 |