For those who (unsurprisingly) aren’t interested in reading through the previous threads, the general gist is that by all accounts this job has gone well. And yet for some reason, it has never really sat right with me.
Really it’s mostly about getting some outside perspective.
Since my last update about 6 months ago I finished my last client project and have done, well, not much of anything. I didn’t really bother to look for a job since I assumed I wouldn’t find much in a down market during the holidays and just figured if I get laid off then I get laid off.
Except I didn’t get laid off. A lot of people did, including some senior partners. Our head of North America “retired” suddenly. My group is going through a bit of a reorg, which might not be a bad thing as we will have some partners who are responsible for selling work on our behalf (which we didn’t have before).
As for me, according to my “coach” (consultants don’t have “managers”. We have a “coach”) leadership has specifically had several conversations determining that I was NOT going to get laid off. So that’s cool I guess. Basically it’s not just some arbitrary clock where after however many days they just fire whoever isn’t on a project. They make a lot of allowances for people they’ve identified as someone with a long-term future with the company.
So there are a couple of sides to that:
If someone said “we’ll guarantee you have a job here until you retire”, I’d probably be fine working here. As far as companies go, it’s probably one of the better places I’ve worked.
The job has also been surprisingly flexible, which has definitely been a plus having two small children and a wife who has to go into the office twice a week. So that’s a plus.
No one is actually guaranteeing that. And my experience with these sort of firms is that no matter how much they “like” me, that doesn’t change the economics of our business. And to be honest, given the past 2 years, I’m not sure the economics of the business is such that there is a whole lot of room for me to grow past what I’m doing now.
So right now (for like the fourth time in six months) I’m sitting around with my thumb up my ass waiting for my client to sign the contract to start my next project, hoping they don’t flake out and need to “have some more internal discussions on budget” like the last three clients.
Hard to come to any conclusions without knowing that.
I spent almost all my working career as a software engineer, and there was always something needed: I could hardly find time to do any development work because there were always customer bugs to be fixed…
Is the problem mostly that you’re bored? (I assume you get paid the same either way, if you’re sittin’ around or if you’re absolutely slammed with tasks.) I assume you don’t have any ethical problems with what you do or what your company does, and how they run affairs internally …
The standard advice is that it’s easier to find a job when you’ve still got a job - you seem more hireable, and you’re not so desperate you’ll take any crap hellhole - so I’m guessing most folks will tell you some version of “look around casually, see what pops up” and “ask for more work/new training/side projects” meanwhile.
Joking aside, yes, it’s always wise to keep a few irons in the fire, as they say. Keep up networking, or rekindle network contacts - something may pop and you may want to consider moving-on.
I am sort-of stuck right now as well, but having been here for a while there is a lot at stake for me to just up and leave. I am waiting for either things to pick-up, or to get shown the door (with a sev package). Not a great place to be, but it’s what I got, and a new boss is transitioning in so I have some hope of things improving.
But seriously. Some jobs are project-based and so tend to inherently come in bursts. While for others there’s a fairly constant demand. Which is yours?
Just based on these threads, you’ve had one foot out the door since day one. You were never going to be comfortable because you never gave yourself (or the job) a chance.
It’s definitely project based. It’s a consulting firm, so my job is a mix of leading and supporting the sale of projects. It’s actually sort of similar to Barney Stinson’s job that banks hire us to do some nebulous and esoteric work no one really understands, except that it’s usually with the intent to avoid having the Feds or the SEC show up.
There is also (or should be) a “constant demand” aspect of it in that we aren’t (ostensibly) a “temp agency” or “staff augmentation” firm. Like we have areas of expertise where we are supposed to be working to build a sustainable business around
For example, the first year after I joined, we used to meet regularly where we plan our our business, talk about sales opportunities, figure out resourcing, marketing, stuff like that. It felt more deliberate.
Now it sort of feels like I just sit in a pool of resources and everyone once and awhile someone taps me on the shoulder and says “I think you’ll be a good fit for this project.”
What can make your current job better? More money, more time off, a promotion, corner office, minions? If none of those will help or they don’t provide them then start looking. If someone else will provide those things along with the level of job security you have now then you’d be crazy not jump on that. Odds are against it though. What you will find are opportunities that come with some risk and then you have an actual quandary as opposed to your current complacency driven angst.
OK, that’s a very different world from my career. As an engineer there was always work which needed to be done: new ideas to explore. And of course fixing customer problems kept us busy.
I guess the $64,000 question is: do you LIKE your job? Is it fun, or at least interesting?
I don’t think it’s so much “one foot out the door”. It’s more like “Ok, this job is going well. So when does that all end?” Because I’ve worked in this sort of company my entire career. In all size companies ranging from a small boutique firm of around 30 smart people to the Big-4 accounting/consulting firms. There always seems to be this cycle where things are “best year ever” around the time I join, followed by a fairly rapid deterioration and layoffs.
And that makes me wonder if I should be looking for a different career or for something more stable, even if I wouldn’t enjoy it as much.
IOW, maybe I should just enjoy it while it lasts and if it doesn’t last, fuck it, I can look for a new job then.
That was what I intended to post as I read the thread. So long as you think yourself reasonably marketable and you have a sufficient safety net, why worry about what might never happen?
You seem to be caught in this dichotomy of “should I just accept that this is my job, or should I actively look for another job?” Why not do both? Continue to do your job well, but keep an eye out for a job you’d like better, or be a better fit for. Since you’re gainfully employed for now, you have the luxury of being picky about what job you’d take. Maybe an ideal opportunity will come along.
More like I’m caught in a “dichotomy of bullshit”.
I ran into one of my younger, more junior coworkers at a business school alumni function recently. He seemed to share many similar frustrations and observations. I guess the difference is he’s young and eager to move to the next level in his career. Me, I’m just content to collect a pay check, still doing a good job, but mostly not wanting to be hassled.
My advice, stick out the job as long as possible, but spend all your spare time beefing up your resume in case the day does come that you get axed. Spruce up that ejection seat, so to speak. Get certificates, skills etc
As you get older, getting another job gets harder, especially as you get close to retirement age. If you don’t enjoy what you are doing, look now before it gets even harder. If you do, stay and keep saving, and keep accumulating knowledge no one else has. Unless an entire project gets cancelled or a division is cut, the best way to survive is to make a boss understand that firing you would be painful to him.
There is a real divide according to age on this. When I started being a lifer at IBM or Bell Labs was a big plus. Today, not so much. My son-in-law switches jobs every 3 or 4 years, always making more money and getting a better title. That’s probably the way to go these days.
Yeah, I worked with a guy in the 90s that said you should switch jobs every 5 years, to keep your transferrable skills current, and likely get a raise and promotion. His view was that after 5 years you become a lifer and you start to rot. In hindsight, looking at my current situation, I think he was right.
First of all, how long do you think it takes me to put a resume togethre?
Secondly, I think the question is what does all that job-hopping eventually get you? Sure, early in ones career, companies need competent junior worker bees to get stuff done. And they are willing to hire with a cost of living pay raise and a title bump so you feel better about it.
Once you get to “management” level around where I’m at, I think the benefits of job hopping diminish. If you want to “make partner” or get on a real executive track, I think you need to stay at a place for an extended period of time.
“Skills” and certifications are bullshit. Most certifications are just a money-making scheme by software vendors and industry groups.
I worked briefly as a full time manager in a big insurance company and I study the executives at the big companies where my firm sends me to consult. Those people, for the most part, are where they are because they’ve been there forever. Their “skill” is that they are reliable and they know how the convoluted processes work at their company. Or they have 10, 20+ years of some particular industry expertise that you can’t just develop with a few certs and Udemy classes.
When I see someone at the “partner” level change jobs every couple of years, that tells me “this person can’t sell shit” It means they got hired based on their impressive resume, spun their wheels for a year, saw the writing on the wall, then leveraged their experience into their next job before getting axed.
I’m not worried about finding another job. I think it’s more like I’m trying to figure out what that next job should look like.
Used to be in Silicon Valley companies that there was supposed to be a “technical track” and a “management track”, which were supposed to be parallel.
It was bullshit of course: the reality is that you have to become a “manager” to earn above a certain ceiling.
I got through my working career by being sufficiently good at the technical stuff that I was fairly indispensible. But I could probably have made quite a bit more by taking the “management lobotomy”.
Probably true. When I had any involvement in hiring engineers, it certainly seemed that ‘certifications’ meant nothing in terms of actual competence. And don’t get me started on people who had a ‘Phd’ from obscure Indian or Far Eastern ‘universities’ who could spout obscure math theorems all day but couldn’t program their way out of a wet paper bag. Sorry, sounds racist, but I had to clean up after a few of those. I’ve also worked with some very good engineers from India and the Far East; don’t want to let a few bad apples spoil the barrel.
I am mid-50ies now, in a not so large country and def. nibb’d in the bud in terms of options-to-move jobwise.
I did apply for a great job, that was right up my wheelhouse, and didn’t even land an interview (I know my age was a topic) … the job is still open after 9 months!
and also making jump from one ship to the next after 45 bears higher risks … you could jump from a solid albeit boring trawler to a fancy carnival-cruise-line boat, just to find out it is taking on water and it looked nicer from the outside than from the rusty inside …
my message: the older you are the more severe the impact of a (hindsight) poor carreer choice, as you might find you are stuck there for life. Local companies also have histories of overselling a job and carreer pathways… of course you know the concept of “opportunity cost” in this context (which in your case seem high).
IIRC you are in (greater?) NY … and the job market might be more open/liberal/diverse … but I have a feeling that in my local job market I am pretty much invisible, even with great work, great objective results and credentials and 2 consecutive global industry awards won in the past 3 years. frustrating to say the least…
