Here is some background: Right after college I did so many interviews and I got two offers. I chose this job “junior PHP developer” and after 5 weeks got fired. Then I did lots of interviews and I got no success in getting programming job or even an internship. Then I found this IT allrounder job which turns out to be a IT helpdesk job. At work, I figure out easy problems for other people at work and I am tasked to fix printers and order catridge and setup computers for others.
Here is the issue: We are two people at work as IT guys and the other guy is old and worked in the company for a long time. He does not want to give me any responsibility for system/database administration tasks or script programming tasks as I can mess up things and might cost lots of money for the company. I expect that nobody is going to give me critical access from the beginning of the job. This is normal. But I sit 4-5 hours idle at work. During this period at work, I started solving programming challenges and pursuing my own programming projects. The other guy doesn’t see what I am doing but most probably guessing or is aware of what I am doing. This time if I don’t get fired I won’t feel bad. Even last time I did not feel bad as they did not trust me in my first job either. I don’t know if they are watching my internet traffic. I don’t really care if they do. I am doing my best to improve myself.
So my question is: Does this happen to you at work as well? Do you read books at work? Do you pursue your own things at work? How do you do that? Is it an issue? What if you got caught?
Yea, I am sensing they won’t like the fact they are paying for 8 hours, I might would find some busy work to do. Clean the office. Or some such.
Companies like self-motivated employees.
umm…no , not everyone. I would love to be bored, instead of constantly under pressure. But every job is different.
This seems to me to be the most important thing.
Be careful how much time you waste, and how much time your boss knows you waste. Your time is his money.
Be careful! You should care----a lot. You’ve been fired from previous jobs, and being fired again will not help you to improve yourself.
Also–doing “your best to improve” is irrelevant here. Your boss doesnt care if you improve yourself…He cares about making money and providing his clients with what they need.Whether you solve programming challenges for yourself is not going to impress him. You might just as well solve crossword puzzles on company time.
It comes across in the OP that you consider the IT helpdesk job as ‘below you’, in not being a programming job, which would explain why you are apparently unbothered at the prospect of being fired (again). I suspect that the senior colleague not granting you access to the higher-level work isn’t just being whimsical or arbitrarily protective over his workload - and that by ostentatiously slacking off you’re barely likely to earn your co-workers’ trust in order to be given more responsibility.
After 25 years, I had to find new employment 2 years ago. I’ve started from the bottom again in a department I could lead. Frustrating and boring as once I learned the routine, everything is quick and easy while I watch those “above” me struggle to understand what they do. Until I earn the “trust” for more challenging tasks, it is what it is. To challenge myself though I’ve found that many of the older or less sexy programs and routines are not fully documented. They may have been but with changes over the years, documentation is not followed up on. So I work at that to fill time. I can also see suboptimal implementations which I optimize in an offline file, then approach my manager with “a problem” which I have a solution for. Sometimes it actually works but if not, I understand better the systems I work with. Plus to those looking at my screen it gives the impression I am doing something work related and not surfing youtube videos.
Ask your boss what you can do when you have no calls or other immediate things to do. First of all, that shows you’re pro-active and interested in helping the company, rather than a lazy slacker. That’s always a good thing. Second, while it may lead to a bunch of boring tasks, it could lead to something more interesting (they won’t hand you the keys to the production system right away, but they might let you earn their trust with small projects). And thirdly, if they don’t give you anything more to do, they don’t have much ground to be mad at you if they find you studying while on the clock, especially if you e-mail your boss telling her/him what you’re doing.
Yes. He told me to read about several concepts that I am mostly familiar with. I keep reminding him I am ready for more work.
I will start my master degree as soon as I leave my job. I think this will help me improve myself. This job hardly helps me improve myself in any aspect of life. Since this company is in Germany and I am learning German and my German language knowledge and ability is not not close to the native speaker level, German language can be the only thing I am kind of improving here. Even in this aspect, the job itself is not really helpful.
Our company is in the gambling industry and is also a charity to a degree. Our boss does not care so much about money in this respect. Furthermore, we have no “client”. Maybe more than 99% of our “clients” “lose” their money when they pay us anything. But the good thing is 30% of what they pay is spent on good projects.