Par for the course for IT/Sysadmin type jobs. "We expect you to build the hospital while running the emergency room and operating room." They are just being up front about it. There are a few areas where they glossed over it. I will translate: "You need to have a crazy-person level of attention to detail" - We will judge you based on anything you've overlooked, rather than what you've done. "A motivated self-starter…
I wrote a huge long reply to this comment, but by the time I got to the end I realized you were just making cynical, shitty comments because you're upset with them for whatever reason. 'attention to detail' - If I hire someone I want them to have a good attention to detail and not just do whatever works. It's the little things that make the difference between a good server admin and a great one. 'motivated self-start…
If that's what they expect, then they should just say that. It's difficult to trust someone to have reasonable expectations when they just throw a bunch of buzz-words; that could mean anything from 'we basically want you to run the technical side of our entire company for us' through to 'we want a person who's not a total pain to work with'; at the wall.
I really scoff at the notion that any sort of white collar programming job is exploitative. I know there is some controversy over interns in some industries (not tech), Wal-Mart workers, overseas child slaves, and other real problems in the workforce. But to call out Penny Arcade for what amounts to a very honest job listing, for one of the most high-paying jobs in the country and the world, is just absurd. So what i…
I can't agree more. They're not going to find someone who can do 4 different jobs each as well as if they hired 4 people who were experts in their fields, but what people seem to be missing is the fact that hiring a jack of all trades is probably what they're aiming for.
I've been in positions where I was in charge of developing software, building servers from scratch (which was a ton of fun, since I got to play with tens of thousands of dollars worth of hardware that I wouldn't have otherwise), doing desktop support, creating a build/deploy/test strategy, planning projects, and on and on. I wasn't the best guy to be in charge of building servers, and I'm sure I got some things wrong (looking back, I definitely got some things wrong!), but it got the job done and was a hell of a learning experience. And it all worked. And the company made some decent money off it.
So as a fellow "Jack of All Trades Master of None", I say good luck to PA. :)
On-call 24/7 is normal? I thought good IT departments had rotating on-call schedules.
I think it depends on the size and how organized you are. Most of the smaller organizations I've worked at don't have an on-call schedule for various reasons, but I'd posit it's primarily that there aren't enough people for a good rotation. One guy might be able to do something with a server in a pinch, but there's probably only one guy that deals with them as a regular part of his day. Imagine if, instead of trying…
> I think it depends on the size and how organized you are.
This is the argument, of course. If four people were hired for the various jobs, as the post advocates, there could be a reasonable rotation of on-call responsibility.
There are three technicians at my organization (2000 users) and we get interrupted on-call only once or twice a year.
It's written right in that the condition must be expected to last 12 months or more. Depending on case loads in your jurisdiction, it might take longer than that to apply and appeal your (likely) denial. Maybe you're thinking of short-term disability insurance, which is a private service unavailable to those who can't afford it? Edit because we're too deep in this thread: from ssa.gov "Social Security has a strict de…
No. I personally applied for - and received - state disability payments when I was diagnosed with cancer. I was barely an adult and had no financial means to speak of.
You immediately say 'no' but then admit that it was a state disability payment. So was it Federal SSI or some state program? From what I can tell here are the only states with those programs: California, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Hawaii.
people who very nearly match this description exist. its not really the point though. i agree that this is an unrealistic ask.
its not uncommon to see in the games or entertainment industries in general... everyone wants in and so many are willing to work themselves to death for it.
The scope of their audience is somewhat irrelevant. I'm not criticizing their comic here - other than a somewhat simple blog(ish) design, they just need to handle a lot of users to their semi-static site which is a solved problem. Maybe deal with a ton of users on their forum - once again a solved problem. Otherwise, like I said, most of it is office IT stuff for a handful of people working in an office. I'm not sure…
are massive user forums a solved problem? Reddit still gives error pages to me dozens of times a day.
First, comparing Penny Arcade to Reddit is laughable. Second, Penny Arcade doesn't even host their own forums[1].
I had thought that the general IT/AV person was a dinosaur, but judging from comments here, the position is alive and well. And all too common. Avoid these jobs if you can. If you have the talent and energy to do them, your energies will be dissipated and misdirected, and your talent wasted. You may end up too discouraged to develop it. And you will get old fast.
could you elaborate on what you mean precisely by "talent waste" and "misdirection"?
This kind of job is unlikely to be conducive to deliberate practice. If your intention is to improve your understanding of algorithms, for example, practice implementing and analyzing algorithms at just above your current level. Here you have little control over your time, which is spread thin. You're on call all the time, so that your focus is fractionated. You may even become dependent on the short-term satisfaction you get from completing many small assignments without warning, while your peremptory, offensively smug manager unhelpfully demands that you explain why some internal web site isn't up to date (someone else left out an expiration date), and points out that if in the future you have to be reminded, the unconscionable error of omission must be immediately corrected; and by the way, a a slide show is needed for presentation by noon. Before you go, order software by 9 AM on your credit card if you have to and install it by 10AM--timing is crucial, only you find out the software company is a sole proprietorship in another time zone where it is 3 AM; get the online store running without the help of the retail people or any testing whatsoever with the payment gateway; and while you're at it do a quick PHP fix to the most elaborate routine in the system, not to mention a patch to the store because the US Postal Service modified its REST endpoint--without the patch no one can specify USPS shipping and only priority mail works, but site went down and you call the hosting facility to log a ticket (oops, a switch--a point of failure--failed). While you juggle mutually exclusive priorities, your manager's manager calls to explain that the users cannot upload videos on wifi connections using http--absolutely unacceptable: do something about this immediately! Without testing you attempt to install a gridFTP service, but installation requires the --skip-broken option in the yum package manager, which may or may not work; now it's 11 PM and you've been there since 8 AM, but you need to provide instructions to unsophisticated users who prefer moralizing to problem-solving, while you update the header of a web site by appending an image to an overgrown CSS sprite, but this is interrupted by a rude text in from your manager, whose insists that an extremely important email is nowhere in the 160,000 message inbox on his phone (he refuses to archive his mail)--it is your responsibility to explain why he didn't receive it; but he did receive it--you produce the delivery header, but as usual there is no response, except for an email that a home-grown DVD has to be produced, which means remembering photoshop macros to resize the borders to the right aspect ratio, only the deadline for the jQuery Mobile application is tomorrow...
"you know what’s even more rare? A guy who can write excellent code in several disparate languages, manage multiple different server installs, administrate databases, and configure office firewalls." Is that really so hard to find? I might be selling myself short... (I actually thought I'm worth less on the marketplace by being a "generalist")
It's "excellent code," not "self-perceived excellent code" or "good code."
Good point :) . Yeah, I'm definitely not in the "excellent code" category (more like "it works" category for most languages).
could you elaborate on what you mean precisely by "talent waste" and "misdirection"?
This kind of job is unlikely to be conducive to deliberate practice. If your intention is to improve your understanding of algorithms, for example, practice implementing and analyzing algorithms at just above your current level. Here you have little control over your time, which is spread thin. You're on call all the time, so that your focus is fractionated. You may even become dependent on the short-term satisfactio…
I'm as guilty a generalist as any, yet I'm happy straddling several disciplines.
There's a broader argument for and against "specialization" i.e. studying other disciplines yields perspective etc.
At any rate, I'll share the ways I'm solving it presently:
* reduce the number of disciplines required to be effective
* confront human resource management problems
* build funnels to save time or improve process
I suppose I'm advocating tackling fundamental leadership problems in an organization :/
If you have any advice or ideas you can share I'd surely love to hear them.