One of my employer offered me loyalty bonus.
Please Jobhop as much as Possible
81–89 of 89 posts
Re: Please Jobhop as much as Possible
#82When I started in IT field (support/sysadmin), I was advised that I should hold my positions for 2-5 years, and avoid job-hopping, cause it looks bad on the resume.
Fast forward 6 years, I quit my job, why? I started in tech support. I've worked night shifts, weekends, crazy schedules when someone was a on a leave or vacation. No compensation for it, crappy salary, little or no bonuses, night time work and weekend work was not paid according to the law in my country (no-one to complain about it, unfortunately). I kept working there because there was no better offer available, the team I worked in was made of great people, there was some promotion plans for me, and I had a loan to pay off. I got promoted. OK, so now I'm a sysadmin, better salary, but still no compensation for working over-time, doing half-month rotation on-call standby if something brakes (and it did), etc. Please mind that the better salary was not a good one, just better. Anyways, one of my fellow sysadmins gets called into active service (obligatory in my country), and I get stuck with constant on-call duty, same salary and again, little or no bonuses. This is where I start looking for options, and I after getting accepted at few other places, I decide to stay where I am, why? Better tech, more complicated work, challenging, etc. A year later I discover that no social service, pension plans and med-care payments were made by my company for me or other people for the last 5 or 6 years ( in my country, the company pays for it, and it isn't quite easy for you to check that on a monthly bases), and I get net income, so I actually don't care about my gross income. I raise hell, and after a few clashes with local and upper management I decide to get the hell out of there.
So, in the end, my two cents are: Loyalty, to the company, friends, team at work, family, girlfriends, etc. has to be something that is deserved on their part, not expected from day one. Dedication and commitment should not be confused with it.
Anyways, I'm now freelancing, and working towards my degree in soft. engineering.
Re: Please Jobhop as much as Possible
#83Having also graduated high school in the middle of the dot.com bubble, graduated undergrad in the middle of the dot.com bust, and been hustling ever since, I am also a job hopper. I don't have much trouble landing work because I have a particular work ethic. It's a simple heuristic. If I can leave my employers in a good state, I go ahead and job hop. I stay until the project is done, and then I feel ok leaving or sta…
Good work ethic. But so what about the projects that never seem to finish? You know, the ones that can be done in 6 months and end up taking 5+ years.
I am working on a project right now(in healthcare) that I thought I could finish in a year's time. After every meeting, I think to myself that I'd be lucky if I can finish it in a decade because of bureaucracy and incompetence. What then? I am not going to stay until the project is done, I am mortal after all!
Re: Please Jobhop as much as Possible
#84I guess I have a younger point of view, but it pains me to see people stay with a single company all their lives, it just seems like such a waste. They've dedicated their lives to making someone else richer is what it seems to me. The last company I worked for went under, and when I was searching for a new job, I interviewed with the corporation Conn's (similar to BestBuy/Fry's). I met one well paid executive there w…
but it pains me to see people stay with a single company all their lives When you realize that to most people "it's just a job" it makes more sense. Work should not be your life. All I ask of my job is that it pay me well and be pleasant. If there's more, that's icing on the cake, but I look beyond my time at work to find meaning in myself.
Agreed. However, it does become your life when you work 16 hours a day. Simply because you really don't have any life left to live. Except if you consider sleeping time to be a vacation.
Re: Please Jobhop as much as Possible
#85Having also graduated high school in the middle of the dot.com bubble, graduated undergrad in the middle of the dot.com bust, and been hustling ever since, I am also a job hopper. I don't have much trouble landing work because I have a particular work ethic. It's a simple heuristic. If I can leave my employers in a good state, I go ahead and job hop. I stay until the project is done, and then I feel ok leaving or sta…
Good work ethic. But so what about the projects that never seem to finish? You know, the ones that can be done in 6 months and end up taking 5+ years. I am working on a project right now(in healthcare) that I thought I could finish in a year's time. After every meeting, I think to myself that I'd be lucky if I can finish it in a decade because of bureaucracy and incompetence. What then? I am not going to stay until t…
Just make sure you leave them in a good state where someone else can pick up after you.
Re: Please Jobhop as much as Possible
#86Having also graduated high school in the middle of the dot.com bubble, graduated undergrad in the middle of the dot.com bust, and been hustling ever since, I am also a job hopper. I don't have much trouble landing work because I have a particular work ethic. It's a simple heuristic. If I can leave my employers in a good state, I go ahead and job hop. I stay until the project is done, and then I feel ok leaving or sta…
Good work ethic. But so what about the projects that never seem to finish? You know, the ones that can be done in 6 months and end up taking 5+ years. I am working on a project right now(in healthcare) that I thought I could finish in a year's time. After every meeting, I think to myself that I'd be lucky if I can finish it in a decade because of bureaucracy and incompetence. What then? I am not going to stay until t…
At that point, the good work ethic is to say "look, this isn't working. What can we do to part on good terms?". It's a lot better than saying "screw you guys, I'm going home!" :)
Re: Please Jobhop as much as Possible
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's your kid, but I'd temper the advice with this: 1)There's no such thing as the perfect mate. Looking for perfection will make you dissatisfied with everyone you date. 2) A lot of what makes a relationship work or fail is how you treat each other, not who you're with. 3) "Playing the field" too much desensitizes you. Your memories with your mate are mingled and confused with memories of lots of others. You keep do…
Thanks for the suggestions. I did say "part of my advice", so our talk didn't consist of only that aspect. There's no end to the amount of advice in the world when it comes to love and marriage. Some counterpoints: Looking for perfection will make you dissatisfied with everyone you date. Or, you will gain enough experience to realize when you've found the best one. A lot of what makes a relationship work or fail is h…
The way people treat you is almost entirely the result of who _you_ are and how you interact with them.
Re: Please Jobhop as much as Possible
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
It means Calcanis is thinking in terms of seniority and "years of service" being the keys to career advancement and compensation. The decade's-old management mindset that gives us things like SLOC and butt-in-seat quotas.
That's one way to interpret it, but consider a company that pays you to sit in a broom closet, doing nothing, all day and forbids you working on your own code at home. Even if you draw a great salary, your skills after three years on this job may be equal to your skills five year earlier (i.e. you didn't learn anything but forgot stuff/your skills became outdated). Clearly, some jobs teach you more than others...
Absolutely.
I wouldn't have taken issue with Calcanis' comment if he'd simply framed it as choosing salary over personal development.
My criticism has everything to do with his use of "career" where he should have said "skills" or "personal development" and his use of "years", when time spent has absolutely no objective relevance, as reinforced by your own comment: 1 year at firm A is not equivalent to 1 year at firm B.
So the implication that there's an objective salary advancement/year or career advancement/year rate is nonsense. It's detritus from the failed management schemes of an older era.
Re: Please Jobhop as much as Possible
#89When I started in IT field (support/sysadmin), I was advised that I should hold my positions for 2-5 years, and avoid job-hopping, cause it looks bad on the resume. Fast forward 6 years, I quit my job, why? I started in tech support. I've worked night shifts, weekends, crazy schedules when someone was a on a leave or vacation. No compensation for it, crappy salary, little or no bonuses, night time work and weekend wo…
I come from a roughly similar background, I started out fresh out of high school in tech support, though had done some programming on the side.
I enjoyed programming more though, so gravitated towards that, and so glad I did. Most of the people I knew from my time in the support / admin trenches have similar stories to tell, apart from some exceptions doing large-scale work for Google, eBay, and telecoms.
On average I think programmers are compensated better, and generally enjoy a better work environment.
When you're seen as working in a cost center as sysadmin and network admin often is, you'll always have the spectre of downsizing/outsourcing hanging over you.
Just don't work permanently at a consultancy (ugh). If you must work permanently, do so for 2-3 year stints, and at product-focused places or places where software engineering isn't just doing crappy line of business apps.