I have three managers for my day job and at least 2 for a project I'm involved in as part of give back... sometimes it feels like maybe Office Space isn't as far from the truth as I want it to be.
Part of the whole IT thing is having one-to-ones with the Personal Development Manager (PDM) and my task manager once a month... right now I really don't feel like this is needed. I barely have anything to say to them anyway.
Sunday, 28 July 2013
Been too long...
So it's been nearly a full month since I posted anything here... this is definitely a bad thing. So here I am at 3 in the morning having just finished reading my book, not tired enough to sleep, writing.
So what's happened in the past month (jesus, it's already been that long since I started)... mainly a lot of moving of goal posts. Several times now I've been given something to do, done it to what I thought was a pretty good standard and taken a fair bit of time and then the person who's supervising me has said that actually that's not the way I should have done it or that he's told me to do the wrong thing. This is immensely frustrating, understandably, and really disheartening; having to throw away a couple of day's worth of good work through no fault of my own. It's certainly not making me any happier with the day job, although that's definitely getting better as time goes on; I'm being given much more interesting work to do so I think I'm finally being trusted to do things that aren't just boilerplate maintenance jobs. There is a part of me that still feels that if I'd gone to do the other placement I was offered in Canterbury that I'd be doing more interesting work by now but obviously I have no idea if I'm right about that or not and even if it is accurate to say that it doesn't make any difference now.
The social side of life here isn't making me entirely happy either. I'm getting on with people well enough and I've got a few people I could tentatively call friends but the people I actually socialise with are all old-current ITs who are leaving soon. I have no idea what I'm going to do for people to talk to when they're gone... it's not that I dislike the other people, I just don't feel like we have anything much in common. Very few of the people who are here are 'my kind of people'; they're not in to the same things as me generally, and of course us all being new to each other they don't get me either. I'm not trying to pretend I'm some kind of complicated person who you need to know for ages to really 'get' or that people have to be in to the same things to get along... but it's not the same as the people I know back in Canterbury; those are my kind of people.
My house mates are much the same kind; maybe two of them are people who I could really see getting along with but the others... we're just too different. They say and do things that fundamentally rub me the wrong way. It's not their fault and they're not bad people, we we just conflict too much to really get along right now. I spend the vast majority of my spare time in my room at the minute because being alone is preferable.
I'm really trying to get better about being here and most of the time it seems to be working... but in my quiet moments, when I'm not keeping myself busy enough I still wonder if coming here was the right choice. Friday, right around the time when I found out that 2 days work was wasted was a big one of those moments.
Ah well, I'm heading back to Canterbury for a couple of days next weekend, that will be a lot of fun!
So what's happened in the past month (jesus, it's already been that long since I started)... mainly a lot of moving of goal posts. Several times now I've been given something to do, done it to what I thought was a pretty good standard and taken a fair bit of time and then the person who's supervising me has said that actually that's not the way I should have done it or that he's told me to do the wrong thing. This is immensely frustrating, understandably, and really disheartening; having to throw away a couple of day's worth of good work through no fault of my own. It's certainly not making me any happier with the day job, although that's definitely getting better as time goes on; I'm being given much more interesting work to do so I think I'm finally being trusted to do things that aren't just boilerplate maintenance jobs. There is a part of me that still feels that if I'd gone to do the other placement I was offered in Canterbury that I'd be doing more interesting work by now but obviously I have no idea if I'm right about that or not and even if it is accurate to say that it doesn't make any difference now.
The social side of life here isn't making me entirely happy either. I'm getting on with people well enough and I've got a few people I could tentatively call friends but the people I actually socialise with are all old-current ITs who are leaving soon. I have no idea what I'm going to do for people to talk to when they're gone... it's not that I dislike the other people, I just don't feel like we have anything much in common. Very few of the people who are here are 'my kind of people'; they're not in to the same things as me generally, and of course us all being new to each other they don't get me either. I'm not trying to pretend I'm some kind of complicated person who you need to know for ages to really 'get' or that people have to be in to the same things to get along... but it's not the same as the people I know back in Canterbury; those are my kind of people.
My house mates are much the same kind; maybe two of them are people who I could really see getting along with but the others... we're just too different. They say and do things that fundamentally rub me the wrong way. It's not their fault and they're not bad people, we we just conflict too much to really get along right now. I spend the vast majority of my spare time in my room at the minute because being alone is preferable.
I'm really trying to get better about being here and most of the time it seems to be working... but in my quiet moments, when I'm not keeping myself busy enough I still wonder if coming here was the right choice. Friday, right around the time when I found out that 2 days work was wasted was a big one of those moments.
Ah well, I'm heading back to Canterbury for a couple of days next weekend, that will be a lot of fun!
Sunday, 30 June 2013
HOUSE!
I'm typing this from my house at last! So happy!
Seriously, the place is nice and I'm really happy to have my stuff back rather than being sat in a room away from my main PC and my guitars.
That aside, it's been a while since I posted anything. The week was largely uneventful; I'm learning the systems in place in the department and how the team at Hursley fits in with the other teams around the world. It's a big, sprawling thing to get this stuff working the way people want it to and my team forms a small but no less important part of that. Another thing I'm learning is how the in-house systems work for testing... there's a lot of code to read and it turns out that reading code when you don't know the standard libraries is pretty hard; trying to read this code has been the best crash-course in PHP I think I could ever get.
Seriously, the place is nice and I'm really happy to have my stuff back rather than being sat in a room away from my main PC and my guitars.
That aside, it's been a while since I posted anything. The week was largely uneventful; I'm learning the systems in place in the department and how the team at Hursley fits in with the other teams around the world. It's a big, sprawling thing to get this stuff working the way people want it to and my team forms a small but no less important part of that. Another thing I'm learning is how the in-house systems work for testing... there's a lot of code to read and it turns out that reading code when you don't know the standard libraries is pretty hard; trying to read this code has been the best crash-course in PHP I think I could ever get.
Friday, 21 June 2013
Week 1 end...
So here we are at the end of the first week... I'll admit yesterday was a major wobble but I think I can blame it on being drunk and really tired. I'm still feeling a bit under it today but since I'm only tired I'm not being anywhere near as melodramatic about it.
Aside from that... it's all still a bit info-dump-y at the job right now. I'll actually have something to do once I get in on Monday though, even if it is only preparing some documentation about the various systems involved in what we do. It's needed though, and that makes me happy.
Aside from that... it's all still a bit info-dump-y at the job right now. I'll actually have something to do once I get in on Monday though, even if it is only preparing some documentation about the various systems involved in what we do. It's needed though, and that makes me happy.
Thursday, 20 June 2013
Not things with stuff...
So right now I'm not at all happy with the way my placement is going. I understand that IBM is a massive company and that the systems in place are complicated... but I haven't done anything. Literally no work since I started.
As much as I hate to trot out something that's a cliché among gamers these days... I didn't sign up for this. I have learned exactly nothing since I joined and that's the reason I signed on with the whole Year In Industry thing; to learn. That's what I do these days: I learn. That's what I want to do, it's what I've spent the past couple of years doing... right now IBM isn't helping. I've been told a bunch of stuff about the way the JRE testing system exclusive to IBM's internals works and nothing else...
I don't want to quit, that would be stupid right now but I can't see myself doing what I actually want to do in this team. I'll give it some time and see if anything changes but for now...
Unhappy.
As much as I hate to trot out something that's a cliché among gamers these days... I didn't sign up for this. I have learned exactly nothing since I joined and that's the reason I signed on with the whole Year In Industry thing; to learn. That's what I do these days: I learn. That's what I want to do, it's what I've spent the past couple of years doing... right now IBM isn't helping. I've been told a bunch of stuff about the way the JRE testing system exclusive to IBM's internals works and nothing else...
I don't want to quit, that would be stupid right now but I can't see myself doing what I actually want to do in this team. I'll give it some time and see if anything changes but for now...
Unhappy.
Wednesday, 19 June 2013
Information. Overload.
Seriously, there's just been so much stuff to think about and remember for the past few days. I think all I can remember is a few people's names and where my desk is... I think, I'm not sure about the desk. Hursley is just so god damn huge.
That said, I'm looking forward to properly getting down to some work; I've been put in the Java Runtime performance testing team... so I can't talk in detail about what I'm doing for the most part. Just that I'm going to be on the team who do performance testing on IBM's in-house version of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE).
Also I got a company laptop (pretty beefy machine), a fancy lanyard that's different from the other ITs and an IBM branded mug. These things all make me quite happy.
Aside from all that a bunch of outgoing and incoming ITs went bowling last night, was a lot of fun. Pub quiz tomorrow so I think a very good night's sleep is the order for tonight.
That said, I'm looking forward to properly getting down to some work; I've been put in the Java Runtime performance testing team... so I can't talk in detail about what I'm doing for the most part. Just that I'm going to be on the team who do performance testing on IBM's in-house version of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE).
Also I got a company laptop (pretty beefy machine), a fancy lanyard that's different from the other ITs and an IBM branded mug. These things all make me quite happy.
Aside from all that a bunch of outgoing and incoming ITs went bowling last night, was a lot of fun. Pub quiz tomorrow so I think a very good night's sleep is the order for tonight.
Monday, 17 June 2013
First day
Pretty uneventful all told. Mainly the day consisted of Death By Powerpoint and things designed to help the placement students (ITs) get to know each other; there was an icebreaker involving building a 1 metre tall tower that could hold a mobile phone out of only paper and tape. We succeeded.
Still, this is definitely a good thing; a nice way to ease in to a new job environment and get some of the panicking out of the way without actually having to do anything real.
Now, if you will excuse me... I'm going to go and fall asleep. I didn't sleep well last night so I'm now tired enough to have fallen asleep very shortly after having got home for about 20-30 minutes.
Tomorrow brings more admin tasks and presentations... oh the joy.
Still, this is definitely a good thing; a nice way to ease in to a new job environment and get some of the panicking out of the way without actually having to do anything real.
Now, if you will excuse me... I'm going to go and fall asleep. I didn't sleep well last night so I'm now tired enough to have fallen asleep very shortly after having got home for about 20-30 minutes.
Tomorrow brings more admin tasks and presentations... oh the joy.
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