That's like having more than two thirds of the week off!
What I wish I could send to certain people without getting fired...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fL6wbsGx9qw&ob=av3e
I have some relatively decent facial recognition skills if I concentrate.
I've seen Neil Innes' face so often in videos that I think I can pick out partials, and I know he has done a lot of stuff with the Python team before (to such an extent that he's often considered a sort of 'lost' Python member, although he was never formally part of the team).
Well, let's see if we can find something that confirms what I think there first.
Then, I can dodge the Homeland Security Recruitment drive.
On a rather different topic, I wonder if I could get a little advice.
The company I currently work for is essentially dead. As part of a deal, its assets are being transferred to another company for some sum of money.
I am to be hired by this other company to build upon it, and do repairs sa necessary.
However, this is not a software development company, and they don't know shit about software development, which puts me very much on edge.
I currently work as a senior software engineer. The job description is one that I wrote myself, as a senior software engineer. The title they want to give me, however, is a Technical Support & Development Manager.
If you needed to hire someone with my skillset, and you saw that hit your desk, how would you react? Mind you, I probably can manage a group of software engineers, but in this case, I will only have a tech support guy and me to handle. The other guy (the tech support person) will take care of first line support and maybe even a little deeper stuff, and I'll take care of fixing anything that he can't really handle (stuff that obviously requires code changes), as well as making improvements to our products.
I'm especially concerned with seeing 'Technical Support' in that title at all, let alone as the first item. I absolutely loath doing technical support, and only do it because it must be done. I do not ever want to be put in the position of having to do technical support because it's expected of me. I do not wish to have over 10 years of software engineering flushed down the tube because of idiotic people who waste my talents on PEBKAC issues. And I'm very concerned that, moving on, anyone viewing that title would assume I do technical support as the main part of what I do.
Hmm... if you trust Wikipedia, it looks like I might have been right about Innes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Python_and_the_Holy_Grail
Ah, and:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0409183/
I swear, I hadn't read any of this before figuring it was him.
well, fleeb,
the first point is... the sallary?
depending on that, you still can do 9-to-5 and do what you want in the other time.
since its never bad to have a look on better job opportunities...
but anyhow, Question... you're doing subtitling, right? Which future do you expect from the technology your company delivers? Or... which future do you expect from the customers (TV stations) you deliver? (...since print is dying...whats going to happen once youtube is able to addres all (or most) TVs?) So... what are your Boss'es reasons to sell? do they account for you?
and... which future development would you expect from your product? is there much more new to add?
from my point... being bought by a bigger company (gemalto) and the pre-aquisition head offs currently quitting (after 2 years) my sum has a little different story.
we were aquisioned because of another (junior)partner of gemalto was aquisioned in advance by another company, so their roadmap had a dead end.
so. sales is pretty much dead at my location now. We do 2nd to 3rd level sales support, and the 10k other guys can sell much more than the 50 guys could sell (if they weren't developers..) So if I'd been sitting in the sales office, my jop procastination would have been pretty much dead end from the start of the aquisition. But since I'm not, my job is rather more safe than it was before the aquisition; there now is a second level support installing the software I'm working on in several countries at once; and they do most of it without us ever hearing they did (aside of seeing it on the list of customers on our monthly status update presentations)
hope this helps.
I've been through a lot of mergers and acquisitions in the past. I've always weathered through them without a lot of trouble. I am not really concerned about that part of things... I already know the salary, have some idea of the benefits, etc.
I am concerned about the title.
If I had to look for work somewhere else, and they asked for my title at this company, how would that impact my ability to find a job. I detest technical support, at least the idea of me doing it. It is a waste of my abilities to expect me to do technical support, the way that the title seems to imply, to me.
I'm a software engineer. I could probably do management-related work in this field at this point, but my real joy is in coming up with ideas and implementing them. I don't like dealing with people who don't read instructions, fail to figure out the easiest things themselves, etc. I don't mind fixing problems that come up, but I don't want to be the one interfacing with the customer constantly over everything.
So, if someone sees that I have the title Technical Support & Development Manager, I'm concerned they will think I'm some rube who doesn't know shit about making software.
Fleeb, do you have the ability to request a different title?
As someone who has done a lot of hiring, I can understand your concern. But, especially if you ask for a lower title, perhaps they might be willing to oblige.
I expect I could get a different title. But, I'm wondering what impression someone would have of me based on this title alone. I know what impression *I* would have, but I don't know if I'm a good barometer for this, so I'm asking you folks.
My official title right now is "Mechanical Design Technician",
My actual title is "The monkey who sits in the corner of Engineering B and plays on SolidWorks"
or in all reality "The newest pee-on in Engineering that is at not-quite-the-lowest-part-of-the-totem-pole"
horray for department transfers *hurk*