I love my job.

[foogledricks 782]

3 hours ago, Magness said:

Haley is 27 now and has a good job, lives outside London in a crappy flat

Wait, you moved to England.  But are you originally from there?  Just wondering if you're a Brit, or if you are an American who speaks funny.

[Magness 484]

Heh  no, American born in TX but lived in Colorado for the most part and we moved to England 12 years ago now. We have permanent residence for the UK now and I’ll probably go for dual-citizenship next year.

[JTello 352]

Texas,  Colorado,  UK. All very different places!  For the fun of it,... Rank'em!

[Magness 484]

Fair enough, for me it’s the UK then Colorado then Texas.

 

And for Keith - if I didn’t call it a flat, she’d give me shit over it (and call me a Yank)

[Adam Tyner 258]

I don't really have any fascinating updates to share, alas.

 

I was hired by an online travel guide startup out of college.  Eighteen and a half years later (!), I'm still here, although we've changed hands a few times, so now I get to say that I'm a senior software engineer for USA TODAY.  Still live in the Upstate of South Carolina.

[dogbert 1,320]

Guess I should give my own update, seeing as I brought the thread back to life after finding it randomly while searching for something else

Since my last post? Still thoroughly love what I do, despite the ups & downs of the game industry. I've survived layoffs, been through one studio closure (and literally moved to another studio on the same floor - meetings in our "old" space were weird), moved to Austin, and have thoroughly put down roots here. I'm now part of a studio that definitely not going away any time soon, so there's more security than I've had in 15 years.

They keep giving me more responsibility, I still get room to make a frontline impact on our live product ("DevLive" for the win), but I definitely don't get to code as much as I'm used to. 

[secretvampire 285]

Started a new job almost a year ago still doing software development, I am the lead mobile dev for a three year-old startup based out of Seattle area. I handle both the iOS and Android versions of our end-user app. We have a small office in the Bay Area, too, but I'm the only person that is truly remote. I thoroughly love all of the people I work with, I get to travel out to Seattle every few months where my best friend lives, and occasionally to SF as well.

 

At the same time, if you've followed my other thread, I own a couple of beer bars (our second one opened a few weeks ago) which are hopefully my long-term plan. I love my day job, and also after 20+ years in the dev world, I look forward to the day when I write my last line of code. I could probably eek by on the income from the first bar (and my wife's job) and quit my day job in theory, but I'm just not ready to do that yet.

[Carlucci 703]

Still working IT for BigOil, still loving it. I'm changing departments in June from the deepwater drilling group back to centralized IT, because that's where all the action is now with Cloud Computing.

 

I'll be in more of a consulting role than purely technical, and that suits me just fine.  My focus will still be in data management,  probably to facilitate moves from Oracle to SQL server. Since we're moving toward 100% in bed with Microsoft now. 

 

I'm trying to put myself on a 7-8 year plan for retirement with a big fat pension and a hearty 401k.  Anyone else starting to dream of retirement?

 

 

Carlos.

[Romier S 5,026]

I've been managing technical teams for the better part of 15 years now and I enjoy it. I can't say I love it but there are worst careers. I enjoy managing and mentoring people. 

 

With that having been said though, I officially accepted a new position in my company doing Salesforce administration today. It's an opportunity that presented itself seemingly out of nowhere but the woman in charge of the IT group is going on maternity leave and we've been without any CRM administrators for the better part of 3 months now due to regular attrition. I have had some experience with it in the past and she gave me administrator rights and I've been functioning in that role as a side job to my regular day job helping her out. She loved the work I did to the point where she aggressively headhunted me and officially sent over a job offer through my HR rep for a significant amount of money and senior analyst title that I could not say no to. It helps that I really enjoyed the hell out of the work itself, too.

 

So I'm a little scared but super excited. Scared because its a whole new world but excited for the challenge and to get my feet wet in the world of Salesforce which is a highly marketable skill that will allow me to branch out from what I've been doing for a very long time.

[Carlucci 703]

Man, switching jobs in my company feels like the smartest thing I've done in a long time.

 

They were bereft of an experienced Oracle guy, so along with my other duties, I've become the "pro from Dover" on Oracle problems.  So far, I've been extremely lucky with my recommendations and have optimized and tuned some database processes into order-of-magnitude improvements.  The people here think I'm a freakin' genius! I just hope my luck  doesn't run out.

 

I'm loving it.  So busy, but not bored, and that's what I was looking for.  

 

Carlos.

 

P.S.  In case you didn't get the "pro from Dover" reference... (and you definitely should!) nsfw language....

 

 

 

 

Carlos.

 

[JTello 352]

Congrats Carlos! 😎👍 That clip,  yikes! That was like Madmen from Dover! 

[Carlucci 703]

Well, well, what a difference a year makes.   I'm getting laid off effective 12/14.  BigOil is outsourcing its entire DBA function to a managed service provider.  (offshored)

 

They did a massive re-org of the whole IT function in the entire enterprise, and basically just posted ALL the jobs internally and allowed everyone to apply to up to 4 jobs.  Incumbents naturally had the advantage for their own job, but those like me whose job is going away had to hope that we were applying for a job with no incumbent (hard to know in a place this big).  Then, instead of interviewing and networking for the job (which they absolutely forbade), they assigned everyone a "sponsor" who would go into the room and try to write your name on the big board.  Problem was my sponsor was in california, we had never met or worked together, and she knew absolutely nothing about me and my reputation of excellence. We had to give our sponsors a 1 page summary of our career, skills, and the reason why we would be good for the applied-for jobs. That was it.  My entire 30-yr career with BigOil on a single page.  Impossible!  (not to mention my mother-in-law was dying, in my house, during this whole event.)

 

Long story short I didn't make the cut.  Every one of my internal customers have expressed their shock and anger that I wasn't selected, but there's no hope.  Maybe a small chance the managed service provider will try to grab me up, but those fellas work a lot cheaper.

 

I'm expected to "knowledge transfer" for the next week, then they will yank my access, and I'll float for a month before my paycheck ends.   

 

I'll leave with a full year of severance pay, plus a payout on unused vacation, and they are continuing my medical for a year also, and I'll still get my share of any bonuses in March.  I have a pension I can take as a lump sum, and a decent 401k. It's a lot.  I'm going to talk to a money guy today or tomorrow to see where I stand. .  Ideally I can invest it all, earn X amount, and withdraw  < X annually to never run out of money. Not sure if it's enough, or if I can cut my outflows enough, to make that work.  If that CAN work, I'll still get a job just for shits and giggles and make sure I really love it.   

 

I'm counting my blessings right now.  BigOil was a generous employer, and I loved it a lot.  Just got unlucky this one time.  Still, I'm healthy, have a loving family and great friends.  But I am still pretty sad to be getting laid off instead of leaving on my own terms when good and ready.

 

 

Carlos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Magness 484]

Sorry to hear that Carlos 😕 My brother is in the same position with MediumOil in Houston unfortunately. It does sound like you’ve worked yourself into a reasonable position with your severance, pension, 401k and more so at least that’s something. Hope this works out for you the best it can. 

[boogieman 106]

So sorry brother 😔

[Romier S 5,026]

Crap news, Carlos. I wish you the best and if there’s anything I can do to help, please reach out.

[Eldorado 775]

Sorry again Carlos. If you can finagle a semi-retirement out of it though that could be a nice win. 
 

Also sad to hear about your MiL. Never a good time to go through that but on top of this it’s hard to imagine. I’ll be thinking about you man. Let me know what game you’re playing right now and I’ll make sure to get it downloaded so we can hook up in the hiatus. 

[Brandon H 293]

That blows. Want to work for BigDefense? I’ll put in a word for you with our IT shared services team in DFW...

[rustyjaw 802]

Very sorry to hear about those developments, Carlos. Sounds like they really effed up with the sponsorship thing. I’m struggling to understand that one. 
 

Aside from that, it sounds like you’re leaving in a good position to build from. It would seem, on the surface at least, that the new world of WFH might expand your prospects right off the bat. 
 

But yeah, like El said, working this into early retirement would be a nice bonus, if that’s what you’re after.

Please update us as you navigate this new phase!

 

 

[Robot Monkey 503]

I always say "good people bounce back" and I believe you're a great one.

 

Hang in and reach out in the unlikely event that a dummy like me can help.

 

Or if you just need cooking and/or cocktails tips, because, let's be honest, I'm concerned about your commitment to cocktails.

[jubjub75 103]

Sorry to hear that, Carlos! I hope you can find something you love to do and not necessarily worry about the money. Like Jay said: good people bounce back, and I’m sure there’s something good in your future!

[ChrisBardon 488]

That sucks, but at least you're walking out with a year's salary?  In this new remote world your options got a whole lot wider though-more people are starting to hire way more location-agnostic.  Experience with both Oracle and SQL for big data is good to have.  If you think it'd help, feel free to connect on linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-bardon-5563453/)

[dogbert 1,320]

2 hours ago, ChrisBardon said:

That sucks, but at least you're walking out with a year's salary?  In this new remote world your options got a whole lot wider though-more people are starting to hire way more location-agnostic.  Experience with both Oracle and SQL for big data is good to have.  

 

Sorry to hear that, Carlos. I heard on the radio about impending reorgs at Big Oil + had hoped you'd escape... But between what you've said about where the layoff puts you and knowing how hot the market is for the skills you've got, like Chris said, you're going to be in a good spot in the end. 

[kelley 800]

Sorry about you getting laid off Carlos, especially for an outsourcing event. Sounds like you are financially sound and they've given you a solid severance to give you time to recharge the batteries and then find something new.

[Dimness 301]

Sorry to hear about this. I'd honestly take a month to decompress.

[Romier S 5,026]

I might as well do an update.

 

Despite this being an awful year thanks to COVID, a year and a half or so later I'm happy to report that I was offered a promotion just before I went on vacation December 4th to take over managing the entire CRM group (I'll have three other Salesforce administrators reporting to me) and I accepted it. I'll also be working directly with our CTO on CRM related projects and expansion into other newly acquired businesses. So I'm pretty damned happy! It's a nice raise and I'm now able to partake at a higher percentage of the yearly company bonus (10%) but more than that, its an opportunity to network more with the executive team.

 

Also,  despite some early trepidation its self-confirmation/assurance that I can do this Salesforce administrator job and do it well. Now I have a few certifications to complete that I've held off due to the pandemic so I'm hoping with the vaccine distribution likely going into the Summer, I'll be able to get some of those done by the fall. *crosses fingers*