Realistically speaking, I’ve really only worked at 3 places of employment since I started my career in I.T. at age 21, in 1980:
- Burroughs/Unisys (29 years).
- Wells Fargo (18 months) as a contractor, my first position after being laid off from Unisys during the “Great Recession” in 2009.
- and, now, at for the past 3 years.
[I really don’t count Century Link in Orlando (after Wells Fargo) since I was only there as a contractor for 3 months, until I found the job which was much closer to home.] In all that time, I’ve only quit my job twice – and now that does include the job at Century Link (in order to take the position). The first and truly only time I ever quit a job was in 1995 when I quit Unisys and went to work for UnitedHealthCare Group in 1995. Most of my former Unisys colleagues may remember that i was only there for 6 months before UHG outsourced their datacenter (and all of their datacenter employees – including moi) back to Unisys, and once again, I was working for Unisys.
I really enjoyed working for such a large company – some people (mostly “youngins”) who’ve not worked for a company for that long (the kids right out of college) usually ask the question: “how could you work for one company for that long?” They automatically think I had the same one job, doing the same thing for all those 29 years. Well, in fact, working for such a large company offered me plenty of different growth opportunities. I believe I had ~10 different jobs, eventually working in 5 different offices, in several vastly different departments or functional areas, each time doing something completely different or almost completely new to me, learning new skills along the way.
The two positions I most enjoyed was when I worked in City of Industry, CA, in the middle ’80s doing software development, working with people who were 10-15 yrs older than me – you know, the ones ‘older than dirt’, the ones who had the “right stuff” and taught these young whipper-snappers (like me) right out of college how to really engineer software right. The other position I really, really enjoyed was my final one in Eagan, working on a application called Remedy for ~4 years.
I took those same Remedy skills and applied them at , supposedly to work on their Remedy app. About a year or more before I started there, they had bought ~50 servers, and spent a few million $$ to purchase the commercial Remedy app, and it went live about a month before I started.
Due to IT management’s commitment to keep the commercial application as much “out of the box” as possible, the software development team wasn’t allowed to add any new software features to the product. So, for the first 2 years, I honestly cannot point to any major accomplishments on my part, until I was finally given a project to implement a new critical parts ordering sub-system toward the end of last year, and as most of you read long ago, we ‘went live’ (in production) in April of this year, eventually sending out 20,000 part orders the first 6 months after going live. From January thru May, I was in my groove, working 10 hour days, long weekends, adding new stuff, fixing bugs, etc. Having finally fun, doing what I love to do. Coding, programming, “hacking”, etc. For me, it’s challenging: think of owning a house and you want to remodel the kitchen or only bathroom, or add on a new wing to it. It’s a multilayered [rubric’s cube] puzzle and you have to figure it out and as you try to add stuff to it, you have to make sure you don’t break any of the windows (or the plumbing) along the way, since it’s 40 below zero outside and people are living in the house (using the plumbing for their hot showers in the morning) as you’re building your new wing onto it (I’m really hoping you guys understand this analogy!).
THEN: The rumors start (this past spring). There is this new “CLOUD” application called “ServiceNow” – which does the same exact thing as what Remedy does, but “is in the cloud”, and management was looking at it to replace Remedy. They actually decided to buy the darn thing and turned on one module in June or July, and are expecting to turn on another module “this fall”. Since this is a replacement for Remedy, the Remedy software development team is, once again, grounded. We’re not allowed to make any changes to Remedy – why waste the resources if the system isn’t going to be around sometime in the [near] future. Oh, you ask, can the Remedy developers go work on the “ServiceNow” team – no, they’ve already hired developers skilled in doing “ServiceNow” coding..
So, I sit, and I sit, and I sit, and I come into work, and sit and try to find work to keep me busy, but, alas, there are no new assignments in the task master’s cupboard each day – it is bare. This started in June, and goes into July, and then into August, and I find myself coming into work each day, later and later, and i find myself leaving a bit earlier each day, eventually coming in at 11am and leaving at 1pm, and taking an 90 minute lunch (no, I’m just kidding). And, I find myself waiting (and waiting) for the axe to fall – for that time when my contracting firm calls me up to tell me: “You’re no longer required…”.
BUT, WAIT!
NO, I CANNOT WAIT ANY LONGER, I AM SO FRIGGING BORED THERE, I’M IN DANGER of LOSING MY MIND.
DON’T THEY KNOW: I AM IRONMAN!
HOW DARE THEY move to a new software app, after only being on Remedy for 3 years – who has the $$ to spend millions of dollars for an app and 50 servers, then just to toss it away?? [ apparently does – lol].
DON’T THEY KNOW, I HAVE NEW FEATURES TO ADD, BUGS TO FIX?? [apparently not].
A few weeks ago (mid Sept.), I realized I still had some control of the situation. I thought and thought, and thought some more. And, I thought to myself, what would Mr. Keating say? CARPE DIEM!
I then made my decision, one that I had only done twice before in my ~34 year I.T. career. I wrote up my letter of resignation. Frightening – you see: those two times I quit, I had a job waiting for me. This time I didn’t. At the same time, it’s a bit exciting. So, I gave my notice, and a week ago Tuesday, was my last day there. [most everyone there was surprised by my resignation].
I feel a great weight has been lifted off my shoulders.
[Don’t bother to ask: I don’t know. what I do know is this: I’m the only one in control of my life, and I have a huge amount of experience in my field, so I know I’ll find something – just not sure when – Therein, lies the rub, as they say].
In the meantime, I’m in two classes at Saint Thomas this semester and will be spending, hopefully, more time with Lailah (the granddaughter), and an unfinished Model Railroad layout to get back to and finally complete.
See you guys around.
