Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with Tech and work

What are the dates for the 9th and 20th business day for the rest of this year and all of next year?

reenum — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 13:36:36 -0800

I need to quickly figure the 9th and 20th business days of each month for the rest of 2012 and all of 2013. Preferably not in a manual fashion. I've checked online, and all the calculators are for calculating the number of days between two dates.

Excel has a WORKDAY function, but also seems to be designed to figure out how many business days are between a specified start and end date.

What I need to find out is what the dates for the 9th and 20th business day are for each month for the rest of 2012 and for all of 2013. I'd prefer not to have to look off a calendar and do it manually.

Looking for women and minority candidates in software?

herda05 — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 07:59:27 -0800

Where can I look to increase my pool of women and minority candidates for a software consulting position? I'm leading a new business unit for my company. We do enterprise software consulting at customer sites. As the BU owner I'm in charge of building the initial team. I'm looking to find more women and minority candidates than we have traditionally been able to uncover. 99% of the candidate applications I have received thus far are men. I have expressed to the recruiter we are using that I'd like to see more diversity in candidates.

Where can I look to expand my pool of women candidates? I'm not looking to give anyone preference over anyone else, but I can't even begin to diversify my team if candidates are being filtered out before I even look at a resume.

Help me find a job that doesn't break me.

my name is irl — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 10:09:53 -0800

How to find a tech job that doesn't make me crazy? I'm a 29-year-old male computer programmer (web design mostly, right now doing IT consulting with various technologies). I'm also a diagnosed depressive, and work is my big trigger. How can I find a job that fits my skills but doesn't screw up my brains?

Here's the pattern: I start a job, make a great early impression. I'm actually really good at what I do, and I quickly become the go-to guy for any problems, questions, or development emergencies. Then the dam bursts... I get tasked with something that I can't solve in the timeframe they want me to solve it in. I lose perspective, focusing on perfecting the parts of the problem I can handle and putting the parts I can't out of my mind until it's too late. Emergencies become catastrophes and I fall apart emotionally and quit. GOTO 10, sometimes after months of being a depressive vegetable.

I'm working on the parts of this cycle that are my own failures, but so far I haven't had any luck. The pattern always seems really obvious in hindsight but at any given moment during it I can't see the big picture.

Maybe that's something I'll eventually solve, maybe I'll mature past this stage, or maybe it's just not in the cards for me. In any case, right now I'm doing a lot of damage to my reputation and resume (and psychological well-being) getting into these types of work environment.

So here's the question in slightly more specific terms: are there any tech jobs out there for folks like me... ones that focus on short-term, achievable tasks but are skilled enough to be challenging and interesting? Are there any steps I can take to mitigate it, things I can say to management that might avoid the problem besides "I suck and you shouldn't count on me"? Has anyone had experiences like this and found a way to break the cycle?

Thanks.

Project manager? Technical lead? Code monkey?

Anonymous — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 13:04:51 -0800

I'm happy at the tech company I work for but am increasingly concerned about my career progression. Nearly a year ago, I took on new role as a project manager, moving from a role with a mix of development and client technical liaison/consulting. My company is currently strongly encouraging me to take on even more of a project management role. I think I'd rather move towards working as a technical lead, I'm concerned that getting myself too far removed from technical work now could make it too difficult to move back later. I could really use some advice from Metafilter-ites with experience in tech firms and technical project management! I'm having a bit of career crisis/confusion and was hoping people out there could help me out. Some background: I'm a 27 year old Engineering graduate working for a small/medium (just under 70 staff, 40 of whom are technical), successful software house. Most of the people here have Computer Science degrees (rather than Engineering). I've been here for 4 years, coming straight out of university. I'm asking anonymously because, well, this is to do with work. I've set up an email account if you'd like to get in touch - careercrisisanon@gmail.com.

Nearly a year ago I took on a new role as a Project Manager, moving from a role with a mix of development and technical liaison/consulting. My role basically involves overall ownership of a number of our products, along with a team of 5, where I carry the responsibility of Line Management for the team, Technical Lead for the products and Project Management for the medium/long term feature roadmap for the products my team maintains.

Realistically this means spending about 50% of my time planning work (a mixture of technical 'how are we going to actually do this' and 'how long is this going to take' type work, as well as some 'in what order are we going to do this to make our clients happy' etc type work), probably 20% of my time line managing, doing appraisals/1-to-1s/being stuck in meetings etc, 10% ish of my time feeding all this back to senior management, 10% of my time keeping an eye over our Account Management/Technical Account Management teams and ensuring our current and any existing clients are happy and finally 10% of my time coding/getting on with implementing technical stuff.

Looking forward to the next year I've been told that we're looking to increase my Project Management responsibilities in terms of running the team and organising work and that some of my technical responsibilities will naturally fall down to the guys in the team, and that this is basically needed for the next 6 - 12 months for the team to grow etc etc. However, I'm very aware that technical work is something I'm very interested in. I don't think I want to go full steam down the management route - in fact, from a long term career point of view, I think I'd rather head in a technical lead/team management with a lot of technical responsibility route rather than line/project management. I'm concerned that getting myself too far removed from the technical work now could make it difficult to move back across later.

My boss here has told me that he thinks my skills lie more with project delivery in terms of the 'full product lifecycle', i.e. getting business needs out of the client, turning them into technical requirements, managing the different needs of the project and getting it delivered on time and working. He also thinks I'm making a good Project Manager but that, after only a year in the job, have a lot more to learn and that leaving it now might not be the best plan for my career - and that by leaving this role now and coming back to it later in life I'd basically be starting from scratch again. As such they're recommending I carry on with what I'm doing/what they want me to be doing and stay less technical, and move across later if I decide I want to.

There are some other options available to me. I could go into a full development position, although that would probably have to be taking a step backwards and I'm not 100% convinced that I want to spend all my time coding without having wider responsibilities. I certainly enjoy having business/client focussed aspects to my work, but am just getting frustrated at the lack of any implementation in there.

There is also some discussion about having a 'Bespoke Projects' team which would probably entail managing a much smaller team (maybe me + 1 other) on shorter projects but probably re-hashing similar architectures again and again. This sounds like it could be interesting except for the 're-hashing similar tech again and again' side of things.

I feel like I'm at a bit of a crossroads, and that I need more information to make an informed decision. I'm wondering how much of a blocker doing more technical work is likely to be in the future if I move away now, and how that might effect my job prospects in the future. I'm certainly not convinced I want to be a full time manager for the rest of my career!

I've very happy with the company in general but to further complicate matters there is also a possibility that I may move abroad (from the US to Canada) with my girlfriend in the next 12 months or so, and I want to make sure I'm in the best position possible there for getting a technical job (probably in a small -> medium company) if/when I do.

Any advice on how I can best manage my career for the short (~1 year) and long term very much appreciated!

Smart kid with some bad luck looking for a new start.

CliffDiving44 — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 23:28:59 -0800

I never finished high school. I am very tech-savvy, and I would like to know the best way to go about getting a tech job. Should I go for certifications? Get my GED and go to a technical school? Continue learning on my own? I dropped out of high school because of depression, which I'm still struggling with. I'm currently unemployed, and I don't have much money to work with. I have been learning on my own for the last couple years, and I've developed a lot, but it is a slow process. I've worked with linux and taught myself xhtml and css, and I'm all-around pretty good with computers. I just don't know where to start in terms of seeking a good tech job. Are certifications worth it? Do I have to go to ITT Tech or MIT to get a good job? Should I just try to learn on my own and impress the right person? Thanks for the answers.

PS: I'm interested in pretty much any tech job.

How to stop torrents at work?

numlok — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:13:20 -0800

I'm sure this question will not make me the most popular student at the dance, but is there a way to identify (via IP) machines running BitTorrent clients within an internal network (ie. work)? My company has around 50 employees, and the old, "Please don't torrent at work" doesn't seem to be doing much good anymore. It brings our email and web browsing to a near standstill, and dropping by the "usual suspects" is not only tiresome, but doesn't seem to find all the sources of traffic any longer. Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

Death by a thousand windows

mammary16 — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 22:33:45 -0800

I have a very specific problem with the online system at my work. I have a contracting job that requires me to log on to my work's online system (through Internet Explorer) and listen to audio clips. I work from home.

The system was first developed for essays, but 2 years ago it was adapted to play audio. It is clearly inefficient with system resources. But I thought I'd ask about this problem, since it does really cut into my efficiency.

Many of my colleagues (maybe 5%) have the same problem I do:

When going between audio clips, a small Internet Explorer window appears in the bottom right of the screen. It usually just flashes and goes away. Sometimes, however, it stays permanently - so much so that I can't even close it (not by using task manager; not by right-clicking and choosing "close").

These windows really cripple my computer. Usually after I get two of these, the audio will just not load on my computer. Additionally, I can't open up other programs - or if I can, they open up very limited. Windows notepad, for example, will sometimes open, but the menus at the top will not load.

The system uses Java - although it doesn't work very well in versions of java past 1.50-11. Additionally, the system requires use of the *.ogg patch.

I've developed a weird solution that helps. My solution has been to open up about 25 internet explorer windows and log on to the system with one of them. Whenever I get a freeze (one of those little windows freezes) I close one of the IE windows and it seems to free up system resources for a while. This allows me to work much longer, because without those other windows, I reach a point - within a half hour - where I have no memory left to load any of the audio.

When I run out of IE windows (and this often means I'll have about 8 frozen little windows that refuse to close) I restart my computer. I usually have to do this about once every 8 hour shift.

Question: Is there anything I can do on my end to avoid this problem? As I said, some of my colleagues do not have this problem. I have Windows XP, running on a Lenovo Thinkpad T60. This problem has been with me since the beginning (2 years ago) and my computer has undergone many changes. I have a great deal of free hard drive space, and generally keep very few programs running (I've got a very clean computer). I've tried different upgrades of IE and many different versions of java, and of course my company has tried a variety of things. The general policy with tech support is not to be concerned about this.

That said, my company isn't Metafilter. Maybe you ragtag group of misfits have an idea.

Jobs for a Tech-Savvy Historian/Teacher

ocherdraco — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 21:38:06 -0800

What are some good places to work in NYC for a tech-savvy medievalist who also has experience teaching history and politics to middle and high schoolers? My best friend from college would like to move to New York, and as I live here already, I (rather selfishly) want to do everything I can to help him make that happen. Right now, as his first post-college job, he's in the middle of a year long teaching fellowship at a British school (and doing quite well with it). He's teaching history to 13-year-olds (last term it was WWI; this term it's the Middle East from the fall of the Ottoman Empire), and American Politics to 17-year-olds. So, he's looking at teaching jobs (at private schools, as he hasn't yet got credentials) and programs like the New York City Teaching Fellows and Teach for America.

But he's into many things besides teaching: at school (we went to an Ivy League college) he majored in medieval history, did tech support for other undergraduates, studied the similarities between the shift from oral culture to print and the shift from print to digital, and created websites and content management systems. He's the kind of person who comes up with ideas about how things work and then makes them work better based upon his ideas. He draws connections between things that are seemingly unconnected in such a way that both things seem more illuminated by the explanation.

At various points he's thought about studying law (a la Lawrence Lessig's Center for Internet and Society) or information studies (the field that has blossomed out of library sciences), and he's also thought about writing about the connections between history and current revolutions in technology for magazines in the vein of Wired.

Where in New York City would be a good place for him to work, besides the teaching possibilities mentioned above? I'd greatly appreciate any answers, and particularly those that are creative and non-obvious.

Is a job in Education sheltered from the market?

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 03:11:05 -0800

I have just been offered a staff position at a large University of California campus. Given that my current job is with a small (employees<15) consulting company in the technology field, and given the current national (and global) economic situation; is a UC job more likely to be stable in the next 5 years when compared to one in a small tech company? Also, what's it like to work at a UC? Is the UC system subsidized by the government enough at the state and federal level to make it as secure as a government job?
Will a big CA educational institution weather the inevitable financial storm comparatively better than other sectors?
What is it like to work for a big UC school?
The benefits are good, but is working for an academic institution as political and as slow moving as people say?
What have you experienced as a UC employee?