Quote: Originally Posted by jwardell
That's why I can't work for a big company any more.
Well, that plus the restraining order...
The joys of big business. We're doing you a favor by pushing you to learn things outside your field of expertise so that we can dump more work on your desk and thus not have to increase headcount. You don't do it for the pay, you do it for the wonderful experience you'll gain, which is far more valuable than pay. Of course the unstated reality behind that statement is that the only way that experience will prove valuable is if you quit and use that experience somewhere else. Because once they've got you doing new work at the same pay scale, there's no way they'll actually give you more money for doing that work, it's now part of your scope. Been there, done that.
All this sort of fun breeds a really unhelpful attitude, people become resistant to helping with anything outside the strict definition of their job because the reality is that if you do it once, it's part of your job for life. Someone asks if you know how to run TPS reports (to use an Office Space example). Although it's not part of your job, you do know how to run them, so you say yes. They ask if you could do some because it's a real pinch and they need it for reason XYZ. If you say no, you're not a team player. If you say yes, then every time anyone needs a TPS report ever again, they will come to you. Running TPS reports on demand becomes part of you job. This leads to an atmosphere where people are resistant to helping out, because they've got enough to do and they don't want to volunteer for another responsibility.
Of course like I said, if you don't help out, you're not a team player. If you don't take classes, you're not interested in developing your skills and you're not showing the yen for advancement that they want to see. It's all a big game, and unfortunately there's more places out there where it's like this than there are where it's not like this. If you find one where it's not like this, and they pay you more than minimum wage, then grab that job and hold on for dear life.
They make a lot of noise here in my group about professional development, about broadening your skill set, taking internal classes, taking external classes that the company will help pay for, all that stuff. But of course I'm the only person on site doing my job, I don't have any real back-up for a lot of the key tasks I do, so if I'm not here, the work doesn't magically go away, it just piles up (and a lot of it is time-sensitive stuff that doesn't take kindly to piling up, which is why I spent about half of MINIs On Top with a cellphone glued to my ear). Creates a strong disincentive for taking classes. My manager understands that, for which I'm thankful, he realizes that the day to day reality of my job doesn't allow for a lot of additional "fun", so he doesn't give me heat about it. Hell, I usually end up with a bunch of vacation time I have to use at year-end because I haven't had a chance to take it any other time. But it's use it or lose it, and I'm not giving those days back...
-Ricardo
