What I Like (or Not) About My Job
Posted by Skrud at Tuesday, June 20th 2006 at 7:59pm
Working is great. It’s great for my learning, it’s great for experience, it’s great for making money, and it’s great for my ego confidence. It’s not all great though, just mostly great.
What I Like About My Job
- I get to make decisions, sometimes big decisions. My input and ideas actually get put into practice. I’m not just sitting around taking orders, I’m actually doing stuff.
- I’m learning a lot. I’m learning a ridiculous amount. Reading about Design Patterns is one thing – you can’t really appreciate them until you see them in action… and by that I mean I often end up doing something based purely on the principles of “good design” and, whether I was conscious of it or not, it turns out I had applied some pattern or other. Now I’ve learned how to recognize the patterns when they appear, and figure out in advance when to apply them. It’s almost subconscious.
- A really informal working environment. Everybody in the office is extremely friendly and down to earth, and more than willing to help you find stuff out if you’re stuck or lend a hand if you need it. The managers are readily approachable, too. I’m still trying to find the right balance of laid backed vs. hard working that matches the environment though – sometimes I’m worried that I’m not being social enough, but if I do start getting social then I worry that it might look like I’m slacking off too much… I digress. Informal working environment == cool.
- Applying everything I’ve learned at school. I had to develop an architecture and come up with an Architecture Document describing it. I also got to code up a small prototype, Unit testing all the way. I use Eclipse’s refactoring tool a lot, and it saves me hours.
- I have my own cubicle and my own extension!
What I Don’t Like About My Job
Most of the things I don’t like about my job have to do with Corporate Policy, which no one can really do anything about… Still, they’re pretty irritating.
- I can’t check my e-mail at work. That’s right, Gmail is blocked by the proxy due to “export restrictions” under the corporate security policy. It might not seem like much, but not knowing what’s in my inbox is a maddening experience. Gmail is practically my only contact to the rest of the world.
- I can’t bring my laptop in to work. And I don’t mean “I can’t use my laptop at work.” I mean, I can’t bring my laptop in to work, even to let it sit in a backpack under my desk all day. Because it’s not an “approved computer hardware device” or something like that. It’s capable of copying data, sending transmissions, and whatever other security liabilities which potentially involve having a foreign laptop in the building. The days I do need my laptop after work, I actually have to leave it with the security officer all day – which sucks because she leaves an hour before me.
- People don’t call me Skrud. I’m not used to being referred to by my real name.
- Until I get security clearance, I’m only allowed in the building in between 7:30am and 5:00pm. Which sucks because that is exactly how much time I need to spend at work most days. Luckily they don’t care if I stay a little later to make up for coming in late or something, but if I happen to go to the bathroom after 5:00pm sharp, I get locked out of the office and have to wait for someone to let me back in.
- Lunch is only 30 minutes.
So far this experience has been excellent overall. I still have some 6 months to go, and I think I’m going to enjoy them. I don’t know if I’d consider Lockheed for a career, but I wouldn’t rule it out, either. My current dream job is at Google, but dreams fluctuate.
Yeah, leave it to “corporate policies” to put a damper on what seems to be a great job. Mind you, I can understand why they might be so nuts with all the security. After all Lockheed does make things that go boom.
Hey, at least you don’t seem to have any strict dress codes or anything like that.
do you get a paid lunch? i’ve never gotten paid lunch and at Subway i only got 20 minutes – slave labour i tell you.
Hrmmm, how about the NDA they make you sign (I assume you do) stating that anything you do/say/think while working there commercially belongs to them and you waive all rights to it :P
Heather: Nope, it’s not a paid lunch. It’s an unpaid 30 minute lunch.
I’ve never had payed lunch anywhere I’ve worked.. Maybe Government jobs have paid lunch. They’re pretty cushy.
I’m just so happy that I don’t work for the next year and just concentrate on my studies. Don’t have to endure some early schedule or other non-senses like that.
From my experience, even government jobs don’t have paid lunches. While it may be true that some of them are pretty cushy, the one that I had definitely was not.
Maybe you should consider getting a legal name change, like from Eitan to Skrud-Eitan.
lol, when i worked at McDonald’s a long time ago, they had paid lunches :)
Stu: Nothing so crazy like that. Only for things developed using company budget & resources, or using company proprietary information, etc.
I say, .|.. company security policy. Use something like http://www.proxifier.com/ and you can even get Bittorent to work.
Time to be bad.