1st Public Sector gig... what to expect?

[jmo21]

It sounds like we are just b1tching here but this is completely true from my experience.

I recently did some work for a local council, actually an outsourced company working for a local council. I think the staff were employed by the outsourced agency but is seems license costs were picked up by the council.

So guess what happened. Low paid, over worked staff. Loads of money spent on licenses for stuff they don't need. Staff members did get free trips to conferences in Europe and the US though provided by the sales team picking up the commission on the licenses.

I joined an NHS public sector project as a dev a while back. Was brought in and shown my desk by the contractor PM. I was tucked away in a different part of the building from the rest of the devs as they didn't have any space at that point.

So anyway, the noddy machine they gave me only had 500Mb of memory, so I told the PM I would need more. She asked how much, I said 2Gb min. It was bought and installed within 3 days (which was long enough I thought after filling in forms and arranging for some guy to come and fit it as I wasn't allowed etc)

When I eventually moved round to the dev area with the permy devs, they couldn't believe I'd gotten a purchase order through for more memory.

the contractor PM just got what I asked for, all the permy PM's, dev leads just never bothered their arses to sort things like that out

[NickNick]

Heh, simlar here, a permie near me (and new starter) has now been two months without desk or IT kit.

[jo99]

Its interesting to hear everyone's comments which seem all too familiar. Am working on a public sector project at the moment. Waiting for someone to realise that it is not a viable project. Ofcourse a few more consultancies will look at it before the decision to axe it is made.

The greatest problem I have is that most permies have never worked anywhere else and have no idea on how to run a project or how things work in the real world.

Although good for contractors - it is tax payers money that is being wasted!

[JoJoGabor]

I'm working for a consultancy now, and have contracted for a couple of public sector orgs before and hated every minute of it. Its not the consultancy that creates lots of unnecessary procedure, its the public sector client that toffs around creating undue process and procedure and insists on heaps of dcoumentation to be produced at every stage, often resulting in the client project manager/sponsor losgin sight of the key deliverables in the project, and instead focusing on the swathes of documentation that they have been led to elieve is key to delivering a successful project.

Last year I worked for a org who required a simple domain and email upgrade for 350 users. I could have done this myself single-handed within a couple of weeks. They insisted on paying Microsoft over £100k in the design phase, despite Microsoft insisting that the amount of detail they were requesting was unnecessary. I think the project has still not got off the ground after 18 months of planning.

To sum up my experience of public sector, think of all the things that frustrate you about your job such as politics, not having adequate resources, indecisiveness from managament etc, multiply by 10. Now think of all the things you enjoy about your job such as successfully completing a project, technical challenges etc, and divide that by 10. This is a job in the public sector.

I would consider a move out of IT before considering public sector again

[swamp]

To sum up my experience of public sector, think of all the things that frustrate you about your job such as politics, not having adequate resources, indecisiveness from managament etc, multiply by 10. Now think of all the things you enjoy about your job such as successfully completing a project, technical challenges etc, and divide that by 10. This is a job in the public sector.

Very well put

[yeahyeahwhatever]

Sounds so appealing. . .GOD i love this thread Its helping me cope with my current public sector gig. It was my first one and i was beginning to doubt how common it was. By-jeesus, it echos all my experiences to date.

How's it like in the good old public sector? Can vary a bit, basically depending if you have a tin pot dictator above you or not but in general it can be a good gig as long as you are not a compulsive overachiever and efficiency maniac.

You know that old development rule of "calculate how long something will take you and then double it"? In the public sector it is best to quadruple it if the project does not involve anyone outside your department and if it does involve more than your department times it by ten…and still expect it to run late

While there are some good people, majority (especially permies) are just stiffs putting their time in until they get their pension, in the meantime they are basically amusing themselves by enjoying activities like back stabbing, interdepartmental politics, fiefdom creation, coming up with 101 reasons "why not" so forth, while having their long lunch breaks or one of the 101 days off per year or their 50 sick days (both normally planed to occur on key project delivery dates)

Oh yeah and most importantly, expect very very very few good looking women

But if you can live with all that, public sector can be quite a good gig and rates are generally pretty good as well

[swamp]

Any meals out like Christmas dinner, leaving dos etc. will be really cheap Pizza hut/Wetherspoon style affairs. And you'll have to pay for all of your food and drink. All the permies will consider it a special treat to be dining out, but the contractors will keep quiet about their dinner the other night at Claridges/Nobu/Fat Duck etc.

[mailric]

Ok, so I'm now 1 week into this gig after the start date kept being put back whilst they awaited the purchase orders to be processed. (Brilliant start)

What a long week... all of the usual questions I ask when I start a new contract have been met with people looking at me as if I've just arrived from Mars. The budget question really seemed to throw them.

JoJoGabor's summary above puts it perfectly

Having said that, reasonably secure public sector gig in these times isn't something to moan about... funding for the project has been agreed so there's less risk of it getting canned.

But no doubt this is going to be a long few months

[NiceUpNorth]

first gig in public sector (housing) and been in it now for 15month. Started as a 3 month gig to 'cover department transition'

Spend most of my day on the net doing sweet FA.

I'm the only contractor in the department, all the permies seem to get stressed at the least thing, even though i know their workload is roughly the same as mine.

there is always 'projects' going on in the business, but they never seem to produce anything realy apart from a another 'core value' added to some pish poor poster stuck on some tatty notice board.

but ho hummm.... the beer tokens are still received greatfuly each week

[tino]

I <3 Public Sector work,

Hopefully got a new one in a couple of months