I don’t really give a tulip any more

[Spacecadet]

I agree with you to a point. The top-down "you will now use methodology X" approach just infuriates most people, especially as most new working practices take time to bed in (like a footy team that buys a handful of new players in the close season), and by the time it has been tweaked for that particular department along comes another CIO with another brand new "game changing" methodolgy that he issues by mandate.
This is one cause of the background level of dissatisfaction that I have observed in the last 3 companies I've worked in; i.e. the idea that the goalposts shift so often that you may as well just keep your head down and wait for the latest fad to pass. Doing this is hard when the company continually re-invents it's goals, re-aligns it's direction, and all that balls.

Or keep your head down till the right project manager is selected
Last project I went on got through 3 project managers before we actually got one who was any good

[Peoplesoft bloke]

It's not that the fun has been managed out of IT, it's that these days, IT has been streamlined into the business much more. Rather than building stuff because you can, the industry is now building stuff because the business has a need that required fulfilling. It's part and parcel of becoming a more mature industry.

Not in my experience. Most of my recent projects have involved doing stupid things that are the opposite of what the business needs as a result of a mixture of accountants and internal politics.

[minestrone]

I have to be honest I could probably do my weeks work in about 4 hours and that is not my fault, the team I am in just create that environment.

"can I have a DB password to finish this stored proc?"

"you will have to wait a few days for that"

"OK, do you have anything for me to do?"

"can you wait for the planning meeting tomorrow"

Bored out my tits.

[DieScum]

I have to be honest I could probably do my weeks work in about 4 hours and that is not my faul

I've been there and it's dire. Although you can always get on with your stuff as long as it looks vaguely work.

You do feel your life is literally being lost to sheer pointlessness and bureaucracy though. Like you are a slave in the matrix and you are wasting your one and only life.

I moan enough about the bad side of working from home but the good side is that if there is nothing to do you can do your own thing as long as you are available.

[SantaClaus]

That sounds like me, cannot get a way from supporting crap financial systems.

I am working on Plan B about 5 hours a day, I even head to the pub at lunch time to do a quick hour on the laptop.

I never want to look at another bit of java in my life.

Hey, I did one better than that.
I used to trade from my mobile in the toilet!

[ratewhore]

I have to be honest I could probably do my weeks work in about 4 hours...

That's my experience since I started contracting. As long as I'm getting shedloads for it, I don't really care.

Just keep listening to the invoice machine ticking up and up...

[SantaClaus]

That's my experience since I started contracting. As long as I'm getting shedloads for it, I don't really care.

Just keep listening to the invoice machine ticking up and up...

Even that gets boring after 20 years.

[juststarting]

Congrats! That looks like like a proper business unlike atwat's.

atwats ? LOL

[chris79]

I quite recently finished a bit of a boring job which had large time-gaps in-between the action...

Routine would consist of world wide web to alleviate boredom..

skynews
cnn
skysports
hotukdeals.com
facebook
ebay
contractoruk

then repeat until hometime... collect $200, pass GO.. etc

OH LOOK, THE PAGE HAS CHANGED YAY!.. ... SOMEONES POSTED A REPLY YAY! etc..

[Purple Dalek]

There was something I was reading the other day about the MVC pattern and thought how very true.

When was the last time you saw the MVC pattern implemented correctly? (That you didn't code up yourself, that is)

And it got me to thinking.

When was the last time you saw a thread safe singleton pattern? And there's more...

Is it me, or does anyone else seem to go from contract to contract fixing and rewriting utter crap some monkeys have written between games of bulltulip bingo?

Then when you're just about to get onto some interesting stuff, another monkey comes along and ****s it all back up again? Usually in the "oh we don't want to use XYZ because we're going to rationalise on only one tool." That one tool being only able to do the task required if you essentially rewrite it or buy some hideously expensive library. Then you go back to that client 5 years later and find they're stuck with a now unsupported version of the tool/library, you pull the old abandoned one from a CD and it performs more reliably and with less resource utilisation and the bosses think you're a god damned genius...

You find you just don't care to argue with them. Let 'em get on with it. As long as my time-sheet gets signed, I just fail to care any longer. Which is the attitude the project managers appear to prefer.