Reply to: Inability to stop questioning tulip design and standards

[bobspud]

It's easy if the value of what you hold on to is very high, and that's what I'm getting at, it is so high that it is really a fake calculation to pretend that the choice is a run-of-the-mill cost/benefit analysis.

For some people it is, I suppose.

Ah, but when it comes to money you have to think critically too. If you're earning 15k, then 30k looks fantastic and would mean a huge change to your lifestyle and your opportunities to save up to enjoy life or study something else; it would appear to give you economic freedom. However, if you're earning 100k to 150k (as many contractors do), the prospect of working twice as many hours and licking up to the right folks to earn 300k is very different. Think of this, assuming you're in that 100 to 150k bracket; how much would your lifestyle really change if you earned 300k? Maybe you'd buy an S-Class or a 7 series instead of an E-class or a 5 series. Maybe on holiday you'd sleep in the suite in a 5* hotel instead of a normal (very luxurious) room. Perhaps you'd buy a vintage burgundy that's already been cellared instead of a younger one for your own wine cellar/cupboard. Maybe your other half could have twice as many posh handbags, and maybe you could live in a house with even more rooms that you can use for storing her shoes. Looking at it that way, it's not much of a material reward for selling out, so there's no point in doing that for money if you're already doing quite well.

Of course, if you enjoy the taste of tulip on the end of your tongue it would be a different matter.

Eating tulip for a living matters less than seeing my two kids with paid off houses by the time they finish college.

I've done being right and out of a job. It's boring!

The thing I enjoy the most is taking the next contract extension. I have out lasted all the other contractors in my current gig and just took on another extension to take me to the end of this year.

I also have the added bonus of the other gig that I set up last year which should start soon. So with some luck, "selling out" and helping my clients hear what they want to hear, will net me way more money than I need while I work at home in a relaxed environment. I deliver quality on time but I am not rattling my clients cage begging to be right.

When I compare that with my life in 2007/8, when I was working away from home and sat in an office 12 hours a day struggling to stop my client self harming and my project tanking. I know how I would rather live.

My principles matter little to my kids if I die of a heart attack trying to keep them...

[Ignis Fatuus]

Of course, if you enjoy the taste of tulip on the end of your tongue it would be a different matter.

I think you hit the nail on the head there. Like some of those flavours that not everyone can taste. It seems that some people are tolerant or even unaware of the taste of tulip on the end of their tongue, and for others it is just too bitter to tolerate.

[Mich the Tester]

How do you make the calculation? You have no way of knowing who passed you over for opportunities based on your personal conduct, or un willingness to say yes in the right places... You may be happy with the money you have earned over your career. However If someone said to you that you could have made partner at Accenture or one of the other large cash cows just by saying nothing a bit more often,

In that context, not selling out looks a whole lot more expensive.

You have to admit that a £300k salary plus a package and pension vs £150k and a soon to be diminished Tax position looks none too shabby.

Ah, but when it comes to money you have to think critically too. If you're earning 15k, then 30k looks fantastic and would mean a huge change to your lifestyle and your opportunities to save up to enjoy life or study something else; it would appear to give you economic freedom. However, if you're earning 100k to 150k (as many contractors do), the prospect of working twice as many hours and licking up to the right folks to earn 300k is very different. Think of this, assuming you're in that 100 to 150k bracket; how much would your lifestyle really change if you earned 300k? Maybe you'd buy an S-Class or a 7 series instead of an E-class or a 5 series. Maybe on holiday you'd sleep in the suite in a 5* hotel instead of a normal (very luxurious) room. Perhaps you'd buy a vintage burgundy that's already been cellared instead of a younger one for your own wine cellar/cupboard. Maybe your other half could have twice as many posh handbags, and maybe you could live in a house with even more rooms that you can use for storing her shoes. Looking at it that way, it's not much of a material reward for selling out, so there's no point in doing that for money if you're already doing quite well.

Of course, if you enjoy the taste of tulip on the end of your tongue it would be a different matter.

[Ignis Fatuus]

How do you make the calculation?

It's easy if the value of what you hold on to is very high, and that's what I'm getting at, it is so high that it is really a fake calculation to pretend that the choice is a run-of-the-mill cost/benefit analysis.

For some people it is, I suppose.

[bobspud]

Keeping your independence and self-respect is not free, but the price is right, unlike (as Reid says) the price of selling out.

How do you make the calculation? You have no way of knowing who passed you over for opportunities based on your personal conduct, or un willingness to say yes in the right places... You may be happy with the money you have earned over your career. However If someone said to you that you could have made partner at Accenture or one of the other large cash cows just by saying nothing a bit more often,

In that context, not selling out looks a whole lot more expensive.

You have to admit that a £300k salary plus a package and pension vs £150k and a soon to be diminished Tax position looks none too shabby.

[Mich the Tester]

Aaah it's so refreshing to hear others with the same issues - a problem shard and all that.

I will admit, that if I have a quiet test manager, then I get very worried. It generally means they're out of their depth and hiding in a master test plan or in Quality Centre hoping no one notices.

Good to hear; these days I just tell a PM straight, during interview (although I often get contracts without interview) what he can expect from me. If I think he's going to release something that isn't ready then I'll grab him by the collar and pull him back from the brink; it's for his own good as too often I've seen software released to acceptance testing that gets the tech PM skinned and filleted when the users get their hands on it. If he doesn't want a test manager who'll give him the truth then he's talking to the wrong person.

[Ignis Fatuus]

I don't agree; I think going freelance was my escape from the rat race. I don't have to lick arses, I don't have to say what people want me to say, I speak my mind politely but clearly, I back up my arguments and then I send an invoice; it's up to the client whether to extend, not extend or give me more responsibility and a higher rate; all three have happened as I go along, and I'm happy with that. I don't see extensions as my goal in my work, I just see succesful projects as my goal; if I see that a project's success is being blocked by politics then I discuss that with the person who's hired me and there's always a chance I'll have to leave. Seeing as I have a good track record, that isn't something that worries me.

That is exactly my point.

I was a student at Glasgow University when Jimmy Reid made that speech there in 1972, and it was partly responsible for some things I have done since, including going freelance six years later so that I was getting paid for my ability and my results rather than for running someone else's race; and some things that I have not done, like "getting a career".

Keeping your independence and self-respect is not free, but the price is right, unlike (as Reid says) the price of selling out.

[Notascooby]

Aaah it's so refreshing to hear others with the same issues - a problem shared and all that.

I will admit, that if I have a quiet test manager, then I get very worried. It generally means they're out of their depth and hiding in a master test plan or in Quality Centre hoping no one notices.

[jmo21]

That's the difference between us. I will if necessary, and clients know it; it hasn't served me badly because when a client wants a test manager who'll tell the truth, warts and all, instead of giving a political answer, he'll find me via his network and then either hire me or look further for someone who will give the political answer.

yep I know, that was my point!

It's never happened to me, but I won't let the stupid politics games they play affect my contract IF I am happy enough to stay.

I became a contractor to avoid that stuff (as much as is possible of course, you'll always get dragged in).

Project success is a goal, and I'll do my best to get there as a professional, but when things are over my head, and in many cases ignored even if they are at my level, I won't make too big a stink about it.

[bobspud]

I don't agree; I think going freelance was my escape from the rat race. I don't have to lick arses, I don't have to say what people want me to say, I speak my mind politely but clearly, I back up my arguments and then I send an invoice; it's up to the client whether to extend, not extend or give me more responsibility and a higher rate; all three have happened as I go along, and I'm happy with that. I don't see extensions as my goal in my work, I just see succesful projects as my goal; if I see that a project's success is being blocked by politics then I discuss that with the person who's hired me and there's always a chance I'll have to leave. Seeing as I have a good track record, that isn't something that worries me.

I am an Architect by trade so I guess it differs a little. We expect Test Managers to be a bit more robust. I always had the balls out attitude to pick a technical fight and right the wrongs, I normally won the point because I am quite astute.

However that attitude changed in 2008 after a well known firm handed me my arse on a plate. I was 100% in the right but by the time their snide ****** of a technical manager had briefed against me and the company I was working for, we didn't stand a chance. The whole programme was slipping because they couldn't get the code out on time. So they decided to make sure we got the blame by getting us to break the shared environment and then hold them up from deploying code. It was very subtle but you would see them asking separate people for changes to be made to the environment prior to deployments and within the hour weblogic would be laying flat on its back with our admin trying to figure out what the hell had happened... Meanwhile they would go straight to the directors and tell them that the infrastructure team had stalled them again...

We were walking into meetings with well prepared documents detailing the bad behaviour of the dev teams and the underhanded stuff they were up to. Meanwhile they had already had a separate meeting 3 levels up and we were being made to look like fools...

The image of the project was "managed" by the programme board bellow the directors and by the developers company at director level. The technical facts of the matter were never on the table or even relevant.

Myself and the other witnesses disappeared from the team. The cud chewing morons that did nothing managed another 3 years of billing on silly rates while rates in the market varied considerably. Not a bad time to be on £700 a day while rates crashed as low as £425...

[Mich the Tester]

A noble cause and I agree with the start, but only to a point.

A successful project is my goal too, but I won't get myself the boot (assuming I want to stay of course) by rocking the boat any more than I need to.

That's the difference between us. I will if necessary, and clients know it; it hasn't served me badly because when a client wants a test manager who'll tell the truth, warts and all, instead of giving a political answer, he'll find me via his network and then either hire me or look further for someone who will give the political answer.

[jmo21]

I don't agree; I think going freelance was my escape from the rat race. I don't have to lick arses, I don't have to say what people want me to say, I speak my mind politely but clearly, I back up my arguments and then I send an invoice; it's up to the client whether to extend, not extend or give me more responsibility and a higher rate; all three have happened as I go along, and I'm happy with that. I don't see extensions as my goal in my work, I just see succesful projects as my goal; if I see that a project's success is being blocked by politics then I discuss that with the person who's hired me and there's always a chance I'll have to leave. Seeing as I have a good track record, that isn't something that worries me.

A noble cause and I agree with the start, but only to a point.

A successful project is my goal too, but I won't get myself the boot (assuming I want to stay of course) by rocking the boat any more than I need to.

[Mich the Tester]

That quote is spot on and of absolutely no use in the IT world. IMHO

You can see the people that chose their way out of the Rat Race. They used to litter Lincolns Inn fields and the other homeless sites all over London. They might be right they might have some moral high ground but right doesn't keep your roof over your head.

The IT game is the Rat race. There is no option. There is no choice. The closer up to the CIO and CTO you get, The more you will realise this fact.

What you do by making loud noises and kicking against the doors to be heard is ensure that you become the target for those who need to diffuse the attention from their own short comings.

Just because you are right it doesn't make you immune from office politics, and if you get anywhere near costing a senior exec their bonus just by being right you wont be in the office any longer than it takes to pick up a phone.

I don't agree; I think going freelance was my escape from the rat race. I don't have to lick arses, I don't have to say what people want me to say, I speak my mind politely but clearly, I back up my arguments and then I send an invoice; it's up to the client whether to extend, not extend or give me more responsibility and a higher rate; all three have happened as I go along, and I'm happy with that. I don't see extensions as my goal in my work, I just see succesful projects as my goal; if I see that a project's success is being blocked by politics then I discuss that with the person who's hired me and there's always a chance I'll have to leave. Seeing as I have a good track record, that isn't something that worries me.

[bobspud]

-- Jimmy Reid, Rector, Glasgow University, 1972.

That quote is spot on and of absolutely no use in the IT world. IMHO

You can see the people that chose their way out of the Rat Race. They used to litter Lincolns Inn fields and the other homeless sites all over London. They might be right they might have some moral high ground but right doesn't keep your roof over your head.

The IT game is the Rat race. There is no option. There is no choice. The closer up to the CIO and CTO you get, The more you will realise this fact.

What you do by making loud noises and kicking against the doors to be heard is ensure that you become the target for those who need to diffuse the attention from their own short comings.

Just because you are right it doesn't make you immune from office politics, and if you get anywhere near costing a senior exec their bonus just by being right you wont be in the office any longer than it takes to pick up a phone.

[Mich the Tester]

-- Jimmy Reid, Rector, Glasgow University, 1972.

A rat race is for rats. We're not rats. We're human beings. Reject the insidious pressures in society that would blunt your critical faculties to all that is happening around you, that would caution silence in the face of injustice lest you jeopardise your chances of promotion and self-advancement.

This is how it starts, and, before you know where you are, you're a fully paid-up member of the rat pack. The price is too high.

I hope I'm making it clear how strongly I approve of that statement.