What to do?

[dlots]

I am in an odd situation, the new job is nothing like it was described, I was told I would be designing data-centers and all sorts of fun stuff, in reality I am on the front lines: people transfer tickets to me with descriptions of "my network is slow" with no work done on them.  It's a 1 year contract, and they asked me to apply for a full time possition doing the same thing.  I'll probably stick around for a while cause the pay is very good and they are using alot of technologies that I don't know well, like Nexus, Palto-Alto, Check-Point, etc.  I would like the full time cause going full time this soon as a contractor will look good on a resume I would think.  What I am not sure of is how long do I need to stay, and I wondered if ya'll had any thoughts.

[deanwebb]

Go full time, since that literally opens up opportunities that are denied to contractors. Some firms hire ONLY FTEs at other firms, and I think that's awful, but that's a reality.

After that, you've got good pay and some fun learning ahead of you. How soon to switch after going FTE? Depends. Do you like the guys you're working with? Do you have a good manager? If yes and yes, then those are some major intangibles that you don't want to let go of without considering their value.

I'm now over 2.5 years at my current job. Although there were days that I responded to LinkedIn recruiters and even did a few phone interviews, I'm still happy to be where I am. I keep track of awesome days vs. hellride days, and the score is 14 to 5 in that regard. I also list things that are great about my job, things that are real beatdowns, and things that I'd pretty much face anywhere I went. That last category puts a lot of the hassles of the job in perspective.

Right now, I have lots to learn, lots of work to do, good people to work with, good management to work with, and some good compensation. I have a long drive to work, but I work remotely 2 days a week, plus a VERY liberal sick leave policy. I have some frustrations with policies and procedures, but those are not insurmountable. There are a few vendors that I might want to one day work for as an SE, but I still want to finish off some good work here before I seriously entertain such thoughts.

How is it where you are? What would jumping ship involve as far as location, travel, and benefits?

[EOS]

My $0.02 -

If they pay well and you don't hate it, learn as much as you can about those technologies new to you.  At the same time, keep your eyes open for other opportunities posted that are more what you're looking for..


It sucks when the job is described one way in the interview, then it's drastically different when you start working there..

[that1guy15]

Tricky one dude.

Normally I would say for you to have this conversation with your boss and feel out the situation from there. But not sure if that would help or hurt you here. Talk to peers.

Honestly I dont see anything bad about bailing. its common in our field. shifting every 2-4 years is normal and I see people jump months after taking a new gig for this very reason.

The sad part is companies everywhere are desperate to drag in talent like us and most will spit-shine a turd to get you in the door.

[Otanx]

Besides going full time what are the other promotion possibilities? Can you work your way up, and off the front lines? If everything else is good I would talk to the boss about moving up instead of trying to move out.

-Otanx

[SimonV]

Tickets that haven't been documented properly, send them back. L1 and L2 are there for a reason. Make a standard block of text with all the information they need to gather, and what they could do to test, and after a while they might learn some networking skills and you will receive less tickets

Don't know how the contract vs internal compensation compares in the US? Maybe they just want to pay less, or want the cost of having you in a different accounting cost centre?

How long have you been in this place?

[Dieselboy]

For almost 2 years I hated my current job and it outweighed all the new technologies and prospects for me. I had accepted another job for less pay just to get out of there. Then had a few discussions with the boss man, some actions were taken from myself and the company on the back of that and some other things were already in the process of being changed which I didn't know about. I really enjoy going to work again, and yet again it no longer feels like work.

I've been a contractor a few times. I would do it again but you aren't really seen as part of the firm in my experience. Good advice given already above me, I would go permanent and then discuss your opportunities at a reasonable time later, you might even be able to inquire about those now if you're careful.

[wintermute000]

For almost 2 years I hated my current job and it outweighed all the new technologies and prospects for me. I had accepted another job for less pay just to get out of there. Then had a few discussions with the boss man, some actions were taken from myself and the company on the back of that and some other things were already in the process of being changed which I didn't know about. I really enjoy going to work again, and yet again it no longer feels like work.

What exactly changed? This is probably the only time I've heard this course of action turning out for the best. Most of the time the promises are hot air or half-arsed and six months later the disgruntled person bails anyway. And half of the time they threw away a great (looking) job offer to stay the course.....

Having been in the depths of what I call Operations Hell and knowing exactly what its like to be promised interesting work, but instead, being parachuted into Operations Hell (the seventh layer of MSP inferno), I say bail. As that1guy said, a 1 year contract is nothing out of the ordinary, and recruiters/future employers don't care if you move onto the next gig as you didn't like the work.

You and only you can look after your career, employers will happily have you closing 'network is slow' tickets and replacing failed switch stack members and explaining to management their P1 incident is due to a 4M link being used at 4M until one day you look around and realise all the new stuff has passed you by. Then you get retrenched anyway as its cheaper to hire 3 Elbonians with their shiny dumped CCNPs.

[Dieselboy]

Wintermute,
I'm currently Infrastructure Lead and Senior Network Engineer for a small global software company.
My main reasons for leaving were due to my then manager who had zero people skills. We would have our weekly catchup meetings which would be 2 hours of him trying to manage my workload without understanding the bigger picture. Not only that I would be bullied and it was difficult to defend my corner as he would have no problem saying things like "do this task by this date else you don't have a job". It's slowly came to the attention of the CEO who I actually have got on well with since day 1. But as we're a small company (42 people now and growing) I felt I couldn't step around management. I would say this was 50% of the problem for me. The other half was a mixture of managing the build of a service desk system using BMC Footprints that is no where near ready for market, fixing laptops and user issues that I'd not done since leaving a support role over 10 years ago. I had ridiculous user issues, that were once-off and fixed with a computer reboot. This actually took up a lot of my time and I wasn't able to look into network 'things'. And I also didn't do much studying as when I left work all I wanted to do was do something other than work.

A few weeks after signing the contract for the next role, my manager was no longer my manager; although he is still with the company. This was out the blue for me. I hadnt handed in my notice at this point. He's no longer an issue at all, although sometimes I feel he tries to be. The CEO pulled me in to discuss my leave reasons and he said he wasn't accepting the resignation.
So after discussing the above and more, I'm back doing the work I actually enjoy doing. I still manage the "infrastructure" and 2 guys. I've  got a lot ticked off my list of things to do lately, This role has a lot of technologies involved. I also try ease the sys. admins load when I can  (hope to have a green light next week for another sys. admin, based in Sri Lanka. I have 1 more interview to do tomorrow). So as I'm occasionally taking their load I'm well involved with RHEV, VMware, the SANs, Windows for Active Directory. Plus Just installed ASA-X firewalls, We have the whole CUCM/IMP/CUC set up on Cisco UCS. RHEV runs on UCS B, Nexus core switches, WLC. SIP ITSP, Firepower, and the list goes on.
So I'm exposed to a wide range of things, which I like.

The CEO has said he would like me to go for CCIE and the company would support me in that. He wants me to clear the CCNP Collab and go for security and I just need to let him know how the company can help.

We're also looking at opening an office in Asia. I just need to get them to open an office in Virginia where the US team are and I'm set!

The other offer also within that time had some issues which made that offer uncertain. Such as a 64% drop in share price. The role would also involve narrowly focused tasks with little room for exposure.

I guess time will tell but it's still good at the moment. I've also been given the green light to work from home as long as there's no compelling reason to be in the office. I've yet to do this as sometimes I prefer just going in and I do have some things going on at the moment which requires me to be there.

Hope to be going back to Sri Lanka next month to install the Riverbed and some other bits n pieces. Actually these 2100 units and steelhead mobile are costing us the best part of AUD$76k!

Hopefully it's not too early to tell though Hope that explains. I don't normally like going in to granular detail about personal things so this is probably a one-off.

[wintermute000]

Thanks for the reply. Good to hear it worked out well for you

[dlots]

I have now been here ~1 month, and I plan to go full time if I can.  I don't know about getting a promotion, my team is really good, however the "more skilled" engineers kinda suck, but have been there a long time.  Once I prove myself I might try to move up, but honestly I don't know why they would promote me when they haven't promoted anyone else on my team.  My current plan is go full time ASAP and get XP on the gear I haven't messed with before, add it to my resume and start looking in ~1 year.

[NetworkGroover]

I have now been here ~1 month, and I plan to go full time if I can.  I don't know about getting a promotion, my team is really good, however the "more skilled" engineers kinda suck, but have been there a long time.  Once I prove myself I might try to move up, but honestly I don't know why they would promote me when they haven't promoted anyone else on my team.  My current plan is go full time ASAP and get XP on the gear I haven't messed with before, add it to my resume and start looking in ~1 year.

That's the way a lot of places operate now-a-days.  Few promote from within - many places I've seen folks will stay with a company for years without a promotion, then leave and come back 6 months later to move into a more senior spot... kinda ridiculous.

[icecream-guy]

I have now been here ~1 month, and I plan to go full time if I can.  I don't know about getting a promotion, my team is really good, however the "more skilled" engineers kinda suck, but have been there a long time.  Once I prove myself I might try to move up, but honestly I don't know why they would promote me when they haven't promoted anyone else on my team.  My current plan is go full time ASAP and get XP on the gear I haven't messed with before, add it to my resume and start looking in ~1 year.

That's the way a lot of places operate now-a-days.  Few promote from within - many places I've seen folks will stay with a company for years without a promotion, then leave and come back 6 months later to move into a more senior spot... kinda ridiculous.

that's the way it is in contracts,  body hired to fill a spot. who knows what company has rights to fill any spot, might be same, then you could apply, might be different, then you'd have apply and change employer.  cable guy here did this a few months ago, he wanted to get into networking, but his company didn't have any network spots here, so he changed employers to fill the network spot. same customer, same place,  same team, same desk, but a heck of alot of paperwork.