Jobs with LOTS of spare time

[CougTek]

Am I the only one with a downright ass-grabbing job? I mean, during the past two weeks, I've felt asleep every day during the afternoon...and nobody cares. I'm about to buy a sombrero! Not that I haven't tried to make things move faster, but I always end up waiting for the management to make their part in order to move some project forward. It's tiring. I could do literally nothing and be paid anyway. That's not what I'm used to, having been self-employed for years.

My typical day consist of browsing the web, reading my news, trying to find something that would improve certain part of our business or improve some project we're working on (or something that would apply to a future project). The rare times when I'm asked to do something, it usually is something basic and I fix it quickly. I also take a walk and grab a coffee every now and then, asking people how are their projects are going, trying to see if I can help them in any way (which often happens, but it is almost always quickly fixed). However, I would say that, especially during the last two weeks, I haven't been occupied more often than about 5% of my paid time. I've finished the main project I've been assigned to since I've been hired and that too has been unecessarily long due mostly to delays cause by the lack of push from the management.

What's worse is that according to the main project manager, we won't have another significant project where my skills can really shine for another two years. TWO YEARS! I'm sure many would be happy to receive a salary for what I consider spending time at one place, but I'm no fucking public union worker. I need a challenge from time to time.

My previous job was similar in some ways, even though I was less implicated in the decision process. At least at my new job, I've become the go-to guy for everything related to server hardware. I feel appreciated, but I'd like to help my company to improve a lot more than what I can currently do.

 

[ddrueding]

The bigger the company the more likely this is to happen. Reminds me of that scene in "The Office" where he has to describe his typical day.

 

[snowhiker]

Am I the only one with a downright ass-grabbing job?

At first I thought you wrote ANKLE grabbing job, as in being bent over and taking it.

LMAO.

You may be bored as f*ck at your job, but at least you don't have some kid 20 minutes out of college driving a spreadsheet and checking up on your rate every 15 minutes. And I'm sure you aren't working with people who are intellectually and emotionally 12 years old either. So count your blessings. And yes I'm jealous! <grin>

 

[mubs]

Stick with it, Coug. There are far too many good people unemployed.

 

[Bozo]

In my job there was some 'down time'. Usually I experiment with different scenarios. Take a backup image of an XP box and install it on hardware that was a lot newer, and not have anything in XP and our proprietary software break. Make an image of the new install, just in case. Then upgrade XP to Windows 7, and not have anything break.

Install VMware on some spare hardware and experiment while possibly learning something new.
Find some software that can image Linux and experiment with it. (we only had a few Linux boxes)
Run Prime95 on a box and experiment with the fan settings in the BIOS to keep the box cool while maintaining low noise.
See if third party screen savers break anything on a spare box. This came in handy on a couple of occasions. The dancing pigs screen saver crashed a few of our computers.

Just stop and think "What If".
Try to think outside the box.

 

[CougTek]

You may be bored as f*ck at your job, but at least you don't have some kid 20 minutes out of college driving a spreadsheet and checking up on your rate every 15 minutes. And I'm sure you aren't working with people who are intellectually and emotionally 12 years old either. So count your blessings. And yes I'm jealous! <grin>

We have some immature pricks, but I'm tremendously skilled at crushing someone's self-esteem, so I usually make an example when I have to deal with one of those and the word passes.

Stick with it, Coug. There are far too many good people unemployed.

I don't plan to quit my job and do nothing at home, drinking beer and eating chips. But unless the management agrees to grant me a substantial raise (I did manage to save them a lot more $$$ than what I cost, despite doing so little on average), I'll move to somewhere else where there will be more action.

Just stop and think "What If".
Try to think outside the box.

I've been doing that a lot too during the past eight months. I keep doing it too. For instance, yesterday, I've spent an hour or two (after I woke up from my nap) comparing containerized datacenters from Emerson and AST Modular for potential customers in remote locations. I'd love to implement one of those. Won't happen anytime soon though. Does it have any practical application in what I presently do? Absolutely not.

I've also installed a lot of Linux distro in virtual machines, configured a dozen ESXi 5.1, 5.5.0 and recently an ESXi 5.1.2 servers (we now have a bunch of spare, mainly late 2009 stuff). Since I'll be re-doing the network cable management in our main racks next week, I might also start creating a few VLAN to segregate the traffic. Right now, everything is on the same IP address segment (except the VoIP). We have less than 15 spare addresses remaining. Did I say that the cable management and VLAN ideas were things I've had to promote and push so they materialize?

 

[Mercutio]

One of my former students does IT Support for PCs someplace really big and really recognizable. He has to account for his time in SIX MINUTE increments and has a mandatory incident productivity requirement that does not vary.
When he started there were 20 guys on staff in his role. Now there are five. And that productivity requirement? If they don't have work, say because it's a national holiday and there's no one there complaining about stuff, they go around and purposefully break things so they can write incidents on and fix them. That's a special place in hell if you ask me.

My job has a lot of built-in unstructured time. That means I can screw around on the web if I want or I can spend some time learning about something new. I do both and I think it's fantastic that my job works that way. I'm grateful for it, even if I know I could go someplace else and probably make twice the money I'm making now.

 

[Howell]

Like others, I haven't had work hours downtime in 2.5 years. In between the break/fix, project implementation, and fixing things that were implemented incorrectly. I've also a few projects going on outside of work hours. Its always a matter of deciding what thing is not as urgent as the other urgent things.

 

[ddrueding]

I usually end up with 8 meetings a week, and 10-15 incidents that require an immediate response. The rest of my time is spent trying to keep up with unscheduled projects. Building replacement workstations, redesigning systems (vLANs, IP space, wireless networks, unique computing challenges, etc).

 

[Stereodude]

My current job doesn't have much free time. My previous job did. I got in a lot of surfing (web) and planning of non work related projects. Like things I wanted to do in my spare time. Building speakers, home improvement projects, new PC builds, etc.

Do you have to keep busy / look busy or does no one care as long as your work gets done?

 

[CougTek]

Do you have to keep busy / look busy or does no one care as long as your work gets done?

More like option #2.