What do you do for work, anandtech offtopic folks?

[jameny5]

This is the best blog on Tapatalk right now! Don't give them any "real" information on your professions. The witty repartee is funny...

 

[Zeze]

What does an IT consultant mean? What do you do? Systems admin? Network? DBA? Dev?

Anything.

We have developers, data scientists, project managers, scrum masters, business analysts, architects, etc.

Big companies hire consultants by thousands.

 

[Red Squirrel]

My city is big on hiring consultants for every little thing. Never really got the point of it when you can use in house experts. I guess it's some BS liability thing, where they can say they used outside advice so they can't claim responsibility if it goes wrong. They never actually listen to the advice though.

 

[Zeze]

My city is big on hiring consultants for every little thing. Never really got the point of it when you can use in house experts. I guess it's some BS liability thing, where they can say they used outside advice so they can't claim responsibility if it goes wrong. They never actually listen to the advice though.

If that's real that's pretty awful in your company.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yeah funny thing is they will get consultants on the same thing multiple times too, but never follow through. They spent over half a million dollars on consultants just to decide if they should renovate an arena or not which never happened. Or when they do follow through they just do their own thing anyway. It's one of the reasons our taxes are so high as they are greatly in debt due to bad spending.

Ironicly, they got a consultant on that too once. I forget what the recommendations were, but they didn't follow any of the suggestions lol.

New council now though, so we'll see if they fix some of this stuff. Still early to tell.

 

[FirNaTine]

Does the fun usually turn into routine for you guys? When i was younger I thought about doing firefighter/paramedic or police officer part time so i can do something fun and exciting. As a hospital pharmacist, the only fun i get is when someone goes into cardiac arrest. And even that gets mundane...

Yes and no. Some things become routine, but each house fire presents unique challenges, auto extrication also. You apply the same concepts and range of techniques, but it is an uncontrolled environment, so never completely the same. But mixed in with that you get false alarms, the smoke coming from the house is burned up food, the car accident is only minor, etc.

On the medical side, it does become somewhat more routine, as it's a bit more protocol driven. But, even with that you have to watch for the outliers/unusual cases that a standard protocol might not be right for. I am usually assigned to one station, but I have the opportunity to work relief OT in any station in our jurisdiction. That's 30+ stations with a mix of geography and population characteristics that can tend towards different call types. That really helps, as it helps keep me from getting complacent

Not sure exactly where you live, but many rural and suburban areas have volunteer programs, if you are looking to try it out. And many departments (even career) also offer ride along observer programs. I would be thrilled to have a pharmacist come ride with us at work. One of the hospitals in our area started using clinical pharmacists in the ED, and even coming back to help teach our Con Ed classes (we do it all in house, but nationally certified). It's nice to have a subject matter expert come in, that actually knows how we work, and not just what they see on TV When we added vitamin K for as alternative pain control and for ExDS, they came and went over the range of doses and the various effects (and where to avoid if we can). They had some questions for us about how we operate, so they could tailor the presentation. You might find a similar hook up where you are.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

My city is big on hiring consultants for every little thing. Never really got the point of it when you can use in house experts. I guess it's some BS liability thing, where they can say they used outside advice so they can't claim responsibility if it goes wrong. They never actually listen to the advice though.

Most of the time, the in-house “expertise” sucks. I’ve done consulting for years and I’ve never seen a properly implemented SharePoint environment. They’ve ranged from “close, but no cigar” to “my 9 year-old nephew could’ve done this work.”

The only properly implemented SharePoint environment I’ve ever seen was at companies I worked at and I designed and built it myself.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Most of the time, the in-house “expertise” sucks. I’ve done consulting for years and I’ve never seen a properly implemented SharePoint environment. They’ve ranged from “close, but no cigar” to “my 9 year-old nephew could’ve done this work.”

The only properly implemented SharePoint environment I’ve ever seen was at companies I worked at and I designed and built it myself.

Because every company lives and breathes SharePoint.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Because every company lives and breathes SharePoint.

Oh, so if you spend tens of thousands of dollars on SharePoint, it doesn’t really matter if you fuck it up, leave gaping security holes, etc, because after all, your company “doesn’t live and breathe SharePoint”? Got it!

Fortunately, I get paid obscene amounts of money to clean up other people’s messes so I guess I should be thankful for all the companies out there who pinched pennies and half-assed their way through it and in the process, set me up to make a lot of money. :thumbsup:

 

[IronWing]

Oh, so if you spend tens of thousands of dollars on SharePoint, it doesn’t really matter if you fuck it up, leave gaping security holes, etc, because after all, your company “doesn’t live and breathe SharePoint”? Got it!

Fortunately, I get paid obscene amounts of money to clean up other people’s messes so I guess I should be thankful for all the companies out there who pinched pennies and half-assed their way through it and in the process, set me up to make a lot of money. :thumbsup:

I'm glad you can make a living doing what your doing and it sounds like you're good at it, seriously, but I have never seen a reasonable use case for sharepoint. It's a very complex solution forever in search of a problem. My company jumps in and jumps out of sharepoint in an infuriating fashion. Everything they try to do in sharepoint could be more easily accomplished if they would take a few moments to teach employees how to use the file and folder sharing built into the operating system.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I'm glad you can make a living doing what your doing and it sounds like you're good at it, seriously, but I have never seen a reasonable use case for sharepoint. It's a very complex solution forever in search of a problem. My company jumps in and jumps out of sharepoint in an infuriating fashion. Everything they try to do in sharepoint could be more easily accomplished if they would take a few moments to teach employees how to use the file and folder sharing built into the operating system.

There are many valid use cases for SharePoint. The main thing with SharePoint is that it is a jack of all trades and master of none; there are probably better solutions for each individual capability but no single solution which has all the features. Even on O365, much of Teams and OneDrive use SharePoint.

You’re right that it is an extremely complex product and very hard to install and implement correctly. That’s why consultants are generally used and really should be. I learned SP from a consultant who installed it in the organization I worked at many years ago and I just kept elevating my skill set and jumped to consulting. I do more than SharePoint, but SP is my main skill especially on-premise stuff.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Oh, so if you spend tens of thousands of dollars on SharePoint, it doesn’t really matter if you fuck it up, leave gaping security holes, etc, because after all, your company “doesn’t live and breathe SharePoint”? Got it!

Fortunately, I get paid obscene amounts of money to clean up other people’s messes so I guess I should be thankful for all the companies out there who pinched pennies and half-assed their way through it and in the process, set me up to make a lot of money. :thumbsup:

Not everyone uses SharePoint. In fact, the majority don't.

 

[rh71]

My wife was part of a small in-house IT team for a financial firm and she'd be the first to admit she doesn't know everything so they used outside consultants for many things, especially migrations. The thing that shocked me the most was how much consulting companies charged and how inefficient and sometimes disorganized the implementation was. Here you are paying hundreds of thousands to over a million for something (and they've used a few companies for various projects) and you get back what any shop could deliver as a matter of course. Sometimes it was like an experimental first-go for them. Bottom line, you don't always get what you pay for. The expertise out there within the many consulting companies is apparently spread thin sometimes. I've worked for a couple big corporations now and I see it myself too - the talent range is pretty large... from "that guy knows his shit" to "wow I'm embarrassed he's my peer and he should never be client-facing, ever".

The primary reason my wife quit was because of the impending shit-show the new CTO decided to drive toward with choosing inferior technology (and hardware) using consultants who made poor decisions - having anyone but the users in mind. The cost was well over a mil. This guy wanted to make some kind of impression and we're sure he will. The consultants - what do they care as long as they get paid?

 

[woodman1999]

Private Equity Account Manager at a Fund Administrator.

 

[purbeast0]

Speaking of Sharepoint, I can't believe how big it is. It's the worst CMS I've ever used.

 

[herm0016]

share point sucks.

I spent 7 years working in the oil fields running wireline in the US and Australia, including offshore. now i sit in an office and tell other people where to go and make billing documents.

sucks. but i'm home and get paid ok and can work from home whenever i want because my boss is almost never in the office herself. she does work an unbelievable number of hours though. I find that if you work too much, its your fault for always "getting it done" and never saying that you should have another person on the team.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

My wife was part of a small in-house IT team for a financial firm and she'd be the first to admit she doesn't know everything so they used outside consultants for many things, especially migrations. The thing that shocked me the most was how much consulting companies charged and how inefficient and sometimes disorganized the implementation was. Here you are paying hundreds of thousands to over a million for something (and they've used a few companies for various projects) and you get back what any shop could deliver as a matter of course. Sometimes it was like an experimental first-go for them. Bottom line, you don't always get what you pay for. The expertise out there within the many consulting companies is apparently spread thin sometimes. I've worked for a couple big corporations now and I see it myself too - the talent range is pretty large... from "that guy knows his shit" to "wow I'm embarrassed he's my peer and he should never be client-facing, ever".

High turnover in consulting in general (a lot of times at least).

That means typically the good people leave over time - either that or they move up in the ranks (Stuff like the Partner level where they don't do any of the actual work).

They will hire smart kids straight of college and just toss them in and expect them to magically learn shit but know not to look stupid in front of the client.


Consulting is VERY much a "You get what you pay for" IMO. The problem? People (ESPECIALLY GOVERNMENT) tend to go with the cheapest option presuming they can all do the same thing. They can't.

What needs to change in consulting is to stop treating their employees like shit. Then the turnover would go down. Then they would retain the best and the brightest instead of giving them over to industry jobs that are much more realistic with expectations.

 

[BoomerD]

I think I found a job to apply for...

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/An-experimental-Swedish-art-project-will-pay-you-13670047.php

Pay isn't great, (about $30,000/annual) but added to my current retirement...I'd do just fine...and with global warming, Sweden should be tropical in a couple of years...right?

 

[highland145]

I think I found a job to apply for...

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/An-experimental-Swedish-art-project-will-pay-you-13670047.php

Pay isn't great, (about $30,000/annual) but added to my current retirement...I'd do just fine...and with global warming, Sweden should be tropical in a couple of years...right?

2026 we all might be dead by then.

 

[BoomerD]

2026 we all might be dead by then.

Speak fer yerself...

 

[sdifox]

2026 we all might be dead by then.

... It's 2019 dude... 2026 is not that far away.

 

[highland145]

... It's 2019 dude... 2026 is not that far away.

You know Boomer's geriatric, right?

 

[sdifox]

You know Boomer's geriatric, right?

Old bastards don't die easily.

 

[highland145]

Old bastards don't die easily.

Twins?

 

[lxskllr]

I think I found a job to apply for...

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/An-experimental-Swedish-art-project-will-pay-you-13670047.php

Pay isn't great, (about $30,000/annual) but added to my current retirement...I'd do just fine...and with global warming, Sweden should be tropical in a couple of years...right?

$30k/year AND get to live in Sweden?! Sign me up! Kind of southerly in Sweden, but I'd be close to Swedish Match. Rather be in the north, but you can't have everything.