> Somehow, being threatened, harassed and bullied until I cave in and give 
> the customer what they want for free doesn't strike me as my idea of a fun 
> job.

Don't you have commercial/sales guys who sort out the price of things?  If 
I'm with a customer and they start talking about costs I just tell them I 
only do the Engineering work and they'll have to speak to X to sort out the 
price :-)

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scott wrote:
>> I, on the other hand, consider it reasonable to be told when I'm 
>> supposed to be doing, rather than trying to guess.
> 
> You don't guess, you decide intelligently what to do.  Imagine if 
> everyone in your company had the same outlook, then the guy at the very 
> top would need to decide exactly what each single person in the company 
> should be doing :-)

At one extreme, you say "do whatever the hell you want", and not much 
happens. At the other extreme, you have people micromanaging your time, 
telling you how to do every minute detail. Basically, if my boss has to 
tell me how to implement each line of code, it would be vastly quicker 
for him to just implement it himself.

There has to be a happy medium somewhere in the middle.

What I am saying is that I expect a little bit more guidence than "go 
build a stock control system. Make it control stock." I don't think 
that's unreasonable.

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> >> I've told you what I earn. I had no idea what anybody else earns...
> >
> > I think last time you posted your salary everybody told you that sort of
> > job should be paid way more.
>
> "way more" is pretty vague. This thing gives me hard numbers. Sure,
> probably somewhat arbitrary numbers, but numbers none the less.
>




> >> Personally, I prefer knowing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing.
> >
> > Most managers would prefer an employee who can think for themselves
> > rather than needing to have everything explained to them like a baby.
>
> I, on the other hand, consider it reasonable to be told when I'm
> supposed to be doing, rather than trying to guess. I'm not a mind reader.

You should be told what you are to do in your job description.

Stephen

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> At one extreme, you say "do whatever the hell you want", and not much 
> happens.

Anyone with half a brain would realise that "do whatever the hell you want" 
actually meant "do whatever you want to ensure our IT system is as good as 
possible" (assuming your job was as IT guy or whatever).  If really nothing 
got done then you would be fired.  A decent employee would maybe start by 
questioning other staff (both senior and junior) about the existing IT 
system, checking out the current equipment, planning any improvements they 
thought necessary, etc.  You have to realise that a lot of jobs (and 
managers) do not expect to have to tell you in detail what to do, you should 
be able to just get on with it, and that is seen as a good quality 
everywhere I've worked.

For example, shortly after I started working my manager told me he wanted me 
to make a system to measure the amount of optical distortion caused by 
pressing on a LCD screen, so we could compare different technology 
accurately and not just judge it "by eye".  That's all he told me.  Of 
course once I'd figured out what I thought was the best way to do it I ran 
it past him and got approval to purchase some equipment, but he didn't tell 
me exactly what to do, that's not his job, that's my job.

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Invisible wrote:
> Somehow, being threatened, harassed and bullied until I cave in and give 
> the customer what they want for free doesn't strike me as my idea of a 
> fun job.

It's pretty cool when you realize you actually have all the power. You just 
have to be able to say "Sorry, can't do that" when they ask for six months 
of work next month.

> What are you saying? That the job I'm looking for doesn't exist or 
> something?

I'm saying that programming computers involves tremendous amounts of talking 
to people.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Insanity is a small city on the western
   border of the State of Mind.

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>> Somehow, being threatened, harassed and bullied until I cave in and 
>> give the customer what they want for free doesn't strike me as my idea 
>> of a fun job.
> 
> It's pretty cool when you realize you actually have all the power. You 
> just have to be able to say "Sorry, can't do that" when they ask for six 
> months of work next month.

Yeah, sure. Like anybody is going to take no for an answer...

>> What are you saying? That the job I'm looking for doesn't exist or 
>> something?
> 
> I'm saying that programming computers involves tremendous amounts of 
> talking to people.

Talking to people I can handle. Talking to irate customers, I can't.

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scott wrote:
>> Somehow, being threatened, harassed and bullied until I cave in and 
>> give the customer what they want for free doesn't strike me as my idea 
>> of a fun job.
> 
> Don't you have commercial/sales guys who sort out the price of things?  
> If I'm with a customer and they start talking about costs I just tell 
> them I only do the Engineering work and they'll have to speak to X to 
> sort out the price :-)

Price, timescale, functionality... everybody wants more for less.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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scott wrote:
>> At one extreme, you say "do whatever the hell you want", and not much 
>> happens.
> 
> Anyone with half a brain would realise that "do whatever the hell you 
> want" actually meant "do whatever you want to ensure our IT system is as 
> good as possible" (assuming your job was as IT guy or whatever).

Sure. But if your job is to write programs for end customers, you're 
going to need some idea of what the customer is paying for.

> You have to 
> realise that a lot of jobs (and managers) do not expect to have to tell 
> you in detail what to do, you should be able to just get on with it, and 
> that is seen as a good quality everywhere I've worked.

Sure. But you've got to have some idea what project you're working on, 
right?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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> Sure. But if your job is to write programs for end customers, you're going 
> to need some idea of what the customer is paying for.

Don't know how it works for software, but for Engineering projects the main 
documents we usually get from the customer are the specification document 
and the statement of work.  Between those two it's pretty clear what you 
should be doing, and if not you just ask.

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scott wrote:
>> Sure. But if your job is to write programs for end customers, you're 
>> going to need some idea of what the customer is paying for.
> 
> Don't know how it works for software, but for Engineering projects the 
> main documents we usually get from the customer are the specification 
> document and the statement of work.  Between those two it's pretty clear 
> what you should be doing, and if not you just ask.

Right. That I can handle. ;-)

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