Posted by octopusprime on November 24, 2004, at 21:26:35
In reply to Re: work » octopusprime, posted by Gabbix2 on November 24, 2004, at 20:56:08
i work in the software industry.
i got my first "real" job out of university as a almost as a fluke (i wanted a job in software, but i had never really thought about my current career path). i was unemployed for nine months (and seriously depressed) before i got my first big job.
i do have a bachelors (in math) and i worked in various occupations in the computer industry while i was in school. my school had what you in the usa call an internship program where we could do paid internships at various places. it was very useful. plus you got to quit after four months. :) i like to quit jobs.every job i have held in software industry was full of people that were unproductive, incompetent, or actively screwing things up. i found that for every one useful person in a company, there were 5-10 deadwood. so there's room for everybody in software :) as long as you can talk a good game and present yourself well during a job interview. generally bosses expect technical people to be eccentric to some extent, work with that.
sometimes deadlines and hours are a pain (ie you "have" to work long hours). i personally do not work overtime for more than a week or two at a stretch, and i take compensatory time off immediately (maybe not a full day, but i will work shorter days after working long days).
software jobs are lousy if you are bad at boundaries. i'm very good at saying "i've had enough i am going home", and i'm very good at saying "no i cannot do unrealistic task X in unrealistic deadline". when i say those things, i mean them. conversely, if i say i'm going to get something done, i get something done, whether i want to or not. fortunately i can just do what i think is a last-minute crappy job and my boss doesn't notice. :) i do get a lot of respect from my boss, and i'm good at what i do (notwithstanding my crappy effort on things when i'm in a bad mood).
anyway i have had many a day where i sat slack jawed at a monitor doing nothing. and i have had days where i ran around like a chicken with my head cut off. i think the industry itself feeds off bipolar behaviour, which is why the jobs are simultaneously great and terrible for me. sometimes i feel like bad behaviour on my part is rewarded :)
anyway i know fallsfall worked in software and she would have a very different take on this subject. i hate to speak for her though. like i said before though, i have a relatively mild case that responds pretty well to medication, and i also have hypomanic swings that help to get things done. so your mileage may vary, caveat emptor, etc.
poster:octopusprime
thread:419846
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20041122/msgs/419926.html