Love or Hate your job?

[oalcock]

Do you love or hate your job?

 

I absolutley love my job, work for computer services for the local government, made lots of friends within the organisation and get involved with most of the mainstream systems. Also we work on a flexi time system which can give us an extra day off per month if we work and extra 25 minutes a day which I tend to do anyway. I used to be in a job which was average, it wasn't bad but it wasn't good as the servers and organisation of the system was poor and I feel this can really pee you off during your working day. What are your views on your workplace itself? I sometimes may take my work place for granted you see and just wanted to know what other work places were like....

[Stuart_C]

The obvious answer is that it varies and depends on the day.

 

For instance I love playing with new shiney things (Just been trying to break the new photocopiers, mmmm network scanners....). I hate having to repeat myself over and over again or turn printers on becase people struggle with the concept of switching them off.

 

On the whole I have a lot of fun and there are worse places to work.

[synaesthesia]

Love my job. Not entirely sure why, but when I started in education I just liked dealing with teachers (!) and the kids. Yeah there's some right plonkers and some right gits around, but every "thank you" is worth so much at the end of the day. I don't like having to work with red tape but it's a situation we all have to put up with and it's our job to make it all work for the kids.

[aerospacemango]

I LOVE my job!

 

I've been here 3 years, and not a day goes past where I don't think "I'm lucky to be doing something I Love!"

 

However, I'm looking to move to Northants, from Suffolk, so I will inevitably be leaving

 

That will be really hard.....

[webman]

Mixed feelings. I do enjoy certain aspects of it, but there are other parts I can quite happily do without. As such, I'm always on the lookout for new opportunities elsewhere

[Millgate]

Love it. I love new technology and being in my job means i get to deal with it all! I speak to and meet new people all the time as well as getting out the office to go for client meetings.

 

Happy days

[burgemaster]

I do love my job and im happy to go to work every day, but this last year has been very challenging, the school has litterally come to a standstill, there is no money for new computers or equipment let alone embraising exciting new technologies.

 

This summer we have had nothing to do. I have exhausted every cheap/free project i can think of (and others edugeek members)

On one hand im happy that we have everything working perfectly and proud of the current IT in the school, but with everything working so well it brings boredom!

 

Have any other schools reached the point when EVERYTHING is completed in their helpdesk on a dialy basis?

Edited August 18, 2011 by burgemaster

[mdrabble]

Have to say I love my job too. I have been doing this job since I was 17 (at my old school) and *cough* years later I still love it. No day is the same, new problems to solves etc..... could we say the say if working in a private company?

[oalcock]

I did the same when I left school at my school for a year, but found that the staff saw me as a pupil still, and found the kids to have less respect for me knowing that I was once one of them.

[JonWPS]

I enjoy it. I'm a one-man-band so obviously it can be a struggle sometimes to keep all the plates spinning at the same time, but as mentioned above no two days are ever the same, and whilst this summer is proving exceptionally manic, most of that is down to new projects at the school, and it's nice to think I'm playing a part in putting these things in place. Always nice to see some tangible improvements.

[russdev]

Different situation as work for Impero but the right move. I loved working at my old place but moving to Impero has brought different challenges and made life less stressful. I was just talking to one of the directors. Problem with Network Management is that you are working in evenings as need to work on system when no one on it etc. So you end not switching off however I get chance in evening to switch off from day and certainly lot healthier for it..

[dayzd]

I'd rather not be the first person to post negative comments about their job, but at the moment I'm gonna have to say I'm far closer to hating my job than loving it.

 

The job itself isn't the majority of the problem, though. Sure, they day to day is easy (but kinda dull) as our system works relatively well, but the most other aspects have me looking elsewhere.

 

We've undergone a lot of changes since our Head, Deputy Head and subsequently SMT arrangement changed a couple of years ago, including:

• Tons of new policies and strategies
  
• Changes to staff responsibilities
  
• New expectations on levels of performance, turnaround times and out-of-hours availability
  
• No job description alterations or financial remuneration, despite the above
  

 

In addition to that, my employer also offers:

• Almost zero training (despite numerous new technologies being introduced since I've been here)
  
• Outsourced support contracts on new systems (such as VoIP equipment) (so [as above] training is not required/offered), but the in-house technical team will still be responsible for and pressured to resolve any and all issues with said systems
  
• Questionable decisions on upgrades and expansions ("Sure, lets replace half a dozen working whiteboards so the classrooms have uniform kit. Yeah, we'll outsource the website despite having web-competent staff in-house who've been doing the job perfectly well for the last 5 years. What's that? You'd like us to replace the member of your team that just died? Sorry, we can't afford to do that.")
  
• The ability to make technical decisions on expansion and purchases without even mentioning it in passing to the in-house technical team - subsequently giving them more work when it turns out what has been bought/arranged/whatever isn't the best/most compatible solution for the schools needs.
  
• Little support when encouraging difficult staff to follow simple, basic procedures, despite them being demonstrated and explained numerous times ("You know that's what Mr X is like. You'll just have to bend the rules a bit.")
  

 

Plus a whole host of other day-to-day, good-will-sapping ideas, behaviours and person management strategies.

It's not just me though: morale here is low and we've had a lot of people leaving this summer.

 

Somehow our management appear to have forgotten when you make big management/structure changes, you're guaranteed a drop in morale and enthusiasm before it picks up again once your changes have had chance to make an effect.

In this place they just seem to keep making change after change after change, with no recovery time in between...

 

Don't get me wrong, I know I'm lucky to have a job that is relatively secure (until someone suggests outsourcing support completely...), that I can live on (really only just, however) and doesn't overlap into my personal life (I'm out the door by 4 and that's it), but there are a lot more negatives than positives in my view.

 

...Which make it hard to really enjoy my job.

 

*Disclaimer - Not having the greatest week*

Edited August 18, 2011 by dayzd
Additional points

[witch]

To be fair, dayzd, you are not the first and in fact your post is an expanded version of mine - as you say, it is the carp around the job that is the problem, not the job itself

[dezt]

I'd say love it, since the new investment in infrastructure and servers things have become a lot more interesting. Looking at new projects for next year already, talk of ipad's being introduced, new head coming into the school as well so all in all everything is moving forward, very quickly as well.

 

I never have a day where i'm not doing anything, when things are running fine i'm always looking at ways we can improve the running of things.

[elsiegee40]

I'm leaving at Christmas... 'nuff said.

[featured_spectre]

I'm leaving in September...nuff said. Lol

[MatthewL]

Like the job some days, hate the place.

 

Would love to go and work for my local council, lots of money been invested and everything works and they have invested and done things right not like us!