Corporate World vs. Consulting World, pt. 1
Getting insinuated into the process of a new workplace is always interesting. Sometimes it's easy. Sometimes it takes a while. Sometimes it just doesn't happen, and you remain a little island in your cube throughout your tenure. Nice one, Milton. Here's your stapler back. Luckily for Your Working Boy, my most recent transition has been quite smooth. I feel my most comfortable of any job since 2000. And that's quite a few J-O-B-S, sister.
Still, one area of rough sailing has been moving from a medium-to-large corporate to a small-to-medium consulting environment.
In the corporate world, the daily "speed of life" slows to nearly minus-infinity. Exceptions exist, but most corporate IT departments just seem to drift along with the current. Executive decisions arrive with astounding glaciality (note: not a real word), and response to those decisions is executed at half that speed. Over schedule? Over budget? Big deal. Other departments/branches/divisions carry us when we're off. "We're paying for you, so we better keep you nominally busy into the next decade" seems to be a prevailing attitude. As a result, it's easy to get lazy, rely on heavy estimate-padding, push development a little into planned QA time. Of course some people must always jockey for political position, which complicates things a hundred-fold. And in general, career growth pressure is actually negative. I remember reading Donna D. describe in a previous post that I can't find right now the piss-poor (my words, not hers) attitude some workers develop about picking up new skills on their own.
But in the consulting world, the focus on billable hours drives it the other direction. You NEED to get massive quantities of work done, but time is a scarce commodity, as is one's focus. You are split between projects, requiring you not only to budget yourself carefully but to max out your mental abilities keeping things straight between them all. Deadlines mean more because missing them means money directly out of the bottom-line. Reduced size = reduced politics = reduced focus on unimportant junk. A more team-oriented mentality pervades. And you get career growth simply by virtue of the fact that every client needs something a little different; there's always a new 3rd party interface or library to learn.
At least, this is my experience. Can you tell which I prefer? :?)
More on this later. Right now, I've got documents to edit...
Actually, the problem I describe
is ABSOLUTELY a problem in the culture of the organization, not the individual. Plenty of dysfunctional organizations exist that employ motivated and talented individuals, but never utilize them or foster their potential. This, in my experience, is Corporate America. In the UK, YMMV. But if you've NEVER worked in an environment that failed to promote professional growth, got bogged down in bureaucracy, avoided change when it should have embraced it, then you've been incredibly lucky in finding rewarding positions in forward-thinking organizations, private and public. Me, not so much. So, count your blessings.
Honestly, I don't perceive things as black and white as I think you're taking me. I'm also perfectly aware that this entry is somewhat of an over-generalization. The problem is, it also happens to pretty closely match my experiences as a software developer in the corporate world. In point of fact, the situation you describe where the laziness comes from the top down is exactly why I left my last job. It's a syndrome I've observed in other jobs. Organizations like this render the individual powerless. And I don't like feeling powerless.
I would paraphrase myself more like this: it looked like the grass was greener on the other side, so I hopped the fence. And what I found was that it actually is greener--at least to my eyes.
But everyone else has their own fence to look over, and their own grass to examine.
Still, I stand by many of the assertions that I actually made. There's a reason "Dilbert" sells calendars. I'm not just making this stuff up. And if you're fortunate enough not to "get Dilbert", then like I say: consider yourself lucky.
Corporate Glaciality
Glaciality. I don't care if it's not a real word, I like it.
While I am in general agreement with many of Gordy's points, I also know where Andy is coming from. I've worked in many a corporate shop, and while not every company is the same, many (most?) operate at a plodding pace. Worse, there are often two layers of drag: one at the business level (characterized by politics, meetings, overly deep organization hierarchies, micro management, meetings, meetings, meetings...) and one at the IT level (characterized by heavyweight processes, high walled bureaucratic kingdoms built by network and database admin groups, forms to fill out, metrics, micromanagement, meetings).
You have to learn to synch up with the pace, or you'll always feel like you're banging your head against the wall. You may hate meetings, but you better get used to attending lots of them. You may think the right decision is clear, but you better get used to waiting for about twenty people to weigh in before the decision is made. One of the most amazing phenomena is the waiting weeks to make a decision, then setting an insane deadline, and then changing the rules of the game in the middle, followed by the setting of an even more insane deadline).
By contrast, in a consulting organization, which Andy describes, you have the luxury that your organization is removed from the things that tend to weigh down large organizations. Often, that's one of the reasons that a large corporatation brings in a consultancy: they can work outside of the normal day-to-day grind/whirlwind. In addition, since the large company is aware that the consultants are paid by the hour, expediency is more common. Working in a consulting shop, your job is to deliver, and there are multiple projects and clients--if one stalls, you can swap into another. In a good consulting shop, there is also a healthy software engineering culture--a rarity these days in corporations.
Gordy's example of a government-funded research facility sounds like a different setup than one might encounter in the back office of an insurance, telephone, or banking company, for instance.
FWIW, I agree with Gordy that there is no excuse for being lazy (but I didn't interpret Andy's original post in the way that Gordy has). I also agree with Andy that organizations can to a large extent "render the individual powerless."
Dan
being lazy
I dont know what Telecom companies are like in the UK Gary but I can guarantee you that as a President of a Telecom corporation that deals with every major Telco such as MCI, Qwest, Verizon, XO, and more in the USA, a good 80% of the telecom workers in the US are essentially so lazy and incompetent almost nothing gets done, ever. They are worthless and should all be unemployed. Your basic illegal alien who works in the back of kitchens works 100 times harder. And these people are getting 35-75K per year for basically doing nothing. 10% is somewhat competent but still moving along at a snails pace. The remaining 10% actually does their job and hustles throughout the workday, but even 10% may be a high number.
What an incredibly dichotomous view
What an incredibly dichotomous view of the world.
Permit me to paraphrase.
If you choose workstyle A you become a lazy son-of-a-bitch; if you choose workstyle B you become a wonderfully-driven, contantly-learning person.
Sorry, I just don't buy it.
I have worked in the public sector development (UK, government research establishment) and private sector development (UK, NZ, military, telecoms, consultancy).
In all organisations I have (personally) felt motivated to learn new techniques and technologies on an ongoing basis. I do not sit around and await the pontifications of those above me. I see what needs to be done and I get on with it.
The problem that you describe is more a problem in the individual than in the culture of the organisations that they are in.
I would suggest, however, that certain organisations, over time, attract those individuals that suit the organisation's culture. So, eventually, it looks as if the organisation is making people lazy when, in fact, it is the organisation's staff that have created a lazy organisation.
There is a general view, particularly evident in the US, that public sector employees are lazy.
Nonsense!
I have yet to find the same depth of comittment, knowledge and skill as I did in my first job at a UK, government-funded research facility. The staff were fully comitted to providing a great service to their customers, the universities, and regularly took part in their research activities. The body of knowledge held by the developers maintaining and enhancing their experimental control and acquisition systems was enormous. I doubt that many commercial organisations would be able to boast the same.
So, it isn't black and white out there. There is a LOT of gray inbetween. Laziness comes from individuals, not their employing organisations. It is only where laziness is permitted to take root that a self-fulfuilling prophecy takes over and the organisations become lazy themselves.
Having said ALL of the above, I must acknowledge that I have avoided working in generic IT companies so far. Compared to writing and testing software for embedded systems, generic IT seems distant and dull.