I'm retiring due to health reasons. AMA

[GloryDayz]

I've seen a few retirement parties in IT, we had a virtual one for myself ~6 months ago, but with the virtual nature of our work it's become more rare. It's not a bad thing IMO, I was 100% telework for many many years before it became popular across the larger industry. The engineers who worked under me in my organization were spread all over the country and globe, so office space was pretty-much a waste of space since our recurring meetings were 99% virtual, and over time we were able to cut travel down to crisis-only situations. I enjoyed my virtual during work party, and know my family and dogs really benefitted from me being home unless I needed to travel.

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by GloryDayz

I've seen a few retirement parties in IT, we had a virtual one for myself ~6 months ago, but with the virtual nature of our work it's become more rare. It's not a bad thing IMO, I was 100% telework for many many years before it became popular across the larger industry. The engineers who worked under me in my organization were spread all over the country and globe, so office space was pretty-much a waste of space since our recurring meetings were 99% virtual, and over time we were able to cut travel down to crisis-only situations. I enjoyed my virtual during work party, and know my family and dogs really benefitted from me being home unless I needed to travel.

I worked remotely from 2013 when I finished working for the military. I was tired as **** with spending 80 minute commute back and forth. Another 30 minutes getting in and out of security.

[GloryDayz]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

I worked remotely from 2013 when I finished working for the military. I was tired as **** with spending 80 minute commute back and forth. Another 30 minutes getting in and out of security.

That's why I'm 100000000000000% down with the movement that is "Telework" if your job allows it. Lots of luddites disagree, but **** IT people going into the office, it's just not needed.

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by GloryDayz

That's why I'm 100000000000000% down with the movement that is "Telework" if your job allows it. Lots of luddites disagree, but **** IT people going into the office, it's just not needed.

Its just ridiculous. Especially I.T. (except desktop and hardware jobs) there is no reason to come into the office. Productivity issues? That's an office issue, not your well paid I.T. staff.

I guarantee you once a tech gets to our level, he's already knows how to be self-motivated, a "go-getter". You can only demotivate them.

[GloryDayz]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

Its just ridiculous. Especially I.T. (except desktop and hardware jobs) there is no reason to come into the office. Productivity issues? That's an office issue, not your well paid I.T. staff.

I guarantee you once a tech gets to our level, he's already knows how to be self-motivated, a "go-getter". You can only demotivate them.

Yep, and I'll add that being at the office offers WAAAAAAAAAAY too many opportunities to keep your best and brightest from staying focused. Not that email and applications like Teams isn't a concentration killer, but people interrupting your day is just silly.

[ptlyon]

Originally Posted by GloryDayz

Yep, and I'll add that being at the office offers WAAAAAAAAAAY too many opportunities to keep your best and brightest from staying focused. Not that email and applications like Teams isn't a concentration killer, but people interrupting your day is just silly.

There's always the Jerry springer show caveat tho

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by GloryDayz

Yep, and I'll add that being at the office offers WAAAAAAAAAAY too many opportunities to keep your best and brightest from staying focused. Not that email and applications like Teams isn't a concentration killer, but people interrupting your day is just silly.

I've always helped the more junior techs with issues and advice. Even when it wasn't in my role. Techs helped me on the way up, so its my time to give back. Many on here reached out to me over the years for advice or help.

I would get involved in their issue, if needed. I'd get focused and turn around and half the day was gone but got the issue resolved. My bosses noticed for sure. It was on on every yearly evaluation. When I asked do you want to change? A quick no was always the response, just be aware. they have to put something negative on those evaluations.

[GloryDayz]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

I've always helped the more junior techs with issues and advice. Even when it wasn't in my role. Techs helped me on the way up, so its my time to give back. Many on here reached out to me over the years for advice or help.

I would get involved in their issue, if needed. I'd get focused and turn around and half the day was gone but got the issue resolved. My bosses noticed for sure. It was on on every yearly evaluation. When I asked do you want to change? A quick no was always the response, just be aware. they have to put something negative on those evaluations.

And that's another wonderful thing about Telework, it makes those things much less difficult to do. Granted it can get abused, and sometimes does, but on balance it's easy to perform after hours work when all you have to do, or my people did, is walk back down to the home office.

And the pretty-much 24x7 availability network engineers seem to have (and get paid well for) makes easy of "getting in" much less stressful.

[BryanBusby]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

I've always helped the more junior techs with issues and advice. Even when it wasn't in my role. Techs helped me on the way up, so its my time to give back. Many on here reached out to me over the years for advice or help.

I would get involved in their issue, if needed. I'd get focused and turn around and half the day was gone but got the issue resolved. My bosses noticed for sure. It was on on every yearly evaluation. When I asked do you want to change? A quick no was always the response, just be aware. they have to put something negative on those evaluations.

That's the focus I have even though I did a lot of the heavy lifting myself to move up.

We onboarded a Help Desk Tech last fall and he was fortunate enough to be paired with me coming in. I've always been an open book when it comes to my knowledge and techniques and processes and encourage people to steal it for themselves and run with it.

Kid was smart enough to do exactly that so it was a pleasure to see him be promoted into my old role when I got moved up into a senior position.

Never understood the ones that hoard everything.

[Mosbonian]

Originally Posted by GloryDayz

Yep, and I'll add that being at the office offers WAAAAAAAAAAY too many opportunities to keep your best and brightest from staying focused. Not that email and applications like Teams isn't a concentration killer, but people interrupting your day is just silly.

I am going to disagree for some jobs in the market...less of an IT thing than back office jobs.

There were some people who became less focused and less productive when working at home. I had one of my team members who was working another job during the day while she was supposed to be working for our company. Her work suffered and when I would have discussions about her drop in performance she would blame everyone and everything else.

All in all it really is based on the associates work habits...most who work hard at work will also work hard at home. But not in every case

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by Mosbonian

I am going to disagree for some jobs in the market...less of an IT thing than back office jobs.

There were some people who became less focused and less productive when working at home. I had one of my team members who was working another job during the day while she was supposed to be working for our company. Her work suffered and when I would have discussions about her drop in performance she would blame everyone and everything else.

All in all it really is based on the associates work habits...most who work hard at work will also work hard at home. But not in every case

Ohh I agree. I was mainly talking about the upper level I.T. guys are self-motivated. That's how they got there and stay there. It's an inert trait to be successful at that level.

Your average office worker probably needs to be watched for performance issues. They can get demotivated for so many reasons. Employees can slack off from time to time and a supervisor talk usually clears it up. Or puts them on notice of unsatisfactory performance.

[GloryDayz]

Originally Posted by Mosbonian

I am going to disagree for some jobs in the market...less of an IT thing than back office jobs.

There were some people who became less focused and less productive when working at home. I had one of my team members who was working another job during the day while she was supposed to be working for our company. Her work suffered and when I would have discussions about her drop in performance she would blame everyone and everything else.

All in all it really is based on the associates work habits...most who work hard at work will also work hard at home. But not in every case

I know the scenario well, but I used to tell the bosses and supervisors under me that it's partly up to them to find these issues and solve them by assigning work. It's never that easy, but the bosses know who's slacking and who's not, and in our case we let people know that work was going to assigned fairly, documented, quality reviews performed, and people below the curve would be remediated - to include terminating Telework.

But I was lucky, network engineers, especially the WAN folks, aren't usually too much of a problem when it comes to these sorts of things.