Who do you work for? | The Coffeehouse

ElucidWeb

Who you work for?
Do you like it?
How long have you worked there?
What is your job role?

Describe any experiences that does not divulge customer information that is interesting.

DoomBringer
Doom!

I work for a security company. That is about all I feel fine divulging at the moment.

littleguru
<3 Seattle

I'm studying and working for myself as ISV.

troposphere

jsampsonPC wrote:
I'm freelance, so this info changes

Currently:

Developing for a Christian Ministry in Florida
I love the work I do!
Been developing their application for about 4 years now.
Contracted Developer

After learning that there was another Contracted Developer who was deathly scared of snakes, I "borrowed" a 6.5ft Python and put it on his desk, behind his monitor.

When he came in to do some work a few moments later, he sat down without even noticing this thing behind his desk.

After a couple of seconds, it slid its head out beneath one of his monitors - you should have seen him jump!

You find out someone has a phobia, so you think it's "funny" to torture them? If one of your coworkers had claustrophobia, would you think it's "funny" to lock them in a broom closet?

I hope they fired you immediately for such a thoughtless, irresponsible, childish, cruel prank.

SlackmasterK
I write my OWN blogging engines

ElucidWeb wrote:
Who you work for?
Do you like it?
How long have you worked there?
What is your job role?

Describe any experiences that does not divulge customer information that is interesting.

I work for a B2B healthcare company.
I like it just fine.
I've worked there for about two months.
My job role is a bit complicated. My official title is Help Desk; but unofficially, I'm really the only IT employee in a building of 150 people and 200 workstations. Therefore, I'm their Network admin, Systems admin, software developer, web developer, and a few other positions I can't recall at this point.

As the IT guy, I have a phone system in place that forwards my work extension to my cell phone. However, as a Help Desk guy, my extension's in the Help Desk queue. Therefore, help desk calls get forwarded to my cell.

Since I'm the acting sysadmin / net admin, I have to keep my cell on in case of emergencies. There is an unfortunate coincidence where my shift starts at 9AM and the building two time zones east of me starts at 7 AM. Therefore, I start getting waken up four hours before my shift. Woe is me.

Cybermagellan
Live for nothing, or die for everything

ElucidWeb wrote:
Who you work for?
Do you like it?
How long have you worked there?
What is your job role?

Describe any experiences that does not divulge customer information that is interesting.

AOL, LLC.
Love my job
4 years
Open Client Services QA Technician

if I keep contributing to these kinds of threads I mine as well just link to my real blog...

jsampsonPC
SampsonBlog.com SampsonVideos.com

troposphere wrote:

jsampsonPC wrote:I'm freelance, so this info changes

Currently:

Developing for a Christian Ministry in Florida
I love the work I do!
Been developing their application for about 4 years now.
Contracted Developer

After learning that there was another Contracted Developer who was deathly scared of snakes, I "borrowed" a 6.5ft Python and put it on his desk, behind his monitor.

When he came in to do some work a few moments later, he sat down without even noticing this thing behind his desk.

After a couple of seconds, it slid its head out beneath one of his monitors - you should have seen him jump!

You find out someone has a phobia, so you think it's "funny" to torture them? If one of your coworkers had claustrophobia, would you think it's "funny" to lock them in a broom closet?

I hope they fired you immediately for such a thoughtless, irresponsible, childish, cruel prank.

No I wasn't fired on the stop. But let me fix my wording, I shouldn't have said "Deathly". He doesn't like snakes, but not enough that he would have had a heart-attack or anything. It was funny, and he even thought so - you would need to have been there.

Just about a year before that, 2 of my friends placed a tarantula on my shoulder while I was working. I didn't notice it for about 5 seconds, until they pointed it out. I freaked! But that was funny too.

jsampsonPC
SampsonBlog.com SampsonVideos.com

I'm freelance, so this info changes Smiley

Currently:

Developing for a Christian Ministry in Florida
I love the work I do!
Been developing their application for about 4 years now.
Contracted Developer

After learning that there was another Contracted Developer who was deathly scared of snakes, I "borrowed" a 6.5ft Python and put it on his desk, behind his monitor.

When he came in to do some work a few moments later, he sat down without even noticing this thing behind his desk.

After a couple of seconds, it slid its head out beneath one of his monitors - you should have seen him jump!

--Updated--

I shouldn't have said, "Deathly scared of snakes". He merely doesn't like them. He thought it was a funny prank after we put the snake away Smiley

jsampsonPC
SampsonBlog.com SampsonVideos.com

Cybermagellan wrote:

ElucidWeb wrote:Who you work for?
Do you like it?
How long have you worked there?
What is your job role?

Describe any experiences that does not divulge customer information that is interesting.

AOL, LLC.
Love my job
4 years
Open Client Services QA Technician

if I keep contributing to these kinds of threads I mine as well just link to my real blog...

Does the name Vincent Ferrari ring a bell? Smiley

"I'd like to cancel my account"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaaAYVUWP0I&search=aol

Cybermagellan
Live for nothing, or die for everything

jsampsonPC wrote:

Does the name Vincent Ferrari ring a bell?
"I'd like to cancel my account"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaaAYVUWP0I&search=aol

::yawn::

BryanF

Cybermagellan wrote:
AOL, LLC.
Love my job
4 years
Open Client Services QA Technician

if I keep contributing to these kinds of threads I mine as well just link to my real blog...

Out of curiousity, would you talk about why you like working at AOL? What is it that's so attractive--product-wise or in terms of the work environment (NDAs not withstanding)?

To be perfectly blunt about it, AOL has a reputation as being the Disney California Adventure of the Internet: family-friendly, expensive, and not terribly popular. Yet you seem like an intelligent person, so I'm willing to believe there's something good about the company that's not being told or that I simply haven't heard. I am certainly not trying to be patronizing, smug, or anything of that sort.

jsampsonPC
SampsonBlog.com SampsonVideos.com

AOL is popular....until you try to leave their service(s).
See the thread, "If you leave me, I'll do something crazy." Then view the video I linked to on YouTube in my previous post Smiley

But I think Cyber is cool; so AOL isn't 100% crap in my book if they have a guy like Cyber working on their campus...they're only 99.9999% crap now Smiley

He's the .0001% nugget of Gold Smiley

Cybermagellan
Live for nothing, or die for everything

BryanF wrote:

Out of curiousity, would you talk about why you like working at AOL? What is it that's so attractive--product-wise or in terms of the work environment (NDAs not withstanding)?

To be perfectly blunt about it, AOL has a reputation as being the Disney California Adventure of the Internet: family-friendly, expensive, and not terribly popular. Yet you seem like an intelligent person, so I'm willing to believe there's something good about the company that's not being told or that I simply haven't heard. I am certainly not trying to be patronizing, smug, or anything of that sort.

Why I love working at AOL is the whole reason that you mentioned in the second paragraph....

We know where we came from. We're happy about being able to survive this long and honestly being able to transform our huge monolithic structure into whatever we need to at the moment...even if it is months after everyone else has done it.

It's also nice because we know we get beat down in the IT field and we know why, so we are trying to attract more to us. Believe it or not A TON of big name businesses (Microsoft included) knock on our door asking us to do things, advanced things, however that isn't what we are (were) engineered for. Like you said we're family oriented, how many of our members really can grasp things like Del.icio.us, Flickr, etc? So that is why alot of the things (I really don't think this is going to sound right) that you see come out of Yahoo, Microsoft, Google, are all things other people have approached us with asking for us to do, sadly we don't (yet) appeal to that market, so it would kinda fall on deaf ears.

All the negative explaination having been explained, we know what we need to do. We have things like Open AIM which is real exciting because since they're a small team they have small turn around time to getting an idea out there. We have AIM Pages which has great stuff going for it, sadly it's not yet getting the big promotional push it needs, however it's still in beta and we've seen some areas of opportunity we need to resolve. AOL Music Now is something I'm happy to see what we're getting into however it's one of those niche opportunities.... and we have Mapquest and WinAMP open APIs which are excellent because they're providing services to the largest communities in existance. Believe it or not mapquest is larger share than Google Maps and Live Local...I think combined even. And we have the Greenhouse that is where all our rouge experiments go. And all these can be found on our development webpage

Why it's so fun, I'd have to say on top of having the challenges I mentioned above that AOL has incredible ROI with it's employees. We are basically cut free as long as we produce (At least in Technologies, Member Services is different). For example if you visit the development webpage above you see Boxely, that's something I'm working on. My job, I code stuff I want to code to demonstrate the API and such. I have no real set schedual and I can work all the overtime I want. I have one of THE best paying jobs in Arizona so it's not that I don't get compensated well, it's that I have a large family, I love my job so why not make some good money. Plus benefits are the best in Tucson hands down 100% Tuition Reimbursement, Medical and Dental and Vision...they treat us very well....no one tells me really what to do as long as I produce, and as long as I know what they want me to produce...then it's a Ying/Yang cycle.

I want to pimp out a few things here though....
Our SVP or Open Services Blogs, Our CEO blogs, the SVP of Netscape Blogs, and we have TONS and tons of SVPs, Program Managers and developers that blog...and what is nice is that we're hiring in Silicon Valley (Mountain View). I mean besides not having the name attached to us I think we're heading in the right direction...but that's my opinion. The name...

jsampsonPC
SampsonBlog.com SampsonVideos.com

Cyber,

Sounds like you really do enjoy your job Smiley

More power to you, bro!

I too have an extremely "free" work environment. There is very little micromanagement in my office. I am given a private office, dual monitors, a computer, and a list of things that need to be done (with no deadlines).

Of course I "work" hard and fast, as this is my passion. But basically, if I see something I want to "pimp out" as you put it, I go for it. I don't see my job as a job, I see it as a hobby - a game I get to play 8-10 hours out of the day.

At times, I'll recline back and read a programming book for 2 hours. As long as I'm learning, or working, I'm being productive Smiley

I really couldn't ask for more.

Glad to see that somebody else gets to share in my utopia Smiley

Ang3lFir3
Codito Ergo Sum

Who you work for? A Small ISV
Do you like it? Best Job I've ever had
How long have you worked there? about 1.5 yrs
What is your job role? Senior Web/Desktop Applications Developer

Why is it the best job I've ever had? and why do i love it?
Probably the one of the most outstanding factors is the people. I prefer small-ish companies many times because the people are closer and more understanding. I get a lot of freedom to do the things I want to do the way I want to do them. I can walk into the CEO's office and sit down out of the blue and have a conversation. Matter of fact the CEO is actually the Lead Architect and is 150% involved in all projects. That's nice to have. Plus Having a leader who is also a dev means he gets me. He understands things many companies don't get.... If I'm a little late to work cuz i was up late writing code or researching at home... everyone is cool with that.

We have a lot of people who aren't devs working with us... and even they understand the weird things we devs do. things like The fact we consume crazy amounts of soda and have cans all over the place.. they get that most of the time we aren't available to talk and are listening to music (every single one of us does while we code...which is odd).... They get that if you walk into our office and we are typing like a bat-outta-hell that we can't answer questions and to come back later.... its the little things... they get that i smoke like a chimney but that i'm usually working a problem in my head the whole time....

I never got a lot of that working for huge corporate america and it makes my daily work life that much better... I can just DO and be left alone most of the time....and most importantly If i feel the need to make changes to something.... or if i need something purchased.... there isn't a lot of red tape... ok there isn't any....

There is a lot of other things but those are the most noticeable day-to-day

Zeus
Why is the caption missing??

Travelocity Nordic / myself.
Like it / love it.
1.5 years / 10 years
Web developer / web guru

As you can see, I am a split workaholic as they say. My full time job is at the scandinavian part of Travelocity, and I do some freelance work to.

Chadk
excuse me - do you has a flavor?

I work for myself all the way, until i have my education ready(That is about 10 years time). I have been working for myself in 15 years(As old as i am). And its borring, as i lack of inspieration.

gogman
Non metuo

Who you work for? One of most innovative construction companies in Southern California: Snyder Langston. (yes, the website needs help, it's on my project list)

Do you like it? Love it. Very relaxed environment. Smart friendly people. They let me manage my own time and projects. It's what I like to call The Picard Style of Management(tm) - "Here is what we need and here are the specs, make it so Number One."

How long have you worked there? 6 months. Before that I had worked for myself for a couple of years running my own consulting business. Before working for myself, I spent 18 years at various jobs at various companies doing everything from network engineering to being an IT director (twice) to DOS programming to a medic in the US Army.

What is your job role? I was hired to port the custom applications the company uses from Unix TTY based to .Net 1.1/2.0 AJAX based and to write anything new we need. My role has now expanded from what it was to include much more. I also help out with just about everything you can imagine from jobsite network deployment to help desk. I think that my attitude is that IT is here to serve the users, not the other way around has had a lot to do with that. I feel that no matter how dumb the questions or problems seem, without users, IT would not exist. IT should put the users on a pedestal not the other way around. Our job is to help everyone to do his or her jobs as efficiently and happily as possible. Spending one or two minutes talking to a user when they pop their head into your office to ask a seemingly trivial question can save you much work and frustration down the road.

Describe any experiences that does not divulge customer information that is interesting. I suppose my first few weeks were the most interesting experience to this point. I went from “just another contractor” to a permanent hire as "The Developer" in three weeks. But that is a story for another time. Wink

-gogman-

DiageoLiam
Me! :-)

I work for a modelling agency called EKA.
I've been there for about 2 years now.
I don't really like it, but I'm also a student and hope to work in ICT when I'm older Smiley