Should probably note that I have actually enjoyed a great deal of my working career. The six months or so I worked exclusively on MP3.com.au in 2000 were fantastic. I enjoyed the time I spent at [company], except for the unpaid overtime and some of the internet support. Both were times I was working on one product exclusively for a long period of time and was busy developing the majority of the time. I think there is a leason in that for all of us.

Othertimes I haven't hated my job, I've just gotten bored of doing small development projects by myself. I never felt I was really learning anything from anyone. I wanted to work under someone more skilled than I and learn something. People more skilled than me are always too busy to teach you anything. Or pissing off and getting real jobs.

At times I've been unhappy in my job (and previous jobs) before I've ranted about long working hours, wanting more time to myself and my hobbies and my family. Back then I was happy with my pay because the work I was doing wasn't that spectacular. I wanted to move on to more spectactular things... and I have (or did in 2002 anyway) although I always assumed I'd get paid better for it too. I haven't.

I guess I'll always find something wrong given the time to think about it. Mental note, keep busy.

I stand by the rant below, although I have the feeling if a potential employer saw it I'd not get the job. I suspect I probably wouldn't want it anyway.

I know I promised to spill all the beans if I didn't get what I wanted but I'll just spill a few.

I've been waiting patiently for a pay raise for the past two years, listening constantly to promise after promise and excellent annual review after excellent annual review. After much delay and faffing around it finally arrived and it's much less than I would like. I'm still 15% under the current market (Seek advertised) rate for a five year software developer. It's my own fault really. I accepted the job on a lower rate than I wanted on the promise I'd get a salary review within six months. Five seconds into walking into the job there was a salary freeze that hasn't really ever been lifted.

And that's ignoring the various other shit my company has put me through this last year or so including the "unpaid overtime", "half pay leave", "retrenched half my friends", "no training", "lets stick you on this support project because there is no-one else left" issues. And I've done almost no development since July, only support. I miss development. I do have to thank Alex for being a good sounding post... Thanks Alex.

And "why didn't you just go get a new job a year ago"? I've had four jobs in the past five years and personally I was a little bloody sick of jumping ship everytime my company went bust so I gave this company the benefit of the doubt and gave them an opportunity to sort themselves out. I really shouldn't have by the look of it. Leason well and truely learnt.

More is promised for July but it's very hard to stay motivated to keep working hard when the previous years of effort feel ignored. And the thought of jumping to another FIFTH job fills me with dread. I've already lost all faith in the IT industry, any interviewer would have a hard time convincing me I wasn't walking into another timebomb.

Of course the real problem isn't the money, it's that I'm not enjoying myself anymore. And I've been promised something for years, have worked very hard to get it, and it's been withheld. I'm a sooky little baby.

Hey, happy thoughts. As my workmate says, "I'm not dead" when asked how he is. That with "you either stay or you go. That's it."

Right now I'm working on Microsoft Sharepoint Portal Server 2003 which doesn't suck anywhere near as much as I expected it to. But I was expecting a hell of a lot of suckage. Tinkering around the edges of a prepackaged product doesn't feel much like development to me. It feels like fixing something that's broken. It feels a lot like installing Office and then hanging around to explain to people how to copy paste. It's actually an Office product so I'm not far off the mark.

Can't help but think they should have just given everyone in the company a blog.

Maybe I'm just being a snob.

On an unrelated note I saw a great quote at Slashdot today:

'There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore,' Carly Fiorina, chief executive for Hewlett-Packard Co., said Wednesday. 'The problem is not a lack of highly educated workers,' said Scott Kirwin, founder of the Information Technology Professionals Association of America. 'The problem is a lack of highly educated workers willing to work for the minimum wage or lower in the U.S. Costs are driving outsourcing, not the quality of American schools.'"

Bolding is mine.

No offence, but why would anyone go to uni for three years and go on to do as difficult and demanding a job as building enterprise software solutions for minimum wage or LOWER?! when they could sit behind the counter at a music store and bag out customers all day High Fidelity style for the same cash? Dickhead. He's got to be taking the piss right?

Someone suggest a music related IT job? I was tempted by ChaosMusic a year ago except they wanted a magical multilimbed time travelling IT person who could set up all of their PCs, their network, as well as develop their webpage and support all of their servers, and travel to Sydney all the time too. At least that's why the ad said. The money was nice though. *sigh*

I'm not going to talk about the other (25% pay raise) job offers I've had recently that I haven't been able to take for various reasons. It's too depressing.

The one thing I can say is that this company has paid for, in various accidental ways, for my part of my band last year. For that they get a slap on the back.

It doesn't help The Green Room's chances of pulling patrons that the majority of venues in that block are skank holes, and that's just the places that aren't peep shows or sex shops. But their giant speakers pumping the live band's music out onto the street are great.

Excellent gig to start the break / end the gigging with, no gigs until at least March, with recording in the first three weekends of Feb to keep us busy. Aiming for a six track EP, might be less tracks, depending how well they come out.

Photos etc. from the gig coming soonish.

The new Fantomas album is out in the late teens of January if we're to believe the half page adverts in Beat magazine this week.

I find it very amusing the first thing fans did when downloading the album from Kaaza etc. was to burn the 60 minute long single track album to CD with track marks.