Where's all the work???

finn_mac_cool

Hi fellow programmers,

I have a question. I have a degree in computer science and Artificial Intelligence, two years experience writing Java. Nonetheless, for the last 6 months I have been sitting at my desk scratching my **** . I suppose I should count myself lucky that I still have a job, but that said, I would rather be officially doing nothing rather than sitting in a chair pretending to be doing something. (Although I must admit the salary comes in handy).

Having spoken to some friends that are also in the industry I have found that I am not alone in my plight to fill up my days. It would appear that there are a lot of highly skilled IT professionals in exactly the same boat as me.

Is it the end of programming as we know it???
Is there companies out there where people still burn the midnight oil ?? Don't get me wrong, working late and hitting deadlines was a pain in the **** for me, but I have to say that it gave me some kind of raison d'etre, I felt like I was doing something. With the way things are in this game, inactivity is a very dangerous thing, another six months of this and I will have forgotten everything I knew, it'll be 'public static void ..... what???

Are there many out there in my boat???

kayos

Hmmm I know what you mean if I've been left with no work for a day its not to bad but more than that and I start hitting my head off the wall. But in saying that I haven't been left without work in the past few months in fact I have been burning the midnight oil most weeks. I find if you left alone the best thing to do is think of something to do that will be usefull in the company or shock horror ask your boss for work There is plenty of jobs out there that will keep you bussy.

kayos

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When you get to hell tell them I sent you,
you'll get a group discount...

tribes.gameshop.ie

yop

It depends what you are working in, Java been quite I am suprised, my place here cannot seem to get people with Java, and are trying to convert us VB boys into it as it seems a lot of our work is going that way.
I understand about the preferring to be busy than sitting on the batty.

Evil Phil

Same thing happened to me, then I got laid off. I start in a new job on Tuesday. Your company is probably not doing to well or someting. Maybe it's time to start looking to move, or hang on and see if you get some redundancy money.

finn_mac_cool

I gotta say Phil, you hit the nail on the head. My company are in the process of being bought out / going tits up. We're a certain not so high profile internet bank. If it wasn't for the fact that I might get a pay off I'd be outta here quicker that **** off a hot shovel!!

It's good to hear that there are some jobs out there for Java. I did my degree in England in one of the first universities to teach Java to their CS class. As such I spent all three years in Uni doing all my programming in Java so I've covered a lot of different aspects of the language, that said in the real world I've really only done some simple DB stuff using ODBC, still I reckon I could blag my way through an interview.

I really want to work for a small company that produce software, rather than working for a company that's a bank, first and foremost. Still, it's my first job outta uni so I suppose I'll put it down to experience.

kayos

Would that bank be Tusa by any chance??

If you know VB and SQL and want to stay in the finical services side of work but be in a development company rather than in house send me your CV and I'll see what I can do for ya (be warned we are a VB house not Java).

kayos

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When you get to hell tell them I sent you,
you'll get a group discount...

tribes.gameshop.ie

finn_mac_cool

No, it's not TUSA, it's yet another ailing internet bank!!
I don't have any VB experience what so ever, that said, I'm confident that I would pick it up quickly. As far as it goes though, I'd rather stick with JAVA. Having worked in the financial sector for the last 18 months, I think I want to move into something else, lest I get typecast as it were. I have a feeling that no matter what you do, call it internet, direct, new , whatever, a bank is still a bank, with all the beaurocracy and 8ull5hit you'd expect from a bunch of beancounters. No, I think the financial sector is gonna see the back of me after this job grinds to a halt, but cheers for the offer Kayos.

The Corinthian

I was doing 90+ hour weeks this time last year in my last job. Nowadays, from what I've been told, most of the coders in my old firm are doing 'internal projects' (i.e. nothing). Needless to say this sort of inactivity can only last so long before the money runs out

If it makes you feel any better, I'm freelance and thus am whoring my services 75% of the time, with a nose to the market. I have noticed a turn in the IT economy's fortunes and ppl are begining to talk about the IT recession in the past tense.

I wouldn't stake my life on it, and there's a few dot bombs to go, but I would say that we've seen the worst of it.

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"Just because I'm evil doesn't mean I'm not nice." - Charlie Fulton