How lovely.....

Last time I spoke to him he was mulling over doing a degree. That was over
2 years ago, mind.

 

Ouch. That's a long time to be looking for a job.

 

Jolly good. Well done him.

Bummer. And surprising to me; he's a smart fella. Perhaps he should
become a Project Manager; any **** can get a job doing that.

 

" "

Paul.

 

I don't do that stuff now. Haven't for about 5 years..

The place where I work now is all Windows apart from a couple of legacy
Sun boxes.

Phil

 

There's a bit of technical work about if you are prepared to travel.

I have the opposite problem, I haven't done hands-on tech stuff for
years, in lieu of PM work and ITIL/Audit compliance stuff.

So i'm over-experienced and underqualified IYSWIM The PM work is
going to the PM's, not the jack of all IT trades ...

P.

 

I was in a similar situation (although I had been doing *some*
technical work).

Fortunately, when my last place started getting unbearable[1], I managed
to find a place with pretty much my ideal job. A smaller base salary
but with a take-home of roughly the same since it's a much, much better
pension arrangement.

Phil

[1] I don't live to work - and when you wake up in the morning, every
morning, with obvious stress symptoms you know it's time to move on. In
the 3 months since moving here my migraines have reduced by about 80%
and my blood sugar control has gone back to being very good again.

 

The pension arrangements are important to somebody as decrepit as you
appear to be?

 

Oi! I'm only 44.. and nothing that's wrong with me is sufficiently
wrong to much affect my ability to work. Or at least desk-based work
anyway - I wouldn't want to have to carry heavy stuff all day or dig
roads..

Phil

 

<Looks on internal job list>

Nothing in IT - maybe he fancies being a Financial Manager for the
Stonehenge[1] project..

Phil.

[1] Yes - my employer is a well-known quango responsible for looking
after the heritage of England..

 

Well, I was being paid for my experience (imagineering So I was
doing technical design and implementation, but overseeing / PM'ing
rather than doing the the work.

So that made me expensive (& dispensable) when i'd built out the
project over 4 datacentres, set up the support teams, monitoring etc
and provided the Operations documentation.

Heh. I had that. But a years downtime has done wonders for my grey
hair & palpitations ...

P.

 

I'm banking on it.

 

My diabetes kicked in during a period of intense stress (I would have
inevitably developed it anyway given that my mother has it and so does
her brother..) but it kicked in about 25 years earlier than her and her
brother. And I didn't particularly want to follow my grandfather and
father[1] and have a stroke before I was 50..

Apparently - towards the end of my time at my previous place I looked
really tired and ill all the time. A couple of weeks ago we spent some
time with some friends in Watford and they remarked that I was looking
much, much happier and healthier now.

Which is nice.

Phil.

[1] Well - dads was a TIA not a true stroke. And in the followup tests
they diagnosed his Parkinsons Disease. Which (fortunately) doesn't run
in families.

 

Do you know if he knew his way around WebSphere App Server?

If so, and you have contact details, we'd be interested in speaking to
him.

 

In fact, if anyone else does, this is what we're after...

http://www.openlogic.co.uk/remository/download/124/chk,a41b6adb62bf50fe91b474d7202dce87/no_html,1/

Email me if interested and I'll put you in touch with the right
people.

 

NP. I'll keep my eyes open - but here (like a lot of other places) is
more likely to go the other way.

Phil

 

Hmm, priorities out of whack, I see

Paul.

 

Probably more efficient than our recruitment agents.

 

Aren't we all. now!

Curiously enough you were mentioned in France just last week.