Are you institutionalised at work?

Obviously does not take experience into account. At our place it takes years to build up the required knowledge base.

How the hell did he get into management with that outlook

To$$er

actually some of our managers also think the same way, they are bloody useless as well.

Sounds like the big man coming in and banging his chest to make some noise.

Pffft! What a fanny!

When recruiting I would be very cautious about interviewing/hiring an individual whose career was characterized by moving around every couple of years for any responsible professional position.

To me it just smells of someone who can’t work through problems, and difficult times, has no loyalty and is only interested in themselves.

If they have moved a lot and they are now a Director of major company, then that is one thing, but if people are just moving without any real progression then I would be very skeptical.

From my experience, IT has quite a high turnover….

depends what level of IT. If you’re talking helpdesk operators, perhaps.

At our place I’m 11 years in at the end of October and I’m still the new guy 😯

Do you want a nurse in intensive care with 2-3 years experience, or 23?

Choose wisely, it may be the only choice you get.

I’ve worked in 3 places in 11 years, 2 of them finance. He thinks IT – high staff churn good?

The guy is talking out of his arse.

As someone mentioned above, domain knowledge is king, unless of course you have new, up to date, well coded and documented systems….

38 years in the job, 28 at the present site if you’ve been in a job long enough get to know the new manager’s latest idea didn’t work last time some whizz kid tried it and it won’t work now either. They don’t appreciate you telling them that though 🙄

been at our place for 8 years and hate it, i am institutionalised, we have a new manager and he is bringing ‘new’ people in, irony is our work is very bepsoke and we end up training the new people which is taking the piss… its all going to kick off soon.

8 years in the job, 28 at the present site if you’ve been in a job long enough get to know the new manager’s latest idea didn’t work last time some whizz kid tried it and it won’t work now either. They don’t appreciate you telling them that though

Probably wondering why someone who’s been in the job for 38 years isn’t in his place or higher making the decisions….

👿 😆

Probably wondering why someone who’s been in the job for 38 years isn’t in his place or higher making the decisions….

maybe because some of us want to keep doing the job we love.

oh and don’t want to play the ‘politics’ that go with some higher positions.

NASA space suit on, and we have lift off….

One can presume that is a one way trip to planet loon stoner? 😉

33 years in IT for (basically) the same company. As has been said above, knowledge of the older systems is crucial when updating and replacing. And as also said above, some of us did/are doing very well out of not moving “up” the career ladder thank you very much. See that TUPE thread? What happens is that you get transferred over and all the middle managers soon find themselves extraneous to requirements whereas the folk that know the systems are OK.

Why would I want to move any further up the salary scale and end up in a job dealing with people and all the problems that entails, give me machines to deal with any day 😆
I’m on the same pay grade as my team leader but earn more than him due to overtime as it is.

It takes 6 months to learn a job at my place and you are still considered inexperienced up till about 2 years.Oil industry, they are happy with people they know and trust.

Plus One

I’m on a gas platform right now and I find new and inexperienced staff worrisome. (Even people with strong experience elsewhere have a lot of idiosyncrasies to learn about here)

Having said that, when I’ve spent 3 or 4 years becoming intimate with my workplace, and the gas starts running out, how much effort have I wasted?

binners – Member
I’ll tell you what – there are a lot more institutionalised people about to enter the job market.

Those zombies that populate council offices, government departments, job centres and suchlike. Same crumpled suit since 1978, held together entirely by soup stains. Single. Dubious personal hygiene. Quarter bottle of vodka tucked away in inside pocket. Nobody knows what they actually do. Whose only ambition is to make it to the pension without anyone noticing them.

Apparently the resurgent private sector is going to be leaping at the chance to take them all on. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Sorry binners, just for once I’m going to have to **** you. You usually make me laugh but not this time. It’s not me. It’s you. This whole ‘anti-public sector’ thing is hurting us for no good reason.

Rant over.

Institutionlised (is that a word? – it is now!) – not me: my (IT) contract lasted one day (thanks to asshats, not thanks to me!)

Lesson from today? Don’t work for asshats who have no idea how a decent IT application should work.

druidh – Member
33 years in IT for (basically) the same company. As has been said above, knowledge of the older systems is crucial when updating and replacing. And as also said above, some of us did/are doing very well out of not moving “up” the career ladder thank you very much. See that TUPE thread? What happens is that you get transferred over and all the middle managers soon find themselves extraneous to requirements whereas thee folk that know the systems are OK.

I would agree that experienced IT systems people are essential as I have found that most of a system’s functionality is not written down on paper rather it is stored in somebody’s head!

For me work/life balance also came into it. I was keen to take on more once and was given it, but then reached a stage when I was happy with the time/stress in work and that spent at home with my wife and children and saw what was happening to those a level or two above me and realised it was time to slow down 🙂

last place i had a perm job i was there a total of 12 years in a few different roles, but for the shop floor took 5+ years to actually learn all the tricks to make the products. Old machines with certain oddities, yes you could learn the basics in a year or two, but when things went wrong.

It took me 2 years to get good at my last job, and that was considered freakishly fast (most people never get good at it). But that time was spent at least in part institutionalising me. Does he think it’s a bad thing?

I worked for 6 years in a large psychie hospital, we all had our own lockers, chairs and cups, and we didnt like it if somebody sat on outr chair or we where given a different cup, by the trainee nurses.

Then we had to try and instill in the patients how not to become institutionalised.

I find myself institutionalised after 14 years in the same company, my only real job since leaving university. However, I have a huge knowledge of the industry and legacy systems so I think I am one of the ‘old hands’ so to speak. The pay me enough to mean I have never seriously looked for another job and I have moved around departments enough to keep it interesting. If I make it to 25 years I’ll have enough money to retire.

I’ve been at risk of redundancy enough times to make sure I work hard enough to avoid it, so not sure that the gravy train analogy is true.

I’ve also worked with and recruited people who move about every 3 months to 2 years and they end up having no accountability for their delivery and more often than not its the ‘old hands’ who are left picking up the pieces…

I’m on a gas platform right now and I find new and inexperienced staff worrisome. (Even people with strong experience elsewhere have a lot of idiosyncrasies to learn about here)

Having said that, when I’ve spent 3 or 4 years becoming intimate with my workplace, and the gas starts running out, how much effort have I wasted?
I am on gas side in FPS and was informed today that there is still 20 years left Oliverd so no immediate worries

Your manager is a tool. But there is a grain of truth.

The problem of inertia largely affects managers. As decision makers they get very stuck in their process which prevents the company exploring new methods and markets and stifles progress. This is dangerous because a less established competitor can fly straight past .

As already pointed out, the principle is less applicable to expert and technical roles where both wide and deep experience are key.

Well many baynds and musicians end up just churning out the same type of stuff that they did at first, but by then it lacks the freshness and originality. See Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan, Rolling Stones and anyone else well past their sell by date.

Some jobs need consistency though. Sometimes you need someone who knows where everything is, how everything works. Less and less jobs need such people now though sadly, in this age of instant disposability.

12 years experience can often be more accurately described as 2 years experience repeated 6 times

I have worked for the same company for 36 years exactly today

Undertaken many different roles as technology has advanced, so reckon he is just talking a load of old cobblers

P7Pro – Member
swedishmatt: It’s an IT department for a finance company.

I’m guessing he’s worried about all the knowledge being in someone’s head – what happens when that person falls ill / retires / gets hit by a bus? There’re still a fair amount of people out there that try to guarantee their jobs by making themselves indispensable.

Still, there are better ways to go about covering that problem without the massive hassle (and cost) that this idiots’s proposing.

I am on gas side in FPS and was informed today that there is still 20 years left Oliverd so no immediate worries

Not in the industry no, just on my Platform

What’s his name?