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I know, first world problems, and I'm lucky to have one that pays well enough.
That said, it's boring. To be fair, most jobs are boring for me. When I started, I was meant to be going to customers to sort out urgent problems in our product range with an emphasis on this one. Turned out that one didn't really have urgent problems, and not many people were using it, so I had naff all to do. Now, 4 years later, I've skilled up in 4 products, but we still have L3 support who are the actual developers so they answer all the hard stuff, and L2 who do all the regular stuff. So I'm stuck in the middle just handling the customers who are asking implementation questions. But anything big has to go to professional services as a paid engagement.
Since COVID we've lost our unique position which was travel - customers are not asking for it any more, and we've had three different managers, and we're being pushed around into a role that could easily be covered by other people - and is, in lots of cases. So.. yeah. Moan moan moan.
Will probably look for another role within the company though but most of them are based from an office, none of which I am anywhere near.
That said, it’s boring
Once you've got to a point where you can competently do your job, the day to day of it is normally pretty dull for lots of folks.
Can't you move into a project role with the Professional Services side? I've been projects-only (IT) for about 10 years, it's generally more interesting than support but I do sometimes miss not having to account for every 30 minutes of my day against various billable projects. Our support people just book to a single time code and don't have to find work if things are light, so less stressful (until a major incident happens or they get called out at 1a.m., I don't miss that...)
I have a similar situation, I work with 4 teams they are all skilled smart people and on weeks when there are lots of things to facilitate there's plenty to keep me busy, then the next week (sprint based) there's way less to do.
I could go for another job, but this is with interesting people and an interesting product, I can do it easily. My boss does the same job, but with a little added line-management, so he knows we have quiet time too and I think he likes to keep it that way. His boss appreciates what we do, but doesn't want/need much more from us. It's a nice if somewhat dull place to be.
I do find myself looking for things to get involved in, but I dropped being technical a while back and this is a deeply technical area/company. Moving to a new company will likely come with some initial interest, but also stress, different working conditions, new people to work out how to work with. So I'm not massively motivated to move!
Ditto - for different reasons. We did a big re-org on the eve of covid and then went into lockdown and stopped going into offices. I used to travel loads (national and international) and that pretty much stopped overnight too. I now overlap with a couple of other regions so basically I don't have a full time job anymore. I keep getting good formal reviews from my boss and I've been very open about my lack of work and they keep paying me so I'm just rumbling along.
I was quite ambitious a couple of years ago and the lack of challenge has sucked that out of me; I'm just coasting. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not though - certainly means the pressure is off and I don't work the stupid hours and weekends I used to (no paid O/T either).
Sounds like it's time to upskill and get a promotion
I've coasted for 4 years now, after someone tried to blame me for something that'd nothing to do with me - experienced & old enough to put up a very robust defence, so they went after others.
I'm near retirement so CBA to look elsewhere, so current plan is to wait for the next re-org - we've averaged more than one a year for the past few years.
On a (more) positive side, I'll be finishing at 3 and going riding - Golfie, Inners or Yair? 🙂
I can't wait to reach the boredom level in my new job. I'm 5 months in and trying not to fall off the treadmill every day. It's exhausting.
I've always said some people (most?) can tolerate a boring job for as long as it takes, but others, myself included, need to be engaged and learn new things regularly and feel like they're achieving something useful. I do admire those who can stick out a boring job without going crazy, it's a much more healthy way to work imo.
I don’t do bored very well. Next week I’ve got an interview with a very scary looking job that means I’d never be bored, I’d be run off my feet with responsibility I reckon I’ve got something wrong in the head 😂
It's not like I know everything, but it's always like get ticket, research the answer, tell customer who half the time ghosts me and the other half tries to get me to design their whole system for them, for free. Every now and then I need to pull out all the stops and come up with a creative solution under pressure, or solve something really complex, but it's not very often.
Part of it is that these products are very mature and a lot of people have been working with them for 20 years and know everything inside out. On the other side are the people who actually write the software. So I'm in the middle, and I can't get 20 years' of experience in a year or two. So my job has to be the intermediary much of the time which is dull AF. I feel like tech support.
It's not like it's easy - I do need to put some work in to answer the questions, but they are not conceptually difficult or interesting, I just need to find the write document with the answer in it. I know beforehand the concept of how it works, I just need to know what button to press. Finding the write button is not interesting. A bit like time-trialling - hard, requires commitment and focus, but boring.
Sounds like it’s time to upskill and get a promotion
Well I'm working on the promotion but it won't actually change my day to day job.
Get a job in manufacturing. You won't have time to get bored believe me, in fact do you want to swop jobs?
Can’t you move into a project role with the Professional Services side?
I used to be in Professional Services. That was boring too, but largely because the product I was supporting (different product) was really simple, the concepts were simple, and i knew it inside and out; but customers had no idea. I spent most of my time doing trivial stuff in project environments. I left that because it was a dead end and it was really hurting my career. At least now I have gained a truckload of marketable and relevant skills.
The PSO world has changed. I haven't been onsite since November 2022. Instead management is double or even treble booking time for various customers. I'm less exposed to it as I'm a contractor with 2 customer 50% of the time, but the permies are run off their arses, often remoting into different environments simultaneously, or going from customer discovery meeting to the next one with no time to take notes and then billing both customers at impossible rates. I was at a conference last week & our partners were all complaining that they were having to do the same to fulfil demand.
What area of software do you work in?
Instead management is double or even treble booking time for various customers.
Yeah I've got like 2 or 3 customers on the go at any one time, and I've got four or five issues I need to deflect, find the right person for, or just try and get someone to respond to. I hate context switching all the time.
I have plenty of time to do it, I'm just not, because I am so ****ing bored and starved of the right kind of tasks I need to keep focus, do my best work and get the dopamine.
Currently burned out because I spent about 200 hours working like a bastard around other commitments on educational material for a conference that it turned I wasn't going to. My session was delivered by people who didn't understand it and only 2 people turned up anyway.
I mean right now I'm trying to demonstrate to a customer how to do something, and trying to choose between two options. But I just don't ****ing care which one they use. These are generic IT skills, they can Google it and decide for themselves. I'm using public github repos as examples.