[Trippynet]

Just hit 6 years with my current company - only 6 months short of my record time with an employer when I spent 6.5 years at a local University (running the network, servers and systems at one of the departments). My current company is a major supplier of IT equipment and various managed IT services across the world.

Saying that, I've had a number of different roles since I've been here, starting with being a lead IT engineer at a customer site, then a Senior Data Analyst (actually more fun than it sounds), a Team Leader on one of our accounts, and currently I'm an acting Service Manager with training ongoing until end of March 2020. My current job involves me looking after one of our major customers and managing all the services we provide to them across the UK, Ireland, Belgium and Netherlands. It does mean a lot of working from home, plus a moderate amount of travel. I must admit I do like working from home - it is nice being able to use your own triple monitor setup, mechanical keyboard etc. that just wouldn't work in an office. And it is nice to take a break in the afternoon and walk the dog for an hour as well.

My current job isn't a technical role, although understanding technical aspects can be very useful at times. To be honest though these days with the mess of Windows 10 and everything else, I'm actually glad I'm not in a job that involves me having to clear up after MS's shit all the time.

Ultimately though, a good job is a job you enjoy. I think if you ever get to the stage of hating the thought of going to work, you're in the wrong job. Personally I do enjoy most aspects of my current job and that is the main thing. The fact that it also pays pretty well is obviously a bonus!

[Jacques]

I'm still with the same firm 17 years on after arriving in the UK, going through the ranks I'm now a design director. I am thinking of looking for something else as the client base and work has become a bit stale. I love learning new things, if I'm not learning something I want to move on. I may look into heritage architecture rather than the current 'boxes on a field' developer led work I generally do - it's just depressing! I've also had a huge shift in personal priorities from about 2015 onward, I simply cannot see how our current housing development in the UK is even remotely sustainable - Sustainability and recycling is something I'm getting more and more passionate about. The whole housing system in the UK is very much broken, led by a planning system that has no regard for design or the creation of beautiful places anymore.

Other than that, I've spent a good 3 months up-cycling old PC parts to build myself a very capable Debian desktop. For single threaded stuff and simpler multi-threaded stuff and the odd bit of gaming it will kick my Mac Pro into the gutter. I've stopped my 3D Maya stuff completely as I've just not been enjoying it, so I focus on hardware and photography now.

SGI wise my O2 sits in my lounge but doesn't see much use. It struggles with even simple 640x480 divx anime vids and well, browsing ain't going to happen on it. My Octane is much more capable but even with a bunch of quiet fans it's still too noisy for our family lounge. At least it can playback my Cowboy Bebop and Love Hina series!

Other than that, our garden is taking up most weekends and I'm enjoying making stuff for the garden - planter boxes, raised beds etc. We've just picked our first corn (mielies for South Africans ) and also been harvesting raspberry, loganberry, chard, apples (3 varieties) and baby tomatoes. We've got some leeks coming through in a couple of weeks.

And I've gotten my vintage Vespa 100 going again, though I need to do my test before I can take it out on the more public roads. Its actually a bit of a sleeper build. It's got a 4 speed gearbox, 130cc cylinder (instead of 96cc), 12v electronic ignition, 1kg flywheel, uprated clutch, 25mm carb, PM40 exhaust and will happily sit at 63mph on a straight road. The standard 100c will just about make 42mph with a tailwind..if you're lucky. Best of all it goes like stink at the lights!



BTW - I came across the flickr photostream of 'Iris4k' while grabbing my Vespa photo, check it out, loads of great SGI related pix, even includes Indy production line pics!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/165344764@N04/

[commodorejohn]

Well, I spent five or six hours today working on repairing my car. First time I've ever gotten that in-depth myself...of course, it's still not back to working yet :/

...and, after another five or six hours over the course of the last couple days, she's back in working order. Better yet, having swapped out the nicer distributor and carburetor from my old Bug and done all the requisite adjustments, it's now running significantly better than it was before

[biigD]

Still flying - I've been with the same airline for the last six years or so. I did get married back in May, so that's pretty awesome!

Not too much SGI play in the last few months since the study is small and heats up quickly, but once Fall temperatures roll around it'll get more use. My main PC will probably get a good sized upgrade in a few months - it's an older Haswell i7, but I've been reluctant to upgrade since I wanted to continue running Windows 7 until the last possible minute. Might bite the bullet and build a new machine around one of the new Ryzen processors. We'll see. Not excited about finally being forced into Windows 10, but it's my wife that'll mainly be using that partition anyway. I generally play over on the Linux side.

[jebmayers]

What's new with your life nowadays? I've recently decided to quit my job, I will be leaving for good at the 18th - I have decided to exit the job on my own volition without anything lined up because the job has begun to suck, my health has taken a turn for the worse, I need to have a job that gets me more physical activity and I'm just sick of being the only competent network admin on staff at odd hours of the night and expected to fix things that a three man team fixes during the day.

Wow - I have just done the same for exactly the same reasons! My last day was August 23rd. I have an interview tomorrow which I am absolutely sh**ting myself about, I am changing industries so it is well out of my comfort zone. It will be also be the first one for 10 years and only my 4th in 25 years, so I am well out of practice. Needless to say I am not holding out much hope for getting the job :(

I am also suffering from depression and anxiety as a result, so I really understand your reasons for quitting. I picked up on this in the thread about the guy who was porting MAME, it is sad that so many of us are suffering from the same issues, but it helps to know that I am not alone. When I first was diagnosed I felt like such a failure and that I was the only person 'weak' enough to be having these problems and it was a real eye opener to find out just how common the problem is.

Jeb

[jwcotejr]

What's new with your life nowadays? I've recently decided to quit my job, I will be leaving for good at the 18th - I have decided to exit the job on my own volition without anything lined up because the job has begun to suck, my health has taken a turn for the worse, I need to have a job that gets me more physical activity and I'm just sick of being the only competent network admin on staff at odd hours of the night and expected to fix things that a three man team fixes during the day.

Wow - I have just done the same for exactly the same reasons! My last day was August 23rd. I have an interview tomorrow which I am absolutely sh**ting myself about, I am changing industries so it is well out of my comfort zone. It will be also be the first one for 10 years and only my 4th in 25 years, so I am well out of practice. Needless to say I am not holding out much hope for getting the job :(

I am also suffering from depression and anxiety as a result, so I really understand your reasons for quitting. I picked up on this in the thread about the guy who was porting MAME, it is sad that so many of us are suffering from the same issues, but it helps to know that I am not alone. When I first was diagnosed I felt like such a failure and that I was the only person 'weak' enough to be having these problems and it was a real eye opener to find out just how common the problem is.

Jeb

I also suffer from anxiety and depression, but more so depression in recent times. I was *officially* diagnosed near the beginning of this year, but it's probably been something that I've been dealing with since middle school or high school. Getting the official diagnosis was a relief, but also not at the same time. A relief in the sense that I'm not questioning whether or not I actually suffer from any of this stuff, and also having the resources be made available to me to hopefully make coping with the problems easier is rather nice, but it also only goes so far. It wasn't a relief for the same reason that it was also a relief to me; I now knew that I was clinically depressed. At that point I felt more useless than I did before I received the diagnosis. Since then I've been moving from one antidepressant to the next; might've finally landed on something that is going to (mostly) work for me, but not entirely sure yet.

Regardless, I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors to find new employment. I still have yet to be in a position where any job interview doesn't absolutely stress me out to the max.

[Irinikus]

I think that most people in this world are suffering from one form of depression or another, as life has become extremely stressful, especially over the last decade or two! (And it's just going to get worse, as companies downsize due to automation, and inflation rises!)

For goal orientated people such as myself, a large degree of stress and frustration, ultimately leading to a form of depression, results from the fact it's rather difficult to advance your career the way you want to. (What generally frustrates me in this regard, is the fact that reason is being substituted by political agendas, and this is ultimately leading businesses nowhere, and making it extremely difficult for us to manage our own careers!)

You just have to take look at cities such as Detroit in the US to see where this world is going, and DAMN RIGHT, it's depressing!!! (What once was, and now is!)

I personally think that modern human society peaked somewhere between the 80's and 90's, and it's now only downhill from there. But it's not necessarily all bad, as chaos often presents opportunities, which can make life rather interesting in the future!

You just have to know how to manoeuvre and position yourself to take advantage of opportunities, as they present themselves.

In other words, always have an adaptable plan and look out for situations, which I term "forks", where you can manipulate a situation in such a way that both possible outcomes will benefit you, by strategically disrupting the flow of things. (I've successfully used this approach a few times in my career and it works!)

Introduce a planned disruption strategically and opportunities present themselves!

[Raion]

Indeed, society is bleeding itself out emotionally.

One of the things that has saved me has been my religious beliefs. I'm not going to go all into it, but as what is essentially a kind of pagan my life has been far better. I don't think I'm better than anyone because I have religious beliefs, but it does give you a sense of security. Hence why outside of computing and other hobbies a goal of mine is to become a priest of my religion, so I can better preserve it's teachings and offer help to those who approach us.