B-O-R-E-D

More and more I’m coming to the realisation that I am so not a data geek.  I use data and databases all the time, but I don’t usually deal in big data systems that need epic sizes of database and insanely complicated methods of getting that data in and out of those systems.

This current role is now my third over the years where I work with exactly those types of system. Crapco back in Bracknell/Wokingham – and in a weird coincidence that’s also where I last did any intensive cycling – were the first. A duller bunch of people you couldn’t want to meet, and I hated it.  The second was about 2, 2½ years ago, an educational company in Cambridge. And now a tech company in Cambridge.

The thing is, they’re all very similar – as are the people who work in them. In all three cases, the people involved were (in my eyes) ineffably dull – all had been with the company for at least five years – and deeply insular about their work. They didn’t want to teach anyone else how to do stuff on ‘their’ system, primarily (it seemed) because they thought their own jobs would be at risk if they told someone else how to do things, or were in any way helpful at all.  It’s just a mindset I simply don’t understand.  After all, if you’re swamped enough that you can justify an extra person, surely it makes sense to then get that person up to speed so you can reduce that work pressure. But no. And it’s all so “This is *my* section!” and cliquey that it just does my head in.  No-one wants to teach how to figure out where things are going wrong, it’s like a “oh, figure it out yourself” type thing. And don’t get me wrong, most of the time I can evaluate how things are working, and where things are going wrong.  In environments like these though, you can’t do that. It’s been made so insanely complex over the years, anyone coming in new is effectively fucked from the start.   And that’s the position I find myself in. (Again)

Couple that with one simple fact from my side – which is that when it comes to these kind of companies, I simply don’t care enough about their data to want to work with it and worry about its accuracy.   “Oh, but it’s 0.001% out on those figures.” And?

All told, it’s a lesson I need to learn, I type of place I no longer wish to work in.  I’ll be OK here for the remaining five months of the contract – but I won’t be renewing after that.  I’ll probably keep my options open too, by keeping on looking for other roles…