I don’t really give a tulip any more

[Mich the Tester]

Sorry, long post, but bear with me on this.

12 years ago, when I started in IT, it was fun. I worked in a small creative team making stuff that was useful and quite advanced; things were very informal; testers sat next to programmers and DBAs and we worked things out together, quickly and effectively. OK, so not everything was perfectly documented and nobody really knew what the ‘business value’ was, but we enjoyed it and the clients seemed to gain a commercial advantage from what we were doing (telecoms, mobile networks and so on).

It seems to be however that since then, our field of work has just become more and more boring. ITIL, Prince2, KPIs, company dashboards, corporatese speaking suits, 2.5 hour meetings like the one I've just sat in etc have now driven me to the point where I actually don’t really know whether I want to stay in this business any longer. I’ve got a long term plan to go into academia anyway, but as well as that I’m a qualified fitness instructor and personal trainer; that doesn’t pay all that much but I’m really considering packing in all this tulip and going and doing something I enjoy. The recession might just provide me the kick up the rear that I need to do it.

Is everyone else as bored as I am? I enjoy exploratory testing, working in agile development teams, doing something innovative. Any suggestions as to where I should be looking?

[swamp]

Agree that IT has become (even) more boring. I blame the rise of Business Analysts. Not quite sure why though.

[Diestl]

Agree that IT has become (even) more boring. I blame the rise of Business Analysts. Not quite sure why though.

I agree also, IT for me has become depressingly boring. The project i am on now is soul destroying. I will not be doing this in a year or two never mind the next 30 years.

[b0redom]

+1, but what other job could you do where you would get paid this well, and have such an easy life? I put up with 2.5 hour meetings by mumbling the contractors matra under my breath:

Ker-ching....
Ker-ching....
Ker-ching....
*Invoice*

[rootsnall]

Get yourself in small tinpot Co and make code changes directly in the live system ! You can then moan about working practices at the other extreme.

[zara_backdog]

Agree that IT has become (even) more boring. I blame the rise of Business Analysts. Not quite sure why though.

I'm hurt now Mind you I have been a BA for 10 years now and came up from doing support - do I count?

[Bright Spark]

I keep checking the money coming in on my plan b on my iphone and
emailing my plan b clients + checking facebook and this forum, whilst
sitting in our boring meetings!.

[Purple Dalek]

When I got into computers it was before all this micros stuff. There have been the occasional projects which are totally stuffed with utter incompetents. As long as no one is shouting at me for stuff that is completely out of my control I kind of like it that way, means a job I know would only take days can last in one case 2 years 8 months, and I was able to get on with several plan bs whilst the uk gov client paid handsomely for me to attend, for no reason I was able to ever ascertain.

Which is nice.

[BrilloPad]

I blame the off-shorers.

[Purple Dalek]

Forgot to mention. Why I go to initial client meetings I often ask what they use for a code repository, found it a fail-safe way of determining their ****ed-up-ness.

If it's CVS they're OK, if it's Subversion they've got a few too many anal types, if it is Clearcase, oh boy hold on to your hats as they're being reamed by at least one major consultancy and it's Contractor Rodeo!

In fact I would agree with another poster here who suggested Clearcase is an anti-pattern for a failed project.