Dan Makovec’s blog

The crappy job market

Last night was ITG’s monthly drinkies, and we held it on the Tattershall’s Castle, a permanently docked ship which has been converted into a pub on the Thames right next to Embankment station. Fantastic location - beautiful views of the Houses of Parliament, London Eye and Southbank, with a nice cool Summer evening breeze giving it a fresh atmosphere compared with the regular stuffy, smokey pubs we usually go to.

After talking with some other contractors and the staff and then listening to the HR folks at work today, the overall opinion is that the job market still sucks here, almost as badly as it did last year, and is probably still about 6 months of getting serious.

The problem stems from the fact that the UK had the longest running IT boom, so when all the other markets went bad the contractors flocked over here to make their money. When things turned to shit here last year, *many* were laid off. Since then they’ve been living off their savings and picking bar-staff type jobs until their next shot at IT glory. This means that while there are precious few positions available, there is still a glut of workers sitting around awaiting their opportunity.

Going on a cyclic analysis, real growth in the market is actually still about 18 months away. The job situation itself will probably start to pick up in about 6-12 months though, as the contractors-on-hold quit the UK once their money buffers have run too low. This should restore the balance of workers to positions available. Last night I learned two important guidelines for dealing with this interim period:

1. It’s a client’s market at the moment. They can afford to be (and are) very picky with their selection of candidates for roles. You really do have to go all out to impress a potential employer. A new question which employers and agencies have started asking in order to differentiate the wheat from the chaff of out of work contractors is “what have you been doing with yourself since your last major job”. Answers like “having a break”, “taking a vacation”, “travelling”, “spending time with family” etc are bad. Answers like “small private jobs”, “training courses”, or demonstrating personal projects are good
2. If you have work, no matter how menial, stick with it as long as possible for the moment. The time has not come to tell your boss to stick his/her job. Always have a safety net. Use paid/unpaid leave to break up the monotony of your job if you’re really desparate, looking for work during the gaps. Don’t quit one job until you have another, because it could be a long while between paychecks

Luckily for me this plays well into my 12 month plan. Hopefully by the time those 12 months are up the market will be too!

Geek ahoy!

The new site is coming along well. I got some inspiration and last night sat up till 2am on Fireworks, eventually getting the right look for my new icons. Very simplistic, but all original and I like ‘em. I never knew graphic design could be so hard - pixellation, dithering, vector scalability - aaargh! I miss good old fashioned HTML. One thing I learned though - mice are much better than touchpads for this sort of work. Nick lent me cute little a USB one and I sat in bed using my pillow as a mousemat. Things really flew! Now the graphics are complete, and I’ve got a fair bit of content, I can get on with actually moulding the site - can’t be that much more to do.

More geeky things this morning. Nick phoned me up while I was worshipping in the temple, and before I knew it I was sitting astride his chair at his dual-screen doing a bit of network guru stuff. Basically he was at a customer’s place doing some mods to a kick-arse WLAN (using the hardware we played with last week before my trip to Heaven). Simple stuff really, although it sounds cool - Internet connection to an ethernet DSL modem, piggy-backed to a wireless firewall hub, with a assorted laptops and other machines on the VLAN.

Given that the client was on the other side of town, Nick wanted to set up a simple remote admin so he didn’t have to tube up there all the time. Bring in good ol’ VNC - possibly the best piece of free network software ever written, and a quick Google-hunt to find the PDF’d reference manuals for all the hardware he was using so I could figure out what was on their web config screens.

The whole setup only took about 5 minutes over the phone - install VNC on the main desktop, punch a redirect for port 5800 in the firewall thru to it, re-jig DHCP to keep the internal IP static so the redirect works, then get him to send me an email, from which I checked the headers for the firewall’s IP address. Fired up IE, surfed to port 5800 on the IP, type in the password and hey presto, remote control!

I love doing that sort of stuff, more than coding when I do it occasionally. I even thought of a few extra tweaks for the setup to give remote access to EVERY computer on the VLAN while reading the Metro on the tube, although it’s probably overkill. The only problem is they pay is crap for that type of work compared to what I’m on now - it’s just not worth my time financially.

Still, I’ve decided its time to refresh my memory on sysadminy kind of stuff, so this w/e I’m going to pull out wanky.fatcanary’s HDD that Dad shipped over to me in December and get one of Nick’s spare PCs running BSD, teaching him in the process. I find I learn more myself when I’m teaching someone else how to do things - it stretches the brain muscles or something. Now if I can just find a driver for his USB modem, we’ll build a little net gateway that he can tuck away nice and silently in his closet…

The irony of salary

6 months ago I was being paid a rediculous amount of money to sit around, run other people’s software, and hack up a billing system that let’s folks with a @yahoo.co.uk/fr/it email address pay the company money and get a bigger mailbox.

Now I’m on half the salary I was, and I’m effectively tech lead on a project to extend the system to other products. The ironic part is that that now I’m being paid less, I’ve got more responsibility and I’m pulling apart all the shit work I did during in the Winter to make something more robust now. I get paid much, much less to do much, much more - what gives? I feel another bitch about job satisfaction in the making for the Autumn.

I hope it all works - we go live in 3 weeks.

A bigger run

Wahoo! I’m getting better at this. Another 30 minute run last night - this time I set the mill at 12km/h (7.45mph - uh let’s see in Ben-dize that’s a 48:20 6 mile split equivalent) and kept it steady the whole time. Yes, I was pretty trashed at the end of it, but I felt great! I think the trick is having a *light* meal beforehand and drinking lots of water. It’s nice to be a full 1km/h faster than last week, but I’m obviously not going to be able to keep accelerating at this pace - next week I’ll go for 12.5 and see how things pan out.

I find it fascinating how my body reacts to running. Never having been much of a runner as a kid (during our warmup run around the school during PE class I was always the kid everybody kept waiting for, as I walked the entire length of the circuit with Graz, discussing politics and all things geeky), I’m only just really discovering how I handle it.

I find I have about four winds. Things go great for the first 5 minutes, then the next 5 tend to drag on for eternity. Once I’m 10 down I’m happy and breeze through the next 10 without any problems. Hitting the 20 minute mark things seem a little slower, then at about 25 I reach the “come on, how much LONGER can it be? Maybe I should stop now” mark, while simultaneously pushing myself by remembering what a shame it would be to have come so far without completing the job. Once I hit 29 minutes, I start cramping up a little, possibly because I’m over-exerting because I’m nearly at the end.

Once I hit that 30 minute mark, I’m tempted to just stop, but I know I need a 2 minute jog to cool down - this is the point at which my breathing really struggles, much like it used to if I tried to run more than a hundred meters. Funny thing is though that after the cool down, I feel fine and I’m ready to go off and do whatever (last night this involved heading out to Soho and downing a few pints with a mate - super-healthy I know).

Still, I’m really happy that I’m not only surviving these runs, but I’m gradually getting better at them. It’s just a once a week thing at the moment (I wonder if I’ll have upped this rate in coming months when I look back on this entry?), with the other four weekdays dedicated to general exercise and training. My main goal here is to be as fit as possible for my stint in Africa, since I’m going to need to be to dodge the bullets!

Cambridge photos

As promised, the photos from yesterday’s Cambridge trip are up. Brian remarked how awful I looked on Sunday morning (he’s always been a sweety like that), and after seeing them I’m inclined to agree with him. Still, here we are, enjoy!

I’m off for some MUCH needed beauty sleep

Cambridge and Art

Things have been pretty full-on the past week. Well, actually thinking about it things have been pretty calm in relation to other weeks - it’s just that my focus has become so narrow and short-term lately that it takes relatively little to fill up my “full-on” tank. It’s almost to the stage where if I do anything more than get up, make breakfast and watch TV, it’s full on!

Anyway, after a long week last week, I decided to spend the weekend just having fun. The weather on Saturday was *amazingly* good - temperature in the high-20s, nothing but sun. After having a quick check-up at the doc’s at lunch time (which was an ordeal, because I had to get to Regent’s Park, and with Picadilly Circus being closed because of a fire (the second actual fire on the Bakerloo in 2 days - the tracks must be getting hot), the tubes were a bit chaotic. I ended up shooting all the way from Baron’s Crt to Leicester Square, then running down to Charring Cross before discovering that the entire Bakerloo was shut down, so I had to take another tube back up PAST Leicester to Warren St then run past 3 stations down to Harley by Regent’s Park. Still, I was only 10 minutes late in the end, and since the doc was 15 late it all worked out as per normal.

Afterwards I decided I wanted some more culture, so went down to Southbank to the Dali exhibition. It only cost 8.50 to get in, and I got a good hour and a half out of it. It’s true, the man was a genious. He took on so many forms of expression - painting, drawing, sculpture, music and film. Unlike a lot of popular artists though, he actually seemed to enjoy his life and the work that he did, becoming famous during his own lifetime. It was amazing to see some of his sculptures and the influence that his favorite architect, Gaudi (of Barcelona fame) had on his work.

I was a little disappointed that some of his most popular works weren’t in the exhibit, but then I guess they’re in galleries all around the world. Still, there were plenty of soft-watches, all molten and all pointing to 6:00, to look at in both painted and sculped form. All in all the exhibit was a fascinating insight into the man’s mind. I think next week I’ll head to the Saachi gallery next door, which has some amazing sculpture.

Saturday night I caught up with Ed and Marissa down at Parson’s Green, where we had Thai at a local pub with 11 of Ed’s other closest mates (Ed can make friends with anyone, he’s that sort of guy!), and plenty of wine before going downstairs to dance to a rather chubby Elvis impersinator who looked a bit like the Goggomobile guy from the Yellow Pages ad. We had a great laugh, and I also learned about the UK government’s plans to relax immigration laws for members of Commonwealth countries, and extend the right of parental citizenship to maternal as well as paternal claims. If this comes off (it’s due to in the next few weeks) it means I could have myself an EU passport by the end of Summer and can then live and work anywhere I want to in Europe!

Sunday morning saw lots of Rain, so Brian and I met up at Kings Cross station nice and early and took the train out to Cambridge, about an hour’s ride away, for a day trip. Luckily, when we got there the rain had gone and the sun was out. It was a little humid, but not uncomfortably so. As far as towns go, Cambridge is nice and friendly, with most of the shops you find in London, but it’s just “a town”, with not much generally going for it outside of acedemia and some really amazing old buildings. Still, we got the feeling something was missing from the place. Maybe that’s because exams have finished and the core student population has gone home for the Summer, or maybe it’s just from our being spoilt by too much activity in London. That being said, I bought four shirts (they’re so much cheaper than in London) and some frames for my posters. Brian went a bit mad in the art shop and picked up three Dali’s for his new room. Over the top? Perhaps, but the room looks a lot nicer now
We had a really ordinary lunch at the cafe (Cambridge sandwiches may be nutricious, but flavorsome they’re not!), before taking an amazing punt ride (a punt’s a bit like a gondola, with a lovely college-boy who pushes it along with his pole while telling you the history of the area) along the main river. The views of the various colleges (there are so many! St John’s, Clare, Trinity, Queens’, Pembroke, Peterhouse, Christ’s, Jesus - I’m not kidding! A Christ’s AND a Jesus). from the river are breathtaking as you glide along with the swans taking in the trees, the acres of neatly manicured lawns, and the up to 700 year old college buildings. I took a few photos and will put them up tonight.

So overall, a great relaxing weekend!

Scarey stuff

In developments at work, I’m preparing to push a product out to our beta testers to get things done. Now that we’re going live, I’ve started pulling out the stubs and hooking the thing into our live system, which in turn gives me access to the big data store that makes things work here.

I have to be careful what I say here.. Having been a customer of the company for which I’m now working for basically since it began, I thought it would be a cute idea to probe around and see what information they had on my history. Let me tell you, I was shocked. Not only by the sheer amount of information that’s known about me, but the length of time the information has been kept (there’s stuff about me and my “choices” since 2nd year of uni!).

Now, I believe these guys are nicer than some other companies. I hate to imagine what tabs the big M keeps on its customers.

Scientists grow decaffeinated coffee plants

Talk about GM for the sake of GM. This article spells it out in detail. I really have to ask, what’s the point?

I mean lets’ face it, coffee is ok and all that, but it’s not the world’s greatest tasting drink, and people drink the stuff to wake themselves up, and I guess to be sociable in the office kitchen while brewing their cup. If you take the caffeine out of coffee, is there really any point in drinking a liquid which is usually way too hot, stains your teeth and makes your breath bad?

First big run

About 2 hours ago I took on my first *true* big run. I’ve gone as fast as 15km/h before and I’ve gone as long as 25mins doing varying speeds from 8 to 10, but tonight I set a target of 30 mins at a constant 11km/h, and achieved it with flying colors. This might seem fairly pedestrian compared to some fellow bloggers, but so far so good. Next week I’ll go for 12km/h and gradually work up to 15.

Naturally, I’m feeling a bit buggered right now but recovering with a gallon or so of water with Graham Norton on the telly to make the night go by. He’s like Dave Letterman, only gay and funny.

Fit as a fiddle

Despite my ongoing respiratory and glandular problems, which I’ve been having on and off ever since I arrived in this filthy town, it appears according to my test tonight that I’m fitter than ever. Not only that, I’m lighter than I’ve been since ‘95, so feeling pretty good about myself. Got a doc’s appt on Sat which will hopefully sort out my glands.