Seems like everyone is blogging about the changes in my job, might as well join up. In short, our group is being re-organized, people are leaving the details are pretty long and complicated. The skinny is, things are changing after many comfortable years. Time to reflect.

As job leads come and go, I talk to candidates and review job descriptions (for replacements), I can’t help but thinking about what’s wrong, what could be better and what could be perfect.

To start, here’s a list of perfect/nearly perfect things.

Here’s what a perfect job should be to me:

1. I should have a decent commute — Not spending 1-2 hours in the car a day total. Maybe ride my bicycle. Maybe walk.
2. The technology should be exciting — All the business stuff is boring to me. People leaving, stress from dumb questions, the tech is why I’m not flipping burgers.
3. I can use Linux. I have the option of using a Mac. In the end, Management doesn’t care what I use. — Cross platform is good. You can use the best of breed wherever. Unfortunately, there are about a million reasons why I can’t admin from a Mac/Linux.
4. A project comes along big enough for me to use my Java or XML skills — Doing XML transformations on email and loading it into Oracle or something like that. I like writing scripts but it’s pretty fucking boring after a while.
5. Pay. When I leave, everything goes to shit. So pay me. You can replace lots of jobs easy. Sales is networked with clients and IT is networked with information. Many leads go with a laid-off sales force, such is information with the IT group.
6. One person on my team has written a book or done a serious whitepaper — yeah, I’m guilty too I guess.
7. LCD screen — ow, my eyes.
8. An awesome office.
9. An awesome workstation — faster than I can interface with it please.
10. No bullshit policy — A tie doesn’t do crap.
11. No business cards unless I request them. Hi, I have a digital business card. I have a billion of them. And you can reply to them.
12. I shouldn’t ever feel guilty taking time off. I have errands to do. We all do. Just because you are in the office, doesn’t mean I should be. We all have work to do but sitting in a chair in a building isn’t working neccessarily.

I know the reasons why these things can’t happen. I know they have huge costs associated with them. I know that many places are just stuck with stuff like this. Meh, it’s just wishing. The best job is not having one and being rich I guess.

Things that could be better right now:

1. Alternative rewards. If I do a good job, give me a day of telecommuting. Yes, I know it’s complicated, figure it out. Balloons and stickers are childish and insulting.
2. The CEO does not need to interview everyone.
3. Don’t be afraid of overpaying one person. We’re replacing 4 people with 7 people. If the average salary is 70k, then you’ve just taken on 120k in salary costs, spreading that out would result in 30k raises for everyone. Money can certainly motivate, even if you don’t expect to get a whole new employee’s productivity out of a current employee.
4. Identify the dead end jobs. Create an ‘out’ or a benefit.
5. Don’t own the latest fire. It’s insulting and doesn’t accomplish anything.
6. No one wants to buy company swag.
7. No one wants to buy company stock. Real estate is hot, why don’t you buy a corporate house and give us a piece of that?
8. You have no fucking clue what we do on a day-to-day basis. That is why you can’t hire anyone to take responsibility for it.
9. We are production. Our fires are more critical than development fires.
10. You have pissed off more than 100 people to the point of them changing their lives to avoid you and your job.
11. Your turnover rate is record-breakingly high this year and you are still enforcing stupid policies or ideas.
12. You hire young people because they are cheap.
13. Every decision has to go through you even though you have the majority of the stock and no one wants to rule your 45% turnover company.
14. Many people have learned more at other jobs.
15. Some people are leaving the area because you don’t pay them enough to afford housing.
16. You take credit for everything good. You take credit for a reasonable amount of bad stuff but there’s no repercussion because you’re the CEO.

Wow, this list is all about the CEO. Man.