Conditions

In return for my skills, I expect a number of things. Many of the following are negotiable, although the fewer matches you have to the following list, the less likely it will be that your job interests me.

What is the [y-n] stuff? Well that is the results for my previous and current job. Do feel free to play 'tick the box' and see if you can get more of them. :) Just note that, not all of these points are equal. :)

• Working in an intellectually challenging position [n-y]
  I want to create things and make things better. I am not interested in just fighting fires, rather I want to fix problems and create solutions or redesign things to remove the flaws.

• Other smart people [n-y]
  I enjoy working with smart and interesting people. People provide a large part of a satisfying work environment, so the more interesting the people, the more likely I am to join your fun little project.

• An office [y-n]
  I don't really do partitioned office cubes. "I want a door". I like to listen to music sometimes and often I like to work in peace. Working in a public area makes that more difficult.

• Tools to do the job [y-n]
  I work with computers and I need the tools to do that. Tools for my job include things like: palm pilot, notebook computer, home system with full time network link, LCD monitor (I stare at it all day, after all), mobile phone.

• Well provisioned hardware [y-n]
  Much like the tools section above, there is little point purchasing poor quality hardware. One need not purchase a $400,000 SGI reality engine, but neither should one build a server out of scrounged old hardware. I am a firm believer in purchasing good quality, duplicated hardware for servers, so that one has an active server and a test server (which would also double as a replacement hardware for the server). It isn't worth my time or yours to fiddle with junk hardware.

• Non suit environment, non straight environment. [y-y]
  "I'm ugly and I dress funny. Live with it". I work with my brain, so it doesn't really matter what color my hair is or if I don't wear a tie to work. Trust me, the computers don't really care. If you need me in a suit and all neat, then expect that to cost you.

• flexible hours [y-y]
  I'm not a 9 to 5 animal and I am not a morning person, so I tend to prefer a later start (say 10 to 6). Also, I tend to have bursts of creativity, so sometimes I like to work all the way through to midnight when I am on a roll and being productive and so fixed work hours don't really work for me.

  Working with other people requires some common contact time, so I think it makes sense to have certain core hours, say something like 11-4 and try and make sure that those times are kept and 'extra' time is varied around those core hours. For example, maybe a 10am-midnight work day means the next 3 days finish at 4 or something.

• Part time [y-y]
  As I mentioned above, I have a life outside work and I actually find that a 5 day week is a little too hectic. I would be quite happy and content with a 4 day week.

  Working with other and managing people can make this difficult, so obviously there would need core hours as discussed above. There is also the possibility of working 3 days and two half days so that their is no large gap in availability.

  I am ranting about part time, because if I don't get "down time" to do other things, then my quality of life drops and my focus and enjoyment of work drops, which means that some of the good points that attracted me to the job in the first place go away, thus other places start looking more attractive.

• Development time. [y-?]
  Development is all about building things and organizing systems. It takes me concentration and quiet work time to work on large programs and development and that is not possible if one is fighting fires or dealing with day to day things. To this end, I need quiet development time, which is time without being disturbed by day to day details, incoming phone calls or knocks on the door.

• Option to publish source or work on open source projects [y-y]
  Open source is useful in many different places in todays work environment and working on open source puts effort back into this wonderful system. Software developed in house can be greatly improved in quality by releasing the code and letting more eyeballs look over it.

  Often open source code will be used at a work place to make some part of life easier. If this code is not involve with the core work of the environment, then there should be no problem publishing fixes and changes to the source.

  If I code anything that is not 'core business' then the option to release it to the community would be expected. This means no 'the company owns all my work' clause.

• No ball & chain [y-y]
  Working "on call", or being expected to be available outside hours can be a real interruption to one's life and as I have previously stated, I have a life outside work. I would expect heavy compensation for any potential interruption to that, or expect the "cool" qualities of your job to start to disappear.

• No PC's and Mac's. [n-y]
  I use UNIX machines because they don't crash, so my skills at fixing or explaining why other people's computers have stopped working are limited. I have extremely limited Windows and MacOS skills and needing to look after these machines lowers the quality of a work environment. I build servers and provide network services rather than installing and maintaining desktop machines.

• No clients. [n-y]
  Clients may earn you money, but my skills are looking after computer servers. If your clients are computers then I am the man to talk to them, if not then maybe someone with people skills would be better suited to the position.

  I don't mean people at the same work environment, because one tends to share a lot of common 'this must be working' with them, so their problems are your problems. Also system administration is about keeping the work machines running.

• A junior [n-n]
  I have skills and would be happy and keen to pass those on to someone. One runs backups on computers to not lose important data, so it is only natural to consider having a backup for skilled people. Having a junior provides training for the junior, more interesting and active social environment and redundancy for the project.

• Trust and flexibility to do my job. [y-y]
  I consider that I have valuable skills in my area of expertise and I would naturally expect that my employer would make use of those skills and actually take my advice seriously.

• I'm not a tech writer [y-y]
  As you can probably see from the documents you have already read, my skills at writing are somewhat lacking in the spelling and grammar. I can do creative writing and documentation, but it needs a trained reader to translate it into English at times.

• Morally acceptable work [y-y]
  This means that I will not work at jobs that I consider to be morally unacceptable.

• Suitable compensation [?-?]
  And finally, the money side of the equation. The more of the above you can match, the less it will cost you to have me work for you. It should be noted that all points above are not equal. I would have to be offered insane amounts of money to work in a place without the 'trust and flexibility' point above, where as I may be less worried about the 'Junior' point, for example, or I might even do 9-5 if you pay enough or get enough of the other conditions.

References

Here is an article on why doing many jobs at once is bad. (local)

Here is an article on why doing many jobs at once is bad. (local)

Here is an article on how tech workers are the new 19C factory fodder. (local)