Is it a lie?
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Loner,
I would say follow Anders advice to become a contractor or find a position where the manager is good at insulating the developers from politics. Fortunately, my current position is like that. They stated we were hired to develop, not to do verbal jousting with other employees. However, I'll admit it's not all that easy to find this situation and sometimes we are exposed to politics every now and then - but not to the degree I've seen in other jobs. It doesn't hurt to ask the interviewers on the next job hunt about their perceptions on this subject, and its impact on their day-to-day work, though.
I've been in a few jobs where the people and/or situations were unbearable, so I can relate. So just hang in there, make a good list of questions before you go to your interview, and you'll find an IT home before you know it.
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Loner,
Sorry about my lack of tact in putting the emphasis on you being a woman. Think about it though - how many women would pick the handle of 'Loner'? In any case, you're a DBA and that is what counts on this site moreso than anything else.
I think the comment from a subsequent post about finding a manager who shields the programmers & technical people from politics is a bit of a tough call. Isn't that like trying to find the used car that might be a great performer for the next 20 years or a total lemon that someone is trying to offload?
Unfortunately, you cannot work out if a manager is good until you're there under their control - and a good political player will still keep you thinking that all is great while keeping the knife industry in business purely on what they bury in your back!
The only way around a situation such as what you are facing is to learn to play the game and to play it well - it will be when you gain some skills in this area is when things start to happen for you and your opinion won't be undermined by an idiot manager who has obviously ascended to their optimum level of incompetence.
Well... there is another solution that is often jokingly (albeit in bad taste) referred to as "going postal" but I would strongly recommend against going down this path.
Maybe, in the meantime, you could just give your manager a nickname that appeals to you and will make you smile while giving you an 'out' should anyone take issue. My favourite is 'Slinky' - as in: "Some people are good for nothing but they do make you smile when you push them down some stairs." The counter could be (if caught out using this name):
"Why do you call him/her 'Slinky'?"
"Because he/she is like a self-powering machine that keeps going until the job is done!" (a perfect political answer - you just don't say the bit after it aloud, "... after I push them down the stairs!")
Yeah - I know - I have this fixation with steps and people being pushed down them. Just call it the 'Slinky' thing as that helps me to not act on it...
A lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.
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There are a some GREAT episodes about hiring on the Managers-Tools Podcast that are worth listening to.
How to Handle Pre-employment Testing
Effective Hiring: Set the Bar High!
How to Fire Someone (Well, Almost)
Solution to a Stalled Technical Career
Also...
IT Conversations: Hiring Technical Talent
http://feeds.gigavox.com/~r/gigavox/channel/itconversations/~5/152109788/ITC.TM-JoelSpolsky-2007.08.27.mp3
Video - Horstman's Second Law of Interviewing
http://www.manager-tools.com/2007/08/video-horstmans-second-law-of-interviewing/
Hanselminutes #53 - Hiring and Interviewing Engineers
http://perseus.franklins.net/hanselminutes_0053.mp3
Scott (PodCast Fanboy)
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Loner - If you're unhappy with your situation, you will have more luck changing yourself than all the people around you. A new handle like CheeryMcFunPerson
might be a good start.Complaining, hoping, bitching, wishing are not going to improve anything. Accept everything, then decide what you are going to do to improve your situation. The other guy got the promotion... nobody understands what you do... no one is on your side... If that's the reality, and you dont like it, do something to change it for the better!
A better proverb: "You must be the change you wish to see in the world" - Ghandi
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Another proverb:
"Before you can think outside the box, you must first realize... that you're in a box." --Jeff Moden circa 2004
--Jeff Moden
RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally) -
Loner,
I can tell from this post and others that you have had a lot of hurts and issues from your past. This is hampering your ability to function fully in your current situation. Somehow, you have to find a way to let it go. If you don't, their past behavior will still be controlling you, even today. This is the ultimate insult, that their past bad behavior is still hurting you today.
One way to let go is to forgive them. I know this is not easy to do, but it could really free you.
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Reading this I a reminded of one thing. A person can in fact hav worked with something all their life and not have one clue about it. I dealt with a developer who forever had built data access into his systems and had to open each table in memory (into multiple arrays) and work it together that way for display and management. In the begining it was the right choie for the app, but 3 years later when SQL Server was made available for the app to use it should have been redesigned.
Things can change so much in a short time that when someone says they have 7 years .NET experience it desn't mean they understand the differences between VS 2000 and 2005 enough to take advantage of the changes that affect how they work.
But that sai,d if after a year that person cannot grasp what they need to do in the system they are working on (especially after askin moe than once about it) then they probably will never fit the job just right and this leads to a lot of conflict in groups that otherwise do achieve. My experience i that instead of giving them the answer start by making suggestions of where to look and let them acheive it own their on as long as time permits (sometimes deadlines can put a dampner on this). That way they are more likely to comprehend and keep the answer rather than ask again, and in some cases saying look at BOL leads to very few future questions outside of clarification.
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