>>13507

Would you turn up at a food bank and lie when your cupboards at home were full?

>>13507
I don't think it is ridiculous when their stated mission is to help people without degrees - why should you jump the queue when you've already had that opportunity?

>>13507 Yes if you have a degree then you can't do an apprenticeship.

I can't seem to find how much NI I need to pay to qualify for JSA. In the last year I paid NI for 7 months of work, but they are my only contributions. Not sure if that is enough.

>>14096
If you want a decent pay rise you have to job hop. A company won't pay you more than they feel they have to if you stay.

>>14096

How do you think the NHS lot feel.

Not that that makes it any better, you are right; but there are people out there getting shafted far worse, and they're people who we should all be FAR more thankful for.

If you really are that important to the company, why don't you just play hardball and demand more or else you'll walk out? If you're too afraid they'll call your bluff then, well, ball's in their court isn't it.

>>14097

This is harsh, but I think largely correct. My experience has been that the only leverage I have is the ability to leave for something better.

It kind of fits with my observations of the economy and power structures at work. We have little to no negotiating power through unions anymore. Loyalty is very clearly not valued at the majority of companies, as evidenced by the occasional "downsizing", purge of older staff, or unfair dismissal. Interpersonal relationships, arse-kissing, and general schmoozing might grant you some security and the occasional act of favouritism, but I don't think it's a viable way to plan a career. "Personal development" within a firm is often a bad joke, either through indifference, mismanagement, or very obviously being set up to benefit the company rather than the employee. Why on earth would it be otherwise? Provided you continue to show up and do your work, what incentive does a company actually have to care about what you, the individual, aspires to?

Since otherlad brought up the NHS, I will say in its favour that despite the majority of its staff being massively underpaid and undervalued, they do at least have a very transparent grading and promotion system so you know what to do to the next payband. Since going to the private sector, I've had to get used to some proper Wild West bullshit in which you're marketing yourself like a commodity to the highest bidder.

I don't mean to sound cynical, but I genuinely can't think of a reason why my employer would care whether I can afford a house or whether I'm bored every day, beyond it affecting my ability to continue doing what they want me to do. Any rhetoric layered on top of this very apparent basic arrangement is just management guff.

I think I just accidentally talked myself into doing security auditing for work, I brought it up fairly casually in a meeting and now the site owners are adopting an "oh yeah? PROVE IT" attitude to stuff that could very easily be verified by just looking around themselves, and my company is into it because they're weirdos who think making extra work for service providers is a good idea.

I've had an 8 page booklet through the post from HSL to let me know they're hiring and explaining why I should go and work for them. I guess the staffing shortages are really starting to bite.

>>14046

>chemistry

NHS m8. Get yourself a job as a bottom bitch lab assistant or pharmacy technician, your qualification will enable you to actually progress from there (potentially with taking additional modules/certificaations etc).

>>14046
It's probably still worth trying the networking thing. Don't ask the people you know, but if you can find someone you don't know but who went to the same...house? College? as you, you can just talk about that during the interview and let them assume you were one of the gang. LinkedIn probably has lots of this information listed.

>>14047

Teaching is also an option, if that appeals. Chemistry graduates can claim a bursary of £24,000 to train as a teacher.

https://getintoteaching.education.gov.uk/funding-your-training

>>14049

Teaching is definitely a possbility. With an ever-increasing gap on his CV, OP will struggle to land a private-sector job worthy of his formal education, but all is not lost if he's still in his mid-20s.

In the mean time, I would go on the lookout for any job at all that gets you out of the house every day and gets you at least a few hundred quid a month. Two years is a long time to not be doing much of anything. It's not just two years of non-existing job experience, but possible employers will also be skeptical if you can just hit the ground running and get back into an everyday work routine from one day to the next.

There are jobs that can ease you back into a daily routine. You could do part-time work delivering food, or some low-level customer phone support. You don't have to work in a warehouse or supermarket.

There's a whole world of civil service jobs out there with an application process designed to cut out connections. If I remember right sifters and interviewers don't actually see your job history either because they certainly hired me with a year gap. Apply for HEO and at a push SEO unless you have management experience. Pay is shit but you can get a nice/work life balance in a very secure job that looks good on your CV if you ever want to escape, plus you're not selling rubbish to people all day.

If anything the problem we have is that not enough people apply and of those they seem unable to provide answers to the competencies so posts just go unfilled. I don't think it would be wrong if you asked for advice on competencies if you need it. Saged ticked because I don't know if I should be recruiting arse-pissers.

>>14036
Thanks for your insight. To be honest a DevOps role is something I've had my eye on. Not just for the pay but because as said, my role as a (mostly) manual tester is rote by nature, boring and stagnant. Do you have any advice please for someone with my skillset (or lack thereof) in pursuing a devops career?

It feels incredibly daunting, but on places like reddit I'm seeing people 'go from qa to devops in a year' so it can't be impossible...

>>14050
I can help with that; my job title is Head of DevOps for a big organisation.

1. Learn to script - python is great. You need to be able to automate almost anything you used to do on a command line. I can recommend educative.io

2. Do cloud stuff in your spare time. Get both the basic AWS and Azure accounts. Learn how to deploy a basic Windows and Linux server - then do it purely via code. You'll want to learn Terraform as it's almost an industry standard now, but Pulumi is also being strongly adopted. AWS is still way better than Azure and used in more companies, but in the beginning that matters less.

3. Learn how to build pipelines and run CI/CD toolchains - again, you can do this in Azure DevOps or AWS CodePipeline.

4. Learn to Docker and Kubernetes.

>>14051
There's lucky that the other two of you work in incredibly relevant roles.

Thanks a lot for the help, really appreciate it. It feels good to have point 1, mostly, down already. I also have the AWS Cloud Practitioner although that's quite the meme cert I'm aware.

One question; I was told there is no such thing as a 'junior' dev-ops engineer, as the field itself requires a level of knowledge that a typical junior XYZ wouldn't have yet. Is that true? Or are there some forgiving entry level devops roles?

>>14051
Just a tiny question: what's the diffrerence between sys admin, DevOps and SRE in your mind?

>>14053
Version 0. System Administration
Version 1. DevOps
Version 2. DevSecOps
Version 3. Site Reliabilty Engineering

I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that SRE is a better practice than DevOps, because it is very well defined - there is an actual book and set of definitions - Google have done a superb job with it. There are huge overlap in the ideas - SRE is an instance of DevOps.

SRE solves some of the problems that people have conceptually when they encounter DevOps ideas for the first time. Most advanced technology organisations who have adopted DevOps principles have seen the issues around information security (and have therefore adopted a more DevSecOps mindset) and are rapidly moving toward SRE, because operationally it is better.

So to answer your question precisely - it's a progession and it's somewhat difficult to skip the stages. If you know nothing about the challenges around development and system administration, then you're unlikely to appreciate DevOps. If you haven't done DevOps, then you're unlikely to appreciate why you want to quickly get to DevSecOps. If you haven't seen any of these challenges in a production environment, then SRE will seem quite academic.

In the current climate, employers in most fields are desperate for staff and can't afford to be picky. I think you're better off being straight rather than trying to hide anything - it won't come back to bite you in the arse, you probably don't want to work for someone who would discriminate on health grounds and there are loads of jobs going at the moment if it falls through.

>all the time with doctor's notes, for a long term disability that my managers were aware of

I would still tell a prospective new employer. What else are you going to tell them that you did all day the last few years or however long you were at your old job. You didn't just play hooky, you had valid reasons to be off work. Even if they let you go. Honesty is still a currency at job interviews, at least if you can offer a reasonable explanation.

Do make sure to emphasize that your health problems are behind you now, and that it was really just some improbably bad luck that you were gone from your work repeatedly. Maybe even get a note from your doctor confirming that you're all better now.

>>14031
> Do make sure to emphasize that your health problems are behind you now

I would lead with that when/if you bring it up. Something to the effect of "Though it is behind me now thanks to the fantastic treatmeant I received from XYZ, I was forced to take extended time off which I communicated to my managers at the time". Rephrase that, of course, but you get the gist. Depending on how competitive your field is you want to make sure that the person reading your CV (if it's a machine, then god help you) is forwarned of any red flags so they can contextualise them before they form an unfavourable opinion.

We (more or less) only hire people with a few years experience, and for those we only call on the references if they make extraordinary claims: "I worked in the maintenance crew for the Eiffel Tower and single-handedly dismantled and re-riveted the structure in under 6 hours while a team of painters did their thing to keep up".

But your mileage may vary by a country mile depending on your industry.

>>14032

>if it's a machine, then god help you

I generally don't apply for jobs where HR think they can't even be arsed to have a human working out if you're a promising candidate. I know that that increasingly rules out a lot of major companies these days, but I've found that I am most comfortable working for smaller companies anyway, where people are a tight-knit group and aren't at the whim of management many levels of hierarchy above them. Smaller companies haven't quite adopted that technology yet in large numbers.

I applied for a job at a big tech service provider before the pandemic, and I got an e-mail telling me to call a number for a phone interview. Which turned out to be fully computerised. What the actual fuck. I hung up about four or five minutes in, after a few somewhat inane questions their computer saw fit to ask me, because if they can't find the time to talk to you on the phone in person, i.e. if no actual fucking human at their company can manage to take ten minutes out of their day to have a personal chat with you, then they aren't worth my time either.


Self sage for thread derailment.

>>14029
Don't you have a work mate? Give their details and let them act as your previous manager.

I'm just weaseling my way out of a similar pickle myself, with the exception that my option A turned out to be de facto permanent so it became a no-brainer for me.

That 18-month contract really is a big leap of faith, isn't it? Or are you confident you'll walk straight into further work (if you need it) after that term ends?

Similarly, if that fixed-term job (or others just like it) are going to continue to be available to you, then where's the harm in pushing for management role, and just keeping contracting as a back-burner option? Like you said, it is your career ambition, but if you've had a small taste of corporate work and don't like it, it might be best to find out if management is right for you sooner rather than later.

>it has become a job
The worst. Hopefully you get some respite and some clarity before too long.

>>14017
Ah it's the opposite; I'd commit to working there for 18 months minimum as part of the contract but it's a permanent posting so I could stay forever if I was so inclined. In theory management jobs could open up in office and thereby dodge the 18 month handcuffs but I doubt it will happen so soon after a round of recruitment unless I kill someone.

The harm comes from staying in my job now while I wait for an offer on management somewhere. That would likely be January before I pull it off.

I think only you can answer how much you want to commit to the corporate management thing. You say it's your career goal, but it doesn't sound like you're very much into that side of the game.

For me, I'm at a point both mentally and financially where I will always chase the fun or interesting rather than the lucrative. I could/should be chasing bigger upper management or even board positions, but I think once I'm taken away from the actual work we do, once my boots are off the ground and sat in some corner office, I know it'll become work, as you say.

I suppose it depends how much freedom you'd have in the latter role, leading a project can sometimes be as good as working it. I'm not really supposed to wander around sites the way I do, but it's my job and nobody can or will stop me. If your environment is a bit more limiting then perhaps the honest work is the best route.

If you are honest with yourself and find that the true driving force is that you just think you "should" be climbing the ladder, because thats what your peers are doing, then it's time to take a step back and take stock.

You'll have to do your best as a freelancer of sorts to get started out in this sort of field. You have to build up a portfolio you can demonstrate to potential employers before they'll even look at you.

My missus has made her living as an artist for most of the last decade, and she'd probably be able to wipe the floor with most of the cunts who actually get the jobs. But when 90% of your paying work was porn they don't seem to think it counts. Nonsense if you ask me, it just shows she knows where the business is.

>>13917
Nice. I do have a decent portfolio, for illustration and animation. Not enough widget-y things for graphic/UI design. Can you ask your missus where she found her work?

>>13918
If you go in Reddit there's quite a few subs for artists open for commissions. It seems Septics have a lot of disposable income to throw at fantasy porn

>>13920
Wipe them out, all of them.

If I'm not mistaken those schemes actually don't effect whether or not you receive any benefits. Assuming of course you're looking for work off your own back, and you are, aren't you, Anon?

JETS is voluntary, so unless your claimant commitment specifically mentions going on courses or schemes that are recommended to you, then you just need a plausible reason why you think it's unsuitable for your needs.

It helps if you've got something else that sounds like a plan, whether that's a sector you're trying to get into or a course you'd like to go on. It doesn't have to be a great plan, but having something you can vaguely make progress towards is a useful distraction technique.

The Work and Health Programme is mandatory and can involve you being referred to JETS, but only if you've been claiming benefits for more than 24 months.

If you're serious about scrounging, get intimately familiar with the the Advice for Decision Making documents. They are in effect the rulebook for the benefit system. Quoting a paragraph from them can cut through a massive amount of bullshit if you aren't arsey about it. Get to know the mandatory reconsideration process, because it's your first line of defence if your Work Coach starts making up their own rules.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/advice-for-decision-making-staff-guide

https://www.gov.uk/mandatory-reconsideration

>>13894

>>13892
The prophetic hand is from past attempts. The straighteners may help with another problem cartoons have taught me with using dynamite.

>>13896

>>13897
I meant to do that. The hand is actually the disembodied hand of God doing it's magic as is often referenced in biblical texts, domestic-terrorist-lad has warned humanity of the abomination of controlled flight using drones and is now taking the next logical step.

Curious to see if OP comes through with this or was just fishing for information.

>>13867
>John Major hasn't got a modem.
Is that one of those football chants?

>>13868
He's got no modem,
He's got no mode-emmmmm,
John major,
He's got no modem.

A mate of mine met his wife on a Star Wars fan forum in the late nineties, when he was about 10 and she was about 40.

>>13870
That went from lovely to very uncomfortable so fast I've got whiplash.

>>13861

I think >>13863 is spot on. Up until the late 2000s the bulk of the people who made up the Internet's society and culture tended to be the more nerdy technical, creative and alternative types who found each other and formed communities here in a way which couldn't happen IRL since they were too geographically dispersed.

Back then even if half the country was online a lot of people saw the internet as a thing you used to read websites, send email and maybe even buy stuff if you were feeling brave. They used it but didn't really participate in it.

Actually publishing content took a bit of effort to set up a blog and maybe write some basic HTML. It wasn't that hard but it did have the effect of filtering out a lot of low effort stuff.
The average person couldn't be arsed to do all that just to share their opinions on the latest celebrity gossip and last night's episode of Eastenders when they could have he same conversations at work or with their IRL friends. You had to have something you felt was actually worth sharing with the wider community for it to be worth the effort.

I think things started going downhill around the late 2000s to early 2010s.
My current theory is that the combination of modern social media like FB and Twitter combined with the proliferation of easy to use smartphones and tablets gave the great hoards of normies both the means and the motivation to colonize the internet.

Social media (especially sites like FB which were mostly an online extension of existing communities IRL at the time) was both great source of the kind of IRL gossip and drama that certain types of people (who previously thought the internet was for sad nerds) are obsessed with and very easy to actively engage with.

The link to smartphones and tablets is a bit more tenuous but I suspect their proliferation exposed the internet to a large section of users who are, to put it politely "not good at computers" and wouldn't use the internet unless they had to if a computer was the only option.

There's serious money to be made in bats.

https://networkrecruitment.tal.net/vx/appcentre-7/brand-4/candidate/so/pm/1/pl/8/opp/3104-3104-Bats-in-Churches-Project-Manager/en-GB

See if anything takes your fancy here:

https://www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/index.cgi

Slightly related. YouTube's been recommending me loads of behind the scenes Breaking Bad videos for reasons far beyond my comprehension, but that made me realise that special effects seems right up my street. I have a degree in electronic engineering, but the vast, vast majority of jobs out there for EE are just coding. I don't mind coding, but I like making shit.

I guess the problem is it's a brutally difficult industry to break into.

The problems with field jobs is that everyone wants one and they're often poorly paid with little career prospect. Plus you're probably just thinking that because the weather is lovely at the minute.

>>13821
On civil service jobs you find these by searching the two operations professions. Just brace yourself on the pay.

Just become a bin manwaste management technician.

>>13820
I'm an Environmental Scientist at a University -doing field science within academia or for a consultancy is a very competitive field. There's also a surplus of volunteers to contend with.
From what I've seen, quite a bit of focus and cash is directed towards bats and newts, but I think you need specialist qualifications (BIG NEWT controls the market).

Maybe try working for a water company? I used to do site ops, it's a great combination of out doors working and problem solving/engineering. Being called out to a trunk main burst at 23:00 on Xmas Eve is always a possibility though.

>>13794
Mmm. Were they aware of your situation? Did you give them the doctor's notes?

>>13795
I gave them doctor's notes, and made them aware of my condition in my pre-employment occupational health assessment.

>>13795
You might be getting to that age where you need to think about investing in a pair of reading glasses.

Bang out of order OP, and this is why.

>During all this time I asked for home working, but my manager refused due it being a "waste of time", despite their being open positions on other teams that exclusively WFH.

As far as I understand the law, they are obligated to offer you a different role or position first before sacking. If they haven't allowed you the opportunity to do that it should be an open and shut case.

Not that it should really make a difference, but what's your disability? How long have you had off?

What a lot of companies seem to do nowadays is just push their luck with this sort of thing in the hopes you won't have the resources/willpower to fight it, and lean on their "sickness policy" as though anyone having over 10 days off is self-evidently a skiving bastard. It's the sort of thing Capita can get away with when they sack a 21 year old call centre operative for having too many Monday sickies, but if you work somewhere serious enough to have a union and occy health department it shouldn't happen.

>>13796
So they started issuing you warnings whilst you were doing that?

I think it means "we don't care how you do your job unless you do something stupid" or sometimes "you're the manager but you also have to fill in for three non existent team members"

Agile, if it refers to Agile working, is apparently just starting/finishing whenever you want. I have to be available between 10am-12pm and 2pm-4pm, but outside of that I can just do whatever I want, ostensibly, as long as my timesheet gets filled.

Speaking of timesheets, does anyone find that they absolutely crush any drive to optimize ones workload? Or am I looking at it wrong, and they're really an opportunity to save time by optimizing your work without telling anyone and getting all your work done in 20% of the time?

To me it means you have a continuous circular development cycle as opposed to waterfall in how you manage projects. This began in the IT sector because customers are fucking idiots but now everyone does it - you get the skeleton done and then build/hone with feedback. You'll be engaging with clients/stakeholders throughout so relationship management is emphasised as opposed to waterfall process where you get the bloody thing done first and then go out to people.

Having to do everything with fuck-all staff and few resources is just normal management.

You've identified things that are less than satisfactory with your current situation, but without making your other options concrete, you risk slipping back into what you know and are comfortable with.

Big changes in my life (and the confidence to make them) have invariably come from researching my options and determining tangible outcomes that would take my life in the direction I want it to go. I might be a bit strange in this respect, but I've put together loads of long-term plans this way, many just as backups, then take strategic and budgeted steps towards it. If I know I'll need to save for to move home or take a qualification, I'll do that. It's all blocked out in a big spreadsheet.

Sorry to be boring, but I'd saying being diligent is just as important as being daring when it comes to these decisions.

>All of this for £18,270 a year and the age of fucking 30.
>My sister is a travel agent and she's on just over £24,000 and she's still getting a payrise despite the industry being decimated.

Fucking hell, I thought you were looking for serious money but have you considered giving government a go? You can certainly put your practical and project management experience as a selling point and earn 30k+ in a HEO/SEO/G7(at a push) role off the bat.

>>13773

I'll give those a look. The option of remote working and living away from the cities makes these kind of jobs a lot more appealing.

>>13774

Agreed. As much as I'm complaining now, I can keep my head down and do my research, I'm just a bit stumped as to how to apply myself. I've fallen into things a lot the past few years.

>>13775

I don't mean that I'm looking for £24,000 a year, I'd like more than that. I just used it as an example of a job that is much easier and less demanding and is part of an industry that has been hit a lot harder than the arts.

>>13772
Your problem is that you started basically in manual labour, you've gained tons of skills and moved up to what's essentially a management position gradually and if you were to start again doing the same thing you'd be on a £30-40K contract.

Start looking for another job, just have some imagination in what you're looking for and try to think creatively about how you would fit in, sounds like you're generally going to be looking in the entertainment and events industry so with things starting to open up again now everyones going to be hiring. You probably want to start mooching around for as many different job titles you can think of that sound in any way relevant to what you do "events manager", "PA installer", things like that.

Your CV should be as candid as possible in stating all the roles and responsibilities you currently have.

It sounds like you meet a lot of people. Are none of them tempting to jump ship to?
It's a slightly awkward conversation, probably best phrased as seeking new challenges rather than grumbling about your existing salary/employer.
However, if you're there, looking all competent and stuff, that's far better than a blind CV.