What do you do?

I have been a reporting analyst for the past 3.5 years for a big health insurance company. Pretty easy stuff, pull data from a SQL server, format it nicely in Excel, maybe throw in a few pretty charts and that's that. About two months ago everybody on my 6 person team got absorbed into a larger reporting team in a different department--except for me.

I was told I was kept behind to be some sort of "Operational Efficiency Consultant", which as far as I understood, meant that I was going to help automate tasks, develop tools for the sales team, and just basically take on projects of a technical nature that can save the department time and energy. I have not had any work to do for the past 2 months. I have tried my best to make myself available and whore myself out within the department, but nobody has anything for me to do. I have no manager and no teammates. I work from home so I spend most of my time working on personal projects or just playing video games. Needless to say I am updating my resume and trying to flesh out a portfolio for when the inevitable layoff occurs. The only question is: will that happen next year or 5 years from now?

I have been Milton'd.

Have you automated the process? It seems pretty straight forward and maybe you'd impress some higher up.

I don't know your level of comfort in development but it wouldn't be a massive to-do probably to create some web interface where they can build a query and then export that query into an excel spreadsheet.

That sounds glorious. I would save up 6 months living expenses and ride it all the way down

Cad_sl said:

Haha, well, ok then. Thats a pretty shitty work environment.

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Yea, that's some no trust big brother shit right there. Fuck that.

Tenks_sl said:

Have you automated the process? It seems pretty straight forward and maybe you'd impress some higher up.

I don't know your level of comfort in development but it wouldn't be a massive to-do probably to create some web interface where they can build a query and then export that query into an excel spreadsheet.

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Not sure if you're referring to me or Mist, but yeah, I have automated most of the tasks I've been assigned over the years. Before this I was on our Operations team which had a lot of data entry tasks. I would automate 80% of my work and just let my macros run and go code personal projects on my own laptop. I've automated quite a few processes for the department over the years, even earning me the prestigious (not really) "Innovator of the Year" award last year. I am moderately admired among management for the techno-magic that I have done, but it is really just basic stuff--creating on-demand reports like you mention, or creating Excel tools to copy and paste a census from one form's format to another is the kind of thing that really blows their mind.

Picasso_sl said:

That sounds glorious. I would save up 6 months living expenses and ride it all the way down

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That's the plan, man. Living the dream until I'm unable to. If I was a smart man, I'd be freelancing all the live long day and earning two incomes at once, but I'm twice as lazy as I am smart.

Sir Funk_sl said:

Yeah, I have automated most of the tasks I've been assigned over the years. Before this I was on our Operations team which had a lot of data entry tasks. I would automate 80% of my work and just let my macros run and go code personal projects on my own laptop. I've automated quite a few processes for the department over the years, even earning me the prestigious (not really) "Innovator of the Year" award last year. I am moderately admired among management for the techno-magic that I have done, but it is really just basic stuff--creating on-demand reports like you mention, or creating Excel tools to copy and paste a census from one form's format to another is the kind of thing that really blows their mind.

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You'd be amazed how far some simple macros and being able to complete administrative tasks quickly can get you. Or maybe not, considering they're basically paying you just in case the shit hits the fan. If you really want some security, make sure those macros aren't too simple. You don't want to automate yourself out of a job. If it's a series that must be completed in a specific order, or there's some other "killswitch" that only you know how to navigate, you've basically got unlimited job security.

Mist_sl said:

I don't even know what their accounting and finance department actually does besides send out the invoices.

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You just answered you own question. This is, quite literally, all finance departments do.

Mist_sl said:

Why is sales engineer a dead end job? Isn't consulting the next step?

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Consulting is a step down in comp, even for bigs like IBM/Accenture at the Sr Managing Consultant role. A lot of Sales engineers stay sales engineers for 10-20years. The other thing is startups are paying more than they are and giving equity so even for a more senior role, it's worse overall.

Current company offering a new role, its not a fix but a voice and a higher profile role... not sure thats enough to stay.

Have my first interview in years monday and I'm nervous as fuck. The guy read my resume and I did two phone interviews, but I still got the vibe he wished I had more experience. Just hoping I walk into the interview and the people have actually read my resume and don't ask me retarded questions that only people in the year for 10 years know.

Noodlemod_sl said:

Have my first interview in years monday and I'm nervous as fuck. The guy read my resume and I did two phone interviews, but I still got the vibe he wished I had more experience. Just hoping I walk into the interview and the people have actually read my resume and don't ask me retarded questions that only people in the year for 10 years know.

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Walk into the interview and own it, and make sure you don't just give short answers. Give deep answers and steer them towards what you are comfortable with so you don't get into the rapid fire technical screen crap. Have a conversation, read the interviewer and see what he is interested in and discuss that in depth. Blow off years of experience by acting confident in the topic. Anyone with a clue knows that years of experience is a poor measure of capability. Lean back in your chair a bit and project being really casual about it.

I personally always dress down a bit, button down and dark jeans. One job said to wear business professional and I wore jeans and still got the offer. It is about being confident and that means comfortable.

I kind of interview as a hobby, have done hundreds and that formula is a sure win if you have any experience in the topic.

Noodlemod_sl said:

Have my first interview in years monday and I'm nervous as fuck. The guy read my resume and I did two phone interviews, but I still got the vibe he wished I had more experience. Just hoping I walk into the interview and the people have actually read my resume and don't ask me retarded questions that only people in the year for 10 years know.

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If you're past the phone screeners you have their attention. All you need to do is maintain the same level of confidence. Remember, they have a job that needs doing.

Try to find a topic that the job requires, you know a lot about, but your interviewer is clearly not up to speed on. You'll sound like a rock star.

Mist_sl said:

You know what, it really is. I didn't put my finger on it until just now, but I wasn't treated like a child this much even when I was in elementary school.

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Offices like that are the modern McJob. They're awful, the management knows they're awful, but they don't care enough to invest resources in fixing it. They'd rather just burn up cash retraining the next generation once they dump your withered husk out the back door.

Interviews 3 and 4 booked for the new position next week. Turns out I know one of the folks on Wednesday from the conference circuit. I doubt she'd remember me, but it can't hurt to mention that I've sat in on some of her seminars.

Mist, your job fucking blows. I had a similar job for a long time but the internet wasn't restricted and we didn't have field overseers watching our screens so I just used it for school and studying. Man, that's shit. I don't know how much you need the money but if it were me in your position (what little I know) I would be looking to bail.

Those are the types of jobs that make you stay in school