career fakery
I'll be honest, 90% of any career path is based on bullsh*t.

I went from Uni into a tech support role, got bored, and (because I'd built a personal website for a hobby) became a web designer. When that bored me, I wrote software (hey, I'd coded as a kid, so I knew roughly what I was doing). The software I wrote is used by 90% of car manufacturers to design their engines - well, I did the user interface, some chinese guys and a russian dude did all the maths. When that got boring, I worked for myself for five years, but because I had a friend who was in the same boat, we set up a limited company. So my CV has got five years as a Company Director on it... that led to me getting employed by a huge ad agency as a digital PM and strategist (easiest job in the world - read Wired and pick up a copy of "Campaign" once in a while and you're sorted) and thus I was head-hunted by the client to project manage a multi-million pound project and to educate the new agencies on the roster on how it all worked.

I earn silly money, get to work from home when I want, go home at 5 every day (well, almost every day) and spend 50% of my day surfing the net doing "research". In the next month or so, I take delivery of a Maserati. Believe me when I say it has bugger all to do with what you know or how hard you work in this life - the harder I worked, the more I got shafted and (believe it or not) I do know my stuff, but the truth is that if I want code, I'd outsource it to India where I can get top-end coding for about £5 a day.

The secret to faking it is to:

a) ignore the office political game - it's designed to keep you in your place.

b) get to know your client and educate them to the reality of how things work - sales staff will promise them the moon and they'll be glad of a realistic "for that budget you can have X, or we can do Y for a bit more - what do you prefer?"

c) if in doubt, ignore the working process, get to know the people you need to get things done and just do it - it's hard for a boss to punish you for delivering the project and keeping the client happy, when the account staff are still having meetings about how to get started. The secret is to make the deadwood dispensible. This makes you look efficient and gives you a reputation for strategic thinking. Put this on your CV.

Once you've done these things a few times, you can then move on to:

d) Make noises about starting out as a consultant with your old buddies from XYZ company - by now you have a reputation as an efficient deliverer of projects who can shape strategy and keep clients happy. The tech staff will love you because you've stopped the sales/account team from driving them nuts and, your boss will pass out when he hears whar you are planning. Let him stew for a month or two (you might even ring old colleagues in a loud voice when he's around - go via reception so you have to ask for the person, too), then ask for a raise. So far I've doubled my income in two years and my friend has tried this and is now moving to a nice new house...

It's not about getting something for nothing, as you are only opening people's eyes to the dead wood in the business (usually it starts with "A" and ends with "ccount Management") and the clients are happy because you're getting stuff to them on time and on budget. Besides, the useless twats you are making redundant had too long ruining businesses as they try to emulate Gordon fucking Gecko - screw 'em.
(Chad, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 12:28, 3 replies)

To Be Honest
.
I think you've put people off by mentioning a Maserati mate. The whole post sounds like boasting.

I think you might lack "people skills"


But congratulations on what you've achieved. It's nowt to be ashamed of.

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 12:53, closed)

not boasting..
just more a case of showing how a decent bluff can get you anywhere - let's face it you can be as talented as Jesus himself and still get screwed if you can't bewilder HR..
(Chad, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 12:56, closed)

if you have the money for a maserati
then why buy a maserati?

they are ugly and heavy and inferior
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 13:08, closed)