What stuck me is that i never talk about what has happened since, I’ve gone very quite on the Job front, and I’m not entirely sure why – probably because I was worried people would find me out to be a nutter – well that ship has sailed so lets talk about my current job.

Kevin Jump – Technical Director, LDL Web Services

Gosh I must be bought in - it's the LDL Logo

Now that’s a grand job title isn’t it? it’s not quite as good as the one I like to pretend I have ‘Chief Digital Overlord’ but it will do – So what’s the job about, well it’s not a million miles away from what wikipedia says it’s about I provide direct technical strategy and stuff for web things.

I would like to be a thought of a bit broader than just Web. I’m currently on a bit of a crusade to drop Web from the team name – but we can’t just be called services can we?

On the staffing side, the bit of the service i look after has 15 people in it – I directly manage five of them with three of them managing the rest (look you’re not getting the org chart – just a summary!) – I use to manage loads more, but we split it up – the theory being i get more time to actually do strategy and less holidays and sickness.

So yes I’ve left my developer roots behind, I honestly can’t remember the last time I opened visual studio in vain, but I have poked about in other things but only to cover not as a day job. I don’t look at lines of code anymore I stand back away from the screen and say “there’s two much blue” or “it looks a bit to indenty for me” but mainly people just close the windows down before I get to their desks.

The more observant amongst you will have noticed that when i left JMU I didn’t go for a technical director job, I came to a Web Developer Job, so how did I get here?

Kevin Jump – (Senior) Web Developer – 6 months

I started with the web developer role, writing code – and boy did I churn some out, mainly back end managementy stuff – but there was lots – it was quite a culture shock to be honest – It turns out I had been coasting at JMU getting quick lax deadlines – floating about for a bit then cramming to hit the deadline – at LDL there was a lot less floating and a lot more cramming. then my then boss left – which meant there was a Development Manager role going – Now cunnigly just before that I had got myself on the Leadership course, so I was being groomed – and when the job came up I went for it – and did rather well at interview I thought.

Kevin Jump – Web Development Manager – 12 months

The Development manager job was a bit of a baptism of fire – the team had been growing, we had lots of projects that where handed to us from other departments with pre-set deadlines, oh and after three months in the job the head of service left (did do a month of being head of service for a while) ! It took a while and left not fool ourselves I still work for a large organisation so change wasn’t quick. but I think we made life better.

Only problem by the end of it (with a new head of service – I wasn’t that ambitious!) I had 13 staff to manage which is way to many and I was getting bogged down with people management – so we introduced a new level so other people who could focus on it better could manage in the specialist areas – this meant we effectively created a development Manager post below me – so i needed a new job title and i bit of a better defined role.

So here we are – I direct things technically for web – if you need to know more – you can but ask.

a cup of tea

When I worked at the university, we always had a little rule for when things broke : the number of things you broke = the number of cups of tea you had to make. It was a good rule of thumb that maybe did a little to motivate you into not breaking 3,000 pcs – I doubt google have the same rule, and i can bet the person who broke the entire google search today is glad - google doing funny things for 40 minutes is a lot of tea.

Then again It never was a hard and fast rule, I once misplaced a ; in an win.ini file and killed around 1,500 computers overnight – to compound it all I was on holiday the day after when they had to clean it all up.

Still, we’ve discussed the most likely location of the nearest cow, whether it’s too simplistic to say flat land is arable and hills are for livestock, and whether JMU Tower was really a death trap that would have killed us both if we’d stayed. So, not an unproductive night.

A bit sad that I can’t sleep, and the kids will be up soon, though.

In my last job. PDRs where seen as a chore, the boss didn’t like doing them, and he let you know it. some of them would go on for hours and you could see through his office window, he was squirming. you would go in, talk about the same things as you did last time, and get the same responses, often with a sense of resignation. once i got.

“well after being here five years I would expect you to leave” (i did)

they weren’t exactly inspiring.

Looking at them as I do know from the other side. I wonder if he ever did get anything from them? because I get lots.

It has to be said I do them quite differently, for a start they are in a coffee shop (get out the office, people will talk!), and I ask people how they are, what they think, just what is happening… We ramble off subject and talk about tea, children, football, philosophy, art, the west wing, and occasionally work. Yes sometimes they last for two hours – but I get to know people more (i like to think i do talk to people outside of these and I do know them a bit already), and genuine ideas come out of them.

From the last set of PDRs I went away and restructured the team, thats worked really well, from this set it looks like we are going to sort out our strategic direction (I had one, it just needed fine tuning and then we’re going to run with it). It all reinforces my getting to where you want to be by not looking directly at it thing. Which is why I sent all the designers of to an art gallery, and when i get the bottle to do it. all the developers will be off somewhere getting inspiration too.

I don’t know what my staff think, I hope they see them as useful to, I am careful to try and remember what it was like… tell people they are valuable to the team (fortunately they all are!), give people hope.. and try to inspire. It all sounds terribly fluffy doesn’t it.. maybe I am a bit of a floaty in the clouds manager.

*one point I am confused on is PDR or PR&D. It turns out I have no idea which one it is anymore…

As I’m sure we’ve mentioned before, the original plan when Daisy was born, was for both of us to go part time, and share the time with Daisy this made loads of sense both personally (I wanted to spend time too) and financially (better tax breaks), but for reasons of Ruth being indispensable and me being a side show, It never happened. what actually happend was in their efforts to keep Ruth she never came back, and by forcing me to work full time, they lost me to a better job.

Now at the time we we’re sad, but if you think about where we would be now; Ruth would still have that annoying political mud-bath of a job, and I would be wasting away doing the same old projects that came around every 12 months. Instead – Ruth stays at home and loves not working with pooters (and some of the people). and I have a much much better job, talking to people and getting stuff done*.

Where are we now ? Well both through the need for money, and the joy of work moved up the career ladder and Ruth has been freed from the shackles.

This does mean I don’t get the extra time I wanted with Daisy which does make me a little sad. I’m glad she’s getting full time parenting, I think that’s real important, and even though I’ve moved on and up, I have consciously stayed in an environment where leaving work at 4:30 is acceptable (i get in at at least 8:30 so don’t complain!) and taking work home is an exception not the rule. So I still get plenty of time each day. I’m not a arrive home at 6:40 and keep the child up sort of dad – I’m much more a get in and have Daisy climb all over me for a few hours type.

Reading about the dads who spend more time off does make me jealous, and maybe one day I will get to a point where I can work maybe a four day week – but at the moment I also way-up how Ruth and I feel – and we are much happier and that must be a good thing for our kid(s).

*this is of course relative, i see that public sector getting stuff done is not quite the same as private sector getting stuff done, but it is miles beyond university getting stuff done.

I had five meetings and it was cool. yes the meeting with finance was a bit draining but I enjoyed the day. Five meetings in a day at JMU would have seen me standing on the window ledge.

It’s been a roller-coaster of a year really, especially when you consider that I had my last job for 7 years and in the space of 12 months, I’ve had two gone from developer, to manager and next month will be acting up to head of service during a transition.

The first thing I think when I look back is how I so much needed to leave that job (JMU). All the years of fighting the system to do anything, being constantly restricted by both the academic and political environment in the institution meant that I really had a lot of self doubt about both my technical abilities and my ability to actually do an honest days work.

At the time I said and I didn’t realise how true it was to become, but I considered the Developer job in the council a side step, a way off the JMU treadmill, something to open up both my horizons and my opportunities for progression. Of-course even i didn’t envisage going for the management job within 6 months, but actually it turns out 6 months out of JMU was all it took to show me how stifling it had been.

I am loving my current job. I consider myself much more of a people person than a sitting in a dark room coding one (although I do enjoy getting my head down a knocking out code), and yes even I think that some-days I have more meetings than is healthy, but talking to people, solving problems and giving advice is a cool job to have*.

The other really bit change is in my confidence levels, as I’ve said JMU was somewhat stifling, but it knocked so much confidence out of me it’s untrue. 12 months ago I would have said that i was outspoken, alaways belived in what i said and would tell anyone who would listen, but really looking at my day to day routine now, and the types of things I do everyday. I was a doddering fool, who was unsure of most things, knew that change was never going to come of it, so sat on most things because it was the easy way to live.

I don’t want you to get the impression that JMU was all bad, or indeed that the council is all good. The people in JMU are great people, and I do miss some of the office banter and camaraderie. There are technical areas where JMU is/was streets ahead, and while I knew this at the time, moving to another organisation just proves it. The council like any 19,000 employee organisation has it’s politics and I would imagine after a few more years it will get to me in similar ways to the politics of JMU, and my desk is somewhat small and my PC slow 0 but at the moment I change jobs so often these things arn’t getting me down.

So in summary: goshIi love my new job and my old one was worse that I realised 12 months ago.

*there may be a little more to it than this, but these are the peopley bits I really enjoy

• I had an incredibly badly written placement CV, but they gave me the job anyway
• In my interview for my ‘real’ job, I was asked to identify earl gray tea bags from a line up and I got it wrong!, but they gave me the job anyway.
• Stuart and I had a phase of going the ‘gym’ which in reality was the bar above the gym, playing pool
• Stuart claims I poisoned him the time I introduced him to Vodka and Red bull in the 147 in town.
• during my life at JMU I didn’t take things like stationary, I took the head of CWIS.

It was quite emotional, and yes I did have to hold it back (I am bloke!). I do think I will miss the place, but now is the weekend to look forward. I have new job on Monday must get excited! I will get all university sick in a week or two.

oh and I got loads of gift vouchers, so tomorrow I can go replace my busted digital camera, thanks everyone!

*Jmu World was the name of the news section of the website for quite a long time, you had to be there really.

Today is my last day working for Liverpool John Moores University (ahhhhh), but on Monday I start work for Liverpool City Council (yippieee), and while I like the idea of it; It is not true that I will only work for places with Liverpool in the title.

It does feel all a bit anticlimactic really, I mean yes I’m sure they are going to have the gathering gaggle of people in the middle of the floor, followed by a few awkward words from Jim, and then people will expect me to say something profound and/or heartfelt, but I am sure I should feel a bit more emotional than I do.

Maybe it just hasn’t sunken in yet; Next week when its been a few days and I haven’t heard the words blackboard or Athens uttered in anger then it will sink in. I’m under no illusion that working for the council will come with it’s own set of unique politics, but at least they will be new politics.

Ruth is a bit worried that I don’t seem at all excited by the prospect of my new job, and in truth so am I, but as I’ve said, it’s probably because it hasn’t actually dawned on me yet that as of today I won’t work in the university any more.

It’s not exactly my job, because this time they are actually going for a programmer, so some of the non programmy admin is going else where in the department. They pay isn’t what I’m on (33k’ish if you want to know) so I wouldn’t apply for it, but that shouldn’t stop you.

So, Apply for my (soon to be old) job