How would you handle a job that wasn't what you expected?

[Herky]

In October I accepted a position with a large company in their infrastructure division as a IT consultant. The person who hired me had actually hired me a few years ago to work on her government contract team doing SharePoint work. She ended up leaving there for this company while I was there. When my SharePoint developer job was eliminated in April a recruiter from this company contacted me and it just so happens it was for a job with my old boss. Our interview was very casual and she basically offered me on the spot. I had a low level understanding that the job would entail- meeting with clients to discuss SharePoint and other Microsoft products that could help their business, along with developing SharePoint sites and doing workflows. I had done that in the past and accepted the job since I had been out of work all summer and worked well with her in the past. Now I'm 3 months in and aside from being totally lost, I am very frustrated and hate coming into work. I have been stuck doing support tickets and minimal SharePoint work because there isn't much out there to do now. All the training they had was a 2 day orientation and then my first week I just took tests that all new hires have to complete. Then I was basically thrown into work. Much of the support involves database work and central admin troubleshooting which I do not have much experience in. I was also asked to do some ShareGate migrations which I had never done. People will help you out but there is only one other person in my office, and everyone else is spread out in the Midwest so getting help isn't easy. My boss who was awesome at my old job has been getting pretty upset with me with some of the support tickets saying they are taking too long to do. When I explained I hadn't done that before she then said when she hired me she assumed I knew everything they asked me to do. I've had two meetings with her where she expressed concern that I am not doing a good job. I've explained to her was never trained on how things are done here and she said I needed to "just figure it out".

Bottom line is I'm extremely miserable here but the kicker is that my wife is due with a baby any day now. We are on my insurance and I need this job because the pay is good. I do get 3 weeks of parental leave which I will be using part of to find a new job, but I really want to say something to my recruiter about how this isn't what I expected. The problem is that I need to leave on my terms and not get myself fired.

What would you do? I've already talked to my boss twice about things but she got mad at me for "not getting it". Should I contact my company recruiter or just look on my own and not say anything? I don't know if my boss is seen as a great employee here so I don't know if going to the company recruiter is a good idea or not. I'd like to stay here but don't think I can work for my boss.

I don't think things are getting better and am worried the longer I stay, the greater my chances for getting fired are. She's not the same manager that she was in the past.

[countryboy]

Re: How would you handle a job that wasn't what you expected?

Given the position that you're in with your wife due to give birth any day now, I would continue to keep your head down and grind it out at your current job until she goes into labor and you get the 3 week parental leave. I wouldn't contact the recruiter and I wouldn't speak to your boss again unless she calls you into a meeting. Contacting the recruiter could rock the boat and get you fired and talking to your boss seems to be pointless because she's not hearing what you're saying.

While doing that, in any spare time that I had, I would be looking for a new job.

My personal belief is that you don't voluntarily leave one job without having another one lined up.

.02

[jeremym480]

Re: How would you handle a job that wasn't what you expected?

Sounds like you know what you need to do. Which is do the best you can until the baby is born, then use your time off to find a new gig. Just don't make any waves before then because if they get wind of you wanting to leave, then they may go ahead and let you go.

[Hassan Darkside]

Re: How would you handle a job that wasn't what you expected?

Sounds like the root of your frustration is not knowing how to do your job. Is there any outside courses/trainings/seminars you can take to help with that? Perhaps something your boss would sign off on if you propose it to her? In my limited experience, I've found bosses to be more amicable when you have proposed solutions handy, one less thing they have to figure out.

[Herky]

Re: How would you handle a job that wasn't what you expected?

Sounds like the root of your frustration is not knowing how to do your job. Is there any outside courses/trainings/seminars you can take to help with that? Perhaps something your boss would sign off on if you propose it to her? In my limited experience, I've found bosses to be more amicable when you have proposed solutions handy, one less thing they have to figure out.

She directed me to ShareGate's website to learn and I have a sandbox I can play in now in order to practice migrations and upgrades. I only wish I had been told to do this the first month and not the 3rd.

The SharePoint development stuff I know and did a small project last month with no issues. It's just the support stuff I am struggling with. I use Google as much as I can and reach out when stuck but each hour is accounted as either bill or non-bill so I can't spend a lot of time looking stuff up or waiting for people to help.

A lot of it is I'm just not familiar with a lot of these clients and their databases. We had a girl who went on extended leave back in November and I've been taking over her support stuff. She might not come back so I'm just doing my best since she just up and left one day. Some stuff she messed up on installs and I'm learning on the fly how to try and fix them.

[FlyingFinn]

Re: How would you handle a job that wasn't what you expected?

What kind of database work? Is the database work for the share point migrations?

[Herky]

Re: How would you handle a job that wasn't what you expected?

SQL Databases that store content for SharePoint.

[Speedy]

Re: How would you handle a job that wasn't what you expected?

The fact you have access to a sandbox environment is great - I wish I had that when I started my current job (still do!). I personally have always had the mindset that if you give me time, I can figure it out...I'm sure you are the same way but you'll likely have to spend some extra time on your own (outside of work hours) learning it.

Think of it as a challenge! The more you learn here, the wider/larger your skillset it...I always try to keep each project/job with the mindset that it's a stepping stone to something bigger.

[ANDROMADA 1]

Re: How would you handle a job that wasn't what you expected?

Short version is this.

Congrats on family and Child.

As for work, do your best, and expand from there. You can do it. Find out what your boss wants and give it to them better, more effectively on company time. Increase your worth, and when you are not at work figure out how to monetize what you already know. And if you don't have a side hustle, get one ASAP. Where there is a problem look at it as an opportunity to think and grow.

PS.

Man up and don't take it personal.

PPS.

Get that money.

[Crimsontide27]

Re: How would you handle a job that wasn't what you expected?

Are you a hourly or salaried employee? I ask because with most salaried positions you sign a binding contract and within that contract you can most likely find a "non-compete" agreement that needs to be signed as well.

Notifying your employer or company recruiter that you are not happy and would like to seek something else could very well be accepted as a verbal resignation and you may find yourself without a job on the spot. If you are hourly, you most likely have a HR department that will be unwilling to terminate you based off of being unhappy as they have a ton of hoops to jump through via a policy handbook or something similar before they would term you. Every company is different and your company may not be anything like the ones I have worked for either, so take this with a grain of salt.

if you are unhappy, then its time to go....but NOT before you secure another job first. Fill out applications and make sure you check the box "do not contact" for your current employer. Most companies honor this as they can be held liable if it is found out they did contact your current company, and jeopardize your current position.

Having said that, know that most times you jump from one company to another, you can usually negotiate a nice pay increase as well, so not all is bad!

Put out a few feelers on LinkedIn if you have an account there and you can probably use your network to find a new employer through friends or former employees without your current one knowing your looking.

Life is way too short to be in very unhappy situations for extended periods of time.

[sbauer318]

Re: How would you handle a job that wasn't what you expected?

Hating to go to work everyday is an awful way to live. I've been there. I stayed at a company for only 90 days because I was bored out of my mind. Like you, I had some pretty high expectations and was excited. However, once I got there, I was maintaining Perl scripts and an Access database for some clients because the other client work just wasn't there. Fortunately, I didn't have a baby on the way.

Is it just the support work that's the problem? Since you're a SharePoint developer, the migration and database tasks seem like they could be useful especially if you could put in some non billable training time and get paid for it. Unfortunately, not every company is going to send you to classes and give you weeks of time so that you can do a better job. They might give you a few resources (other developers) and some documentation that's probably half baked and out-dated, but that could be it. It's possible that you could be in a similar situation with less money and/or worse benefits. Honestly, I really think you should learn the database stuff as I think it could really help your career and allow you to expand your knowledge, and opportunities, outside of just SharePoint. I don't know how long you've been doing this for, but at the end of the day, you're a developer. Technology changes quickly. Don't get stuck saying "I don't know this. They didn't train me". In some large companies, that training budget is one of the first things to go when expectations aren't met. You could be waiting forever to get trained. Don't let them be responsible for your career and direction. Take control of it.

Now, if the issue is that you're just dealing with too many support requests, then I get it. If you're a developer that's used to building new things, support is the worst. I'd probably quit as soon as I found another job. They should have mentioned that support tickets would be the majority of your job.

Your previous recruiter may not be all that useful. It depends on a lot of factors. If the recruiter is looking out for their commission and you haven't stayed long enough for them to get their full payment, they may try to talk you into staying for x months. Depending on their arrangement with your company, they may not really be eager to talk to you about another job. It just depends. I've had recruiters contact me six months after starting a job to see how I was liking it and if I would be interesting in speaking with an "excellent company".

Whatever you decide to do, use your time off to look for your job, but make sure you spend a lot time with your baby. It goes by too fast. Good luck

[p_rushing]

Re: How would you handle a job that wasn't what you expected?

Infrastructure usually means you are working more on the backend, support, and admin stuff.

Since it is a large company, look for another position that you want and matches your skills. You can also go to your department head and see if there is other stuff you can help out on. If you find a position you what, go talk to those people and see if you can help there.

You may end up burning some bridges, but try to do it nicely and make it work for both groups if you end of changing roles. They usually would rather have you transfer jobs than quit/get fired as it costs money to do that and have to hire someone new.

As others have said, you really should learn the admin and backend work. Offshore developers are cheap and can usually do standard work, so you need to grow your skills and show you are valuable to keep. Offshore resources are really cheap and depending on your rate, they usually can get multiple developers for what they pay you.

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[FlyingFinn]

Re: How would you handle a job that wasn't what you expected?

Technology changes quickly. Don't get stuck saying "I don't know this. They didn't train me".

This!

When I started at my job, I was hired to write code in Delphi (Object Pascal). Then a decision was made to move to C# .Net and I was also tasked with working in Oracle and SQL Server. Next, I was moved to a project working in Perl/ExtJS with a MySQL database. Finally, I ended up in JavaScript/Java using the Spring framework, dealing with multiple back-end systems (not just databases). The only skill I had when I was hired was Object Pascal and I didn't get any company provided training. I took each new task as a challenge and chance to learn new things. Believe me, I know it is stressful when tasked/pressured to expand your horizons but if you can fight through it, you will come out on the other side much more valuable to your company and/or other companies. Now I realize my ability to adapt and learn new things is my greatest asset.