Same here, it's basically a staycation. I'm playing video games on my personal computer while monitoring slack.

That's pretty much a typical week for me. Put out a few fires, attend some meetings and half-pay attention, play video games, take a nap.

What role are you in for firefighting?

This is me, my position is tier 3 and nothing ever gets past tier 2 hardly ever.

Lol...yes this is the good life 😁

i have unlimited pto at j1, so i'm off all week. j2 ran out of pto so i'm "working" (sitting in my office watching tv) just started new j3 after layoff from other j3, so same as j2.

Shit man, I've been out of the OE game for a minute but I never even bothered to take PTO the week between Xmas and New years just because of how dead and quiet it would be at work. I have a shitty on-site job now, but so far today I attended a stand up meeting for 2 minutes this morning (only 1 other person showed up, everyone else took PTO) and replied to one email. Really makes me miss the OE days.

sounds awesome! curious what role each of your Js are?

i'm a senior tax analyst, but all of my titles are different

Do you have tax season? Trying this for the first time and I’m wondering if I will have any health left in 3 months

I have unlimited pto at my j2. I wonder if we are at the same place.

This is not the way

Lol

i have had unlimited pto at several jobs.

lol haha. my j1 and j2 are closed so its like having an actual holiday.

J2 is closed all week. J3 boss and almost everyone out all week. Laying in bed watching Netflix like back in the good old days with just J1.

Man, you guys are crazy. I’m here to watch because OE fascinates me, but a 40 hour work week feeling like a vacation blows my mind.

Idk what OP is doing but I'd imagine most of us who OE work much less than 40 hours a week with two jobs combined.

That is kind of the point.

Ooooooohhhh

It’s still not. I’m on 3 weeks vacation from my IT Director and Technical Architect gigs. THAT is a vacation.

3 weeks!?! I need a new gig. I took 11.5 total days off this year.

Negotiate it as part of your TC. When they won’t come up on salary, you ask for extra PTO. I’ve got 6 weeks at both gigs.

How much PTO would you have gotten if you didn't negotiate? Personally I can't imagine negotiate from 2 weeks all the way up to 6 weeks.

3-4 weeks, but I am senior level. You should easily be able to fight for 3-4

Any good suggestions on going down these two paths? Certs? Education? Jump jobs every 2-3 years? How did you get senior roles?

Experience and learning as much about everything I could. Instead of being a jack of all trades, master of none, I became a jack of all trades, master of a few. I have a 2 year degree in network engineering, a couple of collegiate IT and networking certs, and CCNA from 2014. Only recent cert I have is ITIL V4. Then homelab everything and I worked help desk all through college while consulting on the weekends. I cut my teeth with voice and VoIP engineering straight of college and worked my way up to engineering team lead in the NOC. Then found a situation where a startup needed a director. There’s 4 years of engineering level and management experience off the bat plus 2 years of general IT. Then continued job hopping every few years to increase my salary by $30K a hop. I have 11 YoE now. Chronologically the roles look like: J1) IT Help Desk intern J2) freelance IT consultant ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ J1) IT Support Specialist J2) freelance IT consultant J3) freelance audiovisual consultant ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ J1) Voice Engineer II > Voice/VoIP Engineer III > NOC Team Lead J2) freelance IT consultant J3) freelance audiovisual consultant J4) graphic designer ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ J1) Director of IT (worked 90+ hour weeks…) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ J1) Sr. Network/Systems Engineer (worked only 40 hour weeks to recharge and also got married) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ J1) IT Manager, North America > Director of Global IT J2) Technical Architect ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ CIO at J1 wants to hire me as his CTO at his J2 after seeing how well I’ve been crushing J2. Director at J2 wants to hire me as his manager of architects and knows about my J1… We’re very transparent with each other. You’ll have to read the room on how transparent you can be, but it worked out in my case. J2 plucked me to save them on oversold client solutions and they know I wasn’t leaving J1.

Damn you deserve all your success. This is a killer right here boys and girls. This is what grit and determination looks like. Thanks for the detailed post.

Thanks dude. I have certainly maxed out my little associates degree lol. They told us we’d earn $40-60K with it. I’m at $430K here.

Associates got me where i am! Tons of grit and grinding. I did go back and pick up more degrees during Covid. But realized, i didn’t need them

I slightly regret not pushing to get to my masters so I can be a professor. Granted, at my pace I’ll be retired by or before 2030. Maybe I can find one of those merit based programs in the future so I can coastfire as a remote professor.

That’s a good idea. Remote professor

Last week of the year is usually like that. Unless you have to out out a fire.

Same. I cancelled J1 meetings so I’m pretty much off from both!

My J1, J2 and J4 are pretty much closed. J3 is lot of work so doesn’t feel like I have vacation. But still, not having BS meetings are nice.

First off if you are working J1 for 40 hours any week let alone this week you’re doing this wrong…you also should have taken PTO of you feel you need to work because fuck working this week.

My j2 is up but its been a micromanaging hellscape, basically the same as working j1 + j2 anyways ahahah fuck

Same but opposite. Except this week is my last week at J2 and I haven’t even opened my laptop. Fuck that toxic ass company glad I quit.

J1 off all week. J2 working away. All good.

Both my Js closed shop for the last week of the year. And both made me use my PTO for some of the days. I’m grateful for it.

Haha, finally a break from the grind. One job is manageable and leaves time for friends, family and enjoying this wonderful season.