"Networking" sucks. I got invited twice, and went once way back in high school when I didn't know any better. Thankfully I didn't sign up, but all the things you guys said are true. It's their friggin' modus operandi. They reel you in with flowery promises of easy, big money, but when you're in the door you suddenly have to do all of this and that. I know because a friend of mine did sign up, and even though you're not supposed to say anything to outsiders, she did tell me: 300+ name-lists of people you're supposed to contact and recruit, and there's a certain percentage of people you have to convince (aka force) to sign up before you can move on to the next step. It's all smoke and mirrors.
Nix, that's probably why you don't really know the guy who dropped your name.
There's also a trick to these though, and there really is a way to make easy, big money. You have to be one of the people on top of the pyramid, since technically it's a kind of profit sharing, all the profits below you roll back up, and in this way you only have to recruit a smaller number of people. Granted, now it'll be harder since people are aware of pyramiding scams already.
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WARNING: Boring talk ahead
Anyway, back to the topic: I'm currently a SAP consultant for HP. "Consultant" here is pretty misleading, since I work for the P&G account and there's very little deviance from the established processes/methods/configurations already. What special cases there are per country or market are usually handled by our partner business experts. What I really do is configure certain modules of SAP so that they can be used by the said country, market or subcompany. I also do data migrations from legacy systems into SAP.
Honestly though, it is a bit stressful despite the simpleness of what I said, because the nature of the job is that problems only really surface at the end of the day, at around 5:00 to 5:30. So, when we're done with the general configuration/migration (the whole thing usually takes only a good two months out of a year-long project), we're basically sitting back and relaxing again. So imagine you're in the office by 9:00 or 10:00, and for the next six hours you're doing nothing but surfing the internet. It makes me wonder why I haven't finished the blog redesign yet, with all of that vacant time on my hands.
Then when you're about to shut down and go home, ding! Email, problem. Another 2+ hours in the office chasing some person who has the solution, or chasing approval to do something to fix something which wasn't really your fault. I guess I'm ranting about the fluctuation of the tasks, not the task itself.
EDIT: Oh and I'm also ranting about the pay. I do not recommend working for HP, people (if you're thinking about it). The pay raise for the past two years has been non-existent, despite us delivering exceptionally well and meeting and surpassing all of our targets. The "we" here means the technology service side of HP: we're basically paying out of our own salaries to keep the printer and laptop parts of the company afloat. Meanwhile, our CEO (possibly one of the most toxic in the US according to some articles) alongside the rest of the executive team, enjoy multi-million dollar bonuses and dividends. Sure, they didn't get any pay raise either, but that only really affects their base pay. They get rich and we get peanuts. The dark side of capitalism, gentlemen, at its most horrible.
I realize my pay is better off than most people, especially for their first job. But I'll be damned if I stay here for more than two years without any increase to show for it. Basically, there are no rewards for loyalty here. There's also none even if you carry any extra certifications - SAP certification, PMP, etc etc.
No, I'm not SAP certified, although a number of my officemates are. I'm not sure if I'm going to take the certification test, since I'm not sure I want to be working with SAP for the rest of my life. Like I said somewhere else on these forums, what I really want, is a restaurant.
And that's that!
Nix, that's probably why you don't really know the guy who dropped your name.
There's also a trick to these though, and there really is a way to make easy, big money. You have to be one of the people on top of the pyramid, since technically it's a kind of profit sharing, all the profits below you roll back up, and in this way you only have to recruit a smaller number of people. Granted, now it'll be harder since people are aware of pyramiding scams already.
---
WARNING: Boring talk ahead
Anyway, back to the topic: I'm currently a SAP consultant for HP. "Consultant" here is pretty misleading, since I work for the P&G account and there's very little deviance from the established processes/methods/configurations already. What special cases there are per country or market are usually handled by our partner business experts. What I really do is configure certain modules of SAP so that they can be used by the said country, market or subcompany. I also do data migrations from legacy systems into SAP.
Honestly though, it is a bit stressful despite the simpleness of what I said, because the nature of the job is that problems only really surface at the end of the day, at around 5:00 to 5:30. So, when we're done with the general configuration/migration (the whole thing usually takes only a good two months out of a year-long project), we're basically sitting back and relaxing again. So imagine you're in the office by 9:00 or 10:00, and for the next six hours you're doing nothing but surfing the internet. It makes me wonder why I haven't finished the blog redesign yet, with all of that vacant time on my hands.
Then when you're about to shut down and go home, ding! Email, problem. Another 2+ hours in the office chasing some person who has the solution, or chasing approval to do something to fix something which wasn't really your fault. I guess I'm ranting about the fluctuation of the tasks, not the task itself.
EDIT: Oh and I'm also ranting about the pay. I do not recommend working for HP, people (if you're thinking about it). The pay raise for the past two years has been non-existent, despite us delivering exceptionally well and meeting and surpassing all of our targets. The "we" here means the technology service side of HP: we're basically paying out of our own salaries to keep the printer and laptop parts of the company afloat. Meanwhile, our CEO (possibly one of the most toxic in the US according to some articles) alongside the rest of the executive team, enjoy multi-million dollar bonuses and dividends. Sure, they didn't get any pay raise either, but that only really affects their base pay. They get rich and we get peanuts. The dark side of capitalism, gentlemen, at its most horrible.
I realize my pay is better off than most people, especially for their first job. But I'll be damned if I stay here for more than two years without any increase to show for it. Basically, there are no rewards for loyalty here. There's also none even if you carry any extra certifications - SAP certification, PMP, etc etc.
No, I'm not SAP certified, although a number of my officemates are. I'm not sure if I'm going to take the certification test, since I'm not sure I want to be working with SAP for the rest of my life. Like I said somewhere else on these forums, what I really want, is a restaurant.
And that's that!
"Let's fight... like gentlemen." - Dudley, SF3
