Gas Trading IT Analyst


Arrive in for sometime between 7 and 8.30 depending on how I felt about getting out of bed that morning.
On walking onto the Trade floor check the overhead display plasmas which show live gas and oil flow data for errors or missing values. Data which has not been updated is highlighted and will be a top priority as soon as I get my laptop docked and fire up.

Check with analysts and traders when walking to my desk that there are no critical issues at the moment, usually they will point to the missing data I have already spotted.

Get logged in and quickly scan over emails to ensure there aren't any critical issues. Usually not so find out where those late or incorrect data values are sourced from. 99% of the time it comes from a website which we scrape for data, check the website to see if they havent published data or if we havent captured it. Send an email to the providers, then to the users to let them know we're dealing with the issues.

Phone Singapore pre 9am to make sure all is well over there, reassure them that the development work they've asked for is getting done and give them some timelines for delivery.

Check the support team guys aren't stuck with anything, if they are, point them in the right direction, get timelines then leave them to it.

Work through the mornings emails. Most are requests for new data feeds or requests to us verify erroneous looking data. Speak to the relevant people to make sure they're going to handle them within an appropriate timescale.

Check my on-going work list, normally its a list of tasks I am managing but not doing myself, I will check with the support and devs on the progress of the work and then wander over to the users (usually an Analyst, sometimes a Trader) to let them know how its going and when to expect delivery.

Consider starting the strategic development tasks assigned to me for this sprint. Read the day's analysis and trading updates instead.

1000 - Morning scrum meeting. 20 minute stand-up discussion of where each team member has got to with the work they have been scheduled to complete during the current 2 week sprint of work. Explain that I'm behind schedule because of all the ad-hoc high priority business requests I've dealt with, everyone agrees and we add some time to the delivery date for my piece of work.

Fire up VS2010 and work on the .NET application I'm developing while getting interrupted every 20 mins by someone with an issue they can't solve. Help out on various things and don't get as much coding done as I had intended.

1200 Take a good hour for lunch looking at HUKD and Tek, usually buy on or two things I don't need. Eat too much and end up feeling sleepy for the rest of the afternoon.

Have a couple of design/strategy/planning meetings somewhere during the day. Everyone agrees on the right course of action but it helps to talk through the details a bit. Take our proposed solution to the business stakeholder and explain why it's the right thing to do and why it will take so long. Get agreement and leave them optimistic about the project.

1658: Shutdown laptop so I can be out the door by 1700.

Quote from: M3ta7h3ad on March 21, 2012, 06:56:54 AM
Lol, what are you? A test manager?

Loving the ignoring bit, though i'd encounter way too much rage if I did it.

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Nah analyst - there are a few of us working within a team of developers - we get involved in the spec's and initial testing and some limited documentation (in theory user documentation is supposed to happen, in reality it doesn't but limited technical/implimentation documentation does happen if its really necessary).

Re ignoring people we unfortunately have various people to deal with from on site consultants to account managers to support - dealing with them becomes quite arbitrary as the important stuff is generally already being looked at and if what they're concerned about isn't being looked at then 9/10 times its probably not important.

If they're asking something relevant and that can be answered promptly then I reply, if they're being a numptie and fwd'ing something a client sent them which they don't understand/haven't bothered to look at or attempted to understand themselves then I tend to ignore them... Everyone has to start somewhere but when I started I wouldn't have dreamed of simply fwd'ing a mail to someone in dev and expecting them to do my job for me - I'd at least have a crack at it myself, attempt to add some value. Obviously you've got to be patient with new guys, but people who've been around for a while and still just fwd crap ought to know better and can legitimately be fobbed off/ignored IMO.

We do have a QA dept but they are there to test entire releases not fixes, customisations or ongoing project work - they also don't have people from other parts of the business pestering them.

My days are pretty much as random as feck. The below isn't a typical day, I'd never get it all in one day, but chances are over the course of a week it would have happened.

Arrive at work at 8.30

Check emails and answer/action them all.

9am I start on my normal work, which currently is admin and research.

10am I need a break from the computer so I decide to deliver the parcels that have come in to the office. These include boxes of maggots and fly larvae, liver, and controlled drugs.

At some point in the morning I get asked if I can top up the liquid nitrogen, so I do that and get mesmerized by the way it boils. Later in the day I dispose of Dry Ice in a sink by running hot water over it. Before the water, I leave it for a while, which causes the sink to get so cold that it starts to snow from underneath. When I turn the hotwater tap on it creates a rolling fog that pours out of the sink and creeps across the floor.

As I'm walking to lunch I'm asked if I could set up for one of the forensic practicals later that day. This involves dressing some fake corpses, stabbing them repeatedly, and then ransacking our custom facility to make it look like a murder/rape/drugs deal gone wrong etc. It's always fun dragging the body bags across the floor.

In the afternoon I do a bit more office work before heading to the labs to sieve some mud samples from France and Portugal. It's menial work, but quite theraputic, and means next week I'll be in Portugal and then Spain collecting fresh samples to bring back.

5-5.30pm I head home.

I'd have to say that currently my jobs are a bit more boring than in the past, it was much more fun when I was using the Scanning Electron Microscope and managed to singe a flies anus using a beam of electrons emitted from a high-voltage tungsten filament fired from an electron gun

I guess this is fairly typical:


Get up between 8:45-9:30am depending on how knackered I am and how well my alarm revives me. Zombie walk to the kitchen (bitch of a commute, that) and get a tall and strong cup of tea brewing and make some breakfast if I'm hungry, then head to my office room while it brews to check emails/MSN/forums... 15 minutes later check on tea brewing, having forgotten about it - strong but growing tepid - so I add milk to drink it anyway.

10am - unless something urgent has come up or needs finishing, start some real work when brain is in gear. Usually have a Skype/mobile call with the main office to see what is prioritised for the day, unless there is a new website build project already on the cards.

Spend the rest of the morning either doing odd jobs as I'm called or MSN'd about bugs/config issues, doing site graphics, or spend it designing/coding up the template for a new build.

12-1am - have myself some lunch, sometimes later than this if I've been particularly busy. 2 packs of Tesco value curry noodles FTW! Sometimes I spice this up with random noodle/ramen packs from the world food sections (Tom Yum is good). Maybe once a month I'll have a graze box delivered.

Afternoon - spent in much the same way as the morning, taking/making calls to clients/the office about problems or design requirements; I can usually have a website design wrapped up in an afternoon if it's not too busy. I like to double-quote on time though so I'm not flogged to death 

Finish around 6pm usually (later if busy). As I'm typically a night owl if I've a few big sites I'm working on I'll sometimes work late evening when I get my second wind of energy and it's quieter.


Some of you have far more interesting/fun jobs from the sounds of it. I enjoy my job, but I don't get out enough and miss the banter and japes of working at somewhere like Tekheads

That is an elaborate way to say f**k you 

Some of you guys have freaking amazing jobs.

WTF @ zpyder, dead bodies?! Well after seeing your fake hands and blood thing back in the day I guess there's one guy I'd pick for that Sounds like an episode of CSI!

Quote from: M3ta7h3ad on March 23, 2012, 21:44:08 PM
Some of you guys have freaking amazing jobs.

WTF @ zpyder, dead bodies?! Well after seeing your fake hands and blood thing back in the day I guess there's one guy I'd pick for that Sounds like an episode of CSI!

I said that zpider's murdered teddy bears would be useful training eventually... 

My worknight is mostly helping old people to toilet or getting stuff to eat or drink and also a few diperchanges, emptying urine bags chainging soiled or wet bedspreads also some coffemaking, flowerwatering and laundry. On computer, rapporting load data from "mobipen". 

my day yesterday... woke up at 7am, had a lie in with the missus, got into work at 10am.
played ipad games until 11, checked sla, fixed call, played ipad until 12, checked sla
done 2 calls. played ipad until 2pm, checked stack, done 2 calls, decided 2.30pm was to late
to be in work. drove home - stopped in tesco for tequilla, limes & triple sec.
5.31pm drink magarita - just incase i had a vip 2hr sla (my hours are 7.30-7.30 flexi)

2nd busiest day this year - the day before was the busiest, i didnt get home until 4pm

Zpyder's days sound the most fun.

I don't have a typical day but here's friday:

8am - I'm on day 5 of a 5 day project so I'm leaving home a little late, aiming to get to site for around 9:30.
9:30 - I check my work plan. Still have to move user drives over to the new server, and get a 3rd party app working. The 3rd party company has screwed up their end of the work so I'm not bothered about this bullet-point running over - it's not my fault. Apparently there are two new MFPs coming sometime in the afternoon.
10:30 - Check with the users and most don't even know they have P: drives, so I tell them don't do any work while I robocopy stuff. I'm gonna dcpromo the old server later so I check the FSMO roles etc have moved. I turn the old server off figuring I'll boot it up in a few hours to dcpromo - that way I'll know if anything is still depending on it.
12:30 - I've got 5 i7 PCs this guy has bought 2nd hand from somewhere. Fresh builds apparently but no one knows the passwords for them. I hiren's bootcd them and blank the passwords - normally I'm good at guessing them - get them on the domain and pile them in a corner.
1pm - I floorwalk, check everyone is happy. Everyone is happy except things are slow all of a sudden - DNS records still exist for the old DC. Also people are getting errors in Outlook because I haven't set the OAB for the database.
2pm - I'm done. I do my paperwork and fire up the old DC. Run dcpromo and get an error - it's only because the servers are out of sync though. dcpromo and the server room gets a lot quieter . 3rd party company comes good with the licensing issues, they're slow workers so after a server reboot I get it all working myself then tell them it's all cool.
2:30pm - the MFPs arrive. Do I want to help get them up 3 flights of stairs? No. I floorwalk again. All is well.
3pm - the printer guys want to get the drivers installed on the server. I do it for them in 10minutes because it's my server and they're not messing with it.
4pm - figure I've hung around long enough so I have a chat with the MD and get the paperwork signed.

I'm currently having breakfast in Spain having travelled over the last week from Lisbon down to the algarve and then west. We leave for England tomorrow.

My job the last week has been supervising students doing some sampling for the research I'm employed on and taking photos. I've got bucket loads of photos of rare birds, eagles, spoonbills, corn buntings etc, well, rare in the uk. It's been a good week - essentially paid to be a photographer!

You lucky bugger! Picked up a tan?