Job Responsibilities
I have had various roles in my position, but most of all it is
support or development work. In the support area, I solve
problems with regards to daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly
production runs, usually involving code in JCL, AS400 CL, Unix,
and COBOL.
In development, I take the user requests and the Business analysts
instructions and create objects and methods in JAVA and WEBSHPERE.
I have also done LOTUS NOTES Development and .Net Development
with C#.
Support tends to take up most of my time, usually about 4 days out
of the week, or about 80% of the time.
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Job Requirements
Training in JAVA is a huge commodity at ISM CANADA. WHen
possible, we use the IBM Global Campus to download the virtual
courses which have a video to correspond with the lesson plan. It
is a virtual classroom. Getting the classes are easy, since they
are free downloads from IBM, but finding the time to watch and
videos and do the course work is harder. For that you need
permission to take soem time from you regular duties and focus on
your traiing, or else you do it at home, after hours.
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Uppers
Benefits package: full dental, health, and $300 every 2 years for each member of
your family. You start at 3 weeks vacation (15 days) and you also receive EDO's
(Earned Days Off of working longer days). Thus you get 26 extra day s off a year
(generally every second Friday or Monday). There are also 2 paid coffee breaks a
day. Also, the company is very family motivated, which is nice, esecially when
there is a family emergency. Then you are allowed "Family Leave with Pay". New
parents are allowed time with there newborns. Women can take up 1 year Maternity
leave, as allowed under Canadian Law. Men can take Paernity leave of up to 6
months, but then the wife cannot take the full year.
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Downers
Downside to the job is the attitude of some of my coworkers. They
tend to have a pessimistic side to everything and this makes it
hard to get pumped for new projects. I think the colour of the
interial walls and carpeting plays a part in this, since
everything is gray and white. Very "institutional" or "hospital"
looking with high cubical walls. The high walls make for a very
quiet atmosphere.
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Lifestyle
Most of the time you are at your desk working. There is little travel, in what
I do. Work hours are flex, as long as your workday has 8.3 hours and you are in
the office between 8:00am and 3:30pm. The 8.3 workday allows for you to have an
EDO every second week. The company is always involved is some sort of event or
other. In 2005 ISM is a major sponsor of the 2005 Canada Games in Regina, so
there is incentive to work on that, as well as the annual United Way drive that
lasts about a month.
There is the Christmas party (one for kids and one for adults) and there are the
Dragon Boat Races on Wascana Lake every Labour Day weekend, in which ISM fields
one or two teams.
Dress code is based upon position and location. Most peopple at ISM head office
wear business casual, or good shirt and jeans (no rips or holes). Management
tends to be business formal, but this seems to have loosened up in the past year.
We are a diverse company. There is wage equality and all advancemetn is based
on knowledge and experience. The majority of the older employees are male, but
as you get to the younger employees (21-35), the split is 50/50 male and female.
It comes down to, if you can do the job ISM doesn't care if you are white, black,
green, blue, or whatever.
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Compensation
My current compensation for my full job title (Applications
Analyst) is $61,000 CDN. I have stock options, 4 weeks vacation
(after 9 years in the company), full dental, health for myself and
my family. I have $300 per family member, every two years for eye
glasses. There is a company Long Term Disability and Short Term
Disability plan, as well as a life insurance plan of 3X my base
salary. WE are a union shop, so as a union member I get my EDO's
and overtime is at 2X your hourly rate. Also, I am guarenteed a
wage increase every year of the contract (generally 2%).
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Advice to Jobseekers
If you know JAVA, then you should have a place here. We are in
short supply right now. Also, with the lower cost of living in
Regina, the compensation plan is very good. In the furure, there
will people retiring (ISM tries to get its workers to look at
early retirement by giving packages to those that take up the
offer). This allows for new people to enter the workforce and
there will be a need for people at ISM withing the next five years.
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