I work for a well known exam board that does both academic and vocational qualifications.  My role is basic customer services; phone calls, emails etc about pretty much anything we do.  It's either a basic question/request that I answer/deal with or something more complicated that I pass on.

I take care of the computer plumbing for a big bank so that they can talk to other big banks and exchanges and customers about buying high and selling low (is that the right way?) really quickly. Basically, I work for The Man.

Also, I spend a little bit of time every now and then reminiscing and wondering what Drew (and IxiPete and lots of others) are up to, so I'm both  (bounce) and  :C that you're around but not totally awesome  (hugleft)

I think he's probably still totally awesome. Just totally awesome on disability benefits.

This is indeed true, I meant totally awesome situation. My dirty forner bad English  :'C 

(hug)

GAFR

Rooms are all I know :'S

Worked in IT for a few businesses - last one was being the IT department for a small, private secondary school. Was given loads of extra duties like helping the students produce a 2-hour weekly live radio show.

For the last 3 and-a-bit years I've been at Halfords. Worked my way to bike mechanic - although not had a full head of department so was pretty much doing some of that too for the last 6 months. Wanted the break from IT but not sure if I want to stay where I am, go back to IT, or try something different.

hello everyone! i'm a product manager in integrity at facebook, looking after systems like this to keep fake/abusive accounts at bay. which is good.

things are a bit more complicated than the community hacks back in the day, like when we posted fake 
'reply' links all over the delphi network, tricking people into replying random messages into npcff :'-)

Yay!

Do you feel like Facebook is like, morally salvageable and all that? I use it a little bit and own an Oculus thing and sometimes wonder if it's all evil, but it gets quite wearying trying to keep on top of that for everything.

God but those days were fun. I don't have nearly the time to be in shenanigans like that anymore. Still, just built a Lego Technic Dodge Charger with my six-year-old, so there's that.

I was verrrrry cynical when I joined (I was an outright critic), but thought worst case it'd look great on my CV for whatever is next, and I'd have some good stories.

But 5 months in I can't see how any of the conspiracy theories are true about Facebook's bad intentions - in fact working in Integrity I see how much effort (10,000s of employees/contractors) and money (billions) is being spent trying to squash any badness.

I haven't quite switched to the "facebook is a force for good" end of the spectrum, but I at least am conscious that the ratio of good:bad news coverage we get doesn't seem to be proportionate to the actual ratio of good:bad things that are enabled because of facebook/instagram/whatsapp. particularly mindful of this at present, as tools like ours are making isolation a little less... isolated!

Woah, blast from the past! Nice to hear all's good!

> But 5 months in I can't see...

So you're currently around OT level II...?

Principal Software Engineer for large betting company.

Doesn't surprise me that someone on here has ended up with a job at Facebook.

I'll always have mixed feelings about Facebook and the related empire. I find how much control they have (or can be harnessed) as very worrying.

I've always generally been fairly comfortable with my data being the currency. Will I pay cash money for access to a social network? Nope. And at the end of the day things cost money to run.

Facebook were right place, right time and got the critical mass to make them dominate the market.

I'd say my biggest issue was them buying Instagram and WhatsApp.

Is it in Leeds by any chance? I visited them a year or so ago.

Yeah - Sky Bet. Both William Hill and Sky Bet are in Leeds.

oh, so they are too. It's only Sky Bet I've visited but I've worked with both over the years. I don't suppose you mix much with the sponsorship team but it's that lot I deal with. More or less evil than Facebook, since we're talking about it? Sport means I indirectly work with so much bad stuff I'm sure.

One of your dev colleagues is the brother of a motion designer I worked with until he cycled all the way to New Zealand to escape us. Small world/Big world in one sentence!