How smart are you?

Good question Garv. The more people I meet professionally that are in IT, the more I realize how much smarter and well rounded I am then them. It is a breathe of fresh air when I meet someone who is skilled. It is simply amazing how many people are in IT that collect nice checks and know nothing. It all came clear to me this week, these people (people who should know) would want to pick my brain all the time. I would naturally resist thinking "you figure it out". The answer is the fact that I build myself from the ground up. I first installed memory then an OS then setup a computer then setup a Server, Active Directory, Email, switch, router, firewall, LAN, MAN and then a WAN. These people have not had that experience, even picking my brain they could never fully understand what I am talking about without the simple building blocks I have achieved over the years which is going from point A to B to C. it irritates me when people should know this stuff and don't.

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royal

I look at it as everyone has their pros and cons. I might be good at one thing, but I know I'm bad at other things. Just because someone might be bad at IT does not make them stupid. Perhaps those people did not really want to get into IT but it just happened and they are not good at it. It's unfortunate that things don't always play out to be optimal, but hey, that's life. For instance, my thing is IT, I love it! But things like cars and such, I am bad with.

I am a very detail oriented person. Because of this, coworkers like to nitpick my brain. They are not stupid at all. In fact, a lot of my coworkers are very intelligent. They just have different learning tastes than me. This does not mean I am smarter than them at all. It just means I have the knowledge from reading or from experience which they have not experienced yet. I then pass the knowledge on to them. Now if I go to a car shop and they start talking to me about this and that, I don't know the first thing about what they are talking about. This does not make me stupid. It just makes me less knowledgeable There is a big difference.

garv221

icroyal wrote:

Now if I go to a car shop and they start talking to me about this and that, I don't know the first thing about what they are talking about. This does not make me stupid. It just makes me less knowledgeable There is a big difference.

I'm talking about me (IT Director) meeting with other IT Directors and being disappointed. For instance you mentioned cars. It is like two auto mechanics who have the same job duties and pay scale but are from different companies having a business meeting. One mechanic doesn't know how to tighten a lug bolt or know what a radiator is. The other mechanic is thinking- "wtf? someone call my cell so I can leave this meeting"

Plantwiz

Bad day Garv?

garv221

Plantwiz wrote:

Bad day Garv?

Yup- Luckily it is over in 20 minutes.

int80h

If you came up to me, and told me you never designed a printed circuit board, or never designed your own microprocessor in VHDL, I would say you know very little about IT. Different strokes for different folks.

Kaminsky

I can understand Garv's frustrations though. Yes certainly everyone has their different strengths and weaknesses but there is also that certain section that likes to coast and never actually get the motivation to learn for themselves. This does get irritating after a while when your the one constantly having your brains picked (and usually laughed at as you do know that level of detail about "computers") and then you discover your knowledge was later spouted out as their own ideas.

An obvious example of this is a good helpdesk. With a well educated helpdesk team, the users will actually start relying on the helpdesk to fix things quickly rather than actually thinking for themselves and learning in the process. Yes you can argue that they have their own work to get on with and don't have the time to learn this and that but how would you explain an instance of a medical secretary of 10 years phoning me to ask how she changed from portrait to landscape?

Even some IT support can be a bit like this as well. I know of a guy who has been in PC support for over ten years and still gets confused over ip addresses. Confused to the extent that he happily put out 7 new PCs with the same ip address. What made it worse was the fact that this ip address was the same as the domain controller and whammo! When I calmed down enough to explain to him why that was wrong, eyes glaze over, ears shut down.... tum te tumpety tum...... so annoying!

I suppose as humans, we automatically judge people by our own standards and expect the same standard naturally.

garv221

int80h wrote:

If you came up to me, and told me you never designed a printed circuit board, or never designed your own microprocessor in VHDL, I would say you know very little about IT. Different strokes for different folks.

Totally not what I am talking about.

Kaminsky wrote:

I suppose as humans, we automatically judge people by our own standards and expect the same standard naturally.

True- But when people hold good positions and clearly do not know what they are doing, isn't that a problem. Upper IT management is a good example of this. How can someone in IT direct a dept when they do not fully understand?

supertechCETma

I'll bet your life is just one big frustration after another.

kujayhawk93

How big is your company? Mine is about 300 employees, and our CFO doubles as our IS Director. He's a wiz at accounting, but doesn't know the first thing about computers or any of the things we do in IS. Sometimes that's good, but sometimes it's bad.

garv221

supertechCETma wrote:

I'll bet your life is just one big frustration after another.

Not at all. Pretty laid back.

There are a lot of good techs on these forums ,some with jobs, some without. It just amazes me that some real world IT people actually have jobs while actual knowledgeable candidates do not. Maybe my frustration is a direct reflection of the paper techs and braindumps that are readily available.

kujayhawk93 wrote:

our CFO doubles as our IS Director. He's a wiz at accounting, but doesn't know the first thing about computers or any of the things we do in IS. Sometimes that's good, but sometimes it's bad.

It's good when he makes his boss aware that the majority of the decision making comes from his techs. It is bad, actually dangerous when he tries to make decisions on implementations/designs (anything) without asking knowledgeable people, makes the assumption that he is knowledgeable and takes credit for work completed and frustrating to the lower techs.

elover_jm

i'm sure when other IT professionals meets you, they prob say the same thing abt you
......

like the above

Everyone has their pros ans cons

IT covers a lot of things, you can learn somtin new everyday...........

crap I forgot my old pwd

int80h wrote:

If you came up to me, and told me you never designed a printed circuit board, or never designed your own microprocessor in VHDL, I would say you know very little about IT. Different strokes for different folks.

I guess I know a lot about IT then

garv221

elover_jm wrote:

i'm sure when other IT professionals meets you, they prob say the same thing abt you

One thing they can always say- I can speak a decent line of English.

TechJunky

I think I do well with the computer industry, but if it is not directly related to computers I am no genious about it. I just know the basics that I have learned from the computer world. Dont ask me ANYTHING about an IPOD. Lol...

They uhh, play music via mp3 format, thats about my extent of knowledge on them.

strauchr

I wonder how much management speak you understand. Like if MBAs in the same position as you think the same thing you do about them with technical stuff. Maybe you have an MBA I don't know.

Still I believe there is more of a need for technical peope WITH top end business skills at the top rather than no technical skills or the IT port folio just being shoved under a CFO or COO or something.

RussS

The thing I learned way back when I was an obnoxious teen with a big head is that there is ALWAYS someone smarter, fitter, faster, better looking etc ......

has taken me a long way in life

ally_uk

Depends On what interests and what style of learner you are I supose

Personally when I encounter something IT related which I don't really know much about I will then go out buy a nice big book and get my head down for a few hours

I agree with the person who says everyone has there pros and cons for example take myself I hate programming I detest it I am absolutley c**p at programming the thought of spending hours staring at a pc screen gawping at code sends me to sleep

Belive me I have tried countless amounts of hours trying to get to grips with the basics but hey I guess my interest isn't there so I fail to grasp the basics and take in the key knowledge.

As for Networking this is the area of computing I enjoy learning about it interests me I am currently reading up some N+ material and am studying for the CCNA later this year at Uni.

Everyone has there areas of speciality for example the SYSADMIN guy at work baffles me with he's lectures on the ins and out of Linux and Unix being a windows boy myself he exceeds my intelligence in this area sometimes I literally have to walk away and think about what he is saying (Pretty puzzling at times)

Ive worked on a help desk for 2 years previously and I would say that to treat everybody as a equal when trying to explain resolutions to problems and hey nobody likes a egghead lol