IT field & the people who think they are in it.

garv221

Man,
Every pimple faced weasel I meet thinks they can work in the IT field. When I let people know what I do, they often say "how did you get that job" or "do you have your MCSE?" Seems like everyone is "working" on there MCSE or has "big" plans or "knows" everything about networking & systems. 99.9% of the time these people ARE jokes & posers & i'm sick of them, they havn't worked a minute in IT. I have forgoten more than they will ever know. They just come out of the wood work, at bars, onsite, the SBC guy in the comm room punching phones,lol...They are everywhere acting like they know IT because they know where the control panel is or hooked up a wireless linksys at ALL defualt settings letting that SSID broadcast through out the block.. ..Anyone else feel me?

keenon

garv221 wrote:

Man,
..Anyone else feel me?

sounds like u venting whats the problem?

ajs1976

Normally, I don't tell people what I do. I don't hide it, I just don't volunteer the information. If they ask, I tell them my job title, IT Consultant. A lot of people don't understand that IT = computers.

viper75

garv221 wrote:

Man,
Every pimple faced weasel I meet thinks they can work in the IT field. When I let people know what I do, they often say "how did you get that job" or "do you have your MCSE?" Seems like everyone is "working" on there MCSE or has "big" plans or "knows" everything about networking & systems. 99.9% of the time these people ARE jokes & posers & i'm sick of them, they havn't worked a minute in IT. I have forgoten more than they will ever know. They just come out of the wood work, at bars, onsite, the SBC guy in the comm room punching phones,lol...They are everywhere acting like they know IT because they know where the control panel is or hooked up a wireless linksys at ALL defualt settings letting that SSID broadcast through out the block.. ..Anyone else feel me?

LOL...I know what you mean man. I just laugh at them when they think they know what they are doing. There are two Technology coordinators at my place that are basically the middle man between the user and IT (us). Those two morons don't know their a$$ from their elbows. I'm not knocking them because they are morons, but the problem is that by them trying it to make it look like they know what they are talking about makes us do more work at the end because we have to fix their screw ups. Sh!t I can write up like 100 pages of stuff these two idiots do.

Just last week there was an order of Digital Cameras that came in for certain users. Mind you I understand that users are Technology\IT Challenged so I am patient with them. So anyway 20 digital cameras came in. One of the "IT" coordinators told the users that they couldn't download the pictures they took into the computers because the company did not purchase the docking station. BTW...these are Kodak digital cameras. So when the user said that to me today. I asked her where the box was that one of the cameras came in. She gave it to me and I took the USB cable out, plugged the camera to the computer and downloaded her pictures. The "IT" coordinator had previously (yesterday) told the user that she can throw the USB cable out because it was only for Mac computers. We have all Dell Workstations.

The idiot didn't even bother looking at the manual to see what the USB cable was for. The user told me, "I almost threw the USB cable out because it sounded like he knew what he was talking about."

All this happend today.

BTW...I saved the company a couple of $100's because they were going to buy the docking stations.

It's one thing you admit you have no clue what's going on, it's another thing you have no clue what's going on but put on an act like you are on top of everything. That makes you look like an a$$!!!


The worst is when idiots like that try to make you look bad.

reloaded

You know, I hate it when management has no clue what you're talking about and you have to explain it in, shall we say, "baby" terms. "What's this, what's that?" Us IT guys have our own lingo, but then when management wants to know what's going on...yeah, baby terms. I hate it. All these new guys come in that are higher up than I am and they are sure as hell less qualified then I am. Then I have to go around and train their butts on WAN links and how they work. Then I have to explain simple theory regarding TCP/IP, routers, etc. Somebody shoot me...

remyforbes777

Here is another thing, I am in class taking LAN administration for Windows Server 2003. Our instructor just happens to be the guy that is in charge of the schools network and he knows ton. He took us on a tour of the schools new ATLC (Advanced Learning and Technology Center). Now what I hate is guys that are taking the class but know some of their stuff, they are Network Admins and everything. I am a lowly helpdesk rep that has been chugging my way to higher education. But these guys are interrupting the lessons like , umm you could also do this, or why dont you do this. My thing is , our teacher is wayy more advanced than these jerks and dont interrupt the class cause you found something cool that works while you were toying around in your dept. There are some that are there to learn. Dont you think this guy knows all of this? Shaddup and let him teach. Its cool that you know these things and you wanna show off your limited IT knowledge lol. Okay there is my vent.

garv221

I think IT is a bit different than your average job.

Drakonblayde

I'm lucky, all my coworkers are nerds, and so are my bosses. The only idjuts we have to worry about are the salesfolks, and they thankfully have the foresight to call back and ask the department if they aren't sure about something before they try and sell it to the customer and thereby bind us into doing something that we may not be able to follow through on

lazyart

You got it bad?

Let me tell ya...

They appointed some guy as "Sr. Network Administrator". What does he really know?

One day I was deploying a new laptop and he asked what that "thing" was that everything is connected it.

I told him it was a docking station.

So, then came the natural following question...

"What's it for? What does it do?"

"More than you" is was flashed across my mind....

drewm320

You know, I hate it when management has no clue what you're talking about and you have to explain it in, shall we say, "baby" terms.

I get sick of users asking "what was teh problem?" when you fix something. Even when you talk in 'baby terms' you can tell that they still don't understand and don't care. I think I'm going to have to start telling people "It's a secret"

The only idjuts we have to worry about are the salesfolks, and they thankfully have the foresight to call back and ask the department if they aren't sure about something before they try and sell it to the customer and thereby bind us into doing something that we may not be able to follow through on

Some of us are not so lucky.

jacev1

lazyart wrote:

You got it bad?

Let me tell ya...

Ha! I may have you beat!

Last week we arrive at school to work on a computer that had a work order in for warranty repair. We don’t repair it, just verify the problem, submit it for warranty & HP comes out and replaces the part. The Tech Con was unavailable so some teacher’s aid that helps him comes out to met us and show us the PC that’s having the problem.

He says:
“It must be the unit that’s defective because I changed out the “Hard Drive”, hooked everything up & it works.”

My coworker proceeds to troubleshoot it further so that he can tell HP exactly what’s wrong. We start swapping components like IDE cables, trying different IDE channels, reseating memory, etc. The hold time the “Tech Con’s Aid” keeps popping in and out of the room we’re working in to tell us more about the things he did to this computer and what he thinks is wrong. We also get the usual “I taking computer classes, how much do you guys make, are you hiring? We answer “uhuh” & keep working.

About the 3rd time this guy walks in, he sees me removing a hard drive from a spare PC and handing it to my coworker. While my coworker removes the HDD and places it on the table to install the spare he says: What’s that?

We both look at him like WTF!

My coworker plays it cool saying: "What do you mean? What size?"

Aid: "No, what is that part you just removed?"

Now here we are troubleshooting everything else because he said the “hard drive” was good!

I turned around and said: When you say “I moved the hard drive and it worked”, what are you talking about? The hard drive inside or the computer aka “cpu”?

He says: "Oh, I can’t remember!" Then he leaves.

Turns out the hard drive IS defective!

The only good part about all of this, he never stopped by again!

PS- Sorry for the long post!

strauchr

Ok. How about people who think they are IT people through association.

For example... I had this receptionist with a strange e-mail issue (can't remember the exact issue) and I couldn't quite figure it out off the top of my head. All of a sudden she says "My husband works in IT so I tried this and tried that blah blah blah" First of all who cares if your husband is in IT and second of all what does that make you?

How about this one... we had an Office Assistant start at one of our clients a while ago. One of my co-workers went to fix a problem on one of their PC's. He noticed she had Adobe Photoshop (strictly licensed to only 3 PC's at this client) and asked where she got it. "oh the new Offie Assistant installed it for me". Apparantly this guy had been installing it for anyone who asked!! Don't worry about licenes. This guy obviously had nothing to do cos he kept trying to be their IT guy and bad mouthed us. He just created extra work for us and in the end management intervened.

tschnabel99

reloaded wrote:

You know, I hate it when management has no clue what you're talking about and you have to explain it in, shall we say, "baby" terms. "What's this, what's that?" Us IT guys have our own lingo, but then when management wants to know what's going on...yeah, baby terms. I hate it. All these new guys come in that are higher up than I am and they are sure as hell less qualified then I am. Then I have to go around and train their butts on WAN links and how they work. Then I have to explain simple theory regarding TCP/IP, routers, etc. Somebody shoot me...

Really one of your IT skills should be and I list it on my resume is to: "effectively discuss IT topics with non-technical personnel". You must be able to do that and not talk down to your customers. You are the expert! Be professional and proud of what you know. I draw analogies many times to help them understand. For example, DNS is like a big phone book, you enter a name and it gives you the number or IP address compared to the address on an envelope i.e. state, street, house number. It comes with the territory man. Be proud you know things they don't. And in a pinch you can always say " we can't set up another subnet cus the modem won't sync with the scriptzoid on the whatchamacallit" when you're too lazy or hung over to do the work!! LOL Dazzel'em with techno babble.

TheShadow

I agree with you 100% tschnabel99. What some do not seem to realize is that the reason that a less technical person may get promoted over a more technical person is what management calls "soft skills". In many cases soft skills are more important than technical or "hard skills". It is not enough to to be a whiz at fixing equipment or designing a network, you must be able to explain to others what you did, why it is important and/or what your client or customer did wrong, and how to prevent it from happening again. Many companies understand this and move some excellent techs into positions where they do not have to interface to anyone non-technical. Others move up the chain of command.

gulrad

As I am now studying for my A+ cirtification I have many questions for the Tech guys at my work. I think it is a great thing that they help me by sharing their knowledge, heck, they even give me encouragement.

My situation may be different in that I do much of the facilities maintenance and have on occasion been required to work with the tech department in such things as wiring for the LAN and Security System Configuration.

So, for all of you that share you knowledge, even in the face of some pretty dumb questions, Thanks.

Plantwiz

ajs1976 wrote:

Normally, I don't tell people what I do. I don't hide it, I just don't volunteer the information. If they ask, I tell them my job title, IT Consultant. A lot of people don't understand that IT = computers.

I agree. It is easier to not get into computer/technology conversations with people who 'think' they know. I'd image Doctors have similar feelings. If someone finds out you hold an MD, they already think you know everything, when perhaps you have a chosen specialty. If you mention you work with computers (a word people know) then they want you to diagnosis their problem and they are unable to even explain what is going on.

And as far as the start of the thread about the young people mouthing off about holding MCSE and such - If they cannot back it up - I agree, I don't care for that much myself. They likely don't know how to run debug commands let alone ever worked in DOS.

keatron

Sheesh! I wish I would've found this post earlier, I definantly feel ya on this one.

A client of mine last week decided to become an IT person and re-install windows (this was advised by his "computer expert" son). Well, basically he did a complete clean install of windows xp professional over his windows 2000 server domain controller/file server. When I got there and discovered what was going on I almost fell through the floor. What an idiot. I mean come one, I'm not a mechanic so I never try to "fix" my car.

Plantwiz

Yeah that's rich too!

I have an even better one!

Few years back, while managing a retail store one of the sales 'kids' decides to have his friend buy one of our systems. The two of them together decided to 'fix it up'. Well, they screw it up and the kids mother was steamed at US because we sold her kid a crappy computer.

We happily gave her the money back and took the computer back....but not until she was clear that 'WE' never installed the drivers nor the video card and sound card that she was returning to us. Her son's system had been tampered with which was evident by the seal being broken on the back.

She still insisted she'd never buy from us again, but we suggested that she never let her son nor his friend (our now x-employee) inside whatever computer she bought. Our x-employee wasn't qualified to be inside and therefore got himself fired.

skully93

strauchr wrote:

Ok. How about people who think they are IT people through association.

"My husband works in IT so I tried this and tried that blah blah blah" First of all who cares if your husband is in IT and second of all what does that make you?

I'm particularly nasty about people like that. I had one gal tell me if I couldn't get it to where she could send personal mail at work, she'd bring in her super genius computer husband to do it after hours.

We had a little discussion about buisness use of machines and how no one outside the company had better touch it...

skully93

strauchr wrote:

Ok. How about people who think they are IT people through association.

"My husband works in IT so I tried this and tried that blah blah blah" First of all who cares if your husband is in IT and second of all what does that make you?

I'm particularly nasty about people like that. I had one gal tell me if I couldn't get it to where she could send personal mail at work, she'd bring in her super genius computer husband to do it after hours.

We had a little discussion about buisness use of machines and how no one outside the company had better touch it...

viper75

skully93 wrote:

strauchr wrote:

Ok. How about people who think they are IT people through association.

"My husband works in IT so I tried this and tried that blah blah blah" First of all who cares if your husband is in IT and second of all what does that make you?

I'm particularly nasty about people like that. I had one gal tell me if I couldn't get it to where she could send personal mail at work, she'd bring in her super genius computer husband to do it after hours.

We had a little discussion about buisness use of machines and how no one outside the company had better touch it...

Yep,

Hate those kind of people.