Interesting rant about professionalism in IT

jdancer

If you are really bored, grab some popcorn and sit and read this rant What the hell happened to professional IT? - Overclockers Australia Forums

Good thing as a consultant, I get called in when my client's "consultants" break things and my billing hours rack up.

P.S. Kudos to the TE'r who posted the original link in another thread.

networker050184

If you think I'm some sort of uppity, pompous, self-righteous know it all, then you really don't know me.

That's exactly how I felt about this guy reading the rant.

ptilsen

Not sure if the writer understands the irony in writing a rant on professionalism.

Anyway, I don't think I agree with his conclusions. He seems to think that the problem is that IT departments aren't housed by collections of nearly omniscient generalists. I think that's pretty unrealistic. Some of the problems he talks about are definitely real, both with how larger shops are run and how vendors work. But I don't think specialization is the problem. People who know lots about lots have their place, but the model of teams of people who are true SMEs still makes more sense to me.

QHalo

I love how he talks about how he can't have a decent technical conversation because no one is at his level yet he was mentored and doesn't mention how he's mentoring someone else. I find those people worse than those who refuse to help themselves. The lack of mentoring is something sadly missed in IT. If you have one, count yourself lucky. Most people are too insecure about their own jobs to share knowledge with someone else. (TE excluded obviously people on here are a rare breed)

Sett

I don't like these generalists... When you work in a small shop you have to know everything but when it comes to large scale environments you need focused knowledge. I am networking guy, definitely not a "Cisco guy"... I don't know much about virtualization, DBs etc. but I am busy enough to design enterprise networks which sometimes span across 70-80 countries with numerous sites in each of them... I have spoken in the past with people who were working with wide range of technologies but not so in depth with any of them, and if they happen to had assigned switchports in vlan, and configured basic routing on a router they were pretty convinced that that's everything there is to know about networking. Somehow, I have the feeling that the author of the rant is the sort of these people. He mentions that he knows firewalls, networking, program languages and what the hell not, but I am pretty sure that he doesn't have sufficient in depth knowledge in most of these stuff. Well, you never know for sure until you actually have the chance to meet and talk to the person face to face and not on the Internet, but that's my impression after reading the thread. And also it reminds me of this:
Dunning

Frostbite

The writer seems like a lot of other arrogant, know-it-all, socially inept IT "professionals" I've met in my 15 year career. Not everyone wants to be a generalist. Not everyone who is a generalist sees a need to know about technology they don't have to deal with. Maybe he's a fast learner or has a photographic memory. Maybe he's sacrificed his social life in the pursuit of IT perfection. To think he's somehow holier than other IT staff because he knows more is ridiculous. If people are able to do their jobs well and are willing to learn new technology as it becomes necessary, I really don't see what there is to be upset about.

eansdad

Everyone's down on the wirter but I have to agree with atleast some of his points. I see on a daily basis people that have no business being in IT being given high level access to things they should not be touching. One job I am at is talking about doing the exact opposite of every basic security standard that is taught (they want to open up EVERYTHING and let users BYOD and purchase what every they want). The "admins" don't know what they are doing most of the time only to outsource to a provider that has some great people but bows down to the poor design and planning of our admins. Needless to say I am finishing out the year and then I'm gone. Not all places are like this but it does seem like standards are getting lower and lower.

We got a guy that admits to failing the A+ exam and has 0 exp in IT after taking a 1 month course at the community college for A+, Net+ and Security+ by way of unemployment. This is for a desktop support role that includes some jr. admin level skills (config/troubleshoot networking equipment, set up GPOs, deploy software, create and maintain images...etc)

Zartanasaurus

I only skimmed it, but he seems like the guy who builds a bunch of homebrew open source solutions to prove it can be done instead of buying something more commercial and supported then acts surprised when someone comes behind him and can't make sense of it.

WafflesAndRootbeer

Simply put, IT is no longer professional. It's a god damned rat-race in an endless maze with no exit and they keep dumping brain damaged rats into the maze. IT was far better when it wasn't an open door profession that everyone and their third cousin's mom's boyfriend could get into. Back then, you had professionalism and common sense and if you didn't, you were out of the game pretty quickly. Now, the complete opposite is the case.

EV42TMAN

I get where the guys is coming from, there has been many times I've left a customer's site after fixing something thinking "how does that guy make more money then I do?" IT has the same risks as any other job. you get your education whether is college or school, then you get a job and work your way up or find a new job. Then life comes into play and you focus less on your career and more on family and hobbies. Some people balance all of them well and some of them don't.

Personally I the biggest thing that has hurt IT is schools like PC Proschools, and short boot camps. Because they don't teach you the material you shotgun learn how the tests are phrased so you can pick the right answer. So you have a bunch of people who are certified but don't know how to do the things they are certified in.