Hiding Your Knowledge

Xyro

Have any of you felt that it was necessary to hide your knowledge to be successful in certain positions? Also, any elaboration as to why you felt this need would be appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

olaHalo

At my previous job it came out that I knew a little Linux.
From then on all linux issue became my responsibility. Things were way over my head.
Increased workload and stress a lot. And I didnt really know too much at the time.

I wish I hadn't told anyone about my linux knowledge. And linux isnt the career path that I want to take.

Jon_Cisco

I would not hide my knowledge. However you as an individual have to decide what knowledge you will give freely.

Don't take a job flipping burgers and also give them free IT. All good workers go above there job description sometimes.

White Wizard

I think it depends on the situation.

Personally I have never had to hide my IT knowledge. I'd rather not mention the knowledge if I had too rather then hide it.

Z3-Masterd

At my first helpdesk job, I told my employer in conversation one day that I knew how to terminate ethernet cabling. This was 3-4 months in, and the topic had never been broached before. It was done in braggart fashion. I spent whole days crawling around in the ceiling after that.

(My hourly wage stayed the same.)

Dakinggamer87

@White Wizard: Yep pretty much nailed it!! Luckily I've never been put in that situation. If I don't have the knowledge I won't advertise it falsely and give an expectation that I can't maintain.

Expect

I kind of disagree with opinions mentioned above.

"Hiding knowledge" due to one being afraid of having extra-work can of course be bad to the same person having the knowledge, but once you're the 'go to' guy in a specific field, it can only highlight you differently from the rest of your team, and can be a very good excuse for a pay bump.

I don't see how having extra knowledge can be negative, it depends how the person sees it and how the company appreciates it (or not) .

JustFred

I think you should not brag too much about certain things. For example i'm very interested in Linux and have been studying and trying out different things with it at home, but does that not make me an expert or even intermediate. I just tell my employer i have been studying and playing with it at home and in time i will have a better knowledge of its ins and outs. Being honest can save you a lot of headache and trouble along the way

Master Of Puppets

I am always honest about what I know. No need to exaggerate because you will get exposed. But if I know something I am definitely not going to hide it.

wguhelp

I guess there is a difference between "hiding" and "lying" about your skills. One might not jump up and boast about how good of a cable runner they are in a crowd. But not volunteering it is different from lying about it when directly asked.

Fulcrum45

One of my customers had overheard that I a had a certificate in Healthcare Technology (solely centered around in helping small practices transition to EHRs- no bid deal) The owner and compliance officer then stated they wanted me to train their "IT" manager in HIPAA compliance because they worked at a call center that dealt with Medicare supplement plans. I had to explain to them that this was NOT the same thing and that I was in no way qualified to give him any kind of training on the subject. Clearly a misunderstanding but it would have been easier if they didn't know at all.

RouteMyPacket

The moment anyone finds out you have played the generalist role, they are on you like flies on poop!

I no longer have to deal with those situations anymore. The only thing I have to deal with now is sometimes handling wireless issues (wireless isn't bad I guess). Luckily absolutely no Voice work and for that I am grateful.

jibbajabba

I never hid knowledge per se. I did hide certain things from my CV / Resume. I had once a VMware role I applied for, they saw I have a lot of Windows certifications - ASSUMED I am a genius and based their decision to hire me on that. They failed to mention to me that even though I was hired as VMWare engineer - they really needed a Windows engineer and put me on a helpdesk ..

Needless to say I didn't stay there for a while. But now I am working as Linux and VMware engineer and my colleagues assumed that this is all there is and my colleague was once struggling with an Exchange server. Took me 5 minutes to fix the issue and the guys were all very .. baffled

That was priceless though ...

Murky

I have no problem with letting others know what I am capable of. It makes me more dependable and more of an asset. I also have no problem telling my employer that I'm not going to do something outside of my job's scope for free.

the_Grinch

I play my card close to the hip as it were. I've been in situations where knowing what the acronym meant was enough for them to push it all on me. Slight issue here at work as our IT Director said we didn't have the technical talent to setup Netflow. I have done it before and it's not difficult so I stated that. That somehow rolled into me knowing Nagios and getting put in charge of setting that up. I've figured it out, but it was that subtle reminder that you never volunteer.

MsMcNett

Its definitely a double edged sword. You want to be able to showcase your talents but at the same time, it can open you up to be taken advantage of. It's a constant battle but I would say the best advice is to know when to express your knowledge and when not to.

apr911

Z3-Masterd wrote: »

At my first helpdesk job, I told my employer in conversation one day that I knew how to terminate ethernet cabling. This was 3-4 months in, and the topic had never been broached before. It was done in braggart fashion. I spent whole days crawling around in the ceiling after that.

(My hourly wage stayed the same.)

Had pretty much the same situation happen to me... We were talking about cabling and home networks and I mentioned I ran and crimped my own CAT-5 cables in my house and from then on I was the go-to person for cabling needs... Spent the next several months fishing and crimping wires amongst my other duties.

Thankfully, most places Ive worked for since then go and spend the extra few bucks to get machined cables instead of relying on custom cables.

da_vato

When I was in the army I noticed quite a few soldiers that would the do the BARE minimum and get by just fine. I was a hard charger and often picked up slack for an entire platoon, all the nonsense jobs and stuff that took much of my free time. After the first assignment I wanted to stay in the shadows so-to-speak and just get by and do the minimum I could. I wanted my free time too, plus working my butt off and see someone else do a 1/3 of the work I did and get paid the same.... really angered me to say the least.

The problem i found with this is your true personality will shine through no matter what. I have always been the go to guy everywhere I have been and never really received any compensation for it (I really don't care about money though). You can try and hide whatever knowledge you want to hide but you will find that someone will see you express that knowledge and your secret is forever out.

jibbajabba

the_Grinch wrote: »

I've been in situations where knowing what the acronym meant was enough for them to push it all on me.

Oh man, don't I know it. Manager noticed once that I know my way around Powershell, next thing you know I was a "developer" who kept getting urgent requests for Powershell and C# applications. And of course deadines. The worst bit ? Colleagues got the impression, because of my "change in responsibility", that I was a proper coding monkey and I had a hard time to convince people that I wasn't, people who blamed me for not meeting deadlines and for the (long) time needed to fix certain coding issues with their C# applications.

For our management "You know code" - so clearly you know all languages. I barely knew how to spell C#

earweed

jibbajabba wrote: »

Oh man, don't I know it. Manager noticed once that I know my way around Powershell, next thing you know I was a "developer" who kept getting urgent requests for Powershell and C# applications. And of course deadines. The worst bit ? Colleagues got the impression, because of my "change in responsibility", that I was a proper coding monkey and I had a hard time to convince people that I wasn't, people who blamed me for not meeting deadlines and for the (long) time needed to fix certain coding issues with their C# applications.

For our management "You know code" - so clearly you know all languages. I barely knew how to spell C#

My BIG reason for never listing or ever mentionning that CIW Javascript Specialist cert I got from taking that class at WGU. I also never mention knowing the slightest thing about HTML or CSS as I would be over my head with almost any coding assignment. I've done some programming over the years (Fortran, Basic, Java, Assembler on several hardware platforms, some unix coding) but these were always done with a loose timeframes and I still had trouble finishing in time to satisfy everyone.

RouteMyPacket

So funny this thread, got an issue tossed my way regarding MS IAS server on Friday. I tossed it back but goes to show once again, they will always try.

Could I have looked at it? Sure but sorry, those days are over. I leave MS to MS guys (technically I will work in there or NPS for VPN stuff but for the most part, nope)

Danielm7

earweed wrote: »

My BIG reason for never listing or ever mentionning that CIW Javascript Specialist cert I got from taking that class at WGU. I also never mention knowing the slightest thing about HTML or CSS as I would be over my head with almost any coding assignment.

Hah, yep, I don't list the CIW ones on my resume, I have enough higher level ones and I've already had to do some basic web stuff in other jobs I'd hate to paint the picture that it is what I want to do.