Being an IT professional is tough?

Pash · December 2008

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/hiner/?p=822&tag=nl.e101

I would say this is pretty much 100% true for support work, even IT project work has these elements.

It really shows that being an IT pro is a very tough job.

vCole · December 2008

Good read, thanks for the link

skrpune · December 2008

Great article. From personal experience, I have to say that #4 (people assume you're an expert in all things) is *so* very true, especially for those who have little to no understanding of technology in general. I'm not knocking those people, but they can be a bit irritating. They make you feel like an idiot for not knowing everything about all things IT they can think of to ask you, and they can ask the most inane questions at times.

paintb4707 · December 2008

They're ALL true. Good read.

royal · December 2008

Agreed on all of them, especially #4. Back when I was in Internal IT for all of 3 months, everyone assumed I knew everything and when I didn't know something, it was usually a response of "Seriously? You're the Tech Guy, aren't you know supposed to know all of this stuff?"

While I didn't know the word back then, I would have loved to say something like, "Sorry, I'm not omnipotent. Oh, don't know the word? Don't you speak English? Shouldn't that mean you know every word in the English language?"

skrpune · December 2008

royal wrote:

While I didn't know the word back then, I would have loved to say something like, "Sorry, I'm not omnipotent. Oh, don't know the word? Don't you speak English? Shouldn't that mean you know every word in the English language?"

Oh, that's just BEAUTIFUL!

vCole · December 2008

royal wrote:

Agreed on all of them, especially #4. Back when I was in Internal IT for all of 3 months, everyone assumed I knew everything and when I didn't know something, it was usually a response of "Seriously? You're the Tech Guy, aren't you know supposed to know all of this stuff?"

While I didn't know the word back then, I would have loved to say something like, "Sorry, I'm not omnipotent. Oh, don't know the word? Don't you speak English? Shouldn't that mean you know every word in the English language?"

I will keep this tid-bit in my head for an opportunity that fits

nielpeel · December 2008

That article made me chuckle, thanks

.

On the flipside, the article about why it's great to work in IT also made sense.

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/hiner/?p=823&tag=rbxccnbtr1

JDMurray · December 2008

#2, 3, 4, 5 and certainly true for all IT (including programmers) in small companies. #1 occurs in cycles over three-year periods, mostly due to the waxing/waning interest in off-shoring jobs.

Kasor · December 2008

I guess the author did share all of our moment on being a IT Prof. Also, nobody say IT job is easy. There many IT manager don't know anything about IT, and that's why they said it is easy because they are not the one that do the progarmming, testing, cabling, writing the document or even on the phone.

Anyway... just another blog that review over and over again about IT Prof don't pay enough to do the job.

kalebksp · December 2008

My old boss used to say "It's all just ones and zeros" when I told him that I couldn't make the computers do something. One day I wasn't in the mood for that and told him that if it was all just ones and zeros that he should go write a program in binary that could do what he wanted.

the_Grinch · December 2008

Last IT job I had was very pro-IT technicians. Everyone knew that if you gave the IT guys crap they could just walk away from the problem and come back when they weren't there. This was at a school district where teachers believe they are gods. But I have an example that shows how great this place was. One teacher would also use the projector cart in her classroom. She complained that she could only use it on one side of the room and that it hurt her ability to teach (because you can't teach without a projector cart, made me wonder how did I learn all these years). So instead of coming to us and putting in the work order she went to her principal and complained. Principal calls the Asst Superintendent (she was in charge of a couple of things including the IT department) complaining about it and she intern called my boss. My boss said "it's not in track-it and we won't consider it till its in track-it". She called the principal and told her this. A couple hours later it finally appeared (in all caps) and my boss says "leave it there till after the weekend".

So once the weekend is over I make a 100 ft cat5 cable and take it over. I had a couple other jobs to do at that school so I did those and as I was leaving the teacher stops me. She starts to say while its great to have the cable, now the kids are tripping over it and she wants a cable to be run around the walls of the classroom. I told her we complied with the initial request and since the projector cart is a mobile one meant to be used by everyone we weren't going to run a permanent cable that would keep the cart in her room. She began with "but I'm the only one who uses it and..." to which I said "put it in track-it and have a nice day". Got back to our office and told my boss, he was very pissed. It came in track-it and we denied it for the reason I gave. For the next two weeks everyday it would show up in track-it and we would give the same reason as to why we wouldn't be doing it. Finally, I had to see the Asst Superintendent for a computer issue and she starts saying about how she was getting calls about getting this cable ran and couldn't we just do it. I explained that I was told these carts are to be mobile (they were part of a grant that said this) and that this would make the cart stay in this classroom. On top of that we complied with getting her a longer cable only to get this new work order about all of the sudden kids tripping. Asst Superintendent calls the principal and the matter hasn't been brought up since that day!

Sometimes I do like IT! Gotta remember this was an IT department that consisted of 4 field techs and a system administrator who had to do all the network and systems administration for the whole district (5 schools, around 2000 students, and probably 4 or 500 teachers and other staff).

Being an IT professional is tough?

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