I.T has been a waste of time...

"such is life....."

i would dislike IT if a read a book or 2 and knew everything. If there were not constantly changing landscape with new ideas and concepts i would soon be bored out of my mind. Nearly all professions work with a constantly changing environment (doctors, lawyers, ....). If that is not your thing then there are lots of jobs in construction, fast food, etc. They require minimal thought and repetitive activities.

Not everyone can be a musician....and no everyone can be in IT. To each their own.

keatron

Turnerx you are exactly right. And this is the reason that I advise anyone coming into this field that they better make sure it's a passion and something they enjoy tremendously or they will be singing the same tune main event is singing now. I have one employee now who's struggling with the fact that to be a good security analyst you need to do tons of reading.

Bottom line, if you can't stand the idea of reading thousands of pages of literature every year (online, whitepapers, books, reports, announcements, briefings, etc) then you will suffer or at best, be a very mediocre IT professional or Infosec professional. Sure hands on is the part we all like, and most people like to say "I learn better by doing and seeing not reading"; I do too, but to think that I can dictate how I learn in every case is rediculous. One of the most common stumbling blocks for people entering this field the OSI Model. Why? Because it's very difficult to "do" the OSI model unless you're a person writing code for applications communicating across networks. Otherwise just buckle down and do some reading.

Here's a perspective, in preparing for the CISSP the Shon Harris book is about 900 pages. In total I probably read about 5000 pages of information in preparing for this exam. Keep in mind this is just one exam, and I'm probably being fairly conservative in the number of pages I'm estimating here.

The truth is many people think coming in to IT means, tinkering with someones desktop, laptop, or router, getting it to do something the owner/owners couldn't get it to do, then being praised as a god for doing it, followed by getting flooded with money because you are a looked at as a genius. In reality? Part of this might happen, SOMETIMES, but for the most part it is a grind of which you must truly enjoy and thirst for.

unknown1234

His certifications listed as: Working on N+...., how much effort has he truly put in?

frankj1247

there's no such thing as a free lunch no matter what you do

Main Event

Forgive me...I'm just ranting since I'm not in a good mood these days.......kinda confused as usual...but I hope things get worked out...I live below the proverty line so I get depressed pretty often.

2lazybutsmart

You could really use that Schwarzenegger quote you have there.

Don't expect to be soaring high in the sky the very next day you hop on the IT train. How many years have you been in the field?

garv221

Main Event wrote:

I should have taken something else...what a joke of a career

That statement is a total representation of yourself. Life is what you make it.

Subway is hiring.

/usr

I haven't posted in a while, but I couldn't resist.

Some of the comments made towards Main Event are completely uncalled for, given the fact that his comment was a generalization and was not directed towards any of you personally. Granted, he should have explained himself so advice could have possibly been offered, but I would have expected the "professionals" to respond with more mature responses.

That statement is a total representation of yourself. Life is what you make it.

Subway is hiring.

TheShadow

However you do not see the original statement as unprofessional. I considered it a troll and ignored it. A profession that many have devoted their life too and this guy comes in as says that profession is a joke. It seemed pretty specific to me and not a generalization. Reminds me of going into a bar with sailors and marines and saying marines eat navy crap and then running and wondering why a fight started. The gentleman has not spoken up I see.

shadown7

TheShadow wrote:

However you do not see the original statement as unprofessional. I considered it a troll and ignored it. A profession that many have devoted their life too and this guy comes in as says that profession is a joke. It seemed pretty specific to me and not a generalization. Reminds me of going into a bar with sailors and marines and saying marines eat navy crap and then running and wondering why a fight started. The gentleman has not spoken up I see.

I agree with you on this!

jaeusm

A profession that many have devoted their life too and this guy comes in as says that profession is a joke.

He said nothing of IT as a profession. He only spoke of his career.

The gentleman has not spoken up I see.

If "the gentleman" you're referring to is the original poster, he did post again.

TheShadow

jaeusm wrote:

A profession that many have devoted their life too and this guy comes in as says that profession is a joke.

He said nothing of IT as a profession. He only spoke of his career.

Thin slice on definition. Maybe we should agree to disagree.

strauchr

Guess he found out that IT is a REAL profession requiring hard work and not an easy ride to riches.

Probably got that idea from one of those rip off training companies that guarentee you a "great career with an even better paycheck" type of thing.

I do feel sorry for people who get roped in like that but you gotta do your research and be a lot more consumer savvy in a greedy corporate environment like today.

cisco_trouble

IT professionals are the bricklayers and labourers of the future. IT people do the hard labour while others reap the benefits. Its a cruel world.

garv221

/usr wrote:

I haven't posted in a while, but I couldn't resist.

Some of the comments made towards Main Event are completely uncalled for, given the fact that his comment was a generalization and was not directed towards any of you personally. Granted, he should have explained himself so advice could have possibly been offered, but I would have expected the "professionals" to respond with more mature responses.

That statement is a total representation of yourself. Life is what you make it.

Subway is hiring.

You should have stuck to not posting.

He posted in the IT job forum and said that a career in IT is a joke. I have a career in IT along with the majority of everyone else; no one should give pity to someone who feels sorry for themselves and has a bad attitude toward something a lot of us worked hard toward for just because they cannot succeed in it. I can understand being frustrated but I don’t understand lashing out because things are not going your way. I have been pissed many times at alot of different things, it makes me work harder.

EdTheLad

I agree with the original poster a career in IT is a joke.
The definition of career is "The general course or progression of one's working life or one's professional achievements"

The more you learn the less likely a promotion.
What i've seen many times is as follows:
You have 2 IT techies, one is really great and the other is just about doing enough to get bye.A managerial position comes up, hrmm .....
Who will get the promotion, 9 times out of 10 its the not so good guy as the great guy is needed where he is.
These are the hard facts of the IT world, so looking back at the definition of
career it doesnt really work for IT.
What a Joke of a career, but i love it!!

certificationjourney [ban

ed_the_lad wrote:

I agree with the original poster a career in IT is a joke.
The definition of career is "The general course or progression of one's working life or one's professional achievements"

The more you learn the less likely a promotion.
What i've seen many times is as follows:
You have 2 IT techies, one is really great and the other is just about doing enough to get bye.A managerial position comes up, hrmm .....
Who will get the promotion, 9 times out of 10 its the not so good guy as the great guy is needed where he is.
These are the hard facts of the IT world, so looking back at the definition of
career it doesnt really work for IT.
What a Joke of a career, but i love it!!

Well said.

keatron

The more you learn the less likely a promotion.

So the solution is to learn nothing and hope for success? While this is cute it's hardly true anywhere.

What i've seen many times is as follows:
You have 2 IT techies, one is really great and the other is just about doing enough to get bye.A managerial position comes up, hrmm .....
Who will get the promotion, 9 times out of 10 its the not so good guy as the great guy is needed where he is. !!

And if the circumstances are right, this is how it should be. People should be and should want to be where they are most comfortable and perform the best. The guy who gets the promotion might be a so so hands on tech, but an excellent manager and people person. This is business 101. It is pure nonsense to assume that a person who's best in one position is automatically the best canidate for the next position up, unless the company is purposely structured that way. When I was still an employee I suffered this fate many times. After getting enough of it, I enrolled in some night courses at a local college. I took Oral Communications (I took it in undergrad, but this time I took it for the purpose of improving my communications skills), a project management course, and some business management classes. After doing this and working one on one with the Communications professor on how to improve my communication skills, I noticed I would get interviews and promotion offers that I never got before. Often times if you're passed over for a promotion, management will tell you why if you ask. If they tell you that you didn't have the people skills, then work on that instead of getting in a huff and cursing the company to hell.

I had a young employee to lash out at me this summer. He basically said I didn't give him a new position I created because I was threatened by his skills (I found this to be very funny since it's my company, and it only makes since that my main technical people are more technical than I). You have to understand that a company is like a puzzle, people, personalities and skills are the pieces. Just like a puzzle there's only a limited number of places each person will fit in the puzzle (unless you shape your skill set and personality to allow you to move to another open space). Just because you're good at what you do and you've been in that position for two years doesn't automatically mean you get promoted. Ask your self. What have I done to prepare (or shape) myself to fit into the space in this company (puzzle) that I'd like to be in. If you've not put in the work and improvement efforts and applied them to yourself, then in part, you have yourself to blame.

I've worked for 4 different companies, and now I own one of 17 employees and 3 partners. In my experiences I have to say this; You can't generalize and damn the entire profession based off a few examples of bad judgement or promotion practices. As far as the promotion thing goes, sometimes the most technical person doesn't get the promotion for reasons other than being the most technical. Some higher up and management positions require tremendous people skills and lots of time being spent in the face of the outside world. Let's face it, not all of us are socially inept enough to do that job. I think of the Sony guy who made that statement in a public address that "most people don't even know what rootkits are, so why should they care". That's a prime example of a guy who should be working in a tucked away place and not given the responsibility of speaking to the public. As an employer let me say this. We need to first understand that things are not always as they seem. When someone gets passed over for a promotion (even if you think they're more qualified) there could be numerous other factors that contributed to this. A lady I know was in a position as to where she had to promote one of 3 of her network engineers to IT director. The most skilled guy had been repeatedly sending emails to the company VP slamming her and saying how much of an idiot she was etc etc etc( mainly because she contracted with an external company to do pentesting). Of course the VP made it his business to foward copies of these emails to her every time. Her thing was this person is the most qualified and is supposed to be her right hand man if promoted. However, she felt that she could in no way trust him to be a team player on her team. You think he got the promotion? Sometimes our arrogance and lack of tongue control (or keyboard control in his case) are what actually keep us from being promoted. If you think IT is such a bad profession, start reading Forbes, Business Week, and the like for a while and see some of the crap that goes down in some of the other job areas. You might be suprised at what you find out. No profession is perfect, and I'd bet you my next quarter earning that you'll find the same injustices going on in every career area there is.

I still have some issue with the original post just because it was somewhat distasteful, and as far as I know, it's really not the kind of post this site was designed for. Regardless of what anyone says, those of us who do this work because it is a passion and have went through the good and bad times, and have busted our humps to get where we are and hopefully contribute to the profession and advance it, will ALWAYS take some issue with the original post.

EdTheLad

Hey Keatron, long post so i'm not gonna even try match it

I agree in what your saying but sadly this is an idealistic mentality.Industry
is far from being so black and white.My example above was referring to two socially skilled people not two social misfits.
If you want to get ahead i.e. promotions and the like, my advice is to start
practicing golf and laughing on command to bad jokes from the boss.
It's funny how once i mention a good techie you automatically assume social
misfit, maybe being a manager has changed your views about people without you even realising and you automatically overlook the good techie as being a
socal misfit.Anyway who knows? i'm just nitpicking but for the love of God give us techies a chance............

strauchr

These sorts of problems happen in every middle class profession. I get talking to a lot of people with the companies I've worked for and I can tell you the storey is the same everywhere whether it be engineering, accounting, insurance, finance etc. you always hear the same stories

- I'm better than him, why shouldn't I have his job

- This project manager is a joke, I could do his job blind folded

- This manager knows nothing, he can't even run a defrag, do a balance sheet, draw a bolt etc.

And the list goes on.

The truth is there are times when injustices happen, you can work your ass off and still someone who is worse than you in every single way has it better because they suck up to the right people. Believe me I have seen it and been a victim of it.

Now before you say there may have been some reason like you have no social skills then you are wrong because if I move jobs I can get promoted over people who have been longer simply because I get along with boss better or the company culture suits me better.

So, lesson learnt here is that find a company that suits you! Companies will not change for you, you have to find one that you can work with and one that can work with you.

And this isn't just IT by the way, like I said earlier all middle class professions have this issue.

But what keatron said is true - It takes a certain kind of person to be in management and having great technical skills is not a prerequisite. You want to get the top jobs you gotta prepare yourself for them. Sucking up to the boss may sound bad but its part of the skills for social interaction that are needed for business.

strauchr

I came across this article which I thought was relevant in backing up my theory

http://www.thewest.com.au/20051207/news/general/tw-news-general-home-sto132893.html

Its an Australian article but it rings true everywhere I think

garv221

I totaly agree with keatron. Being in managment myself, you see things a little differently. I see it as "Thinkers & Do-ers" . You want to know who these people are; look at the company salaries.Somone can be the best tech in the world but when it comes down to it they do not see things outside of configuring a router. So they will always be a do-er. A thinker gives advice and is trusted by his peers and team members to make decisions and think outside of the box and think of ways to make his part of the company run with the rest of the company so the company can turn a profit. The thinkers tell the do-ers what to do. The Do-ers are excellent at what they do but don't think about anything else besides tech stuff. If a Do-er wants to be managment all he has to do is get his voice and opinions heard and show some initiative. If that Do-er is excellent at his job and has some good managment qualities, it would be in the managment dept.'s best interest to atleast interview him for a postion and then make a decision. I have never been in a company where they promoted a lazy person who is under qualified. I have never seen a complainer or a person who likes to go against the grain promoted either. The best kind of IT managment is somone who knows the gear and enviroment. I always thought people like to hire someone smart than themselves. It makes sense, have your employee do all the work. But it is not the same evrywhere like strauchr said.

keatron

Absolutely not tagging techies as social misfits, because I'd be tagging myself as such. Not being the best qualified for any position or role does not make one a social misfit.

Garv is exactly right. 70% of my staff have higher salaries than myself. Why? Because my top Cisco person can run circles around me any day of the week. So can my top Active Directory engineer. The only place where I'm still the top guy is security. But even that's changing soon, I'm interviewing 3 other CISSP's in January. Knowing who fits where is key. And it even requires admitting that your peers are much better at something than you are.

Most of my time in 2006 will focused on fulfilling some very nice training contracts we were awarded. For the most part, me and 2 other people I'm promoting to trainers will be doing this. In 2007, they will completely take it over, and I will be developing other areas of the company. This is a fundamental property of growth and advancement.

milliamp

keatron, I have seen you mention some of the qualifications of your employees before. For a small company you pack some insane fire power.

keatron

Thanks for the compliment millamp. Basically I was lucky enough to have saved a large amount of cash to start the company, then have two partners (one of which comes from the banking industry and has access to tons of cash himself) which is what allowed us to hire the best. Having the best and most qualified means you'll probably do the best work. This and the reputation of doing the best work has gotten us into places I never dreamed about.

I definantly don't think I'm god and there's certainly people on here much more qualified than I, but I feel that I have pretty decent qualifications myself. This puts me in a position to demand the same from employees.