Difficulties in the life of an IT professional

theseman · May 2006

Hey everyone,

I am doing a paper on the above-mentioned subject. Since I am only a student and not yet an industry person, I was wondering if anyone here could share some of their experience. Some of the obvious ones I have covered (i.e. job availibility), but I am sure there must be some very interesting takes on things you guys find difficult/frustrating in your careers.

Any juicy quotes that I could use would be appreciated as well, just make a note in your post if its ok that I use them in the paper! (with due credit of course)

Thanks!

Travis

rbowman · May 2006

Heres a good quote: Always never forget to check your sources.

I have not gotten into the industry yet either but jobs seem bountiful. The only problem is that the availibility for those jobs is never for entry level people. Most require experience

Webmaster · May 2006

Here's a couple of suggestions, which you could work out/research further on your own:

- Having to stay up to date with new technology. As an IT professional, you will always be learning new things, even to do the same old job. Much of the time spent on learning will be your own time, and not the boss'.

- Working with people. Many IT professionals are great at the technical stuff, but need to put more time into 'human-skills', which can be very difficult.

- Working with incompetent coworkers. Though since the boom and bubble past many rather incapable IT workers went on doing something else, any IT professional will have to put up and work together with people who are obviously not competent to do the job.

theseman · May 2006

Thanks for the replies!

Staying up to date is one of my main topics so far. Basically I am trying to give readers the conclusion that these careers are not for you if you are unwilling to constantly train/learn and do not think going back to school at some point is feasible.

Also covered so far:
--Difficulties communicating technical information to end-users.
i.e. When an end-user wants to know "Why?"

--Lazy or incompentent co-workers.
i.e. Scale back your productivity to limit conflict VS doing what you can, and risk making others look bad

--Unrealistic expectations of IT pros.
i.e. Users/Bosses expecting you to know and understand every technology ever created.

sprkymrk · May 2006

I would echo webmaster's list and add the following:

Incompetent boss - the person running the IT department is not a skilled IT tech themselves. They have no clue what is going on, yet think no one can tell. They use the wrong buzz words and technical jargon in meetings with superiors who then make decisions based on misinformation. Respect for the entire IT department suffers.

Webmaster · May 2006

I agree, incompetent managers deserve their own listing.

Another one that pops-up is the prejudice towards IT in general. Even if you do get respect inside the organization, to the outside world you will often just 'work with computers'. Like putting an airplane engineer and a carpenter in the same job category because they both have a hammer in their toolkit. Others may label you as a nerd as soon as they hear they letters IT, regardless of whether you work on a calldesk, are a C++ coder, or a CCIE for example.

--Unrealistic expectations of IT pros.
i.e. Users/Bosses expecting you to know and understand every technology ever created

You should also add something about unrealistic expectations of IT pros from other people such as family, friends and neighbors. They will ask a CCIE to fix their Windows XP and remove the virus and spyware from their PC. "Hey you work in IT, can you fix my laptop, it won't start up." They won't even ask if you have the time or a willing to help them out in the first place, they will ask if you 'can'. Assuming you are this computer wizard who just can't pass on any 'challenge', not realizing there's no challenge in the first place, and the particular requested task may not be related to your work at all.

By the way: why the negative topic for the paper? We hear so much about that already. Couldn't you have picked something like "Pleasures in the life of an IT professional"?

theseman · May 2006

lol I guess the paper does carry somewhat of a negative tone..... but my goal is to get other students thinking, as well as provide some sample solutions for the common concerns of an IT pro. Too many of the people I am exposed to right now expect this career to be easy and instantly gratifying.

Guess I'm just attempting to open some eyes and get people to realize that nothing worth doing is easy!!!

Edit: spelling

Olajuwon · May 2006

Another problem we face is co-workers asking us to fix their personal computer without offering to pay for it. I usually find that very disrespectful and almost always refuse to do it. I am a network admin and you won't believe how many times other employees in the company ask to bring in their computer to get fixed.

Webmaster · May 2006

theseman wrote:

lol I guess the paper does carry somewhat of a negative tone..... but my goal is to get other students thinking, as well as provide some sample solutions for the common concerns of an IT pro. Too many of the people I am exposed to right now expect this career to be easy and instantly gratifying.

Guess I'm just attempting to open some eyes and get people to realize that nothing worth doing is easy!!!

It sounds to me like you are on the right track with your paper. Turning negatives into something positive by providing solutions with the common difficulties should make it an interesting read.

jpeezy55 · May 2006

rbowman wrote:

Heres a good quote: Always never forget to check your sources.

Ahh, you have proven that you are indeed a "Real Genius"

And Kent, stop playing with yourself...

supertechCETma · May 2006

Users are losers

RTFM

"Do you still have the box that the computer came in?"

"Tech Support, please hold"

rbowman · May 2006

jpeezy55 wrote:

rbowman wrote:

Heres a good quote: Always never forget to check your sources.

Ahh, you have proven that you are indeed a "Real Genius"

And Kent, stop playing with yourself...

I do believe that the young people enjoy it when I..."get down" verbally with them.

Heres another good quote and, to the best of my knowledge, an original one:
When God closes the door he opens a window...and sometimes lights a match.

jpeezy55 · May 2006

So, would you classify that as a launch problem or a design problem?

theseman · May 2006

Thanks for all the help everyone...

All done the paper, turned out fairly well! Thanks for all the input!!

Travis

Sie · May 2006

Planning on posting a link so we can see?

garv221 · May 2006

The importance of backups and having someone else do them.

Because no matter what - Whatever you restore for a user is not good enough.

Difficulties in the life of an IT professional

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