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The Unhappy World of IT Professionals
npistentis writes "According to an article on ZDNet.com, only 1 in 7 IT professionals rate themselves as "very happy" with their chosen profession- which stands in stark contrast to one in three hairdressers, plumbers and chefs, and one in four florists. But then again, very few plumbers have to deal with users who consistently download BonziBuddy, blindly click on suspicious email attachments and use their cd trays as cupholders." Of course, it should be noted that by and large IT professionals earn more money then most other jobs - which I suppose is once again a warning of money != happiness.
I'm very happy with my current job, sure there are some problems, not being paid enough, management, but overall I'm quite pleased.
Fortunately I'm part of that "1 in 7" and I think this comment has a lot to do with it: A "pure IT job" of sitting in front of a screen all day would drive me bonkers. I like having to physically get into our big SGI machines, re-routing fiber & Cat-5, mounting new things in racks, etc. If I had a "screwdriver boy" to do all that while I sat at a console and worked on the equipment through the network my job satisfaction would go down 50% at least.
That all said, I'll wager that when the "DotCom Boom" was happening, many of the "other 6 of the 7" got into IT for the money. If you don't love what you do then get out of it.
Trolling is a art,
I had a user bothering me during my lunch break, wanting me to come and restore her Office Assistant because she "Missed the little kitty". It took a great effort of will to keep my language pg-13.
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
Fully 7 out of 7 Bastard Operators From Hell were "just peachy keen" with making users' lives miserable.
"It was a summer's tale: Just a boy, his Linux, and a head full of dreams..."
"You know they say that you can't buy happiness, so I guess I'll just have to rent it."
but I think that the IT community aspires to be more than what their career generally denegrates to, tech support monkeys.
plumbers, hairdressers & co don't usually have a PHB to deal with...at least the hairdressers don't...
...and he grinned, like a fox eating shit out of a wire brush.
Sitting here, watching an entire Uni department go mad as nearly all their NT servers were utterly mangled by the latest worm, I'm certainly glad it's no longer my fucking problem to fix it.
...making $19,700 a year and living in luxury in Bangalaore
But then again, very few plumbers have to deal with users who consistently download BonziBuddy, blindly click on suspicious email attachments and use their cd trays as cupholders.
But then again, no IT guys have to work in feces in a sweaty, humid, tiny room. STFU you little baby.
Get paid to code OSS
I like my IT job. But whenever I see some hot new server or piece of hardware, I think to myself, "You know what? No matter how exciting that is, there is someone somewhere who is doing the most boring thing in the world with it."
1. users
:(
2. job security
thankfully, I have job security because i work for state government (state government don't lay off employees) but I still have to deal with users that should know the basics of how to use a computer since they probably have a computer at home or use their computer at work enough
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
Reading this article made me even more unhappy and depressed about my job! Thanks ./! Now I'm even more miserable than I was 5 mins ago.
>>But then again, very few plumbers have to deal with users who consistently download BonziBuddy, blindly click on suspicious email attachments and use their cd trays as cupholders
I'll complain about my job when the plumber that was ankle deep in human waste when he saved my A$$ from a plugged main line complains about his.
If he cleans up the crap, I can clean up Bonzi Buddy.
Y'know, it's kinda chic to be disgruntled if you're in IT. Think about it--if you're amongst your computer-saavy peers, is it cool to say that you're very happy working your IT job, or is it cool to bitch and moan about the lusers you need to herd on a daily basis?
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
But then again, very few plumbers have to deal with users who consistently download BonziBuddy, blindly click on suspicious email attachments and use their cd trays as cupholders."
Pretty sad that there's a higher percentage of people that are happy fixing toilets clogged with shit then the perecentage of people supporting computer users....
...if this survey had been conducted just 5 or 6 years ago.
I'd be a whole lot happier. I spend more time fighting viruses, trojans and other malware shit that dumb ass users download than anything else...
He claimed to make a lot of money, and was actually quite happy... I personally think he was running dope on the side, though, so what the hell do I know?
But then again, very few plumbers have to deal with users who consistently download BonziBuddy, blindly click on suspicious email attachments and use their cd trays as cupholders.
No, plumbers just have to deal with clogged toilets and backed up septic systems. Think I'll keep my admin job, thanks. I may have to deal with a lot of bullshit, but at least there's no human excrement involved.
I don't know if it counts as a "job" but I've been self-employed since '94 or '95. And I'm happy. It can get stressful at times, but I'm addicted to the lifestyle...
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
A lot of people moved to IT in the 90s because it was the *biggest* thing. They didn't have to like the job as the pay package was usually better than a lot of other jobs out there and it was easier to pick up a couple of books, get HTML training and boom. You were in.
If plumbing, hairdressing or whatever becomes the next *big* thing, I am sure a lot of people would join the bandwagon without having to necessarily like it. And consequently, the percentage of people disliking this job would go up.
The cliche' goes again. Do what you like or you will forced to like what you do.
Free XBox, PS2
it should be noted that by and large IT professionals earn more money then most other jobs
Is that really true any more? I mean, last I heard plumbers could do quite well for themselves and had much better job security.
I thought IT salaries came back down to earth after the DotCom bust.
Of course my dream job is CEO. Who else wants in?
-- taking over the world, we are.
Now, I am happy I have a job, and thats where it ends. I dont enjoy what I'm doing in my current job, but I know the pickings are rather slim if I leave here, my town not being a IT hub does not help either (and I really dont want to move)
If that's not enough, in the back of my mind, I'm always worried about the next down-sizing, and whether I'm on the radar for that or not.
I am sure this profile is fairly typical for most people working in IT.
All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be
But spell checkers ARE 'available' on Linux.
Since they reported the percentage of respondents who said they were "very happy", I'm assuming they used categories such as "very happy", "somewhat happy", etc. I'd like to see the whole breakdown. Suppose that hypothetically, workers in Job X were 5% "very happy" but 50% "somewhat happy", 20% "somewhat unhappy", and 25% "very unhappy", while those in Job Y were 10% / 20% / 30% / 40% on the same scale -- it would be hard to argue at that point that Y's are happier than X's, but that's how the survey results would be interpreted if you only "skim the cream" and report the top category.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
And then what happens when enough users are using Linux and companies decide to port software such as Bonzi Buddy to it?
The only reason Linux is a more safe alternative to Windows is that the number of users of Linux is comparatively so low, if that were to change, Linux users could end up no better then Windows users.
Btw... you are the type that is the reason for my sig.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Money might equal happiness if I had time to spend it. With 12 to 14 hour days the norm, the job I love doing is burning me out and making me think of a new career. To make it worse, in Ontario, IT workers are exempt from labour laws governing working hours and overtime. One of the few other trades exempt in Ontario is farm workers. It's nice to know that we are appreciated and our bosses got to the government...
What's worse? Telling an idiot how to uninstall BonziBuddy or deal with the idiots who constantly flush wierd stuff down their toilets and keep clogging the pipes.
its the imcompetent coworkers who have to be constantly "retrained" how to do simple things such as imaging machines, troubleshooting laptops, and installing software.
very few IT professionals have to deal with toilets overflowing diarrhea onto the floor.
IT professionals take their problems very seriously but, they don't seem to remember that thier problems are not of the real (physical) world.
Over here in the UK, plumbers make an absolute fortune (well above your average code monkey) because their skills are so in demand.
I hear IT has a killer suicide rate...
I'd bet it's proportional to Microsoft product use too.
Remember, it takes 42 muscles to frown and only 4 to pull the trigger of a sniper rifle.
I've been in the IT business my entire professional life, and although I love writing my own freeware software in my own free time, I now detest sitting in an office writing code for ever more demanding users and sales people who have fewer brain cells than a dead ant.
I'm sick & tired of everything always being urgent. Any kind of code change is urgent. Always urgent.
Then there are the sales people who will do anything to get a sale. Once they get the sale it becomes your problem to implement the crap they promised the customer. Some sales moron wanted to "skin" the software. It's a medical application for christ's sake, not an MP3 player. And they wanted it done in two days! There are hundreds of thousands of lines of code!
Then there is the management that expect (demand!) that you work all day everyday and all weekend. You must be on call 24 hours a day.
Then there are the even more stupid idiotic management who want changes that no customer has requested, because it would be "cool".
I'd work in McDonalds in an instant - if it paid the same wages.
Here's the stats per the website.
/
Position Profession Vocational/Academic % Very Happy
1 Care Assistants Vocational 40%
2 Hairdressers Vocational 32%
3 Plumbers Vocational 32%
4 Chefs Vocational 30%
5 Florists Vocational 20%
6 Chartered
Engineers Professional 18%
7 Lawyers Professional 16%
8 Mechanics Vocational 14%
9 IT Specialists Professional 14%
10 Scientists/R&D Professional 14%
11 Secretaries
receptionists Vocational 13%
12 Butchers Vocational 12%
13 Builders Vocational 10%
14 Teachers Professional 8%
15 Architects Professional 8%
16 Electricians Vocational 6%
17 Accountants Professional 4%
18 Pharmacists Professional 4%
19 Media Professional 4%
20 Estate agents Professional 4%
Clinton made me a Republican. Bush made me a Libertarian. Trump is making me question reality.
It should also be noted that not being happy in your job doesn't mean you're not happy with your life, either. For example, last year I left a terrible but very well paid job. Thought the job was appalling, but the money I was making from it allowed me to get on with my life in other areas, so overall I was having a good time.
Be wary of describing people as just "IT Professionals" or "Hairdressers". They're not 2D stereotypes, they're full-blown people with all the complexity that implies.
Cheers,
Ian
it's even in the short blurb here on /.
"which stands in stark contrast to one in three hairdressers, plumbers and chefs, and one in four florists"
After looking through the article (gasp, I read it!) I think the authors may have missed a significant factor. Most of the "happier" professions aren't worried about their jobs getting outsourced, and don't appear to be the type of job that have bosses breathing down your neck, forcing you to work 80 hour weeks for 40 hours of pay, which, by the way, also had your salary cut.
Nurses are an example of a profession even less "happy" than IT. While nurses aren't worried about their jobs being outsourced, interestingly enough they tend to be overworked (usually 10-12 hour rotating shifts throughout the week) and underpaid, especially compared to their colleagues. But, according to the articles, they should be happy, as they are very hands on. Guess that hypothesis just got shot down.
The only useful thing I found out of this study is the actual data, which I don't really know how to treat (with suspicion?). The rest is pretty much opinionated fluff.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
So what this basically means is, that unhappy people chose a career in IT, not that IT makes you unhappy. Think about it - when we were young, the IT savvy where the geeks with no friends. They (we) are the guys working as IT professionals today. IT didn't make me unhappy. Being a nerd did.
Underholdning.info
IT professionsals earn more money than whom? When did this happen?
To avoid that crap don't give full admin access on your Windows machines, install Spybot Search & Destroy and use its neat Immunize feature. I have hard numbers from our firewall connection logs that show a marked decrease in traffic to spyware sites as we load Spybot S&D on PCs around here.
Trolling is a art,
I would like to see an analysis of time spent on the job vs. pay. I know that my wife, who makes less than half of what I do, makes more than I do per-hour due to the fact that I would find myself working for 20-30 hours straight often. On a daily basis I work in excess of 10 hours.
This, I would assume, is a reason why there are so many of us unhappy (I am not unhappy, which is why I work constantly) - but we don't get over time for the >40 hrs/week worked - do the other "happier" professions qualify for overtime? I believe at least one of them does.
A lot also has to do with the people you interact with. Florists, for example (as mentioned), don't have to deal with people watering their flowers with battery acid and come to you saying "I didn't do anything, it just died".
Part of the problem with this and most other studies of IT labor issues (markets, salaries, job satisfaction, etc.) is that it does not differentiate between different types of IT labor. Often IT is taken to include a wide range of jobs that vary from tech support to network administration to programming. The category is so broad as to be almost meaningless. There is an enormous difference between the type of work (and the people who do it, how much they get paid, etc.) done by systems programmers and that done by call-center tech support staff.
Of course, it should be noted that by and large IT professionals earn more money then most other jobs - which I suppose is once again a warning of money != happiness.
Chefs, plumbers, and florists get less than 36k a year? I guess I should be happy then. I mean I would love my job if I got paid better.
Vertical
72 CD D7 52 D0 7E D8 47 44 91 D5 84 D1 59 F1 A9-This is my 128bit integer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
pay was good but the hours were crap, so was the constant bs. So I traded my computer geek coat. Now I go around the world as a consultant fixing problems. Kind of like Macgyver. Meet interesting people, see beautiful places, do interesting things, but still use my greek knowledge to solve problems. Nobody gives you your dream job, you have to make your own dream job and make it happen. It's hard work but well worth it. We are creatures of a social network. Enlighten yourself, and you will be a lot happier.
This is true. However, i'd take any clogged email box over a clogged toilet anyday. Throw in the occasional "upper decker", hairball clogged shower drain, backed up septic tank or the rare detonated water heater and suddenly being a mouse jockey seems like a luxury cruise.
Computer user stupidity pales in comparsion to plumbing user stupidity IMO.
And don't forget, most plumbers make more that we do.
That's why programmers, accountants, doctors and the like make a lot of money while teachers make little more than minimum wage. Moreso, teachers in public schools make reasonable (but not great money), but teachers in private schools make a lot less. Why can private schools get cheaper teachers? Because the teachers in private schools like their job better.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Happiness is not something that external conditions can produce. Happiness is an internal quality -- it comes from within you. For example, I am pretty much miserable most of the time. Why? Is it my job? No, my job is very good, and I have no reason to be unhappy. I would be just as unhappy as I am now if I was CEO, movie star, pro athlete, surrounded by beautiful women, fabulously rich, etc. And if I were a happy person (as an internal quality) I could be happy as a busboy or poopsmith.
I'll bet there were a slew of newspaper articles in the 70s and 80s along the lines of "Money isn't everything, only 1 in 20 auto workers are happy anyway. 7 out of 8 computer people have job satisfaction though..."
Leave the gun, take the cannolis.
restroom? Do you touch their keyboards and mice when helping them? You may be getting more human feces than you think. :-)
Is the juice worth the sqeeze?
I would guess that most IT professionals are not in tech support. I've not seen numbers on it, but if you lump together programmers, DBA's, web developers, analysts, etc, vs. sysads and tech support I bet you get something like an 80/20 ratio. Anyone seen stats on it?
But, for those in tech support, I think there are inherent conflicts. People attracted to tech are often more introverted. You take people like that and force them to deal with users who know nothing, are resentful of their utter dependence on others, want immediate results, and blame tech support for the problem in the first place, and you get BOFH.
"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."
If you can learn to enjoy interacting with people then it doesn't matter what you do. To the extent you are in a job where you isolate yourself by thinking everyone you work with are idiots, then it doesn't matter what you do, you will be unhappy.
Great jobs are created by the people doing them, the social work environment being created and managed by the people who work at a place.
Take a pin to your ego and remember your lawyer, your plumber, your mechanic all think you're an idiot, too.
They don't like their job... we don't like how they do their job... and yet we keep paying these people?
not being chained to a desk (59 percent)
I thought chaining IT people to the desk was done at every office. So they do let some of you work without shackles, huh?
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Which means that it has the most to lose in the current anti-intellectual, anti-causality cultural climate. IT professionals have to battle the PHB crowd and the AOLers, people who think that computers 'should just know' how to do something, or people who 'feel like it needs to reboot', or explain THEIR failure as 'the computer didn't want to do that'. A generation raised on Star Trek, combined with a cultural disdain for anything intellectual or requiring brains, means that IT pros are nearly always playing to a hostile crowd. Since skepticism is in full swing, people who don't know how to use a computer system think that nobody knows, or worse, that nobody CAN know, what the problem is. Unfortunately, with MS products as pervasive as they are, sometimes nobody DOES know what the problem is, and often, all systems need ARE reboots.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
My boss just took the next two months off. I'd like to change my vote please.
I expect that the definition of professional in their survey was very broad. Quite apart from code monkeys, about whose status we can argue significantly, the vast majority of people working in IT do not garner what I consider to be professional status. They are working in menial jobs, the 21st century equivalent of being a clerk.
Most of the people I know, who I consider to be IT professionals, higher degree educated people whose services are sought out by their clients are remarkably happy and have an excellent quality of life.
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
Us IT people would be alot happier if we had more attractive women working in our companies. I work with 50 software engineers, 47 males and 3 women.
Yes, we are that shallow. Nothing wrong with having some hot women in the office.
100% Insightful
taking up a challenge you can overtake. Too many people in IT take up challenges they cannot take because they don't know how to.
FWIW, a competent plumber can make very good money; I've known a few who out-earned me in my software day job.
Incidentally, my job often includes snaking network cables under raised flooring or above dropped ceilings. I'm not sure whether inhaling asbestos particles is better or worse than occasionally getting fresh sewage on myself.
Cup Holder, top slot
Empty space
Empty Space
DVD-Burner
Floppy
It works out really well when you pc sits about chair high. Oh and just to stay on topic. I love my job as a software analyst. I find it rewarding and the pay/stress level is better then my admin and programming jobs.
One thing I do remember is that another survey picked the Amish as being the happiest group in America - to be honest I can see why. They have a lot of community and extended family around to make life a lot richer than the nuclear family way of life that is the norm in the US.
which I suppose is once again a warning of money != happiness
:-)
Wrong conclusion : perhaps the money is making them less frustrated. If they earned less, they'd be even more unhappy with their job.
Which proves that money is not like the speed of light : you can keep on adding (ad infinitum) money-happiness to unhappy people untill they get happy
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
And then what happens when enough users are using Linux and companies decide to port software such as Bonzi Buddy to it?
Joe Luser decides to install spyware on his shiny new Linux box. The (hopefully) well-evolved GUI pops up a warning that says something like, "You must be running as a root user to install this software, because it wants to modify your security settings and may make your computer vulnerable to worms, viruses, and hackers. Running as root is very dangerous, and is not recommended unless you know exactly what you're doing." This scares the shit out of Joe Luser (as it should) and he doesn't install the software. Problem solved.
Linux and other Unices are inherently more secure than Windows, always have been, and probably always will be. It's not just the popularity, it's the code. Deal with it.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
The state of the IT industry is what is in shambles - but what's going on today in computing, networking, application development, etc, etc, etc, is more interesting than ever.
What's frustrating is the economic balancing act that companies are doing is taking jobs and creativity away. It's killing the next generation of innovation in engineering for the United States. Remember the dotcom boom? It's the last innovation boom we'll see here in the U.S. from engineering meeting business.
That's depressing.
I was offered a 6 figure job (well, 100000USD and that ain't shit in Boston) to do Location Based Services at a Boston area firm the other day. I turned it down because I want out of IT so bad I can taste it. Their PHB was flabbergasted. When I went down the laundry list of why IT sucks (1. users. 2. users. 3. clients 4. Management, and so forth and so on), his employees who were standing there started nodding in agreement. He was truly dumbfounded that these guys he was paying OK money too were sick of working at his reasonably successful company. One guy hadn't gone on holiday in 4 years. Another had a peptic ulcer (he was the sales engineering lead). And their coding lead ( a woman ) was at the ass-end of a messy divorce. Needless to say, they were all envious of my position as a poor grad student who just wants to teach undergrad classes and do a little research before opening a coffee shop when I retire. Fuck IT.
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
Nurses are an example of a profession even less "happy" than IT. While nurses aren't worried about their jobs being outsourced, interestingly enough they tend to be overworked (usually 10-12 hour rotating shifts throughout the week) and underpaid, especially compared to their colleagues. But, according to the articles, they should be happy, as they are very hands on. Guess that hypothesis just got shot down.
New studies have indicated that working people as far as you can stretch them *makes them unhappy*!
I could never figure out why the employment situation in the US is so screwed up.
We have this kind of go-go-GO-OR-YOU-FAIL-DAMMIT-GO! mentality that keeps being pushed. I was talking to some folks about the kind of hours that people starting off in financial services or the legal world can expect to work -- the hours are *stupid*. Sure, the jobs pay well, but what do you do with the money? Buy a bigger TV or a more expensive car, neither of which you get to use because you're at work most of the time?
Furthermore, I claim that you can't be productive at the number of hours that people work. People cannot work 80 productive hours a week. They can push themselves to be *at* work 80 hours a week, but there's no way that they're getting that much done.
France and Germany both seem to have much more liberal hours-of-work and vacation policies. So what if you make a bit less money if you aren't beating yourself to death trying to claw your way ahead?
We currently have unemployment problems in the US. Lots of people out of work. We also have lots of people that are well-paid but overworked. It just seems like there should be, you know, an obvious solution to this. Hire more people and pay a lower pay rate.
May we never see th
until the last layoff. His troubleshooting skills:
1 reboot the machine
2 re-image the machine
3 replace the machine
4 blame it on a virus or a microsoft bug
5 ignore it
then the users call me, and I fix it - usually something simple like a checkbox not checked or a DNS entry not typed in...
And this guy was MCSE "certified". Yeah Right.
I rode him so much I am sure he was not happy with his job, but like other posters have said - he got into the field for the money but didn't have a clue about computers.
Lord I am glad he's gone!
Is the juice worth the sqeeze?
Heh, its funny. I have this 7-Year Plan that I have recently started... and if I can follow through with it, will mean at the 7th year I will be out of IT.
:)
I've been in IT for nearly 10 years, and right now, I see my career as almost at a complete stand-still. Yeah, I make a decent living (on the north side of 78k a year) -- but I'm still doing the same thing I was doing in 1997 -- the only difference is, I'm a hell of a lot better at it.
Anyway, i formulated this 7-year plan where I would start to develop some of my side projects and hopefully be at a point within the 7 years that I can leave IT behind and never look back.
I think my biggest problem with IT is the people. I'm a pretty friendly guy who has a very strange sense of humor and like to read, write, watch movies, talk about art and design, music, recording and other creative things -- while everyone I work with all have CS degrees and view things like that as a sickness to be avoided. Its a shame really. Plus, the managers in IT -- I swear they just stamp them out of some machine. Some are better than the others -- and the two guys that own the small consultancy I work for are great guys, very smart and just good people... but here at the client site... these people are robots! I get constantly criticized for not being more "social" here. Well there's a reason! No one gives a damn what I'm into and what I like to talk about. I'm sorry, I just am not going to become something I'm not.
So, instead of trying to shape myself into something I'm not, I figure I need to find a way out of this IT world. I wouldn't call myself "unhappy" in fact I am a happy person -- because of my life *outside* of IT.
Of course -- 7 years is a long time, and things are subject to change... but my current frame of mind dictates that I can't just sit around and do *nothing* -- I'm not the type who just waits for things to happen. I try my hardest to make things happen (realizing of course that control is, after all, an illusion) -- but all the same. Shit aint just gonna happen just because
sad robot making broken music
All IT people at some point shutdown. They one day wake up and say "I have learned enough, I don't want to learn anything new". And these people simply work with what they have learned.
Now it may take 40 years for this to happen but it happens to all (alright most for those mathematicians) IT workers; People hate change and IT is all about change everyday (every hour?). It is stressful fighting for your job everyday when new college people are released ever year with fresh training and new ideas without any legacy burden. I'm not in anyway bashing College Hires but the younger you are the more resilient you are. The more resilient you are the better you perform. So as you're moving in the IT field you need to look at moving on or up to prevent yourself from being exterminated.
Grab something to move into when you start heading into retirement age. God knows I don't want to be in IT at age 70 fending off those young whipper snappers.
VP: "This is an emergency! The printer is not working".
Me: opens eye and mumble incoherently... "Printer?"
VP: "Yes! Yes! The printer!"
Me: "What printer?"
VP: "How am I supposed to know which printer? I need these figures by morning."
Me: "The name of the printer is on the front, near the display".
VP: "This display? Is that the thing saying out of paper?"
Me: "@$#%*@%#... Put some paper in the printer."
VP: "How do I do that?"
Me: "There is a box of paper beside the printer? Yes. Pull the drawer on the front of the printer and put some paper in."
Do you think it's worth it?
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
I used to be a big "geek". Was always interested in the latest processor, RAM technology, etc. Now, I couldnt give a shit.
I am a software engineer. My job is boring. I spend 8-10 hours/day staring at a computer screen. A friend asked me to help him buy a computer a while back. He asked me since I was a software guy, and was supposed to know about these things. I couldnt help him. I knew NOTHING about current computers, printers, monitors etc on the market.
So now I sit here coding in C++ and making pretty UML diagrams all day, but have absolutly no interest in it anymore. I do it because it pays well and I am reasonably good at it. I dont do it because I enjoy it. I would love to quit and do something I enjoy, but then I realize that I wouldnt have as much disposable cash for other things. So I am resigning myself to wasting 40+ hours/week of my life so I can enjoy the remaining 80 or so hours (sleep is important).
When I was in school I went to a research oriented university. There was some cutting edge stuff being developed that never ceased to hold my attention. Now I am designing software for systems that are nowhere near the level of sophistication as what I was used to at school. Its just all so bland now.
I'm somewhat happy with my programmer/analyst job. I cannot be plain happy, that would tend to balance the equation and thus make The Architect quite unpleased + side-effect me awakening inside a pod with fuschia colored ooze and a serious need for a sun tan.
Seriously, I try to balance my g33kiness with other activities, such as reading tech-related-but-not-directly stuff and playing the bass in a traditional ska band.
HAD
The provlem I've found is that corporations view IT departments much like they view building maintenance. Very few companies I've been involved with have true career paths for IT people.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Power disparity in the workplace is a big factor. Here we are, we know what is going to work best, what is going to save money, what is going to make people's lives easier, what should be automated and what it a waste of time, and we have PHB's telling us they know best, decisions based on superficials or unneccesary complications, spending based on budget cycles not needs, systems too powerful or too weak. And we shut up and do it, since there are plenty out of work who want your job. Then we have to tiptoe around [L]user egos, baby boomers who fancy themselves technologists but forget how to make a printer the default.
There was a study of "determinants of health" conducted in the early 90's in 5 different industrialized nations, which discovered that power disparity was at least as big a factor on well-being (heart disease, depression etc.) as wealth/poverty or difficulty of job--upper middle managers who felt stifled were worse off than low-income workers with relative independence and greater unfettered responsibilty. Poverty=poor health studies may be weighted wrongly due to these findings: it's not just about money, power on the interpersonal scale counts strongly.
Damn those pesky terrorists
6 out of 7 IT professionals in my experience fall into the category of PHB, or clueless 'Delivery Manager'.
...
The other 1 out of 7 actually know how to do something, so technically could be said to be doing a 'hands on' job as opposed to a pointless paper-pushing type job
Your life is awful after you switched to linux. The lies you heard from /. about how great and easy it is use that crap OS. Now you're just trying to save face in front of your oss "friends".
Well I say drop those losers and came back to Microsoft, where you a great Desktop/Server package WITH support for a fair price. We understand it will be tough, but we're forgiving here. Unlike the zealots in the OSS side who have no life outside of computers and kernels.
Just studied this subject in school. If you are satisfied with your job, you are content, and have no incentive to improve your situation or environment. Content==lazy (see any government place of employment.) In those companies where employees are less-satisfied, it may well be due to the employees never choosing to be content--they always strive to make things better, more efficient, etc.
Just like statistics, you often have to dig deeper to root cause survey results.
Of course, it should be noted that by and large IT professionals earn more money then most other jobs - which I suppose is once again a warning of money != happiness.
Umm, maybe during the dot-com era that was true, but now I those professions that you listed most likely make more per hour than an average IT worker. Heck an average factory worker makes more than an average IT worker.
Mod this guy up. He has very valid point. IT guys in this culture are the wipping boys for a large group of people that are afraid of new technolgy and vent their fear and anger on us techs.
They fear computers because they know that they will be replaced by them.
Slashdot, home of supporters of free software, free music, and free speech.Except for Moderators that disagree with you.
. . . .it is the world of IT management that is bringing me down. Take it from me - if you enjoy working with computers/routers/switches/servers/etc and not babysitting employees or playing office politics and so forth - never go into IT management. It sux the proverbial big one.
OK, now that I have your attention, I believe that the reason that alot of IT people joined IT was to do new things and make things better. However, that is not always socially conductive to getting a managerial job. Not saying that they are unsocial but the skills are different and alot of IT don't want to change what they loved doing.
Now if IT people are not becoming managers who are the managers? Well managers from other divisions who were not good enough to be managers in their specialty. lets face it, if they were a good manager in Accounting, Business Administration, etc... someone would have kept them on there. But to get hired as a manager you have to managerial experience, well since they have been managers and they need managers these sorts of people get the job.
These managers have no experience with IT, in fact they are barely lucky if they understand what their employees do. However they will be the ones deciding how to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on software, hardware, technical suppport but don't have a background in those areas. When you have these sorts of managers they will make bad decisions that other people have to live with and the IT get blamed for it.
Is this indicative of all management? No. Can anyone disagree with me strongly that I am completely wrong? HA! Go ahead and try. I am sure that a number of IT people can relate to this model. If you want a good comparision, try this, how often do you see an IT manager get assigned as the VP of Accounting? How often do you see an accounting manager, sales manager, etc... get assigned as the CIO of a company. Hell, I work for a huge insurance company and our CIO was a nutritionist. What does she bring to the table, ways to keep servers healthy?
It's just you.
Find your glasses and re-read the story.
I find it truly amazing that anyone asking a question, even like this one, can be modded Insightful
Not only that, but it seems to me that plumbers make way more than I do as a fairly entry level IT person. I have been working in the field for several years (luckly I got in after the bomb) and I have been bouncing from contract to contract at companies too small to support a full time IT person. I think a lot of the unhappiness does not come just from the (l)users but also the management and staff that seem to belive that IT is an expendable line item, since we don't bring in any actual revenue.
I like the place that I work, but I know that they have no loyalty to me as a worker, and that tends to weigh me down at times, especially when I hear that it's going to be a "tight year".
If I could get a firm grip on reality, I'd choke it...
..a large percentage of the world's IT staff are unhappy, and a large percentage of the world's IT is Windows based... Hum....
-= This is a self-referential sig =-
I just wonder why technical journalists were not represented in this survey... or terrorists, or garbage men, or grave diggers.
I'd take any of these a whole lot more seriously if there was at least a token description of the questions and methodology.
I just hate the stupid, attachment-double-clicking-no-matter-how-many-time s-I've-told-them end users with which it brings me into contact every day.
It's gotten to the point where I don't even like dealing with most people unless absolutely necessary-- I'll walk in the house on Friday night and not leave it until it's time for work on Monday. Ah, the sweet, sweet embrace of solitude.
I am kind of unhappy with my job. I love computers and programming, but my unhappiness comes from al the other corporate crap we have to deal with. Forget the users, they are as annoying as the managers lets them be. I see a trend to agree with customers since they provide the money, but usually they make impossible requests (either technically or in time).
There is a big trend (at least in my company) to put controls for everything, administrators for everything, which makes my job very slow and makes me feel very inefficient. Yet I know this is because some other people how like to "demonstrate" their "power". I feel like I am living in a Dilbert cartoon some times...
I like my job about 70% of the time, that's the amount of time I spend actually working on computers. The remaining 30% (and getting larger as time goes on it seems) is dealing with more and more paperwork, meetings and the occasional user who is not only stupid (*all* users are stupid) but argumentative as well.
:-) However, the pay wasn't very good and working outside in the pouring rain isn't much fun either. I'm happier back in the IT industry but it was a great experience.
So, 70% of the time I'm happy.
By contrast, a few years ago I spent 12 months in a complete career switch working for a steel company. Lots of dirty outdoor work and coming hope with little bits of steel imbedded in my arms. I actually really enjoyed it and lost my pale geeky look for a while
That's been my experience anyway.
Intelligent Design: because MATH is HARD.
There are lots of jobs that pay better now than IT. Like my neighbour, a plumber. Like electricians.
IT has gotten frustrating, because while it still requires never-ending studying, the IT profession is not considered as professional as eg. a dentist, vet or accountant, therefore you can not even get close to a fee schedule for those professions. Lately corporations have started to put IT workers into the "burger flippers" category.
The falling hardware price is a big factor: customers always compary the professional services fees to the relatively cheap hardware price.
Customers accept that my dentist will do a 5 minute adjustment on a $5000 spacer for $100 - for a year, once per month, totalling to $1.200.
Try any similar charges in IT.
I can think of a few differences between IT personnel and the other service-oriented professions listed that, in my mind, make the comparison between them invalid.
First, consider that when something goes wrong with your plumbing, fixing it is a relatively simple task--maybe not easy, but not something that would take years of college to figure out in and of itself. Fixing the problem efficiently, on the other hand, is something altogether different and is something not everyone is cut out for.
Second, people can usually expect immediate results from a hairdresser, a plumber, or a florist. The hairdresser gives you a perm; the florist produces the arrangement you want; the plumber fixes your leak or your backed-up sewer line; and for the most part, all these jobs are done in a matter of a few hours, in contrast to the days that it can take to fix a PC (most of that time spent waiting for parts from the manufacturer if the system's under warranty).
Third, most people can tell a plumber or a hairdresser or a florist exactly what the problem is. The majority of people, on the other hand, cannot describe in specific terms what's wrong with their PC. It's not because they're inherently stupid--it's because there are so many things that can go wrong inside a PC, between the hardware and the software. The fact that they can't precisely explain the problem makes them feel stupid, which in turn makes them feel more frustrated. And guess who gets to bear the brunt of that frustration?
Finally, I doubt plumbers ever have to tell a homeowner, "Sorry, but I can't find that leak you're talking about, but give me a call if you notice any more small ponds in your kitchen."
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
Hey everyone, go read the actual City & Guilds article linked to from the ZDNet article.
Do you even have to do ANY research to publish articles for your given media outlet? ZDNet changed some numbers to say things like "1 in 4" and "1 in 7" instead of the actual percentages given by City & Guilds, and that's it. Now I understand that presenting statistics to the general public usually requires "dumbing it down" to the lowest common denomenator, but that's not what I'm on my high horse about. Why is it that these little 500 word articles always get shipped around to every media outlet a dozen times? Isn't it obvious that we're simply spoon fed the "information for the day" over and over again without any real substance, conflicting opinions, or facts presented for our own review?
Anyone know of a Creative Commons copyrighted news website where the information is presented transparently and openly versus sold to anyone who wants the latest "scoop?"
If money can't buy happiness, I guess I'll have to rent it.
We do great and mentally challenging work, but our inner caveman wants a nice field with slow dumb deer nearby, and instead we have a forest with a buch of deer, but a bunch of bears, also.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
My sig says it all.
Proverbs 21:19
IT get's paid more than plumbers? BS!
Plumbers charge rates of 45-65/hr. Show me where those
IT jobs are that pay more than than!!!!
Hairdressers get paid 40-50/styling with the ability to do 2
in an hour, and they get tips!!
Every get a tip from an IT manager???
Paid more? I really doubt it. Yes, 2 years ago. Sure, I knew guys making 200-300k/yr consulting, but now they've been unemployed for 2 years, so averages to 65-100k.
And you will never see plumbing or hairstyling being outsourced!!!
Programming is the funnest job in the world, until those A-holes in the suits step in and try and nickle&dime you to death for lower wages.
-my $.02
...our IT jobs would be swell and we'd be much happier if it weren't for the retarded users and managers that make random decisions based on the perceptions of non-technical people (such as other managers.)
But that's the cross we have to bear.
I seem to remember reading a story by Voltaire in college where the philosophers looked around for happiness and they found that the happiest person around was the dumb, ignorant washer woman.
Therefore, they determined that to be happy, they would have to give up their knowledge and become dumb, ignorant washer women.
Of course, none of them found this an acceptable course of action. I also doubt that many IT professionals would find it acceptable to give up their IT jobs to become hairdressers.
Read any good sonnets lately?
Being a florist is dangerous work, sadly. I'm not surprised they're not all "very happy".
--RJ
I hate these rather broad surverys, because they do a poor job of getting at the heart of the matter. I recently worked with our HR department to help get a handle on job satisfaction among the engineering staff, and had the chance to see more focused job satisfaction numbers.
It appears to me that the level of job satisfaction is almost entirely dependent not on the TYPE of job, but at what company that job is being done at. For anyone in the IT industry that comes as no shock, but it was eye opening to the rest of the company.
What we found in our internal study was that IT workers feel particularly disengaged from the rest of the company. They are forced to be very task oriented ("We've decided to install XXXXX, heres how we want you to do it") which is rather disheartening for most workers in this industry. They are trained to be problem solvers, but are often left out of the decision making process and instead become highly paid installation men.. which runs almost completely counter to their personalities. As a result they feel replacable, underutilized, and bored. That's a recipe for job dissatisfaction if I've ever seen it..
What we've done is go to a more distributed problem solving model. At the highest levels (CTO/management) the problems are defined, and then commitees are formed consisting of the actual IT workers to solve those specific problems. When choosing a new customer support system, for example, we made sure that the end users (CSR's), IT network engineers, system administrators, and the customer support manager where all involved in evaluating and designing the system they wanted to put in place.
After that project was complete we found a remarkable increase in satisfaction. The simple fact of engaging these people made them feel secure in their jobs (they felt valuable), engaged, and stimulated. The project was completed in record time and the rollout was nearly flawless. It was an incredibly interesting excercise for me (a software development lead), and apparently for those involved in the design as well.
All of this is a long winded way of saying that the problem isn't IT, but those that run it. They fail to understand or utilize the value of their staffs. They force assignments on them. They treat them as disposable commidities, rather than the intellectual assets they are. This creates a job situation that is rather unpleasant for everyone involved...and management seems to be blisfully unaware that anything is wrong. Instead they complain about how hard IT workers are to manage and how they refuse to 'fit in' with the corporate culture. After all, a good marketing guy will sit there and do what he's told.. It's a severe clash of personalities, which is why you'll find much higher job satisfaction rates at technology driven companies (generally run by people with technical backgrounds).. which does beg an interesting question: "Are marketing, accounting, and other business related people more unhappy working at technology companies than at business driven companies?"
Turn s60 photos into awesome videos with mScrapbook for all S60 3rd edition phones!
But then again, very few plumbers have to deal with users who consistently download BonziBuddy, blindly click on suspicious email attachments and use their cd trays as cupholders.
No, but they do have to deal with problems caused by 'users' who consistently forget that #1 = 1 flush, #2 = 2 flushes. Stupid low-flow toilets... (And no, IANAP)
The way I see it, IT is not very well respected and probably never will be.
As an IT worker, you have one of two options -- work for a pure tech based company, or work as an IT enabler for another type of business.
In the first case, you're a slave to the IPO culture. Bigger, faster, deliver yesterday. The lifespan of an IT company is measured in months or years, not decades. Your skills are constantly expiring (e.g. product lines end; certifications expire), much moreso than a traditional professional industry like engineering, medical practice, or law. The hours are bad, you're a disposable commodity (moreso than in other industries) and the lifestyle habits that are part of your work culture are unhealthy at best (long hours, fast food, sedentary, caffeine, smoking). Turnover is tremendous, burn out is common, and you're usually on contract. You get paid well, but probably have a brutal commute or even work in another city. And you can alternate from being highly in demand to unemployable in as little as 6 months.
If you're an IT enabler in a traditional business (like me), it has a few added benefits, but also some additional drawbacks. You're not the core of the business, so your costs are always scruitinized to ridiculous levels. You're not part of the decision making process that has huge impacts to how you do your job. Your bosses don't understand what you do and don't value your skills as much as their own, so you spend as much time managing the relationship as you do with delivery. Usually you're handcuffed to older legacy technologies as well, which means your skill development is held back and you're not cutting edge. On the plus side, you get some additional career stability to the pure IT shop since the business has a more traditional lifecycle. HR hates you, since you're a special skill and throw the compensation scale out of whack.
There are lots of benefits to working in IT, but sometimes the stress and career instability and social costs are just not worth it.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
Having decent IT management makes all the difference.
Some are little more than PHB's who listen to what management asks for, and tells the techs to do it, no matter how little sense it makes. Some think that becasue IT folks are on salary, then their time is free. They just want to shift the blame off their shoulders onto somebody else's. Typically, they're hated by both users and techs.
On the other hand, some are proactive among management, they don't let the users design the system, and they care about how much time is spent solving a problem, and they care about the quality of the solution. These managers are loved by both the customers and the techs.
My guess is that about 1 in 7 IT managers are the latter type, and they're the ones with the happy staff.
I've heard that can make people happy as well.
--- Ban humanity.
That's the problem though! You assume that because you are relatively safe now that you always will be!
The message you quoted... couldn't something like that be easily disabled/removed?
While running as root/admin may be unsafe on most systems, the reason that the default user of a Windows machine is part of the Administrator group is because it's simple! A user doesn't have to worry about re logging in or changing their account to do their daily functions.
Such could easily be done under Linux as well. Don't you see it as at least possible that a custom distribution may have a user run as root by default and not have such a message as you referred. Suddenly, the protection which you gave to Joe Luser is no more.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Slashdotters please note that the study cited was performed in the UK.
From the article: Forget lawyers, accountants and architects, when it comes to happiness, Britain's vocational workers 1 are the ones with the biggest smiles on their faces.
I'm a 2000 man.
Yes, going to college was essentially a complete waste. Very little of the knowledge I gained is going to good use. I haven't programmed in C or C++ in 3 or 4 years. The money's OK (it's the most I've ever made) and the hours & job responsibility (or lackthereof) simply kick ass.
Thinking back on it, I'm almost GLAD I never landed a job in IT.
I like big butts and I cannot lie.
You have all the responsibility, but none of the authority.
Looks like real iffy stats to me, but I'm
glad I didn't choose teacher, butcher or accountant.
Position Profession Vocational/Academic % Very Happy
1 Care Assistants Vocational 40%
2 Hairdressers Vocational 32%
3 Plumbers Vocational 32%
4 Chefs Vocational 30%
5 Florists Vocational 20%
6 Chartered Engineers Professional 18%
7 Lawyers Professional 16%
8 Mechanics Vocational 14%
9 IT Specialists Professional 14%
10 Scientists/R&D Professional 14%
11 Secretaries/receptionists Vocational 13%
12 Butchers Vocational 12%
13 Builders Vocational 10%
14 Teachers Professional 8%
15 Architects Professional 8%
16 Electricians Vocational 6%
17 Accountants Professional 4%
18 Pharmacists Professional 4%
19 Media Professional 4%
20 Estate agents Professional 4%
They lumped all the "Extremely Satisfied", "Satisfied", "Somewhat Satisified", and "Not very Satisfied" together, and excluded the "Pissed off" catagorey.
They published the results as "99.7&% customer satisfaction" with their HMO plans.
Seems people found it a bit misleading and misrepresenting.
(yes I'm sure I have the catagories wrong, but it was the 4 out of 5 options, and the percentage might be off too but it was definately up in the suspicious range)
A lot of people in their 20's are unhappy anyway, and I bet that if you look at IT pro's that are older, with families and in stable jobs, you'd find plenty of happy people.
You come out of school and the world treats you like you're a shit, made to do shit work. they resent you even more because you're clocking more dollars than most other people because you have the debugging / problem solving skills that demand a higher salary. still, you can't get no respect. that's enough to make anyone unhappy.
most people don't find their groove until they're in their 30's, when they really start figuring out what's important to their lives, start settling down and stop worrying about the general bullshit in life.
I'm an IT pro and definitely getting out. mostly because i feel like i've hit the limit of learning, and just am not interested in going deeper. I'm going back to school and getting into the energy business. there will be lots of problems to solve in the next 10 years, it's important for the world (and the U.S.), and there will also be money (yes, money is nice).
Also the IT industry has hit a plateau, as far as I'm concerned. a lot of the really cool revolutionary stuff has been done. I saw an ad for FFXI last night, and they were advertising a 40 GB HDD in the package. Who the fsck would know what that was 5 years ago? Just like that, IT has revolutionized the fabric of society. For me, it's time to move on.
-- Bird in the Bush: The Renewable Energy Blog http://www.birdinthebush.org
First off, it is the IT Department's fault if the users are able to install Bonzai Buddy onto their computers and it hoses the system.
Secondly, it is ALSO the IT Deparment's fault if the network is hit with ANY of those Email worms. I am the entire IT Deparment at the company I work for and you know what?
We haven't had ONE single case of any of the recent Email worms making their way into our network. You know why? Because I have done my friggin' job. All of our corporate Email is sent to our mail servers from an outside 'mail scrubbing/spam stomping' outsource company. Due to my forsight, we haven't seen a SINGLE copy of those worms enter our network even ONCE!
If I worked as head of IT at any other corporation, I would find it COMPLETELY unacceptable that the users could do anything to install applications onto their PCs. I would find it entirely unacceptable, if our users were compromised by an Email virus. I am not exactly saying that friggin' heads would roll, but it would be pretty darn close to that.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Of course, it should be noted that by and large IT professionals earn more money then most other jobs
Q. What is the difference between then and than?
A. These two words are quite different!
Their only similarity is in the way they sound. Than is used to compare or contrast things, as in "He is a lot smaller than his older brother." Then refers to time or consequence: "And the Canaanite was then in the land" (Gen. xii. 6.); "If all this be so, then man has a natural freedom" (Locke). So if one thing follows or results from another, use then.
Than is also used before a pronoun, as in "Paul loves pizza more than me."
Than or Then?
Than is a conjunction used with comparisons. It rhymes with pan.
Then is an adverb that refers to time. It rhymes with pen.
Examples: He likes you more than me.
First you take a cup of flour, and then you sift it.
I've worked on both sides as a fence when I was in college. I was working towards a Comp Sci Degree at SUNY Stony Brook while working in Swimming pool construction. After entering the workforce as a professional, things like "Mandatory unpaid overtime" and staring out the window on nice days definitely makes me long for the simplier life of digging trenches, plumbing and falling into rich people's pools.
Here's the short list of why I think working in the trades would be better than my current profession (not that I'd switch).
1. Dress code: There isn't one. Paint splattered jeans and raggy sun faded T-shirts are perfectly acceptable.
2. More work = more pay. Whether it be doing more jobs in a day or just working more hours you are compensated in a linear fashion for your efforts.
3. Job market (read job security). There are never enough construction workers, plumbers, pool builders and an accute shortage of good ones.
4. Learn the trade then start your own business. While IP laws technically apply to business practices, once you learn how to be a plumber and how to deal with customers it isn't a huge leap to strike out on your own with the tricks of the trade you learned from earlier employers.
Everything is a tradeoff and its nice to know that if I were in a tragic accident leaving me a paralyzed Christopher Reeves style I could still perform my job (although typing would be a little more complicated).
You don't see many paralyzed construction workers on the job site. Although there were a lot of landscapers smoking dope, but that's neither here nor there.
Microsoft to me - and no I am not microsoft bashing. their software creates bad habits.
i.e just reboot to fix it. click on anything and it will run.
this has created dangerous situations and is the main reason I got out of the desktop arena.
I am strictly server now and love it. I do occansionally run into the lost user but I don't give him a login until they go to unix class.
One clue I have is when they ask how to telnet.
Computers should be like anything else car, power tool, etc. - if don't learn to use it properly (not microsoft's way) don't use it at all or you could get hurt.
this might take us back a few year as far as people using computers but the end result will be that everybody can advance more quickly once they have the basics in.
and if they don't want to learn properly then don't use it. pure and simple.
doesn't a nurse learn how to give people shots and how to read an iv label. well this should be the same way - otherwise there will be grave consequences - i.e power outage in the northeast.
thanks for listening.
I made a move 2 months ago. I used to work as a
consultant for several state agencies. A friend of
mine informed me about a pretty cool position opening up at one of the premier juice companies.
I'm now the Linux Systems Specialist there. They are truly cutting edge with EMC San, VMWARE, Oracle
9i and 10g. It's fun here!
according to the original article that ZDnet ripped off ( linked to in TFA ) we're number 9 of 20, not 19. 19 is media. Apparantly, we're marginally above average. huzza.
> Of course, it should be noted that by and large IT professionals earn more money then most other jobs - which I suppose is once again a warning of money != happiness. Speak for yourself. I'm by and large OK with my work, but 10+ years into it I'm making $30K, about half what the trade rags say someone with my certs and experience would usually be making. It matters where you are, and I loathe the idea of living in an urban megalopolis.
1/7 are very happy? so the other 6/7 could be only happy, while the plumbers could have 2/3 very unhappy, i know this probably isn't the case, but it's just an example of how these stats are useless unless you look at everything.
;)
also your conclusion shouldn't be that money != happiness, it should be that generaly the more you make at your job the less likely you are to like it, your personal life may be very happy, which is the definition that counts for 99% of people
I find it even more disturbing that only 8% of the people responsible for education are happy with their jobs. Maybe if they were happier, more people would be learning in school & wouldn't be such morons to us I.T. people at work. OR, perhaps the stigma behind being able to learn & answer questions as "stupid" should finally die, so that people can actually learn at school and not feel "dorky" because they are learning, thus again allowing them to gain some sense & not be morons later in life. I explained one of my work-related problems to a 6th grader who is nearly failing out, and even he was able to see how easy the probs would be to fix for those in charge. Something is wrong if the failing gradeschooler has more common sense than a college grad PHB.
stuff |
Meh.
I'm fortunate to be that one.
I work as a netadmin (Windows, unfortunately) at an elementary school. My problems aren't that big - just kids downloading junk onto every machine in sight, teachers not knowing to turn off the Preview Pane, teachers opening attachments willy-nilly, maintaining a five-lab, 8-OS campus, and maybe five hundred PCs and old Macs.
Wait, who am I kidding? My job's great, especially since I'm still in college, and my fees aren't too high for the work I do.
Plus it's a five-year contract with no escape clause on their side. That kinda helps.
Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
How many of us in IT want to do a *good* job? How many of us would like to show what we can do and the quality by which we can do it? Alas, how often is the time there? Instead you do your second best, if you are lucky, to meet insane deadline.
Contrast this with a hairdresser or any of those other positions. Those people are hired to attract customers. Take for example a plumber. When something breaks most people will trade time for a proper fix so this doesn't happen again. Those people can take pride in their jobs and are generally expected to exhibit their creativity.
Very few in IT are in a position to take their time to adhere to best practices when managers are screaming as a group to have *something* now and not later. When their desire to rush doesn't work out, who is to blame? Not them! At the end of the day it is hard to feel good about whatever you've done especially when you know if you had a bit more time you could have done a better job.
Oh, it's entirely possible that a specific distro could run the user as root by default -- IIRC, Lindows already does this, which strikes me as an incredibly bad idea, but that's Michael Robertson's problem. And given that fact that Lindows has so far generated a lot of publicity but very few sales, I'm not too worried about it. Let a thousand flowers bloom; most will wither and die.
What I hope to see happen is for desktop-oriented Linux distros to follow the Mac OS X model. Apple has done a beautiful job of integrating Unix security with the Mac's traditional ease of use. The key features are:
- The first user on the machine is set up as admin by default; this is not the same as root. Other new accounts on the machine are by default standard user accounts.
- Root access is disabled by default, and requires a few minutes of work by somewhat who knows what they're doing to enable. Once enabled, it's available by the usual "su" at the command line. Note that there is just about nothing you can do from the GUI that requires root access, ever.
- 99% of normal operations never require admin access. About the only common task that does is installing software that modifies security or other vital system settings. A dialog box pops up and asks for the admin password. Non-admin users don't get to do this, of course, but the idea is that someone with access to the machine is an admin and can take care of it.
The result is a secure, easy-to-use system that blocks just about anything dangerous coming in from the outside world, but lets users do everything they need to do. IMO any Linux distribution that adopts this model, and implements it well, will do very well in the market.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
But then again maybe not according to the stats...
I suspect the one in three plumbers who are happy are the ones who have two unhappy younger plumbers working under them who get to do the poopy work.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Union plumbers make a good 80G+ a year and have to deal with real pathogen viruses, cup holders in the sewer and over used condoms suck in the toilet.
Most of them are happy though. Make you wonder if it was all worth it.
France and Germany both seem to have much more liberal hours-of-work and vacation policies. So what if you make a bit less money if you aren't beating yourself to death trying to claw your way ahead?
We currently have unemployment problems in the US.
Compared to France and Germany? Are you sure?
There are 2 kinds of developers - the ones love and understand developing - and the ones who really don't get it, and just got into development to make money during the go go dot com days. You know the type - the ones who don't understand even basic concepts like hashtables - the ones who make you grind your teeth noiselessly at having to put up with their ineptness.
I am pretty sure a large portion of those unhappy IT people are the latter kind of developers. They won't find any sympathy from me, I have had to deal with too many of them.
Just my $0.02 -naeem
Remember, people don't usually hate their job, they hate their boss.
"We don't have a lot of time on this earth! We weren't meant to spend it this way. Human beings were not meant to sit in little cubicles staring at computer screens all day... filling out useless forms... and listening to eight different bosses drone on about mission statements."
I agree, but I bet if you asked 99.9% of people if they received a large chunk of money would they be happier, they would say yes.
But then again, very few plumbers have to deal with users who consistently download BonziBuddy, blindly click on suspicious email attachments and use their cd trays as cupholders.
Plumbers have to deal with people who flush super balls down the toilet and turn off the heat during winter break, causing pipes to freeze and burst. Do plumbers complain about this? No! That's how they make a living!
It's not the work that makes me dis-satisfied with IT... 90% of the time its caused by my fellow IT colleagues. Am I alone?
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."
Well, maybe not all of them, but I love mine. But to get where I am now I served a long 'apprenticeship' doing all manner of squalid white- and blue-collar joe-jobs from selling to warehouse labour, from operating forklifts to (literally) shit-shovelling. I've been in some awful jobs and it has made me ever so appreciative of the career I have now.
So when I see IT professionals boo-hooing about their lot, it's hard to empathize. Maybe a few have come up into their careers from tough jobs like I have. But all too many are pampered middle-class lads and lasses who have never known hardship or the desperation that comes with low-paid work. Given the money that even the meanest-paid of them get, I cannot shed a tear for them.
"What do you take me for, an idiot?" Charles DeGaulle , asked by a journalist if he was happy.
Plumbers, hairdressers, landscapers, etc., are all jobs that can't be outsourced the way IT jobs can (and increasingly are these days). An electrician in China can't fix the wiring problems in your kitchen. I suspect there may be some job satisfaction stemming from the fact that you know your job will always be there for you.
The Deferred Life Plan
Randy claims the above plan is a surefire recipe for unhappiness, because Step 2, the happy part, will seldom be reached. Step 1 will almost always take up all your lifespan.
Like most geeks, I started out in IT because I thought I was on step 2. Over time, it got so boring & bland I was certain I was on step 1. When I finally realized I was never going to get to step 2 again, I quit. Now, I'm living the "Whole Life Plan" -"Do what you want to do".
One thing that sucks about IT is the competitiveness of it. It seems that you can never sit back and ride on your years of experience or degrees, or certs. It seems the second you stop to take a break, you become absolute. I'm a network admin, and I'm not very happy.
We do J2EE and .NET, and I think I got the job because I was the only person willing to do either one without constant bitching about the other. I avoid the religious wars, because from the perspective of UML, who gives a fuck about what language our stuff is on if it all works?
IT folks make themselves unhappy.
We like to think that everyone should see the IT world through our eyes, which is unrealistic and juvenile. Users are stupid. Developers and Tech Support are arrogant. So what? How does that help your company be successful enough not to can your ass and send your job to India?
Wanna be happy in IT? Shut the fuck up and be known as the most helpful person in the building. Love Java and hate .NET? So what. Keep your opinion to yourself unless asked. I've got a guy working for me who sees saving Java from .NET as a mission from God, more important than taking the occasional shower if it means taking time away from documenting all the ways that C# stole from Java. All he's done is put himself on the top of the layoff list should the Bank go 100% .NET someday.
Users are stupid because their jobs and their LIVES do not revolve around virus avoidance, bitching about how VB.NET means you have to really LEARN TO CODE, you VB no-array-knowing fuck. They come to work thinking about things in another fucking universe. If I ask a code warrior to whip up a P&L statement in Excel, he'll look stupid too.
I'm one of the happy ones, because I got through the standard IT bullshit by treating it as what it is. A JOB. Your job is not there to make you happy to be alive, asshole. Its there to keep you fed and clothed and getting laid until you get promoted up to something that gets you better clothes, better food and better women.
In the mean time, think about how much time you wasted bitching about your religious technology preferences, when you could have been learning something, you no-stored procedure-writing, couldnt-find-a-DAL-if-it-bit-you-on-the-ass loser.
The implication that a lot of people are reading into this is that being in IT makes you unhappy. I am inclined to believe that IT work attracts masochists for whom unhappiness is a critical and defining aspect of their personality. It's not like any of us are actually shocked that there are users who open every single attachment, as much as we pretend to be while bitching about it. We're used to it, and we stick around, because we secretly know that however unhappy we are now, we'd be at least as unhappy doing anything else, and bored to boot.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
Of course, it should be noted that by and large IT professionals earn more money then most other jobs - which I suppose is once again a warning of money != happiness.
Given that the average IT professional has a college degree, comparing the salary of an IT person with that of a hair dress, plumber or any other trade degree job is comparing apples to oranges. The salaries suck, especially after dumping $100k into your college degree.
Judging by what the dealer charges me for car repairs, the high end mechanics are getting $30-40/hour. In my area that's good money, and more than the folks in my department make.
The Washington Post had an article in the magazine a few months ago about a hair colorer in the DC area who pulls in well over 6 figures. (And blows it all on designer shoes)
You can do just fine with a blue-collar job
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
possibility of what that job is:
- Running a Beowulf cluster dedicated to running highly detailed "Pulp Energy Vectoring and Flavor Transfer Simulations"
Probability of what that job is:
- "Uh, can you come down here? Yeah. Charlie got apple concentrate in his CDROM again."
i know, i know... offtopic.
s'wut i sed.
That all said, I'll wager that when the "DotCom Boom" was happening, many of the "other 6 of the 7" got into IT for the money. If you don't love what you do then get out of it.
There's definitely some of that -- don't even ask me how many art or business majors I knew back in the day who were "retrained" for IT -- but I think a lot of those people have been shaken out of it by now, either by leaving the industry entirely or, more frighteningly, by scurrying up to management.
But there are other stories, too. The simple fact is, most college educations will not in the least prepare you for the realities of working as a programmer. (I'll speak to that specifically, since it's what I know -- other IT jobs may vary.)
Some of this is relatively trivial. I was forced to take a lot of comp sci theory classes that have never and will never be useful on the job. Some of that was interesting, some of it was there simply because the university had professors that knew it and did research on it and they didn't know what else to do with them. Instead of, say, 10% of my course load being required to be physics, they could have had me take even a single class involving databases, something many professional programmers will touch on nearly every day of their working lives. That part of it though, is water under the bridge as far as I'm concerned. People who like the field and want to be in it can learn and adapt to overcome those kinds of gaps.
The more troubling thing is that working as a programmer is a whole lot different than doing programming in college.
I've known people who loved programming and did great with it in school and for their own projects, but who were utterly broken by the realities of dealing with clients. Some couldn't handle the (gasp) social skills tasks of having to deal with clients or non-technical people at their own companies. Others were slowly ground down towards insanity by having to continually retrofit their work to comply with the seemingly insane demands of the clients or end users. When you do programming projects in school or for yourself, the spec rarely changes fifty times partway through for (as far as you can tell) no reason. In the real world, it happens all the time.
To take another example, I work with a guy who will probably be shaken out of the IT industry sooner or later. It's obvious to everyone, including him, that he isn't happy. It's not that he doesn't like programming in general. The problem, in his case, are the realities of enterprise level programming. He can't stand that he can write some code, test it and find it working just fine, and come in to work the next day to discover that someone else on the far side of the office working on a seemingly unrelated one of the few thousand files that make up the project has effectively broken his work. He can't take looking at something that works one day and not the next and not even (without doing a fair amount of investigation) know how or why. That's another reality of working in IT that doesn't really come up in school.
Myself, I'm happy, but sometimes it's true what they say: If you love something, the last thing you want to try to do is do it for a living.
My understanding is that when people have important needs that are being compromised, they often manifest all kinds of negative emotions. They may get angry, they may get frustrated, they may become sullen, etc.
Of course, needs are getting compromised all over the place in business, and in life in general.
I think that in order to actually do anything concrete to improve this situation, people have to have more of an understanding of the underlying cause-and-effect.
I wrote a short article on this a while back. If you are interested in it, it's here.
And what do they have to be so unhappy about? I gotta stand in here in this stupid white coat and count stupid pills all day. One of these days I'm just going to wear a BLUE coat...I'll show 'em. I told 'em.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
The relative autonomy of vocational trades probably has a lot to do with it -- you're not continually comparing your performance / rate of professional advancement / success to others.
Protect your liberties. Donate to the ACLU
If you can't handle email virus and spam filtering in-house. Outsource that to someone who can.
We host our own email server and all it does is recieve email from one location, the servers of the company we outsource our anti-spam and anti-virus job to.
Everything that hits us is completely clean. Sure, there is a periodic SPAM message that gets through, but that's not nearly as bad as the several hundred per day that are blocked. We also have full access through a web interface to look through the SPAM and pick-out false positives.
It's not very complicated and works like a champ.
The rule of IT 'Law' has to come down from on-high. Where I work, "I am the 'Law'" (Judge Dredd reference for those that care...) Nobody, even the President of our company, who has demanded more then once to have 'Full reign' on his PC, is allowed full reign on his PC. People don't have to like the policy, they just have to work within the policy.
Because of this policy, I have time to take care of things that otherwise, I wouldn't be able to. That includes installing legally owned and requested software onto computer systems.
It's easy to explain why and I have more back-up on this then you would otherwise think. The accounting and legal departments are more powerful then you might think. Because of my policy, there is almost no chance of having illegal software installed upon any of the computer systems.
I'm "the" computer guy in our company, it's about $100 million a year (300 employees, perhaps 80 computers?), I'm the only full time IT. I handle everything computer related for our local plant (35 -ish computers, plus remote citrix types) and help out the other areas on demand. I can do 8-5, 5 days most of the time, obviously with the odd weekend or after hours work thrown in. I do everything from setting up new PCs to doing some web programming to planning WAN stuff to MIS system management, reporting, and DB programming. Heck we've even started to get into Linux (have to use a consultant for that...until I catch up). So lots of different stuff to do, lots of room for growth jobwise.
I think the key is that it is still a private company - so the company doesn't tend to make decisions based on the up to the minute share value or quarterly reports.
The interesting thing after looking at the results posted on the website (although they are only for the UK) is that no matter what profession, the majority of people are not that happy... Heheh... btw I don't see video game testers on the list... i wonder what the breakdown for them would be...
Honestly, Im only halfly joking.
I started out as A Local Network Guru, thats the 80's calling. VAXen and Appletalk (Ethertalk would blow the VAXen away mind you, in filesharing that is.) was the shit back then.
We did computer based multimedia training, video, LAN's, WANs, heck the net was ruled by CompuServe.
I since then (part of my job was that too) am being labeled as "Office Automation" specialist
I was subsequently -forced- by MS louzy software to really dislike IT. Shame on them!
"/Dread"
In my experience, the actual work you do has far less to do with job satisfaction than do the people you work with. If you do work you love with people that you just don't click with, you'll probably start to hate that work. If you clean toilets all day with a great bunch of cow-orkers, I don't think it'd be as bad as it sounds.
-Rich
Examine the labor laws--there are lots of IT people who should be getting paid overtime but are not; I think the cap is ~50k per year, where they can exempt you. 50k is more than most (all?) tech support, more than a lot of NOC jobs, more than entry (and some mid) level programming and sysadmin jobs.
IT people should unionize; that's how other professions (blue and white collar) make sure they don't get taken advantage of. Unfortunately, most IT people I've known have a very negative view of unions because of bogus info in the news. The only reason nurses and teachers don't get taken advantage of more is because they're unionized.
Someone asked if I had patched against MSBlast; I said yes, I installed Linux.
Exactly right. Your Job X'ers would be 55% happy while Job Y'ers would be 30% happy... though twice as many Job Y'ers are "very happy". I thought more /. readers would see through this!?
Same should be for women, except they care more about family and the children.
I HATE the job I must do, working with undergrads and fools who talk about hobbies. But here I am happy for some recognition and publishing results... this laboratory is truly my home-away-from-home.
I suggest you read Slashdot
if you did the same study in a country where they have 5 weeks of vacation (by law). I am pretty sure those French are happier than us. I worked there for 2 years. It was the best working years of my life.
5 out of 7 serial killers said they were happy in their profession.
One killer, Hannibal L. says:
"I just loveeeeee my job. I always dine out. I get to eat so many interesting people (with a nice side of Chianti of course).
How can you quantitatively measure happiness? Should I be shocked that the derivative of my happy graph is negative? What happens when contentment approaches infinity? Is my joy infinitesimal to you? If Alice and Bob are happily married, do they have happy children? How many and when?
Heck, 39% of all people know that 87% of all statistics are made up. Well, mocking the social sciences always makes me happy. Could I be a professional skeptic? Hmm....
What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean....
I worked in a call center for about 1.5 years and it sucked pretty bad. I lost all faith in humanity - I couldn't believe that people were really as stupid as they were. Finally, I'd had too much "What does double click mean?" and "Is the computer the thing that looks like a TV?" and I lost it. I got a new job doing programming and I've never been happier at work.
:)
Though, I've got enough material to put out about 5 books.
IT Professionals are really a wide range of jobs in my opinion. One guy replies saying he likes doing all the cabling work that he does. Another responds that he doesn't like programmer. Those are very different jobs in my opinion and the research in the article seems to lump them together. But anyway, I have a pretty good idea of why programmers are unhappy. For one thing, businesses treat programmers like crap. I got into programming about 4 years ago. I'm in a small office where I mostly work on projects myself. I like my job because it is kind of an artistic release at times. I get to put my own quality standards into the project and when I'm done I can look at my work and be very happy with it. Thats a "Craft" view of programming. But businesses hate that. I even find myself fighting with my employers on an ongoing basis because they want speed and effeciency, not quality. They also want things to be predictable. They don't like that I often spend a good portion of time at the beginning of all my projects researching "Whats new" and trying to implement new things into my work. They want reliable time constraints for my work. I'm also finishing up my degree in IT, and I'm taking a senior level course right now called Software Engineering. This course has 100% confirmed by belief that the industry wants nothing to do with craft programming. They want what they call "ego-less" programmers that don't care about their own work as much as the group as a whole's work. They want guys that follow the same processes every time and do reliable, predictable work every time. They want (and have probably succeeded in the corporate world) to turn programmers and software developers into factory workers. They want us sitting on the assembly line, pushing out code as if we are machines. What they don't realize is the human aspect of programming. People don't WANT to work that way. It is boring. Look at open source projects as an example. We use a lot of open source applications at our office, and my bosses are completely dumbfounded as to why anyone would put out work for free. I try to tell them that it is because they actually enjoy doing what they do. They enjoy getting credit for their efforts. Business people just don't understand this. If you treat programming like a craft, you'll get better results, and your employees will be more happy. That is what I'm going to live and die by in this industry, because I refuse to ever become a cubicle code monkey. I'll become a hair dresser before I let myself become a code monkey.
I am happy working for a demolition company instead of the craphole Initech. Atleast I am not at Penetrode.
money != happiness
when they post articles to /.
Here's the debugged code for real:
if( currentState == readingSlashdot ) {
girlFriend = NULL;
pr0nCollection++; }
"This is your life, and it's ending one second at a time."
Have you? Let me tell you something, I know a few plumbers who used to run small businesses and while they did okay, their salaries were not near $45/hr.
First of all you you have to get a license. Then you have to get insurance, then you have to get equipment, then you have to get your name out and do some advertising. If you want to be serious you'll have to get an accountant (at least part-time). Then you have to go through people's shit, literaly.
The plumber that I know retired at the age of 60. Not bad, he had a decent income throughout his life, but he never had excess. You have to realize that although the rates are $45/hr, these guys do not work 40 hours per week all the time and when it comes to paying health insurance, sick days and vactation pay, they are on their own.
That's funny. I'm not quite where you are, but I feel you, definitely. I have medical conditions (sleep apnea and insomnia) that make it very difficult for me to work long hours. I did everything from have both of my doctors write notes to my employer telling them to lay off to complaining. Nothing worked. The demands never relented and eventually I was laid off. Best thing that ever happened to me. I'm much happier now. I don't know if I'll ever be able to find a job in the IT field again. That would be sad because I loved the work. I just hated knowing that I wasn't going to be allowed to have a life because of my work.
1 in 7 companies use some form of Microsoft software
About 3 years back I changed profession from being a professional programmer to become a tile layer. Basicly, it was the it bubble which obviously made me loose my job, but I had other jobs on the line, but I decided to move away from Stockholm, which holds most programming jobs, to the countryside of south sweden.
This move have definitly improved my happy status, I can easily say I'm one of those 6 out of 7 that did not concider myself more than "good".
Working outdoors, with customers which are mostly happy with the work you do, and you don't have to deal with updating the work you do all the time, rules. I have one project per week in general, so every week, new places, new people, new objects.
I would recommend to do the change if it's possible, I had the luck to be able to join a school to learn my current profession. But if you really want to become something, nothing should stop you from trying.
Albert
My brother and father are both Union pipefitters(same union there as plumbers) in Missouri. Last I checked, there counterparts in the pay area were getting upwards of $45/hour(with nice benefits I might add).
Now, that occupation _is_ much more cyclic than IT has been until the effects of the H-1b/L-1 expansion set in 4 years ago.
Now for non-union guys, rates vary considerably with business skills and technical skills in the occupation. For union guys, what varies isn't just rate, but how much folks get to work when work is scarce(folks with high demand skills work more regularly).
Was he from Italy? What were his sons' names? Did he drive a taxi? Or a cart?
I think the issue for IT workers is that they dont get much reconision for their good work. But only get Guff when they do something wrong. The server has been for for 1000 days and the tanks you will get is probably being laied off because they dont see you running to fix problems like their previous less qualified employee. But if something goes wrong then every is on you to fix it now because their job is the most important. So as IT we get to much negitive feedback from people. My day just feels great if somone says thanks this is a really cool program. Or wow sience you have been there everything seems to run so much more smoothly, but that is a rairitly.
I like IT Programming, Administration, even helping people with all the dumb little problems. But if I dont get any thanks or apreaction at all it feels like I am not doing anything good.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
One of the things that keeps me happy is meaningful human interaction. Either discussing a technical issue with a colleague or helping someone diagnose a tricky problem.
I think many IT professionals over look the need for this.
I know exactly how you feel. There's about 15 minutes of fun rolling out a new application to users, then it's back to the salt mines.
The only thing I'd add is I think I just got tired of the fight after a while and burned out. Made up my mind this is my last IT job...at least for a while Not even going to accept another position on the same contract. If I ever do go back to IT it will be on my terms, not someone else's.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I've got contract opportunities left and right, but I really miss being able to form long-term relationships with the people I work with, to get to know the organization and the details of the business I'm working in, and to not have that termination date always looming ahead.
I can't believe that it doesn't affect a person on at least a subconscious level to know that there's a definite date after which they are unemployed and their future is uncertain. It makes it difficult to buy a house and plan long term, when you don't know where you'll have to move for your next job, or how long you'll be unemployed if you choose to stay in the same location.
Add to this the fact that most contract positions are for very short periods -- less than two years -- to avoid lawsuits (contractors suing for benefits as employees since they've been in a position for years -- the MS case set a precedent) and you have a high-stress situation.
It isn't as if, in IT, you can plan ahead and line up future work a year in advance; most contract positions are immediate or near-future opportunities.
Yes, in today's economy, there's no guarantee of long-term employment, but with a permanent position, there's at least the illusion of long term employment, and there are darned few of those positions available for software developers.
I'm not unhappy with being a software consultant...
However I am miserable that rates have crashed, that work is scant and abusive, that my IRA has been obliterated, that stupid people still run this zoo, that my healthcare costs keep rising, that I'm being taxed to pay for stupid foreign wars, that billions of dollars were plundered from the economy by corporate fraud and so far we've busted Martha Stewart, that a neo-con fascist coup has occurred and is winning in my home country, and I'm really unhappy with the thought that the ONLY thing I have to look forward to is that in 25+ years or so, after my last paycheck has been spent, I can put a gun to my head and begin a very brief 9mm retirement...
Nope I'm not unhappy with software, I'm sick and tired of the whole entire complete FRAUD that is life on planet earth...
--Richard
I'm surprised that most feel they're well-paid, or is that their management answering that portion of the survey for them? I'm rather happy where I am, but the pay could be better!
One of the 187.
I've been programming for about 16 years now and I'm not even 24 yet. I currently have a job doing programming and it's mildly entertaining as I'm comming up with solutions to problems I didn't think I was capable of solving. I'm doing math problems that I havn't come across in any schooling yet. The problem is that it's a job and that I'm sitting behind a desk with nothing to look at besides a screen. I'd rather choose to program when I want to. Not because I have to.
This coupled with the fact my GPA isn't up to par with the uni's requirements since there's too much BS for me to care, I'm switching majors to secondary education. Specifically math. I've been teaching myself programming since I started. There's no point in wasting money playing stupid little games just for a piece of paper for a job I don't particulary like anyway. I've had very few good teachers which has resulted in me teaching myself the courses anyway. So why pay them? Actually, only one teacher comes to mind that was excellent.
Talking to some people I know I found out that a certain high school in my area has their comp sci classes taught by the coaches. That's an excellent opportunity.
It also works out nicely since it would have been 2 more years to finish out the comp sci degree but it's also only going to be about 2 years to get an education degree if I pack in about 16 credit hours every semester.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
...that IT Professionals are *happy campers* in general.
This is based on a British survey with only about 1,000 respondants between all the professions they surveyed. I mean, come on -- that's like saying "we asked seven IT professionals if they were happy and one said no." That's the weakest sample I've ever seen anyone hold up as relevent!
Read jack phelps dot net
Personally, I was reasonably happy with my profession 10 years ago. 10-6 years ago, I could stay with it for the money. The last 4 years have been living hell. H-1b/L1 has changed things-and not for the better. When I was interviewing last, I ran into a lot more lying, idiotic managers. I wouldn't advice anyone to go into IT _except_ as an independent consultant catering to business owners.
It could also be a reflection of the typical intelligence and personality profile found in each of these industries. The IT crew, are generally a highly intelligent bunch, with rather introverted personalities.
I'm too lazy to find any references, but highly intellegent people are known to be less happy. To a certain extenet, ignorance is bliss.
Not every hair dresser is as dumb as a post, and I don't mean to be derrogatory, but these people are more likely to be of lower calliber. They are also more likely to be happy.
As my grandfather used to say "If it was supposed to be fun, you'd be paying them!"
I have talked with many a so called IT Professional, and most of them are clueless about the simplest things.
Some of them get paid loads, have all kinds of certifications, and yet they need to ask you how to configure TCP/IP for use with a freakin' router!
One moron stated that he had this or that certification, and that he was a pro, yet he complained when I used the generic term 'browser'. He asked why I was using such 'technical' words! Obviously it's really a 'Web page program', or just 'Internet Explorer'.
I think, from my experience, that anybody could manage to get a job with a title of 'IT Pro'. All you need to do is act as if you know what you're doing, and then get other people to do your work for you.
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
money != happiness AND !money = !happiness
Both are true.
- A one-year unemployed programmer
Money can't by happiness, but it'll buy lots of expensive hookers and drugs!
And if you had a million dollars you could do two chicks at the same time (while clutching a red swing line)
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
Could the numbers be biased because there are more "nerds" involved in IT? I mean, if you think of the jobs that are high up there, (florist, plumber) the people doing those jobs are probably not experiencing a lot of existential angst. That's not to say that florists and the guy who fixes your pipes aren't intelligent. I'm just guessing that people who work a lot with their hands (on things outside of themselves that are clearly seen and understood) would be more outwardly focused in their thinking, and less prone to contemplating how miserable their lives are. Then again, maybe that's complete BS. :)
The correlation between intelligence and unhappiness has been observed by people as far back as Bacon. A quick glance at the list confirms that most professionals (lawyers, engineers, scientists) are unhappy.
The interesting question is _why_.
anthony
Do you touch their keyboards and mice when helping them?
I rarely, if ever, have to visit a user's desk (that's what the Helpdesk is for). But on those rare occassions that I have to touch someone else's mouse or keyboard, I do go to the restroom immediately afterwards and wash my hands. Not so much because of fecal matter, but because I hate being sick, and sharing a mouse and then rubbing your eyes, picking your nose, or wiping your mouth is a great way to get a cold or flu virus.
In fact, there was an interesting article on CNN's website about how the average office desk, phone, keyboard, and mouse have about 400 times more germs on them than a toilet seat. Dunno, maybe plumbers are better off after all...
People finding out that they could make a lot of money in the industry and jumping on it in the late 90s...
And if them clicking on spyware bots and such makes them unhappy, then maybe they should consider another profession, or some more training.
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher
...of the larger, number one problem: Management.
Users wouldn't be a big deal if management actually had enforced and enforcable policies that dealt with user-computer interaction (read: you're responsible for self-inflicted computer fowlups, up to and including docking your pay for broken equipment and termination for repeated behavior), allowed IT to be more proactive with virus/worm/spyware/adware control (read: arbitrary site blocking, attachment blocking, restrictive controls on what you can do with PCs).
Job security wouldn't be such a big deal if IT was "at the table" in terms of overall business management and planning, instead of reading about management initiatives in the Wall Street Journal and having to mop up, clean up or otherwise try to make bad ideas implementable as IT systems. I love how terrible management decisions result in unworkable processes and systems and then management decides that their bad decsisions warrant outsourcing the disaster overseas where the lower costs mask the overruns, delays and waffling by management.
I like what I *do* for my job, but I *hate* having to deal with all 37 layers of management. If a company is well managed (and this DOES NOT just mean insanely profitable), it just seems to follow that the IT annoyances of an IT job will be greatly minimized and the real work of IT will be maximized. As long as management is a bunch of clueless MBAs lining their pockets, IT will be a backwater.
Very good point. I notice that many of my IT colleagues lack assertiveness - and they tend to be the least happy ones. If you don't feel you can effectively change the things that bother you, the resentment builds up and gnaws at you. If you feel your life is run by PHBs whose minds can't be changed, you will not be happy. If you're constantly tip-toeing around egos for fear of being fired, you're not going to feel good about yourself or what you do.
I wonder how many techs would be more content - and more in control of their own destinies - if they'd had some assertiveness and social skills training.
Andrew Klaassen
Dude, story of my life. I went to university for a computer engineering degree and there we worked on systems that were amazing. I would wake up in the middle of the night inspired and start programming robotic interfaces at 3 in the morning. I spent my time right out of university working for IBM until all the layoff came. At IBM we worked on designing circuits that have yet to see market. Cutting edge R&D stuff when it first hit silicon.
I then spent about 1 year working for $12.50 because my wife was pregnant, IBM had laid off about 5000 of us, and I needed to make ends meet to pay rent. I went into huge debt because it took a bit to change my lifestyle after the IBM money stopped rolling in. Now I sit around all day and program front ends to SQL databases. It is living hell some days but it pays a lot more then $12.50/hour so I do it.
If I could have stayed with IBM or found another job in the area that offered the chance to work on cutting edge technology I would have but I couldn't and now I pay the consequences. It is all part of growing up and becoming an adult. How many people do you know who wake up every morning looking forward to another day at work. I don't know many and the few I do know are the exception, not the rule.
Be strong bro. It won't get better but it can't get any worse.
City & Guilds (http://www.city-and-guilds.co.uk) is the UK's leading awarding body for work related, vocational qualifications. In total the organisation awards around 1 million certificates to learners each year on over 500 subjects ranging from creative studies to catering, management skills to manufacturing.
While the happiness findings match up with my general experience, it isn't terribly surprising that the study paints vocational careers in such a rosy picture.
I remember the answer to the first vividly - I was 10 years old and it was the last day of 4th grade, they told us that we would be getting a computer the next year. For the remaining years of school I was in my element. It was just always a given that I would end up doing something that involved coding. From there I got to go to a good CS school (Worcester Polytech), and have gotten programming jobs ever since that I've enjoyed greatly.
Now, had something gone wrong and I'd ended up in admin or help desk, I could see where I'd be unhappy. Or if I'd waited until college to pick a path, said "Hmmmm, IT sounds good..." and then later "Wow, this really isn't for me."
Don't think I don't count myself incredibly lucky. I've always said that you should evaluate your job on three factors - am I any good at it, can I make a living at it, and do I love it. I'm very lucky to be able to say yes to all of the above.
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
It's all about perspective and attitude. I changed careers a few years ago (32 years old) from a carpenter to getting a degree in computer science. Now I have good pay, benefits, safe work environment and some job security. As an added benefit I do not work outside in the rain or at -40 degrees C, or at +40 degrees C, I also do not have to risk life an limb daily, Now I can look forward to being able to play with my grandkids, because I will not have ruined my back or lungs or hands or.... Get over it, IT jobs are very good jobs, If you think different you need try working in a trade for a while. After you have hammer nails for 10 hours in the rain at a few degrees above freezing and you realize you can't open your hand you will have a different perspective on your double-click finger being sore...
Having spent about $7000 on plumbers over the last few years (ah, the joys of home ownership), my guess is that plumbers spend a relatively small amount of time digging toilets out. Even rootering a clogged toilet doesn't place you in contact with too much "material". More often, you are doing clean work like digging a sewer lateral, remodeling a bathroom or installing a new water heater, jobs that when properly done, and unlike IT jobs, are done when they are done, repetitive enough that you can gain skill at the job, and command a premium for off hours work. Unlike most IT jobs nowadays, where every task is an emergency in progress, is never completed to anyone's satisfaction, is never done the same way twice, and commands no extra compensation for off hours work.
Zoloft.
Mmmm, serotonin.
A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost. He reduces height and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts:
"Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?"
The man below says, "Yes, you're in a hot air balloon, hovering 30 feet above this field."
"You must work in information technology" says the balloonist.
"I do," replies the man. "How did you know?"
"Well," says the balloonist, "everything you have told me is technically correct, but it's no use to anyone."
The man below says, "You must be a corporate manager."
"I am," replies the balloonist, "but how did you know?"
"Well", says the man, "you don't know where you are, or where you're going, but you expect me to be able to help. You're in the same position you were before we met, but now it's my fault."
Mo money, mo problems.
I'm a fresh college grad with a lot of job experience during college. I have all the spark and ambition. But I feel I also have the defeat and triumph of those older and "more experienced" then me. I am with a lot of other posters who have wanted to do what they do all thier life. I want to be a systems administrator, thats it! I want to run a data center and experience all the trials and tribulations of it. I look at defeat, stalness of down days, new users, old users who just can't seem to grasp the idea of technology, or those people that seem to know everything but are not willing to admit defeat when they realize they don't know anything. I think I know what it means to hate your job and go one. I think I know what it means to love your job but not feel appreciated. I'm a college grad, I sure as hell know what it means to work your ass off, not have a life, and work some more. I embrace a 50-60 hour work day and I know I'll be happy regaurdless of what happens. I think that part of the unhappiness is about people that don't know who they are or how to control themselves or those around them. If life is dull you need to make it more interesting. It certainly isn't the job of a friend, girl friend, wife, boss, economy, world! For all of you out there that want to be happy, be happy! Take it from me, someone who is unemployed, out of college, scratching at the door of every company pleading for that one chance while scraping rock bottom in money bag. If you don't 100% completely love what you do in IT for a living, you sure as hell better get out(might want to wait for the economy to pick up) but you better make room for those who know that they are in it for life, for the long haul. Yes, young whipper snappers as a previous post put it, because they have gumption and they don't know defeat. As you get older and you realize what it is you fear it. You fear change because change smells like defeat. If your in IT you better realize what that is right away. I am a firm believer that success only happens through defeat. Thank you for your time. /rant off
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
Sheesh... no wonder all the young guys in our cube farm pick their nose and eat it... take a dump and refuse to wash their hands... fart... belch...
Instead of learning things like "social skills" and etiquette and age 8, they were learning how to comprehend a stack trace!
Oh wait. The lack of compatibility with open source software (and their own previous versions) is one of the reasons we are all unhappy. Here's to false advertising.
IT (especially Tech Support) is about solving the same problems over and over again. That's why I wasn't happy with it, I need to be creative and the IT jobs I've had, save the current one, did not allow that.
"when life gets complicated, I like to take a nap in a tree and wait for dinner" - Hobbes.
This is SO true.
And it brings me to a point that has taken years for me to discover - computers should be treated somewhat like cars and airplanes.
You must study, practice, and demonstrate a minimum level of proficiency to be allowed to operate a car. The same is true of airplanes, but the effort is much greater (as is the cost).
It is an unfortunate effect of marketing that we have people believing computers should be so easy to use that they need no training. Look at a microwave - a true appliance. I'll bet most people only know how to use a microwave to 1/10 of its designed capability. And even then I suspect people don't use the features correctly.
Computer users should have to invest a certain amount of time in regular training - OS use, general application user, and custom application use. There should probably also be a required "Defensive Computing" class, with test, that is required once a year.
It's not all the fault of the users though. Some programs/OSs behave poorly, some hardware does actually fail, etc. But when fixing those problems, you (the IT person) aren't required to be nice to the moron who created the problem (since they are probably far away).
.sigs are for post^Hers.
So, rather than waiting months, making no money and living on the streets, I have been hunting for IT jobs all over the Madison WI area, arguably the tech mecca of Wisconsin. The thing is, I enjoy IT. I've done help desk for many years while at the university (and lemme tell ya, you get a very wide range of users and issues there) and would love to keep doing it.
I think once one gets over the "stupid (l)user" part of his/her job things can be fun. Remember, IT is a support job more often than not, meaning you are not in the spotlight...the people you are helping are. That doesn't mean any work you do goes unnoticed or is unappreciated. I have had my fill of users who have been told not to do something, then 5 minutes later are back on the phone with the same problem simply because they didn't listen. Rather than go off on them, we made flipbooks of index cards and added instructions/directions for various issues. E-mail with BigBadMoFoVirus.exe.pif.scr attached? Flip in your book to virus procedures, delete the file, and call us if you really think it was something that was kosher. We're always happy to take a look to be sure it wasn't Grandma's cookie recipe.
That said, we did have the occassional user that called us, saying her problem was an absolute emergency and could we come down immediately. When we got there she couldn't open a .jpg file of her niece or nephew because her file associations were messed up. How did this affect her work as a secretary for dining services people? I have no idea. Needless to say we chastised her and told her that her punishment would be no pictures for a week. Her supervisor also yelled at her.
The point is this...if you are not happy in your IT field, get out so those of us that enjoy interacting with people/computers can take over. I've known more and more companies trying to move away from the anti-social nerd computer guy who keeps him/herself aloof and better-than-thou attitude and move on to those of us who like to work with people, have a modicum of patience, enjoy what we do, and aren't afraid to stand out ground when required to.
"This food is problematic."
Remember how there were the popular kids who were happy in high school and college? They were the social ones who went on dates, to parties, had lots of friends... They went on to become hairdressers and plumbers. The asocial nerds went off to become IT professionals, and guess what, only 1 in 7 is happy. Nothing's changed. Being an IT professional is an effect, not the cause of the problem.
"few plumbers have to..."
Uh, MANY plumbers have to deal with "users" who stop up toilets with some of the foulest substances imaginable, over and over and over again despite being told that its an incredible bad idea to try to flush chicken bones down the pipes. Yeah, they've got it SOOO much easier than us! Nothing could compare to the horror of BonziBuddy, oh no!
I think IT professionals are unhappy more because they DO put such a chip on their shoulders sometimes.
"Oh the horror of my job! Noone has the intelligence to understand me!"
I think many IT professionals are unhappy with their job because they approach it with almost the same level of arrested development as many teenagers. "YOU JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND ME! WAH!"
My advice: Grow up and don't be such a big baby. Your parents didn't just tell you this to shut you up as a kid. (Well, not entirely at least.) They also told you that because they knew the moment you stopped focusing on bitching and moaning was quite often the first step to not being unhappy.
Most IT people I know end up working overtime weekends or evenings. If you are a plumber or a carpenter, you get paid for those hours. If you are an IT 'professional' you get the shaft. A carpenter making $20/hr for high end remodeling (cabinetry, kitchen remodels etc.) + over-time working 50-60 hours a week is probably as well or better off financially than a programmer making a nominal $30/hr and working an uncompensated 10-20 hours a week. And a carpenter or a plumber can't get offshored. Somebody has to be onsite to actually do the work.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
... isn't one. It's just a market bubble created by hyping crappy tech and getting [b]TPTB[/b] to fund the implimentation of computers into ever aspect of life.
;p
The medium is the message.
Now that this has been done, the jobs will go abroad to stimulate corporate 'growth'.
Soooo, if you have wasted the last 10 years on technical support, web developement, and dreams of actual bandwidth... move to India and get a job luser.
I somewhat disagree with your analogy. Although I do see some IT shops that view programming talent with the 'factory' mindset, I think a majority of large software products want you to apply what you're studying: Software Engineering.
I know, I know, there are 10k /. readers out there who just rolled their eyes ("Software development is not like bridge design!" "Programmers are not engineers!") but there are engineering practices that are applicable to software development: proper QA/QC, documenting everything, spending 70% of the SDLC in requirements and design, carefully designing dependencies before implementation, etc. These are not by themselves fun or 'crafty' activities, but in the bigger picture of developing a large and mature software project, can be very fulfilling.
That is not to say you can ROM the time for a software project like a bridge; there are things unique to each and every large project that cannot be accounted for. But, if care is given during the software lifecycle, a project team can deliver a mature, maintainable, usable project, still allow the company to make money, and still allow the developers to practice some 'craft'. I do believe that the difference between the best packages and the average ones lie in the company's investment in that last activity.
*BUT*, craft by itself, in anything but small to medium-small IT projects, is asking for disaster in terms of budget and schedule. The SEI level 1 nickname isn't 'folklore' for nothing. In fact, I would postulate that that's why so many jobs are going away from the Western companies: Western developers' insistence that software development is some kind of magic that cannot even be remotely predicted or estimated. Nonsense!
If you ask any group of human beings if they
would rate themselves as 'very happy' none of
them will respond with very high percentages.
This is a troll or a study by someone
who's not got a clue yet.
-- Programming with boost is like building a house with lego. It's a cool but I wouldn't want to live in it
You call us lusers. I can see the smile on your faces when you think about that word.
Self-importance has gotten you lot into the shit you are in at the moment. You all thought you were far too good to be laid off. The amount of $ you commanded made you even more expendable.
Here's the deal. Don't call me a luser and I'll stop phoning up with phantom problems.
1. Pull network cable out
2. Phone service desk. Tell them my internet is down.
3. Try and sound confused when I'm asked "Intranet or internet?"
4. Tell phone monkey "I have checked the network cable. It is plugged in" until he/she gives up.
5. Book 4 hours to computer problems. Use those 4 hours to drink coffee.
Troll? I resent that too.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
Very true. But only a few wise individuals who have the foresight to start in the right career path can do this. Most people will learn this too late, and by then find it too late to change professions easily. If only there is a way for people to change jobs more easily, while having the security of paying their monthly mortgages and basic needs.
I heard somewhere (maybe here) that most IT Professionals rate going without the Internet as worse than going through a divorce. Hearing that, I wouldn't trust any IT person's estimate of their own happiness. I hated IT, thought it sucked, quit, and got another job. Six months later, I was back. It can be pretty crappy, but I think people don't realize how good they have it. That said, it is a pretty catty profession.
I work for a local utility and I love it. I have to deal with people that are terrified. I get called out to a persons house that says they are having a power outage. It turns out that A SINGLE light doesn't work and they don't know how to change a light bulb! How many idiots does it take to change a light bulb? It doesn't matter how many are there. Imagine getting called on Christmas at 1 am to change a light bulb. Want to talk about stupid people? This is only the start. As far as being happy I LOVE IT. I was a sys admin for 5 years on all types of systems. I am so glad I was laid off. Working for a utility I make 2x as much and have complete job security. Not to mention Our bosses support our decisions. Any equipment I want I get. To get an idea of the pay at the top rung after BEING PAID for overtime we can pull in over 200k. Of course this year 4 of my coworkers have died and many have been sent to the hospital. It is dangerous work, but it if soooo fun. Imagine being 60-300 ft in the air hanging off a pole or tower in a storm. I haven't heard of anyone leaving to go to another company. If we get tired of our work we get paid to learn new skills and start a new career in the company. I can do anything from sys admin work, security, welding, plumbing, office manager, any desk job, or a lineman. I will never go back to a salary, unpaid overtime, underappreciated (sp?), slow career in I.T.. Oh and not to mention, I take my truck home. No commute, I get paid 1/2 hr for commute time though. I get paid for missing lunch. I only see my boss once every other week for a meeting where we discuss injuries. Sincerely, Laid off and loving it
We're happiest when we're unhappy. So we're unhappy in the job? Great!
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
...rubbing your eyes, picking your nose, or wiping your mouth...
If this is what you were doing prior to sitting at their keyboard, it's easy to see where all those germs are coming from.
I have the exact same problem! I used to really love computers. However, that changed in less than a year after I started working as a programmer for a living. Having to do the same type of programming tasks over and over took all of the fun out of it.
I'm stuck doing Quality Assurance programming now, and its terrible. It is the least satisfying and most frustrating type of programming you can do.
One of my fellow IT staffers asked my manager this and the question was forwarded to me to answer...
I'm a programmer, I still love what I do, the only things that sour it for me aka make it "work" are having to interface with non-IT people about IT issues.
That and job stability are my only complaints
I worked in over 5 IT fields and dozens of companies and never found that my coworkers and I never got respect. A favorite (who is usually the one who doesn't complain and seems happy) is always set aside for "special projects" and usual day in to day out interaction with boss or manager is ridden with barking commands or rudeness and condescension. IT management tends to be more like "Nick The Computer Guy" from SNL rather than the well-trained personnel managers you have in other departments.
People like useless "Program Managers" or "Project Managers" that have zero knowledge of software are abundant in the IT field. You don't have construction managers who haven't picked up a hammer or saw before overseeing skyscrapers being built. But, the IT industry thinks it's just fine to have people with zero software knowledge running large IT projects. That's the real reason 75% of IT projects are failues, either not what the customer wanted, over budget or just plain buggy as hell. Once you have good requirements and a reasonable design, it's all about fingers hitting keyboards. The less finger / keyboard time, the further behind the project gets. Going to useless meetings and doing anything else that time away from a design revision or away from coding is a useless activity. Unfortunately, programmers usually do all kinds of other useless crap other than code.
this space is intentionally left blank.
personally, i find myself satisfied by my work, but not *happy*. i believe that this is due to a conflict in ideals between my employer and me.
the company is not interested in good, thoughtful design or in quality of code ("ship now, design later" seems to be the mantra). but as a programmer who loves the art of programming, i am driven by those very same ideals that the company considers to be "optional."
this difference in philosophy is (overwhelmingly) the primary source of work-related stress in my life, and the reason why i would have to answer "no" if someone asked me, "are you happy in your work?" (even though programming is my hobby/pasttime/passion before it is my career).
i wonder how many other programmers are "unhappy" because of this dilemma?
This study was done with only ~1054 respondants of only about half were in education type jobs so the sample size sucks. The +/- error on such a small sample size is something like 5% or more if I remember correctly. In reality there may have been only 100 teachers asked how they like their job. A decent sized school has more teachers than that. So it's flawed right off the bat. They should have asked at least 1000 from each job type they were interested in from a range of employers around the country. As it is they may have simply stuck to a single city.
This is also Britain. Not the US. Our school systems are much different. They also fail to tell you how many in each category are "happy" or "miserable." 8% may not be very happy but a large portion may be happy. And "happy" is good enough. This would be a more enlightening study if they had used a significantly larger sample and if they couldn't bother to report the percentage on all the possible answers, they should have at least chosen the worst case. I'd rather know how many people are miserable than "very happy." "Happy," "somewhat happy," "content," are all good signs of a decent profession. But if a large portion respond "very unhappy" then that tells you something. I don't expect a job to make me "very happy." "Very happy" is something family and friends should make you. But I'd rather not work a job that I can expect to be "very unhappy" working.
"Something is wrong if the failing gradeschooler has more common sense than a college grad PHB."
Smart people often think too hard about problems. It's not that they can't/don't understand it's that they assume the problem is more complicated than it is. I spent several hours trying to solve a complex equation when around midnight one night I realized it was a simple matrix problem. I had been thinking about it in symbolic terms where all the entries in the matrix are variables when I finally realized in the code I'd be dealing with actual numbers. So it reduced to simple linear algebra. I was looking for an O(c) solution when a more general solution was far simpler to implement and more functional. I solved for the O(c) solution for a smaller matix but the problem explodes in difficulty as the matrix size increases.
I've currently solved another problem that was about the same way. I wanted an O(c) solution but even Mathematica is telling me it's not possible (it's not really a linear problem) so I'm working on solving it in a slightly less obvious manner.
A failing 6th grader isn't necessarily smarter. They just think about things on a simpler level and sometimes that level is appropriate for the problem.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
I'm one of the 6 of the seven. I was happy at first, but then soon found that I hated the calls, and bosses whith no clue.
(I'm off to crash the network. Wish me luck!)
I'm so glad I had a backup profession to fall back on. Plus, I can use my skills in that profession as well. I think schools should remind those who are training for the IT field, that you should have a backup (hmm, like servers and software?) for your life, just in case.
Yes, the money can be good... but it's better to be happy then rich. Didn't we learn that from Dickens and Scrooge?
---- You have been programmed by the Illuminati to not see the word ""!
Bad managers aside, one of the biggest problems is expectation management. What do the user expect from the IT Department? Does what they percieve to be the job of IT jive with reality?
I have seen so many places where even the bos who hired the IT guys doesn't really know what they do.
If nobody is told what to expect.. how can you expect things to work smoothly?
We've all said it, and heard it.. that when we are doing our job properly, and everything works perfectly, we don't really DO anything.. and nobody notices us. When things do break, they see it as the fault of the IT guy, not the fault of the system / hardware / software / etc.
The problem is there is no great analogy.. a car is a good example. If the tranny in my new ride goes bad, I'm going to the mechanic. I'm not mad at HIM, he didn't break it. If, however, he fixes it, and then the next day it breaks again, I *AM* going to be annoyed with him.. his job was to fix it. IF, on the other hand, my brakes start squeaking.. I'm not going to blame my mechanic just because something else was wrong with my car.
Too often in the IT world, people expect the computer is an atomic thing that we can just FIX, and have work perfectly. they don't see the complexity, or the different interrelated systems.
Let the users know what to expect, and how things work.
Do NOT get high and mighty and call them stupid behind their back. Of course they aren't computer experts, that's why YOU have a job.
Do NOT start thinking you are more important than they are. They have jobs to do, to run the business. Your job is to make sure they can do their job.
If someone is asking you something and not following procedure, say by asking you while you are walking down the hall instead of sending an email, don't feel pressured to fix it. It might do wonders for both of you, however, if you just say "Okay, I'll have a look, but if it's broken we are going to have to get someone else down to fix it." The user feels the love, you helped without helping.
One of the other problems with IT jobs is, let's face it, there is a lot of grunt work. In almost any organisation, there is room for an intern or some student who can just do what they are told. Not every business is the place for innovation and new things every day. So we have a lot of smart, intelligent people who got into IT work when they would probably be much happier doing real engineering, because in some cases, that sysadmin job is basically the same thing.
"I try to tell them that it is because they actually enjoy doing what they do. They enjoy getting credit for their efforts. Business people just don't understand this."
Don't they? Ask your boss if he enjoys what he's doing, and does he want recognization of his efforts?
The answer will fall into two catagories:
Those who do their job for all the wrong reasons and are unhappy, but hide it well.
Those who actually enjoy what they're doing, but may have trouble understanding other people's motivations(1).
(1) I suspect you'll find that it's not the "love" part he's having difficulty with, but the "compensation for effort" part.
====--====
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
not then. that's my only grammar pet peeve.
He claimed to make a lot of money, and was actually quite happy... I personally think he was running dope on the side, though, so what the hell do I know? ...drug runners have a higher job satisfaction level than cubicle farm workers.
Hmm...
May we never see th
I don't think that i could really compare tech support with 7-eleven guy, motel clerk, etc. reason being, that there's pretty much a fixed number of things that the customer can ask for...and you're ready for it. can i get a slurpee and gas? the customer knows what's needed, so they're not hostile.
You've never put yourself through college at a 7-Eleven have you.
I had a guy enter and ask to buy plane tickets on southwest airlines and scream at me when I told him I was not a travel agent.
I had a little old lady that I had to call the cops to remove because I wouldn't sell her a car wash. The fact that the 7-Eleven I was working in didn't HAVE a car wash was a big factor in that. No amount of explaining to this senile woman would explain that. After she began to chuck can goods at me I called the cops. Alzheimer I'd guess...
People all the time would throw down the wrong credit card and bitch because I wouldn't take it.
People will ask for anything.
Slashdot, home of supporters of free software, free music, and free speech.Except for Moderators that disagree with you.
The problem is that people do stupid shit with their computers (that they don't know is stupid shit), and then IT professionals have to fix it (for free, every time, because they're on contract).
That's not an IT problem or even a customer problem. The problem is that IT people generally have little or no business training and, by the time they find themselves in that situation, it's too late to change it. Basically, it comes down to this... the customer will try to get as much as they can for as little compensation as they can. You have to define the scope of your job, in writing, with the customer signing off on the requirements, before you agree to complete it. When the customer comes back with changes after the job is done, you say, "That wasn't part of the original contract, but we would be happy to discuss another contract for additional work or changes."
Incidentally, that same approach isn't limited to contract work. When my boss gives me vague requirements, I talk with him, hammer out the details, then get his approval. I came off as a hard-ass at first, but at the end of the day, we both know what's expected of me and it's saved us both a lot of grief.
I love problem solving. Always have. Programming and analyzing data lets me do that. Maybe I'll burn out someday, but by then, I'll be doing something else. My biggest fear is not losing my job for the money, but for losing job satisfaction. Believe it or not, I used to have that in retail. I loved making customers happy. I was usually a top salesman, big-time manager, and so on, but the company I left was so poorly managed, it reminds me of what a lot of Slashdot posters mention about their jobs. They got this "fuck the long-term customer, go for short-term profit!" and I felt dirty and cheap, and the thrill was gone. Then when my district manager told me that for the first time, she made more than the 1040EZ tax form would allow (which was $26,000 at the time), I realized I was in the wrong business to support a family. I started out as a call center rep (solving problems and doing customer service, w00t!), and in less than a year, I made more than she did. My salary has tripled since then.
My attitude has kept me employed, too. I have seen all the burnouts get laid off. The biggest problem with the dot.com boom was that our job environment got flooded with money-grubbing people who hated tech. Like people who become doctors for the money, but hate patients ("Sick, again? How dare that patient die on me!").
What's an FSBO?
As I write this, there are 89 comments viewable at level 3, so it's not real likely that this will "go anywhere" - but here's my experience.
I work as an independent consultant. My largest client has about 130 staff. I do database engineering, software design, and Linux system administration for a total customer base of around a dozen clients.
Every day is unique. Yesterday I developed, tested, and began using a new template system for PHP that is much, much faster than the PHPLib template system I've used for the past 4 years.
Today, I'm going to be refining an application framework for a company I'm partner in, writing a backup system based on rsync, and working on transferring Internet services from a couple of servers to a couple of other newer replacements.
I deal with customers directly, and get to hear the shreiks and exclamations when they realize how much easier I've just made their life...
I spend an average about 1-3 hours on the phone every single day, dealing with clients all over North America, and I put in an average of around 4-7 hours of billable time.
My average workday is generally between 8-12 hours a day. Sometimes, I take the day off with no prior planning. Sometimes I work 18 hours straight.
I love my job, and it loves me!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
This simply provides impirical numeric super-duper scientific evidence that work sucks.
Nothing but the finest in meaningless drivel
I wonder how many times the job actually involves direct contact with disgusting fecal matter as opposed to many of the other things a plumber can do:
:-)
a) Clogged toilet, just use a plunger and/or some special chemicals
b) Broken faucet, leaky pipe, etc. From my experience this is where most people I know call the plumber. Otherwise, we use Drano or the plunger on el-toilet
c) Installations. New homes requires plumbing to be installed, etc... you need a plumber for this too
And with all the above, you pick the call. You aren't a corporate plumber, if you're not up to handling the "my 300lb wife clogged the toilet again and it overflowed over the bathroom floor," then you don't have to.
IT people who work for themselves are quite often happier than the cube-dwellers, provided they're making enough to get by. On the other hand, the "company" IT guy has to clean up Bonzai, deal with the user who keeps getting infected and clogging the network with spam transmissions, porno popups from installed malware, etc.
Of course, it all depends though. I work the "office job" with a few locations... yes many of my users aren't all that technically adept, some are downright clueless (and admit it), etc etc. But generally, I enjoy my job. Most people respect my position, especially my boss.
I think a lot of the problem other IT people have is that the boss thinks he knows how to do the job, but blames the IT guy when things don't work out... security gets scrapped for functionality, new toys, etc etc. It's not so much about the job as the people that manage the job, and that's often the complaint of many an office work.
Having myself had many good managers I realize the difference, and nothing was quite as cool as having my boss tell her boss off, for distracting me from the work I'm suppose to do
For what it's worth... I'm not an "IT" professional by the standards of most /.ers, but I am the computer guy for a family violence shelter in a small city.
I don't get paid well because my employer would rather use the money to keep families safe, but I am afforded a lot of freedom in running things computer-wise. Also, the fact that we're small means that we use every resource to its fullest capacity and that innovation is appreciated. I can't write C++, but making an Access database that will track donations and reduce by 75% the time spent writing thank-you letters is a big deal, and is noted and appreciated. When a desktop user gets a weird attachment, she calls across the office to ask me about it and problems are headed off early; I also have the luxury of great tech-support by our ISP, who know us by name as an organization and know me personally. When a realty company upgraded its system, we got a bunch of old P-I's and I got to spend a couple of days cannibalizing and frankensteining 13 crap systems into 4 or 5 good ones that went to clients and appreciative end-users here.
My job is varied and fun, and working for a small organization includes a great amount of personal freedom that offsets much of the lack of pay. When my girl shows up to take me to lunch unexpectedly, I can take some extra time to enjoy it without worrying about some PHB. While I'm out, I can swing by the printer's office to drop off the files for our next brochure (files which, incidentally, their graphic-arts guy personally showed me how to tweak for 4-color printing). People really appreciate the skill and ability that I bring to the job, and I'm truly not much more than a glorified end-user, myself. I'm not acclaimed by the world's I.T. community for the l337ness of my code, but when I do something nifty for a coworker there's a very high chance that I'll be acclaimed with a donut.
All of the above is only buttressed by the fact that I get to see women walk into our shelter bleeding from abuse and walk back out on the road to a better life. If you're really unhappy with your job, try looking for someplace small. You won't get rich, but by helping others you may end up helping yourself.
The Dalai Llama
You may also be afforded the luxury of posting to slashdot on your breaks and checking out The Onion on your lunch hour
My sig could be your sig!
But it can sure as hell stave off misery.
The reason for unhappiness in this field does relate to the article, where they talk about helping people being one of the biggest factors in job happiness. In IT, no one gives a shit about you when things work, and when things break you suck. So the love really isn't there. It would be nice to be noticed when you rollout a new system that is a serious upgrade over the old, but all people notice is the 15 minutes of downtime during the transition (you suck) I never heard of any awards for high uptime in IT.
Lots of dissatisfied folks may have initially been interested in science and areas of science that involve computers but ended up in IT jobs, far from their original aspirations. I know I started out in gaming and now I'm working on business integration/process management software. Gaming was exciting and interesting, involving lots of different disciplines - art(from sketching to 3d models and rendering), game engine stuff (graphics, physics, AI, scripting languages), networks and client/server apps. IT generally does not involve art or science much at all, at least not anything I would consider art or science (unless you consider icon design fine art). Also, IT programmers are not insulated from the corporate world at all, we tend to work in close proximity to the lawyers, sales people, managers and other people who do little to encourage creativity. I mostly miss the art/creativity side, dont get to scratch that itch much in business software. If only this stuff would just write itself...
TallGreen CMS hosting
The outsourcing bit really puts a damper on things.
I have to constantly worry, will I have a job next week?
Next month? 36 grand in student loans, no credit card
debt, but a small apartment costs over a grand and it's
50 years old. I can't even take a more stable job at walmart
and expect to be able to pay the cost of living.
I really love my career, I really hate the instability.
The money was nice. Hell, I didn't even mind the 70 hour weeks. But I fucking hated the people and the job.
And what the fuck did I say to people when I came home at the end of the day to my nice apartment I never saw? "I wrote some awesome code today so financial workers can more efficently make trades." Whoopty shit.
OTOH, every single Firefighter I've ever met loves his work. I've always loved being a volly, so FDNY, here I come. The %65 pay cut is going to suck- but money sure isn't everything.
Sorry for the previous premature post.
Western developers' insistence that software development is some kind of magic that cannot even be remotely predicted or estimated. Nonsense!
I would be interested in hearing any links to resources that you have found really, honestly valuable when it comes to predicting time of a project, how many lines of code are involved. So far, software engineering books seem to be full of buzzwords and short on actual useful content, and I've seen only very vague rules of thumb from people that predict project time estimates.
I can understand predicting the time to build a building. All the operations that must be performed are known roughly in advance -- laying a brick is a simple, repetitive operation, and determining the time to lay a thousand bricks is hence fairly simple. Determining the time to finish a project just seems...an almost incredible art.
Businessmen have been trained to use specific management techniques and some simple models ("this task depends on that, we expose ourselves to 30% risk by doing this") and have systems that require tasks with bounded time. As far as I can tell, this just results in contractors and other people selling mostly bullshit estimates, and then if time needs to be extended, coming up with some sort of excuse for more time that doesn't put them at fault ("The interface documentation from this other contractor is incorrect, and will cost us a month to make up the time loss.").
It just seems to me that currently, time estimation on a software project is closer than anything else to time estimation on pure research -- you really *don't know* very well when you'll get someone who makes a breakthrough, but it's required to fit in a corporate world that expects time limits. I just don't see this as egotism of software developers so much as the fact that the process really is just about the most complex commissioned task that you can hire someone to do -- you don't know how it will work until you're at *least* through the full design phase. People in most "creative"-class disciplines, like painters, work in a field where their output quality is somewhat analog. If they have to, they can speed up and come up with a lower-quality output, and it's hard to call them on it. A software developer is the only profession I can think of off the cuff where you have almost no idea how the system will work initially *and* it's easy for the client to come up with a boolean "this meets requirements" or "this does not meet requirements".
May we never see th
We made the coice to be in IT because we love the technology and found ourselves better than others at making them work.
Now several years into it we are still helping the one's who don't get it do the simple things (cut and paste, attachemnets, and stop double clicking on everyhting!) However, we still _LOVE_ the technology. We are adicted. We go home and program for the OpenSource, build lans so we can play games, make digital wonders that our co-workers can't even understand.
Then we go back to work the next morning and do it all again. Why? because we make more beating our heads on tubes and hating the decisions that the boss makes than we could ever dream of at anything else. Which adds to the frustration.
I personaly would love to be surounded by people that can already use the equipment as well as the most competant user on my network, but the fact is that less than 5% of my users can do 5% of what the best can do. The 95% drives me to drink. However it that same 95% that gives me a job that pays well, is clean, out of harsh weather, and not physically difficult.
What is lacking in IT is rank and respect
You can be the company expert responsible for e.g managing routers
What breaks our roter admin is not the responsibility for managing said routers,
the kill factor is being caucht in the corridor blamed for paperjams, held responsible for consecvenses of users actions e.t.c
IT simply the youngest child in the company hiarchy
FK! The new rule at /. is to undo moderation even if you post as AC!
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
I've said it before: manage your career. Find out what you like to do and look for work that lets you do it. It's not always possible to get exactly where you want to be, but by working at it you can get close enough. And keep correcting so you stay on your chosen career path.
In your case I see the attitude that works well in safety-critical development. I am a software developer who works on medical instrumentation. Your attitude is exactly welcome in this kind of environment because we can't afford to screw up; so you tend to find a high percentage of devs who care about the quality of their work and get lots of management support with the attitude that Quality is more important than Release Date. Those who think we're too anal about getting things done right or following process tend to quit pretty soon.
Try to identify industries where software quality is of high concern and look for positions there. It can be hard to break in, but once you have that kind of experience you become much more valuable in the field.
sit around and bitch about people sitting around and bitching.
p
"It's generally understood that IT pays "a lot" of money. Whenever there is an opportunity to make a good living at a job that's not back-breaking or dangerous, you are going to attract people who are pretty much only in it for the money."
;
Oh gee! You make it sound like a bad thing. Anyway what's wrong with aspiring to a good-paying job that will not shorten your life span? Or are you one of the "elite" that thinks only a select group should have the right to work in a particular field.
10 PRINT "Welcome to the Job Gateway program";
20 INPUT "Are you presently working in my field without the right amount of 'love'" $L;
30 IF $L = "Yes" THEN "GET OUT! You're taking money away from the deserving.": GOTO 10
40 ELSE PRINT "Welcome brother. Please pick up your packet at the membership desk. Meeting starts in 5 minutes.";
50 END.
"The only people who become flortists are the sort of people who need to be doing a job that brings them contentment and happiness, and really like working with flowers, regardless of the low pay."
[1-800-GET-REAL]
"Have you lost your job due to outsourcing, but have millions in the bank? Press one"
"Have you lost your job due to outsourcing, and your last paycheck bounced? Press two"
"Thanks for pressing one. We have a wonderful special on the 'Oh My God! It's huge!' floral display. Only $500,000.00, and our fast and friendly 'we do it for the love. we really mean it' team will deliver this to your door...on hands and knees. We really mean it. Really!"
"Thanks for pressing two. We at Footloose and Fancy Free Florist, understand that life sucks. So we created this job just for you. Love is of course optional, and if present will not disqualify you in any way (snicker)"
I swear. New project every 6 months. Better money than permanent. Plenty of time off between contracts to spend your hard earned cash on holidays. I love it.
The one caveat is that you've got to be good, as in GOOD, 'cos you are going to generally be expected to be up and running and implementing new features on an unfamiliar product within 2 days of arrival.
Bob
Listen to my latest album here
I would think that lawyers being the butt of so many jokes would make them depressed as hell. However, I guess that the outrageous amount of money they charge makes up for that.
The Truth About Slashdot
I work on satellite systems designing software. My firend works at a bank entering data into a computer system. Another designs MMIs. Another maintains databases. Another does Unix support. AQnotehr supplies helpdesk info for computers. All these jobs are very different, so which ones belong to the term IT Specialist and which don't ?
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
Money may not equal happiness but it sure as hell makes happiness a lot easier to achieve :-)
Bah.. i hate badly presented statistics. Im always yelling at the radio/tv. Americans should have to take and pass a course in basic physics and statistics in order to be allowed a cable subscription.
---------
No matter how thin you slice it, its still baloney.
And putting up with the constant "We don't want it right, we want it now" management attitude that demands I write and ship code that hasn't been designed, that skimps on error checking because it takes time to figure out beforehand what might break, and writing/testing the code to handle it, and that I haven't had sufficient time to test in the environment they specify.
Not to mention not being told of all the user's requirements (or being told an incorrect interpretation of the requirements) which leads to "bugs" that have to be fixed by ripping out large chunks of the code and quickly slamming in new untested functions NOW because "we promised to have it fixed tomorrow."
When I first started I had so much fun you couldn't keep me away from work, I even stupidly worked incredible hours for low salary. Now, I'm independent, and if you're going to make me work those hours due to your mismanagement, you're going to pay.
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
Do you know what kind of shit people try to flush down their tiolet?
Or was down the sink drain?
After you clean out a few giant hairballs from a stuff sink or a who knows what jammed in a tiolet you will probably get annoyed.
But on the other hand plumbers are union and make good money so I'm sure they don't mind coming out to a apartment to pull some wierd shit out of a tiolet if they getting paid for it.
Cleaning bonzibuddy is nothing, if you are getting paid $50 dollars an hour to remove bonzibuddy what are you complaining about!? When some mission critical database gets hosed and the whole company is breathing down your neck to fix it when they are the same assholes who wouldn't pay for redundancy, that is what makes IT blow, taking a little sojourn out into cube land to flush out a bonzibuddy is not a big deal!
I will choose no career for life. Except maybe 'Pirate of the High Seas'. Now thats a career. Well, until I finds me a worthy vessel, I think I might try my hand at smithing for a while. I'm going to need plenty of swords, daggers, pistols, etc.. Anyway, my point is, don't think you are stuck with on career. This aint Japan 10 years ago, you can switch careers as often as you like. I was an auto mechanic 4 years ago. That got old fast. So did IT. (thats not to say programming, just programming IT)
TallGreen CMS hosting
1) You take on the burden of society's failure to instill basic virtues in children like respect, patience, discipline, etc.
6) The administration often kowtows to pushy parents - changing grades, not supporting disciplinary measures, etc.
Both my parents are school teachers and these are very serious contributions to my mother's unhappiness. Bad parenting isn't your fault as a teacher, nor is it anything that you can truly correct, but it comes back to bite you constantly. Little Mikey might be a total terror in the classroom -- biting other kids, tearing up the books that you provide out of your own pocket money for the kids to read, talking loudly and distracting other kids when they're supposed to be working, and other wild nonsense -- but if so much as look at him wrong, Mikey's Mom will be in the principle's office or the board of education screaming that you should be fired for persecuting her "little angel who never, ever acts up at home."
That and the low pay are the number one reasons that I told my parents, "NO!" when they asked me if I wanted to be a teacher when I grew up. I knew that the job stunk.
I wouldn't advocate going to back to the 1950s with [...] switches.
Oh, I would; the end of corporal punishment was the end of the American public school system in my opinion. Kids have no reason to listen to teachers because they have no real reason to fear doing wrong in the classroom. You just can't teach in an environment where kids have no reason to obey, and I credit getting a paddling every now and then with being the only thing that kept me from being a totally unbearable little snot when I was a kid. I can't imagine what it would've been like to be my teacher without some ability to keep me in line.
Now what can you do? You can't even give a kid a limp-wristed time-out without a parent screaming at you.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
If you want something hands on, you should consider being a Physician Assistant. All healthcare professionals are in demand now, especially nurses. Being a PA is like being an MD, except you must practice under the supervision of an MD.
Diagnosing health problems is similar to debugging code or diagnosing hardware problems. Going into healthcare would be a good choice for someone looking for something more hands on. Remember, you can always program as a hobby. If you want a rewarding job, healthcare is the way to go.
Also, I work in IT, and I would be extremely happy if i never EVER hear "touch base" again.
http://github.com/gbook/nidb
... and you'll see a pretty good correlation to the observed rankings.
It isn't until you get down to lawyers that the professions begin to become mired in procedural straightjackets, where what the practitioner does is dictated by a set of obsolete/seemingly unrelated set of process rules or changes in direction while the work is ongoing.
How many plumbers (hairdressers, chefs, florists, care assistants) have the "blissful" experience of having the customer (or worse yet, some third party -- say insurance companies or HMOs in the case of MDs) butt in to change direction or tell them to hurry up or I'm not gonna pay you? Just look at how bureaucratic teaching has become, with the book used, material covered (and in what order according to a fixed timetable), and pretty much every aspect of the job dictated by someone other than the teacher.
This is a function of the direction our society has taken -- away from individual craftsmen/women whose reputation is their bond, and into some Orwellian corporate nightmare where people are turned into interchangeable machines, leaving no room for the exceptional practitioner.
All too sad that this should be the case when we have the perfect media for maintaining public customer satisfaction metrics -- the web.
Two words: Office Space
I use phrases like "darn good" and "rootin' tootin'", but only when there's a darn good, rootin tootin' reason!
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
One thing that makes me unhappy is the fact that non-IT managers often give the impression that they think Information Technology skills are are "easy" and therefore essentially worthless.
At my previous employer (where I worked in marketing), I saw this all the time:
Manager: Could you add a new "flag" column to the database.
IT Guy: Ummm just spent three weeks planning the schema [context: just launched web site yesterday]...we have to take a look...
Manager: What's the problem? It should be easy! Just add the flag column, ok?
OR
Manager: We just signed a contract with vendor X. We're going to migrate all our web applications to X's servers.
IT Guy: Umm...that's a different architecture, there might be some problems.
Manager: [befuddled look] What's the problem, just copy-paste the files!
OR
Manager: I don't like our homepage layout. Could you move this [dyanmic section] over here and change the page color scheme so it looks "lighter."
IT Guy: Ok, I'm going to need a couple days to figure out how to do that [thinking: plus check with our graphic design dept].
Manager: What's the problem? Just make the changes - it should be easy!
Now I'm on the other side at a different company, I still see the same thing is happening:
Manager: How come you haven't gotten project Z done?
IT Guy: Because I'm working on project W and after that I've got project X and Y.
IT Guy: And don't forget about projects U and V.
Manager: What are you talking about? The only thing that should take you longer than 10 minutes is W!
Parting thought: I wonder how a plumber would react if you stood over them while they worked and then tried to tell them that their job was "easy."
Is it possible that one thing that could impact the rankings is the quality of home-life relative to work-life. IT workers on average are paid higher. They likely have less stressful home lives (i.e. not worrying as much about paying bills). They also have more money for non-necessities like toys and travelling.
So IT professionals may be unhappy with their work life because they are more "spoiled" and have more desire to be living their home life.
I.e., you're telling me that people don't like working in a grossly mis-managed environment.
Why was the other guy allowed to check-in something that breaks the application? Are there no test-cases? No integration tests? Now if it happens once or twice is one thing, but if it happens regularly, it's just an incompetently managed project. It's that simple.
And that goes double if untrained monkeys off the street are hired and left to wreck havoc upon the project. One of the most depressing aspects of being a programmer is seeing clueless PHB's who can't even program their VCR's clock, decide that "hey, programming is easy. Let's just hire any burger-flipper who's skimmed through some 'java for retards' booklet." Then said retard wrecks havoc upon other people's work, blames everyone else, and... nothing happens. The incompetent clod happily keeps his job, because, hey, he's cheap.
And changes? Yes, most of us can accept changes. But the questions are:
1. Is time also allocated for those changes? Or are people forced into doing 84 hour weeks just to meet someone's accepting 4 months of extra changes in a 6 month project, without also changing the deadline? Nothing gives someone more of a feeling of "my boss is incompetent, but it's _me_ who gets punished for it" than constantly being forced to do overtime because the boss is too weak to say "no".
2. Are those changes pointless blundering? Like spending 6 months changing the reports from landscape to portrait and back, because the client can't decide how he wants them? Could that stupidity have been prevented? E.g., by showing the client some mock-up first to help him make up his mind?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Make sure you stay (or become) a well rounded person. If you geek out all day for work, then go home and do that some more for fun, you'll burn out. And, you won't be as productive. And, you'll be bitter at some point. And, ultimately, someone will get tired of your bitter, humorless attitude, and throw you out on your rear-end. Then, life will suck..
Oh, and here's another big tip: Do NOT, EVER spend beyond your means. Make sure that your regular expenditures do not expand right along with your income. At some point, you'll have enough. Why spend the difference? Just save it, invest it, etc. But don't just waste it.
Why is the money angle important? Well, in the long term, it gives you options. If you decide you want to transition out of a well paying but soul destroying job, it will save you. On the other hand, if you HAVE to keep that job, then you're trapped. And, you'll FEEL trapped. And, you'll start ACTING trapped. Then, you'll be no fun to be around, and everyone will want your ass gone.
Just have some balance, that's all.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
Caveat: All of this is from my own personal perspective
When you look closely at the list of job types vs. satisfaction, and what the normal person does on a daily basis in those jobs, it becomes very apparent as to why people are dissatisfied in their current job:
Care Assistants - most of these folks enjoy dealing with people. They define the phrase "people person". Their happiness is not purchased by money but is found in the reward of helping others.
Jump to IT and other jobs with similar satisfaction levels:
Mechanics - Secretaries - IT - What do these folks have in common? For the most part, they excel at what they do. How much can a good mechanic/secretary/IT person improve your life? Quite a bit, or we wouldn't have them around. They all perform tasks that we could do ourselves fairly easily if we wanted to take the time to figure it out; however, we know that these jobs can be done BETTER by those who have training in the area.
But why are they unsatisfied? Because on a normal day, all they do is fix stuff that someone else can't/won't fix. The mechanic is always fixing what someone else broke. The IT staff is doing the same thing. Secretary - you tell me how hard it is to schedule your own meetings in some calendaring software...
When I saw that teachers were at 8% I thought that was a little high. Dealing with crap from all sides (administrators, parents, students) would give me a negative job satisfaction level without fail.
The bottom line is that people, in general, are careless and somewhat stupid. They don't take the time to realize what needs to be done on a daily basis to accommodate their sometimes ludicrous demands. As the pace of society increases we become less likely to care about the concerns of others.
And it shows.
I'm not prejudiced. I hate everyone equally.
If this is what you were doing prior to sitting at their keyboard, it's easy to see where all those germs are coming from.
Let he who is without eye crusties cast the first stone.
I would like to extend my sincere thanks for fighting the erosion of language into the cesspool where it seems all but certain to find an unfortunate resting place, where homophones are used interchangably, apostrophes are used freely, and so on.
I just might have to bitch-slap the next mouth-breather who writes "should of".
Reagan's economics advisor Paul Craig Roberts estimates the decrease of software development/design jobs in the US the last 3 years at about 17%.
During this same period, substantial numbers of aliens were "subsidized"(in the words of Nobel prize winner Milton Friedman) to take American jobs in software development and design via the H-1b/L-1 "temporary" worker programs and various immigration programs. There were something like 600,000 corporate sponsored H-1b visas alone issued-about 50% of which were in the computer industry and about half of which might fit the category Mr. Roberts is talking about-that doesn't include L-1 visa holders and folks immigrating by other means.
The total displacement of US IT workers is near 40% or as bad as unemployment ever got during the Great Depression of the 1930s.
This is clearly not a stable situation-but the current trend is temporarily maintained with the aid of hundreds of millions in campaign donations.
When not only editorial authority over "news for nerds" is taken over by the advocates of this situation, but "representative" government itself, there are good reasons for IT professionals to be "unhappy".
Seastead this.
A small sweaty room dealing with crap?
sounds like most of the meetings i'm forced to attend.
IT professionals are not exactly the most hardened worker bees I've encountered. They're usually very conscious about their unique talents and knowledge and would often consider dull repetitive work to be beneath them.
Or maybe IT really is a very stressfull sector. I wouldn't know, I've never worked outside it and have no intention to do so.
But then again, very few plumbers have to deal with users who consistently download BonziBuddy, blindly click on suspicious email attachments and use their cd trays as cupholders.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure plumbers are happy because they are dealing with other peoples shit and not with bonzibuddy problems. That really must be the reason.
Or maybe because they actually DO something obviously useful, with concrete and reasonable requirements, within a sane timeframe, charging their customers a somehow widely accepted rate, and their customers don't complain afterwards that the floo that has just been installed does not change color, talk in 20 different languages and makes their excrements softer.
How should insanity (in terms of 'not sane' or 'not sound') make you happy unless you are insane or you are being compensated with really good money?
Oh, if you are 'really happy' with you IT job, think about which of the two applies to you...
-silence
Dyslectics of the world, untie!
Could it be that six out of seven IT professionals are moody bastards that have no social skills, and believe the world owes them something because they appear to be smart?
That would be my guess.
Some people work for a living, and don't find all their meaning from that job. I can't speak for them all, but I think a lot of people who have jobs like being a hairdresser or plumber think this way. They also know exactly what's expected of them, and what their prospects are.
IT people often think of themselves as innovators and creators - but unfortunately most business/marketing types see IT people as technicians and implementers. This is especially the case when you want to program, not just dole out the work.
Most programmers are equivalent the plumber of 40 years ago. The difference is that people are smarter now and the plumbing is more complicated. Programming seems like a white collar job, but it mostly isn't. Very few of you are actually innovators or doing things that require much thought.
The first plumbers were probably very smart people compared to their fellow citizens. After awhile though plumbing techniques become routine and not very interesting. This is the state of programming right now. Sure you think it's nifty when you use OO programming, linked lists and recursion, but really it's old hat. Once you've spent a few months doing it you don't have to think much to implement these ideas in different ways. Many programmers don't even do that much - their job is look up function names for solutions other people have made and just string them together.
In some ways plumbing takes more discipline and skill than programming - there's no undo button and debugging is much harder.
Unless you're writing cutting edge AI applications or working for NASA or one of the very few companies like it, you're a glorified plumber who gets paid a lot because everyone hasn't caught up to your scheme yet. But they are catching up and soon you'll be lucky if you can make as much writing that clever PHP shopping cart system or that VB image viewer than the plumber fixing your toilet.
And that brings us to the reason IT professionals are unhappy: Ego. They're used to people telling them how smart they must be for "knowing computers" and that was further validated by having been paid more than other professions which require about the same level of expertise and intellect. This made up for tedium of their job - knowing the idiosyncrasies of one router vs another or one language vs another. Thinking you are the shit because you can memorize the 7 layers of networking, make some sense of the 2003 Internet poster you hung up in the server room or being or write a TCP packet on a piece of napkin. While it's true that you can hold the company hostage with your knowledge or simply because you have all the admin passwords - it's not as much fun without everyone telling you how great you are, your peers and your checkbook.
Another ego booster frequently used is that of the IT professional convincing themselves that it was through their unique vision of how the servers should be networked that justifies their greatness and pay scale. The people who made Microsoft and Linux software had the vision, not you. You're simply carrying out their vision. Sure Microsoft's vision may suck and Linux's vision may be a little less rigid, giving you more freedom; it all pales in comparison to creating something of your own design.
The sad truth is that we can't all be innovators. Many of us suck at it and we have to be plumbers. Though we can always fool ourselves otherwise.
Until your job gets exported, that is.
So in reality, people working in the technology field came along with the other Golgafrinchans on the B Ark... hairdressers, plumbers, telephone sanitizers, executive assistants, and florists. That's a comforting thought. 0000000000101010
I am employed at a research hut by the state government. I get low wages with little room for raises and excellent healthcare. I get to work at the plodding pace of a civil service employee; one without marketing or managers foaming at the mouth at the thought of their next dose of warm and creamy profit.
This sets up an environment where I can potentially be happy.
What makes me "happy" in my current position is that I work in a small shop: located on a State Uni Campus, we are two professors, two data clerks, and two secretaries, and me.
I handle everything computer related, buying new equipment, setting it up, fixing it, backing it up, etc.
The downside? I have to perform data-monkey tasks all of the time: do this in excel, figure out why these numbers don't match.
The upside? When I do coding, I get to use *craft*. Its quiet. Oh so quiet.
Social skills? Bah! I think of myself as "wierd" and antisocial... I also come out looking like the sanest one in the place most often.
In my office the IT staff makes up all of the men in the building. The rest are women, and the men who.......um, have more in common with women than with other men. Ahhh, fashion.
4- Interesting? Please. I hear this drivel all day long from my IT "pals".
First, its not learned helplessness. Its simply not their job to fix their computer. That would be YOUR job. And I don't give a damn why it broke.
Second, you fix a machine and that person is back to being productive again. Thus, you have been productive. If you can't get satisfaction from that, then you're missing the point of your employment. (And should you have a shred of social skills, the person you helped will probably be most grateful.)
While I'm at it, let me point out to all that deadlines are part of business. If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. Why does IT think that acting like a complete ass with co-workers helps anyone?
I'm a web developer. But I take a great deal of pride in not acting like a IT geek.
>> By replying to this post you agree that you're wrong.
Yep. Flat out wrong. Now have my computer fixed by the time I'm back from lunch. I've a deadline to meet.
You, my friend, have hit the nail squarely on the head.
When I started my current position, it was "a little bit of everything." I did scripting, server builds, maintenance, desktop support, planning, EVERYTHING. I was quite happy. Then slowly, we started "corporatizing" our environment to conform to the rest of our company...Our happy little well-run shop didn't match up, so we had to change. Now we've assigned the more interesting things (the server builds, the planning, and whatnot) to engineers at corporate headquarters, and I'm stuck... Pigeon-holed to desktop support (I installed Bonzi Buddy again!) password monkey (I can't remember the 8-character password I made up myself!) and backup tape duties (I erased my presentation from the server again!)
While I grant you, all the things I have to do are neccessary for continued operation of our business, my job was about 100 times more interesting when there was a little variety involved. I used to love my job and wanted to stay and make a career here. Now that we've been merged into a corporate behemoth and I'm prevented by rule from solving 85% of our problems, it just isn't interesting or exciting any more. I'm looking elsewhere, and will go when I find the right position.
Who did what now?
I used to work(thank you HP/Compaq merger) at a company that was a contractor for HP and at it's height employed 8 people. I was more than an IT person I was the computer person(well I had a guy that worked under me but for the first year he was just a wrench monkey) in a warehouse full of computers which were my responsibility and you know I LOVED IT. I was also responsible for the internal network and the T1 line. Probably the best job I ever had, I have a chance to work at another small company, about 35 people, if they decide to hire me I hope I can get a portion of the satisfaction I had at my previous job.
Well, I agree. So if you do, you should think things out first.
As a young, slighty-oblivious college CS major, I knew that working as a programmer would be a lot different than my first-year CS classes. So I applied for, and pushed for, a job as a student web developer in our library's IT department. Even though I just started the job about a month ago, I can tell it was a very good decision. I've had the opportunity so get a "sneak-peek", if you will, of what I'm getting myself into. I've very quickly learned the horrors of content management (Vignette, if you must know, universally hated by everyone in the department) and how quickly nice formatting and such fades away when you're throwing together ASP pages in vbscript(makes me feel vaguely dirty).
I have learned how much I have to learn. CS 120 and 121 weren't challenges, but trying to make a database for the library's staff directory that can be accessed two different ways, and still allow all the crazy little things that happen to pages when your only contraint is HTML is. I knew, intellectually, that I had much, much more to learn, but when I see men working at code that makes me do a double-take, I realize what I still need to learn. And it's given me a desire and a motivation to push forward and ahead more than sitting through 100-level classes could ever do, even though I'm not doing anything glamorous or ground-breaking or well-paid.
Maybe the worst thing to do with something you love is doing it for a living, but that's why I'd like to try it out first. For those without IT experience thinking of majoring in CS, I highly reccommend that you try to find someplace where you can "try before you buy", or possibly "try while you're still in the first year of buying." It may be a good or bad experience, but it should definitely give you a feel if this is what you really want to do with your life.
I am not one of the "very" happys... not even one of the "happy"s.
I love IT. I love technology. I am a geek and a coder through and through.
However, the market is soo competitve that it puts more stresses on me than I would have in other professions.
Stresses include ever changing technology, poor marketplace (current down turn), offshore outsourcing, animosity of management, demanding users, rapidly falling prices,etc etc
These stresses taken a few at a time would probably INCREASE my happiness (ie challenge etc)... but having to battle all of them at once have quite honestly makes me a spend more and more time working to stay competitive and less time doing things outside of IT that also make me happy.
In the past year work stresses have brought me into my first bought with depression in my life.
(Unscrews fresh bottle of Rye) I'm not unhappy!
(Slugs from bottle) Nop.
(Pops lid off Morphine Sulphate bottle)
Everything is all right. Yip.
(Drop a few 100mg tablets)
All good, IT rocks man!
(Takes shotgun down from the shelf).
KABOOM.
Bill! Bill! Are you o.k.? Bill?! OMG!
I've been in IT for almost 16 years, since right after high school.
At first, it was all new and exciting. The BBS scene was in full swing, Unix was Unix and it ran on big systems, and the World Wide Web loomed on the horizon.
Then, it was cutting edge and exciting. Working with SGIs and SPARCs was great. Building clusters was starting to be the big thing and I designed and built my share. These were the consulting days, when IT people were starting to make big bucks. Job satisfaction was high.
At some point, the job became work. The work was steady, paid well, and was occassionally fun. These were the post-Y2K days. There was a lot going on, Y2K had turned out to be a non-issue, and IT moved steadily ahead.
Finally, work has become work. It has become tedious and uninteresting. Ownership no longer wants to spend money on the systems. The IT staff is almost non-existant. Long hours with no recognition, substandard pay, and trying to manage the unrealistic expectations of management and users have all taken their toll.
On the other hand, I have a job. There is food on the table and my children have clothes to wear. We even get to take in a show occasionally. I think this is what's called a rut...
Anecdotes aside, I think the OP is correct. I worked at a Dunkin Donuts, and while there were one or two customers that were way out of line, for the most part there was nothing that we couldn't do for the customer. The fact that you only have a few examples after 'putting yourself through college' at a 7-11 shows this. If you had worked at a helpdesk, you would probably have had hundreds of tales.
Another job I worked was helpdesk/tech support for my uni's dorm networking. I really only worked there for about 8 months, and on just about any day you could go through the active tickets and come up with a gem. One I recall vividly, "User claims room does not have electricity outlets." Mind you, this isn't a networking problem, but when I called back, the user told me, "Yeah.. we.... found them.." Several times, I went all the way out to a user's place only to find out that something was unplugged (and, yes, I always asked them to check while on the phone). They were lucky that dorm support comes for free.
The solution to "Get me a large with milk and sugar" is easy and routine. The solution to "get me on the internet" isn't always easy and routine, and this is how helpdesk is different from more traditional service jobs.
Hrm, what's the worst that could happen?
1. Care Assistants -- Someone dies on you. Odd #1.
2. Hairdressers -- Bad hair day.
3. Plumbers -- Septic tank backs up.
4. Chefs -- Deflated mousse.
5. Florists -- Thorn between the eyes. (Hey, it could happen!)
6. Engineers -- No sex, ever.
7. Lawyers -- One day that Shakespearean saying comes true.
8. Mechanics -- Women learn how cars work.
9. IT Specialists -- See Engineers.
10. Scientists/R&D -- Hulk finds out your really his dad.
11. Secretaries / receptionists -- Engineers/IT professionals become so mad about never getting any they write a small shell script to replace you.
12. Butchers -- Slicer accident gone horrably horrably wrong.
13. Builders -- Figure out how to build stuff without Architects.
14. Teachers -- Kids start bringing guns to school. (Doh!)
15. Architects -- Figure out how to build stuff without Builders.
16. Electricians -- Forget to put one hand in pocket.
17. Accountants -- Most exciting thing that happens all day is the trip to the supply room.
18. Pharmacists -- Who cares, we got all these killer pills!
19. Media -- Public wakes up and realizes we are all a bunch of whores.
20. Estate agents -- The Johnson house really was haunted and the ghost is now moving into your office.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
The university I went to got it right I think.
Their degrees in "IT" were split over two departments. One was the programing side: C, C++, pascal unix etc. Projects included the down and dirty of imaging, security, database structures, binary tress, building a simple computer etc.
The other department dealt with the layer between the above group and clients: IE Requirements analysis, project management, modeling, high level languages like VB, Java, PHP, dynamic web pages.
I have read in this thread that most can't deal with the 'real world' of clients.
Using this universities structure in an ideal:
- One 'manages' the project (but is not above the programmer) and lisases between programmer and client. Manages client feature creep problems, Mock ups of interfaces etc etc.
- The other does the coding, builds the database to the model. Liases with the designer.
I know this sounds basic, but if you allow someone very proficient in C, pascal etc to come in contact with clients, then something is going to give.
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
fp! w00t!
People seem to be oversimplifying things here by claiming IT people are nerds and nerds are unhappy, IT is heavily stressful because geeks are maladapted to social stress and that many IT professionals got into IT for the money alone.
,but in the end I enjoyed it because it was exactly what I expected might happen and I was OK with that fact.
In the end I think most people are not very happy in our culture and IT is no exception. Also most people don't honestly deal well with others even if they are good at putting up a facade. I have met very few people who actually love their job, dealing with their coworkers and their bosses. Some people are satisfied professionally, but on average people have an average level of happiness.
I think a major source of this unhappiness is that people more often than not have expectations about themselves and their professions that are initially not representative of reality. Some jobs are misrepresented in popular opinion while others are well understood.
The plumbers for example are known for doing work that many find unpleasant, no one pretends the pay is amazing compared to the work or that it is a get rich quick scheme; this scares away people who are completely and utterly unfit for the job.
An analogous situation is college. Look at what people major in, at first everyone in my school was either pre-med, some sort of engineering or a computer science major. By the end of freshman year quite of few of those people find themselves in business or psychology BA programs.
The same thing happens in the world of work and the higher the possible benefits the more people are willing to suffer through (while bitching and moaning) before giving up.
A fine IRL example of this is when I was a teaching assistant for a professor. Most TAs didn't show up for their office hours and gave lectures that no one wanted to attend. I on the other hand never missed my office hours and my students sometimes brought friends from other lectures to my sessions. The reason is simple: I assumed I would have to work, I didn't expect a free ride and I was ok with people being who they are. I kept this in mind and tried to meet their needs.
I had to help people fix accounts they couldn't log into, explain a for loop for the 10^6th time and find a huge influx of people always showed up around midterms and finals
I apologize if I am being a bit stoic but I think a little stoic philosophy can be helpful when you are dealing with humans.
Four days ago. http://technicallyincorrect.org
I imagine if I thought I was going to have my job outsourced to Mumbai, India, at any moment, I'd be pretty unhappy too. Hell, I'm pretty unhappy about the issue myself, and I'm not even an IT professional.
IT happiness equals
1. Coffee - preferably a steady stream of it
2. Hardware that doesn't crash every time you touch it
3. Users with a modicum of appreciation for the effort you put in for them.
4. Some loot to buy the medication you need to make it through the next week.
For several years, I was either the IT guy or part of the IT department for both a large corporation and a small company. My highest salary was in 1999 during the first of those two jobs.
And let me tell you, I was fucking MISERABLE. I didn't care how much I got paid. IT support is a nightmare. Why? Because day in and day out, you are dealing with people who just DO NOT UNDERSTAND COMPUTERS! You try to explain to the over and over what NOT to do and they still do it. They have no clue how to solve their own problems so it's up to you to do it ad nauseum.
The first company I worked for published a few trade magazines. There was one editor, who had been there for YEARS, who couldn't figure out how to do such simple things as set margins in MS Word. And, mind you, most of these people used Macs, too!
IT jobs are, for the most part, very thankless and are a sure way to slowly make you hate humanity because you figured out how to set up, fix and use computers pretty easily, yet it's impossible for anyone else. It burns away your soul.
To make matters worse, you ALWAYS have a higher up that has no goddamn clue about technology, yet they rule your life and implement stupid policies that make your life and your job that much more difficult. I've been there. The VP of Tech at my last company didn't know the difference between a USB and ethernet hub and was convinced it only took 10 minutes to build an NT server.
So, now I'm a newspaper reporter making absolutely no money, but a hell of a lot happier. To make extra cash, I do home tech support for $75/hour.
I've had this discussion around the water cooler, and with friends, lots of times. If my IT job is very male-dominated, where are all the ladies at? From this, I got some advice.
;)
;) (i know it's hard! i still play one of the nerdiest games ever, Angband... which my g/f affectionately calls "gangbang" as in "Stop playing gangbang!!")
Find a friend who is dating someone in a service industry, or in nursing, or in publishing, or in marketing. Then, try to meet as many of that woman's friends as you can. I have gotten lots of dates this way. My current g/f is the classic funny, intelligent, "hottie marketing chick"... very geek-compatible (thank goodness). she doesn't program, but she can google with the best of 'em
Office romances are, of course, not recommended anyway, so you're actually way better off this way if you go the friends-of-friends route. Just requires a bit of social investment and tearing yourself away from UT2004 or bash scripting for a bit...
I think the most difficult thing for me is that I don't do software engineering. I'm a zombie scrambling to meet short deadlines who ends up skimping on design and documentation and produces a half and half product--a half crap/half mediocre. To the uninitiated my code appears well designed, but I know the truth. In my world, quality is a thin veneer covering up the graves of many skeletons.
So when my code goes live, I spend a few weeks going crazy fixing all the bugs. I have the darkened eyes and balding patch to prove it.
After several years of this, I've grown to resent development. These days, I find it difficult to get interested in a project because I know it'll just be another round of the same-old-same-old.
I will switch careers some day, when I can figure out what I want to do. I know whatever it turns out to be, it'll be a job that produces something from nothing, instead of producing nothing from nothing.
And now we know, and knowing is half the battle...
That's right. All your base.
IT guys may be unhappy, but the people who have to work with them are even unhappier. Their attitudes are utterly alien to anything else in business. Even marketing drones have firmer grasps on reality.
I am a software developer, but I am not in "IT". My company has a firm division between the people who write the software that goes into the products we sell, and the people who manage the network, databases, and computer infrastructure. When I refer to "IT", I am referring to the latter division, though I realize that there is considerable overlap between the two in most other companies.
Case in point. The IT guy in charge of maintaining the SAP database on Solaris sent me an email saying that he knows nothing about Unix, is unwilling to learn shell scripting, and requesting that I change one of our product's requirements so that he doesn't have to do any extra work.
This staggers my mind. We must seemingly be inhabiting two different realities. He's running a major piece of software on Solaris but doesn't know Unix. He's maintaining a database but can't write a shell script. And in the midst of a major hemorrage to Bangalore from both of our departments, is unwilling to improve his technical skills. He wants me to do his job for him!
This is only one example. I surely hope other companies aren't as screwed up in the IT department as we are. But talking with friends at other companies, some of whom are in IT, I fear that my company is not all that unusual.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
the six people who hate being in IT leave? I am that 1 in 7 who loves doing IT work and have seen enough people who are techinically illiterate (sp?) or don't give a poop about people who need thier help, to make me pull out my hair (although now a days, thanks to genetics, this is an ever decreasing ability) these people are in IT because of the good money, then sit and complain about their job or don't know what the heck they are talking about.... I have about 10 friends who are very technical who would excel in these jobs and love doing it, if you are one of those 6 "others" please feel free to leave.
"Add in a mortgage, wife and kids and you aren't going anywhere. it's the trap of middle/upper class. You lock yourself into a lifestyle that requires you continue to spend more and more time in the office and enjoy it less and less."
Well outsourcing will take care of that problem.
outsourcing...
dll hell...
end users...
sales departments promising the world tomorrow...
driver imcompatibilities...
OS bugs...
unpaid overtime...
no recongition for an actual accomplishment...
3rd party stuff that doesnt work...
need I say more?
Well at least that's one job that ain't outsourced to India.
Last time I saw someone take a dump in the streets here... can't actually recall ever seeing a turd floating down the street here.
Yes, but Bushs's Guestworker program will bring the joys of H-1b to the entire population. It is really very simple, the jobs left for Americans are equal to existing jobs, plus jobs growth minus immigration and outsourcing. Now, Bush wants to claim that his wonderful trade policies are going to create lots of jobs any day now-never mind the $500 Billion/year trade deficits. Still even if there were not deficits and outsourcing ceased, a bad immigration policy (i.e. skills based visas in job areas with flat job growth) will reduce wages markedly over time. Outsourcing is really minor by comparison in its effect compared to immigration policy(or lack thereof).
"People are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." -- Abraham Lincoln
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
...in serving clueless end users. The more clueless the better.
I also like to bang my head against brick walls until I see stars.
sig mind freed
I signed up to be part of the IT underground. Taking tech support calls in the basement is not what I had in mind.
Seeing that I can actually understand this guys point of view, I'm going to have to support or at least question if "the lazy guy" is really that lazy?
Have you looked at it from his perspective?
There's could be many reasons why he's come back to you with that response.
Is he overworked / very busy - does he have time to learn this things in order to support your project?
Has his manager aproved this project, what's the process of getting this guy to do work? - is this one of those companies that just continually shovels stuff to certain IT groups and expects them to figure it out without any support / resources etc?
You did say he's job is to "maintain the SAP database on Solaris" perhaps that's precisely what he's doing (I know our DBA's have basic unix knowledge but they rely on a unix team for the rest)
I could go on and on with reasons why he is saying no, but in the long run he probably is lazy yes.
I normally find attitudes like his actually boil down to bad companies.
I personally would love to work in a company where the IT team has a decent budget, respectable managers - an understanding across the entire business of how long some things take etc.
That same guy in the right company with the right pay / incentives / structure and mentality of managers / other IT staff may be far more inclined to pick up those things in his spare time if he enjoyed his job more or even had the time / resources / rewards / thanks / something from others to make it happen.
I'd REALLY love a job where if someone comes with me to a strange / new request that I'd have time to research it possibly acheive it for them.
This is only possible (IMHO) with systems that are (mostly) reliable and an IT team which is more about supporting / helping / advising the users with their requests and needs, RATHER than fixing problems with ongoing issues / problems / gripes etc (I happen to be in the latter unfortunately)
(also, over management of IT is a burden - the amount of silly forms and paperwork we have to do in order to create or delete a user on our systems is atrocious)
So ultimately - I might just be another bitter lazy support guy supporting this lazy SAP fellow, but I can certainly understand why someone would feel inclined to not want to "take on more shit"
100% of gynacologists love their job too
100% of presidents love their job as well
0% of custom duties rectal examiners like their job.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
the next big thing seems to be bio tech.
You can't exactly 'jump' into bio tech, which means those of us who enjoy programming still will have to compete with the idiots that jump into it for the money.
If I hear one more person complain about their job while I'm unemployed, I may just scream.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Does anyone see Windows 386? I have a copy of this OS still in the box with the manuals. I dont see it listed anywhere.
This totally explains Bill Gates hair cut.
He sits down, gives them some directions which makes little sense to the stylist, and then give them a deadline of about 15 seonds.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I'm a happy guy. See this? This is a happy face. You *all*..would be lucky to be as happy as I am..
:o)
Is he overworked / very busy - does he have time to learn this things in order to support your project?
Yes, he is overworked and very busy. But so am I. When someone slaps a new project on my desk to do, I grumble and bitch and then do it. What else can I do? The days of the dot.com are over. We have lost our perks. We do not have the luxury of saying "I don't have the bandwidth to do it." If all the other departments can cope with overwork, why can't IT?
I fully empathize with the guy. He probably knows more about SAP than I will ever know about sh or C. But it's his attitude that irks me. Completing it should take a halfway competent scripter about three hours to do. He already knows csh, so he should be able to pick up sh in about another three hours. Heck, he could use Perl instead! Or ignore my advice and stick with csh and make it work.
In short, this guy is a professional, and he needs to act like it. Especially when our company outsources to India everytime the stock price drops a millicent. Speaking of which, I need to get off of Slashdot because the boss is roaming the halls...
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
For a deadline in January, I literally did two months of solid work in two weeks.
And then I could hardly get anything done for the next month and a half. Total work done in two months: two months.
I've done the same thing a few times before - it's not coincidence. Whatever you draw from your reserves, you've got to put back sometime.
I've been doing tech support for 25 years and I am still having fun. I'm not unhappy at all. Hell, I'm damned good at my job and as a result only "work" 1 hour a day. The rest of my "work day" is spent surfing and exploring IT web sites (and having too many cigarette breaks).
Then again, I support 400 Mac OSX workstations, while my Windoze counterpart supports only 150 workstations but is slaving his ass off. I hope they don't catch on that I have an MCSE and actually expect me to work on that bastardized platform.
I've been in and out and around IT since 1968, when my dad brought home some coding sheets and helped me write my first program in FORTRAN. Did the computer club thing in high school. Helped run a BBS on an Imsai Z-80 with lots of blinking lights and 8" floppy drives. Tied paper-tape infinite loops to the bumpers of instructors' cars. Assembled hardware with the help of the other geeks in my D&D group.
Fought tooth and nail to get into an MCSE training program. Actually got a paid gig in the industry.
Now, seven years later, I'm languishing in the basement of an aging school, staring at broken floppy disks and Win98 install screens, and grinding my teeth as I read another asinine memo from the director of IT.
It's only money that keeps me from walking away and never coming back. The thrill is gone.
In Canada, our hours are lower, our deficit is a _surplus_, our debt is much lower as % of GDP, we have a fast-growing economy, and we're creating almost as many jobs as the US (despite having 11% the number of workers to fill them).
So, what's your theory? Some of us _like_ having lives as well as productive jobs, and the two are very much not mutually exclusive.
Oh, and - by the way - look at the facts yourself. The USA has the _highest_ deficit (%GDP) among all the major economies, with the sole exception of Japan - see http://www.2ontario.com/welcome/cosg_203.asp, among others. So feel free to fix yourself a nice, steaming cup of STFU.
Obviously you're not including all the US IT jobs that have recently moved to India...
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
- 8.7M unemployed (no job, looking)
m pl oy122903a.html
- 1.5M "discouraged" (no job, not looking)
- 4.9M underemployed (part-time, want full-time)
Total can't-find-job rate: 9.7%
http://www.jobbankusa.com/News/Unemployment/une
(France, Germany, Italy, and Spain are all still higher, though.)
I have a friend that's had the pleasure of working at a CVS and had to deal with crap like panhandlers refusing to leave the store... actually inside the store aggressively asking customers for money... then making death threats when removed...
lots of other examples, that was probably one of the worst though...
I have done IT support for 2 years and havent liked it either (straight up help desk, supporting ~600 computers, the network, imaging, ferrying equipment where its needed etc etc) and looking back the job wasnt too bad, but while i was really good at fixing the weird problems, all the paper filing and standard annoyance still have an effect... and you never leave work, they can call you back whenever, and at home you're trying to figure out what was left over from last night...
Case in point. The IT guy in charge of maintaining the SAP database on Solaris sent me an email saying that he knows nothing about Unix, is unwilling to learn shell scripting, and requesting that I change one of our product's requirements so that he doesn't have to do any extra work.
Here's a different thing to think about-- is the script that you want him to write going to be part of the shipping product? If it is, then what he's being asked to do is develop a part of the product and therefore is crossing the 'firm division' between your two groups. If what he's being asked to write is something that all of your customers are also going to have to write in order to successfully use your product, then maybe a reevaluation of the Marketing Requirements is in order.
Do all of your customers (or targetted customers) for this product have SAP installations run by competent unix admins?
The group that I manage admins the unix machines for our developers-- any time they request changes to how our machines are configured (to make their lives easier), they are always reminded that our customers will end up having to make those same changes, which means that the developers will have to explain those changes in a product readme.
They usually decide that it's in the customer's interest for the programmer to do the work (and make things easy for the customer)
Then maybe some of us unemployed U.S.A. IT professionals could find a job.
If things get better with age, then I am approaching magnificence.
they would ever need! hmm...
Ya..us IT people make very good money..especially developers, system admins/engineers and network/telecom guru's.
However, I can tell you first hand that the money != happiness.
My career focus has focused on frontline web development for the last 4 - 6 years. That means I spend about 80% of my time developing system that get deployed to the world outside out company, yipee (not)! I've had the same job for nearly 4 years. The salary is great! They even let me work from home 2 days a week.
Dream Job?
Hell no! It's boring, banal, unimaginative and needlessly stressful.
It doesn't matter if I'm using ASP.NET backed by SQL Server or PHP and MySQL...I end up building shitty web-to-database forms to collect answers to retarded questions, and flush it over to sales lead managment systems..and I get paid top dollar for it, and its miserable.
When a serious project comes along, the company allows no time for design, no QA, and the executives and directors that know nothing about pick unrealistic project deadlines before they even bother to ask how the technology can help them meet the goals. The result....every major project a sting of 12 hour work days and 7 day work weeks....and this will ALWAYS happen November through January and July through August....always...fuck your summer and fuck your family over traditional holidays...you have to work..but you are paid top dollar for it..and miserable for it.
Oh ya..if you take vacation, and you will get called with a problem. Problems that never seem to happen when you are parked at your desk the week before.
The work environment is mentally and physically unhealthy. Despite my best attempts to remain physiclly active, I have become stressed all the time, I have trouble sleeping and have gained about 20 lbs since the start of this job. I'm sure this sounds familiar.
Well.. can't take the corporate culture anymore, so I quit my job and I never want to go back to a big public company ever again..just a few more weeks of this shit left.
Soon, I'll be working part time for a couple very small companies that is within walking distance from my house. I've built up working relationships with these companies over the past few months, and they like me and I like them. I've given them enterprise quality software that they probably never would have been able to afford, and in return they let me be there one or two days a week to do my thing and give me no headaches.
Yes, I'll be making less money, but I'll be able to get back to jogging, working out and getting strong like I used to be, enjoying my girlfriend who has stayed with me this entire time..and most of all getting to know what Happiness is once more.
http://loudcity.net - Keeping Internet Radio Legal, Afford
artist. You're a hack.
Code as art is NOT obfuscated.
their VERY best.
Scariest f'n phrase I ever heard my mother
utter as a child.
The majority of the problems people complain about
in the programming world
are due to the oppressive steamroller called
Mediocrity.
Welcome to present day America.
VERY lame. Yes.
You should try LIving in this Spoon-Fed TV-enslaved western culture WITHOUT watching
their tv.
Wow. Pretty Surreal, actually.
This script will only be used in-house in order to provide our customer service personnel with maintenance passwords. This is for an embedded system that customers will not have login access to, but which our support people will need. The SAP database has nothing to do with it, other than the fact that customer service uses SAP a lot, so this might just be the normal IT guy assigned to support customer service.
You make good points, but they're coming from wrong assumptions.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Did anyone bother to check the facts? Don't just read the disturbingly uncritical ZDnet article that parrots everything they were told, dig deeper and read the press release it links to. Take note that "The City and Guilds of London Institute" is "the leading provider of vocational qualifications in the United Kingdom." They've obviously spin-doctored the numbers because they want vocational occupations to look better than professional ones.
This bogus "happiness index" only ranks the percentage of people who said they were "very happy", but look at their definition in the fine print of the footnotes: "Very happy constitutes those who rated their level of happiness as 10 out of 10. Respondents were asked to grade their level of happiness on a scale of 1-10 with 1 being very unhappy and 10 being very happy" The people who responded with a 9 probaby thought of themselves as "very happy", yet with this spin applied, they would seem to be unhappy, wouldn't they, since only 14% of IT specialists are "very happy" (10 of 10). However, elsewhere in the press release, it suggests that only 10% of IT workers are "unhappy" (1-3 of 10), which leaves 76% unaccounted for in the 4-9 range. What if most of those were 8-9? Would we still be talking about "The Unhappy World of IT Professionals"?
Without the raw data, this study is almost worthless. We don't even know the average rating for each category -- maybe IT workers are happier on average than florists, even if more florists are willing to rank their happiness at 10 of 10. Maybe IT workers are more reluctant to give the maximum score, realizing that there's always room for improvement. Does that mean most IT workers are unhappy?
People have been jumping to conclusions based on a biased study spun to favor vocational workers. Time for a reality check.
Deven
"Simple things should be simple, and complex things should be possible." - Alan Kay
For your buddy or whoever is interested. I was one of these unhappy IT'ers. I quit 3 years ago and am now flying the CH-47 Chinook Helicopter for the Army. Below is a link to the program, you can sign up as a civilian and are guaranteed a slot a flight school. Feel free to email me with any questions......plus, being an ex-programmer in the Army is ultracool because they are starved for quality IT ppl.
WO FLIGHT PROGRAM
Edward (and yes, I actually will see your mail if you send it to slashdotspam@stardotstar.org)
there are 2 kinds of people. those who divide people into 2 kinds, and those who don't.
Hi,
Out of curiousity, how much is that? 100k p.a? 150k p.a?
I'm in the same boat and looking at going back to school. I've accepted that there possibly will never be a job I love that pays well too. So I'm buying the hair-spray and going for the money.
Regards
I've lived in many TV-enslaved cultures, and avoided participating in the feast that its Television.
... Television is a cultural crime, in my opinion.
You are right, it is actually pretty surreal
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Hey ass clown, read my post! Last I checked Canada was NOT in Europe. I did not mention Canada, I was talking about Europe, as in over the ocean...in Europe. If you get your head out of your ass long enough to look at a map, maybe you'll see what I mean. I'll be passing that nice steam cup of STFU your way.
Liberalism...the next best thing to thinking.
The amount of 'Craft' you can put into a piece of code, and the amount of systematic analysis systematic engineering really depends on what you are writing.
I've done engineering on process control instrumentation for heart implants, and we had really tight processes, repeated design reviews, and everything was taken very carefully. For that it was pretty important, since getting it wrong would have caused people to die.
I've friends who write games software, and other non-critical stuff, and their enviroments are much less controlled. It doesn't need to be, as the consequences are much less dire.
There's your mistake. Users are embarrassed to admit a simple error like that, so they deny it. Asking them to unplug it and then plug it in again might have worked better.
My dad was a plumber. I'm sure he had to pull one or of those from a couple of toilets... with his bare hands.
Parent is click my links troll. Mod him down.