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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.
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,
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."
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....
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
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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."
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.
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
I have job security because i work for state government (state government don't lay off employees)
Aaah, that's just simply not right...
This again only underscores that government employees are not motivated to perform, because they can rely on their "job security".
One would hope that the government would strive to become better through becoming more efficient, and more productive.
If you are not dealing with extremely confidential information (such as national secrets), there is no reason to keep a policy that guarantees you job safety within the state government.
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.
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?
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.
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
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.
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
You have all the responsibility, but none of the authority.
Farm workers are exempt from overtime? My god... I'd much rather be an overworked IT guy than an overworked farmhand.
How do you end up working 12-14 hour days? Are you just doing support and fixing mission-critical servers? It seems that if you are doing new projects, you might benefit from giving your bosses reasonable estimates based on 8 hour days. If they don't think it's fast enough, ask 'em to hire an assistant for you.
I dunno. I just don't understand unpaid overtime. If I stay late, I take some time off next week. I never work more than 8 hours a day when averaged out. Why is it so hard?
Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so. --Ford Prefect
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 |
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.
Too true. I'd wager that one in three hairdressers wouldn't be happy if people got a new hairdo then ten minutes later found gum on the sidewalk and mashed it into their hair, then came back and complained because their 'do was messed up.
Would florists be happy if people kept coming back and complaining that all their new plants had died (from not watering or feeding them, and keeping them in dark rooms), and that the florist had sold them crappy plants? I doubt it.
If people played with their plumbing without turning off the water, and the plumber had to fix it for free, or if they put tabasco sauce and steak spice and a half shaker of salt on their jello and the chef had to replace it.
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). If IT services were contracted out and cost $50/hr, you can bet people would start being more careful about downloading shit onto their computer after a few hundred dollars.
--Dan
Now, how does your theory apply there?
sPh
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
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!
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.
Never work for a software development company. Try to impose that stuff, and you would be lucky to escape the building with your life. No installing applications? Great...no testing.
I find that kind of policy generally stupid anyways. Perhaps I would impose it for people like secretaries, but there are PLENTY of good reasons to let people install any software they want. If you implemented that kind of policy and somebody wanted to install a piece of software, what would you do? Install it for them? What if people wanted new software installed five times a day. Guess what...while they're waiting for you to arrive they're going to get annoyed. When you do arrive, guess who they'll take it out on. You, of course. So now you're back to the same situation as before, except now even the people that know what they're doing are mad at you.
No, sorry. That policy is OK sometimes, but it is stupid to think it should be universal.
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."
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".
I don't know about anyone else, but I see jobs like Hairdresser and Florist and Care Assistant and think about the "thicky" girls of my youth whose most lofty ambition was to get married and have children.
Maybe they're just happy because they're too stupid to realise they're not...
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.
I said it to my girlfriend and she didn't get it, Maybe you people around here will understand.
I LOVE my CAREER, I HATE my JOB
by that I mean I love doing what I have chosen to do for my life, I just hate working at the current place of employment. That has all changed now that I was laid off, spent 10 months goofing off, traveling, testing the waters elsewhere(photography), and I am now back with a better place and love both my career and my job
moo.
Okay, most of this seems to make sense, but why are plumbers relatively more happy than electricians?
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
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.
FWIW, I'm assuming you entered this field by your own volition. I don't know who promised you a day full of fun and games, but there's a reason it's called "work." When you work in a support role, you are a member of a service industry. Think about this for a minute. How many IT support personnel have you heard complain about the customer support at Dell, Compaq, (insert vendor name here)... saying that they were unhelpful and should never have a service-type job because they can't deal with their customers? Well guess what? As support personnel, WE too must provide service to our customers, whether they are company employees, or outside clients. People who whine about having to help their users with ridiculously inane "problems" give the rest of us a bad name. I know that most end-users are stupid, but it's our job to make them not feel stupid. If they understood the technology as we do, then we wouldn't have jobs. It's their job to process invoices, generate purchase orders (insert function here)... it's OUR job to help them utilize the business tools that our companies provide. If you want the company to implement computer proficiency testing during the screening process, consider the cost that will be added to employee acquisition. That cost will be reflected the next time you're due for a raise. I too get annoyed when my lunch is disrupted for something that is meaningless to me, however, it may not be meaningless to the user. If you don't want to be pestered while having your lunch, what you need to do is to communicate with your users. Establish clear guidelines for when and what you cannot be contacted. Most users will be very understanding if you put it into terms that are dear to them: "You wouldn't want me to interrupt your lunch to ask you the status of an invoice, so it's only fair that you not interrupt my lunch for a non-emergency situation." If you're not the "communicating" type, you might want to consider another career path. You will never be happy doing this.
Well the top jobs are more feel good jobs. Or jobs that their customers easily understand. So their customers and mangagement are not giving them a hard time because of price and what it takes to do their job, because they have a basic idea on what they are paying for and the value of it. While going down to IT Scientist and down. There are jobs that people tend to underestimate and wonder why they are paying so much for their service so the workers have to always work extra hard to show the value of their work and also have to deal with increase amount of politics, for a gruging check from the customer. Unlike a Hairdresser who is happy to pay for their service for a good haircut plus a Tip. While a IT specilist will if he is lucky get what he charges for, with a frowning person seeing the pain while writting the check because they dont truly know what they are paying for.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
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.
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
then IT professionals have to fix it (for free every time, because they're on contract)
I don't get it; is it done for free or does is the IT person(s) paid a blanket fee to cover all incidents?
In the case of an internal department doing it for 'free' this is bad internal accounting. The IT department should bill its customers for time even if this is all internal paperwork where no real cash changes hands. The IT department's budget becomes paid by other departments who get paid by external customers.
If you love something, the last thing you want to try to do is do it for a living.
That's funny, because it's the opposite of what my father always said. He' a pilot, and has been for forty plus years. He's flown fighters (back when they were real fighters), helicopters, and commercial planes of all sizes. He may not have liked every minute of his work, but he's always considered himself reasonably happy and looks back on his life with no regrets about his choice of career.
I used to call it the "subjective pay" concept. If I walk into work and walk out twelve hours later feeling like only six passed by because I was having a good time at it, I made more per (subjective) hour than if I worked only eight hours but watched the clock for twelve of that.
Put identity in the browser.
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
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
Horrors - you mean I can't make $90K/year playing in my digital sandbox?
Don't get me wrong, it is important to stay current and do appropriate design work up front to identify appropriate technology for a project, but tossing new elements into your build because they are new is trolling for trouble. If you want to implement some new or emerging technology be prepared to do your homework on your own time or find an organization that is willing to accept the risk to their schedule and budget for the R&D.
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
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+
What I wanted to point out is that my job where I sit in front of a screen all day has become boring. And that it's possible that I would be happier in a more hands-on job, like the post I replied to describes. I guess I could try applying for a support job here to lay cabling and setup servers. But the Ops guys look like they're working a lot harder and longer then me, and for about the same wages. So I think I'll stay here for now.
But you are right. Corporations don't want free-thinkers. They want fast and easy systems that they put up with little thinking needed by the programmer. I know, because I'm working on putting one of those systems in. They call it PeopleSoft. I call it a quick and dirty solution that will only need mind-numbing table edits and the minor Peoplecode updates. Constant mind-numbing table edits and Peoplecode updates. Just like the old Synon system...
I'd like to try going back to "craft" programming, as you called it. It's like what I did in college. At that time, everything was new. We were throwing anything we could think of together, an be amazed when it worked. And some of it worked really well. The final project was some of the most fun I've had as a programmer. About the only thing the advisor did was make sure we were on track to make the deadline. Other then that, we were free to code whatever we wanted, however we wanted. He didn't care how we did it, as long as it worked and was on time. I miss that. Now most of my work is nicely pre-packaged for me, spelled out how to do it. Except for when it isn't, and you have to hunt down the person who made the documentation to figure out what they meant, which may take a few days, but are still expected to follow the documentation exactly and deliver on time. Nobody ever does, but it's still expected.
So I'm still left with the same question that I need to ask myself. Should I start looking at different line of work, doing more physical hands-on work? Or should I continue in this field, and look for a job that's more free and creative? It's just something I have to work through myself. But it's still relieving to vent to complete strangers and know that I'm not the only one...
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...
whoa............
dude
Just chill, man.
I'm certainly not a big advocate of this, but I think you need to get high...badly!
How could I say to men: "Speak louder, shout! For I am deaf!"? -Ludwig van Beethoven
"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.
Serious question...what should we do about it? How do we create a system that doesn't create a bunch of rat race burn outs?
Wow, I'm in the exact opposite position, I do photography but mainly the technical portion of it, (Digital Asset Management, Color Management, Photoshop, Shooting and etc.) and have always loved working with computers, whether building, networking or what not. I'd be interested in starting a career possibly in IT but not sure if it's worth the hassles I read about.
Having "standards" and "accountability" do not a "code monkey" make. There's no conspiracy to deprive programmers of their art here, although people can certainly abuse the hell out of what are otherwise good practices. If you're in the field purely for the craft, perhaps it would be best to work for yourself.
Working with organizations requires the practices you so despise because of the many types of people that you must effectively communicate with. This is one of the reasons there is a certain disdain for programmers--they insist on being somewhat schitzoid, shying away from working with other people. I have heard this at EVERY interview I've had for fifteen years--"we hired you over the other candidates largely because you have social skills and can speak plain_fscking_English, which we hardly ever find in programmers." If you left or died, would someone else be able to continue your work or would it be more efficient to just start over? It's almost impossible to continue the work of an "artist." You can hardly fault anyone for encouraging practices that make continuity possible over mere aesthetic appreciation for the beautiful enigmas left by some mad scientist.
I think that is kind of odd that 40% of "care assistants" are very happy. If that includes nursing (RN, LPN, etc.) then I have to wonder what is going on because it seems most of the ones I know endure a terrific amount of stress and poorer management than nearly any other field I know about. It could be a regional thing.
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.
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
Simple rules of thumb.
The smallest unit of code that is going to be monitored will always take about two weeks. Ask any contractor.
When you get the final total adding all those two weeks up, double that and present it as your estimate of the development time. Allow an identical amount of time for QA testing and bug fixes.
Then, when the PHBs tell you that you have to cut 60% from the schedule you came up with, you'll still be able to get the job done and have time for proper QA and bug fixing.
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
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
communism and facism. Those are the only other modern economic structures where profit (at least for the company) isn't the primary motive
There is, though, a difference between "reasonable profit" and "maximizing profit".
How it looks to me, reasonable profit is more sustainable over the long term (both for the buisiness as an entity, and for the employees).
Many of the things that are done in the name of MaxProfits look pretty unsustainable. Sure the company shows huge profits this quarter, but there is no capacity left to do anything next year.
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"I can't complain, but sometimes still do..." Joe Walsh
... 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.
"98% of the time, profit is the single reason a business does anything. They aren't a charity organization, they exists to make their owners money."
or from a business management text book:
"Corporate responsibility is to maximize profit to benfit the shareholder"
Yes, this is MBA think and it's the business mind gone to seed. The problem is that this is what students are being taught in business school and it's where this last generation of Enron CEO's came from. Business exists to fullfill needs in the community and it (should) have responsibilities to that community. Business provides products and services as well as jobs and taxes. Profit is but one of it's reasons for existance. As the previous reply stated most of the current business models don't work long term. They do make a big splash on the books for the current CEO which is why they're so common. More responsibility on the part of business owners and boards of directors is what is needed. Not salary caps (or facism or communism, we know they don't work) but controls that govern corporate behavior just as the current laws govern personal behavior. I can't just kill you and take your wallet because it's the most profitable and easy way for me to make money. Microsoft shouldn't be able to negotiate to buy a company, steal it's intellectual property, and then include it into it's next release of Windows (it's done this several times). That's the type of behavior that just makes working life in this country suck. You get one guy with 100 billion dollars and 200 million with $20. That's not capitalism, it is in fact, why communism and socialism don't work. They both lead to huge social splits of have everythings and have nothings. Precisely where "uncontrolled" capitalism takes us.
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.
Somewhat true, and somewhat false. First off, computer science != computer programming, it's much more than that. Second, if you had good professors and course material, you would have at least been taught how to code things much more efficiantly and using better methodologies.
A lot of programmers who engage in craft programming are just messing around. Businesses have a right to manage your work as they see fit since they are paying you. If you want to go off and fine tune that block of code to your satisfaction, you always have your personal time to work on it.
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.
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?
The point is that there is a reasonable middle ground. BOTH extremes are bad. It's simply unreasonable to expect any organization to operate without contingency plans. By having well documented requirements, designs, tests and metrics, you don't suddenly jump all the way into some Dickensian sweatshop nightmare. That's just silly. If someone is so paranoid about losing their job that their work becomes completely ciphered beyond all recognition, they're going to be fired anyway and with good reason. That sort of behavior is what drives companies to the opposite repressive extreme. Thankfully, not all companies go there...
I don't disagree with what you're saying, but I think part of the reason industry is going this way has to do with the meaning of "ego-less". There are good and bad aspects to having your ego involved in your work. Obviously it's good when it results in you caring about the quality of your work. But it can also be bad when a programmer is so ego-invested that they want all the credit for a group project, or become blind to or defensive about the possibility of bugs in their own code. I've seen this happen many times. I've actually known of certain corporate cultures (**cough** Ora **cough** cle) where this kind of immaturity seemed to be encouraged.
The ideal (IMHO) is something like the ideal for a sports team, where you have a group of people, each with different talents that are needed at different times in a game. "Ego-less" in that context means someone who will use their unique talent to the fullest at the appropriate times, but will step back and support the others to the best of their ability at other times, always remembering that the goal is for the team to win the game. Such a person is usually both highly valued by team owners and well respected by their peers.
The trick, I think, is to put your ego into creating the best "you" you can be. Make yourself the work of art more than the code.
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"