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.

Comments

1 in 7 :)

[grub]

Fortunately I'm part of that "1 in 7" and I think this comment has a lot to do with it:

"There is an increasing trend for people to swap careers to do something more hands on,"

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.

Re:1 in 7 :)

[IWorkForMorons]

Not all of us...

I got into college for programming at the very beginning of the boom. I did it because I liked programming, not because it was going to pay me lots of money. Of course I was looking forward to the money, but I still liked the programming.

Now, I've found that the programming is becoming stale and boring. It very well could be just this job causing those feelings, because I hardly do any real programming anymore, but until I get another programming job I won't know for sure. And I managed to graduate a year before the bust, so I couldn't build up those wages like some. I'm only making $6000 more then my starting wage 3.5 years ago. So the money definately isn't worth it. Currently, I'm considering looking for a new IT job, or going back to school for welding or something more hands-on. So at least for me, it's not so much that it's boring work, or that I'm only interested in the money. It's more that I think I need more variety and action in my job. Because god knows insurance is NOT a fun and exciting job...

Re:1 in 7 :)

[moviepig.com]

If you don't love what you do then get out of it.

And, to generalize in a different direction...

...Even well-motivated IT workers must surely be a self-selected sample of personality Type 'M's. (Masochistic, meticulous, monomaniacal...) There's a reason they (we) have chosen to interface with machines ...and it probably doesn't often correlate with a smiley-faced existential view. In other words, ask IT workers if they're "very happy" about anything.

(Was that too dark?)

Re:1 in 7 :)

[macrom]

I hear what you mean about the hands-on, physical aspect. Personally, I'm waiting for someone to burn this building down so I can get a job with the wrecking company charged with the cleanup. After all, the guy in the apartment next to me seems happy to do that day in, day out.

Re:1 in 7 :)

[Unoti]

It's hard to find a good development job where you're doing "real programming" constantly. If you're working for an end user in the corporate world, you usually get shiort periods of time once every six months where you can do real programming. If you're working for a software development company, only about 1/3rd of the jobs are going to be 100% "real programming."

Also keep in mind that at some point in life pretty much anything can get boring. At some point, you'll probably need to find other ways to motivate yourself other than love and excitement.

Re:1 in 7 :)

[b12arr0]

many of the "other 6 of the 7" got into IT for the money.

Not me, I got into for the women....er...wait.

Re:1 in 7 :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Your problem seems simple. IT != Programming. IT is a support job where you make computer and network systems work for other people. This may or may not involve programming, but it usually doesn't. If you want a job where you do more programming, you need a job closer to software development. This could be software development itself, but any good testing job will involve a decent amount of programming too. If you want to stay in IT, but still do more programming, perhaps a more specialized type of administration would work. Web site or database administration would include more programming than the average IT job.

Re:1 in 7 :)

[JudgeFurious]

Ditto. I work in a small shop (300 or so users) and we have four people in our group. In some places you would have your help desk people, your network people, your pc techs, and so forth. Not here though.

We do a little bit of all of it so things stay interesting. I do primarily work in front of a screen all day but I value highly the time I get to go out and do other things. We run our cables, we help the CAD users, it's variety that keeps me in the "satisfied with my job" group.

I once had someone on Slashdot remark that if I was out swapping out a users broken mouse then I wasn't a network administrator which made me laugh. I bet the majority of those happy in their profession work in smaller shops where they get to do more than a single set of tasks.

Re:1 in 7 :)

[Iffy Bonzoolie]

The problem is, as someone who loves software engineering, I really take pride in trying to implement stuff not just in a way that works, but in a way that is easy to read, change, optimize, etc. It's rather frustrating for me to work with people who don't have any sense of craftmanship. Especially when my job is made more difficult because of careless get-it-done coding.

Unless you happen to have a natural talent for it, if you go into a field for purely superficial reasons you are going to perpetuate mediocrity and, I believe, contribute to harming that industry. To summarize: Working with people who don't care really sucks for those of us that do.

At my last job, there was a strong get-it-done culture. Most people there did not go home and tinker around on the computer as a personal interest, they did their duty each day and then went on to escape the computer for the rest of the evening. I was miserable. Luckily there were a small number of people there that I could talk shop with, and who actually cared about how things were done.

At my current job, everyone is actually interested in what they are doing, and it is a *much* nicer place to be.

-If

Re:1 in 7 :)

[Golias]

There's another way this data is being misread.

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.

On the other hand, nobody becomes a florist just for the money. 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.

So, in my mind, the real shocking story is that 2 out of 3 florists hate their job.

In the interest of full disclosure, I'm one of the 1 in 7. I enjoy IT office work.

Re:1 in 7 :)

[duffbeer703]

It's like anything else I suppose -- it depends on where you work.

My girlfriend's cousin grosses like $65-75k as a hairdresser... but she works at a "high end" shop frequented by local TV dorks and other minor celebrities and rich folk.

Plenty of IT folks are slaving away for $32-40k with $50k+ worth of student loans on their backs.

Re:1 in 7 :)

[bigman2003]

For the last 4 years, my job title has been 'programmer'.

During this time, if you lump it all together, I have probably spent about 1 of those years programming.

The rest is:

• Sitting in meetings to find out what the users want.
• Sitting in meetings to find out how much of what they want, we will give them.
• Demonstrating what I have come up with.
• Training testers to use the software.
• Collaborting with someone else on documentation.
• Conducting trainings for users
• Answering the phone and telling people that no- I don't know much about Excel...yes, I am a programmer, but I have no idea how to rotate a spreadsheet.
• Reading Slashdot

I generally enjoy all of this. If all I did was write code all day- I think I would be bored out of my mind. Occasionally sitting in a meeting mindlessly staring out the window while they talk about our 'under-served clientele' (I work for the government, and EVERYONE is underserved...except for me) can be relaxing. If nothing else I get to learn a lot of new politically correct buzzwords.

Like a lot of people, I don't see myself writing code for the next 20 years. I would like to be in a position like my boss has. She was a good techie, who (rightfully) got promoted up. As long as she hires other good techies, she is set. And, when she wants to, she can get her hands dirty in some interesting project.

Re:1 in 7 :)

[nelsonal]

I'd guess that the florists who are unhappy are florists who are now running a business (department) and would rather just be working with flowers.

Re:1 in 7 :)

[TrueBuckeye]

So software developers are neurosergeons and network admins are orderlies? Did you mean for this to come off as arrogantly as it did? Because while you may see one as above another (I don't), programming is useless without a computer and network to run it on.

Re:1 in 7 :)

[cptgrudge]

This may or may not involve programming, but it usually doesn't.

Well, according to SAGE, programming is a skill sysadmins should have. For everything above a Level 1 admin programming is a desirable or required skill. Yes, yes, scripting isn't really programming, but still. The upper level admins should be required to have knowledge of an actual programming language.

I'm fairly certain that a straight sysadmin job will most likely not require the same level of programming skill that a job that has programming as a job duty would. My sysadmin job doesn't require it. But it sure beats clicking a dozen times through some GUI on 800 different computers. So first it saves me time, then it saves my organization time, which ultimately saves money.

"Hey, look at me! I'm replacing redundant co-workers with very small shell scripts!"

Re:1 in 7 :)

[cptgrudge]

I love the work - its the way I get treated as a person I cant stand.

Have you ever thought that it could be your attitude towards others? Not a dig on you, personally, just a serious question. I'm quite well liked in my organization, and I'm the disabler (as opposed to enabler) in restricting what people can and can't do on the network.

I listen to their concerns and questions and always explain myself in ways that they can understand. Not because they are stupid, but because they don't have my job. I don't know the first thing about home appraisal or horticulture. Why should I expect them to know about my job? I'm always pleasant on the phone when they call, or when I'm respoding to email, or when I speak to them face to face. I even go out drinking with them.

I sometimes wonder if IT people generally have an animosity toward end users that's bleeds through and gives off a "bad vibe".

Of course, I also believe that 25% of a sysadmin's job is being a politician, so maybe I'm biased.

Re:1 in 7 :)

[raile]

Parent has hit the nail on the head. Company size is the main factor in job happiness as far as I'm concerned. Smaller company = less red-tape, more autonomy, a wider rage of responsiblities and tasks, flatter organizational structure, etc.

That would certainly explain why florists, hairdressers, and soon have higher job satisfaction -- not a lot of Fortune 500 florists or salons out there...

I currently work for a large telecommunications company and definitely miss my days back at smaller companies, so count me as one of those seven.

Re:1 in 7 :)

[gid-goo]

You are correct, they are piss poor programmers. If you meet a programmer who can't be a mediocre sys admin, fire that programmer immediately. On the other hand a good sys admin is worth their weight in gold (and can usually get it).
gid-goo

Re:1 in 7 :)

[bigman2003]

Whichever one can't be outsourced to India tomorrow...that is the one I want to be.

That is why I love all those meetings, and user interviews, and focus groups...our target audience is HERE- not on a different continent.

Having people skills- and using them- is probably a good way to avoid getting outsourced. If I did sit and code all day, my only value would be my ability to take instructions from a supervisor, and churn out the code they requested. Instead, I try to figure out what we want to do, by interviewing the people involved.

I think this makes me far more valuable to the place I work, and less likely to get replaced by someone who is a great coder- but not familiar with what we are really trying to achieve.

I once followed the paper trail on a 7 part form that we were trying to 'computerize'. I followed each of the 7 parts to its final destination. I found they all ended up with the same person, who told me:

"Well, on the invoice form, they'll have the white copy attached- they just use that when the job is started, so now I throw it away.

On the packing slip, they'll attach the green copy, we don't need that anymore, so I throw it away.

On the shipping receipt, are the yellow and pink copies. I just get rid of both of them."

You can see where this is going- a huge mountain of paperwork, that everyone thought that someone else needed. Yet every copy was thrown away. Obviously I didn't spend too much time streamlining that process.

Sometimes the best answer isn't just great code- sometimes you have to figure out they why's and how's of the process before you can deliver a good product. Personally, I really like doing that part...even if it does mean that I sit through some meetings...hell, we usually have bagels and juice or something like that. (Back in the good ole days, we would get lunch...but budget cuts, etc. etc...)

Tell me about it.

[JosKarith]

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.

Re:Tell me about it.

[Sentry21]

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

Re:Tell me about it.

[m.h.2]

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.

Re:Tell me about it.

[magarity]

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.

In related news...

[gregwbrooks]

Fully 7 out of 7 Bastard Operators From Hell were "just peachy keen" with making users' lives miserable.

Re:In related news...

[Alioth]

The BOFH's motto:

"We're not happy till you're not happy"

Not to put down hairdressers or plumbers,

[Trigun]

but I think that the IT community aspires to be more than what their career generally denegrates to, tech support monkeys.

6/7 IT Indians consider themselves happy

[Anonymous Coward]

...making $19,700 a year and living in luxury in Bangalaore

Re:6/7 IT Indians consider themselves happy

[karnal]

You mean if you group together 6 IT Indians, they all make 19,700 a year altogether? ...

Re:6/7 IT Indians consider themselves happy

[Shivaji Maharaj]

Whats the joke here ? considering the per capita income in the state of Karnataka ( Bangalore is the capital city of Karnataka ) is 13,000$. A 50% increase above the per capita should definitely make the Indians happy in Bangalore.

Re:6/7 IT Indians consider themselves happy

[tekunokurato]

What are you talking about? The average Indian programming job ranks in at roughly $15,000 a year.

What?!

[Beatbyte]

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.

Re:What?!

[redfenix]

Yes, but you have to admit, when you accidently unplug that fiber line, raw sewage doesn't usually come out of it!

Re:What?!

[Jerf]

But then again, no IT guys have to work in feces in a sweaty, humid, tiny room. STFU you little baby.

The key to understanding the comment as given is that it is the exact same people, over and over again, downloading the BonziBuddy this week, spreading MyDoom next week, and installing three other pieces of spy ware the week after.

Then, they yell at you because they somehow, in a manner I don't fully understand, rationalize it to be your fault.

If you're a sociopath, this doesn't bother you. If you're human, the unrelenting pounding of stupid people upset at you, and in general being obstinately stupid, can easily match most plausible physical jobs. Sure, they may not be shoveling shit, but the shit shoveler can go home, take a shower, change clothes, and be more-or-less OK. The IT-frontliner goes home, and is emotionally exhausted. This should not be trivialized just because it's not physical; in many ways its worse. (For one thing, your nose tends to adjust to bad smells, your brain and emotions tend to get sensitized to stupidity.)

If a person makes a mistake and learns from it, it's understandable; we're all newbies. The good people never call because they fix their own problems. But if you think dealing with unrelenting and unapologetic (and sometime downright arrogant) stupidity is so easy, I invite you to spend a year doing front-line tech support. There is a reason the attrition rate of tech support is much higher then shit-shoveling.

Re:What?!

[Beatbyte]

I can understand you not having the brainpower to not take something seriously... but think about what you would smell like coming home from sweating 9-10 hours a day working in sewage. EVERYDAY!

Yes your coworkers (lusers) may reinstall bonzi everyday but as a plumber, people urinate, and shit, and whatever down the toilet everyday, and you have to work in it! Wouldn't you think that gets more annoying?

The shit just keeps on coming, whichever job you may be working.

Re:What?!

[Necrobruiser]

But then again, no IT guys have to work in feces in a sweaty, humid, tiny room.

True. But Plumbers only have to remember the two rules:
1. Shit flows downhill.
2. Don't bite your nails.

Re:What?!

[caino59]

it's the people getting into the industry b/c they see money, but at the same time - don't really like what they do.

it's what's popuar right now, so of course you are going to have a lot of people doing it work they don't enjoy.

when the next popular field comes along, that will also be flooded with miserable employees.

wash. rinse. repeat.

Re:What?!

[hplasm]

These people shit on the IT guys and the plumbers. Where's the unity?

Re:What?!

[medscaper]

Insert dumb jokes about packet loss etc... ;)

Ok.

Boy, the Internet really is Crap!

You guys have a shitty connection here, ya know?

I feel like I'm wasting my life on this computer.

I think your network is hosed.

You guys took a new swipe at "the porn hose" definition, eh?

This new network protocol stinks!

Dude! Get that Cat-5 out of your mouth! You don't know where it's been!

Hey, honey? Flush again! My download speed triples when you do that!!

Re:What?!

[sphealey]

How many car accidents will happen this year due to user error (drunk driving, falling asleep, other poor judgement)? How many billions of dollars have the auto makers, insurance companies, and auto repair coompanies made over the years? It is absolutely outrageous that drivers have to go through the effort and expense of getting a license and fork out thousands of dollars to simply get from point A to point B.

I thought of something along those lines. But for some reason even very sharp and perceptive people such as Mossberg don't accept it. Computers are somehow "different" from any other tool in their lives. Although I can explain why computers are different from other tools in some ways (and similar in others), the people making these criticisms typically cannot. So I am at a loss as to how to respond to them.

sPh

Re:What?!

[a24061]

The key to understanding the comment as given is that it is the exact same people, over and over again, downloading the BonziBuddy this week, spreading MyDoom next week, and installing three other pieces of spy ware the week after.

Not many plumbers have to "support users" who repeatedly try to flush grapefruit down the toilet.

Re:What?!

[DoraLives]

There is a reason the attrition rate of tech support is much higher then shit-shoveling.

Actually, it's even worse than that. Tech support is in no wise different from working at any job where you're interacting with the Great Mass of Idiots. Motel desk clerk, 7-Eleven counter guy, McDonald's, you name it. They're ALL THE SAME, INCLUDING TECH SUPPORT. Zillions of fucking idiots who think that they've somehow "got you cornered" and vent all over you for shit they caused themselves.

But there's a catch.

In any of the "standard" jobs where you deal with the public, you knew you'd be doing this when you walked in the door looking to fill out an application.

Tech support folks oftentimes have no clue where they're going to wind up, and if that's not bad enough, being technical types in the first place causes them to be less than, ummm...shall we say 'robust,' when it comes to dealing with the slings and arrows of the Great Shoal of Idiots.

Net result: You've got somebody who's poorly adapted to deal with the emotional stresses (vastly worse than mere physical stresses, unless those consist in taking bullets to the chest or some such similar) of working with the public, working with the public. The plumber goes home from work and washes his hands. No more shit. The McDonald's clerk goes home from work secure in the knowledge that all them assholes can no longer get to him. No more shit.

The TECH WORKER goes home from work, and grinds away mentally over all that happened and all that's going to happen again tomorrow and slowly goes down the emotional drain over a period of weeks, months, or perhaps even years, before finally blowing a fuse and bailing out.

People who belittle the effects of this sort of thing are unable to integrate the fact that identical stimuli will have differing effects on different people, and in their ignorance of the actualities of the situation can only make things worse overall.

Yes indeed, tech work is one of the most corrosive environments you could work at, and if you're not adapted to it the way a weight lifter adapts to plucking large masses of iron off the floor, it's going to be the death of you.

Re:What?!

[Moofie]

You don't know anything about the "average" human. The average human makes their purchase and walks out of your life, and you never remember them. At one end of the normal distribution, you have the idiots like you describe. At the other end, you have people like me, who smile at cashiers and say "Thank you!" when we leave.

But you don't remember the average ones and the nice ones. You just let the assholes give us all a bad name. Maybe I should become an asshole, so you will remember me.

Re:What?!

[fbform]

Its a documented (Swedish study I can't remember) mediacl fact that working with stupid people raises your blood pressure, and causes heart attacks.

This is what the parent is talking about:
WORKING WITH IDIOTS CAN KILL YOU

My philosophy

[TrentL]

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."

what makes IT professionals unhappy

[Squeezer]

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 :(

Re:what makes IT professionals unhappy

[fingerfucker]

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.

Re:what makes IT professionals unhappy

[Dun Malg]

thankfully, I have job security because i work for state government (state government don't lay off employees)

Heh. That's what all the state employees here in California thought. They're getting laid off left and right.

Re:what makes IT professionals unhappy

[urmensch]

And it is not 100 percent true either. If my state government cuts my department's buget, they sure as hell will lay me off. I get to do nice things like "bump" my way into other departments in the state (depending on my seniority and willlingness to relocate).

Re:what makes IT professionals unhappy

[subjectstorm]

. . . (state government don't lay off employees). . .

yeah, unless you work in arkansas. and i do. our state government just got bitch slapped by the supreme court (because of a BADLY malformed, outdated, and unconstitutional school system). Suddenly the government had to come up with several hundred million dollars - and guess where they started?

I still remember the day that they sent fully a quarter of the employees at several buildings home with no notice. they just met them at the door and said, "sorry, you don't work here anymore." Security escorted them to their desks, stood there while they cleaned them out, then walked them back out of the building.

doesn't that give you a warm, fuzzy feeling?

Re:what makes IT professionals unhappy

[seanadams.com]

They're getting laid off left and right.

That's terminated .... go Arnold!

Geek Culture

[American AC in Paris]

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?

Re:Geek Culture

[torpor]

This "chic" is not exclusive to IT. It appears that bitching and moaning, and taking things for granted, is common in popular spoon-fed TV-enslaved western culture.

Personally, I find that sort of 'pleasure' abhorent. Sitting around bitching about things, or criticizing something just for the social effect ... that's fully lame.

re: geek culture

[ed.han]

that's an excellent point. it's like whining about the food in school/corp cafeteria. it's not like the stuff is literally wretched, but it's a pastime and part of the culture. you can whine about your lusers all you want, but the reason it's aggravating sometimes is b/c you know that if they just stopped to think for a nanosecond, they wouldn't open that attachment, etc. IMX, the majority of users aren't that clueless and amidst the support guys i know, the stress that comes from supporting userse is more often a function of the fact that you want to try to do right by them. of course there's always the occasional idiot, but then again, when isn't there?

ed

Re:Geek Culture

[the_mad_poster]

Except, herding is not fun. When some idiotic thing breaks that just shouldn't or I'm answering stupid questions or fixing stupid problems caused by stupid people doing stupid things for the millionth time, I'm NOT happy. I HATE doing that.

On the other hand, when I'm writing some tricky new piece of code or working on something that I haven't done before, I AM having fun. I think a lot of IT folks just have a low tolerance for people afflicted by learned helplessness and they spend an inordinate amount of time fixing those morons' problems instead of doing something productive that they can get a feeling of satisfaction from. It only takes one person doing something really, really dumb to screw up a whole day of otherwise productive work. When you support 1500 people, odds are pretty good that one person is out there somewhere.

Ouch

[mbadolato]

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....

Re:Ouch

[Anonymous Coward]

You haven't seen the shit in their users mail boxes.

Re:Ouch

[TopShelf]

Those happy plumbers are the ones who enjoy the exhibitionist thrill of showing butt cleavage as they bend over to unclog your drain...

Re:Ouch

[shic]

It is interesting to note that plumbing has become one of the most highly paid skilled trades. I wonder what proportion of plumbers responded "happy" because the rates of pay are exceptionally high at the moment? The whole of IT is a strange, young profession and doesn't suit all temperaments. I also wonder what proportion of unhappy employees would be unhappy no matter what their job happened to be?

Re:Ouch

[Lumpy]

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....

that is because Toilet bowls full of shit usually has a higher IQ than most computer users in the office.

I'll take a Turd over the entier marketing department any day.

The results would have been different...

[supersmike]

...if this survey had been conducted just 5 or 6 years ago.

I knew a guy

[budhaboy]

I knew a guy who lived in OH and commuted to Manhattan to cut hair part time in the village.

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?

Self-employed

[turnstyle]

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...

Of course

[savagedome]

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.

Re:Of course

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

This is really overrated. A lot of people (myself included) have loved computers since they were children (I'm 28, started programming at 8) and are unhappy because of the job market (I am employeed, but it sucks seeing so many of my IT peers unemployed), and because of job security...I've wanted nothing but to write code for the rest of my life, it's not looking like a viable option anymore. now that *is* depressing because I never pictured myself doing anything else. Where else is my Comp Sci degree going to take me?

Re:Of course

[FortKnox]

I think you are on the right track, but my guess is that 6 out of 7 IT Professionals worked in IT during the dot-com boom, when you made a load of cash, hardly did any work, and played games all the time.
And now, we have to EARN the money we make, and that pisses us off. Especially programmers, who are, by definition, lazy workers (and I say this as a developer). ;-)

Re:Of course

[rcs1000]

No it isn't.

I'm 29, I started programming when I was about 10. I love to program. But I don't work as a programmer; if I worked as a programmer, I'd hate it. Instead I program for fun, and love it.

Most computer related jobs are boring. Just as most building or dental or whatever jobs are boring. Too many people I know entered computing because they read of these fantastic salaries. Some of my friends in '99 were (aged 24) were earning $150k as Y2K contractors (with v. limited skillsets).

Forget India, there are simply too many people chasing too few computing jobs. That's what has given you job insecurity.

Go and do something boring (finance, accounting, law), so that when you program, you're doing it for fun.

Re:Of course

[zx75]

Your point is valid, but that does not mean that the parent is overrated. I'm in the process of getting my comp sci degree at the moment (one more year to go) and I came by computers in much the same way you did (though I'm 21).
For me, it is depressing to know that a significant percentage of the people in my class *are* doing it for the money, and really don't have much of a clue and/or don't particularily care about the subject. It is extremely frustrating to try to work with people like that because for a large part they are willing to freeload on others to do their work, slipping through using tricks and (as my university puts it) "excessive collaboration".
These are the people that will be unhappy when they get a tech job, because they are unhappy with doing the tech work at school to begin with.

Re:Of course

[Tablizer]

I'm 29, I started programming when I was about 10. I love to program. But I don't work as a programmer; if I worked as a programmer, I'd hate it. Instead I program for fun, and love it.....Go and do something boring (finance, accounting, law), so that when you program, you're doing it for fun.

This logic reminds me of, "I smack myself in the face 30 times every day because it feels good when I stop."

Totally makes sense!

[cpn2000]

I used to enjoy working in this profession. Learning new things everyday, dabbling with cutting edge technology .... you all know what I'm talking about.

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.

Re:I'm happy with my job

[torpor]

Me too. I couldn't be a happier hacker! I work for a truly great company. And not only that, our products are designed to be nothing but hands-on, so its not even funny ...

Odd way to report the results

[Daniel Dvorkin]

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.

Helping users is no problem

[Carnivore24]

its the imcompetent coworkers who have to be constantly "retrained" how to do simple things such as imaging machines, troubleshooting laptops, and installing software.

Salary

[peterpi]

"Of course, it should be noted that by and large IT professionals earn more money then most other jobs"

Over here in the UK, plumbers make an absolute fortune (well above your average code monkey) because their skills are so in demand.

Not many professionals are happy.

[SiliconJesus]

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%

Re:Not many professionals are happy.

[ElvenSmith]

sad to see so many unhappy teachers out there... And what's up with the Estate Agents???

Re:Not many professionals are happy.

[adamofgreyskull]

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...

Re:Not many professionals are happy.

[sanctimonius hypocrt]

Plumbers Vocational 32% Electricians Vocational 6%

Okay, most of this seems to make sense, but why are plumbers relatively more happy than electricians?

Re:Not many professionals are happy.

[jellomizer]

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.

Re:Not many professionals are happy.

[dillon_rinker]

Cognitive dissonance.

"My job is to clean up crap. Why am I doing this? I must love my job!"

Re:Not many professionals are happy.

[Jeff DeMaagd]

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.

Re:Not many professionals are happy.

[glorf]

A lot of people are talking about plumbers in relation to IT based on users/clients. Do the same comparison for plumber vs electrician.

A plumber is often responding to a user-created problem. The kid dropped a toy, someone accidentally flushed their pager/glasses etc. So you get someone who is apologetic and embarassed as well as critically in need of the service. The critical need makes the plumber someone who is saving you.

An electrician on the other hand deals with things that are less likely to be user error. Lots of people feel they have more right to be a PITA if the problem wasn't their fault. And electricity is very important, but I can live without electricity for a few days much more comfortably than I can without going to the bathroom or showering. So it is more of a huge inconvenience than emergency. And as with any inconvenience, the person who comes to fix it gets the brunt of the user frustration.

Then of course there is the fact that if an electrician screws up and touches the wrong thing he can die. The plumber has that to a minor extent, but can solve that just by washing his hands.

Job != Life either

[mccalli]

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

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

Re:Is it just me?

[myspys]

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"

Underlying commonalities?

[Gr8Apes]

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.

Re:I'm certainly glad I switched

[redfenix]

Wait a sec, that sounds dangerously like a haiku. Okay, let's give it a try:

Sitting here, watching
Uni department go mad
Mangled by the worm

That's not the real conclusion

[Underholdning]

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.

hours worked? dumb customers?

[iamjim]

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".

Re:Is it just me?

[pkalkul]

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.

I use to be an IT pro

[Fisher99]

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.

Re:I use to be an IT pro

[Conspir8or]

but still use my greek knowledge to solve problems

So this implies

a) You dispel IT problems with an apt line from Aristophanes or Aeschylus

b) When stumped, you can summon a horde of frat boys to drunkenly demolish the computer in question

c) A blade server makes a warm platform to be bent over when getting your salad tossed

We're not all tech support.

[kryzx]

"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 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.

Re:We're not all tech support.

[EFGearman]

Except for the few of us who at current job are programmers, DBA's, web developers, analysts, sysads and tech support all in one.

Ya think I would get paid better.

Re:We're not all tech support.

[sphealey]

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?

That is in fact a fundamental part of the problem: everyone in IT is considered to be part of tech support. The CEO of Acme wouldn't call the CFO in for a meeting, and at the end of that meeting say "oh, here's my checkbook - add up those numbers for me will you" [1]. But he thinks nothing of ending a meeting with the CIO (who is directly responsible for managing larger projects, budgets, and headcounts than the CFO, and who has far more daily interaction with the "business units" than any of the other CXOs) by telling him to crawl under his desk and reconnect the printer.

The disconnect between value provided to the business (which, despite the stereotypes, is quite high in my experience) and the perception/treatment of the "IT nerds" (what a contemptuous term BTW) is what causes a lot of the unhappiness.

sPh

[1] Yes, I know: you can cite a counterexample. And everyone gets the occational humiliation, particularly in smaller companies. But no - not on the daily basis that the IT people get.

IT is a largely intellectual field

[Gothmolly]

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.

Maybe...

[Shant3030]

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.

Re:Maybe...

[Anonymous Coward]

But in my job I fix photocopiers, and man am I sick of getting lame reasons why the top glass plate is cracked.

And management doesn't get it....

[The Ape With No Name]

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.

Overwork makes people unhappy!

[0x0d0a]

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.

Re:Overwork makes people unhappy!

[Gr8Apes]

You are right. The problem is that it's far cheaper for a company to work a single employee 80 hours, than to have 2 employees work 40 hours. Couple this with the supposed concept that an employee on average only does 3 hours of real work a day (I can't find the link anymore, this study was quite old), maybe companies think well, keep the employee here for 80 hours, we'll get 30 or so real hours of work out of them..

The main problem is that companies are already paying people less, but they're not hiring more people, they're paying us less to work more hours. (US workers put in most hours)

Re:Overwork makes people unhappy!

[senatorpjt]

This is true. I absolutely HATED my last job... Not because of what I did, which I actually enjoyed... but because I was sick of doing it for 80 hours a week.

One day I basically snapped.. not in post-office rampage style, but I walked in, and looking ahead to another 12 hour day, I just decided then and there that I couldn't do it anymore. I told them that I quit, then went home and took a three-day nap.

However, I had also forgotten how much it sucks to look for a job..

So, I went on welfare. Honestly, it's the most satisfying job i've ever had. I'm absolutely broke, but after working 80 hour weeks, it feels like I'm getting paid in time. It's more satisfying to spend all day looking out the window than blowing $1000 at Best Buy on the way home from work to justify what I went through on a daily basis.

As for feeling like a "productive member of society", I don't really care. Just think about it as another available job for your greedy ass.

Re:Overwork makes people unhappy!

[frostman]

Anecdotal evidence in support of your point:

Years ago I used to work at a big biotech company mostly-owned by a big European pharmaceutical company.

Back in California we had a pretty relaxed work atmosphere, it was even fun sometimes, and we often worked ridiculous hours to meet deadlines and get things done and just generally feel like we were working as hard as we should.

I went over to the European company for a week to do some database stuff in the equivalent department to the one I worked for back home.

Interestingly enough, their office was quite boring by comparison. Nobody "did lunch," just everyone went and ate together in the cafeteria, which was only open at lunch and paid for with company-provided meal tickets (we had various cafeterias around the campus open most of the day, cheap but you did pay). People took a couple coffee breaks a day, usually half the office together in the coffee room, where they paid for their coffee with tokens provided by the company (we had free espresso). That's where the smokers could smoke, so there was no "going out for a smoke" and associated socializing. There was almost zero banter. Though there wasn't a dress code, nobody was below "business casual."

It wasn't very exciting at all. Pleasant, friendly, but not exciting.

HOWEVER, they basically never worked more than 8 hours a day. Everyone was in by 8 or 9, everyone was out by 5 or 6, and nobody even for a moment pretended that the job was more important than any other part of their lives.

All in all I got the impression they were more productive than we were, even if less innovative.

Re:Overwork makes people unhappy!

[Rich0]

In the UK, employees who wish to can simply opt out of the working time limit, and as a result the UK economy is strong and unemployment hovers around 2%.

You mean that employees who wish to keep their jobs can do this.

The whole point in making restrictions mandatory is that when they are voluntary you get lots of pressure from your boss to volunteer.

That is why it is illegal to employ children in most civilized nations, and why minimum wage is dictated by law. Otherwise you end up having 12 year olds who "volunteered" to work for $1/day. Oh sure, it doesn't start that way. If you were to get rid of minimum wage today, tomorrow nothing would change. However, your local Walmart would have a meeting and share how hard things are in the industry and suggest that employees work a little longer without overtime. New hires start at 25 cents below minimum wage. The next group of works start out 25 cents below them. Then, the boss looks at Joe and Suzy and points out to Joe that he gets paid a whole lot more than Suzy (he came onboard while there still was minimum wage), but doesn't get any more work done. So now Joe works harder. Eventually the next group of 25 cents less comes in and Joe is disposed of - he's getting paid a fortune ($6 an hour) and the company can't afford him.

This is no different from voluntary safety regulations in the workplace. I read an article about a major computer vendor where the packagers kept getting all kinds of injuries to their hands (paper cuts, staple wounds, etc). If anyone threatened to sue it was pointed out that the company did provide suitable gloves for protection. Of course, nobody used them since they slowed you down, and every week the slowest x% of the workforce was let go. So it becomes a race for the bottom.

Union rules are of course completely absurd these days, but this is how they got started. Employers asked employees to give a little, but that became permanent, and then they asked for a little more, etc. Finally there is a strike and union organizers ending up dead and all that fun stuff from back in the day, and when the union finally gets control they start making rules like working to the contract and if the employer lets anybody work 40.1 hours in a week everybody else goes on strike. While I think that these rules are overkill and harmful to society, can anybody really blame them? Remember back when those unions formed employers were willing to just ANYTHING to get rid of them. Killing people or at least making sure that they never got another job anywhere was just good business practice.

It is like anything - people are selfish and you end up swinging from one extreme to the other. Obviously the US unenployment rate can't hit 50% without there being riots in the street. It won't get that bad - but it will keep getting worse until the pain is so great that people don't care how many expensive ads they see for the politician with corporate backing - they're going to vote for the guy who sounds like Karl Marx. Then the economy will swing the opposite direction and become stagnant and overregulated, and then we'll have calls for more privitization, and then we'll eventually be back where we are now...

yeah, like the sysadmin that worked for me...

[holy_smoke]

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!

Re:yeah, like the sysadmin that worked for me...

[genner]

He must have got his skills from working tech support at a major isp.

7-Year Plan

[blinder]

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 :)

Evolution of IT workers

[stecoop]

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.

My interest has waned

[Noofus]

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.

Re:My interest has waned

[ckokotay]

Wow - couldn't have said that better myself. The only difference is that I have been moving more into the business process analysis activities, and other activities which revolve around saving the client money through efficiently designed business practices - married with IT solutions. That is a great way to get out of the monotany that you are talking about - think of the big picture and know the business better than those you work for.

Sure, I still program, but it has taken a backseat to high level problem solving. High level problem solving will get you noticed as well.

I hear you on the hardware - I hate computer hardware now, even though I used to be a big upgrade geek. Now, I never use the computer at home anymore.

Re:My interest has waned

[Nick of NSTime]

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.

Bow down before the almighty dollar! You put your "things" before your happiness. Consider what your life would be like if you had less stuff and more job satisfaction. Would you be happy?

Re:My interest has waned

[anjrober]

I couldn't agree more. 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.

Re:My interest has waned

[iksrazal_br]

Most programming is boring - its the same thing done for the 1000th time. Most programmers don't deserve to make a lot of money, because what they do isn't that hard - such as writing a servlet to produce html. Furthermore, even for programmers that do difficult things, they do it for so long it is not difficult for them. The challenge is gone.

What is interesting, at least for me, is doing new things. I started doing C programming with serial ports. Then did embedded systems. Then moved to java and RMI. Then did SQL and stored procedures. Then did threads.

And now? I do this XML encryption and digital certificates for web services. I moved to a new country - brazil - which also is new and challenging.

My point is that if I was still doing C with serial ports, I might hate my job too. Lots of people do the same thing for the same company, irrelevant of carrers, for years just because human nature is scared of change. And talk to any of those people and they'll likely say they hate their jobs, but are scared to leave. That's not bad, just normal.

iksrazal

Re:My interest has waned

[HeyLaughingBoy]

and a female that require money

Or you could just find a girl/woman that doesn't require money. Trust me, there are plenty -- I've met a bunch and married one.

Start by looking for those that don't like being referred to impersonally as "females."

Re:My interest has waned

[Alioth]

Try and learn about hardware. I know it seems like a completely alien idea if you're a software "engineer" (I prefer the term software developer, and that's what I called myself, but this is possibly pedantic hair splitting, but few software "engineers" have a B.Eng or similar - most have a BSc).

I used to be a full-time software developer, but now I've moved into the bit generically known as "IT". Some days, I can be writing C, doing low level bit-twiddling for a test suite for a custom printer we're planning on using. Friday, I installed a 48-port switch in the network rack. Today, I wired in two new servers and installed some software. Last week, I set up a system to write hard drive images 30 at a time with the help of a Knoppix CD I customized. Last Thursday, I configured a new OpenBSD firewall for a brand new test network. Today, I helped a user learn how to use WinZip. Last year, with knowledge gained from the software development experiece I had, I selected a new counter system for our franchisees.

My job can't be outsourced - it requires physical presence. I get to do different things every day. I even get to weild a screwdriver and there's even the odd opportunity to inflict injuries on innocent electronics with a solderin iron. Two years ago, I was doing exactly what you were doing (but I had quite a lot of interest in it - creating new software systems is something I find fun). But this is more fun - I still do a little bit of software development, but I get to do an awful lot of other stuff.

Re:My interest has waned

[dilettante]

This is very similar to my own situation. I've been programming for almost 20 years, in environments as diverse as Fortran on Crays, C and C++ on Unix, COM on Windows, and currently J2EE stuff. So i don't think i can complain about lack of diversity or opportunity, and i get paid fairly well. So i've been asking myself often recently why i no longer get any joy from programming.

The only answers i've been able to come up with are 1) programming is no longer valued as an activity by itself, and 2) there are relatively few new problems to handle in industrial/commercial setting. When i first started programming back in the dark ages, programming itself was regarded as a fairly high-skill occupation. There wasn't an API for every imaginable task, and you had to carefully craft your own data structures and be aware of performance and memory usage. The people who really thrived in this environment were people who could "design in their head" so to speak. I'd equate the process to writing-- it was often hard and required numerous attempts, but the end product could have a sort of beauty that your peers could recognize.

The high-value task these days is design. I don't really agree with this viewpoint (see Paul Graham's articles for a more eloquent viewpoint on the role of hacking), but i've got the shelf full of UML books and i can churn artifacts with the best of them. It's just not nearly as fun because you can't execute a design and watch things work.

The second issue is the lack of new problems. I am sometimes convinced that everybody in the world is working on the exact same application integration project. Do you use the word "metadata" 10 times a day? Are you trying to build a query service? Are you trying to untangle message-oriented architectures? Yeah, me too.

Yeah, i know i sound like a sour old bastard, but i miss the days when you could sit down at your computer and write an actual application.

Re:My interest has waned

[mandalayx]

I couldn't agree more. 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.

And *I* absolutely agree with you. I feel pain when I see people on /. complain about having no money to survive when in fact they're stuck in the consumerist upper-middle style life.

money != power

[gobbo]

money != happiness

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.

It's funny that ...

[thenumberofthebeast]

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 ...

It's you

[Professeur Shadoko]

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

It's simple really

[enjo13]

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?"

IT is a step-parent job...

[havaloc]

You have all the responsibility, but none of the authority.

Tradesman vs. Proffessionals

[BobRooney]

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.

Re:Money does not equal happiness

[BiggsTheCat]

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?

90% of all statistics are useless!

[llZENll]

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 ;)

8% of teachers are happy???

[192939495969798999]

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.

Re:8% of teachers are happy???

[Kjella]

IT Professionals have to deal with the great idiot masses.
Teachers have to deal with the great, immature idiot masses.

I'm not suprised. I would never consider a job in teaching unless it was at university or college level. I know the kind of pupils we used to be, and I hear discipline is worse now than before. No way. No fucking way.

Kjella

Re:8% of teachers are happy???

[DrFalkyn]

Having taught as a permanent substitute in public schools and having a close relative who is a teacher, I think I have some insight into this.

1) You take on the burden of society's failure to instill basic virtues in children like respect, patience, discipline, etc.

2) There is almost no "down time" on the job, you always have to be looking out for the kids to make sure that they aren't talking, fighting, vandalizing, cheating, etc. You do have a planning period but you almost always work through it to keep up. If you miss something, that makes you look bad.

3) Expect to work 12-14 hour days during the school year if you want to get everything done properly. Including after school meethings with , students that want free tutoring after not paying attention in class, and parents who think their kids deserve better grades. The "summers off" thing in s whole myth. You get maybe 2 weeks and they you have to start attending inservices and possibly classes (most of the time at your expense) if you don't want to look like a slacker.

4) For individuals with a college degree and the amount of work and stress involved, the pay is pretty measly

5) Unless they go into administration, there is just about no room for advancement Yeah, your pay increases by about 2% every year, regardless of how good or poor a job you do. Whoopdeedo.

6) The administration often kowtows to pushy parents - changing grades, not supporting disciplinary measures, etc.

7) You get blamed(maybe just collectively) for the education failures of public schools

I'm not sure what the solution to these problems are. I wouldn't advocate going to back to the 1950s with uniforms and switches etc. but I do believe that parents don't pay enough attention to their kids during the critical ages, probably because both parents now work, and for longer hours. And the school system pays the price. I wasn't perfect when I was younger, but if I tried to pull some of the stuff they try now I would have been whapped upside the head.

Different situations

[mytec]

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.

Re:WRONG!

[sphealey]

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.

Um, that depends a bit on the corporate culture and the attitude of the guys at the top of the pyramid. Ever work for a company staffed entirely with "nothing gets in our way; we can break down any brick wall"-type people? Such people do not accept limitations on what they can do with "their" computer. And regardless of what policy document the boss agrees to sign and distribute, he actually rewards the people who violate the policy to "get the job done".

Now, how does your theory apply there?

sPh

4 out of the 7 got in for the money...

[syslog]

I work with and manage developers (I am a developer myself).

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

That's what IT professionals do!

[Junks Jerzey]

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!

Re:That's what IT professionals do!

[Hideyoshi]

But plumbers get paid per call-in, while IT workers don't. If they did, you can be sure job satisfaction would be a whole lot higher than it is.

Its not always users

[Stone316]

There are alot of people in IT that shouldn't be there. I have the fortune of working in the IT organization of our company. I had to explain to a co-worker how to use a 56k connection.. He kept asking me how he was supposed to hook it up to his Cable modem. Took about 10 minutes to explain to him. Get this, he's on call for our critical databases.

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?

Re:Its not always users

[laddhebert]

Right, he's on call for critical databases, not WAN connections. How is his DB administration performance?

One of the things that boggled me when I first got into Systems Administration was how a lot of admins were roped into just a couple of different tasks and knew absolutely nothing outside of that realm. Sure, they have college degrees and no doubt are intelligent people, but I couldn't fathom how they didn't have the desire and tenacity to learn it all.

See, I was new and hungry. Everything around me I wanted to learn and did to the best of my ability. I got great enjoyment from my job. I got to travel, I was paid well, and things were good.

As time passed on and the years seemed to blend together, something changed. I started noticing little things about my career... One thing was job growth..career growth.. Where was I going ? Did I want to be a manager? Was there really anything beyond Systems Administration? I looked at some of the veterans in the company, guys that have been here for 20+ years. They are still SA's.. some of them lead projects..some are stuck in their old ways, refusing to learn new technology..refusing to implement anything new. Scared to touch certain things because they are scared it will come crumbling down. Some letting their pride get in the way of good worksmanship. Some of the less technical ones have gone the way of management.

Do I want to be an SA in 20 years from now? I dunno... I used to read man pages for fun..I don't really find that fun anymore. Can't really pinpoint why. RFC's before bed... Tech manuals like novels. Perhaps I'm burned out... but from what? I'm doing what I've always wanted to do.. Perhaps it is my current company. Maybe I'm not suited for stagnant environments. Maybe it's 8 years of sitting in a 8x8 cubicle , which is in fact smaller than a jail cell.. I've even considered a career change, hell, I'm still young enough.

-L

The Deferred Life Plan

[agslashdot]

In "The Monk and the Riddle, Virtual CEO Randy Komisar ( Valley insider, kickstarted TiVO, WebTV, orchestrated the sale of Lucas's Pixar to Steve Jobs, ... ) describes the 2-step process that governs the life of the vast majority -

The Deferred Life Plan

1. Do what you have to do
2. Do what you want to do

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".

Comparing Apples to Oranges

[kevlar]

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.

Are salaries really higher in IT?

[edremy]

The contractors (roofers, electricians, etc) in my neighborhood make a lot more than I do, even given that I work in academia. Hell, we've got guys working truck driving jobs who appear to make more than I do. (Don't know details: they might be near-broke, but they've also got a bigger house and $40k pickup trucks while I'm driving a used Honda Accord.) The mover I had going from CA->VA last time claimed to pull >$100K on a 9-month schedule.

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

Other stories too...

[Mongoose Disciple]

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.

Re:Other stories too...

[Daengbo]

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.

Re:Other stories too...

[Fiz Ocelot]

I was forced to take a lot of comp sci theory classes that have never and will never be useful on the job.

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.

Pharmacist 4%?

[HangingChad]

18 Pharmacists Professional 4%

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.

Re:Pharmacist 4%?

[kbahey]

I can tell you because I switched from Pharmacy, after getting a Bachelor degree in it, and practicing for a mere 3 months. I went to IT around 19 years ago.

This was another country, another continent, but on my first visit to the USA, I met a pharmacist and he was complaining about his job too! The same complaints I found back home (physicians get all the credit, too little say).

Up until that outsourcing thing, it was a good decision.

I can tell you that pharmacy is a really really boring job. It is not a desk job, you are standing for 8 hours a day. You decipher bad handwriting by physicians, and it is almost mechanical, counting pills and putting labels, and perhaps checking drug interactions. Definitely not worth it after 5 years of hard and deep study.

You are also a retail outlet of sorts, and you have to deal with people just like a grocer or a convenient store. You are subject to various regulators, more than a normal retailers (at least in some countries). You have more liability than them too.

In may cases, you have to be open beyond 8 hours a day, and sometimes on weekends and holidays too!

At least in North America, the pharmacist does not have to man the counter for cosmetics, makeup, feminine hygiene, kids accessories, and diapers too! They have to do so in other places, since they could well be the only person in the shop!

So, I understand fully, and was happier with IT over the last 19 years. At least it challenged your brain, not moronic like the reality of being a retail pharmacist.

Now, research pharmacist is different, but how many are there?

Re:I'm happy with my job

[mesach]

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

Is it the profession?

[Rich Klein]

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.

I wonder what those stats would be like

[xutopia]

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.

Programmers in IT get treated poorly

[DrShasta]

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.

Re:Programmers in IT get treated poorly

[Analogy Man]

They want guys that follow the same processes every time and do reliable, predictable work every time.

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.

Re:Programmers in IT get treated poorly

[IWorkForMorons]

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...

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...

Re:Programmers in IT get treated poorly

[pottymouth]

You nailed it. As long as profit is the ONLY motive for business, things are going to be bad for employees. Profit is a "good thing" but if it's the "only thing", life at a company sucks for everybody but the board of directors.

Unfortunately American business has gone a long way down that road...

Re:Programmers in IT get treated poorly

[enomar]

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?

Re:Programmers in IT get treated poorly

[C10H14N2]

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.

Re:Programmers in IT get treated poorly

[kent_eh]

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.

Re:Programmers in IT get treated poorly

[pottymouth]

"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.

Re:Programmers in IT get treated poorly

[avida]

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.

Re:Programmers in IT get treated poorly

[poot_rootbeer]

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.

Well, DUH. They're not paying you to work for YOU, they're paying you to work for THEM.

In an ideal world employers would trust their programmers to research and implement the ideal solution for whatever problem comes their way, but too often they have seen bad programmers waste time dicking around with the Newest & Shiniest Toys to the detriment of timely problem solving.

Re:Programmers in IT get treated poorly

[C10H14N2]

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...

Re:Programmers in IT get treated poorly

[Bendebecker]

Shh, dude. Someone will hear ya. Then the cubicle police will come and drag you to the dungeon of the evil human resources director.

Re:Programmers in IT get treated poorly

[trenobus]

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.

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.

Moving from programmer to tile layer.

[Albert Sandberg]

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

I _have_ Been a Plumber

[randall_burns]

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).

Unhappynes and reconision.

[jellomizer]

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.

Well said

[HangingChad]

I am a software engineer. My job is boring.

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.

Job security

[srussell]

I know people who are happy being contractors, so I know that my opinion isn't shared by everybody in IT, but I blame by own unhappiness with my career on the fact that it is difficult to get a permanent placement as a computer programmer.

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.

It's the "Big Fraud"

[CrashVector]

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

Re:It's the "Big Fraud"

[ChopsMIDI]

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!

Obvious

[Supercoz]

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

Assertiveness

[clawsoon]

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

The key to happiness in IT

[Rorschach1]

Zoloft.

Mmmm, serotonin.

the joke explains it all...

[killthiskid]

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."

From the perspective of one unemployed

[shuz]

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

Preach On

[blunte]

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).

Re:Preach On

[Mr. Piddle]

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.

The other 90% of those features are not worth using. My microwave has auto reheat settings that require inputting quantities of units of food. However, the names of the units are printed only in the user's manual and not on the LCD, meaning I can't remember if "0.5" means "cups" or "pounds" or "servings" or "ounces" of oatmeal.

Another much fancier microwave I used recently has a knob on the front for selecting modes of operation. There must be a dozen modes of operation. Just getting to "run this damn thing on high for 30 seconds" requires pushing a button and rotating the knob clockwise through a half dozen modes, then pushing the knob, then rotating it for the amount of time, then pushing it again. It literally takes 30 seconds of effort to get the thing to run for 30 seconds.

Personal computers take these problems, multiply them by 10, and then add a percentage chance of failure. The best computers for productivity were those green-screen dumb terminals for data entry or even perhaps DOS text-based programs, but now those all got replaced by full-blown desktops complete with Internet access and Windows Media Player and presentation time-sink software. Sometimes I really hate "progress".

Don't forget uncompensated overtime

[plopez]

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.

Software Engineering

[Dirk Pitt]

I hope you format your code better than your slashdot posts ;-).

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!

liars, damn liars, and statisticians

[Uzik2]

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.

Us lusers

[Inda]

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.

It's the non-tech guys fault...

[nazzdeq]

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.

Re:People are the key

[senatorpjt]

I keep reading these articles about "future jobs" saying that they'll be the ones that are heavy on "people skills"... The problem is that "people skills" aren't really something that is learned, it's more of an innate talent. Sure, you can take a bunch of Dale Carnegie courses and try to fake it, but personally, the more I have to deal with people, the more irritated I get - especially when these people are the "people people" they keep talking about.

I don't know how long that can last, though... Someone has to do work. We can't function as an economy full of marketroids selling bullshit back and forth to each other forever.

It would seem that there would be a breaking point where places like India realize that upper management doesn't really serve any function other than as a money sink. Nameless programmers at Bangalore sweatcubicles will eventually come up with their own ideas, and there will be no reason for them to pay tribute to American managers anymore.

Marketing itself has become more and more irrelevant as time goes on. It's no longer a matter of marketroids trying to push a solution for a problem that never existed, it's a matter of people looking for ready solutions - large distribution networks aren't really an issue with the internet, if a Bangalore programmer comes up with a niche package and offers it for sale on the internet, someone having that problem will find them, a sale will be made. After many sales, they will have a reputation. If it's a good reputation, they can branch out into more and more general projects.

So what's the solution? It certainly doesn't look like there's any painless one.

A severe devaluation of the US housing market would help. People say it's the taxes that make us unable to compete - which isn't necessarily true (aside from property taxes, which are part and parcel of the housing market). Taxes are a proportion of income, and the income required to live is far higher than competitive.

It would be a lot easier to compete if it were possible to find living spaces for less than $100/month. We certainly can't compete if it costs an entire Indian yearly salary every month for some shitbox apartment.

I think an interesting experiment would be a US-based "coding commune"... say.. 50 programmers living in a single building where each person outright owns a share of the building. Companies could "offshore" their work to the commune - their negligible cost of living compared to US programmers flushing their income down the toilet in $1500/month rents would offset the now-marginal cost benefit of hiring Indian programmers.

True

[lysium]

It is true in the (northeast) US as well. A plumber's hourly wage is usually double that of the IT worker. You'll have to climb into IT management to beat the plumbers...that is strangely appropriate, eh?

====--====

Spoken like someone whos never been the 7-11 guy.

[nlinecomputers]

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.

My $0.02

[mcrbids]

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!

Jumping in Late with the Non-Profit Perspective

[The-Dalai-LLama]

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

Re:I'm happy with my job

[Chomper]

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.

Time prediction on projects.

[0x0d0a]

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".

Re:Time prediction on projects.

[_Sharp'r_]

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.

Re:Time prediction on projects.

[Dirk Pitt]

I would be interested in hearing any links to resources that you have found really, honestly valuable

I would recommend:

"Rapid Development: Taming Wild Software Schedules" by Steve McConnell

"A Discipline for Software Engineering" by Humphrey

Just to name a couple. Otherwise, like in most cases in the engineering field of academia vs. The Real World, go find someone who's good at it. Find a team that gets their product out on time every time. Learn from whoever leads it.

I don't really understand your statement saying that in software you don't understand how the system works until at least the end of the design phase. I don't know of any project in any engineering discipline where this isn't true. As for not understanding until implementation, well, that certainly happens. It's still an immature field, to be sure. The idea of managing a large software project has only been around for what, 30-40 year? But there are people out there doing it, and doing it well.

Manage your career

[HeyLaughingBoy]

The problem is, as someone who loves software engineering, I really take pride in trying to implement stuff not just in a way that works, but in a way that is easy to read, change, optimize, etc

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.

Contracting's Where Its At...

[CowboyBob500]

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

MOD PARENT UP!

[CptNerd]

My 20 years of experience have covered a lot of areas, as well, from Fortran to Smalltalk and AI, but after a while it seems I'm still solving the same damn problems, using broken tools, maintaining broken code.

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.

rank them by control over what they do...

[constantnormal]

... 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.

It's Easy!

[cyranoVR]

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."

Differences in day-to-day job actvities

[chumpboy]

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.

Re:I'm happy with my job

[cshark]

As am I.
I love my current job. It's a blast!

But the IT guys in the basement might not feel the same ways about their jobs. Don't know. Haven't asked them...

Identifying your life as your profession

[joshmccormack]

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.

Variety is the spice of life

[Karl Cocknozzle]

I bet the majority of those happy in their profession work in smaller shops where they get to do more than a single set of tasks.

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.

Worst list ever!

[yoshi_mon]

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.

Re:The Unhappy World of Clients of IT Professional

[AbRASiON]

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"