One Terrible Job: IT Manager

editingwhiz writes "I suppose we've always suspected this to be true, but IT Manager's Journal reports that a recent email survey by the authors of a new book called 'Crap Jobs' says that IT managers have the U.K's third-worst job -- ranking just below phone sex operator (No. 1) and ferry cabin cleaner (No. 2). Hmmm. Do you agree?" (ITMJ, like Slashdot, is part of OSTG.) Maybe it's better in the U.S.?

Comments

Whine, whine, whine

[DogDude]

One reason that I'm not in IT is beause of the people. People who whine over an IT management job. Are you kidding me?
1. They get paid a LOT more than minimum wage.
2. They usually get to work in a climate controlled office.
3. They usually get to sit down.
4. They generally don't have to punch a time clock.

These few things here make ANY IT job better than about 90% of the jobs on the planet. Quit whining and repeat after me, "I am not entitled to any particular kind of job."

Re:Whine, whine, whine

[Anonymous Coward]

4. They generally don't have to punch a time clock.

In principle I agree with the rest of your points, but this is not an "advantage" to an IT Job... in fact, more often than not it means that you get paid the same for the week where the lusers shitstorm the network by clicking on their viagra emails or what have you, and you spend 75 hours fixing it, versus the weeks where everything's running smoothly and you "only" have to put in 50.

Re:Whine, whine, whine

[haruchai]

The 75 hours are usually put in by the IT admin NOT the manager. Trust me, I'm speaking from personal experience here. It's true that the managers had to be kept informed but, sometimes, that meant calling them at the golf course (I'm not joking) to give a status report.

Re:Whine, whine, whine

[Dr_Marvin_Monroe]

yeah, I suppose that you are right about the "I am not entitled to any particular kind of job" thing, but it's all in the eye of the beholder which jobs are the best...

1) I suppose getting "a LOT" more than minimum wage makes up for all the crappy things you get called when you institute some stupid policy that the CEO thought up, or helps you forget the way they think up extra secure ways of "letting you go" when your attitude starts to get bad...

2) I suppose that working in a climate controlled environment (chilled server room with fans/noise all the time) is good if you live in the tropics. Most IT guys end up shoved into a corner of the server room with a bundle of CAT5 running right overhead and a shelf of backup tapes right behind the pile of old PC carcases on the floor.

3) I suppose that sitting down helps you build that trophy gut faster, especially when all you eat is McDonalds because you can't leave the building without alerting "EVERYONE" about who's the backup man. Makes lunch an "event" that everyone can enjoy.

4) And the #4 reason to whine..... No reason to worry about a timeclock when you get paged at 2:36AM about the transaction server to Taiwan that crashed. Yeah, no need for a timeclock when they have you on an electronic leash alright....

All in all, putting work behind you at 5:00 is prob. the most important thing to me. If I'm married to a job, I expect to be a partner in the operation, or at least calling some MAJOR shots about how things are handled. Seems like IT guys don't get that.

Seems to me, IT guys only get to pick the color of the PC's after the budget has been set and the purchasing dept. has negotiated the best deal with the vendor that the operations mgr. decided on. Picking Linux or any other interesting stuff could help with your "exit strategy" while keeping with what the bosses want makes you a tool to the rest of the company.

And last, but not least.... Remember to smile while you are dealing with all the stupid users who __pick___(a: forgot their passwords, b: broke their machines, c: need you to come "right now", d: introduced a trojan).....yeah, always smile...people like that.... NOBODY trusts an unhappy IT guy.

Depends on where you work...

[corvair2k1]

The respect of your coworkers is a big factor in how good your IT job is. I'm sure all IT workers (or former IT workers like me) would agree that the actual types of hardware or difficulty of the work isn't the biggest issue. As an integral part of the organization, sometimes IT workers don't get treated as well as they should.

(I had it pretty good... Only one or two people I didn't enjoy.)

Worse jobs...

[anocelot]

My first job was a janitor at a pre-school. I had to clean the restrooms for the potty training kids. Believe it or not, the little girls weren't all THAT much better than they boys. Needless to say, I don't mind being in IT, really...

There ARE worse jobs out there. IT people just have more time to bitch about it. ;)

Perils of IT Managers

[Eberlin]

IT managers get very little sympathy in terms of the basic creature comforts that they get. There's usually a lot of bling involved, and some aura of "respect" that comes with the title.

But the bad side...first and foremost, you're expected to be a miracle worker. Something borks, it's your fault. Nevermind any rhyme or reason why you couldn't have foreseen it coming. It's your fault. Worse yet, they want it fixed yesterday, if not sooner. Forget the impossibility of getting the parts until tomorrow -- it needs to be up and running NOW.

Some of the techs you manage will second-guess you. The rest of the company will second-guess everything you do. If things work, you're not doing your job (after all, there aren't any fires to put out). If things don't work, you're not doing your job because it was your job to keep things running and all that time, you were just sitting there doing nothing.

Some higher-up can't use e-mail? It's your neck on the line. Someone forgot to save their document and some tech you manage says it can't be recovered...so they report this to their superior and next thing you know, some VP wants to know why you're even there.

And those are only if you're a clueful manager. If you're clueless...well, you end up being promoted.

Re:I don't agree

[ibirman]

I have to disagree with you. I worked in a pub kitchen flipping burgers as a kid and loved the job. You come in, you feed people, and you leave knowing that your job is done. I liked the people I worked with and felt like I could do a good job every day.

Now that I am in IT, I toil away at projects that can drag on for years only to be cancelled and called failures. I will be happy to flip burgers any day compared to that.

Of course, in the long term a career job is more rewarding, but short term there is nothing wrong with labor.

People should quit bitching...

[cr0sh]

...and just be glad they have a job!

Last Wednesday (October 6th), after faithfully serving the company I worked at doing software development (on an internally used software package that helped to run the business, no less) for 8 years, I got canned - out of the blue, no warning, no nothing. One minute, I was helping a co-worker with a problem in the software (bugs, gotta love 'em!), when I get a page to go to my supervisors office. I finish up what I am doing...

In my supervisor's office is my supe, and the manager of programming (long to explain, but I *wasn't* on the programming team). This guy is known for wanting new things in the package I was working on, generally difficult (but not impossible) to implement enhancements to make your skin crawl - so my first thought was "now what?". I didn't mind doing these additions; job security, ya know. Little did I know what was coming next...

"cr0sh - we've decided to cancel development on your project, and we won't be needing your services any longer"

GULP

My head was swimming, I was thinking "what am I going to tell my wife?", "how am I going to pay my mortgage", and "WTF - doesn't the past 8 years count for ANYTHING?"...

Apparently not - especially not in a "right-to-work" state. The thing that really galled me is that my supervisor didn't even know, and he is a VP in the company: they went behind and above him to fire me. He had no chance to make a case for me and my project, nor alert me to allow me to make a case for myself and the project. One minute I was working, next minute I am being shown the door (well, actually they were kind and let me pack up my desk - they were also kind enough to cut me a check for the three days I was there along with vacation pay, and some severance pay).

In the end, I am getting the last laugh: By Friday I had another job, and it is looking like by November or so I will be making what I was making there, possibly more. Plus, it is at a smaller company run by an entrepreneur who works hard to succeed in her niche, which involves the methodology of six sigma. Its a good thing to have friends and be able to network!

I quickly landed back on my feet thanks to several friends, my skillset, my resume, and the faith of another small company to take a chance on me. I plan to put everything I have into this new oppourtunity.

To my former employer:

You threw away a very valuable employee. Yeah, on the bottom line the software I developed may have looked like an expense, but I bet it saved you more money over the years than you spent on it. Good luck with whatever you do to the software, but I can guarantee that if you try to move to another system, it won't be half of what you had, and will probably cost twice as much or more to implement!

So, to all of you out there in a similar IT situation bitching about your job: be thankful you have a job - one day, it may not be there, and dinner will be dollar store macaroni and cheese meals.