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How Much Respect Do You Get?
droidlev asks: "In our continually fluctuating economy I have seen a drastic change in the level of respect that I receive. As a technician I've grown accustomed to a heightened level of respect when I walk into a client's office. Not to say that I have a God complex, however, it feels good to walk into a room and be appreciated. I'm passionate for the computer work that I do; I'm 'GEEK' for it. People know that I'm there to help and solve their problems. There is good amount of value in this extra level of appreciation and respect. This is especially true when you are developing business relationships (and of course it never hurts to be liked). In recent times, however, I've been cast in a different light; actually more like a darkened shadow. I am now seen as a necessary evil instead of the 'all powerful technician.' So I ask what your experiences have been, either as a computer technician or another professional? Have you seen a change in the level of respect that you receive?"
"Businesses are trying to save every penny they have. Unless something significant goes wrong, they handle a situation themselves. This only compounds the severity of a problem. By the time I get there, everything has gone to hell and I get a look (the it's-all-your-fault look) from every cubicle and every office. In the past, exceptionally dedicated service translated to loyal clients that didn't mind paying a little bit more. Once I was the problem solver, now it seems I am yet another flame to burn their money."
Granted there are ups and downs in the industry at large and variations from employer to employer, but by far the most significant factor in determining the level of respect people show you at work is your own conduct. If you've noticed that the people at work suddenly seem to respect you less, IMO the first place you need to look is at your own conduct. Are you really working and behaving in a way that earns and demands respect? Overall, this shakes out into two basic keys:
1. Earn respect. Know your stuff, be willing to help people out and be someone that people can stand. Own your responsibilities. At the same time, don't try to be an expert in matters you don't really understand and don't try to force your big nose into other peoples' work. Be that guy that people want to work with and want on their team. It's perpetually amazing to me that such a high percentage of people in the professional world (not just geeks) fall down on one or more of these three and then act shocked when people hate dealing with them because they're either incompetent or impossible to work with (which amounts to more or less the same thing).
2. Demand respect. There are always going to be people who try to make you do something or bypass you or whatever by running over or around you. Don't stand for this -- be professional, be polite and (if it's someone up the foodchain from you) remember your place, but leave it crystal clear that in matters where you hold responsibility, you will not be cut out and you will not be strongarmed. This is an attitude, and it's not "respect mah authoritah!" attitude that I see a lot from geeks.
Competence and confidence are the keys to garnering and maintaining the respect of your coworkers. Really, they're the keys to success at life in general.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
... is something you earn. If people are treating you like a dirtbag then work on improving your image.
Trolling is a art,
We lived threw a change in the way that IT is viewed. It changed rather quickly too. Back in the late 90s early 2000 IT and Techs were seen as the bringer of new and terrific stuff that is supposed to make their life better. Now that most everyone has got all this stuff that supposed to make there lives better they found out it only allowed them to do more and harder (So except spending a day typing out the pay role, you are now Printing the payroll and managing benefits.) work for the same pay. So you are no longer the guy who will bring a company tons of money threw web sales, but the guy who needs to make sure the now built website doesn't crash, and if it did then there is lost money. So you are now considered an expense, or as best a long term expense to lower TCO. We are no longer money makers. That is why some "Programmers" with High school degrees who said they knew HTML got these 100k a year jobs, making crappy web pages because these web pages were to make the company money so they saw these web developers as technical marketing department. But now after the infrastructure is set up and they realized they didn't need Joe Smo "HTML is Frontpage right?" we became an expense. It is not that we personally lost the respect of people. But we are no longer looked upon as money makers. But more like a power bill, or a maintenance crew.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The best thing a technical person can do for their employer, and hence for themselves both in terms of respect and gratitude and monetary compensation, is to do extra things that add value to the bottom line.
For instance, if you're not involved in the analysis and design phase of software, maybe watch the market more closely so as to know what suggestions to make in terms of features and design. If you're not a programmer, then look into ways to add value by improving the company website; maybe freshen up some content, add an RSS feed, or look for ways to improve the aesthetics and page copy of a conversion page (such as a point of purchase page, for example). Look for ways to improve conversions from affiliate lead sources.
I know how easy it is to go "down the rabbit hole" when writing code. You get lost in the code. You dream about it; it's the only thing you think about. And it pretty much has to be that way. I try and periodically take some time off from writing code for short intervals specifically to come up for air, so to speak.
But most significantly, realize that everyone arrives at work precisely to add value to the company's bottom line. Everyone arrives at work in order to solve the problems to which they are assigned. There is certainly nothing unique about IT in that manner.
However, if you're truly being treated like a pariah, I would ask, who is responsible for "casting" you in such a unfavorable light? It could be office politics. And of course, there's always the chance that you're too much like the IT guy in those Jimmy Fallon SNL sketches.
I Want To Believe
To want "respect" means that you would like some other unspecified group to have _less_ "respect," at least compared to you.
Maybe it would be better just to do good, professional work that can itself withstand such comparison rather than seek the "I am better than the run-of-the mill-worker" kind of "respect."
Back in the day we called it egoless programming. It means to feel good about the whole team being productive. Groups like this share code, mentor each other constantly, prevent anyone from failing, and are fun to be around. Groups that worship individual "respect" get prima donnas, backstabbing and less overall productivity.
Let your good work speak for itself. If you need more respect, learn something additional about your craft and feel good about it yourself.
Really, the aura of godliness geeks had has been gone for years.
We're not really all that special, we never were.
It's just a job, man.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
How do you feel when you have to call a plumber in to your home, knowing that every hour they sit there scratching their ass will cost you $125? Like most people you probably dread it, and you try to DIY as much as possible. You probably even try to maintain your manlihood by trying to demonstrate to him what you know once he comes.
People don't like depending upon other people, and the sad reality, and it's amazing how few techs realized this, was that people were patronizing you in the past when they'd fawn over you. That wasn't that they respected you, but rather that they thought that they could get as much out of you as possible by pushing your ego buttons.
I caught onto that very early in my career, and no longer did coworkers and family talking about how I'm the smartest person they've ever met and boy do I know computers, ad nauseum, fool me into providing pro bono work.
I found that the respect i get is a function of personal relationships with those individuals and not really a function of what i did. People who arent technical tend not to look at our craft as fondly as we tend to do, they dont see the things that we see in it, and therefore it often doesnt hold the same appeal or respect. Those who do show that respect often respect you as a person or have an affinity for technology and can appreciate what you do more than the norm. Either way, even if you sweep the floor, and you do it to the best of your ability and treat those around you with respect, youll tend to get it in return. And ask yourself, if you expect them to be in awe of you just for walking in the room, how much do you really respect them?
I was crazy back when being crazy really meant something. (Charles Manson)
I've found that at my current job I seem to get more respect as time goes on. Part of that reason would be that I admit what I don't know, I treat my coworkers the way I hope to be treated, and I take care of any problems as well as my deliverables in a fast, efficient manner.
One of the other comments - 'A BOFH should be feared, not respected' - is perhaps, true, but unless you're in an extraordinarily IT-centric organization, that kind of attitude is much more likely to hurt rather than help.
-- Wow. Another comment by SeanMike. All comments are not endorsed by IDI.
Today, technicians are a dime a dozen, and it shows. With so many wannabe "technicians" flooding the market, it is only natural for people to base their opinion on what they see: A whole bunch of incompetent boobs claiming to be experts when they are nothing more than hobbiests with a screwdriver and a shit attitude.
Further to that, geek is now chic. This means there are many posers who are diluting the true meaning of the word, because they want to look hip and trendy.
Its sad, really. We are a victim of our own desires, to be accepted by society as a whole instead of relegated to the computer and AV rooms of the world.....
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
How respect do you give the guy who fixes your washing machine?
Computers are being viewed more and more as another applicance. A means to get things done. Not some mysterious and all-powerful machine. As this perception becomes more widespread, the respect given to people who repair them will approach that of people who fix other appliances.
The are no more Priests of the Temples of Syrinx (obscure Rush reference).
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
That business is afraid of technology is axiomatic. Most businesses loathe their IT departments. I've said this before, but the executives cringe every time their CIO says, "We have a problem." They grind their teeth as they sign off on the IT budget; as far as they're concerned, every cent of that is wasted. Business chugged along JUST FINE for 100 years before 1995 and now suddenly we have to dump millions every year into a department full of unwashed slobs who can't be taught to cut their hair or wear pants. For awhile, these types of people were making millions off computers and technology, and they didn't mind so much having that IT department. "I don't know what they do, but I bought Yahoo at $25/share and sold it a day later at $125. It MUST be good to have computer guys." Then it all ended, and they LOST millions, and now your IT people are once more a burden that the company carries, with its executives half convinced that IT is the nuclear missile of business - we don't REALLY have a legitimate use or need for it, but we have to have it because all the other big players have it, too. They don't even appreciate that you fix their computers because mostly don't want computers in the first place. They don't understand them. And you'll know when you bump into a member of that generation that does see the value. Anyway, I'm rambling here but if you're not getting "respect" at your job then you know what your options are. Change companies, change jobs, change expectations, change attitude, change something. But notice that I'm telling you to change, not them. You can't control what they do, you can only control your own decisions.
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
Having to deal with techies and reality is an annoyance for managerial types. What seems more important is the power play on the corporate ladder.
To be part of the "in crowd" means playing the game. Brown nose, buzzwords and running a general line of bullshit. As a techie not interested in the corporate power chain, but rather in shipping good product and making a real profit, I find it hard to get a reasonable audience. Sure they'll usher me in the back door to fix a multi-million dollar problem then out the back door again when the job is done, but they won't listen as to how the problems can be fixed.... mostly because they're often process or political problems, and rule number one of the corporate power game is "don't step out of line".
Engineering is the art of compromise.
IT has changed from implementation to maintenence from the 90s to 2005. Not to be offensive, but when you're maintaining a system or installing updates, or making the network run smoothly, you're nothing more than a lowly technician, someone who has mastered a trade. Rather than bringing forth the unknown as technicians did in the 90s, they are just doing something that someone else doesn't want to spend time doing. When technology was new, there was a mystique in understanding how these computers run. But that mystique is long-gone. Just as in the early days of electricity, it seemed so new to commonfolk, and electricians were seen as magicians for knowing how it worked and how it can be fixed.
If you want more respect for what you do, do something beyond maintaining systems or technician work. Do something that requires intelligence to design the systems. Mystique fades quickly once everyone gets used to the technology and you're not the one propelling it forward.
I am defenseless. Use your button. Mod me down with all of your hatred.
I learned an important lession when I was providing 24x7 support for a network management center.
At my boss's advice, I visited the end customers each and every workday.
They began to associate me with the system while it was working. In contrast, some admins only showed up when their systems were broken. They were usually greeted with "Here comes trouble!"
My relationship was so good that, when the system broke in the middle of the night, the customers would do their best to get by until morning, even though I assured them that it was my duty to restore it during the night.
Being around to take credit for things running smoothly is indispensible.
Respect is an odd currency. Those who understand absolutely nothing of what I do, and should give me respect when they enter my territory, offer the least.
In general, respect has declined during the past years, even though my abilities and credentials inside my profession have increased.
There are also different kinds of respect. I have learnt to not give much on statements of respect. My boss tells me five times daily that I'm the most knowledgable security dude in the company - but my advise on security matters is apparently not important enough to warrant action.
Two former bosses had the proper method for expressing respect towards techies: Not only did they say "you guys know best how to do this, just get it done", they also followed through with it and got out of our ways. One was the CTO, the other was brilliant in keeping other trouble (higher-ups, users, other bosses) away from us while we worked on the problem.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
You're accurate about genuine respect.
There is however displayed respect. That special kind that gets displayed whether you're actually deserving of it or not.
This is the kind that gets displayed to an utterly incompetent CEO (to his face at least) because, well, he signs the checks and, whether you respect him or not, if you piss him off, you're screwed.
During the dotcom boom, most IT people got the displayed kind automatically. I remember being outright told, "You don't need to worry about HR and viewing unsafe sites. In the current economy, we can't replace you. You piss them off, they recommend you're fired, we refuse to do so because we can't lose you. End of story."
If a client pissed you off and you quit - or refused to work for them - it was [perceived as] way too hard to get someone else in. Thus they sucked up and displayed respect whether they felt like it or not.
It's a logical OR statement:
Genuine and Displayed: Respect is shown.
Genuine only: Respect is shown.
Displayed only: Respect is shown.
Neither: You're screwed.
What sucks for many in the IT field is that they were never really deserving of genuine respect, they just got the displayed kind because IT salaries were so nuts. Now the boom has burst and starving developers are [perceived as] a dime a dozen, they no longer qualify for the displayed kind. Thus, if you were genuinely deserving of respect, you continue to gain be shown it. If you were only ever getting the displayed kind - well, you don't merit it anymore.
Of course there's one other aspect to it. Scott Adams calls it the way of the weasel. Genuine respect still requires genuine people. In the typical workplace, many people will show respect if you genuinely deserve it - but there are still plenty of cretins who will screw anyone over, deserving or not, if it suits them. For them, whether you warrant genuine respect or not, they'll only ever show it to you if you warrant the displayed kind as, otherwise, you're not helping them directly and they can, therefore will, screw you.
During the boom anyone and everyone was in this business. Every guy who could launch VB was treated like a god. Tons of custom software development houses sprung up and promised the world to unwitting clients.
Years later, after dumping millions of dollars into our industry, clients are wising up. Most companies have horror stories at this point. Most of them have been burned by start-up custom software houses who can no longer maintain the broken wreck they have created. Most clients have been through the ringer with consultants who charge an arm and a leg but don't deliver anything.
There are a lot of good computer guys out there, and a lot of good software companies, but my honest opinion is that most people in our business are little better than snake oil salesmen.
Am I the only one who doesn't mind doing favors for friends and family? My grandma never charged me for her oatmeal raisin cookies, and I have frequently asked my lawyer or doctor friends for advice. My brother is a physical therapist, and he sent me a list of exercises when I sprained my ankle. No bill, just free advice. And a nifty ankle brace that fit into my regular shoes.
We have gone from the guy who saved them from their ignorange, since everything was so brand new and they felt stupid, to the equivalent of the plumber or phone guy.
:)
Since the technology isn't that new anymore, they don't feel dumb anymore when it breaks. Everyone "knows" that it's Microsoft's fault and nothing they did could ever cause this much distruction.
How many times did you hear customers belittle themselves while you tried to defend their dignity: "No, no, it's nothing you could have prevented. Oh, no, you're not that stupid. This is hard." It's the only time I've ever heard so many millionaires and businessmen call themselves idiots.
And now? They don't even want to know how it works, "just fix it" is the reply. No more apologizing for their stupidity.
Maybe everyone finally realized that they're not stupid after all. Or maybe, they're tired of software breaking when it's not their fault. Parhaps this is OUR fault for telling them for years that, no, they didn't do anything, they're not stupid. Perhaps it's time to go back to confirming a person's insecurities.
Most folk'll never lose a toe, and then again some folk'll...
Perhaps you're speaking from experience.
My own experience has been always to do a little more than asked, stay a little longer than needed, and go that extra mile. I've worked with too many people who said "I'll do more if they'll pay me more."
I did more, and now they pay me more. Those who chose to wait for the raise before taking on more responsibility are still waiting -- and still choosing to.
And you, madam, are very ugly. In the morning, I shall be sober.
Then, you have the world of IT consulting. Not a corporate environment where the technician is "a fellow employee" but truly a world of on-demand service calls and sometimes even outright hostility. Over the past 5 years for me, consulting has shrunk from "cool, here's our IT guy to help us" to "why are you here again?". Once, in the past few months, I even had a client who refused to pay 20% of their bill because their SBC DSL router died, which caused "downtime" until it was fixed, which was "my fault". We now live in a place where we get charged, literally, by the hour for downtime instead of being thanked for locating the problem, calling SBC and getting the replacement router out. I'm personally frustrated to the point where I'll take last year's $175k revenue and shit-can it in favor of a $70k cube because customers have become *that* unreasonably demanding. To top it off, they demand you work yourself out of a job ("show up, hook us up and it better run forever without you for the next 10 years"). So, respect? Far declining. I wish I would have sold-short respect in 2000.
You can get great respect for performing your job brilliantly, or you may be ignored. Yet it will not really change your position substantially.
Suppose someone at a fast food restaurant does a bang-up job of serving your food - gets the order right, the food is prepared perfectly. You respect him. But do you think he's now in the same tier as you? Maybe you'll give him a few extra bucks, but you probably won't invite him to your parties and you'd feel pretty weird if your graduate-school educated sister went out with him.
Well, that goes in both directions. Your B-school educated manager, or PhD-awarded engineer or researcher, is going to give you respect for a job well done. But if you think that translates into access to a new tier of status and esteem, think again. A lot of IT geeks think that their mastery over one piece of infrastructure should translate into general esteem for their intellectual prowess, but that's as much driven by resentment and an inability to understand what's really going on around them as anything.
Did you ever interrupt your Grandma in the middle of bingo to demand she make some oatmeal cookies? Ever call your brother up and interrupt a therapy session with one of his clients, demanding that he stop, because your sprained ankle is keeping you from doing 10 other things that you just HAVE to get done?
I get calls from friends & family demanding help with their viruses, M$ installations, bugs, printer jams, you name it, while I'm already busy working on the CEO's system.
I manage a LAN/WAN environment with 7 locations, 75 customers, and 500 Cisco IP phones. Do they respect me? Yes. Do they show it? Not monetarily... no raise in 2 years.
But let me put it another way. What was I doing on that CEO's system? He demanded I clean his keyboard, because someone spilled something sticky on it.
These people looked deep into my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined.
(check by sort "oldest first")
A first post with the words "frist psot" on slashdot modded +5 funny? That's impressive. I guess it's like that old saying, you can fool some of the moderators all of the time and all of the moderators some of the time... or something.
My other first post is car post.
I think that perhaps respect in the workplace in general is down. There seems to be a distinct lack of appreciation for the working class, while of course the visible usual-buttkissing applies to those higher up whilst we bitch about them in private.
I'm a sysadmin/technician myself, and I do notice a notible amount of disrespect at times in my job - sometimes often enough because others just don't understand the work involved in things they ask for - but I can't say I'm the only victim of this as my co-workers often enough readily disrespect each other as well.
I would claim the majority of people in the IT industry just have little clue about what they're doing. It's a job to them, not a passion. They don't care about making things better, they care about getting their paycheck.
In this day, it's now painfully obvious that many people who work in IT are just bloodsuckers. They claim to know what they're doing and yet they manage to accomplish amazing feats of stupidity.
Come on. We all know that guy who's an Exchange administrator who can't explain how an e-mail gets from one persons computer to another. Or the web designer who solely uses Frontpage. Or the system administrator who has managed to get Windows installed on a PC.. but can't quite do anything else.
It's all too common. The IT industry just pisses me off now because it's filled with flunkies got an MCSE out of a crackerjack box.
And now Joe Public has a dim view on techies? Took them too bloody long imho.
to me. At my place of employment, the managers often see praise and respect as an equivalent substitute for salary and benefits.
I've got a family from which I receive love and respect. I work to provide money to feed and shelter my family. I don't work for respect, and frankly as long as I'm doing my job, I don't really care if my managers respect me or not.
This only makes sense. An increasing proportion of people who use computers come from the general population. In relation to computing professionals, their position is increasingly that of consumers rather than colleagues. The traditional respect for a professional which is based on an informed recognition of ability is bound to suffer.
That's one main factor, as I see it. The other is that our culture is going through a characteristic phase of technology change in which adoption is followed by social disruption. The same process happened as agriculture transformed social structure, and again during the industrial revolution. This time around, we have other major forces of social disruption at play as well, including globalization, the inversion of market and social values, and the accumulation of ecological effects which began with the previous two revolutions.
Some of these forces are pretty abstract, even though their effects are not. But the force of technological change is manifest in an unprecedented flood of new artifacts into people's lives. As bearers of that change, we make a very visible target for frustration not only with the artifacts and their mysterious technology, but with disruptive forces in general. Our very competence can become a liability.
Parity: What to do when the weekend comes.
So my boss tried to console me with some lip-service: the engineers are more valuable than the managers. You see, the company can find a new manager without too much trouble, but replacing an engineer, someone who can come in and pick up the hardware and the code, is much more difficult. This led to the obvious question: if the engineers are so valuable, why don't we get the huge bonuses and stock options?
I'll let you guess at his answer, but here's a hint: I updated my resume that night.
-paul
Pistol caliber is like religion: everyone has their favourite, and theirs is the only right choice.
Well, usually a lot because he performs a task that I can't do myself. And I like it when shit doesn't shoot from my walls. :)
Blog,Twitter
True respect is earned because of the kind of person you are, not the things that you do (insofar as those things are not a part of who you are). Comport yourself with honor, be respectful of others, and you will earn their respect in turn. That you think having some inscrutable technical knowledge should earn you respect is, frankly, revolting.
I you've hit on the big issue -- some people don't seem to appreciate that they're impacting your time. With a doctor or lawyer, you may ask for a bit of advice off the top of their head, but you don't expect them to reset a broken bone in their spare time. Asking a mechanic friend if you should worry about a funny noise is different from asking them to rebuild your engine.
...')
So, if you're going to ask favors from someone, be polite, ask them if they have time for a question, before you expect them to drop everything they're doing, and fix it immediately. Odds are, your being able to check email or play minesweeper isn't a high priority on your friend's list, when they're trying to recover from a bad day at work, where they spent 14 straight days of 12-16 hrs days fixing a server so 35k people could read their email.
For some reason, we don't expect waiters/waitresses to go and get us drinks at our every whim, yet there are some professions (IT, medical, lawyer, seem to be the big ones), where it seems people are just okay with asking them for advise whenever they feel like it.
(oh -- and wearing an 'RTFM' shirt to parties doesn't seem to help, either. You go and explain the significance to someone, and someone else hears half of the explaination, and you get a 'you work in computers? I'm having this weird problem
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Would be to give him a brand new, "shiny like it's right out of the box"(and it is) keyboard. Just throw the other one away, and don't mention it again.
:)
If he presses the issue, politely present this:
What's going to cost more in the end, me spending an hour of your time cleaning the keyboard(which when you figure in travel to and from the location, time finding supplies, the supplies themselves, and putting everything away, isn't likely to be under 1 hour), or buying a new keyboard?
Or, you could just clean the keyboard, and ask for a bonus
Look behind you...
A bit of background to explain my perspective. I'm the network manager for a small law firm in DC. I've been doing this for about 25 years, starting with hardware, growing into software early, and working on everything from microcomputers in the 70s to minicomputers in the 80s to networks in the 90s and moving into management in 1999, about 90 days before Y2K. I've worked for the military, the government, government contractors, law firms, and drug labs.
The golden years are gone. The age where I could walk into the room and hold people in awe has passed. It's not that my skills are less than they once were, it's that over time, people have become accustomed to what the IT people can do, and today, their expectations exceed their wildest imaginings of 20 years ago. Or 5 years ago.
To be honest, I think Y2K is where it tipped. Up until then, even when there was plenty of money, there was a lot of pressure to do more with less. Y2K forced many companies to make substantial IT investments, and since then, I've seen a greater willingness to maintain code, to upgrade systems, and to avoid creating similar problems in the future. Along with a greater awareness of how IT works and what IT can do for them, users expectations have risen. Somewhere aroune Y2K, we moved from users assuming we couldn't do things to users assuming we could do anything.
Over the same general period, a lot of technology that used to be tightly controlled by IT due to cost has become so cheap that consumers now litter their homes with it. In 1990, people thought I was insane to have managed ethernet hubs in my home network. Today, gigabit switches don't raise an eyebrow.
I think when this was more of a black art, and far less pervasive, people had a greater respect for our knowledge and skills. Now that they're constantly surrounded with the stuff, I've felt I get a lot less professional courtesy and respect.
http://drteknikal.blogspot.com/
Huh?
:)
It's now Non-Technical Professional Appreciation Day. Let me list the things that I'm glad my PHB/business-dev/sales folks get to do:
* Go to project meetings and listen to client's problems for hours on end
* Fly halfway around the world to drum up new business
* Resolve sticky contractual issues that involve many days of phone calls, faxes, and lawyers
* Translate for/run defense against upper management
There is no question that some organizations are top-heavy and it slows them down. This is why we have the free enterprise system, to allow the nimble to outsmart the slow. But I don't see it getting worse. In fact we now have the technology and management theory to make big enterprise more efficient than ever -- witness the Wal Mart phenomenon.
If you complain about anything, complain about the government's policies not making the playing field level enough. But I don't agree with your worker's revolution thesis. As long as there are people willing to give up freedom for security, there will be the employer-employee agreement.
Oh BTW if this is a troll, please ignore -- I gave up my mod points anyway
My brother (physical therapist) wants me to exercise every day. My other brother (theologian) wants me to go to church. My dentist wants me to floss regularly. I want them all to use Firefox.
There's a lot of free advice out there, but not enough time or energy in my day to follow all of it.
Respect doesn't put food on the table.
Respect doesn't get me a fancy new car.
Respect doesn't cause That Nice Lady to come over to my house and clean it every Friday.
No, my good fellows and fellowettes, all those good things take money. Cash. Moolah. The long green. Bucks. Gravy. The means. Dough. Simoleans. Bread--can you dig it?
And, as it turns out, I don't need respect. I have money.
Money is not the root of all evil. Wondering about whether or not you're being respected is the root of all evil.
Do you want to be part of the team or not?
Yes? The team has rules, don't deride them, they are there for a reason (not all of them necessarily practical from a purely technical or professional point of view).
No? Then get out of the team, find a team you are comfortable with.
Honestly, techie types fit the stereotype of social ineptitude so neatly (trying to hide behind the "I bring the millions, I am the little misappreciated star" pseudo moral high ground) that is actually surprising that their non techie colleagues don't hate them more than they do.
Like if hanging out with nerdy types did not include a good amount of "brown nosing". And buzzwords? Amongst techies? No way, we 4r3 33lite, whe us no bu55word5 you xuqor.
Nothing worst than social ineptitude with an attitude.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
We sell clients on technology with many points of failure. We provide operating systems full of bugs. We provide applications that don't interoperate. We sell them monitors with dead pixels and tell them it's normal. We sell them software that needs patching, gives inaccurate results, or crashes when you look at it sideways.
Exactly how much respect should we expect when we are called in to fix it?
I wish to coin a phrase, if no one else has done so.
We are now "Janitors of th Microsoft Plumbing"
And why are we viewed with such disdain? Imagine how you would feel about your plumber if you had to call him in two or three times a week to unclog your stopped toilet.
People expect computers to be a consumer appliance that "just works". We get a share of the blame for the appallingly low quality of shrink-wrapped software that is barely beta-test status when shipped to production users. (Test the software?- that's what users are for; Configuration Cotnrol? - that would dip into profits, let the DLLs crash, they can always reboot)
You want respect - install OSS software that doesn't crash, and get paid for adding value in the design process, instead of billing hours for reaming the t3rds out of the M$ toilet.
"Sic Semper Path of Least Resistance"
I know it is one of those trite cliches, but the better you do your job, the greater amount of work that comes your way, whether you want it or not. This phenomena is not unique to my line of work (field service) nor is it modern (my dad lived it too).
As people develop expertise in their field, their primary responsibilities take less and less effort than they did when they were new. Eventually things then tend to progress in the following manner:
1. Because of your good work, your accounts are happier with your company or run more profitably than they might otherwise be. They take on more business and buy more equipment from your company. Guess who gets to service it! Okay, you were getting bored anyway, and so you welcome the new toy.
2. The boss notices that you don't have to work very hard to keep up with your responsibilities, and knowing this, he asks you to "help out" the guys working on a difficult problem at another site.
2a. Once you establish a positive track record of fixing difficult problems, your name rises to the top of the list of who to call when there is trouble. You get an Attaboy, and wangle a free lunch or two out of the boss. That and your sense of accomplishment is your reward, but not much more money, except for the overtime.
2b. As your reputation spreads, your pager starts to go off at all hours, day and night. Blearily eyed, you trudge off into a snowstorm at 3 AM on Sunday Morning to drive the 50 miles to fix a half-million dollar machine with a turn of the screwdriver and a few taps on the keyboard. You get home at about 9 AM, just in time to get paged again by the same customer for another machine. After this debacle, you resolve to test and end up spending 3 hours doing preventative repairs to all of your company's equipment at the site before leaving. After putting in 14 hours, you arrive home. The following week, the regular tech has his easiest week in months, but you get mildly reprimanded for putting in too much overtime. Boss apologizes when you point out that the work was billable at off-hours rates.
3. For the reason above, the boss asks you to "cover" another tech's accounts while he is out sick, on vacation, or forgot to turn on his pager. Being the dedicated employee you are, you oblige, and fix a bunch of things the regular guy has neglected. The account now has higher expectations from the equipment, which means that the boss or the other tech will be calling on you frequently to maintain the performance of the equipment.
4. You are asked to help train new employees, and to work with "problem employees" to improve their skills. Training new guys with talent isn't too bad, though it is time-consuming. Trying to work with guys who have teflon-coated brain cells is ultimately futile and a waste of time.
5. You become the boss's confidant and right-hand man. He asks you to cover him on weekends, vacations, and golf outings, in addition to your expanding list of regular duties. Your cell phone rings on vacation. It's the boss pleading for help.
6. The boss eventually retires, gets promoted, or takes another job. You are now the new boss, and have to take responsibility for everything. First item on the agenda after buying a new suit for all of those client meetings: Finding a replacement for yourself in your old job. You no longer have time to do the tech work you love and were good at, instead you are buried under a mountain of paperwork, meetings, and reports. By the way, you are now on straight salary and are on call 24/7.
Welcome to the Corporate Ladder!
I've generally received the least respect from the least intelligent people. They don't have intelligence, they don't recognise it, they don't respect it.
That's not to be confused with technical expertise. I've been respected by people who could whup my butt with their wizardly skills, and by people who didn't know a byte from a battery. But they recognised my qualifications and respected them, because they were qualified for their jobs, and knew that deserved respect.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
I hear Rodney Dangerfield gets very little respect. I also hear that Aretha Franklin has to really put her foot down to get any.
Seriously... if you're not getting the respect you want, chances are that it's because of some larger ongoing interpersonal context that has been established.
It sounds silly, but when you present an idea to people, or do work for them, the respect and consideration they give to the idea or results is wholly dependent on their preexisting opinion of you (whether it is inaccurate or not). Even if the idea itself is great or you do outstanding work, if they don't like you, your ideas won't be considered and your work won't be respected.
Be honest with yourself and others and seek to clearly understand the interpersonal context people have with you. Then, change it by addressing it explicitly -- don't expect things like producing better results or offering better ideas to change anyone's mind, because it won't. Instead, work on things like being less critical or defensive.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
Because a good business manager would never let a situation devolve the way this one did.
Many geeks are good managers. But many are not. It's just a different skill set to run a business and make money at it consistently, than it is to code, work on hardware, etc. You can be good at both, but being good at one does not necessarily require you to be good at the other.
Being spectacular at a specific geek skill like programming, network admin, security, etc. makes you valuable to a business. But without good management, there is no business--whether or not the engineering skills are there. That's why managers make more than engineers in a lot of cases.
There's one problem with explaining things nicely. It's really, really hard to do.
...
Prepare for huge blanket statements
Why are programmers usually geeky properllerheads with little social skills? Probably because they stare at code all day. Did you hire them to smooze?
Why are sales guys finger shooting suits? Probably because they sell things to people who don't want to spend money, smooth out issues and network all day. Did you hire them to be introverted and shy?
Sorry to generalize but IT people are bitter because the job is fighting fires all day. Make a sales guy code for a year and most will start watching Star Wars and have little to say at parties. Make a developer sling deals and pitch to high powered VPs and I bet people think he's greasy and fake. I'm stereo-typing in a major way but I've seen really happy people turn sour in a position like helpdesk/desktop support.
It's just a thankless job where you only can dump on your PC/desktop vendor. People seek power and bottom rung is no fun for most.
I think you are suggesting far too much latitude. How easy it is to justify our inhumanity to each other by imagining that those acts are the necessary response to an aggressor. A bully can produce any number of reasons why his victims deserved what they got.
I believe that its never acceptable to deny someone human dignity, no matter what the conditions, a principle that extends to how you treat other people and how you treat yourself - i.e. to permit someone to treat you without dignity is morally equivalent to permitting that treatment for others. If someone incites you to assert your own dignity which causes a denial of their dignity, then they are responsible for both actions, such as if someone purposely stepped on your toes and you responded by pushing them off.
In such a situation, all of the actions that you take to restore your dignity are morally acceptable, but everything beyond that is immoral. Therefore, the impulse to retaliate and cause the attacker to experience the same humiliation that you received is immoral. Causing the attacker to be humiliated may be satisfying to the attackee, but goes far beyond restoring dignity and into punishment and disincentives and it is unjust for an attackee to dispense his idea of justice since the satisfaction of revenge would be something very much like a material benefit. A disinterested party is the proper dispenser of justice, who should restore the plaintiff's dignity if possible. But since denying an individual's dignity also strikes a blow against the community as a whole, it is just for the attacker to make additional reparations to the community itself in the form of incarceration, fines, community service, etc.
"It's Dot Com!"
Tech is the new McDonalds. Schools are pushing out any tech program they think will sell (you can get a BS in anything 'hot' now) and they will churn out candidates like the one you describe. People are wise to the situation. It used to be techies were known to have a strong understanding of their field, now anyone can get a tech job. Thus the percieved lack of respect. Not to mention the false assumptions like "My 15 year old can do this!" Heh, I've seen a small corporate network go to a guy's kid and he screwed it up bad. Regardless, computers and IS are not mysterious things anymore. Perhaps its not McDonalds yet, but for a good part of the industry its like being a mechanic or "lower."
For good or bad. The creme will always rise to the top, just like in any industry. Looks like the guy in article needs to learn how to sell himself insead of assuming people will magically understand how good he is.
I think that as a culture we are being stingier with our respect across the board. It is becoming more and more of a norm to actively display distaste for someone who has a desired skill or ability or experience of any kind.
chick-in-charge at Blue Blood
> It makes me wonder sometimes, if the U.S. is a much more stratified society than it is made out to be.
You are making the same mistake a whole lot of people around the world make. You visit big cities that are full of judgemental assholes (usually self-proclaimed to be the most open minded) and cast the whole country in that light.
I don't blame you for it, because really, who wants to vacation in South Dakota, West Virginia, or New Mexico? No one. Well, very few.
If you go to parts of the U.S. where people are REAL, then you will see it's not quite as stratified as you think. Remember, people who live inside/near the cities either:
1) Make shitloads of money, so they think they're all that and don't have much grasp on reality. Of course, they have to pay back most of that money on the form of higher city/property taxes and much higher costs of living.
2) Work the undesireable service jobs and make just enough to eke by, making them look poor, when really, they would do alright with the same pay in a different area. They just refuse to go where life is better because they don't realize that it is better (IMO, of course).
Without going into too much detail, it's because a lot of IT people don't know how to "sell" themselves, don't know how to do good powerpoint presentations, don't know how to present concepts and the "so what?" behind them without detail clutter, don't understand where "the business" is coming from, and very often don't want to or don't care.
This is a vicious generalization, I realize. But in my experience, it has often held true.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
Let me address a few of the comments I see below before I go into what happened today...
Ok, mostly I see a bunch of AC comments saying the situation could have been handled better, ect. There's one about me not being a good manager, what not.
First off, this isn't the dot com boom anymore. You take what you can get in this economy. If this is what I love doing, i'm good at it, I should be happy with whatever I get paid, as long as it compensates for my costs.
Second, as far as this being a lack of management skills on my part, well, refer to answer #1. I did everything I could do right. There was a contract, I put in little clauses like "2 hour minimum for any site visit" and other things like that to make sure my time wasn't monopolized on little shit 1/2 visits. All said and done, I did a very good job of "managing" this.
Third, there are people in this world that no matter how good of a deal you're going to give them, they're always going to want more. This is a personality type. Usually I can spot these right off the bat, but when I first started working for this client, there was no indication that he was this type. I worked without a contract, just straight billing at my full non contract rate.
Three is enough responses, so onto what happened today..
So I get out to the sattelite office. This wasn't the main office with the troublesome company president. Like I said in my previous post, the manager of this office always valued my time and opinion, and would sometimes throw a little extra change my way ($100 check usually).
The VPN was totally down. He said it had been this way for months, and the president had several people out there to fix it, but none of them were able to figure it out. (hmm, gee, freeswan vpn, documentation is all over the fucking net you idiots) He told me at one point they had brought in these red vpn boxes (i'm guessing watchguard boxes) and when they didn't work, brought them back.
Apparently Bob was no longer doing work for the company because he wasn't getting paid. The last trip he made out there, the sattelite office had to make the check out, then fax it to his office before he even showed up on site.
There was the usual run of spyware on the machines. A few swipes with adaware and S&D cleaned them up fast.
There was some data in the main office he needed transferred over. See, the sattelite offices would save their data over the VPN to a server in the main office, where the data was backed up to a DLT tape every night.
Right before I left, I set up PPTP on their PDC so they could remote in while on the road. I just simply fired up the PPTP client, connected, downloaded the data and put it on the local BDC. Then I went around and changed all the drive mappings in the local office to point to the BDC on the local site instead of the PDC in the main office.
It was a cool hours worth of my time. Clean up 5 machines, set up some new accounts, bring the data they needed back to them, ect.
After an hour, I told him that's all that really needed to be done. I walked out with a nice check for $100 bucks for an hour of work. Well worth the trip.
Before I left, the office manager told me that the sattelite offices were planning a coup, that the company president had been flaking on everything, missing deadlines, pretending not to be in the office when he was, and making promises that he couldn't keep. Apparently they're talking to the investors / aka board of directors about this in secret meetings.
When the coup finally does happen, they want me back taking care of things with a substancial pay raise.
So again, there's another moral to be learned out of all of this.
Just because things fall apart, it doesn't mean that you will always get the blame. Do good work, and people will notice you.