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."

Comments

Yeeah, I don't buy it.

[Skyshadow]

Let me start by saying that, odds are, you get the respect you deserve. Please don't confuse this respect with mugging for compliments, expecting your coworkers/managers to thank you in their prayers or any of the BS that, reading between the lines of this topic, I get the sense the OP was *really* looking for. If you're looking for people to kiss your ass all day, go get an MBA and become a petty mid-level manager someplace.

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.

Re:Yeeah, I don't buy it.

[CallFinalClass]

Overall, I agree, but for #2 I tend to use "Command Respect" instead of "Demand Respect." The difference being is that any idiot can demand respect, even if they haven't earned it.

Re:Yeeah, I don't buy it.

[Soko]

Exactly.

I had another manager who tried to go around me, when I was a new hire (I'm Regional IT Manager) - hadn't been there a month. In private I politely told him "I have no problem with you getting a bit of IT gear that you need if I'm not around - I just need to know that you've done it and what you bought. I have a budget too, and I also need to make sure anything IT related that comes in the building fits in our target architecture and doesn't cost too much."

He got a little out of joint because of that, but it became clear to him that he wasn't allowed to just buy whatever he needed without my approval, which is what he was used to doing. He's since turned out to be quite an ally - after that incident I let the subject drop and have also gone out of my way to help him when he needed it. I saw that he was an IT advocate, not someone trying to beat me down.

Besides Competence and Confidence, you need to be able to squelch you emotions and focus on what's important to the task at hand. People don't normally go out of thier way to show disrespect without zero cause - you should try to understand where the hostility is coming from.

If you need to rant against your cow-orkers, there's The Scary Devil Monastary, where such behaviour is accepted (and usually appreciated).

Soko

Re:Yeeah, I don't buy it.

[Anonymous Luddite]

>> 1. Earn respect. Know your stuff,

In a big organization, sometimes it is really hard to get past the initial expectation/distaste people have after having had to deal with incompetent support staff/programmers/whatever holding "paper" certs and one year quickie "degrees".

Half our problem as IT workers is the incredible amounts of scholatic "SPAM" the tech bubble engendered.

Example?

I got handed a new hire for my last project. He didn't know the difference between stack and heap, signed and unsigned or how pointers worked. Not only was he useless to me as a programmer - a drain on my time, but frequently, and loudly exclaimed that he had graduated with "HONOURS". That he was an "engineer!". and FFS, this guy graduated from my ALMA MATER. The last three hires have been from different schools but not much better..

that is why we don't automatically get respect. Too many of us don't deserve it.

Re:Yeeah, I don't buy it.

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree about command vs. demand too.

I would also add, be generous and share your solutions; don't insist on being the go-to guy for repetitive bullshit. Document your solutions and make them freely available. Make your worth a function of your ability to solve new problems, not repeatedly re-implementing the same old solutions over and over just to get paid.

It's the perceived difference in whether you are a high-priced button pusher, or a problem-solving resource. The former will always cost you respect.

Along the same lines, when helping in the acquisition phase, don't skimp on spending money for a real solution vs. spending less on something that requires more of your intervention.

We are now an expense.

[jellomizer]

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.

How much respect do you give the pizza guy?

[SweetAndSourJesus]

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.

Respect is a function of personal relationships..

[segfault_0]

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?

Janitors/electricians of the 21st century

[Seoulstriker]

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.

Genuine Vs. Displayed

[nick_davison]

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.

Re:Genuine Vs. Displayed

[CFTM]

In a somewhat related note, it reminds me of something one of my friends Dad said, "You can go anywhere in this world with a wave and a clipboard". In essence, you play the part of someone doing something important and no one gives you flak ... same sort of idea.

Re:Genuine Vs. Displayed

[lskutt]

The second incident happened when I went shopping after spending the day in interviews. I was still in college and this was the first time I had really been out in public while wearing a suit. The level of respect from the sales staffed was an amazing difference from what I was used to. Even average citizens were happen to hold the door open for me.

Actually, I think you forgot to take one important factor into account: Your own behaviour . When you "dress up" in a suit, take a good long shower, have recently gotten a haircut, a shave and put on some after-shave, you start to act differently. You probably act more confident, smile more, look people into their eyes etc. when you feel good about the way you look. The same goes in reverse, of course. When you feel hung-over and have the breath of a rabid dog and just pop out to get a quick snack, wearing what was in the bottom of the basket -- then you're not exactly going to act like you owned the world. And people will treat you differently.

This is, of course, not the only thing that matters. But it plays an important role in the subconscious feedback that we get from other people.

Agreed

[ferrocene]

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. :)

Class.

[Lemmy Caution]

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.

Respect is a function of comprehension

[starfishsystems]

A phenomenon that I've noticed over the course of my career is a overall decrease in respect for computing professionals as computing becomes more ubiquitous.

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.

my boss admitted it ...

[crimethinker]

... in a salary discussion. The context is that I work in a very large company with many gratuitous layers of brown-nos^W management. As you rise higher in the food chain, your bonuses and stock options grow. People like me and my peers, who do the actual work, are never eligible for any stock options or the like. Once a year, we get a measly bonus while our CEO gets millions of dollars and hay bales of stock certificates.

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

Janitors-yes, of the Microsoft Plumbing

[couch_warrior]

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.

Re:It's about customer service

[oc255]

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.

Re:wow...

[Anonymous Coward]

Can I have a +5 insightful?