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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."
I found I get more respect when I loudly shout "frist psot" as soon as I enter the room
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.
I can't say I get a lot of respect for being a Computer Ace. It certainly hasn't gotten me any dates recently. On the other hand family, friends, distant friends, ex-bosses, neighbors and friends of neighbors have no qualms about assuming I'm their free I.T. service. Respect? I don' t know. Co-dependence? Yeesh!
Murray Todd Williams
I don't need respect, just obedience.
And no backtalk.
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
When I was a baby, my bathtub toys were a radio and a toaster.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
BOFHs are to be feared, not respected...
When I show people my custom code running on the nintendo DS, my respect++;
Do you believe in reincarnation?
Is this Rodney Dangerfield reincarnated as "The IT Guy"?
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.
How much do respect do you get OUTSIDE the office?
The sad thing is, you can save the day, but in the end, you're still a 'computer geek'
When the IT staff starts nailing hot secretaries and interns, instead of goldchain wearing middle managers, you'll impress us.
Seriously, people don't like other people who smell.
=^)
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
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
Nobody likes to call the plumber, electrician, etc... Nobody likes to call in a tech for most of the same reasons, although I do try to keep my buttcrack from showing.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
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
echo "\$0.75/hr" > /data/payroll/managment/IT/bob/payrate
I've noticed one big difference. When a geek asks me what I do, I've been able to give the same answer since 1998: "I work full time for a company maintaining their sites with ASP and SQL Server." Here's a chronology of the responses:
.NET these days. Besides, you'll be laid off in a week just like me. And Oracle's the bomb, it's worth every penny."
1998: "What's ASP?"
1999: "ASP sucks, man. It's too hard."
2000: "Wow, can I learn ASP? How hard is it? Because I've never done computer work, but I hear it makes a lot of money."
2001: "Ha! ASP? You suck, that's so old-school. You won't have a job in a couple of years. I got a job at Pets.com making twice your salary, and I'm just a receptionist."
2002: "ASP sucks, man. It's all about
2003: "ASP sucks, man. It's all about PHP these days. And MySQL's the bomb. It'll have stored procedures any day now." (Sorry, just had to throw that one in.)
2004: "ASP sucks, man. It's all about J2EE these days."
2005: "Wow, you have a full time job? Because I'm a programmer and I can't find a job to save my ass."
What's your damage, Heather?
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.
..the level of respect you get. I'm a "techie turned manager," and I can tell you for certain that when I was exclusively a "techie," I was a "genius" and "guru" and people loved me. Today, I'm a manager, and though lots of people still love me, they're also aware that I can affect the amount of pain or pleasure they experience from our IT services. It's a lot more responsibility, which comes with its own share of politics. People know this.
;)
Anybody who manages geeks would be wise to keep that "geeks are our friends" culture going. It's never MY success, even if I was the one whose plan is being implemented, I chose the solutions, got the funding for it, etc. As far as our users are concerned, we just have a really great staff who always looks out for them, even if their manager is a jerk
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
The 1980s through to today have been a spectacular time for American business. The stock markets have grown like never before. Business people, managers, and financial folk have been praised for being the backbone of a growing economy.
But there's a sad truth, evident to anyone who has dipped into that world... and that is, except for their brown-nosing skills and personal connections, business people, management, financial/accountants are mostly useless. It's questionable whether they have any real skills. And now society is starting to question whether these people have any value in the real sense of the word.
The modern satires (e.g. Dilbert) exist for a reason. It baffles people how the "flapping heads" or "PHBs" can be the ones in control, earnings the high salaries. You see, in the past few decades everyone wanted to become managers. And my personal belief is that the business world is starting to crumble because companies overweight in managers and associated staff lack tangible manpower, the power to get real business done.
So you technicians, engineers, and other professionals who can actually do real things... never you worry. Ultimately, you are the ones who have the skills to accomplish what society needs. The market of yesterday - for idiot managers, corrupt accountants - is coming to an end (though it may take some time).
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
Jesus, we fix computers. We don't perform brain surgery.
I'm in the process of overseeing the work done by an outside tech support company for a nonprofit. Background: I'm a programmer. Mainly Java. Previously, internal , non-technical people were often the overseers and project sponsors for this group. The result is that 4 companies have been used in the past 5 years, with each one chased out due to corruption, incompetence, and regime changes. They recently hired a new company and asked me to be the liason.
I remember the first meeting. The owner walzted in smiling and shaking hands. He recommended a lot of Win2003 upgrades that had nothing to do with pressing needs. I, on the other hand, played hardball. I wore a suit, accused him of being more of a salesman than a techie, and said we needed a company much less myopic. He was completely shocked and his attitude has turned around 180 degrees.
I still have to work with them, but I call bullshit on them frequently, I grill them on what they're doing and why, I refuse to pay the full amount when they make bad decisions, I demand thorough documentation.
Respect them? Fuck no. I'm a watchdog.
The point is that this company, like many others, have gotten burned in the past and are much wiser on how money is spent. They've learned that the tech's word is not final and there will be no blank checks.
Further, don't forget that ITT and Heald churn out thousands of people that can do your job.
But the tides have changed now that I install Firefox for them. They use IE for accessing our many internal IE-only web apps, and they use Firefox for browsing the Internet. And I'm now the hero again. If I could replace their PCs with Macs they'd be even happier but I work for one of the largest companies in the world and they're in very tight with Microsoft.
The meme police, They live inside of my head
Are you Bill Gates?
Being a senior in high school and developing the title "Computer boy" or something to that effect has opened me up to the myriad of retarded questions. Some people call me over to show them how to use google. The position doesn't get any respect just more questions like "How did you learn all of this?" It's obligatory praise. It also burns me because I can do a lot more than make a printer work or find someone's files on the server. There are people who actually do stuff worth praise with computers and I get extolled for knowing how to properly navigate through windows. Arg.
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.
Seriously, a (support) technician is like the plumber. He's only called when something is broken. How much respect do you show your plumber?
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.
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...
*IN GENERAL*
Computers are simpler to repair
Software is easier to troubleshoot
Remote assistance is starting to work
Companies are working hard to eliminate the technician
The goal should be that the mail room guy becomes your "technician" for everything easily replaceable. He will just take a new "computer" from a box, un-plug, re-plug and mail off the failed box for off-site repair. Happily all of your data resides on a server hosted off-site and the OS is loaded into memory on each boot up.
Seriously this line of work is going to be a much smaller segment of the market as the years progress and in ten years there will be no such thing for the most part.
The guy who comes to "fix" your computer will be as unknown as the iceman is today.
This isn't a flame - it's notice to start retraining now and get ahead of the game.
When the Berlin Wall collapsed I didn't sit on my ass in my fat aerospace job waiting for it to be pulled out from under me. I changed industries, took a pay cut and crawled right back up the ladder.
If you no longer command respect maybe today is the time to take start looking elsewhere - no matter how much you enjoy what you are doing now. it's not going to get any better, but it will get far worse.
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.
Sorry, I had to ask. On a more serious note, some of the responses you've seen so far are on the mark. You're an expense. If things worked the way they're supposed to, much of your expertise wouldn't be needed. If you're just troubleshooting, yea, you're the new version of the copier repair tech. Neither lawyers nor electrical engineers nor mid-level executives see you as their peer.
Worse, there has been a lot to dilute the view of computer professionals as _professionals_ lately, from the luster being knocked off tech by the dot-com bust, to an increasing number of posers ( think 'leetspeak' ) trying to pass themselves off as technologically knowledgeable, to a flood of certified MS/NET/CISCO/whatever folks who took a two-day class and paid for an exam but don't know how to _do_ squat, to an increase of good-ol' Amerkin anti-intellectualism. Call it a backlash if you will, but I think it's real. You can get respect now, but you really have to earn it, and you won't always get it even if you deserve it.
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.
When the tech I developed won us a $500 million contract, they gave me a color monitor for my PC.
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.
It sounds like the parent is saying, IT is now a commodity. People value luxuries. You pay a nickel for ramen noodles but a few hundred so your video card will render better graphics. People who repair plumbing and fix cars are paid way less than people designing personalized cutting edge media centers for homes.
That's why it's important to get a GOOD education and stay ahead of the curve. College teaches you how to learn, which is precisely what it takes to stay ahead. If you stay a technician, and your technology becomes ubiquitious, then you stand out no better (or at least not much better) than the cashier who checks out my groceries. And yes, if you have to call in the manager to checkout a certain item, I probably won't be happy.
Maybe it's not how things should be, but it is how they are perceived by the majority of non-technical people.
(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.
1980s--> Ridiculed Computer Nerd
/. love to romanticize about our geekiness, only us geeks appreciate it. Nobody else gives a shit about you or me except you or me.
1995 --> Socially Defunct Internet Junkie
1998 --> All-Powerful, Universally Loved and Admired Icon of Intellectual Prowess and Thinkgeek Humour
1999 --> Profit!!!
2000s--> Returning to Ridiculed Computer Nerd / Socially Defunct Internet Junkie
Sorry man... as much as we all here on
do() || do_not();
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.
So working as the jack of all trades computer guy for a public relations company, I have seen days of praise and days of defiance. Maybe overexaggerated there on the language.
:-)
Anyway when I added a feature to Access that allowed staff to go from a record they were looking at to the beginning of a business letter in Word, I got kudos from management. One of the vice presidents (this is a small company of about 30 employees) came down and said thanks. He said "wow that is so amazing and so useful, never in a million years would i have thought of that". Something like that. I probably exaggerated a little.
The same vice president claimed "I know you do your job, but don't take it personal, I think you don't know what you are doing" when I told him that the blackberry that he had bought would not open attachments sent to it unless we installed expensive software. Not only that but he was having problems with his set up. He wanted things working a certain way but wouldn't tell me so it seemed like I was screwing up.
So I know I'm an asset to the company. Sometimes I'm met with praise and other times with defiance. Most of the time I'm completely ignored as I go about my daily routines.
So I say that's kind of normal, can't expect praise every day.
The general rule is management wont notice if things are working just fine unless they are conscientious. Or if they notice they wont bring it up that often as they are busy dealing with things that are not working. But if something breaks and the person woke up on the wrong side of bed, May God help you.
.... ... }
int main (void) {
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.
You may have the technology knowlege and could do helpdesk if you hadn't advanced beyond that type of work; and the business acumen because you must understand more than just technology - law, regulation, ethics, physical security, and attempting to show your superiors that they are getting an ROI. Then realize that to them you are in the 'loss' column whether you protect them well or not; and often your success is measured in what you don't have to do (i.e. Incident Response or Forensics) rather than what you do.
I think with the interesting people, their lives can't possibly be wrapped up into a nice little package.
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.
... do that awnser your question?
*ducks*
Your statement is very true. I want to point something out though: Disrespect is also earned. _Every_ human being _deserves_ a measure of simple human dignity. To treat someone with less than simple human dignity is uncalled for unless that person has wronged you. (Please not I'm not implying that the statement you made [respect is earned] is in any way in contradiction with my statement [dignity is universal, disrespect also being earned])
This subtle distinction seems lost on so many people I have dealt with. This isn't courtesy, it's basic.
<rant> This is the one thing I wish I could have impressed upon my peers and teachers and principals in grade school: that although respect is earned, DIGNITY is INHERENT. Until someone steps on your toes, it is wrong for you to attack them. Treating someone with dignity doesn't detract from how tough or cool or whatever you are. Treating anyone without dignity when you have no reason just makes you an ass.</rant>
This may be a little OT as I am referring to ALL social interaction and not just that with techs and geeks, but I have seen the statement "Respect is earned" abused so commonly to mean "dignity is earned" that my emotions just go nuclear every time I see it remembering childhood injustices. The sentiment may seem obvious, but alas it appears not to be. It would be worth my life to see it codified, at least socially.
Keep the R-E-S-P-E-C-T, all I ask is dig-ni-ty. Is that so wrong?
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
I worked for a Fortune 20 company for eight years, and attempted multiple times to move out of a position because I didn't feel technically challenged enough. I escaped twice, only to be recalled within months because my knowledge was valued. During my second recall, we had a downsizing and I volunteered to take on additional work in the position that I wanted to get out of, which was seen by many people as showing loyalty to the company and gained me respect by my peers and local management. My position was then eliminated (offshored) and I was forced into a new position where there was a tremendous skills mismatch, and guess what? I quickly got fired due to "judgement issues". At the time I had a 9-month old son who had severe birth defects such that he had spent seven months in the intensive care unit at a hospital. So, call me jaded or bitter, but respect really doesn't mean anything to me-- no matter how valuable your skills are-- and no matter how much respect people may have for you and your abilities-- you are still expendible.
I'm 6'2", and I'm taller than about 97% of other men (in the US). If you're 6'5", you're taller than about 99.7% of other men, and if you're 6'8", well, you're just too tall, at least according to this calculator. (6'6" is taller than 99.9% of other men, but that's as high as the calculator goes.)
P.S. The calculator is a pop-up, so you'll need to allow those if you want to use the calcuator.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Seriously... I'm 6'5", which means that I'm taller than a good 95% of the people that I meet.
Being 5'6" myself, and ectomorphic in physique as well, I know all to well what you're talking about. I'm invisible. In any group setting, the "Alpha Male" is never me by default. If I am required to take a leadership role, I have to earn it, every time - it's never given to me. Having been small my entire life, I've observed the phenomena you're talking about keenly - from the other side. Fortunately, being an introverted geek I prefer invisibility anyway. I'd like to think I'm well-adjusted, however I've known other Lilliputian fellows with severe Napoleon complexes; you know the type, small and diminuative they demand attention and are generally the worst pricks you'll ever meet.
respect gets YOU!! (folks must have mod points to spare when fp get a +4)
I thought about posting a story like this many many times since 2001.
Yah, we're no longer cool. It was happening before 2001, anyone working in a dying dot com could tell you that. More recently however it just seems like folks do not want to pay for my services.
Back around 98, I had no problems negotiating a good salary. If a company wasn't treating me right, i'd simple put my resume out on monster.com or fax it out, and i'd have 1/2 a dozen job offers within a week.
Some of the first few companies I worked at were great. My opinions were valued, and I was often given enough freedom in my job to do what was needed for a smooth running network.
Then around 99-2k things started falling apart. More and more my job function was being scrutinized. It felt like I was in constant competition with my managers to prove my worth.
2001, 9/11, massive layoffs, I just sort of got lost in the sea of resumes that were being pumped out by people not even in IT trying to get a decent paying job. I think this is where folks really started losing respect for IT as a whole. It wasn't the whole phony plumbers with a MCSE making it bad for us, it was the accountants, MBAs, former executives, and salespeople getting these positions, simply because they could put on a better face to HR and hiring managers than most of us socially inept geeks could. They were taking our jobs, and making us look bad with their lack of understanding for the role.
Eventually, I went into private consulting. Started my own company and picked up a few clients here and there. At first my rate was $75@hr, then $60, then $50. I went as low as $30 for one of my clients (They would pre-pay 10 hours a month) Even there, I got myself into a contract that was definetly more benificial for the client than it was myself.
The last client I dropped had 5 offices spread around the bay area, with one all the way in Redding. God damn, what a mess though.
The owner of the company insisted his employees had administrative access to their own machines. Every month those 10 hours of support would be eaten up by running ad-aware on thier spyware laden machines. Originally the contract was just for 3 offices, but when the new offices were brought online, their employees would call me for support. Being I'm a nice guy, i'd happily do what I could over the phone for them.
Things really fell apart when the Redding office came online though.
I had an injury that made me immobile. The office manager for the Redding office, and the owner of the company kept calling me up saying it needed to be done that week, and they were threatening to bring in another tech if I couldn't get that office online that week. I asked many times, "Hey, are you sure that office is ready?" I didn't want to lose that customer, so I told them I would subcontract another tech to go up there and be my remote hands.
Part of their setup is homebuilt routers and freeswan VPN's. Despite my debilitating condition, I spent the night before sending my tech up there preparing the client machines. They had no data for me on the DSL. The office manager LIED and told me they had DSL ready to go up there, but she just pretended to be a ditz and couldn't click start>run>cmd>ipconfig. She just kept telling me it wasn't working but she could browse the web just fine.
Well, Redding is about 500 miles from where I live. Did I mention that yet? No, I guess not..
My tech gets up there and the building has no power. There are no phone lines set up. Construction guys are working on generators. The floor was still bare uncarpeted cement. No furniture, No DSL, no desks to set the client PC's up on, nothing. Just a bare building. My tech called me up freaking out. There wasn't anything he could do.
So he did the best he could, even staying an extra day to wait for the DSL company (frontiernet I think) to get out there and at least get us a dial tone into the building.
Again, just t
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.
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/
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.
I just got a call from one of our remote offices 5 minutes ago. Since the 2 months i've been gone this is what's happened.
Apparently, after I let the contract run out the company president hired the phone guy to do the IT stuff. He went around to all the offices badmouthing me, saying I didn't do this professionally, didn't do that right, this wrong ect.
The guy tried to add another office to the VPN. Right after trying, all the offices went offline. Without even looking, I know what happened because I made the same mistake myself.
In a freeswan VPN you have a CA or central authority cert. You make this cert once, then copy it to all the client machines in the VPN. You should in the very least know how to ssh to these other boxes to make it work.
My guess is BOB (no really, thats this guys name) regenned the CA, and didn't copy it to the other machines.
On top of being more expensive than I was ($95@hr) he was grossly unqualified. His services are no longer being used by the company.
I agreed to go out to the site tomorrow because of the office managers begging. It didn't take too much begging, I always liked this guy, and he always treated me with respect. Just one condition, he can't tell any of the other offices he had me out there servicing his PC's.
Maybe i'll write tomorrow about the fine mess i'm going to see.
We sell clients on technology with many points of failure. We provide operating systems full of bugs. We provide applications that don't interoperate. We sell them monitors with dead pixels and tell them it's normal. We sell them software that needs patching, gives inaccurate results, or crashes when you look at it sideways.
Exactly how much respect should we expect when we are called in to fix it?
A Jedi craves not these things.
I wish to coin a phrase, if no one else has done so.
We are now "Janitors of th Microsoft Plumbing"
And why are we viewed with such disdain? Imagine how you would feel about your plumber if you had to call him in two or three times a week to unclog your stopped toilet.
People expect computers to be a consumer appliance that "just works". We get a share of the blame for the appallingly low quality of shrink-wrapped software that is barely beta-test status when shipped to production users. (Test the software?- that's what users are for; Configuration Cotnrol? - that would dip into profits, let the DLLs crash, they can always reboot)
You want respect - install OSS software that doesn't crash, and get paid for adding value in the design process, instead of billing hours for reaming the t3rds out of the M$ toilet.
"Sic Semper Path of Least Resistance"
A man doesn't automatically get my respect. He has to get down on his knees and beg for it.
In an average living room there are 1,242 objects Vin Diesel could use to kill you, including the room itself.
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/
you're not respected.
Guess that lets out everybody on
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
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.
I have been a technician for 19 years and have learned that the most important part of earning respect is in making sure your client knows how hard you are working for them.
:) Customers love us. An outgoing communications manager for a 911 dispatch center recently introduced me to his replacement as "the guy who saves your ass".
This dawned on me one day as a client mentioned that one of my techs did a fantastic job repairing a piece of equipment. I had been riding this guy for weeks because he was not doing basic repair stuff like vacuuming it out. He just kept ordering parts and had his head inside the machine 3-4 hours a day. What the lady that owned the machine cared about was his doggedness about coming in every day and working on it. Muttering about the insanity of the manufacturer, sweating, cursing under his breath etc. He really looked like he was doing his best. That is the key.
I work with radio equipment, 911 dispatch type stuff, and one day got called in on a nasty interference problem. I took a look at the environment and reviewed the complaints and because I knew intimatly the environment, I came up with a solution that took 10 minutes and solved the problem. I could have easily spent several days chasing the problem had I not had so much experience in the area. After fixing the problem and feeling quite exhuberant about such a subtle solution (I moved an antenna a mere 3 feet which blocked interference coming from 2 miles away) I realized that the manager who called me would not understand what I did and would not appreciate it. Obviously since I fixed it in 10 minutes it must have been easy and he was not at all happy that he had to pay for a 1 hour service call, when I had only been there 30 or so minutes.
Lesson learned.
I have never dogged it on a service call but I have sent much less experienced techs on calls I knew would take a long time if they didn't know exactly what was up
You get no respect when you walk in and punch a few buttons and the problem goes away. You get respect when you pull the guys ass out of the fire just as he is falling in.
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.
What we have here is a model of authority that is culturally implanted in each of us.
That's why I wear black SWAT BDU's, combat boots, and mirror sunglasses to work.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
I've heard it said more then once in my own organization--and (condsidering what they ask of us) it hurts. Being viewed as the 'fat to be trimmed' from the budget is exactly the case every year. 'Are they really working?'... 'How do you know they are working?' [Look at all my tickets and multiply that by two, ye most highly exonerated & most noble PHB!]
So what happens? We have fewer field techs then ever before and we are expected to do more... much, much more. (The company is growing massively, but do we see the IT dept. expanding, uh... NO!)
I'm not just talking about expanding our regular tech duties: we supervise general contractors (and report back to the Real Estate department) on remodels and new developments. We are now 'Asset Protection', in charge of all aspects of the security systems. We're viewed as the 'eyes & ears' of the company [for the home office], whatever that is supposed to mean. The list goes on & on, but I won't bore you...
The simple fact (as it appears to me) is that if all the field techs walked out at the same time the company would probably... survive--but they would hurt very, very badly....
If the network team walked... they would simply die on the vine. No question.
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.
In my I.T. career, I have found that people will either treat you as Hero or Villain. The problem is that both of these are skewed perspectives that stem from a much bigger problem: You have chosen to stand between a person (the user) and their psychosis (a fear of the unknown). It wouldn't be such a problem if it weren't for the greedy companies trying to make technology sexy at any cost. This creates a perceived need for the technology, the "fax effect" tipping point of which, causes everyone else to be dragged kicking and screaming into the Information Age, which brings us here.
This kind of field attracts people with an infinite learning-curve pain threshold. We, the tech geeks, are *numb* to it. We will happily reboot the machine for the 50th time in a row to isolate the cause of the problem to identify the solution with the least long-term negative impact on performance, security, or whatever else the system was designed for. Not so for your joe sixpacks and soccer moms.
I like to think of us tech geeks as digital pushers with the users as junkies. Not all addictions are equally bad... However, if you lose perspective, you will fall into the trap of enjoying watching the rapture of your junkies a little too much to realize you're in a locked room with them and you just gave them the last bit of tech crack you have... Not a pretty sight.
My advice: Don't let people tell you how to do your job. You're the expert. Make them take ownership of their issues. Never assume someone is too stupid to figure it out themselves. Never make promises to deliver by a deadline unless forced to at gun point. You can't give an estimate on how long it will take to fix until you know what *might* be the fix. It takes time to research the fix and even then it might not fix it. Don't try to be a Superman. You're not. You don't wear a cape and can't fly. It's better to retain your power and watch your ass as best you can. OWN EVERYTHING YOU TOUCH. What I mean is this: read every email, know every password, be able to get back in if they lock you out. This isn't wrong. You're SUPPOSED to be the most trusted person at the company. Why not? I.T. is the *lifeblood* of any company. Any fool that messes with the cook deserves what they get.
That's a true story. I was living in NYC at the time (early 90's) and a bunch of NYU students did tear up a significant portion of several streets just north of the Village. I remember after a week of seeing the traffic wondering when the road dept. was going to fix it. As a side benefit - many people used those streets as an pedestrian zone and it was fun hanging out in the middle of the streets.
..........FULL STOP.
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
As a Canadian, I've had some very wierd experiences regarding people's reactions to clothing and apperance while in the U.S.
On a trip to L.A., I went on one of those movie studio tours. I was wearing a new pair of long pants and a collared shirt, which to me seemed fairly casual. As the tour went on, I got a strange feeling that the tour guides were especially aware of me, and trying very hard to impress me with how much fun everyone was having. It was creeping me out, frankly, and I was starting to wonder if I had gotten too much sun or something.
The tour goes on, and we're in one of those trams that take you through the outdoor movie sets, when the tour guide says something like "... and there's Joe Smith, a rising star executive at Paramount, and VP of some very important department...", and he was wearing the exact same clothing I was right down to the same color belt and shoes. Apparently, the guide assumed I was an executroid doing some kind of quality control check on the tour.
Two days later, we decide to visit an art museum. I figured, based on the previous experience, that people are more casual in California, so I wear a golf shirt, a crisp new pair of shorts, white socks and running shoes. The people working there treat me like I was some kind of hood, they didn't turn their back on me for a minute. I might as well have been wearing a sign saying "I'm here to steal or destroy anything I can get my hands on".
On another vacation, I made the mistake of wearing nice clothes for the airline flight and was grilled by the customs officer like you wouldn't believe, because he thought I was really entering the country for a job interview (I wasn't).
Visiting Boston on a different trip, wearing my usual casual clothes, I seemed to fit in, but for the few days I was wearing a suit and tie, I couldn't believe the reaction I was getting. It was like they were looking at Donald Trump or something. I've never gotten that kind of reaction in Canada just for wearing a suit.
To me, it's as if the United States has a very strict dress code that goes something like this:
1) Ratty shorts, and an Ozzy Ozborne T-shirt - I'm on vacation.
2) Jeans - It's the weekend.
3) Slacks and a collared shirt - I'm at work.
4) A suit and tie - I'm on my way to collect my Nobel prize, and meet the King of Sweden.
If you break this code it really does seem to upset people. Often, it's as if they are completely unable to override your appearance, and relate to you based on your actual conduct. I've never gotten that kind of vibe from people that come from any other part of the world - just the U.S. It makes me wonder sometimes, if the U.S. is a much more stratified society than it is made out to be.
(This isn't meant as a troll, America bashing, or a criticism - just an observation).
It's good to be respected, but respect does not make a working society. We need more democracy. A person has no use for respect, when that person is laid off because of economic strategies. In that case, the society does not really respect that person: from one point, society says to the person 'congrats, you are good', but from the other side it says 'you are too expensive' or 'we have earned enough money, we no longer require your services'.
More democracy means less people left in their fate, less people being victims of others with power in their hands. More democracy means less crime, more education, equal rights, less superstition, more transparency to where the vast amounts of money changing hands every day go.
Of course, this post may even be considered a view of an anarchist, or even a terrorist. These words would not have been told 20 or 30 years ago, simply because there was no need to: most people were thinking along these lines. But today...it's a totally different situation: people just want their way, without any consideration about others.
This post may seem off-topic, but it is not: respect for an IT person is directly related to respect for the individual, which is, in turn, directly related to democratic principles and how much civilized our society is. In a world that even 'civilized' societies are actually jungles in disguise, where the big fish eats the small one for breakfast, is a topic about 'respect of an IT person' really meaningful?
What's he got in his briefcase?
Lunch, of course!
I remember my first briefcase, got it when I started up a small consulting business and needed a place for carrying a few floppies (later CDRoms), paperwork / day-planner, and tools.
When you dress in something nicer than a t-shirt and jeans, and carry a decent briefcase, suddenly you are a professional in the eyes of the client.
It's easy to spoil the illusion if you try, though.
Be who you are and say what you feel, because the people who mind don't matter, and the people who matter don't mind.
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.