UK Companies Love IT Workers, Love Not Returned

Roblimo writes "'The study, completed in early July, showed that U.K. employees working in the information technology industry are more valued than they think they are,' says a story at ITMJ.com, but it also says, 'According to the results of the survey, only 45% of IT workers feel valued at work, and 70% don't believe that their job reflects their true potential.' Not only that, but 'Seventy-five percent feel discriminated against because of their age; 43% say their bosses think they are too young, and 32% feel too old.' That leaves only 25% who believe they're the right age for their jobs, and only 30% who feel they're working to their true potential. Does this mean U.K. employers need to worry about a mass exodus from the I.T. field, or is this just normal griping?"

Comments

Just Griping.

[Ckwop]

Does this mean U.K. employers need to worry about a mass exodus from the I.T. field, or is this just normal griping?

Griping, as they say: "The grass is always greener on the other side."

The reality is that often it isn't, people (not just IT workers) fail to see just how good their job is and resign themselves to being miserable about it. I program C# about 50% of the time, do internal user support 10% of the time, reply to emails 10% time (this annoys me), deal with external customer support another 10% of the time. The remaining 20% is probably spent on administration etc.

I love my job, I love the variety, the sallary is good for my age and my coworkers are motivated but easy enough to get a long with. A think a key failing with IT people is believing you can storm in at 20 and somehow be a senior developer. I have a simple message to people with this attitude: you're not a genius, get over yourself; this trade takes a long time to learn. Just because you hacked together a perl script to do something useful on your private linux box doesn't make you a seasoned professional. Building professional code takes as much experience as it does intelligence.

Serve your apprenticeship get the experience and become a better coder. Don't be arrogant towards your superiors because believe it or not most of the time they deserve to be there. Remember, your time will come and for the moment there is a lot of wisdom in just be content with what you have: A brilliant job where you can be creative and intelligent.

Simon.

Re:Just Griping.

[Anonymous Coward]

A think a key failing with IT people is believing you can storm in at 20 and somehow be a senior developer.

No, I think a key failing in the IT field is the application of double-standards.

For example, one job I had in my early twenties, I was relatively inexperienced. I'd had a lot of "hobby experience" and only one proper job on my CV (a company that ceased trading, so it looked pretty suspect).

Naturally, I was taken on in this new job as a "junior developer". What I wasn't told was that 75% of the development team had handed their notice in, including basically everybody who was capable of doing what it is I was taken on to do.

Within a few months, I was basically doing the job of this 75%. I was barely keeping up with the work (a lot of putting out fires), but the owner of the firm wasn't willing to hire anybody with experience - or, for that matter, anybody who could actually code.

See, I was desperately unhappy at that job, for various reasons. The main one, though was that I was treated as the junior developer for the purposes of salary, and my opinion on things was taken as seriously as a junior developers would be, but when it came to responsibility or workload, I was treated as some kind of hero programmer who could fix everything.

The owner wanted it both ways - a cheap junior programmer he could ignore, and a skilled programmer who could do the work of many. While I can't say for sure that this sort of attitude is widespread, it certainly looks that way to me. So don't be so quick to assume that it's an inflated ego that causes young people to think they can do a lot - maybe it's just that they are actually doing a lot, and just not being treated accordingly.

I think we can all agree...

[Afecks]

70% don't believe that their job reflects their true potential

I'm not surprised. I don't think anyone wants to imagine "Help Desk II" being the maximum of their potential.

It's just normal griping.

[BitwizeGHC]

Of course it's just normal griping by the expected percentage of always-disgruntled employees. We here at Yoyodyne value our employees, and try to create a flexible work environment that enables them to be more productive with less stress.

Now quit posting to Slashdot and get back to work. You've got a deadline coming up and it looks like you'll be working an 80-hour week to catch up. I suggest you get busy.