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Uneducated IT Managers, and How to Deal?
R.Mason asks: "I work in an IT department for a small to medium sized family owned business. The job is great, except for our boss. He simply doesn't know nearly as much as he should. Our team finds ourselves teaching him or explaining remedial things far too often. Even when his own computer is acting up, he doesn't know what to do with it and has us fix it while he sits and watches. He spends hours and hours on the most insignificant tasks as if he has nothing better to do. Is it ignorant to believe an IT manager should be a knowledgeable in technology as a whole? A person you respect and frequently learn from? It creates an extremely frustrating work environment, and our team doesn't know how to approach the problem. It's becoming too much to simply "put up with it." What advice do those of you in the IT field have for this issue?"
It's just about impossible to find a job working for someone whom you respect. You would not believe some of the stupid things my boss has done!
Complain on Slashdot of course. Make vague juvenile references to Dilbert comic strips.
fire him! ...oh no he's your boss...
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Perhaps if you spend more time whining on /. everything will work out for the better.
This is Slashdot. We're ALL smarter than our bosses. You don't catch us whining about it. Much.
It's supposed to be completely automatic, but actually you have to press this button.
A difficult time mastering what other people can do easily? Have you considered the possibility that he's a chimp?
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
My rather verbose boss, head of IT, wanted us to come up with a contingency plan for ethernet. At first we looked at each other trying to figure out what he meant. Evidently, he wanted an alternative to ethernet that still provided networking just in case ethernet failed. We're not talking about a device failing or the network being down, we're talking about failure of the protocol itself. And he wanted us to find a way around that... Did I mention we were just a regular office of about 30 people with a sum total of 3 IT workers?
Don't forget to browse at -1. Otherwise you might overlook some real gems!
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Thanks, I've recovered a memory I thought I had repressed.
We had a boss that was just as you described. We, the peons, created a "Two Person Integrity" rule, because if any of us were with this guy when he destroyed something, he'd blame us, and there'd be no witnesses to back our side of the story.
If our boss' boss was less understanding, we'd have had people fired. It was a scary situation.
He once said: "I can unplug this token ring and plug it back in again before the systems notice." Then did so, and all hell broke loose. Then he said promptly "My, look at the time, I have to pick my kids up from school." And walked out. I'm not kidding.
-ave
...or maybe not.
You can't spell and you can't think and you seem to resent people who "know something about computers." I'd suggest you go read eWeek or CIO or something, sir, because slashdot isn't really the site for you. :) By the by, I'd like a raise or else your wife gets a copy of the "research" you do online over lunch.
It's my theory that women have a "civilizing" effect on men--mitigating our more barbaric impulses and channeling our animal energies into productive and intelligent activities. That is, that women make better managers (in some contexts) for the same reason they make better mothers and wives. (And just as men make better managers, in some contexts, for the same reason they make better husbands and fathers).
And now, let the flaming begin.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Unfortunately, the lesson is how fast you can pull a Houdini and dial 911.
- Just my $0.02, take with a grain of salt, your mileage may vary.
If you had a problem with me you guys could have just come to me and said something.
Oh and hey my DHCP is DNSing again.
This
If you take your laptop out of range while you have the Token, you get to keep it. If you collect 10 of them, you can mail them in for a prize.
sudo eat my shorts
I've also noticed that my best managers were women, can anyone else comment on that?
It's the brestesses.