Is A Bad Attitude Damaging The IT Profession?

dtienes writes "Why does IT get a free pass to insult users? Slamming customers isn't acceptable in any other profession; doctors don't call their patients "meatbags" — at least, not publicly. But IT professionals think nothing of wearing their scorn on their sleeves (or at least their chests — just check out ThinkGeek). There's more at stake here than just a few hard feelings. IT may be seriously damaging the credibility of the profession. See the essay I'm An Idiot (And Other Lessons From The IT Department) for a former IT professional turned user's take on insults, attitudes and ethics. (Full disclosure: The submitter is also the author.)"

Comments

There are lots of great ones out there

[Anonymous Coward]

Two of the three people I've ever had to fire in my 25-year carreer
were BOFHs. They were both replaced with talented, socially well-balanced
guys who treated users like customers and actually enjoyed finding
solutions to problems that were right both for the user and for the IT department.

I don't think it's the bad attitude of some IT people that's doing the damage,
it's management toleration of that attitude. Plenty of good people out there
if you go looking.

Jackasses are just jackasses

[erroneus]

I'm more than familiar with some perceived stereotypical behavior in some IT people. Some of my least favorite attitudes are those displayed when the "IT Pro" is protecting his ignorance. Gone are the days, I think, when IT people were looked upon as techno-god figures... and feared as such.

I'm an IT manager and I'm all about helping business work better through IT. Some of my favorite endorsements are along the lines of "you don't make me feel stupid." What would be the point in that? I don't do what they do... which is most often making money for the company. In my job, I spend the company's money, so I do my best to make sure they feel they are getting their money's worth.

But back to the topic of jackasses: I hate people who hide their ignorance and attempt to put up some sort of "I won't share what I know" front as if he were the exclusive container of knowledge. Further, I hate it when people attempt to "secure their jobs" through obfuscation and indirection of information. In my opinion, the latter complaint amounts to malpractice. And I have a close friend who is presently suffering the worst of all scenarios -- the knows less than nothing boss who got where he is because he lies on his resume. (This moron thinks that if you block port 80 on the firewall that users will not be able to surf the web!!)

I see these offenders as a dying breed, fortunately... but they aren't dying fast enough.

Re:Yes.

[sphealey]

> And the interviews were all questions like "What do
> you think of users who know absolutely nothing
> about computers?"

Speaking as a business manager, I think that is quite appropriate. For an interview conducted in 1986, or perhaps even 1996.

My question to that organization is, why in the year 2006 do you have employees who do not possess the skills to use basic, standard tools to process basic business information, and to extend their own skills by themselves moderate amounts (not to learn a new ERP system by themselves, for example, but to figure out the fairly minor differences between AP module 5.5.7 and the new 5.6.1 version now in pre-production testing)? Why do you still have employees who believe that an inability to do a basic search in their own e-mail box merits a deskside visit from an ultra-qualified, ultra-patient analyst who will provide 4 hours of no-charge tutoring? Can you name another support department that does this? Does Finance provide remedial tutoring in financial accounting to sales managers, not just once upon promotion but over and over and over again over 20 years? Is the CFO on call 24x365 to provide personal tutoring on how to read sales reports? Why not?

Again, I am speaking as a business manager who has been through this entire cycle 3 times since the 1970s and who spent tremendous amounts of time in the 1980s providing basic business (computer) skills tutoring.

sPh

Almost expected

[williamhb]

It's generally thought to be part of the reason why so few female schools students do not apply to study computer science at university ("why would I want to spend my career working in a culture like that?").

More recently I've noticed a worrying trend -- a lack of social skills has become an expected trait for programmers by a few employers (whereas most employers value social and communication skills very highly). I have recently seen job adverts in the UK that have included lines such as "the sort of person we are looking for is a geek. You probably prefer to relate to computers and have very few friends". If even a few employers are actively reinforcing the all-too-common stereotype, then that cannot be healthy for the industry.

Re:Almost expected

[ggKimmieGal]

The other reason why my female peers won't do CS is because of the attitude we receive freshman year. If I hadn't been mentally prepared to overcome the challenges ahead of me, I probably would have been a math or physics major instead. They are a million times nicer to girls over there. They are desperate to have them.

Day 1: none of my professors took me seriously. When they were asking guys who already knew how to program to move into CS2, they recommended that I stay in CS1. I ended up teaching a bunch of those guys a thing or two. After freshman year, I had earned the respect of my professors and my peers though. Other girls who manage to make it through the gauntlet tend to develop the IT attitude in discussion. You have to be tough to play rough. I took a slightly different route that seemed to work out just as well. I took the, "I won't do your homework, but I will certainly show you how much better of a programmer I am while I help you with your homework," path. It worked real well. But the girls who develop that attitude don't lose it. It sticks with them forever. I don't blame them one bit though. It can be really mean, disrespectful, and degrading to be a CS female student. So for the female side, I recommend that people just hand over respect to women just like they hand it over to men.

I propose that this could also be a cause of arrogance amongst male IT people. The idea is put in their head that they are better the moment they step onto a college campus. It probably just gets worse by the time the four years there are over.

Re:Almost expected

[Loconut1389]

I'm male, but dated a female CS student- and we had a professor who simply said 'girls do not pass this class' and failed pretty much all of them- regardless of ability. Unknown if that professor still teaches. Nice, huh?

Re:Almost expected

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree.

Also, as a "shy" person I'm disconcerted by the apparent growing discrimination against people like me. I was subjected to this a great deal at my previous position, where I was not taken seriously and perceived to be less intelligent than my coworkers by my supervisor, despite having certifications to back up my knowledge and some experience at a larger installation. This isn't marketing or HR, and I don't have 'poor communication skills' just because I don't quack-quack around the water cooler with the other ducks. Fortunately, this attitude wasn't the case in past jobs and it's not the case where I work now.

As for the lUsers, it's a method of group cohesion that happens in every field and a way to reclaim esteem when being underpaid and undervalued (e.g. at the lower ends of tech support). (One of my relatives is a doctor, and if you don't think they engage in it, you're wrong.) I've never mistreated a lUser because of the mistakes they've made, and I've never been insulted by a support person when I was on the other side. I realize that a lot of lUser cluelessness could be fixed with a little education, but that kind of thing would have to be supported by the company, which is more likely to outsource you than to support one of your initiatives anyway.

Re:Almost expected

[TerranFury]

>Computers are easy to learn. People are more complex. I often wonder, when I read topics like this and posts like yours, if the issue is that "geeks" are scared to figure out the more complex topic of people because they might fail and stick to computers because figuring out ones and zeros is easier.

I've heard arguments like that before, and I can understand where they come from, but I've never really thought that they were correct.

The way I see it, there are a few different types of social skills, which fall into two broad categories:

1. Emotional skills: the ability to empathize and to implicitly communicate good intentions.
2. Conversational skills: the talent for entertaining people by interacting with them.

It's often assumed that 'geeks' lack social skills in all their forms, but from what I've seen, many do have #1 -- just not #2 (Of course, there are also those who are just embittered jerks. But I think that's a minority.) Skill #2, I think, depends largely on confidence.

> You made the conscious choice to develop that attitude. You can make the conscious choice to lose the attitude.

It's always good to nurture a more positive outlook. Certainly, these things take time to develop and you can't will yourself happy overnight, but you can help the right kind of worldvew to grow in your head. That said, I didn't pick up negative vibes from the OP -- it was other girls who had problems; she herself did feel like she had something to prove, but stayed reasonably positive (so, more power to her).

>Or is it that you aren't as smart about your own feelings, attitudes and behaviors as you are about computers?

That, I'll be honest, is something I've had to learn: To know what I want, and to appropriately reject the things I don't. That's not so much a 'nerd' thing: I think many people feel guilty thinking about themselves and their own wants; we're "supposed" to be selfless. But it's just not healthy. Pay attention to what other people want and try to help them. Sometimes, put their desires above your own. But know what your desires are. And you can't work them out logically from first principles; they are your axioms.

Re:Yes.

[Sunburnt]

"one of the most basic ways that we learn--try it and see what happens. Maybe if IT layed out the basic safety rules and then said, "Please play with the computers to see how they react when you do various things," then seemingly basic tasks wouldn't be so hard for users after awhile."

I agree wholeheartedly, but it'll never happen in any widespread, meaningful way. Autodidacticism is abhorrent to business culture's fixation with standardized, top-down "training." Put another way: if everyone's going to be an idiot with the computers, management would rather have them be the same idiots.

Re:car mechanics do it too

[Lord Ender]

To add to that, I actually do know physicians who insult their clients--just not to their faces. Surgeons, for example, absolutely HATE operating on fat people. I've heard all sorts of insults from a surgeon friend toward the morbidly obese.

Of course, physicians make three or four times what IT people make, so that's got to put you in a better mood.

Re:An example

[ozmanjusri]

We are ALL professionals.

No, we're not. As an industry, we look produce products and perform services that are dictated by our own failings and conveniences rather than our customers' needs.
Assume the customer was once right, but has been made bitter and defensive by repeated arrogant IT messages (YOU have performed an illegal action and will be shut down...), and you won't be far from understanding current IT/user relationships.

That printer was out of paper, had you looked at the screen it has, you would have seen that.

The user should have got a simple, understandable message that the printer was out of paper. That's a failure of the OS designer and printer driver developer.

It was rejected because aol.con does not exist and you received an email telling you that.

The user's email software should have picked up the typo and suggested a correction (in fact, most email clients do). Users are used to ignoring dozens of cryptic error messages daily, because we have to, in order to continue working. Make computers more reliable, and error messages more intelligible, and we'll start paying attention to them.

I called you for some clarification and to explain this to you but got your voice mail. I went by your desk and you waved me off.

The user is employed by your company to work. They generate income for the company. You are employed by your company to service the tools they use to generate the money that pays your salary. You are a cost to the company.
They owe you politeness out of common decency, but common sense suggests you should avoid interrupting their work.

The other unrelated email problem you had today was their server rejected it because you attached a 75MB file.

The user needs to get a 75MB file to the customer. Stop whining and arrange for it to happen.

We often have users call us directly and complain that somehow they were given some random software push which delayed their check in and want us to call their supervisor.

You have been a problem for so long that people believe they can use you as an excuse for their own failures.
Stop being a problem.