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Defusing the Threat of Disgruntled IT Workers
snydeq writes "According to computer forensics expert witness Keith Jones, for every logic bomb on the network or Terry Childs case that makes it into the press, there are 98 other incidents of disgruntled IT pros damaging company assets that you never hear about. And though most IT workers are too professional to take out their grievances on the systems they've worked so hard to maintain, unless management takes note of the growing discontent in the IT workplace, it may fall victim to the unspoken 'ticking time bomb' lurking within its call for IT to do more with less, InfoWorld reports. Drastically understaffed, battered by interminable hours and impossible demands, many IT folks are being pushed to the brink by management that neither trusts nor supports them."
Shh. This is meant to scare management into cutting them some slack
Yeah. Would you choose a neurosurgeon who pokes around people's brains in his spare time? I wouldn't.
We hired three times as many people, and only 1/3 is ever really working in IT. The other 2/3 work in a mysterious shadow IT whose work is never actually used or relied on. No one knows which group they're in, but they also know their work probably doesn't matter, so it keeps them on their toes.
Works wonders! If you are decent to the people you employ and/or manage, they will most often be really nice back. Not rocket science! Social science I guess though.
I'd like to know about the working conditions at the places were someone went haywire, my guess is that there is a very telling correlation. Guess that wouldn't be as newsworthy though :(
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I can understand where a lot of people's frustration comes from. Speaking from experience, management has a tendency to keep wanting to do more with less and keep lumping responsibility on top of us to the point where the salary paid becomes far from comensurate with the job expectations. Now go ahead and mod this down. I am sure managers will be so inclined. But remember, IT is what keeps the business in business.
is available here: http://www.infoworld.com/archives/emailPrint.jsp?R=printThis&A=/article/08/09/22/39FE-IT-management-chasm_1.html
proud caffeine whore
You don't happen to have pointy hair do you?
[ Authority Figure ] pisses off [ slave figure ].
[ slave figure ] takes [ action ].
Management thinks they are untouchable.
IT workers know otherwise.
Respect is a two way street.
Disrespect is also a two way street.
I left a ticking code bomb on my last job, here's how it happened:
Me: The rest of today I thought we'd go over the end of year maintenance and reports, they're a little involved.
My replacement: I think I got it.
Me: You sure? It's pretty complicated. Two hours really isn't enough of a hand off for an app this complicated.
My replacement: I'm good. I've got to take my kid to the doctor this afternoon (turns to leave).
Me: Okay then.
End of FY ends in about two weeks. Guess they'll find out how ready he really was.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I knew a former employee that left a piece of code in an app that when a user entered a certain search string, it would give Chuck Norris facts. Leave your employer laughing, not disgruntled.
string.Empty();
Come on. If your job is that stressful, fucking find a new one. Or, sack up and learn to cope.
With IT experience only, what would that be, another IT job with similar problems or pushing a mop?
In 99% of cases, if you freak out and do stupid shit, it's cause you're weak, not because the workplace really is that bad.
A bit of a generalisation there mate, as in my experience; in tech support, it could be the fact that you have to close X number of tickets a week, but you get at least twice that on average. Or as a sysad, you know what your budget to fix things is, but you get less than a third of that. Or as a developer, half your team gets sacked, the sales guys get payrises, AND the shorten your deadline by a month.
http://www.zombieapocalypse.tv/
In 99% of cases, if you freak out and do stupid shit, it's cause you're weak, not because the workplace really is that bad.
It is a LOT easier for a burger flipper to say that than a cubicle dweller.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
This surprises me, I hate to use these sort of universal qualifiers, but in a LOT of companies Systems Admins and Systems engineers are overworked. So many that it seems like "duh, everyone knows this". What's worse is that its accepted and people (managers) don't seem bothered about it in the slightest bit.
My personal experience is that I worked as a Systems Administrator and then Systems Engineer for about 9 years. I left the field because it is an exceedingly frustrating career path that invaded any sort of personal life that I may desire to have. It was normal to work much more than I should. We're raised to believe that 40-60 hours a week is reasonable along with occasional peaks. However it was normal for me to work 60-80, hours a week, I remember a 3-4 month period where I literally only went home to shower and sleep for 4 hour intervals. This sort of treatment isn't just a few companies here-or-there, but this was my experience in working at 3 different places.
I would have left the profession long ago, but as it was I found myself stifled by this statement "You need more experience" or perhaps "you need a degree". What I found was that the sheer magnitude of work that had been put on my plate was so much that it was impossible for me to get "more" experience let alone a degree.
As an aside, before you go on with the "you should have known better and had a degree before you started this line of work" rhetoric, I grew up poor, and after I graduated high school my parents still didn't have the cash to help me in college. An entry level IT job in the late 90's paid crap, so I could barely pony up rent, food, car insurance, and other basic expenses - let alone get a degree. Too bad I was a fast learner, I quickly found myself with more responsibility and not much extra money.
What I've described is not limited to my own experience, I have met countless people who have had the exact same experience. Basically it goes something like this:
1. Was planning on going to college, but couldn't
2. Left home, got an IT job
3. Learned fast, got lots of responsibility
4. Got too much responsibility, can't leave work
5. Want out, but can't because "you need more experience" or "you need a degree"
I count it a miracle that I was able to transition from one career (SE work) to another (Developer) AND work on getting both experience and a degree at the same time, but I really don't see any other way to get out of this sort of trap.
Anyone else's experiences?
-b
Heh, you sound like the sort of person who destroys companies from the inside out. If I were your boss, you'd be fired, and everyone working under and around you would probably hail me as a hero.
Firing someone? For goodness sake's be sure to do it in a way that allows them to get unemployment payments. I'm been fired from several jobs over the past twenty years. I'm not a bad worker. But this industry (electronics/computers/high tech) goes through employees like rubbers in a 5 dollar whorehouse and then tosses them away like used Kleenex when they've served their purpose.
Let's see. I got fired from Hewlett-Packard for having a picture of Claudia Schiffer in a evening gown (not nude) on my PC. 'Creating an environment conducive to sexual harassment' even though I was the only person working in the room.
Hmm... I got fired from a small medical equipment company in silicon valley when my boss overheard me say that 'white smocks are for white schmucks'. The boss decided that all employees had to wear white coats to work; blue jeans and button down shirts were no longer allowed. I actually got an unemployment check when I told the hearing judge that 'forcing Asian workers to wear white smocks was an insult because in VietNam and China only corpses were wrapped in white. The boss was telling the workers that they were nothing more than dead meat."
Oh and I got fired from Tektronix when I got blasted right in the eye with melted wax from a printer. No one noticed that the drain on eye-wash safety-station directed water directly onto a power strip. Of course it was all my fault. As always.
I got fired from the German milling machine company where I had worked for six years when I demanded that the American employees get the same stock-option package as the German employees when the company went public. Since the USA branch was a subsidiary, wholly-owned by the German parent. The German manager claimed that he felt threatened and intimidated: he was six foot-eight inches and I'm five-foot seven. Ja-Ja.
My point is that in a non-unionized cowboy industry like electronics people get fired constantly for practically nothing. If it hasn't happened to you, then it will sooner or later.
If you want to seriously decrease the possibility that someone will 'go postal' when you fire them, then you must do in a way that enables them to get unemployment insurance. Believe me the weekly checks go a long way to 'smooth out the transition process'. It's a no-brainer and it doesn't cost the company any money. I can't understand why managers would pride themselves on firing someone in a way that makes it impossible to get unemployment. But they do.
"We need to unionize."
Good way to be instantly undercut by cheaper labor.
I'd advise leaving or developing a good case of apathy. Any employer who screws me forfeits my loyalty and I feel free to become a (cheerful, friendly, lying) sloth.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
I bet that for every malicious logic bomb, there are a hundred cases where a leaving employee takes with them the exclusive knowledge required to maintain some component of a critical system. What might have taken an hour to document will take their replacement a man-week to figure out, possibly with production services impacted, and there's no malice involved.
I suspect that properly resourcing and managing IT organizations to avoid *this* problem would prevent most of the frustration that leads to logic bombs.
There's no failure quite as dissatisfying as a complete and total solution to the wrong problem.
Under qualified people are a pain in the ass, and often a source of frustration for people that are qualified since it often becomes double duty making sure someone else's fuckups don't cause them for you.
But then there's also the barely-qualified lifers, too. There you get the double-whammy of long-term apathy and incompetence. They're just good enough to stick around, but bad enough that they deeply embed their stupidity, making improvements/upgrades almost impossible.
you sound like your about 15 and don't know what a stressful job is.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
I work in a business that supports photocopiers, printers, fax machines etc. We are factory trained for brand X & brand Y. The the stupid sales genius idiots will go out and get new business, and then tell them "oh yeah, we'll wrap your brand Z machine into the contract with the new machine for servicing. Of course, do we have the parts, manuals and training on these brand Z machines? Hell no.
I've been in some pretty bad work places. To me the shock is that many more disgruntled employees don't walk in with guns blazing. Frankly we need more regulation to protect employees from abuse. People are forced to work and often don't have the luxury of telling the boss to stuff it. In some cases I would not even find a person guilty because i know just how rotten some employers can be.
Insultingly low pay? Fresh out of a 4-year college, your average salary will be 50% more than a teacher, and they need a masters!
Nearly illegal hours? Care to guess how long doctors, lawyers, engineers, and managers work? I'll give you a hint, it's also a lot.
Disrespectful management? Everyone gets this from time to time. If it's that bad, quit. Not all managers are disrespectful.
Jobs moving overseas? Go tell some layed off factory workers. I'm sure they'd love to hear how much you're suffering.
Fact is, IT workers have it far, far better than the average American/citizen of (insert your country here). You make good money, and your job isn't physically dangerous. Yes, it's not all butterflies and cupcakes, but no job is, barring rockstars and whatnot. Try being more positive, and realizing just how well off you are. It goes a long way.
Unionizing is the surest way to make sure your job gets out-sourced to China. If you don't believe me, ask the steel workers. We now ship ore to China, have them smelt it, and send it back to us, and all of this is still cheaper than paying union steel workers! Also, point me to this cheap H1B labor. My H1B's make 75-85K....
One of my many ex brothers-in-law is an MBA. 30 years ago I was talking to him over beer about *exactly* the same problem that this article is about. No respect. No compensation for work done. No upward path in the company...
His response? Yeah, in business school they teach us that engineers are stupid. If you were a business major you would know what to do. When the boss says "do it" the correct response is "what's in it for me?" And if they don't answer with what you want you don't do the extra work.
Work 75 hours a week for a fixed salary? He thought that was just too cool. He loved the idea of getting nearly two peoples worth of work for the cost of one. So what if it ruins your health. They are planning to get rid of you before your bad health starts to raise their costs.
So... about a month later my boss told our group we were going on mandatory 60 hour weeks and we would be required to work Saturdays. Don't like it? To bad. In an open meeting I asked why I should do it. He said if you don't you'll be fired. I said "OK." If you fire all of us you won't get the project done. The rest of the staff caught on to the fact that we had the power. A couple of hours later we were told we would get 50% extra pay for working 50% extra hours.
Sounds great... I was fired within a month of the end of the project.
I learned the lesson. Management loves screwing employees. They get off on it the same we techies get off on learning and making things work. The techies have the real power and the managers know it. They love the fact that we won't use our power. If you want to be treated well by management you have to organize and be willing to shut the company down.
You want to be treated fairly? Quit your bitchin' and organize. Of course, we're so tough and love that libertarian fighter jock image so we don't organize... And the managers laugh and laugh and laugh at us all the way to the bank. And we keep being treated like the idiots we are.
When I was a technical director in the game business my manager called his business plan "burning babies". You hire an out of school power fool and work them until they can't take it any more. Then they quit. You don't even have to fire them.
Stonewolf
Not here in Miami, unfortunately. Here you are expected to start at $30k a year while teachers who only have a bachelors make slightly more. Cheap labor is already here from the endless supply of immigrants.
doctors who work in the ER work in long shifts but have at least 3 days off. They also get paid 3 times what your average IT worker does.
Lawyers don't do anything without billing for it. Engineers are slightly akin to IT workers except they're unionized already.
And managers. Ah yes, managers. They leave at 3:30 unless they have someone watching them. Then they leave at 5:00 on the dot.
Meanwhile, IT workers are expected to be on call 24/7 unless there's a second shift at a larger shop. In a smaller shop, they have to deal with unrealistic deadlines for projects while still doing support and maintaining their regular systems. They have to work 16 hours a day to get those projects done or they risk losing their job to someone cheaper.
Disrespectful management is more of an epidemic with IT workers. Usually management only needs them when there's a problem. So managers tend to treat us like we're the cause.
How many laid off factory workers are there? How many laid off software engineers are there? Phone support techs? Database Administrators? I have honestly never met a DBA who wasn't Indian. And I've met alot while working contracts. They are apparently all from India. I know they know their stuff, but damn we have no DBAs from Brooklyn or Chicago or L.A. or Miami or Boise even?
And, I'm not well off. I get work very sparingly. I have a specialized skill set in being a Linux Administrator. I haven't been able to find permanent employment since Clinton was in office. That's no exaggeration. I've been working contracts and handling my own customers since then. It's sparse. I have it very bad in fact. My contract pay is low and the hours are low. And some of the companies are grateful when you finish and others thank you by disabling your proxcard. I work in a city where a computer guy will charge $20 a hour for a service call. How can you compete with that?
Yeah, I mostly need to get the hell out of Miami. But that's not feasible right now. So, I'm learning spanish as fast as I can, but that's no guarantee. This market sucks for me.
I have never cause damage to company systems for being "disgruntled" I have too much professional pride to sink so low.
but again, I'm surprised at how little this actually happens.
The whole point here is, IT workers generally hold the keys to businesses and we're being dumped on.
A lot of people think that unionizing will send work oversees. For some that may happen. But I highly doubt that companies will send positions that require you to be in-house to India or China. Even if they do, the jobs will come back within a few months due to security breaches and different working hours. There are some jobs which can't be done overseas. Generally, IT support is one of those. Unless you're talking about data grunt work.
I say this is only going to get worse because I don't see a solution in sight. Business isn't taking steps to keep us happy workers.
Union workers get paid higher wages on average than non-union workers doing the same job. That's a fact. Granted, those costs eat into profits.
I say take that extra money from executive salaries. My father worked for a company where the highest paid employee couldn't get paid more than 7 times what the lowest paid employee made. It kept things honest and productive. Salaries were tied to results. The CEO didn't get bonuses for showing up.
They're using their grammar skills there.
People who need a job and can't afford to be without one don't have that luxury. I have a friend who had to go on short term disability, and the manager piled on 37 individual objectives in his annual review for him to meet. He was given 22 work days to meet that. Of those 22 days, he was already approved and scheduled 10 days off for surgery and shit.
37 individual objectives, one of which took another person over a year to work on without success.
Can you say, set up to fail?
And what about H1Bs? Oh, wait, even though they are here legally, they deserve all that shit piled on them too, right? Especially in at-will states, where they can be fired for no reason, and will be deported?
Mucking Foron.
Frankly we need more regulation to protect employees from abuse. People are forced to work and often don't have the luxury of telling the boss to stuff it.
I never cease to be amazed at how some people's solution to a problem is "more regulation". Politicians pander to your type.
Let's also not forget the malevolently incompetent. As an example, I blew away a bit of important data through not checking my rsync flags. I immediately tracked down the data's owner and explained the situation so that we could take measures.
I didn't think much of it at the time, but a coworker later pointed out that I could have not said a word, closed the shell window, and they'd never have known who did it; the fact that I didn't showed "character." I'm not sure if I agree with that part of it, but I DO know an awful lot of people I've worked with in the past who would have hidden it and never said a word about it...
"People are forced to work and often don't have the luxury of telling the boss to stuff it."
One nice thing I liked about the military is I could tell a Colonel to go to hell. All I had to do is say "Sir, with all respect for your rank - fuck you!" and that was it. The "Sir, with all respect for your rank" gave the due respect for his rank. the "fuck you!" was directed at him peronsally. So there wasn't much they could do as far as inssupordination etc... I made it over 9 years active duty before I got out. Never one article 15, never one punishment. You just had to know how to tell people off. You can't do anything like this in the business world. Most management are fucking pricks and they know it, and know they can do whatever they want and you can't do shit except put up with their crap or leave. They don't care wither way.
The Truth is a Virus!!!
You responded to the strawman version of the parent's legitimate points.
For example, on the doctor argument: yes, ER docs have X hours on, X hours off requirements. But the doctors who actually make the 'big bucks' are people who paid for 4 years of college, 4 years of med school, worked 80+ hours per week (not including off-the-clock studying) for 4-8 years at $40k, and still work 60+ hours per week 'on the clock'.
The lawyer "argument" is likewise fallacious - fine, lawyers do nothing without getting paid for it; neither does anyone else.
In summary, you're not appealing to reason; you're appealing to emotion. I feel for you, but not at the expense of all of the other groups that your arguments slight.
I can intellectually understand your post, but I can't wrap my head around it.
I read your description of the MBA thought process, and it comes across like those sad bastards who throw bowling balls into traffic from overpass bridges and giggle. Maybe it's the way I was raised.
I was brought up by farmers, mechanics, builders and engineers. I was taught that "You WILL go the extra mile on this brake job, 'cause you don't want it to fail and kill somebody. You will wire this correctly, 'cause you don't want it to fail and kill somebody. You will do this the right way, 'cause you don't want it to kill somebody."
"'Cause you don't want it to kill somebody," were words of power, God's Holy Truth. I was taught that when I had power over someone, I was responsible for them. I was taught that older should look out for younger.
I was raised to believe that what I did Mattered. Drive like an idiot and there will be some mother crying at a funeral. Pay attention, because that radial saw would be just as happy to cut through bone as wood.
I read your description of an MBA, and I know you're right. I've seen it with my own eyes a million times.
What I don't know is how these men sleep at night. How do they live with themselves? I don't know. Maybe they don't get it. Maybe they think it's all a game. Maybe they don't realize that other people aren't just sprites on a videogame screen. I've heard more than one psychology professor claim that psycho-and scoiopaths line our boardrooms. Maybe they're right.
Maybe it's time to bring back some of the old ideas like "blood money."
Politicians pander to the popular type. If libertarianism were more popular, politicians would (at least pretend to) pander towards that type much more.
...I've got some really bad news for you. Chefs sometimes spit in the pizza. Babysitters slap kids. CEOs steal money that could be used to save dozens of lives. There's good and bad everywhere.
Be reasonable, but not hysterical.
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
I know for sure the company doesnt really give a crap about me. They make sure to tell you that now and then. You are completely replacable! They only care about the bottom line. Profit.
So i've adopted the attituded that i don't care about the company either. Only what value i can extract from that company by any means. Including theft of equipment. I am exploiting my resources to the maximum to gain the most value in the least ammount of time.
Mostly the disgruntled worker is a result of company greed. And now it is causing some worker greed.
The lesson was greed is good. Get yours while you can. The company will be broke tomorrow and you'll have to find another job. So get that cash while you can by any means! Greed is good!
Some people just take to it faster than others.
Wow, talk about bad advice!
"Need less stress in your life? Start your own business... it's EASY."
Please mod parent down.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
The kind of engineer that is in a union (operating engineer) is like a sanitation engineer. A blue collar worker with little training.
If you are still making $30k after eight or so years you should take that as a sign. You are just not very good at what you are doing. Try something else.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
exactly, IT people are unique because we already know most of the story.... which means telling us up front what's really going on is the better proposition. Right now, my company is planning to move the main machine I manage to another new location... trying to be all secret about buying a new building for the bosses like anybody really cares. It's the playing favorites with information for no good reason... and IT typically knows about it before anybody else because we read the emails if only when we fix people's computers.
How much lying for the sake of lying goes on from most company managers is out of control and IT people are actually very normal people reacting normally to an environment of lies. Lies about profit, lies about sales, likes about layoffs... etc.
IT people know a lot of dirty laundry and that typically breeds resentment when WE act respectable rather than respect.
I think this is the same politician to the one that panders to the high tax crowd....
Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
"According to computer forensics expert witness Keith Jones, for every logic bomb on the network or Terry Childs case that makes it into the press, there are 98 other incidents of disgruntled IT pros damaging company assets that you never hear about."
Soooo, not that many?
Frankly, I think it's best to create an atmosphere of trust & openness. I don't know 100% of what happened yet in the Terry Childs case (I don't think anyone does), but it's fairly clear his bosses were a bunch of political asshats.
-Bill
SlashSig Karma: Excellent (mostly affected by moderatio
Guess what. Being a computer guy is the easiest fricking job there is right now, on the planet earth, that pays good money without too much in formal education
Well, I guess I won't be needing my degree & certifications anymore. I've got the easy job with no training!
A long time ago, someone in the guidance office at my HS said, "computer programming is like word processing". That was you, wasn't it?
Now, go write some navigation software for Boeing, make sure to use WordPerfect.
being a "computer guy" is probably one of the easiest jobs indeed. being any good at it, however, is another thing.
I've occasionally remarked that the nice thing about UNIX systems, in comparison to Windows ones, is that when I tell my UNIX box to do something it doesn't bother me with questions, it just does what I tell it to. The downside to this is that when I tell my UNIX box to do something, it doesn't bother me with questions, it just does what I tell it to do.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Recruit: "Sir, I'm not allowed to call you an Asshole am I?"
Officer: "NO! You are not"
Recruit: "But I'm allowed to think you're an Asshole, aren't I?"
Officer: "You can think whatever you like!"
Recruit: "Well, Sir, I think you're an Asshole!"
There's good times and there's bad times, and contractors don't generally get much work in the bad times.
Your skill set has to be sufficiently in demand to either guarantee you pretty close to full time work, or for you to get paid sufficiently above permanent rates to make up for the time you're not working. This demand is often substantially higher than the demand necessary to get a regular job.
You have to have either a really flexible financial situation, or a partner with an income you can live on.
Most companies are perfectly willing to throw extra work at a contractor because, well they're paying for it, so you often end up more stressed.
Add to that the fact that in a lot of countries if you work as a contractor for one company for too long you're considered legally a full time employee and have to pay all the relevant payroll taxes anyway.
For my two cents, if you're young, and single, or financially stable on your wife/husband's income. If your skill set is really hot at the moment, or if your specialty is in a field where generally you're only needed for a small portion of the project life cycle, then go ahead and contract.
If these things aren't true, it can be a hell of a lot worse than doing a regular old job, even if the pay during the good times is better. Being your own boss isn't sleeping in till noon and taking days off when you want, it's working for someone else who quite justifiable does't give a rats about you, and without the security of a regular position.
It's not as funny when you don't post as AC.
Oh my, it appears that I'm a hypocrite.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Generally I have to agree. Even in Germany where law makers put special attention to punish you for being independent it is still better that way. At least you can save something on tax and your investments (if you still have any after all this nonsense with credit crunch) can be better placed than in government pension system. The approach of companies to consultants and external contractors is also more rewarding - of course you will not get a new 'key person' title developed by your company to keep employees happy but at least you get all your hours accounted for.
That said there are other problems associated with being independent: like late payments or tax office harassment being two examples.
Well, at least we haven't been operantly conditioned to say "what the hell, go ahead."
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
It's ironic that geeks are supposed to be the ones with poor social skills, when management treats IT workers as extensions of the machines they work with.
The whole MBO thing is a moron's approach to leadership. It's not that objectives aren't a good thing, it's just that the manager who doesn't really understand his people plugs people into the plan as if they were standardized parts. Geeks are different.
I've been in meetings discussing things like establishing bonuses for achieving certain objectives, and this is the point I always make: yeah, bonuses are fine, but if they really make a difference in performance you aren't going to get the best work. Guys who come out of sales just can't get their brains around anything more sophisticated than a financial carrot and stick, because they excelled in a game where it was grab the carrot and leave the people behind to deal with the stick.
If you really want to incent a geek, make this a project one where he can do his best work ever. Or make this a project where he can increase his skill level.
A geek wants to be respected for his skill and honored for his contribution. Yeah everybody does, just like everybody likes a nice bonus check, but it doesn't mean the same things grab everyone's attention. You take care of your geeks. You help them advance their skills. You give them room to do their jobs. You show respect by listening to their concerns and by owning your own mistakes when you have to overrule those concerns. Do those things and you'll be richly rewarded.
I find that often the problem in business is not what we don't know; it's the things we know on an intellectual level, but don't live by. Under stress, people fall back into actions that make them feel comfortable, rather than ones that address the situation. So managers who are in trouble don't communicate with their teams, they dump objectives on them. They don't work with their people to create a realistic plan, they dangle a carrot or wave a stick in front of them in hopes of producing a miracle.
The difference between people and horses is that people are much, much smarter. They can figure out how to get the carrot or avoid the stick without moving anything forward. You've got to make them want to go forward.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
...Being your own boss isn't sleeping in till noon and taking days off when you want...
From my experience it's even worse than that.
When I was contracting I didn't take *any* vacation days. I found it hard to let billable hours slip through my fingers, mostly because I was never quite sure how long the current situation would last, when the next contract contracting opportunity would arise, etc.
> We need to unionize
NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO......
Remember the late 90's, when any monkey who knew how to click around in FrontPage was able to call himself a web developer? Remember how you always ended up cleaning up after him, or finishing his half-baked projects? There are far fewer of those folks around now, one of the perks of the bubble bursting.
Unionizing would protect these people. The incompetent boob sitting in the cube next to you, the one who uses you as his personal reference manual, would have nothing to fear. He would have no reason to get his act together and start performing - the union would protect his job. Do you really want that?
Three years ago, I left a job where I hadn't received a raise in 2 years, because I was already being paid the maximum for my job title. HR had the final say in all salary issues - they paid strictly based on job titles and charts. I left that place, going to another company with the SAME JOB TITLE, doing the SAME WORK, for $11K more per year. With the increase I received last year, I'm now making almost $30K more than I made at the previous place, doing THE SAME JOB. The job (at both companies) involves production support - I'm essentially on call 24x7. At the old place, if I got called at 2:00am, I was still expected to be in the office the next morning. At the new place, a call at 2:00am means I come in if/when I want to the next day, or not at all. The new place gets it, they understand and recognize the value of IT.
Unionizing would make issues like this more cookie-cutter, attempting to make things the same for everybody. Of the two scenarios that I just described, which way do you thing that "sameness" would go? We'd all end up punching time cards, tracking every minute that we work, with no flexibility. No thanks.
I would never cause damage to my company's systems because my work ethic would not permit it, but what gets me going to the point of have to step away from my desk and take a walk to cool off is the the incompetent ass kisser that only keeps his job because he knows someone or is spending too much time on his knees under a desk.
Office politics are an unfortunate fact of life. Some days it takes a lot f fortitude just to keep from walking out. Some of you may say just find another job. That's all fine and dandy in a perfect world but landing a new job with a salary that even close to what I make now in this economy is not all that easy in my part of the country.
It is a shame that most management does not care about the welfare of their employees because they are so short sighted. Do they not know that turn over cost you more than retention.
I could be wrong but one of the keys to success would be to keep the brightest, replace the dead weight and treat their people like human beings.
OK, I feel better now, I will go and take my meds.
... many IT folks are being pushed to the brink by management that neither trusts nor supports them."
I've seen a lot of evidence that the lack of trust and support is often due to a more basic lack of understanding. Management and IT speak very different languages and have a great deal of difficulty communicating. And usually, they can't admit this in public.
A minor example from a project a few years back: I was working on a bunch of stuff that ran on a server, and spent most of my time in the lab coding and debugging. During one meeting, I made an offhand comment that, since some people were starting to actually use the lab machine because the stuff on it was useful, I really should be running a second copy of the server. I didn't see much reaction, until a few weeks later, a manager came to me with help filling out purchasing forms for another server. I was startled by this, but I quickly figured out the problem.
To the manager(s), the term "server" meant a chunk of hardware. So I quietly explained that I hadn't been talking about hardware. The lab server machine (as I called it) had plenty of power to run several servers processes. I had simply configured a couple more that ran on nonstandard ports, and I was using them for most of my testing. This was better than two machines for my purposes, because being on one machine made regression testing easier. I got across the idea that to us software guys, a "server" was a program, not a machine, and we routinely ran many servers on a single machine.
That incident worked out without problems, because he had come to me in time to stop the acquisition process. It would have been a waste if they'd ordered and delivered a machine that I really didn't need, and I managed to turn it into a minor "learning opportunity". But all too often, language difficulties like this can lead to major misunderstandings and wrong actions on the part of both management and IT.
I'm not sure how to fix this. The obvious solution is to make sure that management includes people who understand IT jargon. But in many (maybe most) companies, this isn't possible. And in any case, it's not something that us IT types can impose on the management types. So the misunderstanding will continue to lead to mistrust and poor support, even when people think they're doing what the other side needs and wants.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Not just in IT, but in labor-management relations generally, when managers start talking about "disgruntled" employees my bias detector starts ringing. The term is usually used by managers and it always seems to me to imply that the employee(s)have no valid grievances. That is, the employee is unhappy because he has some sort of fundamental character flaw. The idea that the employee is being treated unfairly seems beyond the consideration of managers who speak in terms of his being "disgruntled". Whether through union representation, or some in-house mechanism, employees should have channels through which grievances can be addressed.
I've been an incorporated consultant for a very long time.
Incorporation is great under certain circumstances, it can also be a hell of a lot of stress.
When you switch from salaried work to independent consulting, you're trading one sort of stress for another. Each person has to ask them self which type of stress they're more willing to accept.
There's good times and there's bad times, and contractors don't generally get much work in the bad times.
Neither do salaried workers. Many, many companies have no trouble at all laying off their best people during recessions. The difference is that with consulting, you'll usually see it coming and can plan for it. With salaried employment, the employees are the last to know.
Your skill set has to be sufficiently in demand to either guarantee you pretty close to full time work, or for you to get paid sufficiently above permanent rates to make up for the time you're not working. This demand is often substantially higher than the demand necessary to get a regular job.
Over the last 10 years, if you add up all the time I've been out of work, it adds up to about six weeks. This includes the dotcom crash. Typically for me, one contract ends on friday, the next one starts on monday. There's nothing spectacular about my experience, except that I have a lot of it. I do both c#/.net/sqlserver and c++/unix/oracle development.
If you're a salaried employee, you need to be just as concerned about the marketability of your skillset. If you don't because your job is "safe" you're a fool.
You have to have either a really flexible financial situation, or a partner with an income you can live on.
My wife is a stay-at-home mom. And you make your own flexible financial situation. Regardless of your working arrangement, you need to be getting ahead of your cashflow. Live on 80% of your takehome pay and save the rest. This will mean a standard of living reduction. It's necessary.
Most companies are perfectly willing to throw extra work at a contractor because, well they're paying for it, so you often end up more stressed.
More work equals more stress? As a consultant, there's nothing forcing you to accept more work. If you hate your contract, find a new one.
If you want stress, try being forced to work 50 hours a week at a salaried job where they don't pay you for overtime. As a consultant, they're forced to respect your time, because, well, they're paying for it.
Add to that the fact that in a lot of countries if you work as a contractor for one company for too long you're considered legally a full time employee and have to pay all the relevant payroll taxes anyway.
In the US, if you have an article-C corporation, you have to pay payroll taxes on any money that flows out of the corp to you personally. I'm not sure how it works in other countries.
Also, that works both ways. It's far more troublesome for the employer when you're classified as an employee. They have to pay your taxes.
I'm always amused by people who use taxes to justify not being a consultant. This is like saying you don't want to win the lottery because you don't want to pay taxes on the money.
For my two cents, if you're young, and single, or financially stable on your wife/husband's income. If your skill set is really hot at the moment, or if your specialty is in a field where generally you're only needed for a small portion of the project life cycle, then go ahead and contract.
I'm just the opposite of everything you listed. I'm older. I have nine kids. My wife doesn't work. My skills aren't rare or unusual. And I work throughout the entire project lifecycle.
I guess I'm financially stable. But I wasn't during the dotcom crash.
If these things aren't true, it can be a hell of a lot worse than doing a regular old job, even if the pay during the good times is better. Be
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.