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Do You Hate Being Called an "IT Guy?"
An anonymous reader writes "The phrase 'IT' is so overused, I'm not sure what it means any more. OK, maybe it's an ego thing, but I spent a lot of years in grad school, lots of years getting good at creating software, and lots of years getting good at creating technical products and I don't want the same label as the intern who fixes windoze. I'm looking at a tech management job at a content company that is trying to become a software company, and they refer to everything about software development, data center operations, and desktop support as 'IT.' I'd like to tell the CEO before I take the job that we have to stop referring to all these people as 'IT people' or I'm not going to be able to attract and retain the top-tier talent that is required. Am I just being petty? Should I just forget it? Change it slowly over time? These folks are really developing products, but we don't normally call software creators 'product developers.' Just call them the 'Tech Department' or the 'Engineering Deptartment?'"
I can't see why this would matter. Hopefully potential candidates will look beyond whatever their official job title is. I'd change it slowly over time.
Le français vous intéresse?
You're in IT. Deal with it.
I don't think you're going to help attract a lot of talented engineers by changing the nomenclature to the "'Engineering Deptartment."
That aside, I think "Software Engineer," "Software Architect," "Analyst," "Lead Developer," and such are common titles for people who are creating things with software, as opposed to "IT's" tech-support implications.
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
Yes that's petty. A rose by any other name smells as sweet.
Just do your job well.
Sounds pretty petty to me. I have no problem at all with IT and don't see why anyone would. I don't care what my job's called as long as it interests/challanges me and provides a monthly paycheck. If you're that hung up with titles, I'd suggest your problem lies closer to home.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
Did the submitter forget his Twitter account password? Is his navel so big that he can't help but gaze into it?
I'm a software developer. In my experience, "IT" is a term used by non-engineers as a catch-all for "that which my English degree failed to equip me to understand". Kind of like when they say "microchip".
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
In my view of the industry when someone says IT I think of the technical support, admin and sys planning teams. The ones who make the systems work and keep working.
Programmers and the such, I put in the developers group. Graphic designers, html jockeys or software developers. The ones who make what people see on their desktops look pretty.
You dont call someone who washes your car and gives it a bit of a polish a mechanic would you?
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
call me Sue if you'll give me a job.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Like it says
Just call them the 'Tech Department' or the 'Engineering Deptartment?'" [sic]
The spelling Deptartment just called. They need more budget.
Do you or your partner snore? - Visit www.snoring.com.au
You ARE in IT.
However, it's the equivalent of calling a Brain surgeon a Doctor
Or referring to a Nuclear physicist as a scientist.
It is kind of vague. Sometimes being more specific is good, as it points out people's specialty more.
the job will be out-sourced soon, anyway.
When I graduated there was the programmer, technical designer, conceptual designer and analyst ladder to climb. And I tried it.
The you realize the tunnel view you get when following such a path. And after a couple of years of having tried to adopt a fancy name -senior consultant, senior anything- I resolved to name myself that what defines me. If people ask I'll tell them I'm a programmer. Doing well for years with a lovely family, a very good income and a sports car that turns heads. But still a programmer.
I can develop products -which is much more than coding-, I can look through the organization and suggest improvements and I can tell anyone paying me he's brilliant. Still I'm a programmer.
Mainstream will never be able to keep cracks charlatans so don't set your hopes too high on job titles.
Consider job titles at Google. Naming Vint Cerf an Internet Evangelist is a way of telling the world that job titles don't really matter and that the substance matters way more.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Or The Wizard.
Honestly, how often do we refer to some people as "He's from the marketing" without going into details. We are aware that marketing department has MBAs, it has interns, it has people who have studied IT, it has all these odd people who have studied language arts, philosophy or such... But we don't care. Why? To us it makes no difference what they have studied. We only care about what are their connections to us.
If you have a masters degree in computer science and you specialized in database technologies but you are doing the same low level tech support as the intern, you are referred to in a similar way. If not, you probably aren't. Or perhaps people will say "Some guy from IT will come and interview us today about that one project..." because they don't (need to) understand IT's work in more details. You can't fix that with fancier titles.
Or you can title yourself Chief Sorcerer, then your reports will be Sorcerers, their reports will be the Sorcerer's Apprentices, etc. I too remember the good old days, heh.
om namo bhagavate vasudevaya
What's at stake? What your developers get to put on their business cards? If so, are you worried about their titles or what department they will be sorting under?
What would be the problem with having the title Software Developer, or even Software Engineer (say, if that's what someone is) and sort under the IT department?
would be pretty cool.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
If one more person says "Oh, you're in IT." one more time, I'm gonna go postal. (do postal workers not like that?) Anyways, it's about the stigma associated with the word. People equate it with lowly service to fix their "CPU" o_0 Helpdesk it what they know. Network engineers, software developers, we need to shatter this image of low-level service said by "IT" and make people realize what it is that we do and how essential it is to them even being able to work or use what products are developed for them. Only then will "IT" get any respect beyond the computer janitor image people so ignorantly have of it now.
Potential employees are probably more worried about future employers/their resumes, and it's not unreasonable of them to do so.
Frankly, a respectable-sounding title is one very cheap way for employers to compensate their employees that costs the company absolutely nothing yet is of material benefit to the employee. It's one reason nearly everyone in sales and marketing is a "director" or "head" of some tiny sliver of a given institution's sales/marketing operation. "Director, Central California Sales," "Head of E-marketing Business Development" etc. You're more likely to attract ambitious, driven people if your position comes with a nice title. These are also the sort of people who will work very hard for you, because they're hungry for advancement. Of course, they also are likely to leave the company as soon as a better offer comes along. But I'd rather get 3 years of work from a ambitious employee than 10 years from a just-getting-by timecard-puncher.
IT guys are the scumbags who put desktop remote control software on my suse workstation. They are the reason I keep rootkits (ie, system rescue CDs) in my desk draw, and why most of the guys I directly work with run gentoo.
These are the people who solemnly told me they would improve my WAN latency issue by compressing the link. When I said that won't work they said they could always put two compressors in series.
When they replaced my Dell desktop with an equally crappy ASUS or something they replaced the Dell branded logitech keyboard and mouse with an ASUS branded logitech keyboard and mouse on the grounds that using the wrong type of peripheral might cause "incompatibilities".
Since they stopped supporting POP and SMTP I now have to use outlook inside windows inside vmware, except there used to be outlook web access which stopped working last weekend so I logged a call with the helpless desk and they got the whole story (running firefox on suse, etc) then they had to get me to give them the version of IE I had there (stuffed if I know why). So they didn't fix it (Exchange server cant authenticate me for some reason) and escalated it a few times then the second or third level guy called me back and asked if I had thought of restarting firefox. When I said yes he asked if I had restarted my system (said so, I had an import or ten on the go at the time). This after I had given them the error message which came back from exchange.
I wish I could sack these idiots. In theory they work for my organisation you know, but they seem to have their hooks in us.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Yes it sounds petty. Everyone refers to anyone who works in technology as IT! Why? because they have no idea what you do, or for that matter what anyone else does. Information Technology is a broad descriptive title. I don't think it is meant to belittle anyone. Most people on the business side just don't know how to refer to the different areas of IT.
I'm one of those guys who fixes Windows, and I can understand you don't want to be lumped together with us :). How about calling yourself 'software engineers'?
Artificial Intelligence stands no chance against Natural Stupidity
I don't like people assuming that since my group is part of IS that we are "just" technology people. Yeah, we are programmers, but we are far more than that. We have to truly understand the business needs of our organization, and we do. We are partners with the business units, not just a bunch of geeks turning out code that we hope does what is needed, or coding to specs that may or may not be the best solution that some accountant thought up.
load "linux",8,1
"The phrase 'IT' is so overused, I'm not sure what it means any more.
It means "information technology".
OK, maybe it's an ego thing, but I spent a lot of years in grad school, lots of years getting good at creating software, and lots of years getting good at creating technical products and I don't want the same label as the intern who fixes windoze.
What's wrong with that? Are you really so shallow as this? (Don't answer) I can understand wanting some sort of prestige, but not liking something because the proles get to have it too is one of the worst features of human nature, and it's something that used to get trained out of non-upper-class Americans. Is it really that irritating to be in the same industry as the intern who fixes "Windoze"[sic]? From urbandictionary.com: douchebag "An individual who has an over-inflated sense of self worth, compounded by a low level of intelligence, behaving ridiculously in front of colleagues with no sense of how moronic he appears."
How does the following passage make you feel? Does it make you feel comforted or outraged?
"What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it."
--Andy Warhol
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Because IT term is so generic... plus many times is used with as a bit of downgrading term...
Cheers,
Do you really value titles before substance?
'IT Guy' isn't a term of abuse, why should you care if people call you that?
Do they value you in your current position? Of so great, if not fix it or leave. Either way being called an 'IT Guy' is not worth worrying about.
There are lots of computer related jobs that are definitely NOT IT:
Computer scientist: performs basic research relating to computers and computing technologies
CS Professor: teaches computer science
Developer: *could* be IT, but may be developing software not related to companies at all!
Software architect, Systems architect: creates high level designs for applications, software systems, etc.
IT is the set of people who provide internal computing services to companies, governments, universities, and other organizations. It's an infrastructure service. It takes commercial products (software, hardware, etc.) and configures and maintains them to support the operations of the parent organization. This is very different from developers who *produce* products, or from computer scientists who invent new technologies.
Does it sound better and more accurate? after all, a program is a way to process data and information. The guys who repair computers are already called "Computer Support Team" so that should be ok for the distinction.
mono = evil
IT is a cost center. That's the reason sales/business (profit/revenue centers) related position get more respect and status. So you can call IT something else, but it won't change anything.
IT only supports the business where money is made.
That's THE title at Bell Labs. If it's good enough for Dennis it's good enough for me.
I've been at several jobs where the departmet itself was called something like "IT", but my title was Senior Systems Engineer, and that title was all that ever ended up on the resume. Don't worry about the department's name; worry about your job title. From experience, titles DO matter, especially when they're on your resume. People who think that an HR person or recruiter are going to notice what your title SHOULD HAVE been are either deluded or have no job-hunting skills. Use your leverage to get a good job title, and if that doesn't pan out, use the more accepted title on your resume.
"Don't call me IT Guy, IT Buddy. Don't call me IT Buddy, IT Friend."
Hagrin.com
Why do you feel so bad about that label?
Take for example Google, they are all (mostly) IT guys, and everybody thinks they are cool.
(I guess if you really wanted to be regarded differently from the rest, you should have gone into nuclear physics or something...)
It drove me nuts being in college and meeting "IT" majors. I would ask them questions like what they like to program in or what kind of Linux they use, but anything I asked beyond the technical skills required to setup a standard home Linksys router was met with a blank stare and an explanation of how good they are with anti-virus and firewalls. It made me wonder why as an aviation major I knew ten times more than any IT major I ever met.
Name...That...Autocomplete!
Hey, there's nothing wrong with ego. I, for one, always wanted to be called The High Priest Of The Sun. But then the barstards switched from Sun to IBM servers :p
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Try doing a PhD concerned with the hardware implementation of pretty hardcore mathematics for wireless communications and have someone refer what you do to be "IT". Without trying to sound like some form of zealot, the best thing I did was switch to a Mac. Not because it is a superior environment or anything, but because when someone has a Windows problem I feign ignorance and say "sorry, not sure, I don't use Windows these days".
yup, specially when the client realizes I am a woman, not a guy :)
IT Guy sounds better than Accountant or Sanitary Engineer or Sales Guy or ...
Yes, but when someone asked you questions about drag coefficient and fuel consumption, did or did you not answer "Dunno about any of that, but I can fold a mean paper airplane"?
maybe you should be a 'businessman' instead
Now, I'm not the kind of sysadmin you're complaining about. I'm the kind of sysadmin that manages fleets of thousands of computers.
I'm the kind of sysadmin that develops systems that automagically reinstalls systems via bootp/tftp etc.etc.
I'm the kind of sysadmins that allow technical people to run whatever they want on their desktops (as long as it's not abusive/disruptive software. In which case I'll bring my two-by-four over to the luser in question and degrade him into non-technical user. Meaning that he'll no longer get to install whatever-the-fsck he wants.
I'm the kind of sysadmin that says "yuck, this piece of shit software is slow", whereupon I strace it, fetches the source-code and figures out that "Oh my! Oh my! That shit is O(n^2) when it's easy to make it O(1).". Whereupon I submit a patch to the developer saying "Yo, please patch". I'm the kind of sysadmin that points out that "Yeah, I realize you think that hardware is inexpensive, but doing tens of thousands of stat() calls against the same files on a netapp per second instead of caching the result is rather stupid".
Software Engineers that consider their local sysadmin a resource rather than an annoyance usually enjoy having me around.
Software Engineers that consider their local sysadmin an annoyance that wasn't good enough to become a software engineer usually realizes they were wrong.
Would you call someone who designs aircraft engines a mechanic? Would you call someone who designs central heating boilers a plumber? Would you call someone who runs a team working on ALU design at Intel an electrician?
My point is that nowadays IT is actually a trade, and mostly attracts the sort of people who in the past would have become plumbers, electricians and mechanics. Which is not to knock them, because these are essential and valuable trades, but basically they implement what other people have designed and specified. Programmers who are not just coders, systems designers, user interface designers - these are creative professions.
In the UK we have a terrible tradition of confusing professionals with tradesmen, caused by our emphasis on "administrative" skills. We've just had the Government dismiss their principal expert on drugs because he dared to disagree with the irrational "omg smelling cannabis kills you I need a stiff drink or five before I can go back to work" culture of the Government and the Civil Service. In a properly organised world we would sack the Government for lying to us, but in the mind of the Govt., Prof. Nutt's status is about that of a plumber. The point is that you go to tradesmen for advice on implementation of what you want to do, but you go to professionals to tell you what to do in the first place. You somehow need to get back to that position (I say you. I hope to retire in 5-6 years; then it will be someone else's problem. For now, I am quite happy being a software architect, because that is actually what I do.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Oh please come back and post more often, your amazing insights are invaluable. That's just what this site needs more of, people who'll only come out of the woodwork to express how little they understand of somebody's point of view.
What amazes me is when you saw that ol' "comment" box, you could've written anything, you went with "I know what the world needs, more bitterness!".
In this economy where people are losing their homes?!! Wake up, there're people all over the world who've never even experienced a proper home or job, or not dying with their families of starvation. If you can live your life while that's happening, people can live their lives while there's a credit crunch and unemployment. Somebody not trying to make the most of their own life isn't going to fix -anything-.
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
Mmmm. Nope, not offended. I *am* an IT guy. Since my boss refers to himself as "head geek", I'd have a tough time getting upset by it. I'm the "virus geek" in our shop. What I resent is Best Buy stealin' our titles....
I couldn't give a stuff what they call me. People at work generally know if they want their PC to be fixed, we have two people in the department who spend much time fixing PCs. They know if they need something developing, they go the developers. But it's all the "IT department" and the "IT guys". People seem to be able to figure out that we're not all the same, regardless.
Similarly, we call everyone in finance "the bean counters" right from the lowliest of them all the way up to the CFO.
Who cares.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Ohh... I see your mistake- Digg is down the hallway over there. You might enjoy the Chuck Norris jokes and new screenshots of Halo Warfare 2: Space Crysis.
Listen p*ssy. I'm sure your the same homo that posted earlier about alf's boner and you just want to remain anonymous fo
One thing is certain: Referring to any group as a deptartment (or worse, a deptardment) will not win favor with anyone, top-tier talent or not.
In the very large financial organization I work for, those "in IT" are paid massively less and yet have to know both the business inside out AND the technology inside out (and I get pretty frustrated a lot of the time dealing with those "in the business" who, frankly, don't even know their own business)
We also still have to work all the hours and get all the grief of working in an investment bank (and these can be pretty crappy).
It goes further than this - the top grade in the organization ("Managing Director") is applied to around 1 in 10 people "in the business" and 1 in 250 "in IT". This is justified by the statement that "the business brings in the revenue". Interesting - given that the majority of the revenue in a bank is now brought in by automated systems created by those people "in IT".
Being labeled as "IT" is a problem - because I label myself as "a business person...who also happens to know something about developing systems"
Oh - one last thing. If you speak to someone outside the company and mention who you work for, then you also get all the really lovely hostility that's around right now that's aimed at banks. At that point no-one cares that you're "just and IT guy" - you're an "evil investment banker" who "must earn millions" (I don't - nobody "in IT" earns these sorts of numbers).
All of this is why I am currently looking for a job "in the business" and also why so many people "in IT" are leaving.
Labels matter - a lot.
I think it's an important distinction, even if the poster was, in fact, egotistical in making his point. There is a difference between tech support and software development. Both are important in their own regard. Both the highly paid software developer and the lowly intern have their place and their purpose and both deserve the same level of courtesy and professionalism. Not knowing the difference between two different tiers in a position can have negative effects.
One thing is indeed ego. It's in a company's best interest to not insult its employees and keep them happy, even if the insult or happiness might stem from a certain level of egotism. Keeping your employees happy should be a priority for all companies. I think most departments take for granted the distinctions made in their respective fields. Would anyone here refer to his or her CFO as an "accountant"? Would you call your COO an "office manager"? What about your head of public relations? Is that person merely a "marketing type"? No one would refer to the chief officer in any department as the lowest tier of employee in that particular field. So why is that different when it comes to software development?
I think most people should adhere to a certain level of professionalism and refer to their coworkers as the titles that their coworkers feel they deserve. And, try to understand what that title means and relate that to what they should expect that person to do. You should expect tech support to answer your questions about computer problems. You shouldn't expect this of software developers. You should expect them to make software products that your company uses or sells.
There seems to be a double-standard when it comes to "people who know computers".. A lot of people assume that if you are "trained in technology" then you will perform rudimentary tech support for them.
I still remember the first time I saw a mid-level manager call on a company's CIO to perform tech support -- call on the CIO directly, dial the CIO's extension and tell him that he needs to come down here and fix this. I thought it was absolutely absurd to see a man with a graduate degree explaining to an assistant director of a department how to set a printer as the default printer (something I did on my own the three times that our printer crapped out and was replaced in our department). Ego or not, that is beneath a CIO. Who would dare tell their CFO to process payroll checks? Who would angrily tell their CEO to answer the phones when the receptionist steps out for lunch? Yet this seems to be accepted treatment of any and all "computer guys".
Delegation is crucial to a smoothly-run business. Software developers, engineers, or whatever you want to call the people who create software products that your company uses or sells need to focus on just that: software development. Tech support needs to focus on telling people to restart their computers, setting default printers, installing basic software on employees machines, and responding to complaints and questions of people who don't know as much about computer literacy as they should. And I'm sure there are more important things that tech support does as well that I have failed to mention.
I'll admit that is egotistical to a certain degree. But it's still true. When you have random employees pulling important tech people off of important things to explain how memory leaks in Windows leads to their machine "acting weird", then they not only get frustrated, but they are also not making the software products that your company needs. And that will hurt your bottom line eventually.
In conclusion, I just spent a really long time drafting a very wordy anonymous post that no one will ever read and will not even be modded up from 0. Hooray for me.
Cordially,
David 0mega
The term "hacker" was used to describe a technically advanced man, now its prevailing meaning is somebody who attacks networks and computers.
Internet Technology is to Computer Science as Lab Assistant is to Scientist.
Especially if you have a masters or Ph.D in CS rather than a 2 year degree in 'IT', you should not settle for being called an IT Guy.
You could refer to the management as "overhead" since they technically are. ...and of course, at the top is the Chief Executive Overhead.
that you carry around a mug with THAT exact label on it, black on white. And it's got coffee, not pencils/pens.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
I switched to Linux a few years back and do the same routine. "I don't use Outlook so I don't really can tell. Sorry". But then they get all clever and say "Here, let me show you" and grab my mouse (which is left handed for starters) and go "...errr... your Windows looks strange". And I go "Strange, or better?" and they leave confused and call the real PC-support.
IT is helpdesk, server admins and internal customer support. You know, IT Operations that runs 24/7/365.
Software development has very little to do with that when done properly.
If the entire company does "IT", then none of you are "IT Guys", except, perhaps the email admins.
To me, IT means you have to deal with stupid users. For the first 15 yrs of my career, I worked in places where there was no IT department. Then I got 3x the money and took a job dealing with 17,000 idiot users designing systems. I wasn't part of a helpdesk or running servers. I designed the systems, software, networking, security to allow users to do their jobs and piss off millions of external customers. To my customers, I represented "IT", but they knew I wasn't the "IT Guy" since I refused to help with day to day desktop issues. That group wasn't even in my department, it was outsourced.
What I meant to say was, "Interestingly enough, yes I did know about such things"
Name...That...Autocomplete!
Software Engineering
Hardware Engineering
Support
Operations
Development
Now, combine:
Database engineering
Database operations department
Desktop support
Deskside support
Network Operations
Network Engineering
ECM (Enterprise Content Management) Developer
Need I go on?
I work for a copany making power electronics I program the DSP's controlling the system. You can call me software engineer but in no way you can call me IT guy I am not involved in information in any way.
...get over it. It's the same in any industry. If you work in hospitality, you could be a bellhop, a cleaner or a hotel manager. The guy who comes to fix your laptop probably thinks you're an arse too. (I tend to think that about anyone who spells Windows with a 'z'). Also you probably have an over inflated opinion of your job (most people do). For example, all the 'IT Architects' I work with just see 'Code Monkey' jobs as roles to be shipped off to India.
You'll always be a second class citizen as you're not the rainmaker.
I realize you said that it was a content company trying to become a software one but they won't. They'll always be a content provider. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but if you want to be called a non-IT person with that company they should spin off the software side.
Any other comment about "your ego shouldn't depend on titles!!1!" or the such should be ignored as they aren't addressing this fundamental problem.
Now, I'm an EMT, I'm trained to save lives.
There are people who are walking the earth today who, were it not for me, would be dead. Not "I was a member of a team", not "If I hadn't been there, someone else would." because of me.
And yet I am referred to by a huge number of people as being an "Ambulance Driver".
Now, I don't see what's so degrading about being referred to as an "IT guy", but if it bothers you, then by all means try to change it. Speaking from my experience as a person who is exceedingly inept at the whole office politics thing, though, I'd suggest not putting that forth as a demand of taking the job, that sort of thing (I've come to find out), tends to make people think you're...well...a pain in the ass.
(Unkie) Reamus
I needed a sig so people would know who I am, but I was too drunk to make something witty, so you get this instead.
I find those that are worried about their title are generally those who obtained a degree and think that anything less than the title of their choice is offensive because they take their degree far too seriously or people who, for whatever reason (ie no degree or just stupid) don't feel qualified for the job and want a excellent job title to reaffirm they're doing their job right and it will help when they're caught out and need to be find a job elsewhere.
We already have numerous title for someone who does programming. Too many in fact and it's because of those two types mentioned above or companies wanting to avoid paying a decent wage by giving you a title that is hard to compare to other titles.
Chief Petty Officer
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
I really like Microsoft's way of defining IT people. They're either IT Professionals or Developers.
Being an IT Pro defines me.
I think you're just being petty. Do I like getting lumped into the same industry is a help desk? No.
But the facts are that our industry is called Information Technology, the title (and you) say what you happen to do.
A previous poster went down a path that I thought was interesting, but the poster stopped a little short in my opinion.
In the medical field, you have orderlies, nurses, pharmacists, doctors, administrators, surgeons, ..etc. So you may work in the medical field, but your title (and you) give people an impression of what you do.
Look at it this way, at least your not an chemical engineer at Solid Waste Disposal Engineering Services company.
I have experience as a programmer, project manager, business analyst, software infrastructure architect, server and my current assignment is to create a new software department. You can call me an IT guy, but that doesn't describe my level of expertise. I graduated college as an Engineer, which doesn't describe all that either.
You wouldn't plainly call a building architect the "construction guy" or the CFO of a bank "a finance guy". Sometimes you need to make the distinction to prevent people from thinking that you have a simple job. If you are proud of your qualities, you can call it whatever makes you feel good.
I generally just tell people, that I'm a nerd.
... then in a couple weeks, call a "forward planning meeting" and raise the issue of job DESCRIPTIONS and slip in job titles for each description.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
It isn't just IT bods that suffer.
Plumbers can go through years of training, only to be told by an ignoramus that it only involves 'fixing taps'. If you work on cars, you can't say you're an enginge specialist, or similar - well, you can, but the general reply will be 'oh, so you work on cars'....and the list goes on....
However in IT, there is an exception - job ads. If the company wants someone server-level, but don't want to pay server wages, they'll advertise the job as 'IT Administrator', followed by a must-know list that's long/ deep enough to let anyone who actually does the job know that they're really looking for a server-bod who (for whatever reason) won't mind 1st-line-helpdesk wages. This happens when they don't want to pay a manager - your job interview includes two questions on servers, and twenty-five on management techniques (but the pay offered is waaaay below managerial - Reed have done this to me three times).
I don't think it's wrong to call IT IT, but IT and Computer Science (and Computer Engineering and MIS) have different degree titles for a reason - the content s very different. An IT guy might know some programming, and a Computer Science guy might know some of the ins and outs of installing windows, but they are fundamentally different skills. I don't really suggest engineering either, unless what you are doing fulfills the actual definition of engineering. (Sometimes this definition is legally enforced, I might add - look up the whole MSCE fiasco).
> I'm looking at a tech management job at a content company that is trying to become a software company, and they refer to everything about software development, data center operations, and desktop support as 'IT.' I'd like to tell the CEO before I take the job that we have to stop referring to all these people as 'IT people' or I'm not going to be able to attract and retain the top-tier talent that is required
If the "CEO" is meeting people for a "tech management" job, then feel free to share your overinflated view of yourself with him, because he obviously like overinflated job titles himself.
In any case, in the interviews you should definitely bring up your concern with sharing the IT label with the lowly tech people. That way, if you ever get hired, this will mean that you found a company so shallow and phony that you will fit in just right.
lucm, indeed.
The solution is simple. You just need to choose the descriptive title that comes with 'IT guy'.
The lowest member of the team gets the position title of Vice President. Then you can get fancy with Executive Vice President, Distinguished Vice President, Senior Vice President, and so on...
Now when they call the help desk, they get to talk to the Distinguished Senior Vice President of Reliability Engineering IT guy.
so what's in a name/not to like? the monIE? yet another smoke&mirrors trick/illusion. it's probably better not to know what they are really wanting to call you. tell 'em robbIE.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anHuOAXIl0M
LMAO
...I am an IT girl, you insensitive clod...
...and I do miss something like the "BSD chick" in the Linux world.
Hey, Mr. Head of Software Related Product Development Tech Division, I was that guy fixing Windoze for 2 years, and I'll tell you what: The guy dealing with the annoying customers and clients? Yeah, he hates being called the IT guy too. Get off your horse unless your willing to look at others in different lights as well.
You are right, using a single word like 'IT' to include 3 different departments with different roles is ambiguous and I believe shows a lack of organization in your company. You should definitely point it out.
We have 3 distinct departments - IT, Operations and Engineering with 3 different roles - Desktops/Office Intranet, DataCenter, Software Engineering respectively.
Briefly adding my own $0.02:
In Britain, 'IT' seems more acceptable to be used as a catchall for anything computer-related. In the US, many narrow the definition to helpdesk support, and the personnel responsible for the ongoing operation of anything computer-related. Developers and architects are separate (with DBAs and a few other positions hanging somewhere in the void between) --- I'm not sure if this is a regional distinction in the US, primarily because personnel in these fields tend to move around quite a bit.
Frankly, they're both valuable professions. I've worn both hats, and it's a bit of a shock to make the switch from one to the other, as both fields evolve and change so rapidly that it's very difficult to stay current in both. That said, I can easily understand why one would want their job title to accurate reflect their duties!
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
I run into a lot of people that ask what I do, and when I say "I'm in IT" they often ask "IT? What's that?"
CEO : The real boss
COO : Over paid secretary Really I've seen secretaries who made the companies go much better than their COO
CTO : I used to know what I talk about Technology
Technical manager : I am the guy everyone ask funny questions to
Sales manager : I take the credit for the income and also the guy who is responsible for the color of the it dude.
System Engineer: I just got my paper so I know how to do it and don't need to read the docs
Sr System Engineer : I've done this long enough to know it won't work anyway
Sales monkey: I really know that I am just a sales dude with a commission and I might have a clue of what I sell actually does
Tech monkey: I make the thing, I know how it works but can't document it.
It dude : the pale guy in that corner who worked all night to get our delivery done.
We have some inane discussions here sometimes, I can't believe this one got approved, this is not some kind of intelligent question to be debated, the person who posed this question needs a short, simple beating (as does the aprover)
Csn we please get back to some IT discussion?
In this economy, you could call them "rape dummies" and they better freaking like it.
Titles don't mean much anymore.
IT guys at my company must make up their own, my favorite is: UNIX Engineer
State Prof Engineer groups used to enforce the rules and regs against mis-use of the title 'engineer'
no more
You see, states grant professional engineer licenses along with interior designer, real estate, and beautician licenses
I hear so often when I'm looking for work that so and so is in IT and maybe I should send them my resume - I'd be a shoe in. When I ask exactly what they do, the response is a condescending "He and his company are in computers!"
Then I have to explain, if someone was a nurse, would you say they were in medical? Or how about a doctor? No. You would say they were a nurse or doctor. Saying someone is in "medical" could mean they're a x-ray tech, lab tech, housekeeper, janitor, medical office accountant, EMT, ambulance driver, etc.., etc...
Or I'll mention how someone in food service could be a restaurant owner, chef, or the bus boy.
Oy!
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
Call yourself by your functional role: programmer, developer, sys admin, whatever. and, yeah, I suppose that can end up getting hyphenated. My wife spent a decade or so building web sites but these days she mostly does customer service for the company's IBOs helping them set up their web sites. She's still considered "in IT" because she's in the IT department but she's shifted to calling herself a "relations" person.
Today's titles are a stupid form of pedantism, I'm the IT guy in my company and although I do pretty much everithing from coding to support lame users, I do not care about the title, used to work in other companies with 'softare achitects' that didnt have a clue of anything but m$ stuff, Database operators and designers who dindt have a clue about anything a DB is. You are what you are, and I do prefer to be underestimated than exposed asa fraud. Man I dont mind being calld an employee rather than a colaborator, a computer company is not a partner, neither is your communications company they are your supliers . It makes me mad to ear about 'a company mission isto give their clients the best ... ' BULLSHIT a company is there to mke money ! if the client doesnt make money they'll dump it
Jorge
I'm stunned by the venom in the responses to the OP. I think this is a reflection of some serious naivete on the part of some responders.
Maybe titles don't matter to most IT folks, but they certainly do matter to everyone else. Specifically, they matter to the folks who pay you and who decide when to stop paying you. The idea that if you just do your job well, then that will be enough, is very foolish. It assumes that promotions and firings are in some way related to competence. They are not. In today's competitive environment, we would all do well to hone our political skills too.
My company has conveniently solved this. We're engineers (like Scotty).
IT is the guy that fixes your desktop.
We are Software Engineers or Network Engineers.
Take the job and don't say anything about it except maybe in passing. Then always refer to yourself as Engineering. Get your subordinates to call it Engineering. Get other departments to call it Engineering. Put it in your email signature. Answer the phone "Engineering, <name>". Call the people that print business cards and tell them your department should read <something> Engineering.
Once the mindshare is won everything else will follow.
lets call them "programmer guys" (or girls) or something like that just so that we desktop & server support people can get on with the job of trying to support/jury rig solutions/bug find etc their dodgy software so the users can... well... like use it, all with out about having to be lumped in to the same basket as the bug, glitch & BSoD makers.
Yes, I do hate being called an IT person. I left my software engineering career, which I really loved, just not to be called an IT person either within the company or by the public.
[X] I'm not a guy, you ignorant clod!
Other options:
[_] In Soviet Russia, IT guy hates YOU!
[_] Netcraft confirms it, IT.GUY is dead!
[_] CowboyNeal is my IT guy. I hate calling him, period!
[_] IT guy was rescued after he crashed his vehicle into a tree. His wife used a golf club to break the rear window and free him. He was NOT driving while under the influence of pain-killers, and his wife did NOT just chase him from their home at 2:30 am and she did NOT confront him about his cheating on her, did NOT bitch-slap him (and not 5 times), and did NOT smash the window before the accident to "teach him to drive only on the authorized golf course" or "putt to the wrong hole". Tht is IT guys' story, and he's sticking to it.
Just for the record... Software development and desktop support are NOT Engineering any any stretch of the word, and should never be referred to as such. Data center operations MAY involve engineering, if you focus on the hardware side.
Software related stuff is simply not Engineering or tech. I wouldn't even refer to them as IT because the "T" stands for "technology", but I can live with people using the acronym in this way (there are several everyday uses of language that are imprecise).
PROOF:
Engineering = Math+Physics+Chemistry+Other Actual Sciences+Good Sense
Software Professions = Programming+Protocols+Commands-Good Sense-Actual Sciences of Any Kind
I rest my case.
This reminds me of one time when I was in a car with a bunch of guys I worked with and made some statement about the lot of us as "programmers". One individual got very upset and exclaimed "I am NOT a programmer!". It took me a moment, but I could think of no other response than "Excuse me, Senior Programmer Analyst!"
I was impressed. The guy has Programmer in his title. Further, I thought it was on the prestigious end by most accounts...
would you want to do their job on the money that they're being paid?
I have plenty of recently graduated friends that have gotten all sorts of fancy titles. Why? Because when they're dealing with customers, it's important that the customers perceive that they're dealing with someone important because then it means that they're a valued, important customer. My friends happily admit that it's all "title inflation".
I'm the "IT guy" for a small private school. We have 30 or so servers, two locations, and about 300 laptops and desktops.
If it plugs in somewhere in either of our facilities, I'm responsible for making sure it works - and continues to work.
Sure, I work on higher level things like security policy, network architecture, budgets, and reports for the board and administration, but I also fix printers and workstations.
My title is IT director since the state Department of Education REQUIRES that my pay grade be given a "Director" role. That's all well and good, but I don't get hung up about it.
Why? Because some days I'm the IT director and some days I'm the IT janitor. The reason I remain employed is that my attitude toward the job does not change on the days that I need to be the "janitor".
-ted
People may not understand your job role or how different it is from the next guy sitting at another computer in the "IT" office.
I'm sure you're not aware about the workings of the other different deparments and how the Corporate Sales Forecaster is a far more complex and difficult role than the Small Business Sales Analyst. You just call them "Sales". IT covers a broad scope, so what if not everyone understands? Your knowledge, your experience, your pay cheque says how good you are, not some job title or perception by someone who doesn't know anything about your role.
What do you want, someone to give you an award and a speech every time you do your job? "This guy, i mean THIS GUY IS AMAZING! He saved our whole network from going down on friday evening and losing every single bit of data for the last 6 months!"
Not forgetting without the "Sales", "Marketing", "Administration" and "Finance" people they wouldn't need an under appreciated, unloved "IT" guy like yourself.
Better than being called Dilbert.
I Am an IT Guy. fixing computers is what I do. I like the Title. I develop software and scripts for personal use and for Clients. and I am Still an IT Guy First and for most.
Tell you why I hate it, becasue I have people stopping by my office to tell me their such and such desktop software is not working correctly, I tell them I am not the person to tell that to, they say well you are in IT aren't you.
Call yourself whatever you want and add whatever certifications and initials behind your name that you want. If you work in technology you are under the IT umbrella. We do what we do because they don't understand it.
Top tier talent that can't work out that IT renamed to something else maybe are not top tier. Maybe the best idea is focus on what the job is rather than the title. /i
we change your title to "Whining Pussy Who Spent too Much Time in School"? It will help your colleagues understand that you are top tier talent not to be confused with the average IT guy. Seriously dude, if you are concerned enough to post this on /. you don't deserve the title of IT Guy, the ability to influence senior management, nor the responsibility of managing subordinates. Maybe you would prefer a position in marketing or sales.
It's about what's in your head and your heart and not what's on your business card or velcro'd to your cube wall. But if it makes you feel better you can print up a business card that says whatever you want for fairly reasonable rates and keep it next to your heart.
MM
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them
If I were the boss, I would want to know your feelings ASAP. You see, I would want to replace you before you could possibly do more harm to the company.
In my not so humble opinion, people who are driven by their title are petty (100% of them). Most don't have any sense of teamwork at all. They are too busy trying to boost their own position and/or ego.
That you would be offended by the IT moniker while working in information technology tells me that you are not very bright. Your list of qualifications gives me confirmation. Your ego is bigger then your brain. The only advantage is that you can be easily swayed by things that don't matter.
I would sooner have/work for an intelligent person who is not overly concerned with his/her title.
If you're so starved of attention that you need to come on here and whine about it. I suggest you quit being reality impaired and self absorbed and actually discuss what everyone else in the room is talking about.
Job titles are a basic level of respect. you don't refer to the president specifically as politician guy. He's the head freedom thief, top taxman or in the case of the last one "the decider, big Job, bush, number 2".
A generic term for sht eating politicians when discussing groups of people in trades etc is one thing.
But this person is looking for titles for employees, unless they all do the same job. Then they deserve a title that describes their area of responsibility.
I suggest you just give them appropriate titles as managment clearly aren't doing there jobs. And notify management with a memo retrospectively. As you seem to be incharge of hireing them they made how you go about it your responsibility. So you're also IT recruitment. Among many other things no doubt.
Lastly this has nothing to do with buying flowers for you wife.
The phrase 'IT' is so overused, I'm not sure what it means any more.
It means the same as it ever did, Information Technology, it is intentionally a broad term for an industry. Like "Finance", "Retail", "Automotive", "Medical", etc.
OK, maybe it's an ego thing, but I spent a lot of years in grad school, lots of years getting good at creating software, and lots of years getting good at creating technical products and I don't want the same label as the intern who fixes windoze.
Yes, it's an ego thing; that attitude won't help you earn respect or lead peers. You're no better than an intern starting out fixing computers. In my company there is a distinction between "IT" and "development", who most of the rest of the company considers a bunch of "code monkeys". In a closely related company we partner with, everything is called IT, including development. It's no big deal.
we have to stop referring to all these people as 'IT people' or I'm not going to be able to attract and retain the top-tier talent that is required
I disagree, the best people generally do not have the attitude you do. People who are ego-driven or make a big deal about their title are generally high maintenance under-performers.
Am I just being petty? Should I just forget it? Change it slowly over time?
I think you are being petty and should forget it. If it is a big deal to you then changing it over time is a better idea than confronting the CEO directly about it before you take the job.
Just call them the 'Tech Department' or the 'Engineering Deptartment?'"
I'm not sure I follow here, are you asking a question or suggesting your own answer? Software development is NOT engineering. Just as you are concerned about the overuse of the word "IT", I know many engineers who think the word "engineering" is overused. I suspect none of your advanced degrees are in any form of engineering, and 90% of the people you hire will not be engineers of any sort either.
What I hate is being called "Techie" and being treated like I'm some kind of inscrutable little dwarf. "Oh, you techies!" "How can you expect me to click a little picture on the screen? I'm not one of you techies!" "Is the computer turned on? How would I know, that's a techie thing!" Fecking morons.
IT Guy would be a step up.
Traditionally, the IT department refers to the people who administer and support the systems used by the main line of business. A company that develops software for resale, as part of some embedded system, or for some other primary line of business typically makes a distinction between the IT department and the software development / engineering departments.
Etymology aside, one of the reasons for the connotation of "IT" is that Information Technology majors are taught a completely different, business oriented curriculum than computer science and engineering majors are. Perhaps it would be nice to come up with a more accurate name, but for now that is the way it is.
And the stigma will naturally stick with "IT" to the degree that it naturally employs a number of people that have substandard levels of education compared to engineers and the like, even though the higher ranking members of the field (especially in large companies) often don't deserve it.
there are marketing people, finance people, HR people, IT people, executive staff, etc.
so what?
As long as my check reflects my "Director of MIS" position (and the executive staff are aware of my talents) then day to day shorthand as "the IT guy" doesn't bother men, I've never looked at it as a snub.
Get over yourself! Even the janitor is a custodial "engineer".
I went to school for years and years too and don't mind the label. Your job, ultimately, is to make the extremely difficult appear easy for the end user. A simple all-encompassing moniker of "IT Guy" falls into that concept of "simplicity".
Ignorant Douchebag
We all need to spice up that title and engrave it into everyone's heads.. Right?
Funny how you degrade the fixing windows guy who may very well have spent years in his trade and worked just as hard as you have. While your studies may be focused on writing code the techs field is a bit more of a mixed bag requiring fundamental understanding of programming, hardware, knowledge for multiple OS's for servers and desktops, deep network knowledge, security knowledge beyond just basic antivirus, and tons more. Your job depends on the tech who maintains your system and company network.
IT is Information Technology and sorry to break it to you but Software Developer's fall into this group Just like when people refer to management they are talking about everything between supervisors up to the CEO.
The fixing windows guy probably is network support, network engineering, server administration, security analyst, and who knows what other hats he wears. He may have a masters in computer science and hold countless comptia, cisco, microsoft, linux certs.
First of all I think this may be a troll article but here goes.
This is the same thing as a doctor being irritated at being called mister. Or perhaps more accurately a surgeon making sure you realize he's a surgeon not just a common doctor. It's pure ego and silliness. There are different sub-disciplines within every discipline and some are harder or easier than others. That's what resumes and salaries are there to distinguish. Trying to make sure people respect your sub-discipline with a title is a waste of time. Go do your job and get paid and don't tie your self-worth to what others think of you or call you.
My advice would be get over yourself...going to school is only valuable if you produce and "getting good at creating software" is an opinion...I'll decide how valuable you are when you're working for me. There are many very smart folks who simply can't produce but will tell you they are geniuses if given half a chance. If you produce I'll pay you what you're worth if you don't feel free to go back to school or work on getting better at creating technical products because you won't be working for me long.
Well, I think there is a difference (albeit a bit fuzzy at times) between the kinds of things I've done for my career, most of it very large scale embedded, some real-time, some safety-critical, and what we used to call "Management Information Systems" and now seem to call "IT". The skill set is a bit different, the tools are most certainly different, the engineering and deployment characteristics are different.
In particular, what bothers me is when people hear I do software development, assume "he's an IT guy" and then "can you fix my computer?" My answer to that is usually, "No, go buy a Mac. I don't do Windows." (I don't mean to start the Mac vs Windows debate, but I will point out that most of my development experience has been on Unix systems, and one reason I like Macs is that I can load the developer tools, pop open a shell, launch Emacs - Aquamacs is an amazing port to the Mac - and be back in my developer comfort zone.)
Oh, and my current job title is "Chief Software Architect", although I do not draw any distinction between "software architecture" and "system architecture." (A lot of what I see called 'software architecture' I'd call 'top-level design'.) Much of what I know about large scale software-intensive systems architecture is in IEEE Std 1471:2000 / ISO/IEC 42010:2007, "Recommended Practice for Architecture Description of Software Intensive Systems". I'm working on the revision of this standard, which among other things generalizes its scope to 'systems' in general, including software-only systems and even software services.
You need fifteen servers per location? One server per twenty clients?
Unless everyone in Tech officially holds a title of "IT Person", then who gives a flying fuck what the "technology" group is referred to as? Seems as if there are Developers, architects, dbas,helpdesk etc personnel in the "IT group". So what? You're a cost center jackass, no one in the "business" gives two shits what your Systems Intergrator's or Software Architect's title may be, the money still goes to "IT". What would you like the entire department be referred to as? Perhaps "Please dont call us IT as The New CIO Thinks it is demeaning we are Software Developers NetworkGuys DBAs Helpdesk SoftwareArchitects and ProductDevelopers" If you seriously think that you'll have trouble retaining talent or recruiting because the business side refers to the people in tech as IT then you probably shouldn't be in that position anyway.
To the op, yes that's being petty, you should forget it and go program something (or whatever makes you happy), and don't worry about what u are called, u will have many names in this lifetime.
I think therefore I can't be ~TTNH
All new hires get the title: Imperial Grand Master or Stuff and pay them $200k a year and see if they care.
I'm a fairly talented guy and I'm not sure I could work for you or anyone else so into "titles" and "diplomas". I remember political fights in one job because a front-end Director had more power than a back-end Director: I.E. Director of XYZ as opposed to XYZ Director. I couldn't find a new job fast enough.
One V.P. I worked with 60+ years old boasted almost monthly of his "degree", I don't recall, maybe it was a M.A. One meeting I calmly stated that what he was learning in college 45 years ago I was learning in High School 10 years ago. Our meetings went much smoother after that.
It's just my opinion but if you can only retain your version of "top talent" by giving them "titles" you're in for a wold of hurt on release day.
-[d]-
Yes, you're overreacting. The last place I worked had about 10 different "IT" department. And guess what? All of our customers referred to us as IT. And if it still offends you, well, get over yourself...because they don't see you as any better or different than the "intern who fixes windoze".
Not understanding the different between two different terms shows you haven't been exposed to it.
Different/Same, Difference/Similarity (to play your sig game)
If you're going to point out that words and meaning are important, then you must always read and revise electronic correspondence before clicking "Submit" or "Send", as well as using correct punctuation and capitalization.
Oh, and OP, I'd rather be called an "IT Guy" than a "Computer Guy". I hate it when my friends introduce me as a "Computer Guy", but that's because (to me) computers are tools I use to make a living. They do not define who I am as a person. Again, that's just my opinion, and a pet peeve. Like it or not, people label things. We have little control over how those labels get applied to us if we're not the ones creating them.
I could care less what users refer to me as... The truth is I am an IT professional (guy) that engineers tier3-4 solutions (MCITP: EA, MCSE2k3, CCNP, etc). That being said, I'm never too busy to help one of our help desk guys out. If you think that you are too good to take out the trash, think again...
Tech Department's no better a name, and software development isn't even remotely related to engineering IMO.
BTW 'IT' is an acronym, not a phrase.
What I mind are a lot of other names, some of which techie-oriented folks accept. The real problem, to me, is that non-techies use them to denigrate us, and too many here don't see that.
Far too many in the US, living in the most powerful, "advanced" country in the history of the world, have NO F*CKING CLUE how *anything* works, conflate flipping a switch to turn on the lights with Harry Potter-style magic, and don't *care* to try to know.
A century ago, some all the nationalistic stereotypes were, in fact positive. Consider French with cooking, or Germans with engineering. Americans - train going through the Alps breaks down, little 70 yr old American woman gets out of a car, hobbles up, looks at engine where train crew is arguing about how to fix, stick a hairpin in, and engine starts.
Today, the motto of the US is "no user serviceable parts inside". How many TV shows ever had one person who you'd trust to clean their toaster and not get electrocuted?
"Geek" is my own personal hobbyhorse, which I actively dislike. Now, it comes from carny (carnival) slang, and referred to the usually retarded man who made his living in the freak show, billed as The Wild Man of Borneo, or some such, and biting the heads off live chickens. Now, Newt Gingrich, who served his first wife divorce papers while she was in the hospital with chemo, qualifies (look it up, it happened).
Maybe we ought to start using more aggressive names for *them* than "non-techie", and *maybe* they'll realized what they're doing.
Or maybe not.
mark, techie and proud
an IT guy even though he makes a triple digit salary, gets a company vehicle and travels alot. What kind of work does he do you ask? Pretty simple really, he's a Service Tech for Printers/Copiers and yes He's in IT as IT refers to Information Tech and what is a Copier but a device for Copying Printed Information? Funny thing is, he actually makes more as a Service Tech then he would as a Service Engineer even though he'd get more respect from new customers.
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
For almost 20 years I've used the term "Engineer" associated with some other term as my job title. But recently I found out that this is not legal in the state of Oklahoma and in many other places across the world. The term Engineer and Engineering is reserved for those with specific Engineering training, degrees, and licenses. Wiki details some of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineer
My place of business recently had legal notice that it had to cease using the terms "Network Engineer", "Director of Engineering", "Software Engineer", etc. The board that sent this is State Board of Licensure for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors, http://www.ok.gov/pels/ and by state law they have the right to stop anyone from using the term Engineer if they are not licensed correctly.
Also I saw someone say they used the term "Software Architect", "Architect" is also a legally protected title in many places.
So now I'm a Consultant.... I've sent a letter to my legislators to complain about the boards actions as I feel that the term "Engineer" has become associated with someone who has a general area of expertise, not someone who has a specific license. But I doubt it will have any effect. :(
Further, look at and attempt to understand the background and history of the ones calling you "IT Guy".
Maybe these people are from the land of Selectrics and Coronas, where your place as "IT Guy" is akin to the foreigner who encounters a small native tribe, and is catapulted to God-like status.
Despite their limited grasp of language, he/she/it is revered just the same.
C-3PO and Mad Max come to mind.
Now, Max had reservations about being from Tomorrow-morrow Land, it's true.
too bad you didn't spend time getting good at english..
You're right to care.
Because unfortunately labels really do affect the way that most people think about and treat you, especially upper-management types who make key decisions. They generally don't have the first clue about individually what the people below them actually do, and rely on labels to help them make policy decisions affecting groups. i.e. if everyone is called 'IT', a 'downsize the IT department' directive makes "lets do without some PC maintenance guys" indistinguishable from "lets fire our top brains"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unkIVvjZc9Y
FYI - Any decent CompSci program is going to have required calculus, statistics, and discrete math courses as well as physics (I had to take newtonian mechanics and electromagnetism) + other science course (had to take an elective science course).
While I will grant that the EE courses have more math and physics involvement, to say that SE/CS people don't have them is inaccurate.
So in conclusion, bite me!
...especially as my official title and job description is what I do only 10% of the time. But being "Genius in Residence" has it's perks :)
I've overheard it even in companies where I've worked for years, usually in the form of "go get the IT guy" or "I think the IT guy said to do it that way." And no, I don't sport the gender-blurring unibrow. I figure it just reflects how all those lowly non-IT types see us as one single flavor of non-human. That's ok: fear breeds compliance.
It's better than "technologist". Yeah I earned a B.S. in Technology. Call me a scientist that works in the IT department.
I work in an IT department that consists of myself, a coworker and my boss/manager. We support all computers in two buildings, maintain the entire network and infrastructure, write all of the software, maintain the website, phone system, databases (5+), as well as our computer connection to a radio, and the computers in our taxis. I can be writing Java one minute and be called to replace a keyboard the next. I don't mind and honestly it breaks up the monotony of writing code. We do all of this with 3 people supporting 220+ employees. Needless to say we don't use Windows.
IMAGE VERIFICATION IS EVIL!
My position is "fellow," is that really any better than "guy?"
If you "guys" are looking at management jobs in the corporate world, be happy with it. While all the kids want to be a "fellow," it doesn't pay as well as being a "guy". ... but give it a try, go for "IT fellows" if you really want to.
As long as their money is green, they can call me "ZIT guy" for all I care (which is fairly accurate some days ;)
using System.Awesome;
.....for I work for a IS departmnent.
Because information services is so much greater than information technology.
Before it was 'IT,' it was 'IS' (Information Systems), which had been called 'DS' (Data Systems), which previously had been referred to as 'DP' (Data Processing). For those outside the field, anyone working with IT (or whatever it's called this season) will be lumped in with the 'IT guys.' I've concluded that it's pointless (as well as futile) to expect everyone else to grasp the differences between the 'network guys', the 'database guys,' the 'programmer guys,' etc.
Take an example from Edsger Dijkstra. He was originally a theoretical physicist, but insisted on being called a "programmer".
From this article:
What struck me 30 years ago and still
resonates in my mind today is how
Dijkstra was proud to be a programmer instead of a theoretical physicist.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
Wow, I only wish they would stop saying computer geeks! I have been in the industry over 25 years, as both a programmer and an IT person. I would love it if people would refer to me as an "IT Professional" or even "IT Guy". Wherever it is you have been working you sure get a lot more respect than I have seen people in this industry get over the years. On a related note, an Information Technology Professional is not even an acknowledged profession to many people. I own a VAR and IT Consulting business and customers are always asking me "What does IT mean" if I happen to mention that we provide professional IT services. My clientelle are primarily in the SMB space as well as Doctors, Dentists, Accountants and other professionals with generally accepted designations. Those professionals don't see IT people as "professionals" at all since they don't have a "professional body" or "college" that oversees their designation. So, my answer to your query is this; Be happy somebody will even refer to you as something other than Computer Geek. Being call "IT"-anything is a big show of respect.
Officially a geek since 1984
I think the medical staff comment earlier really is the best analogy thus far. As also mentioned above, Lawyer/Engineer/Doctor are all too generic to mean that one lawyer may know anything about what a different lawyer does. However, they are not so generic that a lawyer could be confused with a paralegal. A doctor would not be confused with a nurse. That is the real issue here. By grouping anyone that works with computers into the same label, you could confused a Lawyer (or Software Architect) with a paralegal (Tim, the summer intern that fixes printers). Furthermore, the issue isn't just about labels. The issue is that people who use those labels assume that anyone in "IT" can fix their printer. That is the problem, IMHO. I can't (or won't) fix your printer or your email.
I work in the Engineering Department. Engineering is indeed a very important aspect of my work. However, Information is even more important part of my responsibilities.
I prefer to be called Information Technology because that is what my work ultimately affects. Information acquisition, refinement, verification, processing, analysis, synthesis, storage, distribution, and protection are my specialties. In a way, that makes me the most knowledgeable person in the company.
I am a Druker's "knowledge worker".
I remember once sitting opposite a guy in the office who installed windows and repaired desktops. A nice enough guy. One day we were talking about career plans and he said "I'm probably going to do something else soon. I don't want to be an engineer all my life".
I don't want the same label as the intern who fixes windoze. I'm looking at a tech management job at a content company that is trying to become a software company
You can tell a lot about a man by the way he looks at the hired help. Elite-speak like "windoze" does not inspire confidence that I am hiring a grown-up.
...on whether the person saying it is being a douchebag. If it's just respectful shorthand to give the gist of my role in the organization, no biggie. But if it's used dismissively ("Oh, he's just the IT guy."), with the assumption that because I do tech stuff I must not have any other abilities, then screw 'em.
My company's main IVR designer isn't actually in IT, and that's by her own insistence. As part of The Business, she has some say on product decisions and can push back against groups like marketing etc. when their requirements just don't make any sense. But as she's learned from personal experience, when lumped in with the "IT guys" she loses that clout and has to rubber-stamp whatever cockamamie ideas come her way.
...but I spent a lot of years in grad school...
I'm sorry.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
sounds like ur whining to me... a job title is just a job title nothing more nothing less.
I am a network engineer which also falls under IT umbrella. I really dont care what the title or name of it is as long as the paychecks keep flowing.
Also dont bash the interns trying to get a foot in the door. We all had to start somewhere, some of us are more fortunate then others in regards to education but still.
You are no better then anyone else just keep that in mind.
I too have years of education and over 20 years experience. Right now I'm a DBA and love it. Without those windoze sys admins, your shiny excellently developed code ain't worth the paper your degree is printed on. As an IT team, we make applications/business processes happen. Get off your high horse cowboy, you ain't that important on your own!
" lots of years getting good at creating technical products and I don't want the same label as the intern who fixes windoze."
Why? Seriously, why?
Are we living in the 18th century with Kings and Dukes and such?
Every Doctor I have I call them by their first name, not Doctor.
Sometimes people want a license. As with Doctor or Dentist. Only people who have the license can professionally claim the title. Otherwise titles are just pandering. I know many a people who'd rather have pay than a title, the title was bestowed on them without pay as a form of placation.
Are you really that insecure?
Funny how my email inbox doesn't seem suffer from anyone understanding my role. I do not get windoze emails even though we share similar titles. In fact, in large corporations titles are really about pay grade. If your pay is the same as the windoze guy, then you have bigger issues than title. If your pay is commensurate with your work, who fricking cares what they call you?
I am a student doing electronic engineering, and everytime I tell someone that I get: 'smart move, electricians make a lot of money!'
The pattern I've always seen is the opposite: job titles are exaggerated, to the point that test engineers are called "senior enterprise product developers", folks who run the tools are called "senior engineering directors", etc.
So apparently you want to be taken more seriously, but you decide to drop "windoze" into your question? Do you really think that the people who hand out jobs - and titles - care about your personal prejudices? As a professional, if the best solution for your company is "Microsoft`s platform" then you deliver it, you don't spend time complaining about how no one respects you because your proposal to migrate Visual Studio to vi isn't taken seriously. If it makes sense, make a business case for it and argue for it, but if the guys upstairs decide against it then either shut up or get out. This is what happens every day in Sales, Marketing, Production, Finance etc., but you seem to believe that IT is different.
If you're so obsessed about a job title then insist on it your contract. As some people say, that may make sense if you're concerned about your next job, but how bad is this job if you're already thinking about the next one?
This is the most idiotic rant I've read in a LONG time. Please, go to the CEO and tell him how you feel about the title. Let us know how long it takes him/her to boot your ass out the door.
The term "IT Guy" certainly does have negative connotations. The people on the other end of help lines are all "IT Guys/Girls". This isn't a status thing, it's a self respect thing. Those that are offended being called an "IT Guy" know they are more capable than what most refer to as the "IT Guy" and so would likely rather be called a tool or a freak because there's more self-respect in that than being called the "IT Guy". Just my cowardly 2 cents.
You think being called an IT guy is bad, try being called a "male nurse." Which is what I am, but I mostly support the electronic medical record software for a hospital. There's just a way that people say it, "oh, you're a male nurse?". Every time I hear the "male nurse" remark, it's like reliving the meet the parents dinner scene in "Meet the Fockers." "You work for IT" is not as bad, but again, you are being lumped into a vague non-white non-blue collar job category in some weird way. I have friends who are certified, trained electricians who work for the Engineering Department and people say to them, "you work for Engineering?" as if being a trained guy who works in a dangerous environment shouldn't command a level of respect. All of this may have more to do with the lingering bias in the health care and hospital world towards physicians, actually. I liked Avatar8's remark, that anyone who says you work for IT simply means to say they don't have a clue about what you do or how to use computers (I think that's what he meant).
My first IT job was as a basic programmer on the TRS-80 back in the 80's when I was a kid (unique situation where the grown ups had no idea what to do with it but the company thought they needed to do inventory on a computer). Since then I have been called a Web programmer, router jockey, network engineer, NTAC, consultant, etc... The most offensive to me is Engineer, not for me but for those that really are engineers, I have no engineering degree and dont operate locomotives so I qualify for neither. I work in IT, I do alot of things. IT changes so often that there is no box to really put into it as a title description. IT Person works just fine.
I've really never understood the obsession with cool titles, I have worked with others who thought they had to have some goofy title as if it somehow made them royalty. As long as you get a paycheck and are treated with a fair amount of dignity does it really matter?
Your best bet is to remove IT from the intern who fixes windoze - call him a maintenance person like the guy that plugs in the projectors / TVs, moves desks about etc etc...
It is kind of like calling a nurse a doctor - still medical staff.
I *completely* understand what the poster is getting at. As much as there are a lot of qualified "IT" professionals, there is a huge distinction between someone who installs Windows and other software on end users' desktops and someone who engineers web services, applications and user interfaces. While they're both important jobs, I take pride in the intellectual and creative aspects of being a software engineer, and think that grouping with this aforementioned maintenance job is like confusing a surgeon with a nurse. The same applies to the title "web developer", as graphic designers out of community college can qualify for this sort of title without having any of the mathematical and/or theoretical background to properly understand web architecture, which is quite different but easily confused as being "web development".
On that note, I think it's okay to work in an IT department, but I think the individual's title is the most important, as it separates them from the slightly ambiguous name of the department for which they work.
In my family and friends group, we use IT guy like doctor. You feel sick, you go to a doctor, you need surgery, you go to a doctor, got a skin problem, you go see a doctor. When referring to a specific doctor, you can use the specific term: M.D., surgeon, dermatologist, etc. When family or friends have a pc problem, my friends and family refer to me as the IT Guy or IT Specialist. I don't see the big deal.
Then again, I've just graduated and am looking for a job as an 'IT Guy'.
That's why I say I'm something more respectable like a marijuana farmer or an abortionist.
Need Mercedes parts ?
What concerns me most about the term 'IT' is it being under siege by the managed services industry, working to convince business owners that they don't need that 'cost center' anymore. Most CFO's can't distinguish between developers and NOC monkeys, and would axe the whole department if they could only figure out why that memo never seems to arrive in the CEOs inbox. The other side of this is that every company with an IT department (including mine) is thinking of becoming a managed services company. As the 'IT guy' at my company, that scares the hell out of me - I've never wanted to be tethered to a datacenter and contractually obligated to fulfill five-nines. Nor am I qualified to manage exchange clusters and cisco infrastructure on our customers' behalf - but my boss would never understand why I don't know 'that stuff' and would only think less of me because of it.
if you dislike being called an "IT Guy" so much, why not just get a job on the back of a trash truck and pass out business cards that say "Sanitation Engineer"? I'm finding out on Tuesday if I'm one of the 15% of IT guys in our company who will be jettisoned because the economy is so bad. Frankly I don't (and I'm sure my fellow IT guys as well don't) care if they call us sh!t bags as much as we'd prefer to remain employed.
That was clearly written by an engineer. The Engineering line is missing +Cargo Cult and Software professions require math and physics, the first of which is more philosophy than science.
Are you going to refer to other departments in the same manner? Are you going to start calling people pay clerks, recruitment managers and pension advisers, or will you simply keep referring to the multitude of different disciplines involved there as HR? To most of us, these jobs appear as interchangeable as DB admin and developer do to the uninformed - but its just as insulting to them when we do it wrong.
I'm looking at a tech management job at a content company that is trying to become a software company, and they refer to everything about software development, data center operations, and desktop support as 'IT.'
Ok, so since they can't even get the terminology close to correct, what chance do you think this outfit has in "trying to become a software company"? Right: exactly zero.
I'd like to tell the CEO before I take the job that we have to stop referring to all these people as 'IT people' or I'm not going to be able to attract and retain the top-tier talent that is required.
Why do you think the CEO would care? Hell, they're just "IT people"! India's loaded with them, just contract a few dozen!
No, tell the CEO the above before you turn down the job. That company is clearly going nowhere that you want to be.
Its the way of poor management, to keep low retainers to all, no matter their expertise.
I simply refuse those customers, although they are the majority.
drbin
ps: I'm stuck with a lot of (L)users though, but thats another story
I remember about 10 years ago I was doing a co-op stint at a division of a large company doing a mix of programming and system administration work. At some point, I found myself in the company of the head of the division after having just solved some dinky little problem with his PC. There was another guy in the room at the time and after I worked my magic the division head looks over to the other guy in the room, points to me, and says "Our vo-tech guys really do a great job".
The author is tempted to bring this up to the CEO in an interview setting. I would suggest he bite his tongue until it bleeds if necessary.
Mark Twain said:
"It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."
As a hiring manager, I would love to hear this type of 'strong opinion' expressed before I commit to hiring someone. (I usually think to myself, something's not quite right with this one.....)
IT people can be great performers regardless of education. The education snobs end up wearing their degree like "job repellent".
I would think that over confident, first time IT managers, (from the sounds of the post) would be much encouraged to share their enlightened points of view so they can be immediately implemented.
The question was posed, "am I being petty?", the answer would be yes. There has to be a more important consideration when accepting a new position. (almost anything, it's easy to top this one)
Good grief, get over your bad self.
The reason we are often called IT people is simply a result of how badly IT people abuse IT titles, definitions and words.
I'm an IT guy. How are non-IT people suppose to keep up with the vernacular if we keep on insisting to invent new words and meanings for existing words every six months. IT as an industry is very well known for BUZZ word bingo. We are called the IT guy/gal simply because that's the only phrase that is general enough to be understood.
I'm very senior in my field. However I refuse to give myself a title that pumps my ego. I simply go by the title Senior Consultant. Why? Simple because everyone who has a buzz word bingo multi-word title is typically full of BS. Thus tainting the title and the meaning of the associated titles. I have colleagues in my company that are almost militant about making sure their title has all the most leading edge buzz words.
It's our own bloody fault we get called "IT Guy". Once real professional standards are applied Universally in the industry we will start to see real titles stick.
My advice is don't sweat it. If you wanna put them in their place simple ask them to get you a coffee and a sandwich while you fix their trivial problem. :)
Don't worry about being labelled as an "IT guy" - most of the people in your workplace label you as "student" I should imagine with all that entails...
Yeah it is all the man's responsibility to make things romantic...
When did we do the time warp?
"I don't want the same label as the intern who fixes windoze"
That strikes me as a little condescending. Working helldesk well requires a special skill set.Try it yourself for a few weeks and see how you go.
It gripped her hand gently. 'Regret is for humans,' it said.
In my company we've got a CEO, CTO, HR, accountants, and a bunch of other folks with a wide variety of skills and specialties that I know almost nothing about. I call them all management.
If you want a title that says "but I'm special" go ahead and ask for one. But bear in mind that whenever you aren't looking, people are going to call you "that whiny IT guy."
A one-time event should not define a person's life.
Its a jungle of titles and the correct use of them have eluded many corporations. Norway as a nation had its job titles so out of sync its bureau of statistics could not make head or tails of what people where doing. They just recently adapted the ISCO-08. http://www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/stat/isco/isco88/index.htm
*sighs*
Right back at you.
I actually broke my mod point to post this- do you understand how arrogant it is that you feel a)you understand the problem based on one or two sentences, b)you are qualified to give advice on the subject, and c)that it's your business to do the analysis and hand out advice? Nevermind that apparently "you spend too much time in front of the computer" somehow turned into:
Half of which is a bunch of misandry. Here's a big cluebomb for you: they liked each other enough to get married. I think one or both of them has been doing something right.
Seriously- Whisky, Tango, Foxtrot.
Please help metamoderate.
My job title is Senior Software Engineer. However, when people ask what I do I try to give them an accurate descriptive answer of what I actually spend my day doing that I think is most meaningful to them. Depending on the audience, this usually turns out to be "Computer Scientist", or sometimes even "Mathematician" (especially if I think they are going to ask me to fix their computer).
... but then the CEO and the data entry clerk down the hall are both just "Business Guys".
It's as accurate a statement as the generic moniker "IT Guys". It would be worth making exactly that point to the CEO.
My $0.02 worth
tell him you feel it's essential to attract and KEEP the right people that they know they are in the right job, and they will know that by being refered to as their rightful title. don't make it sound like you are going to smack people over the fingers with a ruler for calling them IT people, and definately don't start handing out grand titles that make the job sound more then it is, just ease it in via meeting requests etc.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
as a programmer I do not want a job where I will be called the 'IT Guy' this is something I dread. Then in the middle of the development of some software I will be constantly interrupted by people expecting me to fix there printers or do some other mundane task that they should probably know how to do but are too lazy and think they can get away with not working for a while by doing something stupid to their computer. Then anything computer related becomes the job of the 'IT Guy' even if it shouldn't be there job. Like keyboard trays of for god sakes the keyboard trays. I worked at a place where when the workers would get lazy they would just break the tray holding there keyboard off the desk. Guess who's job they thought it was to fix this while they complained they couldn't work without it and left for a smoke break the 'IT Guy' there was even a dedicated 'Maintenance Guy' but since the keyboard tray was what the keyboard sat on it was obviously the job of the 'IT Guy' to climb under these desks and try to repair the garage. Yeah programmers please be very wary any time you would get a job as a programmer but your employers will let all the employees refer to you as 'IT Guy' seriously it is bad news. Get a proper title and a proper job description. Job description might be more important.
so you want to be a custodial engineer or a waste management specialist?
It's better than being called a Wanker.
get used to it.
you and me can know the difference in between a web developer and an offline software developer, and then a network administratior, and then a tech support guy, and then a sysadmin, but they dont.
i.t. is still a magical world that is rather incomprehensible and unimaginable to outsiders, or people who are not affiliated with tech. and it will, probably stay as such. our situation is no different than engineers at the start of 19th century.
there are few from outside with the required knack to be able to understand a bit of i.t., if not get familiar with it entirely. they happen to be generally smart people. of ages old and young. doesnt matter. but the rest, i.t. always be a place of magic, where things happen, somehow, and those who work in that field will appear as magicians to them.
Read radical news here
This guy is a witty IT guy, perhaps 'Twit would be a preferable way to address him and show his true distinction.
And the boss of the bosses is called the Head of Engineering (Operations and Development), but perhaps the company I work for is unusual.
We do have an IT team: it consists of about five people who take care of managing the hardware, the development containers, the networking, speccing hardware, and doing capacity planning. Operations is about a dozen people who take care of managing the application software that we use to provide forex trading. Then there are several dozen developers just doing development for the web site and the trading platform.
I find the term IT a little out-dated, personally. It makes me think of white shirts and ties, salesman from IBM and the hallowed machine room with the God-like mainframe.
aka Data Processing. Some of us remember JCL, keypunch machines, teletypes and allocating disk space manually.
I never toggled a boot loader into the front panel of a CPU, but I watched IBM customer engineers who did. . .
Ask Me About... The 80's!
to the "intern who fixes windoze". I can understand wanting some differentiation between different fields in IT, but just because someone does something different is no reason to look down on it. I fix computers for a living. Sure, the programmers who write software for the companies I provide tech support for know a lot more about programming than I do. But, apart from the occasional programmer I meet who is an all round computer guru, the vast majority of them have problems fixing the smallest problem outside of their own software. Me? Give me a problem and I'll fix it. Broken printer, broken scanner, broken whatever, I'll fix it or condemn it if it is beyond economical repair. Mac, Windows, SCO, AIX, Solaris, AS400, DGUX, HPUX, Linux, BSD, I don't care. If there's a problem, I'll either know how to sort it out or know how to figure out how to fix it. And I don't worry about what title I get. Most of my work is in network maintenance and security, but when I go to a customer's site, they view me as the guy who fixes the dot matrix printers. You know why? Because I do.
Well except that it's usually more of an Honor to have served than to have gone to college. A degree says I was able to deal with a lot of stupid things that i really didn't need to do for 4 years and I did it how i was told.
I hate people who think that because they have a degree in English and/or History, IE like the post above(i just didn't want to directly reply to him), that they are more than the other person that has just as much experience but not the degree. I would never higher someone based off a degree, experience wins always. I'm sure most everyone would agree with me on that. With either of those two degree's anyways, why would you expect to be looked at on a pedestal when you work in IT? They have nothing, absolutely nothing to do with your line of work.
I can understand having different titles with in the IT department so that if and when you do need to higher you can attract the correct crowd. But in the end, does it really freaking matter? No.
So you degree mongering jackasses should just stop thinking you're better than someone who has more experience than you but only a HS diploma. You're going to learn the real world now, and it's nothing like the text book.
Sometimes, the answer is to just destroy it all.
Software engineering is not IT and is not in any way part of IT. The only people that say otherwise are the IT that have some fascination about being associated with software engineers.
That's the term for the "person who runs around fixing windows boxes." At least in places I've worked where they differentiate. So being called "IT" isn't that bad!
I've worked for a couple of outfits that either build s/w as a part of a product, as its own end product, or just 'did' software to support in-house processes. Every time management would (mis)label their s/w development and/or maintenance people, it was a sign of struggles between internal corporate fiefdoms.
One outfit lumped all their desktop maintenance, server and network administration into the same outfit that did facilities maintenance, calling it 'Central Services' (I don't think the PHBs ever saw Brazil). We used to say that there was one number to call if your toilet backed up or your server didn't.
And then there's the company that builds commercial avionics equipment. Their IT department gobbled up responsibility for all internal software development. From business and accounting apps (payroll) to engineering applications. Finally, they went head to head with engineering and took over responsibility for embedded avionics development. And they'd use the same personnel and processes for developing the company home page as their autopilot.
Have gnu, will travel.
Sorry about your ego and your penis. If you're worried about a title you should have gone to Law, Medical, or Business school.
My official title is IT Support. After I accepted the job, I promptly took one card, added 'and Time Lord' to it, and stuck it on my door. If people choose to call me their IT Time Lord, I won't complain. Most important, though, is that they continue to call me employed. As long as they call me that, I'll accept Software Simian, Tech Turtle, Computer Crank, or any other term you choose.
-Z
You have to figure out most people out there just have no idea what C++ is compared to installing an anti-virus, we live on a different planet, deal with it. How you'd call an inhabitant of mars? martian? wether it's a worm of some evoluated lifeform won't you? for them it's the same. Plus... you're in IT... didn't you study for that? /me points to a therapist
I communicate with Japanese developers via email, the english auto-translation of their project managers title is... "Director lord, software thing number four".
Personally I don't give a rat's arse what 'HR' calls me since it's probably much more polite than what I call them.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
If you care about your title, you're probably not being paid enough. Get the fancy title, then move on.
"In the absence of the ability to establish the attribute of truth they tried to establish the noble attributes."
Maybe they actually meant 300 days instead of 3 days. This is Verizon after all.
If you're working for someone named "vice president, IT" or "IT Manager", you're an IT Guy.
Senior management doesnt give a crap about what you want to call yourself, nor the title differentiation between the guy that vacuums keyboards and the one that designs high end systems.
If anyone you work with or are affiliated with needs to look at your title to figure out if you're a moron or a brainiac, you already did it wrong.
...know nothing about it. This is why it has a negative connotation with me, anyway.
I.T., is used as a general term to define anyone who uses a computer.
But I.T. guys, are 'users' of software such as managers, systems engineering and tech support and excel/script users.
Developers, programmers and software engineers(people who code), on the other hand, are as also in I.T., But you refer to them as there role.
IMHO anyone who doesn't code is an IT guy.
First off f you. The field you are in is called Information Technology, its not your title.
From someone that works in IT (Systems Engineer, official title), I can assure you that to us you CS Majors are the real idiots. We most certainly are not. I know a lot of Software Developers (Architects/programmers/whatever you want to call them) that can do a wide range of programming from C, to C#, to C++, to Java, to PHP, to whatever-the-hell-language-is-cool-on-the-street and I assure you that YOU are the idiot.
I have been consulted by many developer-oriented friends to fix their virus-infected PCs. I know quite a few that don't even know the basics of the systems placed in front of them.
And this person is writing software on these platforms?
The guy at the help desk could probably tell you nearly every in and out of the Windows OS including service interaction, monitoring performance of a system, to understanding underlying parts of what makes the PC tick.
In fact, In my company, we, the "IT guys" end up bug tracking and supporting rather poor software development practices. They can't even write decent software that works well enough on the system.
Take it from me--if you want to be an effective software developer, you should try working in the help desk and support infrastructure first. It will give you a rather nice, clear view of peoples' expectations and what kinds of problems you might encounter in your software.
I don't want the same label as the intern who fixes windoze
It's a category, that's all. The level you occupy in that category is not relevant. The software architect with a PhD in engineering is an engineer, and so is the intern who fixes trivial bugs. The same is true for every other profession--for example, a General Counsel is a lawyer, the same as a newly-hired associate. If they call you "highly-paid IT guy", then it's fine. The label is not really that important; understanding that being called an "IT guy" is not an insult is important.
Having said that, software development is usually done by software developers. IT provides the infrastructure on which software products run, and then runs them. In corporate terms, software developers create enterprise applications for customers, and customers have applications people in their IT department manage them. Those corporate applications people in IT are sometimes application administrators, or web developers, or DBAs.
It would be more effective communication if they referred to software developers as software developers, or something like engineer or programmer. Calling someone IT who isn't IT is confusing, and you end up with the wrong people answering job postings. I wouldn't say you should make a big deal out of it, so I vote "yes" to
Change it slowly over time
If you make a big deal about it, you will definitely look petty.
Break down the term Information Technology. What do those words suggest? To me, a field that facilitates the input, output, storage and analysis of information. An person who works in Information Technology could specialize in any function that keeps information moving. The lowly support specialists that work the help desk keep the users productive so that they can continue to enter data. The basic technicians ensure that the operating system runs as intended and that the hardware is upgraded as necessary. The software developers write code that allows data to be entered and processed in new ways. The hardware engineers design better machines to run the new code written by the developers. The technicians keep those better machines working, and the support specialists continue to aid the users. It's all about INFORMATION and it's TECHNOLOGY. It's a big circle, and you're in the food chain. It's true, you're all in IT together.
Your sense of entitlement is showing.
Depends on what you're selling?
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
You may want to find out what a MBA Guy knows and does?
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
The CFO and a first year noob doing P&L spreadsheet error correction are both called "Accountants", too.
+++OK ATH
There's a problem with lumping people into an IT department if there's no clear definition of what information (and what technology) should fall under that definition. I picked some stupidly extreme examples to demonstrate, but the point is still valid.
If cable TV doesn't process information and therefore doesn't fall under IT, then why do dumb terminals, printers, faxes, and phones usually fall under IT? Why doesn't the cable TV repair person work in the same department as the support person who plugs network cables and PC power cords back into the wall and the guy who plugs a computer into the ODB-2 port to check a car's emissions controls?
The problem is that trying to talk to "IT" for every technology related problem becomes a headache of assigning problems at the top of a pyramid and letting them trickle down to the people who can actually fix them, who then have to work their way back up the support tree when they're finished. It's inefficient for everyone concerned. It makes much more sense to explicitly define separate areas of support for different bits of technology and give those areas different names.
Yeah right i work for a large consumer electronics retailer and every Tom, Dick and Harry think there a IT GUY or know a kid or friend thats one :) :)
I do enjoy finding items like this http://www.c64web.com/ Old C64 Web Server Now there is a IT GUY
I agree with you but not for the reasons you would want.
I AM an IT guy and I hate the title being over used because most people given that title can't do my job.
People with fancier titles think they can, and I have spent plenty of time fixing things engineers who were "smarter than IT guys" did. It gets even worse the more someone whines about their education and title, they are the ones cause the biggest problems as far as system administration goes. This is a generalization of course, not a stereotype.
Though you are correct that you should not be called an IT guy, you are insulting in your reasons for it. Most reports say you need about 1:25 ratio for IT, and I have maintained 60-70 people on my own. I am quite good at what I do and for a "mere" manager to be called an IT guy is indeed insulting, but not to you, to me :)
Ok maybe not, but you get the point. Yes, your post was full of unwarranted ego. Tone that down and you might get somewhere, don't, and your screwed the next time you have a problem and need us lowly IT guys to fix it. Remember everyone has their place, and their role to fill, a job to do. Thinking you are above anyone else usually means less useful, not more. I have been told "that's not my job" before and had the employee escorted out of the building as I assumed that was a resignation. I then filed it as such with HR so they would get no benefit for being fired, they quit.
As bad as "IT Tech" is, it's not as bad as "Management Information Services Manager" or "MIS Manager", which I had to wear for a couple of years. I wasn't that great of a manager but I didn't mis-manage anything.
I dislike the term "IT Guy". I also give or ask for more details when someone's work is described as "s/he works with computers!". I have no clue what it means when someone is tagged as "working with computers". I used to dislike the term so much that I actually quit the job profile completely to go freelance designer. I am happier now. I am often reminded of this quote by Dijkstra when I think of the "IT Guy" Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. - EW Dijkstra
It is a respect issue. I don't even get the "IT-guy" treatment - I get, "hey, computer guy". I've worked with you losers for 7 years, you could at least show me the respect of remembering my name once and a while. I don't walk around referring to folks as "hey, pencil pusher" or "hey, phone bitch".
As much as I'm tempted to do it - I don't see our Attorney and go "hey, soulless bastard with no chance of becoming human" to get his attention.
Job titles are a joke - and the punch line is your job entails "other duties as assigned".... We have folks here with job titles that entitle them to 80,000+ grand a year and in the end, they only have a High School education. However, since they have a buddy here and there - they have a nice job title that comes with some nice money.
The very least an end-user can do is show some respect. I take great care in trying to not make someone feel dumb when they can't print - because they haven't bothered to turn their printer on yet.
Engineering is a more term incorrect than IT for a development team. Software development is NOT engineering. Check out these related posts:
#30261998
#30265218
#30261570
I suspect neither the "Head of Engineering" nor anybody he or she manages is actually an engineer with an engineering degree. Seems odd to call a whole department of non-engineers "Engineering". Information Technology seems to be fairly relevant to the roles you described.
After years of describing what I do to eventually got tired of it and just succumbed to calling myself an "IT Guy" or "Works in IT". Its a label most people can understand, or at least not have to think too much about, and it is better than spending ten minutes of my life explaining things to a bunch of blank stares.
I hope so. I am a girl
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGXeBpvCxro
"God".
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
I have to agree with the need to diversify the terms we use. I may be an "IT Guy" but my speciality is datacenter administration/management. If you need power supplied to a new Blade Chassis or cooling for a new server room, I'm your guy, but good luck if you need me to fix the McAfee EPO agent... That being said, I can't count the number of times I've been stopped by random users and asked to fix their Lotus Notes problems and I still don't know how to breakfix Notes. The term "IT" gives people a false sense that we all do the same job and the reason a department may be huge is so there's lots of people to come to your desk right now and fix it, not because there's a multitude of very specialized tasks that need attending by very differently trained individuals. The catch-all of IT to me shows a distinct lack of understanding in managing the technical talent a company employs.
This story has been filed under "IT". Almost a shame, because it brings down the quality of all the other IT stories by association.
By title, I'm a "Systems Engineer" in reality, I'm an IT grunt.
I'm a hardware guy, a printer repairman, a cabling guy, DBA, developer, Windows Server Administrator, Linux sysadmin, helpdesk monkey, VOIP guru etc etc.
I like my title, it beats the hell out of "consultant"
I don't have to worry about dealing with stuck-up business types who gawk at a $200 repair bill for a $200 system.
I don't have to worry about marketing, HR or any other business related schlock.
I don't have to deal with retarded lusers who wonder why their system gets hosed after visiting questionable web sites and don't want to pay me $70/hr to fix it.
I'll take it where I can get it.
Add a 'C' like the Europeans do, and call it ICT. Sounds better all ready!
as long as they DON"T call me.
Yes, you are just being petty. Get over it, and start paying off those student loans!
I've just dealt with being called an IT guy. The truth is, no one cares about anyones titles or job descriptions. In fact, as long as stuff gets done, I don't really care who does it. As long as my direct deposit goes in ever other friday, I don't care whether HR put it there, or accounting. I'm pretty sure they feel the same about us. As long as that new program you just made get's people paid, they don't care if Santa Claus made it. It's the reality of corporate america. "You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else."
Only IT people and drug dealers refer to their customers as "users."
You don't offer guarantees with your products.
You are a programmer, a Senior one if you want, we can call you Engineer or Architect, but as long as you and everybody else in the profession can't offer minimum standards of work you clearly can't pretend you are like Engineers that actually have to do this.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Really. Who does?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I HATE being called the IT guy. That is a term generally referred to as the guy who fixes our computers.
My primary job is to manage the development of our software products. When one of our support staff emails a customer or talks to them on the phone and says something like 'I've contacted our IT guys for help' it just irks me.
But this is probably the only place I'll say it.
Why?
Because, like it or not, I am also the IT guy. We're a small company, I DO fix our internal machines. I DO manage our servers. I DO help with customer issues. I AM capable of doing all of these functions. The reason I don't like being the IT guy is because I DON'T LIKE doing a lot of these things. I like not getting paid even less, so I'll continue to be called the IT guy for a while in exchange for getting paid.
I don't like being called the IT guy because that makes me one of the people who get called when something completely unrelated to my primary job responsibility goes wrong. I don't like dealing with customers or end users. I don't like being called the IT guy because its not what I WANT to be.
I deal with being called the IT guy because the people calling me the IT guy don't mean it in a derogatory way, thats something in my head, not theirs. The IT guy is still some mythical creature who can fix their PC and software. To people outside of our world, the IT guy is still someone who knows far more about computing than they do.
The only thing wrong with being 'the IT guy' is in OUR heads. Its our own selfish need to consider ourselves better than someone else. Its our own need to be 'better' than the help desk guy. In reality however, being good at help desk type work is extremely challenging. Most developers limit themselves to know a particular subject matter very well (their own software). Most help desk workers in the field (not the guys reading a script that have no idea how to deal with an unexpected situation at all) don't get that luxury. They have to deal with our software, the OS, different patch levels, different interactions between our dependancies and the other 100 apps on the systems they deal with.
Being a good help desk tech is a lot like being a veterinarian versus a general practitioner on humans. Most of them know a lot less about any given species of animal than the GP knows about humans. They know about a TON of different species. They know that just because a drug is has a specific effect on a poodle that doesn't mean it will have the same effect on a bird, or even a different type of poodle for that matter. They know that what may help a German shepard could very well kill a border collie in a matter of minutes. They know that in a lot of cases they need to stabilize the patient first, then figure out what the actual problem is and finally how they can address it. They (help desk tech or vet, take your pick) have to deal with a far wider range of issues than we confine ourselves to, and because of that, they have to work by a different set of methods than we do.
You would do well to not take being called an IT guy as a bad thing, 99.9% of the world looks up to their IT guys for help on a range of issues that they are fully aware they aren't the best suited to deal with. They don't always expect you ('the IT guy') to know everything, but they expect you'll know more about it and possibly finding the right guy to fix the problem. Yes, you find people who think its your job as 'the IT guy' to change a light bulb. In most cases it IS better if you do it, even as a programmer, because you are FAR more likely to work safely with electricity than they are. You are more likely to turn the switch off first at the very least. Very few people account for the assholes who think of the IT guy as their bitch for doing crap that is beneath them. These people will think of you that way regardless of what they call you.
Only a tiny fraction of the population really think of 'the IT guy' as a bad thing,
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Very few managers will pick the worse of two options for themselves.
The problem is, many times those people making the argument for why something is better have tunnel vision. They are bound by their own rules for what 'better' is.
The reality is the manager is ALWAYS going to pick what they perceive as best for THEMSELVES. If you and the company they work for are lucky, they'll be looking out for the overall welfare of the company and world in general. If thats the case than you simply have to provide them with the information to see you are right.
Most of the time however, they are looking out for what makes THEM the most benefit. If you want to get your way, you have to show them how they can get the most benefit overall for their agenda from your option.
Its much easier to get a manager to side with you when you stop trying to prove your values are the right ones and start trying to show the manager how to get what they want from your solution. You have to sell vi over VisualStudio to your manager. That may mean you have to sell why vi is a better solution for them than the kickbacks Microsoft gives them for using all MS software (just a hypothetical statement, don't know if MS really does that or not).
Regardless of which is better 10 years from now, if the choice comes down to MS saying 'we'll fund your company enough to stay in business for the next 2 years if you use and tell people you used VisualStudio rather than vi' versus using vi now and going out of business in 4 months because you don't have the money to survive ... well, than what happens in 10 years isn't going to play into the current decision.
The 'best choice' is really rarely the 'best choice' in the grand scheme of things.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager