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IT Job Satisfaction Plummets To All-Time Low
cweditor writes "IT job satisfaction has plummeted to a 10-year low, according to a recent survey. Another on general job satisfaction rated IT a paltry 45%. From the article: 'The CEB's latest survey found that the willingness of IT employees to "exert high levels of discretionary effort" — put in extra hours to solve a problem, make suggestions for improving processes, and generally seek to play a key role in an organization — has plummeted to its lowest levels since the survey was launched 10 years ago.'"
Maybe this is due to the dumbing down of people working in IT management in general. Nowadays an untrained monkey can become a CIO after attending a corporate brain washing seminar from Microsoft and learning the industry key buzzwords eg (sharepoint). These "managers" hire people who use buzzwords and the cycle continues.
Been there done that. It's thrilling trying to go out on your own into the wild blue yonder of a startup, but the failure rate is high, it requires being good at wearing multiple hats, and it's not for people with mortgages to pay.
Table-ized A.I.
Around 1999/2000 there was a thought that tech was going the highest paying major in college, and that attracted a few people who would have otherwise gone into other fields. The best tech people are the ones who live around it, read tech news such as this site here, and come home to more pixels than they have at work. Anybody who believes the only tech they need to know is the one or two programs they use at work is blindsided by world events too often.
Job satisfaction is at an all time low in the only skilled career where the employees are routinely treated like crap? Who'd have guessed?!
That's why I'm planning on changing careers ASAP and am already sending out resumes. I've only been out of college for a few years, but it's more than enough experience in IT to know that I don't want to do it for the rest of my life.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
Every year, the news comes out that US workers are some of the most productive, and every year their productivity rises....
Yet actual wages have stagnated, and even retreated since the 1970s.
Perhaps the days of a free lunch are over, and companies are gonna have to start compensating people appropriately for their work.
But putting together "your own app" is not IT. That's software. Two different businesses.
No kidding. I saw this news item on a guy in san carlos who took out a 1.3million dollar mortgage based on his startup salary. Beyond my lack of comprehension for how he could possibly cover the payments on a startup salary, he apparently didn't consider the risks very carefully, and as it would happen, the startup went belly up. Now he wants people to pay his mortgage for him.
http://helpuskeepourhome.org/
Meanwhile, I didn't buy a home I couldn't afford, and for some reason no one wants to just give me money.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
... and that's in the best interest of the business. The business likes predictable systems and services.
Most of us slashdotters with low userid numbers can vouch for the fact that a whole lot has changed in the last 12 or so years.
IT used to be the wild west. UNIX was not widely well understood -- even by software developers. UNIX servers were inaccessible. UNIX servers were big bucks. Linux was obscure. Hardly any computer hardware or software did much of anything out of the box. Sysadmins, consultants, and IT workers were worth their weight in gold -- because that wasn't any other option.
Now... IT is mature. Hardware is cheap and reliable. Linux is ubiquitous. Linux admin experience is not rare. apt-get or yum can deploy massive amounts of useful, nearly preconfigured software in minutes that would have taken sysadmins WEEKS or MONTHS to build, deploy, patch, etc in the past.
When I first started in IT, building a server was an *ART*. Each one was unique -- from the hardware to the disk layout to the partitioning, to the OS, to the locally installed software. Building a server was like building a Stradivarius.
Now, building a server is like stamping a kazoo out of tin. I can make 500 kazoos a day. They're all the same. I don't even need to log into them once.
In the past, general IT folks were quite often the white hat security experts who learned by doing/experimenting. Now... most companies have security teams an intrusion detection systems that sound alarms if anyone runs nmap on nessus.
Your average IT guy USED to have endless opportunities to be a hero by introducing opensource software options that almost nobody else in the company knew about. Linux in the mainstream has changed all that.
A *GOOD* IT worker used to have almost magical abilities to do orders of magnitude more work. Now, large scale admin processes are much more widely understood, there are many more tools, and those magical processes are well documented and demystified so that even the junior IT folks can do them.
How many IT jobs today involve compliance? How rewarding is compliance-related work? I bet that some of the lack of willingness to suggest process improvements is somehow tied to the process baggage of IT compliance.
I still like my job, but it's changed a lot. I don't *just* do IT. I add value to my company. Today, IT needs to be much more closely integrated with the business. IT needs to be a business partner. I doubt any businesses today would hire a BOFH.
What I find so ironic about MBA programs is that one of the required things they teach in the class lineup is management and employee morale. Employee morale isn't just liquid latex Fridays or coffee in the break room. It takes actual diplomacy and person to person interaction, so people don't just go to work for a paycheck, but actually feel valued.
Why is this important? A lot more work gets done at a company where salaried people are willing to work on something, just to make sure the company makes a sales goal, as opposed to people just wanting to "do their eight and out the gate." Don't forget that high morale makes the need for internal security less pressing because employees will be proactive in security issues.
The MBA degree isn't the issue as much as the people who get the degree tend to not heed what they are taught, and had to pass in order to receive that degree. So, a PHB who has an MBA who runs a company into the ground does know the consequences about bad company morale, and has no excuse about not knowing what would happen.
Meanwhile, I didn't buy a home I couldn't afford, and for some reason no one wants to just give me money.
Hah! Don't you feel foolish now.
My father once said, to paraphrase.. "you can be one of those complaining about the people getting free cash.. or you can be one of the people getting free cash."
+1 insightful, in retrospect.
The jobs of half of your colleagues have been outsourced to India or replaced with Indian "consultants" in temporary placement, your "time flexibility" is always seen as "you need to work more hours today" never as "you can go home earlier today" and, especially in these times, you know that you can be fired for any reason whatsoever that has nothing to do with your performance.
Mosty of us working in IT know for sure that the company will not be there for you, so why should you be there for the company above and beyond the call of duty?
(I do know one or two examples of small companies in which the Directors are close enough to the employees to actually care about them. In big companies, however, you're just another number in the ledger).
I long ago left "traditional" employement in IT for freelancing: I came to the conclusion that "the company" didn't care when the technology bubble burst when companies started firing the same people that just months before had been working their asses of giving their 110%.
Everyday when I come to work I'm surprised how so many of my colleagues still settle for getting less that half as much as I do in exchange for the illusion of job safety and a fickle bonus which has little relation to their actual performance (I work in the Finance industry now, bonuses are mostly dependent on the performance of the business unit you work for which pretty much just follows the market for the types of instruments they trade).
There is a belief that "management" is independent of the thing being managed - now of course there are certain topics that are universtally applicable (e.g. what happens when you change the scope of a project). The mistake that people make is thinking that these topics are sufficient rather than simply being necessary - they need to be augmented with domain specific knowledge for them to be useful.
As a kid I was once upset about somebody getting the credit for something I did at school or somehow getting something by cheating at my expense, I can't remember the details. My father said, to paraphrase, you should be glad you were the victim rather than the cheat. Sure, he might get away with a small gain here and there but if he is that kind of person he will have far bigger problems in the long run. I guess it applies here too.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Which is probably why MBA is a masters program. The assumption is you have some domain specific background either from experience by that point you start an MBA or from an undergraduate education. The trouble we have to day all those undergrad business majors moving directly to the MBA programs, having never done any business.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
I concur with much of what you've stated. I've been a contractor for the past 15 of my 22 years in IT. I love it! Being an employee, not so much. As a contractor, I get to get out there and build a name for myself. I have a reputation that I am in control of. When you work for a particular company your reputation is only as good as the recommendation they'll give you when you live (which is often none, no matter how happy they were with you). The experience you gain, the improved quality of life, the variety of people you work with and the networking opportunities are priceless. I hope never to leave the contracting world.
Occam's razor: off-shore labor is a lot cheaper, therefore employers will off-shore every possible job. If you do your job sitting in front of a computer, then your job can probably be off-shored - if not now, then certainly in the near future.
Furthermore, the simple laws of supply and demand dictate that the few jobs that are not off-shored, will have a glut of qualified applicants. The experienced developers who have their jobs off-shored, will clearly try to leverage their existing training and experience into the few remaining IT jobs that can not be easily off-shored. This causes a glut, and drives down wages.
The IT worker glut will be increased even more by improved automation of information system maintenance, standardization of software, and non-IT specialists who are increasingly sophisticated with information technology.
There can be nothing to stop this devastating trend, due to the following:
1) Corrupt USA politicians
2) USA IT workers are not willing to organize
3) Influential corporations have effectively distorted the issues
So there you go, it's as simple as that.
IMO: this trend is presently in it's infancy. The present trend has very little to do with the present economic slump. In fact, when the US economy recovers, this trend will accelerate even faster. The present situation for US IT workers is much better now, than it will be five years from now.
http://techtoil.org/wiki/doku.php?id=articles:no-brainer
I think one thing that is missing is that companies abuse their IT workers. They often pay them salary and them make them work 24-7, and if one complains they retort "be glad you have a job". Some of them are in clear violation of employment laws yet employees feel trapped. So they remain oncall 24-7; even when they are on vacation in states far away. It's hard to give a shit, and fo the extra effort when your employer is basically an abusive slave driver. With most jobs, when you go home, its done, and jobs that require you to be always on compensate you fairly.
The place I used to work for... I loved the technology. I cared about its quality.Loved my co-workers. In return? Low wages, zero freetime, a douche bag who I'd have to clean up after, broken promises of change/tools/company car... My eye would twitch with the stress... While the sales people would gloat about the new house or car they just bought with the convoluted deal they sold and said 'make this work, and you have 2 days.'... (the new digs are the complete opposite experience.)
Lots of IT shops are glorified sweatshops.