Dirty Duty On the Front Lines of IT

snydeq writes "Jobs may be scarce in today's economy, but there's no shortage of nasty IT work — as the third annual installment of InfoWorld's Dirty IT Jobs series demonstrates. From the payroll cop to the coolant jockey to the network sherpa who has to squeeze into rodent-filled spaces and deal with penny-pinching clients, these seven jobs provide further proof that dirty duty abounds on the front lines of IT."

Comments

Trademarks

[ThrowAwaySociety]

...you're asked to throw a 'TM' after a product name, only to find out later it's not really trademarked

Slapping that TM after a product name does trademark it, unless some direct competitor has already trademarked that same name first.

Only the (R) (for Registered trademark) has to be...well, registered.

Re:Lumping these guys with actual programmers

[Registered Coward v2]

And yes, I realize some OLDER person will get on this thread and say "I'm a train engineer - a real engineer - unlike these punks with engineering 'degrees'"

Of course, engineers existed before train drivers; but that's another story...

Re:I fix code written by offshore Indian developer

[rickb928]

If you can re-write what they spit out as a support function, you are working too cheap. And of course the company's accounting system is worse than the State of Arizona's. Which is bad.

What you just said was also 'I can do it as well as they can, all by myself, within a support timeline'. So you and/or your boss are not selling your abilities either. But that's another topic - how do you sell to management what they aready have? Imagine the hilarity when they realize they paid twice for the project, and one of the costs is already in the house...

Re:You would think that he'd be an expert.

[TheLink]

They're only spammers once they've committed the act.

There are tons of bosses who think that it's a good idea to send out emails about their product/services to thousands of people who never asked for them (hey their product is wonderful after all, etc etc).

You can convince some of them that it's not a good idea, in which case they don't become spammers.

And there really are overzealous spamfilters. I've seen people here who think it's a great idea to block off entire IP ranges (not just for their personal systems, but at a corporate level).

Re:Lumping these guys with actual programmers

[thebagel]

"Engineers work to develop economic and safe solutions to practical problems, by applying mathematics, scientific knowledge and ingenuity while considering technical constraints." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineer Software engineers fit this definition just as well as any ME/CE/EE (I'm an EE, personally).

Re:Lumping these guys with actual programmers

[Shompol]

Here is a possible test: Civil engineers are personally responsible for errors in their work. If they design a structure and it falls down because of their errors, they are personally responsible. Do coders accept this level of responsibility for the bugs in their code? If so, maybe they are engineers.

Here is another spin: what if the structure falls down because of errors in the computer design software, which was used to design the structure, who will take the blame?
Hint: it's the corporation, not the little guy. There are supposed to be reviews and tests, both in computer and civil engineering.

Re:Dust Bunnies and Asbestos

[idontgno]

1. Stormtrooper effect.
2. Bounty. Potentially, lots of bounty.
3. One-stop shopping. Who wants to dial up lots of different vendors when you only have to drop one dime?