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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."
I fix the horribly shitty code written by offshore Indian "developers".
The crap and stupidity I encounter from them daily is far worse than dealing with rodents, or cramped spaces, or spending months on the high seas.
So, is it cheaper to hire idiots to write most of the code and then hire someone smart later to fix it?
"The geek personality is very different," says Bectel. "I've worked in a lot of different markets, and techies have much higher expectations for coverage than virtually any one else. It's because they're so passionate about what they do, and they expect everyone else to be equally passionate about it."
The one line explanation of /.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
> So, is it cheaper to hire idiots to write most of the code and then hire someone smart later to fix it?
Doesn't the question answer itself? What's cheaper in the long run - install plumbing and wiring *while* the house is being built or afterwards?
Leave the gun, take the cannolis.
If, as the article relates, Jennifer Hoffman had to call the data center and walk them through the process of manually restarting the one, single, solitary payroll server, a few items come to mind:
1) The people doing the upgrades without considering their impact should be shot on sight. Anyone who has worked more than a week in a network environment knows, or should know, that when you are considering an upgrade to anything, you have to find out who else is impacted by the upgrade.
2) Relying on said single, solitary server for payroll is just begging for disaster. For a highly critical task such as payroll, having one point of failure is beyond stupid. One deserves what one gets if the server dies.
3) The person who was fired but was still able to log time so they got paid was smart, the people who administered user accounts and security were not. Basic rule when someone is fired/let go/whatever is you disable their account. Immediately. Whomever in IT let this little gem get by should also be shot.
4) Having only one person who knew how to run the payroll software was, like issue 2 above, beyond stupid. Does no one use the bus principle any more? For the uninitiated, if someone gets run over by a bus, can they be replaced by someone else with minimal downtime? Are their tasks documented? What about quirky procedures that need to be done?
These are just basic questions I had when I read that job. My other question was, what company did she work for so I can introduce myself to them as a "Risk Mitigation Specialist"?
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
If an educational institution can't afford monopolyware then PIRACY is not the answer. If they can't pay their own way helping perpetuate the Microsoft monopoly, then perhaps they should not help perpetuate that crap to begin with.
A kid doesn't need to learn the Brand X version of a particular sort of software.
That's just nonsense perpetrated by middle aged idiots that couldn't adapt to something new if their life literally depended on it.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Second, a kid does not need to learn Brand X of a particular sort of software. They need to learn concepts, not specific implementations. So they should learn what a word processor is good for. Whether it's MS Word, or OpenOffice, or iWork (or pick some other word processor). Irrelevant. Learn what a word processor does. (Repeat for presentation software, spreadsheet, etc) It will make them more versatile in the real world. Additionally, the second option in there is free, thus solves the original problem of "we can't afford the licesnes". I have no idea what they need Creative Suite for. That's an even bigger sledgehammer than MS Office for putting in finishing nails.
Yet another advantage for OpenOffice, since it is free, the kid can easily take a copy home and use it for homework there too, and not inflict a large licensing cost on the family too.