older people. i deal with people every day at at work ranging in age from 25 to 60+ and the ones who complain most about their files taking too long to reach another location are the people around 40. they're the ones pushing 200MB cad files over a wispy little frac t1 and demanding to know why things are so slow. the people i deal with who are a little older tend to also be a little more patient unless they are in management. in that case, they all believe that their data will move faster if they just yell at someone about it and age is no longer relevant. and you can explain to them until you are blue the math behind their slow file transfers and they don't care. and they also don't want to pay for more bandwith.
and it seems that is what a lot of the IT people i work with these days don't understand. to effectively solve some problems, to build really good new stuff, you have to understand at least something of how the bones work. the silo effect that someone else mentioned really kills troubleshooting and means that when new projects are rolled out, they are perfect in a single aspect and so flawed in all others that they are unusable. and if you mention this, then you're a grumpy old fossil and are sent back to your cube to write some 4gl.
i guess i'll go put up my teeth now and go to bed. reading all the responses has kind of worn me out.
the basic problem is that we are, inherently, loyal mammals, but we work for reptilian organizations who would (in many cases) eat their young to further the bottom line. we see this and it makes us pissy, and we quit to try and find some place to work with mammalian values.
as a manager wonk, you can't change the whole corporate culture, but you can try and build a tribe in your corner. the little benefits matter a lot, and paying people equally matters more. face it, manager guys -- we find out how much our peers are making, and if you pay some new guy more for less than we are hauling in, we will be sore, feel worthless, and eventually quit. you want to keep people? treat them like they matter. make them feel needed, valuable to you. give them little toys that are a writeoff, anyway. and send them away for training, because that is fun and a really nice benefit.
a week long class costs 1500 to 2000, plus travel and hotel. trained consultants on most of this stuff cost >180$/hr. a week of related work and your class is paid for.
finally, the idea that a class or 2 in unix/variants makes an admin is as laughable as the idea that a class or 2 in oil painting result in a van gogh. now, in a few years...
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older people. i deal with people every day at at work ranging in age from 25 to 60+ and the ones who complain most about their files taking too long to reach another location are the people around 40. they're the ones pushing 200MB cad files over a wispy little frac t1 and demanding to know why things are so slow. the people i deal with who are a little older tend to also be a little more patient unless they are in management. in that case, they all believe that their data will move faster if they just yell at someone about it and age is no longer relevant. and you can explain to them until you are blue the math behind their slow file transfers and they don't care. and they also don't want to pay for more bandwith.
bah.
i guess i'll go put up my teeth now and go to bed. reading all the responses has kind of worn me out.
the basic problem is that we are, inherently, loyal mammals, but we work for reptilian organizations who would (in many cases) eat their young to further the bottom line. we see this and it makes us pissy, and we quit to try and find some place to work with mammalian values. as a manager wonk, you can't change the whole corporate culture, but you can try and build a tribe in your corner. the little benefits matter a lot, and paying people equally matters more. face it, manager guys -- we find out how much our peers are making, and if you pay some new guy more for less than we are hauling in, we will be sore, feel worthless, and eventually quit. you want to keep people? treat them like they matter. make them feel needed, valuable to you. give them little toys that are a writeoff, anyway. and send them away for training, because that is fun and a really nice benefit. a week long class costs 1500 to 2000, plus travel and hotel. trained consultants on most of this stuff cost >180$/hr. a week of related work and your class is paid for. finally, the idea that a class or 2 in unix/variants makes an admin is as laughable as the idea that a class or 2 in oil painting result in a van gogh. now, in a few years...