Hey, I think that this guy, Dirk, moved to my org and changed his name to Lee.
Here's my personal insight into IT bullies.
1. Work is the ONLY place they have any feeling of power.
2. Work is the only place where they have regular interaction with other humans. Typically, these guys are hideous specimens of "manhood" and, thus, have little chance of dating.
3. They act like jerk bags, because they have advanced in their career by pushing all good people out of the orgs in which they've worked. Good people typically have many career options and need not deal with a Dirk or a Lee. (Yes, I moved on to other parts of my org. I didn't have to deal with my jerk bag, so I decided not to).
4. Usually, they are actually pretty smart, but they tend to be very ineffective over all. See #3. This enhances their jerk bag behavior, since now they need to find ways to fop off their failures onto others. They soon find that this is not too hard to pull off, since they have motivated all but those with no other options to leave. Hence, only the dregs are left.
5. They are generally easily recognized because they always get royally pissed off (more than normal) by two specific things. First, is if anyone goes over their head to their boss. They will say that this undermines their authority. Second is having other people interlope into what they consider their territory. Yes, these people are compulsive about setting themselves up as single points of failure. Read: more power.
6. It is generally a waste of time trying to work with these folks. It is far more effective to work around them and to isolate them as much as is humanly possible. If they are supported by a lame management (as is often the case), it is usually best to move on. You could, of course, choose to battle these folks and eventually prove that they do more harm than good. However, you lose even if you win. This is the best way to make yourself look like a jerk bag.
So, if you manage someone named Lee and they match the above description, you might want to take a close look at your org.
If your name is Lee and you think that this sounds like you... well, it is all about you... for once.
Well, they also would have to stop sucking. Ironically, I gave up on Yahoo music a few weeks ago. The quality of the "services" that they still claimed to be offering was so horrible as to be pretty much unusable. Those bozos over at Yahoo couldn't even keep their track licensing consistent and in good working order.
I've finally arrived at the same conclusion that those (many) far smarter than I arrived at long ago, a subscription music service is a bad consumer model. $13/mo adds up to quite a lot of purchased music from Amazon or elsewhere over the course of a year. Plus no more licensing problems that always seemed to occur at the worst times.
You, my friend, have had far better experiences than I.
I just bought a laptop and other items from Dell (first time buyer from Dell). As is my usual practice, I searched through my computer to verify that it was as ordered.
I found that I had a question over whether I received the sound card that I thought I had ordered. Very simple problem, right? Think again. Three hours later and a couple of clueless but undoubtedly hard working Indian folks later, I finally spoke to someone with a sufficient skill-base to answer my very basic question. I, in fact, had what I ordered. Wow!
I love all the hardware I bought, but the customer service has been absolutely horrible so far. Horrible, I say!!!
Ok, Ok,... You're right, but so what. In the end, the problem is that there just aren't enough smart people to go around!
The human race simply doesn't have a sufficient number of high forehead, big cranium, think-o-matics to survey, understand, and concisely summarize even the small set of Earth shattering scientific advances this decade destined to raise the rest of us human krill up another notch on the societal evolutionary ladder.
C'mon how many people even have an elemental understanding of hugely important concepts such as relativity. Out side of West Virginia, I'd bet not too many! (Sorry, could resist the cheap joke.)
So, all you super smart folks don't be so darn up tight. Sit back and bask in the understanding that your copiously populated brain cells will keep you well employed and paid.
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Here's my personal insight into IT bullies.
1. Work is the ONLY place they have any feeling of power.
2. Work is the only place where they have regular interaction with other humans. Typically, these guys are hideous specimens of "manhood" and, thus, have little chance of dating.
3. They act like jerk bags, because they have advanced in their career by pushing all good people out of the orgs in which they've worked. Good people typically have many career options and need not deal with a Dirk or a Lee. (Yes, I moved on to other parts of my org. I didn't have to deal with my jerk bag, so I decided not to).
4. Usually, they are actually pretty smart, but they tend to be very ineffective over all. See #3. This enhances their jerk bag behavior, since now they need to find ways to fop off their failures onto others. They soon find that this is not too hard to pull off, since they have motivated all but those with no other options to leave. Hence, only the dregs are left.
5. They are generally easily recognized because they always get royally pissed off (more than normal) by two specific things. First, is if anyone goes over their head to their boss. They will say that this undermines their authority. Second is having other people interlope into what they consider their territory. Yes, these people are compulsive about setting themselves up as single points of failure. Read: more power.
6. It is generally a waste of time trying to work with these folks. It is far more effective to work around them and to isolate them as much as is humanly possible. If they are supported by a lame management (as is often the case), it is usually best to move on. You could, of course, choose to battle these folks and eventually prove that they do more harm than good. However, you lose even if you win. This is the best way to make yourself look like a jerk bag.
So, if you manage someone named Lee and they match the above description, you might want to take a close look at your org.
If your name is Lee and you think that this sounds like you ... well, it is all about you ... for once.
Well, they also would have to stop sucking. Ironically, I gave up on Yahoo music a few weeks ago. The quality of the "services" that they still claimed to be offering was so horrible as to be pretty much unusable. Those bozos over at Yahoo couldn't even keep their track licensing consistent and in good working order. I've finally arrived at the same conclusion that those (many) far smarter than I arrived at long ago, a subscription music service is a bad consumer model. $13/mo adds up to quite a lot of purchased music from Amazon or elsewhere over the course of a year. Plus no more licensing problems that always seemed to occur at the worst times.
You, my friend, have had far better experiences than I.
I just bought a laptop and other items from Dell (first time buyer from Dell). As is my usual practice, I searched through my computer to verify that it was as ordered.
I found that I had a question over whether I received the sound card that I thought I had ordered. Very simple problem, right? Think again. Three hours later and a couple of clueless but undoubtedly hard working Indian folks later, I finally spoke to someone with a sufficient skill-base to answer my very basic question. I, in fact, had what I ordered. Wow!
I love all the hardware I bought, but the customer service has been absolutely horrible so far. Horrible, I say!!!
The human race simply doesn't have a sufficient number of high forehead, big cranium, think-o-matics to survey, understand, and concisely summarize even the small set of Earth shattering scientific advances this decade destined to raise the rest of us human krill up another notch on the societal evolutionary ladder.
C'mon how many people even have an elemental understanding of hugely important concepts such as relativity. Out side of West Virginia, I'd bet not too many! (Sorry, could resist the cheap joke.)
So, all you super smart folks don't be so darn up tight. Sit back and bask in the understanding that your copiously populated brain cells will keep you well employed and paid.