Cliff,
I was facing similar issues a few years ago - only management was made up of Attorney's of various kinds.
You are not alone. The good news is that the industry is changing. Recent articles in Slashdot, InfoWorld and others are showing that. Some companies are slow to respond, but things are getting better for IT personnel.
Here's what I recommend:
1) Don't jump ship. If the pay is good, stay with it and work it out.
2) Do your homework. Engineers are visual people - charts and graphs in a Powerpoint presentation will carry more weight than a detailed email proposal. This give your experience some "meat" with a well planned presentation. If you can't quantify ROI for funding a project, then stick with how it affects client deliverables.
3) Find out what the clients require. Are there government standards you are supposed to meet? What about any contracts, SLAs or other expectations of deliverables?
Obviously your clients don't know about your issues. If they did, management would be afraid of losing the deal(s) and you'd get all the funding you'd need to do your job. This is even more important since you are a government contractor. Don't use it as a bribe, just a tool to get the technology you need.
4) Industry standards show that it takes one systems administrator to manage 35-50 desktop computers. There should be a minimum of TWO of you for redundancy sake. (Why have a tape backup of your data but not a human backup?)
Good luck,
SR
Slashdot Mirror
Cliff, I was facing similar issues a few years ago - only management was made up of Attorney's of various kinds. You are not alone. The good news is that the industry is changing. Recent articles in Slashdot, InfoWorld and others are showing that. Some companies are slow to respond, but things are getting better for IT personnel. Here's what I recommend: 1) Don't jump ship. If the pay is good, stay with it and work it out. 2) Do your homework. Engineers are visual people - charts and graphs in a Powerpoint presentation will carry more weight than a detailed email proposal. This give your experience some "meat" with a well planned presentation. If you can't quantify ROI for funding a project, then stick with how it affects client deliverables. 3) Find out what the clients require. Are there government standards you are supposed to meet? What about any contracts, SLAs or other expectations of deliverables? Obviously your clients don't know about your issues. If they did, management would be afraid of losing the deal(s) and you'd get all the funding you'd need to do your job. This is even more important since you are a government contractor. Don't use it as a bribe, just a tool to get the technology you need. 4) Industry standards show that it takes one systems administrator to manage 35-50 desktop computers. There should be a minimum of TWO of you for redundancy sake. (Why have a tape backup of your data but not a human backup?) Good luck, SR