Do IT People Hate Their Jobs?
from the they're-not-real-thrilled-about-them dept
A recent study suggests that IT people really don't seem to like their jobs very much. Apparently, only 4% of IT people found themselves "highly engaged" with their jobs -- a number that has dropped from the still low, but not as low, 12%, two years earlier. There are concerns, of course, for what this means for companies and their IT staff. It certainly raises some questions about whether or not this is a potential issue going forward, and how companies might deal with this. Are the problems caused by the way IT people are treated? Or does it have more to do with their own worries about the future of the IT profession? And given that so many people in IT aren't particularly enthusiastic about their jobs, how can that be dealt with?
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Filed Under: it, job satisfaction
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At least, that's how I feel. I love the challenge of creating or updating a program and will lose all track of time if I'm really into it --I have worked straight through lunch without noticing-- but when I'm half-way through and the requirements drastically change or I finish and I have to make a 20-page step by step test sheet for someone to follow who doesn't want to learn more beyond the bare minimum of making a program work, or when I have to sit through multiple meetings with the customer because they don't even know what they want the program to do I get annoyed and like my job a little less.
I smile and act professional and do all that stuff, but I sure don't enjoy it and sometimes it takes most of my time at work, to the point where I am more than glad to get home and relax.
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...is the killer!
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Do IT People Hate Their Jobs?
Have fun.
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there are guys who just sit in a corner and code all day. they live in india and make $10 a day. you want to make more than that, you have to do more than that. that means developing and using your people skills.
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It is an issue of scale. I'll happily write a manual for a program, sit with a customer to design what they want, and write a test script a couple pages long that consists of "test situation X".
My problems enter when, after I have sat down, gotten a requirements and design docs signed off, and am half-way through coding they come to me saying "oh, can you add this, or that isn't exactly how we want it, I didn't actually read the requirement and design docs before I signed" and they go to my boss or worse, my boss's boss to force me to add things that require major rewrites. This is easily the most annoying, I had a signed document that I spent time writing and getting signed off before I started, and coding to the document, and then they make me throw away a lot of work because they didn't uphold their part
Or when I'm writing the test script I can't just say:
"1:Test situation where Y is greater than Y, does Z happen properly?"
but instead have to type
"1: Enter 95 into Y box
2: Enter 55 into X box
3: Click button
4: look for and confirm that Z happens"
I get a little annoyed and don't like those parts, it is worse when I am writing a test doc for something that isn't a linear process so I can't just say "1: test order of X=>Y=>Z 2: Y=>Z=>X.." and so on, but I have to write out fifteen or more steps per part, it turns what could be a 3-5 page maximum test script --if the user had read the manual I wrote for them or applied some basic logic-- into a 20-30 minimum test script.
As for when I'm sitting down with a customer, I expect a little bit more than "we want to use computers/the internet for this" I need what they want to do, is it for tech-savvy-ish people who know the processes (say the organization that keeps track of some equipment), or is it for the end users (the people who check out the equipment), what do they need to track, what "gotchas" exist in the rules system. I don't mind it when customers don't have some of the answers, hell I expect that, I'm trained to think of all the gotchas and ask about them. What I don't like is when they don't com prepared at all and just know that they want to "computerize" something. I want a little bit of a starting point and not have to drag details of the system out like I'm pulling teeth.
It is the same way if I am sitting around twiddling my thumbs to get a completed test report back two weeks after I gave them it, even though the entire test only takes 10 minutes to run and I have a deadline to keep to. I wouldn't mind if I didn't have a deadline, but when i can't meet a deadline because of issues out of my control and fully in the customer's hands, i also get annoyed.
Like I said, a matter of scale, some work like that I'm fine with, but when other people's willful ignorance (willful being the key word there) or complete apathy make me waste time or be less productive, I don't enjoy my job as much.
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Those who aren't underlings are invariably supervisor types putting in place the idiot tech policies of clueless executives that waste money and don't actually accomplish what the organization needs, rather than being able to implement and run anything sane as they know how to do.
Of course most IT workers aren't happy....
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"idiot underlings"
"menial Windows paradigms"
"idiot users"
"so clueless"
"manage by morons"
"idiot tech policies"
"clueless executives"
Must suck to be you.
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There are certainly more people in IT than the help-desk/tech-support minions and executives. I should also mention that most of the IT workers I have worked with would be perfectly comfortable using Linux because they do all sorts of projects at home, some of which are based off of Linux.
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I've been a B.S. Analyst all my life...
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Re: IT underling
IT employees are unhappy because they have to deal with whiny douche-bags, unreasonable clients, short dead-lines, lack of information, Jew companies and/or owners that won't spend the money required for a decent network, and all of the stress when the system fails and little to no gratitude when it is fixed.
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and there are facts to back up this claim ... right?
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Re: Re: IT underling
Preach it, brother!
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Re: Re: IT underling
how do i say this politely
FUCK YOU YOU UGLY USELESS SON OF A BITCH
yes that will do quite nicely
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Those who aren't underlings are invariably supervisor types putting in place the idiot tech policies of clueless executives that waste money and don't actually accomplish what the organization needs, rather than being able to implement and run anything sane as they know how to do.
'
Doesn't sound like anyone I've known in my menial 25 years in IT. I can program multple disciplines, work in multiple environments, Integrate almost any system into another... all at break neck speed - As can most of the IT dudes I know. I HAVE FOUND THAT IT'S DUDES THAT SLAG OFF OTHERS & BLAME DUMB USERS FOR EVERYTHING... are themselves menial little people that are not very good at IT - whos Boll*$ks views should never be heard...
Yes you should stay anon.. and away from IT!.
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But in the past 15 years or so, the number of people who entered the field because they saw it as a good career, as opposed to loving it for its own sake, have increased so much as to become a majority. Many of these people enjoy jobs, but a nontrivial percentage really do not. To them, it's a kind of drudgery.
Also, the nature and methodology of many workplaces has changed in ways that tend to make things difficult to enjoy even (or particularly) if you do love the work itself. You often have to take the bad with the good in life, but some people have low tolerance for pain.
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End of an era
Smartphones and things like the iPad and Chrome OS are starting the next wave. Multitouch and speech recognition technologies are just now reaching the point where developers understand how to use them effectively. As "applications" increasingly become complete interactive environments and experiences instead of "this window that runs on your OS," we'll get a new kick of productivity as non-computer-science folks (nearly everyone) is saved the hassle of learning computer science to do simple things.
Consider the car metaphor. When it came around, you had to know a crap load of technical information to run them well. Enthusiasts took over. They tweaked and tinkered; they raced and redesigned. But in time, the car was made simpler. Ignition systems were developed. Automatic transmissions appeared. Cars ran longer with fewer maintenance requirements. The relative cost of cars came down and they were specialized over time, not to mention made more comfortable and functional for more people in more situations. Computers are now starting to exit the general purpose tinkering phase just as cars did.
For IT professionals, this has got to be confusing and frustrating. You train a lifetime for a career and you're now caught between two worlds. On the one hand, you've got drop-dead-simple devices and interfaces appearing, and the users don't need you anymore -- indeed, you're in their way. On the other hand, you have these legacy systems and applications that you need to maintain with an iron fist to drive out costs and force standardization on the seemingly uncontrolled masses. In one situation you're standing in the way of progress, preventing people from experiencing happy productivity. In the other, you're the enforcer of the factory mentality the corporation wants to exert on its workers, pushing locked-down Windows boxes and tightly-limited apps on an ungrateful bunch of users.
In short, if you're in IT today, you can't win. That would discourage anyone.
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Re: End of an era
I rather think the car metaphor works the other way. While cars have become simple to operate, they have become more complex types of machinery. So complex that even enthusiasts face greater challenges in troubleshooting and maintenance. It used to be that when your car stalled under floodwater, a tune-up, oil change, and carburetor cleaning can get it back on the road. Not with today's models. For those, most car owners will need the services of a pro to get a computer box reprogrammed or replaced.
We're not approaching the "end of an era". We're simply rolling out new devices, that need new software, that allow people to do some new stuff. But while this roll-out may eliminate some old troubleshooting and maintenance issues, other issues will arise, and people will still have a use for professional services.
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Re: Re: End of an era
uhm... what was it that I learned about people who used to think that higher programming language would eventually go away because they were too slow and then computer hardware got better and so those language pretty much took over the marketplace?
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lmao...youve got to be kidding, right? These "drop-dead-simple" devices like the iPhone caused quite a headache when many of our executives started using them and then wanted us to support them. No matter how simple and "intuitive" technology becomes, there will always be a need for gurus to work on the back end, and there will always be users that need to be led by the hand...that's just the nature of IT.
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For IT professionals, this has got to be confusing and frustrating. You train a lifetime for a career and you're now caught between two worlds.
this is where i disagree. i have been in the IT trenches for 13 years and i have already re-learned everything at least three times. all technology has a shelf life.
but you know, the more things change, the more they stay the same. routing and wiring problems to the mainframe have been replaced with firewall and plugin problems for web apps. irq conflicts were replaced with dll conflicts, which were replaced with java/.net/citrix versioning conflicts. virtualization is everything you hate about real computing, plus virtualization problems. in other words, technology will always need care and feeding, which means there will always be IT types.
sure, more and more of the hands on hardware type stuff will be replaced with remote software/service type stuff, but at the end of the day, your average knowledge worker will always need technical support for stuff that is beyond the scope of his or her expertise.
i don't think significant change will happen in IT until businesses decentralize things a bit more by moving away from traditional departments and start using more contractors and consultants in purely project oriented roles.
if more of the workforce moves away from w2 type work to 1099 type consulting, IT in general will move that way as well.
mobility and cloud computing could mean fewer people working in corporate office parks on assets issued by corporate, and more people working in arbitrary locations on personally owned equipment. that could mean that instead of working for the IT department you end up being a consultant that gets hired by consultants to fix problems.
but really, all that means is that more remote and mobile work will mean more remote and mobile support.
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Re: End of an era
And they still connect to some Windows Server Cluster running IIS and .NET code, behind a Nortel VPN across a routed Cisco network, etc etc etc . . . its not like magical elves are making the new technologies work either ya know
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Software Development: Corporate vs Code-Cutter vs Creative Programmers
Then you have the cut-price code cutters, who work with languages like Visual Basic and PHP, and are mostly self-taught. Their concept of code reuse is to copy and paste—often ending up with several copies of virtually identical code in the same source file. They have no understanding of security issues like code injection attacks, that kind of thing.
Then you have the category that, I admit, I would put myself in: the “creatives”. We use languages like Perl, Python and Ruby, but we’re not afraid of C when it’s necessary. Or even (very rarely) assembler. We understand things like complexity theory and how to properly escape special characters when embedding one language inside another. And we know how to write meaningful, yet concise, comments.
I think there are a lot of creatives working in Open Source. They aren’t afraid to let others not only see their code, but critique it and improve on it. They see constructive criticism as a learning experience, not as a threat to their manhoods. How else do you get so smart, except by going through a lot of learning experiences like this?
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Pot Meet Kettle
I've had my ups and my downs, and I got into the IT industry because I liked building machines for myself and friends. As far as jobs go I think we have more than just the IT sector in jeopardy. Companies care less and push their workers harder in all sectors from what I can see. Companies will always need IT guys for hardware and setting up enterprise systems, though the number they need may go down. Virtualization and cloud computing are streamlining a lot of the help desk's day to day work.
Jmproffitt's analogy seems to hold water to me. Cars are much more accessible today, but there are still millions of gainfully employed mechanics. The IT guy isn't going away. Once the baby boomers are out of the workforce I think we may see the IT job environment improve. When the workforce has used computers their whole life they tend to be a bit more savvy.
Personally, I want out of the IT industry, corporate america as a whole. It's all a miserable crock. Going to give it up for music someday I hope.
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Re: Pot Meet Kettle
QFT
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No wonder they hate their jobs.
I, on the other hand, learned long ago that if someone comes to me for help and has an attitude, I don't have a problem telling them to go f^$# themselves and refuse to help. I'm sure not everyone is afforded the same tho.
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Dude/dudette I wish I had the luxury of being able to tell that to people that have an attitude. Unfortunately support people are so low on the food chain that if something goes wrong NO MATTER WHAT it will be supports fault
Simply put support staff job security depends on stupidity (because if they actually did education themselves why would they need to call support?) and arrogance (because if they were humble enough to admit they don't know what they doing they would actually learn what they are doing so again why call support?)
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I hate that sort of stuff too, but most of the work for me is creativity, Photoshop, 3d, film whatever, and I love it.
As long as the customer knows what they want and does not make me redo work again and again till they literally see what they want, guess they need an imagination lol.
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I'm one.
I've been programming for over 25 years, and do it because I love to do it. Period.
It became my career because if I had gone into any other line of work, it would have reduced the amount of time I could spend coding.
I like and need money as much as anyone, of course, but the money is not the reason I'm in this business. Not to say it doesn't have an impact: I'll work cheap (or free) if the project is one that is particularly interesting to me. I'll charge in the six figures if I have to take a less interesting project because no good ones happen to be around at the moment.
I've always counted myself as fortunate. Software is my hobby, in the sense that it's something I do for fun. I'm fortunate that I found a way to get paid for my playtime.
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I hate that sort of stuff too, but most of the work for me is creativity, Photoshop, 3d, film whatever, and I love it.
As long as the customer knows what they want and does not make me redo work again and again till they literally see what they want, guess they need an imagination lol.
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I hate that sort of stuff too, but most of the work for me is creativity, Photoshop, 3d, film whatever, and I love it.
As long as the customer knows what they want and does not make me redo work again and again till they literally see what they want, guess they need an imagination lol.
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Working for myself = awesome. If a client sucks, I can fire them. Almost all of my clients listen to what I tell them to do with backups, security, networking, etc. They are happy, I am happy. Politics is kept to a minimum.
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In-house or contract?
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im one of the 4%
1. often enough, poorly executed decisions from higher up make a huge mess for us at the customer service level. we have had a poorly implemented media encryption system that doesnt work properly and actually thwarts us when we are working, but offers no real security (as any drive over 100GB is automatically allowed with full access). this frustrates our helpdesk team who basically have to tell users that "yes im sorry it doesnt work but no we cant take it off"
2. bullshit targets. we get lots of bullshit targets such as security based ones which, although a good idea, fail to stop the myriad viruses we get because we still use IE6 (goddamn legacy web based databases). this ambivalence leaves us all feeling like we arent working in the real world but in some insane manager's hallucination!
3. shitty tools and licencing lockins: we can only use 1 antivirus tool (and it isnt very good) due to licencing. this means that if the antivirus program says the machine is clean when it isnt, we basically have to reformat the machine (we arent allowed to 'waste time' manually busting the virus) which takes a lot longer as we must migrate the data etc. we could fire up another tool but no: licencing issues (promote the progress my ass). if the auditors come and we have unlicenced tools, we could be bankrupted even though as a company we provide extremely important local services (the right for someone to make money trumps all of that).
4. end users are f*cking stupid and we are literally expected to hold their hand as they cannot type their own son's name correctly (and it is their password... DOH!). they dont take responsibility for their own mistakes and everyone thinks they are a DIY networking genius and ends up screwing around with the cabling. this creates an "us vs them" mentality within the customer-facing teams which doesnt help lower anyone's blood pressure.
5. we are undervalued as a service. when IT works, nobody notices and when stuff goes wrong it is just proof that "we dont know what we are doing". this is sort-of correct as well, as we dont get any training (even the trainees!) official or otherwise. i can turn up 2 hours after we were called by a user (even though our Service Level Agreement is up to 5 days) and they will still chew me out over how little work they have been able to do. we get a lot of good, friendly users as well but they are sadly the minority
6. I.T.I.L is the biggest waste of time i could possibly imagine. great idea, very inflexible and treats IT as one giant entity rather than allowing seperate groups to self-direct a bit more. good ideas end up getting lost amongst the immense amounts of statistics that management has to look over every day just to be able to tell if everthing works ok or not!
i love the job, all of these pointless obstacles make the challenge require more creativity. however, a lot of my colleagues who have been here for a lot longer have become very jaded and cynical about how things work here. i dont think they have any faith left in the IT world! i relish the challenge but after only 2 years i feel i am stagnating and the opportunities to learn and create new solutions to problems are running out fast!
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Misery indeed
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Re: Misery indeed
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Outsourcing is the reason
I enjoy the aspect of helping people, even when you get the odd irate or know-it-all.
Unfortunatley the powers that be have decided they can get a massive IT organisation to run their IT cheaper and more efficiently.
This IT organisation has a Global Service Desk Model and they're winding up my team and moving the calls abroad.
It currently takes them a week to respond to urgent emails (we respond within 2 hours). So I am unhappy at the moment not just because I'll lose my job, but the fact that this is so-called-PROGRESS?
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yes...
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You can call someone and tell them you have a new job that pays more than the job they have now and most will tell you they are happy were they are. However ask them if they think they are getting the respect they deserve, or if they feel their employer appreciates the effort they put in and you will find it easy to get a whole list of gripes and reasons for them to want a new job.
I could write a book on how to solve this problem.
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IT positions are most often invisible when they are doing a great job and visible when there is a problem. It is a difficult position for anyone to be in. I have worked in a number of different companies - from software companies to corporate IT - and have found that the IT groups that did a good job of advertising their successes had a much better retention rate for their employees.
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Everyone has their own opinions
Programmers mostly got into the job for the love of coding. Many times these days they're saddled with the obligation to produce more, tighter, more efficient code faster and for less money with often vague or nonsensical requirements. And if they don't do their jobs well, the company can always outsource to Bangalore. I can see why they're unhappy.
Security experts? Well...they see IT Armageddon coming but like Cassandra nobody believes them. Even when they're paid to do audits and assessments and provide recommendations. Very few companies take them serously, so I can see why they're unhappy.
Infrastructure experts? Well, we got into the business because we like the technology and want to do all sorts of interesting a cool projects. Unfortunately we are usually saddled with so much bureaucracy that we spend the minority of our time actually working with tech. At some companies it is literally "spend 30 hours documenting what you did the other 10 hours." And on top of that most companies are not particularly interested in spending on IT training or continuing education, so as newer technologies come around we run the risk of being passed by. But probably most importantly, while infrastructure work has the potential to be extremely interesting and challenging work at most companies it is relegated to "just keep the systems that we have running."
PC Techs? Social misfits who think that they know far more than they actually do about technology who find themselves unable to advance their careers because they don't admit to themselves what the rest of the IT world knows about them. Instead of getting the fat salaries and fancy cars thrown at them like they heard about in Y2K, they're stuck driving a beat-up Honda Civic and having to constantly deal with clueless users.
And then there's the fry cooks who bought into the notion that they could make $85,000/year if all they did was get certified via this IT boot camp that costs $10,000 without realizing that you actually need work experience. Or even worse, someone who paid out $40,000 for a two year degree from a non-accredited institution because they didn't know how else to get into the IT business. I can see why they're not happy.
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Re: Everyone has their own opinions
My coworkers make my job great and terrible all at the same time depending on who I have to talk to at that exact moment. Add that on top of the other issues voiced about development and I can totally understand why so many people are sick of their jobs...
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Re: Everyone has their own opinions
I am a PC tech and not for any stupid "social misfit" or "lack of knowledge" reason. Around here, the only way to advanced is to put in at least two years in desktop support and at least a BA degree. I have the experience, and know alot more about the larger IT world than you seem to give us credit for. I am well qualified for low end infrastructure, and the only reason I am not qualified for anything higher is that, unlike you, I understand that there is a lot I don't know and will have to learn once I get my BA and a better job doing something I actually like (I hate desktop support).
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Re: Re: Everyone has their own opinions
Speaking as someone who got their start in IT many years ago doing desktop support and now works as an Infrastructure Architect role, I beg to differ. In my experience the people that have the knowledge, ability, and drive will advance beyond entry-level work. Those who don't will not. In most cases anyone who is still doing entry-level work after a year or so is either a) very happy doing entry-level, menial jobs, or b) someone who doesn't have what it takes.
I would also say that a B.S. is far more preferable degree than a B.A. for the IT workplace. I'm still working on mine, but at this point it is only so I can begin a Masters program.
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Re: Everyone has their own opinions
I am one of those 'fry cooks'.
I now design asset protection and safety systems based on IPCs for mining corps (inc. parts used on the new robotic trains).
I make much, much more than $85k.
Good luck out there with that attitude...
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Then you have the opposite side of the spectrum, people who call you with non IT questions. Yes I know that program sucks, and yes I'm more than willing to help you if you have a problem with it, but please don't complain to us that its sucking. Complain to your boss, we sure weren't consulted when the company decided to install it. We'd have taken one look at it, said it sucked, and gave them a better option. But because its on their computer, its our baby to support something that doesn't work correctly, or works perfectly for what it was designed to do but is being shoehorned into completely different role. We'll do our best, but don't yell at us when it doesn't work, we didn't create the problem, and we're not allowed to truly fix it either.
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Unfortunately, to a non-IT person the two examples you gave for those issues are the same problem to them. For most users, if they have a problem with their computer they go to IT. If they start getting poor responses from IT, even if it's to the question as to why they have to use this bad software that IT has no control over, they'll avoid talking to IT for any problems.
If you can get the communications fixed in a business, having IT be the clearing house for all issues isn't necessarily a bad thing. If your employees know they should talk to IT whenever they have a problem with their computer or the software they're running, IT will get a feel pretty quickly about the problems with software. With that info, they can give the people who make these decisions good feedback to make sure they're evaluating their choices properly. The employees of the business operate better, which in the end is better for the business's bottom line. Plus, it opens up the communications line already with IT so that it becomes easier to get used to incorporating all important groups into the decision process from the beginning.
Too bad that I've found businesses have a hard time actually making the teamwork idea actually happen. Far too often people see teamwork not as a strength but as a weakness. I've seen far too many corporations that are built to reward people who are not team players. Add on top the fact that far too many IT people (frustratingly) aren't team players, and you get a system where even the IT management (which should be one of the most important groups to be filled with people who can work well with others) is filled with people who can't function together as a team.
IT people are frustrated with their lives because it's nearly impossible to win in the current situation. Most other departments in a business can be looked at independently to evaluate their success and failure rates. IT is so tightly bound to every other department that it becomes almost impossible for IT to be measured by themselves.
When your department is being rated by how well you and the other departments execute a plan together, and you're in an environment where teamwork is ignored, it becomes almost impossible to succeed. A low happiness rate is inevitable.
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More of a teacher some days
Commercial software and any current OS is relatively simple to master if you take the time. Most people don't want to invest the time and expect they will be trained when they get to their "new job".
This compounded by the attaboy mentality of the new workforce means that most people aren't happy in their job. The days of competitive drive are being replaced by the "Everyone on the team deserves a trophy". I have found that if you don't reward people on a regular basis they feel neglected and complain about not being recognized. Whatever happened to the days of feeling good about your job because you put in an honest day's work and got paid for it?
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Most folks...
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Sounds to me
Then we have the IT people like #2 that are still trying to hold onto the illusions that without them companies would collapse and fall to their needs begging for them to return.
I have been in the IT field since 1978, I have seen the days of the self taught dedicated IT person come and go and be replaced by the forged credentials of the middle east to even them growing competent to live up to their forged resumes. I look forward to retiring in a few years because I am tired of the constant change in my work environment.
Facts are IT in general needs to have a pit poked into all the inflated heads, and have an ego check and to be reminded that they aren't the heart of the company. IT EVEN in an IT business is nothing more than a support role. The IT departments that realize this are some of the smoothest running departments, and have some of the most successful companies built around them.
IT really should be transparent to the end users, and really should be the people that you only know when you are having issues. IT staff that hinder the end users from doing their jobs have no place in IT at all.
I have this argument with a close friend all the time. My statement is that IT's job is to make sure that the end user has all the tools needed to do their jobs at the time those jobs need to be done. IT should NEVER be in a position to deny an end user anything that assists them in performing their jobs, that include rights, tools, etc...
My suspicion are that the people who participated in this survey are the same disgruntled egotistical people that #2 is.
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Re: Sounds to me
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Normal?
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Re: Normal?
I have worked as an Instructor for the last 13 years. I taught UNIX, systems administrator classes and I love that work. I woke up each morning looking forward to going to work. In 13 years I never missed a days work.
As that business has slowed down for a while I am back to being a systems administrator now. It's not as much fun and I don't like it as much.
As soon as the teaching business opens up some more I will leave this work in a NY minute to go back to teaching.
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Business models still haven't caught up
If you want to keep IT people happy and functional, offer flexible schedules, flexible dress code, and make sure the rules you have in place actually make sense.... not just ones the policy says you should have and no one can really explain. If you want to run your business like an internment camp, you will probably hemorrhage talent constantly.
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Re: Business models still haven't caught up
I can't emphasize how important this is.
I have had immense job satisfaction even though I dealt with a lot of annoying issues and felt underpaid just because I was allowed to show up in a nice t-shirt and jeans and was able to start or stop an hour or two early or late or take a long lunch just to do something personal and wasn't once questioned because I got my work done and put in my 40 hours (and I have done lots of un-clocked overtime work just because I was enjoying a part of my job)
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With over 40 years of IT experience behind me I can comment here with some authority.
Most IT workers deal with computers almost exclusively, and not with real people. Most contact with other people is either through email or telephone, with the email taking precedence because they don't have to interact with a real person. Most of their co-workers are just like them. they are an elitist group of 'ALPHA' personalities that are snobs and so afraid of losing their status ( or their job ) that they hardly ever talk to each other, let alone share anything important. This results in corporate problems that aggravate the situation and cause finger pointing and more isolationism. The IT workplace, in general, has become more of a 'dog eat dog' environment more than any other business I know of, and I have worked in many arenas of business, both within the IT world and out.
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I am unhappy
Currently I'm trying to get out of IT. I just don't know what I'm going to do yet.
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IT = Garbage Collector
IT folks receive a never ending stream of problems. Mostly folks don't appreciate what IT does, they get what they want and then act annoyed that they had to call IT at all. When was the last time someone called IT and did not have a problem or even did something nice for IT?
After working all day then you have to work after hours to apply patches and make changes such that you create minimal impact on the business process. You also usually get to be on call because servers run 24/7 and they breakdown from time to time during those 24/7 hours.
aguywhoneedstenbucks also makes a good point that lots of folks, especially management and small business owners (no pressure right), ask you to help with their personal computer problems too. In an increasingly connected world that is more work than ever. And if the company sells an old computer to an employee then IT is definately on the hook to support it. IT folks cannot support the entire company at work and at home and still have a life.
Which other part of the company is expected to support the environment on a 24/7 basis and also gets a never ending stream of crap coming in the door? It is no wonder that IT folks are unhappy.
If you are a proactive IT person and there are minimal problems then no one notices. But in cases where you have to be reactive to a problem then its obvious and folks breath down your neck until its solved.
We need a national Be Nice to IT day.
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#23 nails it.
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Re: #23 nails it.
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One of miseries some have in working in IT is that the feifdoms getting destroyed and easy rides being shut down. Yes, there will be a lot of people who have examples of Help Desks that are awesome. But, there are still help desks out there that can take a week to get back to you and think this is a fine level of service. Once budget factors start forcing people to outsource, they suddenly have to learn that they aren't competitive on a service or price level. A lot of times they blame the consultants coming for working for pennies and claiming they can never offer the same service; as if their present level of service was good.
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Getting out myself
There are better ways to make a buck. I'm getting another degree in something else.
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IT is not software development
When you say you work in IT most people think you are a programmer. The reality is that 90%-95% of IT employees never write any code. What they do is install and support third party software and hardware.
As mentioned by others how can you possibly enjoy your job if you spend your entire day replacing toner cartridges and walking people through how to log into their email for the hundredth time.
I've been working a paid job of one sort or another since I was 14 and I have never had a job I actually enjoyed. I just don't understand how anyone could actually enjoy working. It's called a job, not a fun.
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This is true for most programmers as well LOL
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Complete and total disrespect by idiot bosses
On the other hand, as an independent servicer for 30 years, I LOVE helping end users one-on-one. They teach me so much, and I get to bash Microsoft at their complete and total agreement and amusement.
It's the bosses, not the end users.
I HATE zero-technical no-brain "technical" bosses, and there's no way to make them happy except to pile on, bashing the poor end users who already get no support nor training, and who get crappy computer setups.
Conversely, I LOVE end users, and prefer to work directly for them, especially if they have checkbook in hand.
Peter Blaise http://www.peterblaise.com/
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Re: Complete and total disrespect by idiot bosses
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Surprised
If you think its so bad in IT I suggest you talk to your companies sales people, administrative workers, facility people and I think you will find that things are no greener in the other departments. Sure being a movie star would be a better job. Sure the CEO of my company likely has greater job satisfaction then I do (he certainly makes a few more zeros then I do). However, I still like what I do, am paid fairly well (I have a senior management roll so I recognize that I am at the upper end of average here) and still find a great deal of challenge in my day to day work.
I would say to alot of IT workers out there, stop the whinning and be thankful you have a job and some marketable skills. IT work might not be everything you dreamed of, but it beats swinging a hammer or waiting tables for a living.
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Re: Surprised
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I am unhappy, but...
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IT
Nowadays, everyone wants someone who is good at everything. Project management, time management, people skills, coding, support, etc.
It's too much for most people. Not to mention, with your time so fractured between all of those tasks, you get about 55.43215% less work done.
Of course people are unhappy. They're being ripped in so many different directions, we just want to scramble back into our hobbit holes and read Macbeth in it's original Klingon.
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Re: IT
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Iv been dealing with computers for 30 years, and MOST of you understand the fun of computers..
NOW try to get the USER to understand,
IT WONT WORK.
YOU DONT WANT THAT
DONT DO THAT
PUSH the power button
still not working? we have a problem.
You want your data back? are you willing to pay me for the 2-3 days of TIME??
DONT plug that in THAT port..
You plugged it in WHERE??
IF you want to keep your DATA, dont leave it on the computer.
You want PROTECTION?? redundancy?? NON-corruptible setup?? you arnt asking for much.
THIS is a business machine DONT install ANYTHING else..Blip...Oops.
You are on the net?? oops..
You want perfect protection?? give me 2 yards of concrete and CUT all the input wires and network.
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As to some Solutions
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How do you tell if your developers are working hard? Lines of code? Target dates? What about your deskside support: number of tickets handled? First ticket resolution? Average age of tickets? Your server guys: Uptime? Outage frequency? Response time? All of those metrics have weaknesses.
Also, if you're going to determine the progress your department is making on the metric-of-the-month, you need to establish a baseline. Managers assume that any given stat that hasn't previously been a focus of improvement must be in the fair/poor range, and they are unwilling to accept the possibility that any initial "baseline" represents a good number. So, when they try to improve on it, and fail to make progress, they never consider that it's already maxed-out; rather, they use the tools they normally reserve for recalcitrant issues -- threats, usually.
The problem is that, unless your organization is completely broken, code does get produced, servers generally stay up, and workstations do get fixed. The only real way to tell if your particular IT dept is up to snuff is if your customers (internal and external) forget it even exists, because they hardly need to talk to you, since everything is working so well, and the product releases aren't being delayed (well, too much anyway).
But you can't quantify that, put it in a spreadsheet, and make predictions. For example, of you're a manager who's lucky enough to have a well-functioning group underneath you, how do you predict whether or not you could afford to lay-off half of your staff, if customer satisfaction is the only thing you have to go on?
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Re:
at this point of course you would be considered over staffed
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Re: over-staffed
If the IT team is providing such good service that there are no internal or external customer complaints I would not mess with it even if I observed a great deal of solitaire and blogging during business hours. An IT team needs to be staffed at a level to ensure the ability to deal with a crisis situation and that means that when all is running well due to the IT work being well planned and well run, the atmosphere should be relaxed - but not so inactive as to be boring.
Personally, when I run a team and no one is taking a break ever, that's when I start worrying.
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Engagement depends on tone at the top
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The training provided and career development is barely applicable, and companies dole it out as they would their own kidneys.
Organization-wide projects seem to have been put together on a cocktail napkin on the golf course and never have adequate resources or time lines -why only 30% actually succeed.
Recognition is more than handing out a paycheck but includes involving and investing in these folks.
Crummy Helpdesk staff? Ya thought about communication and skills training? Maybe a knowledgeable HR staff that recognizes the skills and aptitudes required for the job?
Lousy programmers? Do they have the tools they need? Have you set clear goals and time lines? Quality control sound familiar?
Dumb business analysts? If you don't ask them the right questions, they tell you what they think will make them look good.
Brain-dead Server and Network staff? Usually overworked, under trained, under staffed, and under budgeted. The good ones will find the right solutions at the best cost for the least risk.
Let's cut costs by cutting IT? What stupid business school taught that a 5% across the board cut meant that IT workload was reduced as well as headcount?
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Why I (sometimes) Hate my IT Career
So, either assign me to a job and let me do it well or let me lead a team and let me let them do the job well. If this was how IT always worked everyone would be happy.
Information technology is an odd duck. Engineering and accounts are centuries old professions with agreed upon principles, methodologies, and standards - all well documented in an agreed upon, standardized rule book. IT is barely 60 years old and still changing literally daily. This creates an environment where all sorts of nonsense can occur. Generally, IT people are almost universally dissatisfied with the job, some of the time, for several reasons. These are not all my personal experiences. Some are, but most are those of others I know in the IT business or are common experiences of most IT people:
Being expected to do the impossible with nothing - On smaller jobs the lone IT person has to do all of the design work herself as well as the coding and testing. Typically, due to the job being an afterthought and not part of the projects initial requirements the project head provides the specification document in the form of a bad photocopy of a poor screen shot of a somewhat similar design with scribbled notes in Bulgarian explaining the missing 'stuff'.
Doing all of the work and getting little or no benefit - The sales guy promises a feature to a client that was only a brief mention in a previous design meeting about a future version he was invited to only as a courtesy. Now, the client will not sign without the feature and the VPs of sales and marketing pressure your boss to put the feature in place. You end up working to 3am for three straight weeks. The salesman gets a huge commission, and senior sales and marketing get a giant bonus. You get 14 extra pounds, eye, back and blood sugar problems, a wife that is alienated, and behavioral problems from your children.
You design something brilliant. Your boss gets the credit.
You fix a huge bug created by the indescribably bad design you pointed out a year ago to the so called system analyst/engineer making three times your salary. Your boss reprimands you for not following software development methodology protocols (he hired the fool).
Every day you attend a 'SCRUM' meeting because the IT department head attended a seminar on 'AGILE' software design methodologies and wants to be on the leading edge of software design. He, of course, has no clue what Agile is designed to achieve or how. Instead of listening to the teams' concerns and complaints and generating solutions he spends 20 minutes each morning explaining why his designs are so great and anyone that speaks up is punished in numerous ways. If the team does start communicating concerns and creates a dialog to determine solutions he abruptly stops it because you are not following his aggenda. You think of nothing but the silent humiliation you will suffer from 8:40am to 9:00am each morning while you are on the way to work and rear-end a police cruiser at that complicated intersection two blocks from work due to your introverted rage distraction.
Every time you get ahead the specifications change. The change is always what you recommended several months ago which was ignored at the time.
Every project started in the last five years failed and the people responsible for the failures get promoted. You get sent to a software course that you could teach and has no application to the current work you do.
Your boss is ten years younger than you, talks of nothing but his new BMW, has no clue how to manage people and can't analyze or document a project to save his life.
The project is run by proxy by a lower level team leader who is a brilliant technical worker with ambitions for management but has the personality of a kettle, people skills of a cod fish, and system analysis and design abilities of an exceptionally obtuse duck. Also, he, the proxy, is a control freak and has a dysfunctional interpersonal relationship with women. You spend half your time trying to avoid him interacting with the women on your team.
When you design a new way to save time, coordinate teams, monitor progress accurately, update information using a real time multiple user interface, and create effective inter-departmental communications regarding the project your boss says he does not like the software you are using (code for not understanding it or that he can not control the information which is code that it does not allow him to lie about the development progress) and demands you go back to creating Excel spreadsheets and emailing them only to him.
You finally get the software to work after two years of effort and the head office cancels the project giving the reason as it is an unworkable design. For those two years you have been saying the design is unworkable and they were responding that you should make it work.
Another software team 'forgets' to build a part of the system assigned to them three months ago. They, when confronted with the deadline, complain about the technical complexities, issues with other components of the system, and a need to further study the issue and whatever other obfuscating BS they can invent. You get ambushed by a frantic project manager and, thinking you are speaking off-the-record, quip that this is a two day job at the most. You get assigned the job, do it in two days, and for the rest of your time there the other team makes sure they cause as much trouble for you as they can get away with.
Your boss makes a mistake with the dates at a head office IT project progress meeting and, too proud (or insecure) to correct himself, makes the IT team work 16 hours a day 7 days a week to meet the impossible deadline. Somehow, you and your co-workers make it. He gets a letter of commendation from the president of the company and a bonus for finishing so soon. You miss your kid's softball tournament and your wife wants to go to couples counseling.
You have not had the time to eat lunch at a restaurant during a work day - ever.
You have not finished your work in an eight hour period - ever.
You have not been able to take your vacation at a time of your choosing - ever.
You are classified as management so you can't be part of the union staff but you get no management authority, privileges, or benefits. This is so that during a strike, the essential IT functions can be kept operational. Union staff get pensions and medical coverage. Management get medical and stock options and golden parachutes. You make less than a fork lift operator in shipping with ten years seniority. You get fired when the company's third quarter profit misses the street by 10% and it is determined that costs need to be cut. They have three vice presidents which are directly responsible for IT and a CIO. None of these are fired and all get a performance bonus. You get the night shift at a Chevron.
You are so good at your job that you are the go-to person for any and all technical and project management, user support, documentation, and design issues. You have not had a raise in two years and have not been promoted - ever.
You resign and they replace you with five people. Productivity still drops.
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Every day is horrible, I work in a school where many of the teachers are not very good with computers. My manager gets paid three times what I do, and often comes in one or two hours late. He often buys over expensive or un-needed equipment and doesn't buy equipment that our network really needs. My manager lies to many departments about the cause of there IT problems because they dont understand and over-charges other departments for toners and other equipment.
I have deal with all the support requests and server maintainance with no help. There is 1000 students and 200 staff.
It is driving me crazy and I don't know how longer I can last. My managers manager never notices because she is not an IT expert and doent understand what goes on in our department.
This job is very depressing.
I am going to leave this hell hole soon. I am not sure where to go next, I hate IT now but used to enjoy it as a hobby. I am considering joining the army.
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IT happiness
Here's a helpful whitepaper on the subject called “To Block or Not. Is that the question?”
http://bit.ly/9f8WOT
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Tech work is "not" good for the soul
The second type are entrepreneurs. They make some widget and start a company, and forever parlay this into new jobs or ventures. They get a high level view of how things work early and play it for all it's worth. In other words, they obtain the privilege to have fun with it and are paid ungawdly sums.
Everyone else, would love to leave the industry, but their brains have been turned into pudding from fighting back the learning curves. Many have traded in personality for anger and hostility, as an operating mode. Other are just insane and taking pills to compensate.
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IT People
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IT from the Website Design aspect
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I have been doing this for 30 years, and havn't done anything meaningfull in at least 15.
New technologies are no big deal. Its the same thing with a different name. Software tends to be crappy and we live with it. New versions of crap keep coming out making your knowledge obsolete
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Burnt out
IT used to be fun for me, as a hobby. Now, as a job, I hate it. I got this job while I was still studying for my Tech. Degree and after all that, I just want out. I haven't had a vacation, a real vacation without remote accessing into something since forever. I'm on call 24/7, underpaid (I make $30,000 for being the companies System Administrator), I deal with rude management and clients. Not to mention the countless hours I spend on the weekend working since I am on call 24/7.
I do all this without complaining, verbally, but I'm beat. People just don't understand that it takes time to work on issues. We live in a world where it needs to happen now. I just want out.
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Hate IT
Most of all I hate IT bosses, they're clueless people who just know how to demand stuff. The job is already demanding enough, I don't need a jerk just sucking energy out of me to pay for his big house.
The only time I enjoyed IT was when I had a manager that was actually nice and sided with us when it was fair, and didn't place unnecessary stress on us.
The second thing I hate about IT is that people expect you to know every single thing out there about computers, and if you don't, they act as if you are unfit for your job.
It's like asking a chef to cook any weird dish from the Incas in Peru and have it ready in 5 minutes.
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Chipping In..
1. Doing Support's Job (Demotivating & Dull)
2. Working in an environment with all departments sharing the same space (Disruptive)
3. Requests & expectations that are set by non-IT people (Stressful & Ineffective)
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Further this in itself is not such an innovative industary being an Elecrical engineer and working in IT, seriously have deprssing consequences for me.
But to earn money, this is the most easy option available.
I do not like it here :(
Thanks for highlithing the issue
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Why IT is awful
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burn out
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Veteran it guy
I'm bitter because you only talk to the bad users. They aren't curious what happened, they aren't curious of what you're about to say, they simply interrupt you with what they think is important for 80% of the conversation. Their computer habits say a lot about their personal mentality. Most of them don't have a clue how to repeat URLs after you've spelled them out military style four or five times as slow as a snail, because they couldn't care less about how computers break, or even how they're used, so they deserve someone holding their hand every single step because of the personal crime computers committed against them by existing. Meanwhile you have deadlines and ten minutes later you've finally managed to get them to do anything properly because of the sheer resistance to the conversation as a whole. Anyone looking for freedom, growth or contribution to society can do none of these things while talking to these users, it's a painful backwards motion. But you take it anyway like a good employee. Who is dutifully chastised for not getting to other things for this reason.
And of course there are politics. CEOs are surrounded by people trained how to wipe their ass at the perfect angle. The slightest bit of information presented in the order that it comes In can lead everything spiraling out of control. "It's fine" is the only acceptable answer. You might even be questioned for working 48 hrs straight to make it "fine" when they've already freely passed judgement on your tasks as being "Isn't it just a simple fix? Isn't it just" what they perceive as computing reality supersedes professionals in the field.
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dodos must go
1. lazy and incompetent
2. take 2 hour lunch breaks
3. are always in pointless meetings
4. are sick every fortnight
5. get absolutely nothing done
So long as they know how to shift the blame, so long as they know who's joke to laugh and who to ignore. So long as they dress about three levels above their pay grade and hang around the right people they remain behind while the honest worker who is socially awkward or just stays to himself gets the cut. To top it off, they'll find the handful of honest workers and wring blood from stone. So after a few cost cutting phases the IT department looks kinda like an inverted pyramid, i.e. 5 or more layers of managers with one or two technicians or workers beneath them. The ratio between managers and workers becomes close to 1:1.
A good majority of my colleagues in the IT industry hate their jobs with a passion. You can't not be cynical after having worked in an "IT department" for more than 3 to 4 years.
Don't get me started on the non technical IT project managers and the CIO. They like the dodo must go.
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It's the management in any department that people hate. IT is not immune to this. If they replaced the CIO, project managers, managers and team leads with giant fucking potatoes the IT department would operate better than it was right now.
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Yes we really hate our tech jobs
The only happy people in the IT industry i know are those who specialise and more often than not the developers / programmers. It goes a little like this...
1. you graduate from call centre into helpdesk role
a. you think you're king shit cause you're more "tech" focused now.
b. you work there a few years and hate every aspect about it and think getting to 2nd level support or desktop\support will be the best thing in the world.
2. you graduate to 2nd level \ desktop support role.
a. you think you're now king shit cause you're off the phones and am dealing with physical techology not just software and also face to face problems! (whoopie doo).
b. you work there a few years and hate every aspect about it. crawling under desks and being covered in dust and fluff. You think getting into 3rd level system admin role would be the best thing in the world.
3. you graduate to 3rd level \ system admin role.
a. you think you've made it in life. You're cocky as hell and love throwing jargon at managers to make them look stupid.
b. you work there a few years and hate everything about it. By now you're married and with kids. You have no time to read up on shit and studying any new tech feels like "deja vu" ... which it is! You want an easier "less technical" job because you're getting old and want to get more for doing less... next step management role!
Don't waste your life kids with tech roles. You're better off becoming a programmer or not getting into IT at all.
Speaking from experience
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i Hate IT support job
I Hate IT support job. I have been working as a IT operation engineer since 4 years.
Everyday i'm doing same kind of job.. Installation, troubleshooting (very rare) software/OS/hardware issues, supporting customers & making them to understand the tech issues,.........., etc.,
very boring.. I dont use my brain when I'm in office.
But i have good programming knowledge.. I'm thinking to change my career from IT support to a different domain where i can create/innovate/develop something. But i dont have a good guidance.
I'm not a fresher. I cant attend fresher interview. Can anyone suggest me to change my career?
Thanks,
Kupi
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I hate my desktop support job
I don't understand why they can be "nice" to the rest of the people and be mean to IT folks.
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Stupid users
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super_admin
Linux, Windows, Unix, Lola 8;
Networks {(all possible nodes)(of all layers and vendors)};
Mails server (all);Web servers (all);Load balancers (all);
Application servers (all); Git; SVN; Hadoop; BI; DI; Puppet; Jenkins; Atlasian (all of it);Ansible; Bash; Java; PHP; Python, Ruby; Databases (all); Asterisx; Free Switch; Oh yes hardware too (all there is).... There are about 30 more tech stuff that I forgot.
Working with a simple user; working with a client; working with a developer; working with manager.
Then you need maintain yourself, a girlfriend and eventually your car.... Oh yes parrents.
So, let´s be honest. It simply sucks and it sucks hard. I´d be better off if I were a dog.
Now. How do I change career in Serbia? Any idea, not so smart now huh?
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I left it for an electrical engineering technician position and I'm never going back. I.T. is the worse
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You're all wrong.
An IT professional is the guy you call when the box you code on can't connect to the domain.
An IT professional is the guy you call when the server your shitty app runs on gets bogged down by all the memory leaks in your spaghetti code.
An IT professional is the guy you call when you don't know how to project to the TV screen using a simple fucking Chromecast during your bullshit meeting.
You look down on us because we make shit money to support you so you can sit there on your fucking IDE autocompleting your way into generating us a never ending stream of pointless support tickets.
You call us to upgrade your box to 16GB of RAM because you don't know how to write code in notepad.
You need us to update your permissions on a network folder because even though you have the permissions to do so, you don't know how.
You sit in meetings with software vendors learning how to write scripts for their shitty software, while we keep that shitty software and your stupid hacks actually running.
We could do your job, while still doing ours, because we actually know how to use a fucking computer, and know how to make the fucking computer instantaneously do the shit you take a week to figure out, an month to plan an implementation, another month to actually implement, another month to bugfix, and a lifetime to support.
Want to cut costs? Let the actual IT professionals run your fucking IT department instead of catering to "software developers."
Want to cut costs? Stop running your company based off software licensing costs and let your IT professionals implement a solution that "just fucking works."
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EAT SHIT AND LIVE!
FUCK OFF ALL OF YOU! I HATE ALL OF YOU ASSHOLES!
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sandpaper condom
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ass fucked again
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Got out.
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