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General opinion (rebuttal)
So I've read comments here and the article itself and I would point out some things.
1: You lack patience
This applies to Desktop Support/Helpdesk primarily, Development secondarily. It applies lightly to Network Engineering and Systems Analysts. But it can be applied to any job. All jobs try one's patience at some time or another.
2: You have no desire to continue your education
There is a big difference between wanting to learn and having your employer push you to learn. A lot of employers won't pay for the ongoing education they desire from you, but they won't pay enough for you to go back to school. So what's the real answer there? Also, this bullet directly contradicts with bullet 3 since going back to school and continuing education takes a lot of time - A LOT of time, especially college.
3: You refuse to work outside 9-to-5
In a properly managed environment, you shouldn't need to work outside 9-5 unless you're one of the network engineering team. Why? If an application goes down, they are responsible for getting the server back up, not the application developer. App developer might be needed when deploying new pieces of the software, possibly but that's not a daily occurrence. This bullet could be better specified than it is; it pigeonholes all of IT into 24/7 drones when it's simply not true.
4: You dont like people
This is patently false. An introverted personality doesn't mean you don't like people, but that's exactly what you find in a lot of IT departments; introverts. There are some extroverts but they are the exception rather than the rule. You also find people who are great with other people regardless. Not being a party freak doesn't mean you don't like people, it means you don't like stupid people. This bullet should emphasize that more than anything: IT people don't like stupid people.
5: You give up quickly
Disagree with this bullet. Not knowing when to give up is a deal breaker in IT. The problem is your definition of "give up". Your definition is limited to, "you don't fix the problem and walk away" and I know of very few people who do this. But take a problem where the solution is going to take extended digging to resolve. If that problem is one that does not bring the house down - for example, code that does some calculations where it's not adding decimal points correctly and you can't figure out why - you've got a choice. Spend hours trying to troubleshoot at the detriment of other projects OR educate users that for the short term, they can put the data into Excel and tell it to add two decimal places to the column. You can even build a template that will do it for them. You emphasize this is a workaround until projects go away and time is made available to circle back and figure out what's going on.
Did you give up? No. The solution is "working", just not as fully desired, but time does not permit you to keep chugging at it, so you temporarily stop and give a workaround. That's more than acceptable.
6: Youre easily frustrated
IT only frustrates with inefficient directives. The work itself is challenging and in most cases entertaining. Problem comes when you are given directions to do something from people who don't understand how the work is done. The fix is to ensure that the directives are given from people who understand the work.
7: You cant multitask
This bullet I wholeheartedly agree with and a lot of people fail to understand how important this is. But there's a difference (I noted below) between proper and improper multitasking.
The other benefit of good multitasking is that you can help to avoid issues coming up later by dealing with them now. A good example is server maintenance that has been put off repeatedly where you see signs of the server failing, and anticipate a loss of data where recovery would take days. I know in some people's world they would just keep plugging away at their current project, but you need to ask yourself: Why can't I just queue up the server maintenance now which takes an hour so I don't get stuck with days worth of recovery when the server fails? It's common sense.
8: You have dreams of climbing the corporate ladder
I don't agree with this at all.
A CIO can easily transition to COO. It's been done. COO has a direct path to CEO. But what if you don't want to go that high? Maybe you just want basic management exposure. It's hard to get that in any field since people only pay attention to degrees that don't mean anything, but IT gives more management opportunities than other fields I've seen because they work more in teams than other departments. Also a lot of companies are simply top heavy to the point that if you got high enough you might as well be a COO anyway.
9: You hate technology
I think you missed the definition of "technophobe". A technophobe doesn't hate tech, they fear it. I think you meant Luddite which is the closest analog to what you're describing.
However, I submit that a person who has an inherent fear of tech stands to benefit working in IT as long as they start at the ground level and have at least a basic aptitude for learning. Most of the fear of tech comes from not being exposed to it enough. I submit a person who simply does not like tech has no business in IT, not because they can't do the job, but because they are a significant risk of doing something wrong, whether they are/were conscious of it.
10: You turn off your phone at night
My phone is turned off at night and for good reason. It's because I can't differentiate between work calls and personal; I expect to receive neither during sleeping hours unless I'm made aware in advance that I will be needed - for example, an upgrade rollout or other major initiative that requires my intervention.
Most network and engineering positions can survive using a good-old fashioned pager; something that will alert them that attention is needed but not specifically a phone where false positives can come in. Do you realize how unhealthy that would be to just be sitting there waiting for phone calls? In a properly working environment, getting paged is more than enough as it lets you see that something has happened and recover enough to know to respond, even if you were already asleep. It also is better on battery.
I have seen people talk about getting paid. In a salaried environment where oncall support is part of the job description this isn't practical. If you're a consultant then you can negotiate for it, but a full-time employee will not get a job where they demand to be paid for something that's part of a salaried job. And I'm not sure where this notion of managing employees came from; there are two basic requirements for salaried employees:
1: make a certain amount or greater, in most places it's around $60,000-$65,000 per year; and
2: the nature of your work is such that it does not conform to a set schedule.
You couldn't have a salaried CSD rep, for example.
Anyway, the article is a fear monger writeup and I submit mostly inaccurate. Anyone reading this and getting second thoughts about IT, ask some of the commenters here about what it's really like.
1: You lack patience
This applies to Desktop Support/Helpdesk primarily, Development secondarily. It applies lightly to Network Engineering and Systems Analysts. But it can be applied to any job. All jobs try one's patience at some time or another.
2: You have no desire to continue your education
There is a big difference between wanting to learn and having your employer push you to learn. A lot of employers won't pay for the ongoing education they desire from you, but they won't pay enough for you to go back to school. So what's the real answer there? Also, this bullet directly contradicts with bullet 3 since going back to school and continuing education takes a lot of time - A LOT of time, especially college.
3: You refuse to work outside 9-to-5
In a properly managed environment, you shouldn't need to work outside 9-5 unless you're one of the network engineering team. Why? If an application goes down, they are responsible for getting the server back up, not the application developer. App developer might be needed when deploying new pieces of the software, possibly but that's not a daily occurrence. This bullet could be better specified than it is; it pigeonholes all of IT into 24/7 drones when it's simply not true.
4: You dont like people
This is patently false. An introverted personality doesn't mean you don't like people, but that's exactly what you find in a lot of IT departments; introverts. There are some extroverts but they are the exception rather than the rule. You also find people who are great with other people regardless. Not being a party freak doesn't mean you don't like people, it means you don't like stupid people. This bullet should emphasize that more than anything: IT people don't like stupid people.
5: You give up quickly
Disagree with this bullet. Not knowing when to give up is a deal breaker in IT. The problem is your definition of "give up". Your definition is limited to, "you don't fix the problem and walk away" and I know of very few people who do this. But take a problem where the solution is going to take extended digging to resolve. If that problem is one that does not bring the house down - for example, code that does some calculations where it's not adding decimal points correctly and you can't figure out why - you've got a choice. Spend hours trying to troubleshoot at the detriment of other projects OR educate users that for the short term, they can put the data into Excel and tell it to add two decimal places to the column. You can even build a template that will do it for them. You emphasize this is a workaround until projects go away and time is made available to circle back and figure out what's going on.
Did you give up? No. The solution is "working", just not as fully desired, but time does not permit you to keep chugging at it, so you temporarily stop and give a workaround. That's more than acceptable.
6: Youre easily frustrated
IT only frustrates with inefficient directives. The work itself is challenging and in most cases entertaining. Problem comes when you are given directions to do something from people who don't understand how the work is done. The fix is to ensure that the directives are given from people who understand the work.
7: You cant multitask
This bullet I wholeheartedly agree with and a lot of people fail to understand how important this is. But there's a difference (I noted below) between proper and improper multitasking.
The other benefit of good multitasking is that you can help to avoid issues coming up later by dealing with them now. A good example is server maintenance that has been put off repeatedly where you see signs of the server failing, and anticipate a loss of data where recovery would take days. I know in some people's world they would just keep plugging away at their current project, but you need to ask yourself: Why can't I just queue up the server maintenance now which takes an hour so I don't get stuck with days worth of recovery when the server fails? It's common sense.
8: You have dreams of climbing the corporate ladder
I don't agree with this at all.
A CIO can easily transition to COO. It's been done. COO has a direct path to CEO. But what if you don't want to go that high? Maybe you just want basic management exposure. It's hard to get that in any field since people only pay attention to degrees that don't mean anything, but IT gives more management opportunities than other fields I've seen because they work more in teams than other departments. Also a lot of companies are simply top heavy to the point that if you got high enough you might as well be a COO anyway.
9: You hate technology
I think you missed the definition of "technophobe". A technophobe doesn't hate tech, they fear it. I think you meant Luddite which is the closest analog to what you're describing.
However, I submit that a person who has an inherent fear of tech stands to benefit working in IT as long as they start at the ground level and have at least a basic aptitude for learning. Most of the fear of tech comes from not being exposed to it enough. I submit a person who simply does not like tech has no business in IT, not because they can't do the job, but because they are a significant risk of doing something wrong, whether they are/were conscious of it.
10: You turn off your phone at night
My phone is turned off at night and for good reason. It's because I can't differentiate between work calls and personal; I expect to receive neither during sleeping hours unless I'm made aware in advance that I will be needed - for example, an upgrade rollout or other major initiative that requires my intervention.
Most network and engineering positions can survive using a good-old fashioned pager; something that will alert them that attention is needed but not specifically a phone where false positives can come in. Do you realize how unhealthy that would be to just be sitting there waiting for phone calls? In a properly working environment, getting paged is more than enough as it lets you see that something has happened and recover enough to know to respond, even if you were already asleep. It also is better on battery.
I have seen people talk about getting paid. In a salaried environment where oncall support is part of the job description this isn't practical. If you're a consultant then you can negotiate for it, but a full-time employee will not get a job where they demand to be paid for something that's part of a salaried job. And I'm not sure where this notion of managing employees came from; there are two basic requirements for salaried employees:
1: make a certain amount or greater, in most places it's around $60,000-$65,000 per year; and
2: the nature of your work is such that it does not conform to a set schedule.
You couldn't have a salaried CSD rep, for example.
Anyway, the article is a fear monger writeup and I submit mostly inaccurate. Anyone reading this and getting second thoughts about IT, ask some of the commenters here about what it's really like.
Posted by revelated
3rd Sep
