Discussion on:

10 signs that you aren't cut out for IT

Consider that you're working in a big company. Logistic has some problems with part delivery and fixed it, there was some problems with equipments and maintenance members are called in the night and fixed the problem. There was some problem with configuration of robots and and the related team fixed it as soon as possible. But at one point, there was a problem in production system. But IT member is not opening his phone since he has got a special day and all people in the factory is waiting. If your applications are supporting some critical systems then you don't have so much choice. You can discuss about working in cycle, paying more etc. but most of the time this is not true in reality. Even in some big companies, IT members have big responsibilities. But I also see that some part of the IT isolate themselves from the critical processes and don't take big responsibilities and risks. This one is also another choice. But generally people hate these IT members. I hear people saying "they take the most money and no responsibility while we carry the burden of company". But who cares about the opinion of "users"? Just check item #4

True story: On my way out the door for paternity leave earlier this year - my MD (CEO if you're that side of the pond) says to me, "take as much time as you need ... but leave your phone ON!".

I took a month (double the statutory), but checked my mail every day and continued to support my team with any blisteringly urgent issues. That's just the reality of a life in I.T.

Point 1 mostly applies interfacing with end users (customers) but I know managers that get ticked off at employees by the smallest of issues.
Point 2, fully agree.
Point 3, one will need to work sometimes outside the 9-to-5 but all the time, just quit.
Point 4, one does not have to be socially active to work in IT.
Point 5, giving up to quickly leaves you behind. One learns the most through troubleshooting.
Point 6, fully agree. One should at least learn to vent or it will show in his health.
Point 7, it depends on the IT job.
Point 8, fully agree. One may move side to side (IT areas) but the ladder is short.
Point 9, One should stride for a job that makes him content.
Point 10, this depends on the job but personally, I would be very upset if I got a call in the middle of the night and it was not an absolute emergency.

#4 - The reason many people went into IT is because they cannot communicate with other humans in person. In the old days these people will have gone into accounting. I have seen to many people in the field who have no ability to communicate with people outside of IT, or with people inside IT on any topic but IT.

# 10 - not everyone in IT has no life, everyone needs time to regroup and recharge

Even if this post wasn't a rehash of a topic that has been done to death, even here on TR, it is still wrong headed:

1. I am married to my wife, and I'm the father of my children - not my office. My family will still be there if I get a two-weeks-notice due to downsizing or what-have-you. My office will not give me the time of day, WHEN I get a divorce because I thought work is more important than life. If you leave important family events because a server went down, on a regular basis, then you are a workaholic that needs psychological therapy - not a prime candidate for IT work.
   
2. If you lack patience, have no drive to continue learning, are easily frustrated, or hate people, then it's not that an IT career is wrong for you - you're wrong for any meaningful career. IT has nothing to do with it, and is no worse than being a teacher, salesperson, actor, floor manager, doctor, policeman, etc.
   
3. If you think that you multitasking is a good thing then you should leave important work to people who know how to chop tasks into small manageable bites that can be taken care of serially. Working on 3-4 things at a time just shows that you are a sloppy worker who is constantly reacting to the loudest source of noise, rather than prioritizing important work. You may wish to look at Lean concepts such as limiting work in progress, because all the successful IT departments are doing it.
   
4. If you hate technology, you are unfit for most careers not just IT. This point is really pathetic. It's like saying that you should not be a doctor if you fear blood. DUH!
   
5. If you really think that having a career in IT will limit your ability to climb the corporate ladder, and even be, say, the CEO of your own IT firm, then you really just need to grow up.
   
   In short, this post was written with a cardboard character of the IT worker in mind. If you were trolling for comments, congratulations, you succeeded. If you honestly believe this, please try to get a more mature view of careers in general and IT in particular. If you are a budding (I hope you're just relatively new) IT professional, you shouldn't be thinking yourself into a cold and dank box.

I targeted one bullet.

"If you think that you multitasking is a good thing then you should leave important work to people who know how to chop tasks into small manageable bites that can be taken care of serially. Working on 3-4 things at a time just shows that you are a sloppy worker who is constantly reacting to the loudest source of noise, rather than prioritizing important work. You may wish to look at Lean concepts such as limiting work in progress, because all the successful IT departments are doing it."

A person who doesn't know how to properly multitask is doomed to fail, this is true. Multitasking done correctly is not a matter of prioritization. It's a matter of avoiding problems and not letting them stack. Multitasking is critical in a project-oriented environment, or one where others lack skills you have.

Example:

A person works a support role in IT. Their primary job is to handle the inbound support inquiries about applications. This person happens to have the most knowledge in the company about one particular application; has developed many solutions for it; has helped other companies manage their solutions. A project arises where a solution needs to be created, and this person is the only person that can do it.

In your world, the project is dropped and never completed, because as you should know, support is never completed. There's no way to say "stop supporting this and do this project" and it's not acceptable to say "ignore the project, we're not doing it". You can't train others in some levels of development; some of it takes experience with tackling the challenge in a previous life.

An effective worker can manage the inflow and do some of the project development when the support tickets are low provided the project manger is flexible on the date of delivery. If they are not flexible then the worker needs to state clearly that the project is not doable within the time given, and the PM needs to make a choice as to whether to proceed.

Someone who can't multitask properly is one who has 5 things juggling but can't seem to complete any of them. That's not multitasking, that's stumbling.

I really think that this needs to be re-evaluated. Number 10-sorry I don't think that ANY company is going to pull you away from the birth of your first child....and if they do, then that is company that you might want to leave.

...where the same signs don't apply?

The point is, you can't. The same signs apply towards being a waitress, a pig farmer or a men's room attendant.

Imagine where the industry would be without, "highly oppositional/controllers," at Silicon Graphics or Netscape, and full of bubble-headed nitwits who were really a bunch of nice guys and gals, but who couldn't engineer their way out of a double-knotted shoe lace. IT needs people, was built by people, who can relate more with the machine and the machine's problems than with small secretaries who's feelings get hurt when proper business English is used in e-mail (that is, no emoticons).

Articles like this serve only one purpose: to lower the level of IT knowledge to that of the users by driving out the engineers.

I do envy surgeons. They, at least, get to knock out their idiot user first.

A Career in IT is fun until you reach about 40. 1) you can never have more than 2 years experience because of the rapid changes. 2) Nobody wants a 40+ year old working on their computers. 3) hiring managers are short sighted and want someone who is 20+ so they can work for a long time (which does not happen). I know way too many people who spent 20 +/- years in IT (myself included) that was tossed out and never able to get back into a groove because of age bias. There is a conventional wisdom that says " a person with 20 years experience with every kind of computer on earth can't learn MY computer. MY coputer is different. I enjoyed my career in IT, but for myself - it blows. Go get a job in a real career that you can do all your life until YOU want to quit!

From my experiences and observations, Jack's 10 signs are applicable to virtually all departments (not just IT) across a corporate enterprise since they have increasingly become technology-driven. In my view, due to the current wobbly economic situation, the ultra-competitive job climate, and adopted corporate process improvement strategies, keeping a job in the corporate world is more difficult than ever.

Thus, if you put a check mark next to one or more of those 10 points, you will not succeed in the corporate world, whether you are working in marketing, finance, accounting, or IT. All the jobs in an office setting revolve around those 10 signs whether you realize it or not. Basically, the mantra is this: you do whatever it takes to get the job done. This means if you have to work Labor Day (unpaid since you are salaried) to complete a project or get ahead, so be it; if you have to take a two-day seminar to learn how to use Cognos to develop reports, so be it; if your manager e-mails you at 8pm and asks if you can revise a report that is due first thing in the morning, you have to do it.

The bottom line is that technology is a double-edged sword. It has given us virtually unlimited access to information, but at the same time, it has impinged our lives since we are always connected, particularly with regards to work. So your choice is very simple: drink the kool-aid and play office lackey or do something else.

So, the author believes that an IT person is not human, but should be on call 24/7?

I so disagree.
Yes, working flexible hours is 'normal'- but if a company expects you to be on call 24/7 but gives you nothing in return, you tend to go to "office hours" only.
Overtime - no problem - except if it`s considered standard, and no extra pay or compensation.

My employer actually manages to call me in my holiday, and expects problems to be solved by me even while i`m riding a rollercoaster. Sorry - but there are limits to my energy.

Guess that being a family man, and wanting to spend time with my son (now 9 months) makes me a bad IT person? Well, so be it - i do not even WANT to work for a company that does not accept me as human!

Addition:

One company in an interview asked me where i was expecting myself to be in 5 years time.

When i answered - being in the same position, but even better at it that i am now - they declined to hire me as i "lacked ambition".
Give me hands on work - and let a manager go to all the pointless and time consuming meetings..

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.

Most companies will drop an employee for almost any reason so why should an employee carry all the responsibility? Unless an employer is really paying well or offering comp time I would not hesitate to place limits and come to an understanding of what constitutes an emergency.

I've been called in from home because the CEO could not get a spreadsheet to add properly. It turned out the spreadsheet was working fine, the guy just didn't like the answer he was getting. He asked how do I fix it? I told him to type the answer he wanted into the cell, then I went home and started to search for a new job.

The days of employee loyalty being rewarded is gone, most companies today regard employees as disposable commodities.

While this may be off-topic, I'd like to see a contrasting article about businesses whose management structure is so perverse that no self-respecting IT professional should consider working for them.

I do not agree with all of the points the author makes, however, when I worked in IT, multitasking was a must. I worked in an environment with a mix of things. The reason I left was because of the politics and working at the helpdesk. I am not one that wants to sit somewhere tied to a phone all day. I want to get out into the field and work on desktops, servers, networks and mackintosh computers as they are starting to come into the desktop scene.

Many of the points mentioned also apply to lawyers and doctors. But since the Indianization of the business, IT'S NOT WORTH IT any longer. If I was getting even half of a lawyer's or Doctor's rate of pay, I'd agree.
Let's reverse this title: 10 Reasons Why IT is No Longer A Great Profession For You.

You must be able to remain positive and motivated under unfriendly managers, tight budgets, and know-it-all co-workers.

I've worked closely with IT for almost 40 years, and the body of knowledge in IT continues to rapidly grow. In a way, it's similar to the practice of medicine. There used to be a time when a doctor treated a very wide range of diseases and illnesses. That is no longer true. Medicine has become highly specialized. In the same way, IT is becoming more and more specialized. The day of the generalist is quickly waning.

Many network operation centers are now leased in very sophisticated environments with highly trained staff with detailed procedures. Those late night wake up calls are much fewer. And programmers rarely get called at night - system analysts almost never.

Soon, we will be able to remotely manage Windows servers using RDP from a tablet. Something I would never have dreamed of 20 years ago. IT is anything but dull, with many challenges. Maybe you should come up with a list of 10 things that are great about a career in IT?

Ask Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, the founders of Google and eBay about the opportunities afforded them by IT. It's not a bad gig.

Whether in IT or medicine, there needs to be somebody to relate the various specialties to the whole. The generalist understands enough about the specialties to do this and can determine which specialist to call...or even if a specialist is needed.

Unfortunately, those with this ability are usually relegated to end-user support and considered less than less-than.

News flash! - These are all traits, attributes, and mantras of any worthwhile career path. Unless you want to spend your life mopping floors, cleaning bathrooms, or stuck behind the counter at 7-11 selling beer and cigarettes for the rest of your life, these are traits that you will have to master.

In 25 years of working in IT, engineering, consulting, and management, I have rarely seen any new comers in my career with all of these skills. Yes, I used the word skill. These are all skills that can be attained through hard work, determination, and persistence. Arguably everyone has developed some of these traits because the they have natural inclinations towards some of them. But no one I know has a monopoly on all of them.

Can you imagine a doctor, lawyer, or an airline pilot without these abilities? Having worked with attorneys, heads of industries, developers, general contractors, corporate representatives of all types, my most valuable contacts, associates, partners, and co-workers have all mastered, or aspire to master these skills as much as humanly possible.

So what is the real key in IT (as it is in any industry) love of the craft. You have to love what you do. That is the only real element of success .... in ANY industry. Because love of IT, keeps you fascinated and excited about the learning process. It provides the strength of character needed to counter act frustration, long hours, and fatigue. It feeds the fascination for learning new things and new ways of doing things. It unlocks humility to learn from others who know more.

The happiest of us all - does what they love, and loves what they do.

re: "does what they love, and loves what they do. "
What a load of B.S.
I'd rather make money and retire early.

you are universally...loved...by your subordinates. /sarcasm

I've climbed that "ladder of success" only to find it lonely at the top and leaning against the wrong wall. I have worked with, hired, and fired, many with this attitude. They are self centered with an "it's all about me," attitude. On projects they care about progress for progress sake, and less about real lasting achievements. Quality in their work is their nemesis. Team members with differing opinions no matter how relevant are seen as obstacles in their personal path to success. And most importantly since they have set a blistering schedule to their own retirement, they have little time to make their own contribution preferring mostly to stand on the achievements of others.

As far as the B.S. part I can smell it on THEM, 5 seconds into an interview

retire...

Couldn't care less whether you make any money.

Well I guess from this that you're assuming reason #11 for not being in IT is 'You are female'. For those of us who are female, actually being able to miss the birth or our first child is a physical impossibility so this is a completely moot point. I'm usually try not to be too 'feminist' but this article is so silly in general that I felt moved to point out the slightly sexist perspective of the writing. The whole piece reads like you just needed to spin out another '10 reasons you're not cut out for a career in....' article to get the set of articles to a nice round 10 or something like that. Misleading and discouraging for anyone reading it thinking they might like to have a career in IT.

This is just Jack's point of view, this is how he thinks, and this is not always reflects the real life of 6 billion people around the world

I have worked in IT Support role for over a decade and while I had all the qualities required for a career in Tech Support, I realized I was re-inventing the wheel everyday, with little or no appreciation for the hard work and efforts I put in for the end-users. And, I somehow never understood why aspiring for career progression should be antithetical to IT professionals, though I did observe that those in Tech Support would get promoted far less, compared with others in software development, Project Mgmt. roles. So, the ten points / traits in the article don't apply uniformly to ALL IT roles.

So, if you put IT work above all else, and make it your "god", you may be cut out for this field..!!
1 sign you are not cut out for IT work If you dont like slavery you probably wont make a good IT person. LOL
Let the servers crash, I'd rather spend time with family.

What a joke.

If you are reading this article...

You should all be grateful for the learning and experience that has come before
before you. With out design principles, and coding practices, materials
manufacturing advancements, you would not have it as easy.

In the beginning, there were wirea and tubes, punches, spaghetti code, plug boards, etc. It was like flying an air plane, while you are building it. Start up and shut-down where the two worst times in the day of the IT person. For those with 24/7 support this usually came at 2:00 AM. Systems where so unstable, they could not function efficiently after running 24 hours, so they were restarted to empty out any unreachable areas that resulted from program failures, that happened during the day, that did not result in a crash. This was the time when computers where the size of Olympic swimming pools and basket ball courts.

Today your systems run for years without having to be shut down. You can change-out
hard-drives in storage farms that do not require you to shut the system down.

The capabilities of smart-phones and computers we call tablets were unthinkable.
Tomorrow you will use your voice and say "zoom-in" or "zoom-out" to enlarge or
shrink the size of the document you are viewing, instead of finger gestures.

Some of the 10 items, I can say were true back then. Today I am glad that
some of the really bad attributes are behind us, thanks to the advancements
in learning and doing things in a more skillful way. That does not mean
system failures will not occur. And someone will have to fix them.

Today, my grandson at the age of 7 knows more about computes then the CEO
of a fortune 100 company knew 20 years ago.

Some of the pre-computer age people are still around. In the next 40 years,
most of them will be gone. Then you will be faced with an entirely different
set of technology (e.g. robots, etc.). Hope you enjoy the time and have
fun learning. Then you can sit back and tell the next generation how
lucky they are for standing on your shoulders.

Have a good life.

On 8, if you are in IT and the company is an IT company then you get a chance to climb the corporate ladder to the top, via IT.

On 10, it depends, IT is about working with a team and individuals in the team get to take off once in a while with team members covering for you.

I used to work as a programmer for a market research organisation. That didn't involve "people skills" (which I lack and hate, btw), nor long hours, or patience, or working outside 9 to 5, nor any of the other "signs' you mentioned. Does that rules me out? Then I also worked as a computer technician for a company assembling PC's. No customer contact. People brought in their deffective computers, I fixed them and the outlet clerk did all the "customer" related mumbo-jumbo. I was good at what I was doing. Why am I no longer doing it? Ummm... sorry to confess: I CLIMBED THE CORPORATE LADDER! :))

I am planning to move to another career but now I am still not decided what career should I shift, Do you have any advice or suggestion on what career should I chose? Thanks

Except few items, I had most of mentioned attitudes when I threw in IT fields. I never gave up and got experienced in all of those and learned how to resist. Now Ive worked around one decade in IT and I think EXPERIENCE can help you to overcome. But you still need item 1 to be experienced.

Regarding #7 Multitasking. Nobody can multi-task. Those that appear to just organize their time correctly and can make the swap between tasks better.
Regarding #10 You turn your phone off. If you are good at your job you don't need to be on call 24/7. 16/5 is normally enough. If you need 24/7 then get someone to help you. Needing 24/7 is a myth. I have my phone on 24/7 but nobody calls me unless there is a catastrophe going on.

No pun intended. IT isn't meant to be Boot camp. If it is then the business that you work for has serious IT issues. I hate articles that exaggerate their points just for journalistic color. Plus many of the points are obvious. "You don't like technology" and "You have no desire to continue your education" ? Well I'm sure that if someone is thinking about IT careers then they probably have an interest in technology and they enjoy reading about it. Its like saying "You can't be a chef if you don't like food and cooking". I would also say that for all jobs you have continue to learn.

Multitasking has been demonstrated to be something that humans CAN NOT do. It is far better to focus on one thing at a time and do it well, than focus on multiple things and be sloppy.
While working the '9-5' shift is expected, I would encourage experienced people to NOT work outside normal hours. This is a ridiculous proposition for the experienced person.
TURN OFF YOUR PHONE AT NIGHT!!! You deserve relief from your job. Encouraging people to leave their phones on is ridiculous. Most modern companies have a call center or help, and there is NO reason to leave your phone on.

...a myth. Numerous studies have shown that multi-tasking results in poorer work performance by most measures (lower productivity, more errors, less job satisfaction, etc.) than focusing on a task and completing it. Many of these studies indicate that the human brain does not perform well at multi-tasking. A study from 2008 estimates that multi-tasking could cost the U.S. economy $650 billion annually in lost productivity.

"Multi-tasking" is a term that attempts to make a virtue of being expected to do more than can possibly be done in the time available. It places the burden for poor management decisions (not hiring sufficient staff, poor planning, new initiatives launched before the people charged with them have been able to complete the previous initiatives) on the employees stuck with the mandate to multi-task. It may be today's reality, but it's a bad business strategy.

Agree with most all except "multitask"
Humans cannot "multitask".
People who say they can generally don't do any one thing very well and generally will screw something up badly.

The real problem with being on call 24x7 and getting pulled away from family functions etc. because the company is in trouble is that too often, especially today, management has the staff cut to such a level that no one has a backup so even critical systems are in danger if someone is out of touch for an extended period of time.