Discussion on:

10 IT job roles that are hardest to fill

I can relate to that position, oh so well. Did it for almost twenty years for small proprietary software companies. What made the position so effective was that I was also the primary person to test the new software as it was being developed. This was the perfect position to get to fully understand the software and how it works. There is no substitute for being able to know and experience what you are describing for new people.

Specialized programmers are rare, but so are the jobs. Positions are hard to fill primarily because they require long term commitment from both, programmer and his employer. And that's a big no no nowadays.

You need to groom internal candidates to meet your needs--this will require you to view employees as long-term "investments" rather than pesky "costs" to be minimized. They're a resource that's hard to find, so if you want one you'll have to grow your own.

This used to be something that was standard. The corps forgot how to do this about 2 decades ago. I can't point to what it was that caused the change, I was only barely entering the 'corporate' workforce at the time. Maybe it was when 'Human Resources' became a distinct group, as opposed to 'Personnel', and the general employee stopped mattering.

I figure it came about when bean counters -- financial professionals -- started running companies. They have focused so narrowly on "the bottom line" that they neglect to provide for the future of their company.

Companies introducing innovative products (outside finance) are rarely run by people with a background in finance. Financial professionals are lauded for their attention to costs, but by and large they threw out long-term R&D programs, training programs, apprenticeships etc. etc. ad nauseum for not directly contributing to the bottom line.

In the great old days when things we use were actually MADE in USA, companies were generally run by engineers, designers, or occasionally marketers. Financial professionals were limited to accounting departments.

Do you blame management for not thinking long-term? The average life-span of a C-level or manager is less than five years. That kind of environment breeds low-risk hiring and a lot of decisions with a short-term outlook. This way the MBAs can bolster their resumes with how they saved "X amount" and then they move on to the next short-term position.

And, all the follow-up comments. You guys have just described the problem with the declining western economies as a whole. It's not even industry driven, it's systemic and applicable to infrastructure/personnel, private and public sector.

I have had trouble creating an effective management resume. Although I have been in management for 5 years, I was never in a position that included saving X dollars (in a big way that is). What stood out in your post was you pointing out that it is short-term positions that provide that resume boost. I need to start pointing out that I served a different management role that did not include the opportunity to "save money." (I am talking about an amount of money worthy of appearing on a resume.)

The only problem with your explanation is that it isn't true. I can remember back in the '80s being associated with companies that routinely rotated accountants, engineers and marketing people as the CEO. Each brought a style to the job that the company required.

In most of the companies I have worked with, the discipline of a CEO during an outsourcing fad (aka cost cutting) was irrelevant. If anything, the accountants tended to shoot the idea down as not really saving money.

Personal opinion is that it has more to do with pressure to perform today, pressure to please the analysts and the desire for a quick fix.

That's an interesting difference in experience. Every private firm where I've worked had one of the founders at the helm for and extended period. The ones who handed off the reins to bean counters tended to fall apart soon after.

The exception was government where there was lots of turn-over even amongst the locked-in civil service managers.

Is that there are a large number of IT-groups in companies, that are placed under the 'bean counters' control. And needless to say, the bean counters usually are NOT the most tech-savvy types, if they are at all. Not who I want in control of the group.

Some of it was changes in tax laws and regs beginning in the late 1970s, a lot of it has been a shift in what they've been teaching in the B-schools, the hatching of the H-1B visa in 1990, and then there was the shift from super-computers and mainframes to micro-computers (which took from 1975 to the late 1990s in many outfits) and the shift from structured to OO design and programming (which started in the 1960s but didn't pick up steam until the 1980s and wasn't generally in use on the job until nearly 2000). But those forces have created a feed-back loop pushing more and more abuse of production employees, less and less investment in employees in the forms of respect, compensation, training, relo and interview expenses... with dashes of hyper-credentialism, grade inflation, and age discrimination thrown in.

The general sense I have of this thread is you're describing the contributors to "corporate dysfunction." I'm not going to jump on you because I'm some OO zealot, but I'm curious, how did OO design and programming contribute to this, as opposed to structured programming?

Everyone wants the "perfect" candidate, but they don't realize that this person can't be hired, but rather developed. What companies need is a framework for the "perfect" employee--someone who has the potential to be this--and then make hiring decisions based on that framework. A capable IT employee can become half of what you need within 6 months to a year.

However, managers are so skittish and risk-averse that they want "safe" candidates. If you want safe, hire a robot and the extended warranty plan.

"4: Help desk staff"
So people aren't willing to work for the salary you are offering.
Offer more money.

"Most companies see the help desk as a necessary evil, a cost center to be contained. And in a way, they are right. With razor thin margins in many industries, the cost of support can make or break the profitability of a company."
Yet there is always plenty of money available for management bonuses.

"law of supply and demand" and all, but your followup paragraph at the end seems to make a far more poignant point...

What is the True Cost of Help Desk Staff? When you factor in the lost production of users whom spend hours creating work arounds because the thought of contacting Support is more of a pain this can cost compainies thousands per user. Not to mention what one error could cost if left un checked. Help Desk support is a multiple of IT Jobs and requires an understanding of All Departments in the Company. With all that a company spends on it's IT Department Help Desk is the First Line of Denfense against angry users. Choosing and Paying the Right Person can mean the difference between Paying a User Hours of time in lost production. Makes sense that your help desk employee should be both knowledge able and personable. It is infact your Director of First Impressions for new users and a place of peace for those whom have been with the company for years. Want to save Money on Help Desk support then stop the Fuzzy Economic's and look at the true cost of lost productivity. It only takes a moment to realize happy employee's are productive employee's. And no one likes to be under valued.

Yes, it's funny how the lowest paid people are responsible for the profits.

Ask the army of highly paid bean counters - they'll tell you how the three helpdesk employees are bankrupting the company. But they have a cure, which is hiring a few more bean counters to look into the problem.

True. An old good management practice was to call your company and act as a client to see what happens. Now it should be call call technical support and see what happens. Two weeks ago I spent two days with my ISP's support trying people trying to convince them my cable modem was "flapping" (going offline and trying to reconnect to the headend) and there was a problem with the modem or the cable. They could not and would not acknowledge the problem and repeated the montra "turn it off and restart the modem" and "it seems OK now". I canceled a big upgrade due to that experience. If they can't provide basic internet service without seeming like idiots why would I order complex services?

At the same time I was changing my phone service provider. They somehow, instead of simply switching my service, disconnected my telephone completely, twice. When I argued that the service had been cut at the computer and the line is live with 50 volts at the terminals (I used to install low voltage lines) the technical support people simply said they will send a man out in a week. After eight hours of arguing someone finally checked and I got a call from a field lineman who said: "Yup, someone cut the connection. I fixed it in 4 seconds." Again, I am not buying more than basic phone service if they can barely do that.

Oh, my cell phone is the only thing that worked during this mess and is how I cleared it up. Viva competition.

I have to agree - sadly Management typically earn the bonuses by reducing the 'costs', i.e. salaries, of the talent beneath them. That is something that management feel comfortable with, as they can quantify it, set targets against it, and most are capable of little else these days.

Then, having commoditised IT, they were the first to look offshore for the next cheapest 'talent'. Again, easy to quantify (too stupid or inexperienced to factor in additional costs).

Now, there is a diminishing pool of people left to fill the positions they really need, with the expertise and commitment to fulfill the role properly and make a company successful, because they have systematically destroyed any incentive to do such a job, created job insecurity, and actively sought to undermine the locally available workforce.

The only shortage that ever existed in the West, was that of capable managers.

"The only shortage that ever existed in the West, was that of capable managers."
I'd also add honest.

were all those where competence was mandatory.

IT in business has made a point of dumbing down all disciplines to produce a fallacious abundance and reduce costs. Hard to fill is a symptom...

Amen Tony!. I've noticed and commented before on what I've observed, that there has been a long trend, over decades, to reduce every skill set to a commodity, making superficial compliance with standards and best practices a substitute for thinking.

and his absurd argument that IT should be treated and managed like railroads or commodities instead of like an integral part of every business.

which is also a symptom of the them and us, or even us and them syndrome prevalent in business.

The phrase "business/IT alignment" is simply suit code for "all you weird geeks have to act like us normal folks" and nothing more. We debunked this fallacious concept in our book "The Geek Gap: Why Business and Technology Professionals Don't Understand Each Other and Why They Need Each Other To Survive." If a business wants their suit and geek workers to communicate better and work more efficiently together, then they both must relearn or outright change a variety of bad habits. Get the book, it really can help. Or better yet, get the book and anonymously drop it on your bosses desk!
Check it out at www.geekgap.com
If you're told you just don't "get" alignment, then you're doing it right.

His analysis only applies to standard IT configurations (like e-mail), or solutions created by third parties. It works terribly for organizations whose IT requirements don't fit these scenarios. What business often misses is the advantage they'd gain from a custom in-house solution, not in the short-term, but in the long-term. It seems easy to buy off-the-shelf equipment and apply it to what they want *now*. It gets ungainly down the road as their requirements change.

Another big problem is the way custom development is expensed. Due to investor requirements, they often pay a lump sum, as a capital expense, for a "quick and dirty" implementation that works now, but ends up costing a lot more than it could have with a better design, with the maintenance expenses that come down the road, which is counted as a "cost of business."

IT is not seen as an opportunity to rework and reimagine a business model, as it should be. It used to be seen as a way of optimizing what they always used to do. Now it's "Just the way things are now." What it used to optimize is now just par for the course in business. Everybody's doing it in the same ways. This is Carr's point, but his assumption is that this is what IT is supposed to be. His analysis doesn't take into account the idea that if a business was reimagined in light of computing's potential (not just what's on offer now), this would reinvigorate IT's ability to create competitive advantage again. The thing is, for that to happen, we need the re-emergence of computer science as a thought-leading discipline. That's not where it is now.

Carr's major argument was that you can treat IT like a commodity. All of it. He likens it to the railroad and other infrastructure projects and says that IT should be implemented and managed just like them.

What he overlooks is the fact that business practice drives IT - not the other way around - and if you commoditize IT, you must also commoditize your business practices - eliminating any competitive advantage you may have sought there.

What Carr's approach totally forbids is innovation, because you can't commoditize or outsource innovation. Innovation happens when someone within a company looks to see how things could be done better. This inevitably means altering or completely re-writing those very business practices that Carr assumes to be static. Computer programs are nothing more than codified business practices: re-writing those practices also necessitates re-writing the software that supports them. And this means that whomever is re-writing the software has to understand the business process they are trying to emulate on the computer. You can't do that using commoditization.

I'm not so sure I agree with your contention that computer science isn't a "thought-leading discipline". It all comes back to the control of the business processes being in the hands of the decision-makers of the business. These aren't usually the IT guys who are charged with mimicking the processes in code. IMHO, THAT is the dynamic that needs to change: the IT department needs to be involved in strategic business decisions and process discussions so that they can help shape and understand the processes they are charged with implementing/maintaining.

I totally agree with your point about Carr, and that program code in the context of a business is nothing but codified business rules and processes.

I didn't mean to say that computer scientists should be leading the business, but I do think that CS as a discipline, or at the very least a modern software engineering, backed by computing as a scientific discipline, should be in a position to inform the business decision makers. As things have stood for decades, business practice and CS/SE have been separated by differing concerns. The suits go out and find investors and customers to finance the business, and the IT staff worry about creating a working product, funded by that financing, never the twain meeting on priorities. The suits don't know much about software (much less that it's codified business processes, etc. To them it's just about "making the box do what we want"), and the IT people don't know much about running a business. The two "sides" have different priorities, and even a different language (though they're both in English) for expressing what matters most.

Chris Crawford, a famous creator of video games, I thought put it very well in some essays he wrote years ago, that programmers have been put into the ancient role of scribes. They're the ones who come up with, and use, the script that records what the masters who finance their work need recorded and retrieved, like how much grain was sold, and to whom, and who owes whom money. What's getting lost is there is tremendous potential in writing...what we're doing right now. It was realized by the Greeks thousands of years ago that writing is so much more than a means for creating financial, and historical records, and edicts and proclamations. In order for this realization to flourish, they had to get rid of the role of scribes. The people who had the knowledge, who had the thoughts that needed to be written down, also had to know how to read and write. We haven't realized this with our new medium yet.

One major factor in this, at least in the line of work I was in, is that the end customers of the software were even more clueless about the process. Nothing against them, but this influenced everything about what the business did, and their lack of understanding tended to make the software a mess, because they had no sense of what software is. It's all magic to them, and we were the "magicians" that made it work. Their expectations set the tone for everything else. Going back to my historical context, in ancient times what scribes did, reading and writing, was considered magical, too.

When I worked in IT, one of the things I was very interested in was talking to the people who would actually use the software, so I could get a sense of why they wanted it. What purpose would it serve? I wanted this, because I hated getting a sheet of requirements telling me "implement this and that," and then hearing word back that, "You didn't do this right. They want this." I thought I did what they asked, but we had different unspoken assumptions. I figured that if I could get a sense of how what I was writing was useful to them--to get a context for it--then when I heard, "They want X," we would be on the same page about the assumptions, and I could just figure it out on my own. I got that opportunity on one job, and I think it worked out really well.

The missing element, though, was reconsidering the business in light of what computing can do. Every time what people wanted was something that would optimize their paper processes. I've always liked Alan Kay's conception of computing, that it's a new medium, and it enables new human capabilities, but bringing this out requires that the people who are making the business decisions, or in many cases, the customers, understand something about computing. The way it's been for decades is that most business people are just trying to automate paper, the old medium, because that's what they understand. To them, this is why computers exist, and I think this notion feeds into Carr's analysis. In the last decade we have successfully transferred all of our old media, print, photos, video, and audio, into "digital." We have been increasingly able to do it all using commodity tools. What's missing in the analysis is that computing is a new medium, which communicates a process in action, and that communication has value. It does not have to merely execute processes.

I personally would love it. Even if all they could do was write a simple "Hello, World" program or retrieve a few rows using an SQL query, I think it would go a long ways towards business executives' understanding of what IT entails. I myself hold both an undergrad in CIS but also an MBA with 15+ years in IT (and I'm looking for opportunities). I can speak both languages (when there's someone listening), and I can understand why it's so easy for the two not to see eye-to-eye. No one can be really good at everything (ESPECIALLY in IT), so we have to specialize. Unless you have at least cursory familiarity with both aspects, it does make it difficult to share ideas.

I agree with your point about computing being a new medium, and I think the main takeaway for any non-IT decision makers is that computers are the ultimate multi-tool for business. You just have to decide if the saw is better than the screwdriver, and if you don't know how to tell the two apart, you should probably get someone who can both identify the tools but also relate to how they can help solve particular problems.

I was reading a book by Jonathan Sacks a while back, and he pointed out that "hieroglyph" meant something akin to prestly symbols, that it was only with the development of a simpler alef-bet (which the Greeks eventually adopted as alphabet) that near universal literacy became a possibility.

Well, I guess machine language was more like priestly symbols, while 2nd and 3rd generation, and now SOME OO PLs, together with changes in apps to make them more user-configurable and scriptable are veerrryy gradually approaching the age where universal programming literacy can be a reasonable ideal.

"most business people are just trying to automate paper"

"Most business people" simply do not have a clue, and worse, they don't want one... or at least that's the impression I got from nursing along numerous B-school profs, grad and under-grad students, and interactions with those who came from B-schools. Instead of thought, when it comes to tech of all kinds (from mechanical engineering to computer hardware and software to nanotech) they operate in knee-jerk mode, as though they'd all just popped out of a Skinner box. Trying to lead them along by the Socratic method won't get you far, either; it requires too much savvy and too much knowledge just to begin.

Simply mention the letters I and B and M in sequence and they slaver all over as though you'd offered them an ice scream sundae with all the fixins, without the least clue about the advantages and disadvantages of various hardware and OS design features. As a matter of fact, many of them still seem to believe that those initials and computers are synonymous, as though there hadn't been numerous firms with much better hardware and software since at least the 1940s. Many of them don't know about those other systems, at all, and their profs never mention any such.

Your description of this role sounds familiar... I had a job like this over 10 years ago, and they were looking for a Jr. programmer who would "learn and grow into the job." They wanted somebody with enough skill to work with C++ and MFC. One person there told me that one reason some developers were leaving was they were already real good at the technology, and were bored with it.

I worked on adding features to existing applications, and fixing bugs. There was legacy stuff around, but I didn't work on it. They had had done a bunch of application rewrites, going from Delphi, and 16-bit Windows apps. written in C, to 32-bit MFC apps, or VB 6 w/ COM. I worked on one of the rewrite projects, but everything was purely 32-bit for me. Fortunately most of the software was recent enough that most of the people who wrote it were still around, and I could contact them. Everything we were working towards was considered current (though aging) technology at the time. It was just at the beginning of the shift in business apps. from GUI to web. A bunch of developers were leaving, taking Java/internet developer positions. That was the hot new thing.

I actually had a good time in the job. I was disappointed that it ended. The technology was on the way out, but I didn't know it. I think the truth was, though, that I wasn't around long enough to find out why people didn't think the place was such great shakes. There were a few people there who had been there a while, and expressed their frustrations with management. Some of them were the ones who left for "greener pastures." The fact that they complained didn't strike me as odd. I had heard developers complain about management for years, and it had nothing to do with working as a maintenance/legacy developer.

I had heard of web applications. I worked on a prototype for one in 1997. Most of them were being done in C++ and Perl, or VC++ or VB 6 with COM. Every time I heard how they were done, they sounded like a kludge, and I wanted nothing to do with them. It didn't sound cutting edge to me. It sounded like a mess.

I didn't see my role in the job I got as a "career killer." I guess for most people it would've been, given the circumstances at the time. The point where I got laid off, along with most of the people there, was right during the dot com bust. I went for a few years after that not able to find paying work in my field. That washed a lot of people out. The only way out for me was to work on web applications. So that's what I did for a couple years. Even after that experience, GUI development made more sense to me in terms of a coherent design concept. Working in ASP.Net didn't improve my perception of how web apps. were built.

Would not wages rise in return to attract the proper talent?

Or are wages low because any parrot can sit in the chair and squawk from its script?

mandatory time on the helpdesk. Yes there are some exceptions as to who might actually gain something from the experience. Hypnotoad: with all due respect, you sir, are NOT one of those exceptions. Furthermore your prevailing opinion of what the job is all about is one that infects others like wildfire and therein cultivates the very problem discussed here.
Yes I do believe 3 to 4 weeks on the helpdesk would give you a fresh perception of what the job entails. Until then, you may go ahead and call them lackeys, speak down your nose at them. The damage to your companies bottom line is far greater than the insult you saddle them with. Consider this, when was the last time you encountered anyone describing their experience with an outsourced helpdesk that was anything less than a miserably frustrating experience. I would bet dollars to donuts that Apple pays their call center technicians better than most. This is evident in their overall demeanor in dealing with customers. From experience I can tell you that the company that recognizes the helpdesk or call center as their front line of defense against unsatisfied customers will pay their help more and as a result will have far more skilled, considerate and patient hands handling the task. The companies' bottom line will improve.

I like doing helpdesk for my own software. It's nice to hear from the users.

But here in Asia, we cannot find good solution architects anywhere. Most are specialist engineers who have been artificially elevated to that title to fill these roles on complex projects, but are not capable of doing the job properly.

They get paid peanuts for what they do, pay them more money and you will find them, not to mention not being a repected position these days, people look down on you but if the money improves things will change!!!

WTF? Is "Product evangelist" even a profession or post? People who call themselves a "Product evangelist" already exclude themselves from the post just by using the phrase. I think that article has miss-labeled the position and meant something else.

Few companies and people in general have a benchmark for good quality IT trainer talent.

Speaking as someone very well qualified in IT Training (100's of global events & policy), project management (10yrs international large scale experience + PRINCE2), specialised programming (distributed computing & cloud), who is currently finding getting a new role difficult; I would say that the roles you mention are always claimed to be difficult to fill but that is generally because recruiters decide they want cheap, consequently unqualified, staff who will still provide a quality service.
Basically recruiters do not find these roles exciting and would rather spend their money on more techy/exciting roles, because that is what they enjoy themselves.

I don't know why you include this in the "hard to fill" category. The problem is not that people are hard to find, it's that the employers are not willing to pay for the expertise. Those of us with decades of experience, and who are most likely at the latter end of our careers are often willing and happy to find a slot working on legacy systems, but who also want to be paid commensurably with our experience, i.e. as "senior developers".

Thus, these roles are being filled, as you state, by juniors/graduates who initially have no idea what they are getting into, and leave as soon as they realise what they have got themselves into.

If the employers/clients change their miserly ways, they would easily find experienced and willing developers to fill their "empty" positions.

I am now at the tail end of my career (after 40 years in IT) doing maintenance on a legacy system for multiple financial institutions. This package has been maintained and modified for more than 20 years now (not by me) and has a very low error-rate, but the ones left really get your attention and makes the work interesting. I will stay with this until my late 60's (as long as I remember how to log in), I love it and am well paid. Legacy all the way!

Which by definition is on legacy code if not a legacy application. Legacy almost certainly being none or inadequate unit tests, design and documentation.
You need to not only be technically astute, you need to know how software works. Okay it could be something as simple as changing a label, or it could be replacing all deprecated or ceased functionality so you can have SQL 2012 as a back end when the stuff was written for 2000. The older the software, the more customers, ( or you'd get rid of it), the bigger the investment, the greater the risk and revenue.
Only someone completely ignorant would put a junior, or a cookie cutter in such a role.
Worse still, even those of us who enjoy the challenges of maintenance programing would much prefer to work on a greenfield project.

So I agree the problems filling the role are totally self inflicted, and it's simply down to not getting their priorities straight.

About 80% of helpdesk calls are the same thing, usually password resets, account lockouts, etc. In the long run it's cheaper to implement service options for such service requests and and maintain a reduced Helpdesk team of more skilled staff on slightly better pay. However, it is also far cheaper to simply to outsource or offshore helpdesk when the volume of service requests for the other 20% is much higher. At least in the current economy where there is ample supply of lower cost human resources in the East. I am assuming of course the helpdesk positions that are difficult to fill are in a western(ish) economies where there is some snobbery too about helpdesk positions. Whereas, in India, or example, the helpdesk position is probably seen as a position that puts the employee on a path to a better life. First level helpdesks can be commodotised and rightly so; most of the time the SRs are the same and the responses are the same, so I would still push to implement self service and have a smaller, higher skilled helpdesk team who also have the skills to maintain and operate the self service solutions.

"In the long run it's cheaper to implement service options for such service requests and and maintain a reduced Helpdesk team of more skilled staff on slightly better pay."

So instead of hiring a person to talk to you, you want to spend money trying to hire a programmer to build in solutions to the problem instead? Good luck.

Having worked helpdesk, money is only part of the problem, but it is a big part. Helpdesk is where many IT people (like me) got into professional IT. But noone wants to keep a job where they only deal with complaints all day - and most of those from unrealistic/clueless end-users! Noone can endure that level of abuse for very long.

Add to that the need for good interpersonal AND good technical skills, and you soon find yourself in a quandary. Hire the good ones and figure on replacing them every 2-3 years as they move up/out for a less demeaning position, or pay lots to hire a couple of good ones and STILL run the risk of them bailing for a job as a network engineer, systems engineer, or developer.

And the idea of outsourcing to countries where the English spoken isn't the English your end-users are accustomed to worked so well for Dell that it only took them a year to reverse that mistake.

Within a year? Two? Haven't experienced that here. Granted that after spending almost 2 solid days in trying to get a set of recovery discs for a clients workstation, all the while being told by the outsourced Help that Dell's policy is NOT to allow end users to purchase them, which I knew was a blatant lie. In the final few minutes of the interaction I asked to speak with a supervisor, was told this was not possible. Asked to whom I was speaking, was told that information was not allowed to be divulged. My last question to the tech was in asking him who his immediate superior was. His reply, and really you must picture the typical accent from that area when he stated, "That would be Michael Dell, sir!". I have had little experience with Dells CS since and given any realistically feasible alternative in hardware purchases, I can assure that would have been my last. Nonetheless, your statement is encouraging. It is simply the first I had heard of it.

Okay put the *&*^&( on then...

I knew this particular post was rife with grammatical errors but I simply did not have the time to iron it out at the moment. Excuses... We all know what can be said of those. That said, and seeing the plus 2 votes your post garnered, I am left a bit perplexed as to exactly what point you were trying to get across to me. Honestly, in the interest of understanding or knowledge I indulge further clarification. Perhaps I miss the point altogether because of the way it is translated via the web page or perhaps because the post is not really one to be understood in a grammatical perspective. I sure as heck do not want to pick this post of mine to death with a fine tooth comb for grammatical errors! But what I see is Okay put the *&*^&( on then... as the body of your post. This leaves me shaking my head. Is that what you intended me to see?
Signed,
Confused but willing to learn

asking for their manager and garnering that response.

My instant response being "Well put the **^(() on then"

Tony's sympathising with your awful tech support experience, and suggesting that if he'd been told "That would be Michael Dell" when asking the supervisor's name, Tony's response would be "Well, put the *insert rude noun of your choice* on the line, then!"

I hope that helps

Thanks for the clarification guys. Now, my forehead needs a bit of attention. Excuse me a moment. :-]

failed to translate, certainly not the last either.

...but after less than a year, pulled it back to the US citing customer complaints. I have a corporate account with Dell and while I sometimes get that distinct Indian/Pakistani accent, it is much less noticeable. Most of the time I get a US-based tech. They have several call centers, but they learned that communication is the #1 problem on tech support calls (duh) and they didn't need to complicate the matter.

If you get product from their "business" line, with the 3-year warranties, the tech support is great. Generally, you get escalted quickly if you have the wit to run all the hardware tests (in the testing software) ahead of time. If you want repair parts, they'll mail you repair parts. If you want to mail the whole computer, you can do that too. The people you talk to are a mix of North American and some from the subcontient - but honestly, they're good. They're not using some lame-o staff. They even mail you recovery disks for free. (Well you pay up front for the warranty, but that's what it's for.) I'll repeat this, outside of parens: you have to pay for this service up-front by getting their better computers.

I've experienced this day/night contrast with HP as well. Woe to the customer of the consumer goods... but if you're running one of their expensive servers, you get access to pretty talented tech support. Again, North American and globally.

As long as I'm praising companies, if you want to buy American, a midsize screwdriver shop in the midwest called Bytespeed is good. Great customer service. Focused on the school market. I'd say their systems aren't as spiffy as Dell's, but they use Intel boards and standard parts, and a generic OEM install of Windows. Prices are comparable, but their warranty is five years, which is just right. If I ever stop building my own boxes, I'll just buy from Bytespeed.

And I learned the hard way that even when incorporating every last syllable of detail, including part numbers, they still send out something completely different. On multiple occasions.

Once globalization takes place (same price/pay ratio globally instead of $50 cents an hour for labor for a $800 piece of junk that nobody can afford) will "buying American" no longer matter, but a true one-world global economy/government would also hit those who've benefited from globalization the most...

5 year warranty is very attractive. Undecided as yet on their prices as I haven't had the time to research them. Still, I appreciate the tip.+1

Having built a team in the past, the most obvious problem with all these "positions" is the lack of honesty and reality of the potential employer!

Looks like not too many folks want to write about those IT jobs except lehnerus2000; however, here is something probably IT folks have not thought about:
If you think about it, the "Help Desk" jobs are for oversea and not for the USA and is because of the greed of companies who do not want to pay decent salaries to good technical people in the USA. I recall 15-20 years ago when any one calling the "help desk" would get an honest to goodness support in English they understood. However, now days most companies have ignorant people working the help desk in places like India, Mexico, Australia, South Africa, Costa Rica, etc. and the one who suffers most is the person needing the help. I recall calling the help desk and asking for someone who could speak Christian before they routed my call to India or some other country and told them that my company paid good money for good support and not to get pissed. So, it is not that it is hard to find people who can work the "help desk"...the companies are the ones who take those jobs oversea. As far as Managers for IT groups, I have not met one with good IT technical background and they have the misconception that a company is a one person's job...no wonder we are falling behind in everything. You cannot ask a good programmer to be a good hardware engineer as the programmer does not have the adequate background to be a good hardware engineer...the opposite is the same...no one can expect a hardware engineer to be an excellent programmer; however, in the narrow mind of most managers they think that one guy can do it all and in the process burn many good professionals. I have met managers with no college education and now that I think of only some companies in the Defense Industry have engineers as managers and they do an excellent job as they understand the way engineers think and talk. Also, most managers spend most of their time in meetings which are not productive at all and most engineers do not like that as it is a waste of time; however, I recall going to meetings when working for Defense, which were necessary, so different departments and even different companies were in sync with the project...again, I am talking about huge projects which were in the mega-millions of dollars budget.

Bottom line is that all those jobs are not hard to fill or to find the adequate people for them...it is the way companies do things now days and all for profits.

"...ignorant people working the help desk in places like India, Mexico, Australia, South Africa, Costa Rica, etc..."
Australia? I am pretty sure you can't afford Australian help desk staff! At the time I am writing this the Australian dollar is trading higher than the US dollar, so you are unlikely to get Australian helpdesk staff on US company books. I know it is hard to imagine Australia has a standard of living on par with the US, what with those pesky kangaroos leaping down the main streets of our cities, but please do some basic research before you make uninformed statements like this one. Moderators, please take more care not to allow "idiot" references into this blog, it is not professional and reduces its value.

What, do you think Great Britian is still sending prisoners over to prison colonies?

"for those who have not studied literature and specially [sic] the classics" is rather insulting to Christians whose native language is something other than American English, as well as to the vast majority of Americans who did not grow up speaking the same regional dialect you did.

Given the poster's usage and knowledge of the English language, it is not surprising that he has to use a euphamism as in "Christian" to describe what he would like to hear. I would also assume that he has the same level of knowledge of geography and believes that the Lions in the street in Johannesburg will eat the kangaroos given that JHB and Sydney are probably just next to each other.

I personally have had the great pleasure of working in the USA on several occassions, and can honestly say that I have never come across this level of ignorance.

BTW, this is not (as far as I understand) a blog in the USA, but an international one. Please correct me if I am wrong Mr moderator.

Oh!, before I forget, I am sure that the poster could probably avail himself of English lessons here in South Africa or Australia (where I have also had the pleasure of working).

local


So, Cicuta of the unspeaking donkey, your extrapolation is wrong. Anybody living in Australia will find that a US helpdesk is less helpful than an Australian helpdesk. And vice versa.
Extrapolating from your insular experience to claim that US helpdesk is best, universally, is just plain silly.

Seems to me you are from Australia and I understand you being pissed at the truth. You have to experience talking technical stuff with some one from a different country and that is the case here in the USA.

Most IT professionals from outside the US have already experienced "talking technical stuff with someone from a different country" and don't understand the American reluctance to work with "foreigners."

TR is an international site, with an international membership. Not everybody will have the same cultural context you do, and some may take issue with cultural references. Intentionally insulting those from other countries who read your posts, take issue, and respond is not well-tolerated by the membership.

Lord knows you are missed. It would be exhilarating to see his response to this. Nonetheless, I too have been all over this vast country and have never encountered this Christian dialect of English mentioned here. Considering the long history of the belief, one would think that if such a thing truly existed, those with more than a high school education would be up in arms, so to speak, in making an effort to effect its change.
Further note:
To those who might add this, I acknowledge that my own English might be a target of assassination by Mr. Santee Welding. One thing for sure, my reply to his post would be one made after several hours of contemplation and rewrites. Heck, it might even span several days to make sure I interpreted his true meaning correctly. Still, my respect remains for his manner of provoking thought with his mastery of the language. Very dearly missed, he is.

.

I don't miss him one bit! As I recall, his criticism wasn't so much about our English, but rather over what we were talking about, and it was insulting.

also a lot deeper than one could at first glance expect.
He did have a point when he said something, but it was of his own creation.
So, for those not inclined to look for the point, the best option was to pass it by. Or let it pass over one's head.
But we oughtn't ban other people's pleasures (as harms none) should we?

As I remember, his point (to me, anyway) was that technology was making our society ugly, and that was revolting to him. It seemed like he'd just assume be rid of it. I agreed with him up to a point, that as technologists we could do a lot better. Even so, he came back with the insults, seeming to take pleasure in it. He didn't see any redeeming value in technology, and since I couldn't agree with him that far, he slammed me. To me, he was intolerant. Yes, he had a point, but his behavior did not garner respect with me.

I don't think what he does rises to the level of a ban, but I think he deserves to be disregarded.

he always had something else in mind than the obvious.
I don't know what he might have been getting at with you, but there's a good chance he wasn't saying what you think he was saying.
Imagine two people talking about clouds. One is talking about rain clouds, but the other is talking about the gas clouds from which stars form. The former is going to feeI that the latter is wrongheaded, and probably willfully dense.
The latter, of course, knows what the former is talking about, but doesn't really care about that level of clouds.

Now, Richard, rest his soul, could have been specific about his meaning, sure.
But I think he felt that would have been counterproductive, as part of his aim was to make people think.

was , more so than anyone I have ever corresponded with, absolutely essential. Once having taken the bait to lash out emotionally, true understanding of his posts were left in the dust.
One should bear in mind in correspondence with others that 9 out of 10 times an insult is weighted as such by the person interpreting the message. If on the surface it appeared that Santee Welding were singling you out for a personal assault, you would be well advised to read, re-read and repeat after clearing your head before making a response to him. This was evident for a couple of reasons. The primary reason would be that your first perception was rendered false and if the first condition were interpreted otherwise an emotional response would likely render his point evidentially.

NT

I have a strong introspective streak. Hearing these comments, I went back and reviewed the comment threads I remember with Santeewelding, thinking, "Maybe I misjudged him." (Google helped me out nicely) My reaction to his comments is less severe now than it was at the time, but I stand by my criticism that he was intolerant. He was poetic, and thought-provoking, though in a most judgmental way. In his comments on education, a topic that seemed to be central to his stance in this forum, he reminds me of John Taylor-Gatto, who is worth a read, though he should be taken with some grains of salt re. his ideas on education reform. I think his most worthwhile comments concerned our rigidity of thought, and I welcomed those.

No matter how hard I tried, though, I didn't find what he said that insightful, because I already knew where he was coming from, for the most part. I agree with his criticism of the state of computing, where I saw his harshest comments, but disagree strongly with his judgment of it. He made assumptions about my motivations that I don't regard as truthful. At one point he chastised me for not being more forceful, condemning computing as he did. He all but called me an apologist.

What he said wasn't some mystery to me to be realized by contemplation. If you benefitted from his commentary, then great. I guess I should amend what I said earlier, that he deserved to be disregarded. Let's just say I didn't find his comments helpful, but I can see that some of you did. To each their own. I have my approach to the problem he was addressing. He had his. I found his approach a turn-off.

Now, he also wasn't trying to be objective, at all, so it's very possible that he was saying that: "Listen, I am using these machines - I have my opinions, but you! You're one of those behind them, so to you it must be more than opinion! The state of things is deplorable to me, but to you it must be either by your will or against your will, since your will can directly affect it."

I am extrapolating, of course. I don't know what you were talking about, then.

I also don't think he was intolerant. He was very uncompromising, but I never saw him write off anybody.
If anything, he was capable of expecting excellence from people, even if they had a record for not living up to his expectations.

Not trying to convert you, though, that'd be some kind of futile...

"Listen, I am using these machines - I have my opinions, but you! You're one of those behind them, so to you it must be more than opinion! The state of things is deplorable to me, but to you it must be either by your will or against your will, since your will can directly affect it."

Your summation of what he was up to resonates with how I interpreted his comments as well, and in that regard I think he gave me and others he complained about too much credit. I have had no part in creating the computer systems we have today, though I have written some software that people have used on them. I am trying to influence things in this realm towards a direction he'd approve of, but I see myself as a small part of what I think needs to be a larger effort. "I can only do so much," is the way I view it. I also explained that I don't have all the answers for how to solve the situation, but I am at least searching for some. I think I have some good goals in mind. I tried to get that across to him on several occasions. In the end he didn't believe me. He thought *he* was the one trying to draw me out of the darkness, that I was still some lost fool, no matter what I thought I was doing, and that I was still contributing to the problem he complained about. I tried to explain, "Look. Computing is still in the process of becoming. There is still potential to influence it, and being here, and advocating for my POV is one of the ways I'm trying to do that." He still didn't buy it.

I have had conversations with people in the past, sometimes privately, who've read Justin's blog, and who have indicated to me they want to try to get beyond the crap that is computing today. They were interested in what I had to say. Those few contacts are one reason I've decided to keep at it here. The other is Justin is interested in what I have to say, as well. Santee didn't know about this. What galled me is he presumed he did. He assumed too much, but clearly thought he knew everything there was to know about the people who come to these forums, and gave our challenges to his notions no regard whatsoever. I call that intolerant. He was willing to listen up to a point, but only so long as what I or anyone else said agreed with his pre-existing POV. "Presumptuous" is a word that comes to mind.

One of his hot-button issues was when Justin, I and others would get into talking about programming. He took "programming" to mean an insistence on hard, cold logic applied to the whole world. I saw where he was coming from with that, and, again, tried to explain the "method to my madness," that I was trying to advance the discussion to something better, and again, he didn't believe me. So it always went like that. There was no convincing him (speaking of "futile").

It seemed like he had had a really bad experience with technology. He saw what we were discussing and came in already fully convinced that we were part of the problem, rather than part of any solution.

As to whether converting me is "some kind of futile," what changes my mind is when someone or something else helps explain what I've experienced in a more complete way than what I thought I understood. It has happened before...

Conversion is Subversion, so one can never hope to turn someone as they are to one's side; they can be twisted to one's side, becoming something less than they are, or they can be enticed to seek one's side by themselves, thus remaining true to themselves.

So that was what that futility reference was about. Also that it's not really important that you change your mind about Richard, if it didn't matter to him, why should it matter to me, eh? I guess I'm just trying to alleviate some kind of memory of aggravation, that might be explainable as something else than willful provocation or belittlement. Heal some collateral damage, if you will.

How about this for a thought experiment:
What if, instead of accusing you guys of applying that programming mindset to the whole world, he was asking you to tell him what you would see/think/do *if* you were to do so?
Maybe he was talking about a larger scope than computers and technology all along? As per the clouds analogy I mentioned.

Re. "Conversion is subversion"

Hmm. That must be a disquieting thought to those who have chosen to change their religion...

"What if, instead of accusing you guys of applying that programming mindset to the whole world, he was asking you to tell him what you would see/think/do *if* you were to do so?"

I think that went without saying. His intent about that was fairly clear (to me, anyway), though I'd take it a step further. He didn't want us to talk about "what if?" I got the distinct impression he'd be happy if we left the profession altogether, forgot about computers, and "freed our minds." What I've been describing is that I tried to convince him otherwise, that there's potential here for something *he'd* like. It was a bit of a tug of war between us. He was trying to draw people more towards his POV. I was trying to draw him more towards mine. Perhaps he picked up on that, and that was one reason he responded so strongly to me. Looking back on it, I think being here, and relating to people as I did was a terrible example to give him in that regard, because, at least in the forum in which I hung out, he found the prevailing consciousness pretty objectionable.

Thought of more to follow up...

Since those conversations of a few years ago, I have broadened my scope beyond "computers being the neatest thing," but it wasn't because of my conversations with Santee. I haven't found that someone badgering me is conducive to broadening my view...

What I've begun to see is more along the lines of science, of challenging old assumptions about what computing is, and trying to relate models of different things to each other in ways that make some sense. A lot of that is thanks to listening intently to Alan Kay. He's pretty critical of computing as it's existed for the last 30 years, but he rarely directs his ire at specific people. He criticizes the end product a lot more, and talks generally about the mindset that created it (which suggests, "You know who you are.") He also offers interesting ideas to chew on, though you have to be curious to get them (if not immediately), or else they just go over your head like a big "nothing burger."

Different approaches work for different people. I've struggled to discover this for myself. I try to convey information in the way that makes the most sense to me, but I've seen many instances where I don't get my idea across to someone else at all. It's not merely a disagreement, where we understand where each other is coming from, but differ on something. Our underlying notions about what's counted as legitimate information is different. I've come to accept this, but I have more to learn more about how to deal with it constructively.

I am very interested in this "incompatible baselines" problem, where the framework for communication itself is invalidated by the basic expectations of participants. I've been talking to Chad about deduction vs. induction for a long time, trying to figure out how the mechanics of the mismatch we have on that works.

Studying how something plumb doesn't work is surprisingly challenging, because applying "fixes" is not the point. The point is not to figure out which rote or kluge or hack will circumvent the problem.

It is true that I seem to have a problem with converts. I have no problem with people having a religion, or with people abandoning their religion, but when I see people abandon one set of dogma for another, I get worried. It seems to me that religion (or political orientation or whatever other dogma there is) in those cases serves to feed a personality disorder, and that is never good. It seems that those converts invariably "make up" for their past beliefs by embracing their new ones with increased zeal. Or maybe it is that they recognize their past abandonment of their belief as a betrayal of their chosen type (the believer), and make up for that with the increased zeal. In any case, I notice that those kinds of converts have very little, if anything, to offer.
I guess I also have no problem with people adopting a religion, if before they had none (bear in mind that Atheism is a religious dogma, so that doesn't count for this exception). It's the swapping of zealously held dogma that freaks me out, it's like some kind of rabid schizophrenia.

Hm, I think I had more to say, but I can't reach it now...

This discussion is starting to wander afield from the original subject, but what the hey.

The discussions that get frustrating for me are where people mix religious dogma with a notion of science, or politics (though the mixing with science is the most frustrating), because there is no point where you can mutually discover new ideas. It's just bashing people's heads together and seeing who "wins" the argument with the best psychological jousts. It's mindless.

I have found that unfortunately a lot of people have this notion that scientists (or at least some) have found "the truth" (rather than finding models with limits that seem to help us work with reality better), and it's been rather interesting to figure out how people determine which scientists are worth listening to, and which are not. It's not based on any real notion of science, but rather from a more religious perspective: honors (which relates to hierarchy), values, and literature. A lot of the people I encounter who are like this are also atheists, though that's probably just due to where I am. If I were in the Bible Belt, I'd see something different. In my interaction with atheists, I came to the same conclusion you did: They are religious, but most of them won't admit it, preferring to say that "science and reason are their guide." I have found their ability to deal with either wanting in many cases... Doing my own little scientific analysis of their claim, that "God doesn't exist," I came to the conclusion that science is agnostic on the issue. I think atheists would have a point, though, if they were to ask, "Would we have any notion of God--would we even be thinking about it--if the Bible never existed?" In other words, science would seem to be on their side of the issue, because absent the existence of religious text, science would give no indication that a supernatural deity exists, whatever name you want to give it, and we would have no notion of it. I would say in response that there are things which humanity has learned to do which have produced positive outcomes that science currently has trouble analyzing, finding out, "What is this thing, and what makes up this notion that we say works?" So saying that religious texts should be ignored out of hand is in my mind dangerous, because if we just reject everything that science can't yet model, we give up quite a bit, including education. This isn't to say that science will never give us an idea of how these things work. It's just that it doesn't have good models for them now.

I do believe in keeping religion out of science, though. I've seen "religious-scientific" arguments, and what's frustrating about them is that people use it to try to cover for their religion, saying that they're giving incontrovertible fact from science, and then further try to shut you up, saying that if you disagree with them, for whatever reasons, you're being "anti-science." They treat certain scientific writings as holy writ, and others as apostasy (or as they call it, "junk"). Their notions are derived from a very old view of science from the 19th century that modern science has long since discarded as invalid. When I try to discuss science with them, it goes nowhere, and boils down to a religious argument, which I'm not willing to have with them.

The sense I have so far (which is open to change) is that the only way to deal with the baseline problem is through education (not necessarily what you find in school, though. It depends on which teachers and materials they have, really), but that is not much solace, because you run up against the problem of, "You can bring a horse to water, but you can't make it drink." If people are not curious, unwilling to change their own mind in order to look at things in a new way, then no amount of education is going to get through to them. It's really up to them, not you or me.

I think it's true what you say about those horses that won't drink, it's not up to you or me.
But then, we don't have to...there are plenty of people that are actually worth talking to

Religion, on the other hand, has been around since Ugg and Arg first wondered what made the wind blow.

The problem is not that the two are incompatible, but that people with no training in the scientific method think of science itself as a religion..

when its myths are shown to be false.

Re. your point that religion and science are not incompatible, I agree. To me, it's really a matter of understanding the nature of each, and understanding how they are different.

Re. those who "think of science as a religion"

I would like to clarify this. From what I have seen, it's not that they think of science as a religion. It's that they act religious around science. What really threw me for a loop for a while was I thought that they valued science, and would be willing to discuss evidence, findings that contradict, etc. This turned out not to be true. In fact, when I dug deeper I found that many who purported to value science really didn't. They were using it as a prop, like I said, a cover for their religion. They used pieces of it to validate their underlying beliefs. When evidence would come along that invalidated them, they'd find some way to say it was "invalid."

When I say "religion" one might think that I would be able to describe it, but that's tough to do. The only reason I feel I can say this is I've seen a few disavow science when I got down to talking about what it is. Yet, they still wanted to believe in some absolute truths, "facts," that deny the validity of religions, that deny the validity of our civilization, the way most people live, etc. It all seemed to center around their difficulty in dealing with their own existence, and that of everyone else.

Not to say that all atheists are like this. I have a friend who is an atheist, and we don't even get into this stuff.

The best definition of the difference between science and religion and the difficulties that poses I've ever heard came from a Jesuit priest:

"Religion is what we believe. Science is what we can see. When what we can see contradicts what we believe, we must change our beliefs to match observations. This is a most difficult challenge. "

In my experience, most people fail miserably at this challenge.

Science to me is a process of discovery of truth that unfortunately gets hijacked by some people who are more interested in the outcome matching their dogma than seeking truth - like man-made global warming. Religion can sometimes be the same way. It takes someone who is really only interested in the pure truth - from whatever source - to be able to take both and look for compatibilities. If the source of a particular truth is divine in nature, so be it. There doesn't have to be this exclusionary attitude many have that God and science can't coexist. This attitude prevails, however, because there are many that reject certain discovery methods or results simply because of prejudice or fear, because knowledge compels action and change and most people are comfortable where they are.

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@NickNielsen:

"Religion is what we believe. Science is what we can see. When what we can see contradicts what we believe, we must change our beliefs to match observations. This is a most difficult challenge. "

In the broadest stroke, this comes close to the difference, IMO, but it's a bit misleading. I get a little worried when someone says, "I only believe what I can see," because I wonder what filters they're applying to what they see. If they're just taking in what's obvious to them, they're going to be fooling themselves a lot of the time. The question is whether what's fooling them will hurt them (or cause them to hurt us, or something we all care about). It's true that in science all of the information that gets analyzed must come through the senses. What's unique about science is it's developed methods for checking for and correcting what our brains usually get wrong. Alan Kay has studied science education in a deep way for many years. He's said the biggest hurdle is getting people to realize that what they perceive and understand is separate from reality. What we understand of reality through our senses is a version of it. It's not totally divorced from it, but unaided by experimentation and instruments, it's a "funhouse mirror," even though to most people it doesn't look or feel like that at all.

A mistake that people educated in science in school often make is they assume scientists "read" Nature, that by doing what they do, they understand it completely, and better than the layman. Those who pay more attention understand that scientists' views change over time as new theories are borne out, but the faith still exists that they know "the truth." There's a natural inclination from this to think that we should just listen to what they say without question. A concept that seems to be alien to the aforementioned atheists I was talking about is there are times when we ask questions of science, and science says, "We don't know yet." I've tried discussing this concept with them, and they think I'm just trying to cover for ignorance. That's not it at all. I'm trying to describe the state of some science, that it's in an indeterminate state at this time, at least with respect to the question at hand.

What's kind of interesting is there are postmodernists who see this and think that science is essentially false. They start with the assumption that science puts itself forward as an authority that knows the truth, but then notice these changes in view, and say, "Well obviously they don't know what's true, because what they say keeps changing." Their response, though, is to not listen to science at all, because, ironically, they consider it unreliable.

@blarman:

I do find among some people that there is a demand for truth. They must have it, or else they're not satisfied. If I try to express the truth as best I know it (that what they're talking about is not as black and white as they think) they think I'm trying to lead them astray from a standpoint of ignorance, when in fact I'm trying to use reason to make sense of, and explain what I've studied. Reason is vacuous to some people. it's seems bereft of content, which to them is the only conveyor of knowledge.

These are both misperceptions of science (that it conveys truth). I talk a little more about that below.

I agree that scientists know their subject better than the layman, but because they are human, they are just as capable of making mistakes with what they've observed as any of us would be. They are capable of all of the conceits that any other human being can possess. They are also prone to "believing what they see," which can lead them astray. What science teaches is that skepticism teaches better than credulity. Even so, skepticism can be taken to an extreme, so some assumptions end up holding sway, or else we would be paralyzed, just sitting around questioning everything. The point is not to question everything. The point is to be conscious of one's assumptions, be guarded about them, make them as small as possible, and test them when the opportunity arises.

Another aspect to it is modern science knows that since it's a human endeavor, human experience is going to influence what scientists understand of what they see. Scientists bring something to what they observe. They are not "reading" Nature. In some sense they get a better picture of it by observation, but they also impose a bit of themselves on what they see. That's inevitable.

These are all reasons it's important for scientists to check and compare against each other, and it's the reason there are disputes among them. It's to be expected. When you hear the term "consensus," that's a red flag that scientists have "gone off the road" and have wavered into faith and/or politics. Consensus often happens when an untested assumption gains currency within a discipline for one reason or another. What's kind of sad is that "consensus" is not rare in science. There have been many instances when one scientific discipline or another has fallen into consensus, and as best I can tell, the consensus, whatever it's been, has always been wrong. The sad part is this habit has actually hurt people, because sometimes it's occurred in medicine.

The important thing to remember about scientists and science is that scientists seek the truth, but understand they will never reach it. Modern science understands that what it generates is models with limits, which we can use to deal with reality better. It doesn't generate truth. It generates intermediates that let us use reason to act more in "agreement" with reality (I couldn't think of a better term).

I think the only discipline that can really claim to find truth with precision is mathematics, and then only truth about abstractions. Since it's something that completely exists in one's mind, it's the only thing we can completely understand.