IT PEOPLE

It's still true -- although not as true as it was 35 years ago when I entered the profession -- that IT tends to select for people with weak people skills, people who are more comfortable dealing with technology than with other people.

So you're more likely to see eccentricity in the postings of our community than other groups.

What possesses the IT professional's mind is things of his own making, ideas born of his own spirit, more so than the mind of a person who spends more time interacting with other people and normalizing his thoughts to the group.

There are many people that consider themselves IT people. From the home computer builder to the IBM network administrator. I think they all have important insight as to solving problems as well as helping others to relieve stress by posting a joke or two. IT is such a broad scope of careers and personalities. Besides, what is normal? How boring would life be if everything was the same and "normal"?

Ok so IT people are from all walks of life and are naturally creative people. People in other professions pale in comparison to the mind of an IT person

I have yet heard anyone in the world to define what a "normal" human being is??? :)

Several regular people here are not actually working in IT at all. There are many people from many woks of life here, some find light hearted humour like Marvin the Martian (who was reborn as an IT icon a few years back)just normal light hearted banter.

I think it's a matter of personalities starting to Come out in people as they start to get known better. People get more conversational and less 'starched' with thier comments, unless in response to direct PC questions.

I think this is a trait of humans in general when they become aquainted, not just in IT.

I like the twisted side of people, that's what makes them people and not drones. Shock value rules and that's all there is to it. YBNORML ?

My experience in TR discussions over a period of two years is that we are all curious people, anxious to learn about all kinds of things, and keen to share our ideas and experiences with others.

I have myself started many non-technical discussions over these two years, and many have been very rewarding, in that they have evoked from people all manner of viewpoints, and quite often very personal things which they might otherwise share only with their closest friends, or even a priest perhaps.

I know IT people from the lowliest (probably myself when it comes to technical knowledge) to the most brilliant. They are NOT different to any other group of people.

I could refer to specific people whom I have encountered, but there is no need. Sufficient to say that they have families, care about their children, may belong to any political or religious group, and do normal human things.

I have not detected any special mystique amongst IT people.

I can't say that I've seen too many IT people that were THAT different from the rest of the world. There are strange people where ever you go, regardless of profession. Of course, I have seen my share of IT people who are legends in their own minds. And have had not one, but TWO bosses explain to me that IT people were 'special' (as in they should all be on the short bus??) One told me that I should stop having lunch with the operators, because it was beneath me and another said that the 'average' person couldn't possibly comprehend what we do. Horse sh*t. It's a job and if you have an interest, you can learn it.

People in the sciences and other technical fields have a great respect for IT people. The concept of "structural decomposition" comes into play.

Programmers have to be able to see how a program works at a macro level, then look at the code, which may have loops nested ten or twenty deep. Add to that the infrastructural code of the operating system and the firmware, and the artifacts we deal with are the deepest ones that humans have ever built.

A mathematician once said, "Compared to even a simple computer program with its twenty or so levels of decomposition, the average mathematical theory, with its two or three levels, is practically flat. Computer programmers have to be much brighter than mathematicians."

I know you're pretty proud of IT and IT mentality being accepted these days but believe me, IT staff are not unique at all in this respect. I have seen far more 'out of the box' creativity come from engineers, more mechanical aptitude from mechanics and speed techs, etc. There are MANY MANY fields where the IT brain just doesn't hold up as the superior mind.

I think you have a bit of pride mixed up with a whole slew of arrogance going on here.

Labels are an interesting phenomenon when applied to people via generalisms. (i.e. all IT professionals are x and all CPAs are y)

Do we all fit in the x mold? Are all sysadmins megalomaniacal? Are all programmers socially challenged misfits?

IF the molds do indeed fit is it because those archetypical personality types seek careers in which they fit said mold or is it because such careers change a person in such ways?

IF the generalities do not fit, why are such prejudices propagated and do these perceptions change those whom are colored with such broad brushes?

Are we our chosen careers in so far to suggest that we become that career archetype as a whole person; mind, body, soul? Or are we just all unique individuals who are just doing some job or another just like any other Joe Shmoe; each with their own habits and character flaws that make each their own person at the end of the day?

Ah well... It is so much easier to apply some labels than it is to apply some thought.

Sure, some people are not suited to a career in IT (though that term is so broad as to include such diverse careers as programmers, network engineers, sysadmins, help desk, hardware designers, desktop technicians, project managers, etc...). Yet this is as true as saying that some are not suited to be bouncers, managers, doctors, lawyers, journalists, etc... And yes, this is as true as saying that some people lend themselves well to whatever they wish to endevour towards, the 'potential jacks of all trades' perhaps.

Does this mean that any one career is more special than any other? Again I suppose that in response I would ask if we are our jobs or not?

Of course, I too have held many diverse positions of employ in my life and have learned that sometimes the only thing that differenciates a janitor from an engineer is not ability but circumstance.

That's exactly what is needed. My point is that not everyone has that, or can learn that.

i too have 'grown' into IT ( no degree - school of hard knocks )

Also some people such as 'yourself' can probably adapt to anything they try.

I have users here, that have been using the same system for years and years who continually lock their account out, log into the wrong database, delete files etc etc having been shown over and over and over and over again....I couldn't imagine them being in IT showing/helping someone else and they admit themselves that!

I am sure in your role you would agree that 'aptitude' plays an important role for any career!

I suppose I could never imagine myself being a surgeon... not matter how long or how much training i received - not because I could not learn it but my 'aptitude' for it would not be there.

:) :)

to have a better grasp on the operations since they are involved in the entire organization. Unlike other professionals who tend to focus on a specialized area.

It would be nice if we could walk a mile in our co-worker's shoes to gain an understanding. Unfortunately, neither the time nor training is reasonable. Otherwise why hire talent if the job could just be OTJ.

The answer is supposed to be effective project leaders and managers that have matured in the company (or posses the requisite experience)that bridge the gaps between business units. I don't think people stay with companies long enough to gain that advantage and companies don't foster it these days either. Unfortunately we end up with career managers or promotion of the wrong people resulting in kludged business processes.

I'm amazed at the companies that succeed despite their own best efforts to sink the ship. Imagine what some of these could be doing if business process was embraced?

Certifications are for morons!

a good thing. It would get rid of the rift raft and stablize salaries. Think about real estate or travel agents... if there was no controls then everyone would be one. Why because there are no barriers to entry.

IT is similiar to CPAs, engineers, and lawyers. Where in the !@!# is the financial information, patents, and lawsuit details kept? On freaking IT systems. All that IT security and system design is important to the operation or production of those professional fields! DUH

The problem with IT licensing as it currently exists is that it is pretty much all vendor-generated and product-related. IT licensing that pertains specifically to certain technologies is broken. It produces marketing drones and vendor billboards in the form of supposed IT "professionals". That's not to say that, for instance, all Microsoft-certified IT professionals are useless. I'm a card-carrying member of the Evil Empire myself, in that regard. This only means that the certifications themselves are nearly useless, generally speaking. If you have any ability to correctly assess the consequences of your actions, you'll realize that looking for certifications in someone's resume is gambling that this person actually learned something useful as an incidental effect of whatever process he or she used to cram for the certification exams.

If IT licensing is to become widely useful and to begin to measure relevant characteristics of IT professionals, it must become more principles-based. Technology and vendor dependency in licensing must be foregone in favor of testing for understanding of general principles. Technology- and vendor-based licensing cannot even ensure that it will accurately measure anyone's ability to correctly use the technologies and vendor products that are represented, let alone any real understanding of the principles and requirements of the job at hand.

A principles-based approach to certification, on the other hand, can more easily be made relevant. True, employers will still be forced to find some way of determining the familiarity of a given applicant with the technologies the employer uses. That can, however, easily be covered by entry exams at the employing company level, and any company that is not willing to simply take the applicant's word for his or her experience should currently be employing such tactics anyway, since the vendor-sponsored certifications that currently exist tend to be shaky at best in their usefulness.

While I have not yet pursued (or had the time to pursue) CompTIA certifications aside from the A+ I've had for several years, the above is much of the reasoning behind my preference, in principle, for CompTIA tests and their vendor-independent cousins for certification. CISSP and Security+ certifications strike me as significantly more useful for determining fitness of a given IT professional to an IT job than a Cisco- or Microsoft-related certification, for isntance. Unfortunately, while the CISSP certification seems to be in some demand at present, the industry seems to be continuing in its trend of relying ever-more heavily on vendor certs.

Hmm. With a little more research and editing, this would have been a great front-page article for TechRepublic. Too bad they don't return emails.

These days, when someone claims to know his way around hardware, what he usually means is "I know which slot I can plug this card into! I know what type of RAM this motherboard will take!" There aren't so many people now that say they know hardware and know that some cabling can be used in drop ceilings and some not, due to toxins released by the insulation when the "not" variety is exposed to heat. There aren't, by the same token, so many people that have ever had any inkling how to terminate CAT5 UTP.

In fact, there aren't even all that many people that know what CAT5 UTP is without being told. They'll just refer to everything as "patch cable" or "ethernet wiring", without realizing that the wiring isn't associated with Ethernet except in common misconceptions, or that "patch cable" means "cheap, rather than solid core". This is even among people that supposedly know hardware.

As such, I'm not surprised a network flunkie didn't immediately know what to do with a coil of wire and a crimper when told to terminate cabling. Imagine the confusion if you asked for crossover termination.

The fact that someone doesn't necessarily remember how to line up the wires doesn't actually bother me much. What bothers me is that people have often never even contemplated the idea of terminating cables themselves, and thus have no idea how to go about figuring out how to do it properly. It's not really all that difficult to find diagrams for RJ-45 termination online.

Maybe I'm just showing my age. I'm not one of those 20 year old MCSEs wandering around pretending to know what they're doing.

Do employers even ask for A+ certification any longer?