Ethics, Professionalism, and IT

It used to mean simply, "engaging in an activity for pay." That once was all that needed to be said, for becoming a member of the business world implied everything else in your posting. If you expected to stay in "business," you had to have adequate ethics, training, competence, and people skills. The very least that would happen to a person who didn't meet those standards would be to not have any customers, and choose between another line of work or relocating to a community with lower standards, such as the frontier. The worst would be the wrath of angry customers: having one's shop and tools of the trade destroyed, being tarred and feathered, even lynched.

It's sad that this is now definition #2 in the dictionary. Defintion #1 is yours. We can no longer assume that anyone who engages in an activity for pay, and has been successful enough to survive until the day that we enter his shop, has the qualities that were once taken for granted.

And this shift has taken a huge toll on our civilization. Rich, powerful "business" people are routinely found to be lacking in "professionalism." We've had to establish gigantic, expensive, intrusive, clumsy branches of government to oversee the "business" world and the "professions." In addition to the taxes that support these value-subtractors, malpractice insurance companies and attorneys siphon off a huge portion of our GDP. In addition, the quasi-governmental bureaucracies such as HMOs who second-guess and delay every decision made by the true "professionals" reduce the quality and effectiveness and increase the cost and risk of the very services they (perhaps sincerely if naively and ineptly) claim to oversee.

And don't get me started on the advertising "profession." One of the fattest, most entrenched, and consumer-immune parasites, it takes a big cut off the top of our economy without providing a shred of the information we most desperately need about the providers of the goods and services it touts: their professionalism.

Work has gotten so complex that it's difficult for customers (whether internal or arm's-length) to judge whether it's any good. Communities have gotten so large and people have gotten so mobile that almost every time we need a service, we have to seek out a new provider whom we don't know and can't even find a reference for.

Civilization, our most glorious creation, has outgrown us. Instead of shaping it, we're being dragged along by it.

perhaps the source of the problem you are having is what I like to refer to as the Old peoples symdrom. Unfortunatly I to suffer from this dredded complaint but since the flux of "eccentric" and "special" people entering the field then it seem we must loosen the Belt a bit. the only down side too this type of thinking is now I feel a little nauseus knowing that perhaps one day they might have to take charge of somthing.

Particularly when money is being made off the software as to me this is the worst form of Piracy. Or the other side where someone installs Pirate Software and OS on Upgrades repairs and doesn't charge for them or maybe a nominal fee. It makes it that much harder for those of us who are doing the right thing and is often the difference between getting the job and not.

But then again a few weeks ago I got in a computer loaded with Win 98 SE that needed reloading as a game had corrupted the HDD to such an extent it was unrecoverable. Well it was an old unit that was originally loaded with 95 then upgraded to 98 and then 98 SE. The owner brought in all the install Cd's and I had 3 just for the OS now to do the right thing from MS prospective I should have loaded each OS individually about 3 hours work instead I just installed a copy of 98 SE and used the customers Product Code. While wrong the person in question did have the right to use the final copy and received no advantage from the install other than being less expensive in my labor and it saved me a lot of time that would otherwise have been a wasted effort.

I haven't really run across any business who is using all pirate software ever and since that is my primary work I probably see more small business than the average person but what does make it hard is when they buy from elsewhere and get pirate software or I get a job when they change their IT people I sometimes find illegal copies of some software installed but most often it is a case of the company being unwilling to properly track their software so it may end up getting installed twice or more and another copy/s remains unused provided that they have the correct licenses I do not worry about things like this as it would be a nightmare attempting to track down exactly where the software should be installed.

I've occasionally run across pirate copies of Windows and Office installed on workstations and in every case they have been on machines that where brought second hand so I try to avoid working on these and simply refuse to work on any that have blatant "cracked copies" of Windows and the like.

While not the perfect answer this is one area that has far too many "Shades of Grey" for my liking and I try to avoid them where possible.

The ones that I get worked up about are Techs that install pirate copies of Windows XP and only charge a nominal fee. While I do refuse to work on these units as they have always been "Home" units in my experience I do recommend that the person contact MS and file a formal complaint I also have a leaflet printed up showing people how to spot the difference between real and pirate copies and furnish these to all my potential customers as well as having contact points and a copy of a MS EULA on my web page.

Actually the last bit was a bit of a nightmare as well because MS got upset by me using their actual EULA on the Web even though it had direct e-mail links and phone numbers to MS to report any offending software. Eventually when I made direct contact with a person high enough up the food chain at MS it was OK'd but what was scary was that junior people where willing to take me to court rather than ask for me to remove the material and links. So from my limited experience with the Anti Piracy side of MS I will not go out of my way to help them as they have continually made complaints to me about making public their contact points and using the same material as they hand me as handouts to potential customers. Incidental before I constructed that part of the page I did get approval to use the material but six months latter someone at MS took offense to the fact that I was using the very same material in an attempt to help their Anti Piracy Side of the business.

With mixed messages like that life becomes very difficult.

Col

...which I have often thought needed to be addressed in soooo many different ways. I thought especially telling were the first two points: A professional learns every aspect of the job. An amateur skips the learning process whenever possible.

A professional carefully discovers what is needed and wanted. An amateur assumes what others need and want.

These in particular are qualities I look for when hiring - the ability to research (a customers needs) and the ability to educate (yourself on the end products and the customer pain points).

Having run into people all over, I agree that this topic should be addressed: software piracy is the tip of the iceberg - and in IT one of my BIGGEST peeves is the "I am great and you are a stupid user" attitude that many IT professionals have. If you cannot empathize with users, you have no business being in IT.

Yes, I never attended any technical school, but I did receive my A+ certification last year.

After I became certified, will be writing my Network+ exam in about two weeks of this posting, I have changed my ethics.

I used to copy programs for my friends, just a few and my family, however, after I was certified I have not once used a different product key on a computer. I was lucky that I got a few product keys from an auction and they were the ones that worked with those cds.

I have made sure that I follow the strictist guideline of not to break any copyright infringements because I am afraid of losing my certifications.

Not everyone out there has a bad conscience. Take a look around you. It's the person and what they believe in. Don't make judgement calls then ask questions later. It could get you into a lot of trouble.

Just my thoughts...

?The hallmark of an occupation calling itself "professional" is a shared set of values, a shared set of standards, and shared expectations.?
--That's an entertaining notion since most of the computer industry leaders can't even seem to stick to one set of standards.

?Anyone can call themselves a mechanic; only those with ASE are professional.?
--And which one will fix your car?

?certifications are required as evidence for professional competence almost universally.?
--On that note:
One day I helped someone fix their home computer. This person had a degree in Information Systems. They had spent hours on Microsoft's web site looking for drivers and changing settings. When I came to help the first thing I did was check where the speaker wires were going. The speakers were plugged into the microphone jack. The point here is that all that fancy book-learnin' and still can't see the forest for the trees. Just because you read a book and pass a test doesn't mean that you have the skills or temperament/patience for the career.
As for me, I've been working on computers since I was 8, back in the days when you could save a program onto audio cassette, and back when modem was something you set phone receiver on. I still spend my lunch hours reading various white papers and spend numerous hours doing research at home, off hours. In my opinion I don't need a piece of paper telling me what I already know. I do my job, I do it well, and I enjoy it.

Side notes:
?A professional carefully discovers what is needed and wanted. An amateur assumes what others need and want. ?
--IT Guy: You need firewall and anti virus software
--CEO: Really?

?A professional earns high pay. An amateur earns low pay and feels it?s unfair.?
--Just because I don't make that much doesn't make me unprofessional, it just means I have a smaller collection of ties.

and it is equally bad, and is the dark side of "professionalism."

And that is the organizations that sprout up, charge fees, and get their agenda before law makers to force their certifications on everyone. I can give you four examples: American Bar Association, American Medical Association, American Psychological Association, and American Counseling Association.

I might be losing you at this point, but try to follow me. All four organizations have lobbied state law makers (quite successfully) to insist that only THEIR rules and certification is valid to practice in a profession. In order to be a lawyer in almost every state in the union, you MUST attend an ABA approved law school. Here in Oklahoma, there is only ONE ABA approved law school. But wait a minute....Abraham Lincoln was a lawyer, and he never went to HIGH SCHOOL, so forget about college or law school. What happened?

The original requirement for most places was to pass the bar exam. Lawyers started out as law clerks, learned their craft in the firm, then took the bar exam to become praacticing lawyers. But the ABA, in an attempt to protect the profession, lobbied for the law school requirement.

Becoming a counselor is the same way. In Nevada and Hawaii, becoming a professional counselor is a matter of saying you are one and starting a practice. In the other 48 states, however, the American Counseling Association has successfully lobbied to require a 66-hour Master's degree program PLUS 3 years supervised practice PLUS passing an exam from a SOLE SOURCE company.

How about becoming a teacher? We shouldn't even go there ::laffs:: teaching credentials do not guarantee quality teaching...its all over the news.

In my mind, these "cedentialing" organizations are unethical in themselves. They are monopolies seeking only one thing - the protection of their "profession" from outsiders.

So, I agree with you on that point. People will exploit what they see as an opening (kinda sounds like a Windows virus, doesn't it?).

So, why do we need the certifications at all? I'll start a new post on that one :)

There is only one reason for certifications of any type: to demonstrate an acknowledged competency.

A professional will get education and certifications so other people will know immediately that he/she is up to a certain competency. There are three groups who use this information: employers/supervisors, subordinates, and the community at large.

Employers and supervisors use our education and certification levels for job placement and to determine promotion potential. By improving yourself with education and certification, you are demonstrating your own professionalism and that you have advancement potential. Granted, this is the ideal. Yes, it can be abused; all of us know people who ?punched their ticket? simply to get advanced on paper. There is a difference between a careerist (someone who manipulates the system to get themselves ahead) and a professional (someone who cares about the profession).

Which brings us to our second group, our subordinates. Education and certification help us as supervisors to gain the willing respect and compliance from subordinates. When a subordinate knows that the supervisor is competent, he or she will be more willing to follow and help get the job done. This is where the careerist fails. A careerist may impress the superiors, but usually does not impress subordinates. This gets into the subject of leadership, which is another category by itself.

The third group is the community at large. Our educational attainments and certifications display to those around us that we have taken the time to achieve a certain level of skill and professionalism, and identify us as ?experts? in the community.

Notice that at no time did I say that education or certification PROVED you were competent. Only the individual can prove that. In the Army, I was a Drill Sergeant. When I wore the Drill Sergeant Identification Badge on my uniform, it displayed to the world that I was competent in training soldiers. My superiors and subordinates expected a high level of competency, and I had to kick myself in the backside to ensure that I did have that level of knowledge and expertise. Getting the badge was just the beginning. I had to work hard, on my own time, to keep my competency levels up. Why? Because I had to prove by my actions that I was competent.

The education and certifications are just the starting point. Eventually they must be backed up with experience and performance. Which is exactly what a true professional does. The true professional has education PLUS certifications PLUS experience.

The professional should research and find a solution to the customer's problem, not recommend a canned answer simply to sell stuff.

Two actual situations that have happened to me:

1. "Tech support" individual at a local ISP tells me that I can't get on the internet with their service unless I do serious hardware upgrading (even though I have for a fact been on the internet with other ISPs with LESS hardware).

2. Friend wants a larger hard drive in his computer. He takes it to one of the major computer dealers in town. "Tech support/repair" removes his motherboard and cards, replaces them all, without his consent. They charge him for a major upgrade and labor. All he wanted was a hard drive! To make things worse, the computer didn't work after the upgrades. He called me, and I had to rebuild the mess the computer dealer made.

Customer service is at least attempting to give the customer what they want. I notice where I live that the standard response to computer problems is "You need a new computer." There are times an entire system IS necessary, but that should not be the first suggestion. If I want memory, all I want is memory. If I want a hard drive, all I want is a hard drive. It is unethical, in my opinion, to suggest or make repairs not necessary or without customer consent.

Oddly enough, this type of situation occurring was one of the initial reasons I got A+ certified. I got so tired of "computer technicians" trying to fill me with baloney. When I tell them that I am A+ and beyond, they usually change their tune.

I always tell any students that I come across that I'm learning something new every day which is sometimes a bit off putting to them as they seem to think that once they finish whatever course they are doing they will be instant "Experts."

To me every day is a learning experience now all I have to learn is exactly I own a business in the IT field as I'm not quite sure on some days. But then again we all have "Those Days!" Don't we.

Col

I would real like to thank for such words and I must confess that you, "in the west" are definitely greatly ahead" of us. Here are thing much worse than you can imagine in this area. I work for iSeries and lot of that you wrote fully adhere to our position. Please go ahead and push it to the real profesionalism !!! Thank you

I can imagine your shock from finding out about the bad apples in IT. There is only one solution: replace them by competent and professional people. If you cannot find them in your country then look abroad. You do not have to go as far as India, there are also *plenty* of excellent people in Europe, especially if you can show a bit of flexibility in the short-term job demands.
Last but not least: you have a responsibility too - when you hire (IT) professionals make clear from very beginning which behavior is not tolerated and stick to it.

"If I was a CEO and knew absolutely nothing about IT workers..."

This is the root of the problem.

In my experience, most CEO's have no idea about IT. They think computers are things you just plug into the wall and they do what you need them to do. Anyone can operate/program/maintain a computer it's a doddle!

WRONG.

But this is why they employ people with little or no experience or qualifications. Why should they pay high wages for a qualified 'professional' when anyone can do the job? Why waste money on training - it's easy!

In the company I currently work for we have a saying in the IT department - everyone's an expert.

We use this to describe users who tell you the solution to their IT problem when they ring for support, or try to repair their computer themselves (because they have opened the case on their PC at home) and cause more problems.

These are the people who are bringing the profession down when they apply for, and are offered jobs in IT.

In my opinion at the lowest level everyone who works with a PC should be the holder of a licence to do so. That is, they should be made to take a computer test much like you would a driving test to get a licence. If they do something bad then they should have their licence revoked and be made to re-take the test.

Doing this may make more people realise that PC's are not just toys, but complicated pieces of machinery to be taken seriously - especially when your business relies on them to function properly.

Of course this is contrary to what the people at Microsoft/HP/Dell etc. would have you believe.

Perhaps we should all buy Macs, as according to popular opinion you don't have to know anything about computers to use one - oops I shouldn't have said that ;-)

Particularly ...

"A professional jumps into difficult assignments. An amateur tries to get out of difficult work."

The problem with IT amateurs usually is that they will just jump straight in to difficult assignments (mainly because they are sufficiently amateur that they are unaware that they are difficult). A true professional considers the assignment carefully before starting to apply their professional expertise to the problem. That careful consideration may even extend to refusing an assignment whose assigners are making unrealistic expectations about what is to be achieved and how, and what the cost is to be.

Also

"A professional uses higher emotional tones: Enthusiasm, cheerfulness, interest, contentment. An amateur uses lower emotional tones: anger,
hostility, resentment, fear, victim."

Alas, a true professional should attempt to avoid emotional considerations having any impact on their professional activities. (It is one of the marks of a professional.) Enthusiasm in the IT field is usually an attribute of amateurs; one that can quite frequently degenerate into some of the lower emotional tones described.

[One should, of course, always be wary of taking advice on how to be professional from organisations promoting the views of a (professional?) cultist.]

I.T people see themselves as having different priorities to the rest of the business. This is a delusion.
They often think only as far as the next upgrade or project, some projects are dubious in their necessity because departments don't cooperate at the planning stages. This means that a matching up of capabilities of systems and actual need for them at ground level is not clearly defined or understood.
Professionalism is when an entire organisation integrates to achieve the best course for its way ahead and works cohesively to agreed priorities and timescales. To damn the I.T department alone for not doing much more than respond to the messes created by an adhoc approach to forward planning, constant changes in software, increasing threats fron worm/virus writers, budget restrictions on I.T training etc, is to ignore the truth that I.T needs to better understand the basic needs of business and vice versa.

In my experience, top management is more corrupt and venial than any IT staff. If IT staff tries to keep ethical, it is undermined by the CEO and other management.

For instance, in Michigan, the governor started an IT consolidation, giving many multi-millions to EDS. Then, his term over, governor Engler went to work for EDS, his reward for his corruption.

Years later, is the IT consolidation complete? No. Did the new governor, a Democrat, reverse or prosecute? No.

And, now the former head of the Michigan DNR, Mr. Cool, has gone to work for a developer who won favorable concessions from the DNR when Cool was director.

No IT can be ethical when the top of the system is corrupt.

Recent history shows that CEO's are leaving many IT workers to come up with creative answers while the CEO's keep raising their pay. What is the latest CEO to IT worker salary ratio? 200 to 1?

From personal experience most of these people are trying to save their jobs while IT management looks the other way because they do not supply adequate licenses to their employees to get the job done!

If you are working in IT because you are the guy who can get a new modem to work and wow your family and friends, why don't you prove them right by getting a certification? For those of us who are running tech companies, we DO care about those things. Your resume gets "overlooked" far more than you know because of a lack of education. Wouldn't it be great to have a job based on your merits and accomplishments rather than fluff? Wouldn't it be great to sit in an interview with complete confidence rather than just hoping that they avoid the questions that show your shortcomings? It will help all of us to be more successful in the long run.

I work in a civil engineering company having cross trained into IS from an electrical engineering past. I see this issue of professionalism quite frequently and it is related to the easy access to computing systems.

An "amateur" can easily open Access and start building a database with no particular understanding of how the product works or the restrictions that will become apparent as the application scales etc. He quite often starts this project because the IS group was approached and quoted a percieved ridiculous amount of money for the work because they DO understand the implications. Somebody rejects this cost and says hey I know Tom can do this he knows a bit of access........ Next thing you know one of your critical business systems is running on an inappropriate product; poorly supported; Tom is doing a year out visit to every nation on the planet and the documentation for the product is written on two postage stamps he has in his wallet!

I try to explain this to civil engineers by pointing out that I am a practical guy, I can happily go to the DIY shop and buy bricks so if somebody came to me and asked me to build them their vision of a Hotel I could do it for them. I would poor some concrete down as a foundation 'cos I know you need one, then I would buy some bricks and pile them up on one another. Finally I would cover it in render and paint it a pretty colour. This would look no different from the Architect designed building these engineers might come up with, it might even work in the same way...... but would you want to stay there in a high wind?

In truth I would never build that building because I would TRUST the architect and engineers advising me and pay what they feel is necessary for a safe structure, and therein lies the Nub. We have spent so many years pulling the wool over peoples eyes that they no longer believe a word we say! Until we are trusted as professional people who are working for the interest of our business not our own pleasure we will never be able to change this situation.

I work as an IT professional because I am one. I have certifications and continue to pursue more for the knowledge that comes with them. I work with a number of folks that I would consider professionals by any measurement. Singling out the IT field as a bunch of untrained hooligans is pretty short sided. I don't know where you do work but I submitt you can look in any dept, in any company, and and find untrained, non certified, non motivated people. Not so long ago, companies were screaming for IT help and hired anyone into IT that could help. Now that IT has become more of a maintenace of business activity it is probably time to thin the herd, but then most profitable companies do that anyway. Have you had any interactions any Sales "Profesionals"?
Blaming the troops for failure of a group completely misses the role of management, to lay out clear attainable expectations, help people grow professionally, and make sure all activity contributes to the success of their company plan.

I also have been amazed at some of the responses I see here.
I recall having seen several that suggested releasing virus' to prove a point. What????
I admit that several years ago, I wrote and (fake sender) emailed to the users, a quick VB runtime that opened a flashing window that said "This could have been a virus" and continued on with our usual list of risks, precautions and reasonings.
But, this is very different from releasing a virus.

I agree that if my CEO or CFO were to start reading these posts, I would get ten questions a day about these issues and we would most likely hire a full time auditor.

I love the way that you phrased that sentiment. I have run across this problem in my own direct experience of working in the IT industry. I have already posted some of these exeriences as replies to posts in this thread so I won't repeat them. There's plenty more to talk about without repetition.

I was recently talking about this subject with my sisters. As I expressed to them, I am sick to death of working with managers and coworkers who don't have any interest in performing their job correctly. They have no interest in ethics or in their legal and fuduciary responsibilities.

A few years ago I was working in a financial institution in a magor American city. The IT department was fragmented between people who ran Microsoft servers and the people who ran all of the other platforms used as servers. I worked in the second group. We kept all of our nightly backups off site. The people running the Microsoft servers kept all of their nightly backups in the same building and on the same floor as their servers. When the 9/11 attack happened I tried to convince the Microsoft administrators to put their nightly backups into the same box that I put my groups' backups. It would have been very simple. We already had the off site storage vendor and I was doing all of the paperwork. The Microsoft server administrators weren't interested because it would cause a delay when they were asked to restore a file from backup. I then asked the person to whom I was speaking how they thought that the business would recover the daily account information if an airplane came flying in the window. He said that if an airplane flew into our building during business hours that he wouldn't be the one trying to recover customer account information so he didn't care if it was possible. I tried to explain that it was our responsibility to ensure that SOMEONE could reconstruct the customer accounts, even if he was not going to be that person. He didn't care. Amazing. Our business managed the personal savings of many people and he didn't care if the records were lost as long as he wasn't the one having to deal with the problem.

That kind of thinking makes me sick. Unfortunately I have found this kind of thinking to be very common in our profession.

strange but almost all have forgotten the main axiom of america today "somthing for nothing". for as long as I can remember we have been a do it yourself based socity. Example if I had a friend that will replace my water pump in my car for a 12 pack of beer and I know that he can acomplish this correctly then why pay a "Certified mech." to do the work at a much higher cost? Just by having a peice of paper behind you dosn't mean that you know what your doing. I have little or no knowladge of networking but I have had more "hands on" experiance with replaceing parts then the next guy. should I go for certs? Hell no! I found that most people don't give a rats butt what certs you have as long as your solution works. And for me to waste money to be certified in a area that most "End users" don't use is pointless. with a high glute in the field to waste the high price that most schools charge is not very sensable. A recent quote from a school for my training alone would be at least $25.000 a sum of money that would take an eternaty to pay for at a $10 per hour job. the only other possabilty would be for a company that needs these skills is that they should pay for the training and take the financial responabilty themselves. I spend more time working on "Johnies" home PC. removing spyware and virus (Viri?) is there a cert for that? granted my skills are above the average user but I don't need to wear a tie or suit to work,I have no desk,Hell I don't even have an office butI service as many as 20 PC's a week. Proffessional? you be the judge. each of us has our own standerds that we try to force on others. perhaps if we spent more time evaluating ourselves and not others then we would be proffessional.

In my humble opinion, Education and certification breeds professionalism. Case in point: I had a law class in college and the attorney teaching the course stated to us students: "I am going to teach you enough to know when to call me!" Sound words for understanding human nature. Business decision makers would benefit from drinking from this side of the well.

Wow....

First to make my position clear..

I am equally offended by the disgusting actions of a signifcant segment of the business, legal, government and unions in North America.

At the core is Greed and the expectation that I can take as much as I want as fast as I can if I can and not get caught. I am absoltuley feed up with this BS and cannot tolerate the lack of ethics and committment that I consider essential for any TEAM to survive.

TEAMWORK - ANother corporate pile of BS. Most can't and will never understand the true dynamics of a team. Organzations spout off about team work and fall right back into the old do as I say not as I do syndrome.

Professionalism - Boils down to knowing what to say and doing what you say and meeting committments. Certifications don't make a professional. IT's a nice way to set expectations but I've met many people who say that the certified people fell short of those expectations.

Greed... nuff said

IT - Can't do everything. The busienss HAS to be an equal partner. Biggest issues I've run into are businesses that expect IT to do it all, and consultants that charge much and deliver little. SOme of this could be considered criminal BUT no one stands up and deals with it.

Which brings us to the lawyers and legal systems. IS O.J. guilty - didn't seem to be the issue.. Money talks and the guilty walk and the lawyers buy new toys.

All I have is my integrity and reputation. I will not compromise them. Unfortunatley we have seen that the organizations we trusted to oversee things we're themselves untrustworthy. Seen Arthur Anderson lately?

Ridiculous article and an irresponsible breach of professional journalism. You're basing the entire IT industry on posts that you see on this board?

Completely juvenile.

First off, I'm sure some of the posts on this board don't even come from IT professionals. Second, how far reaching do you think this board is? Do you think it truly respresents 100% of the IT professionals out there, or even the majority?

Lastly, maybe some people come here to just vent. Maybe the frustation and stress of their job needs an outlet and they choose their postings as a release.

I can say that your article does not represent me nor any of the IT people that I've worked with nor any of the hundreds of people that I communicate with on a daily basis via other lists.

If anything, IT salaries are and have been coming down, training provided the company is becoming more scarce and the responsilbities are increasing. Frankly, I haven't seen in any professional environment that I've been in contact with ANY of the points that you attempted to make.

You should be taken out and flogged for writing then posting the article on a public forum.

Perhaps we should [before diving in] start with one of the first parts of the [email version] article:
"If I was a CEO and knew absolutely nothing about IT workers, ..."

I think that says it ALL. Why do you have the job?

Yep- a union ia agreat idea. Look at how much good they have done for the quality of American-made automobiles, the efficiency of the government (almost all government employees are in a union), and the profitability of the airlines industry.
Unions exist for two reasons. first, they protect incompetent, ineffective workers from being fired. Second, they pick the pockets of these same workers to pay for union management, union consultants and union perks. None of this addresses the core issues brought up in this post.
There are professional societies (American Society for Quality is one) that encourage people to set and maintain high standards of professionalism on the job, as well as encouraging management to maintain high quality standards in their policies, procedures, and products. These are the societies that are going to make a difference in the way we work.
Management is half the problem, at least, but each of us knows what is right and can do that if we choose to do so.
Just my $0.02 worth.

A speaker told the story of a man who complained constantly about what a miserable person his wife was. When asked why he married such a hag in the first place, he replied, "Oh, she wasn't that way when I married her."

"So, what you're saying is you made her that way."

The same holds true with IT people. From my personal experience, I can say that bureaucracy, job security, inept management, and power hunger do quite a bit to build those attitudes into otherwise capable professionals.

"...they make no effort to
improve themselves through education or by becoming certified in what they do..." I went to school 2 nights/week for 18 months, with the company paying half the tuition. After graduating with a 99.5% grade average, I was told that I couldn't get any projects using those skills because "you don't have any experience."

"...they would not know what was happening on my server system because apparently no one keeps documentation..." In my last corporate position I brought in examples of how we could improve on (or, more accurately, create) our non-existant documentation. My efforts went nowhere because my boss already understood the system and had no interest in documenting any of it. More than once, I have run into people who refuse to document any part of their systems because they felt it would compromise their own job security.

I could give plenty more examples, but I don't have time. I'm out of the corporate world, working on my own, and have absolutely no desire to go back there. My creativity was stifled, my ideas ignored, my intelligence insulted by management who would tell us everything was just peachy, then fire a third of the staff 2 weeks later.

Don't be quite so quick to blame IT for problems that have other origens. Sometimes you made them that way.

From a person who regularly "hires" people. Certifications and College Degrees don't make a professional. I?m sick and tired of hearing this BS about certifications. Here?s the truth on certifications, they are revenue streams for the Manufactures. It?s a product they make money on just like the software or hardware they sell you. Okay, Get over it.

I feel like I just read a temper tantrum from a person who didn?t get the raise they wanted because they just spent $6K on a useless Microsoft certification.

I?ve been in this business for 22 years and yes it was previously a professional career. Then somewhere along the way payroll clerks and accountants decided they could make more money if they went out and ?bought? themselves some sort of IT certification and became ?computer professionals?. I don?t mean to insult anyone here, some people that have done that are pretty damn good IT people. But that isn?t my point. My point is, just because you have a piece of paper (or a sheep skin) that says you?re suppose to know something, doesn?t mean you do.

That?s what has ruined this industry. In the 70?s and 80?s the entrance barrier to this profession was much higher. And you didn?t get in by passing a test down at the Pro-Metric franchise. You had to prove yourself or convince someone to take you under his or her wing and show you the ropes.

I am an IT professional. I do not use illegal software at all on my computers. I uphold high standards when it comes to learning and training.

Even though I self-schooled and wrote my certification exams for A+ and Network+ and passed them, people have a stigma about people who learn like that.

I have had many comments that people in these fields do make alot of money. But I am caught between a rock and a hard place. Society wants me to attend a technicial school to get my training. I think that this is nonsense.

Yes, I admit there are things a technicial school will teach you that you may not be able to learn on your own, however, that doesn't mean that you don't have the capacity to learn.

When an IT professional becomes certified, there shouldn't be such a thing as a union, but yet there should be guidelines that the IT professional should follow very strictly.

There are people out there who are willing to do the documentation and additional learning to make the computing/networking of the customers business run smoothly.

I know myself when I encounter a person's computer or a networking problem, if there is no documentation, I will start some. I'll do the necessary research via internet, vendor websites, white papers, technet, etc. to find the answer and document the problem and solution so as if I am not the one later on doing the servicing (or even if I am), it is common courtesy and it speeds up for future upgrades/troubleshooting.

There are flies in the ointment. True, but some people in the field excel and want to learn because they have a passion for it, other will like to do it because there is always a challenge.

Either way you look at it, assumptions should not be made whether you self-schooled or are not certified (although it is a good idea so as you can show your clients/employer).

Maybe some people out there are in it for just the money and they try to take shortcuts and those people, I agree, should find another profession because we as IT professionals have a standard to follow and those people whose hearts or interest are not in it should look elsewhere for different employment to satisfy their needs.

If IT is supposedly lacking in Professionals who is determining the members of "IT". Apparently it's not any of the members in our IT dept. Companies have the choice to hire professionals or hooligans, you can only get quality if you look for quality. And I think it's absurd to think that a CEO is going to look at IT and consider this to be the place for fraud in the work force. When was the last time you heard of an IT professional appearing before a grand jury for bankrupting a company. We'll leave that to the "other professionals".

The root of the problem is quite a basic one it is the law of supply and demand when demand outstrips supply two things happen the value of a commodity or resource rises, hence salaries go up. Secondly people start seeking sources outside of traditional markets hence bringing people in who are neither capable or competent to do the job. This happened a lot in the late 1990's with outsourcing companies who needed bums on seats and will happen again when the market picks up.

Professionalism and ethics are down to the individual if you are expect to be rewarded for it if you ain't wait until the next downturn in the market.

I've observed both professional and unprofessional IT staff. I've worked along side and had IT staff work for me that were the most ethical, hard-working people I've encountered in any profession -- people who don't consider the personal consequences of raising the "we shouldn't do this" flag (e.g. install unlicensed software) to senior management; people who work until the job is done, not until the dinner bell rings; people who pitch in to help because they have something to contribute instead of saying "it's not in my job description." I've also encountered the reverse. On the whole, it IT staff I've been associated with have been hard-working, ethical people who enjoy what they do.

I've also had the opportunity to observe senior management in both the private and public sectors -- the level of ethical bankruptcy and work ethic in this arena leaves something to be desired. This is not to say that I've only seen lazy executives with poor ethics -- it is to say that there are both kinds of people in all areas of work, not just IT "staff." Consider the impact (think Enron, Tyco, WorldComm and the like) of ethics (or the lack thereof) at the executive level. To those much is given, much is expected.

Sounds like this thread was started by someone with an axe to grind.

Having a certification does not make you a professional. Being a professional means providing a quality service in a reponsible manner. There are other ways to acquire the knowledge required to do this than pay some organization thousands of dollars. There is a time honored tradition of On the job training. Apprenticeship is more often a better way of learning.

I lived by this code long before I every found this site. Sums it all up.

http://sageweb.sage.org/ethics.mm

K.

There ethics codes in other professions that fail to prevent abuses and unethical behavior. There are standards of certification and/or education to meet that then fail to enfore or instill ethics. Self enforcement by the industry? Can you say Lord of the Flies?

IT is suffering growing pains that other sectors have worked through already. Consider the hucksters that travelled the countryside at turn of the century selling snake oil remedies for every medical problem. Or the reckless excesses of the emerging oil industry through the early 1900's.

As a collective, we do ourselves great harm living up to the IT stereotype. Aloof and arrogant, our customers are reticent to come for assistance if we always seem put out by the request. A business analyst once commented on the demise of Hughes Aircraft, "elegant solutions - technically arrogant." Are we condemed to that path?

I suggest that IT folks should be less hasty with commentary, complaint and endless diatribes and concentrate on SOLUTIONS.

BTW, if that workbench is yours and yours alone, who cares what it looks like. The community lab, data center and corporate assets should reflect the organization and efficiency that we are supposed to bring to the table. Your respect, influence in the company and salary will increase when the boss WANTS to show clients and friends HIS IT operations center.

You hit the nail right on the head. I'm not a doctor, never been a doctor, and never plan to be one. But I still read and learn a lot about medicine. I don't get paid for it but my doctor and I have some interesting conversations and I believe I end up receiving a better level of care from my doctor because I can describe my problem/symptoms in terms that aren't ambiguous to the doctor and leave him guessing as to what's really bothering me.

I am not an accountant or a salesman either or for that matter am I any of the other factions that comprise the end users in my company, but I have learned a lot about all of their jobs just from exposure.

The problem with most, but certainly not all end users is that they are afraid they are going to learn something they don't have to and they won't READ.

The people i hire don't always have to be certified. As a matter of fact i would hire a person with experience over a person with a piece of paper that says blah, blah blah certification. I have seen to many so called certified techs that have gone through these sausage mill certification BOOT CAMPS who don't have any idea what they are doing on the job when a real problem arises and needs to be diagnosed. But they can recite word for word out of manual in order to pass a certification exam.

I want compentent experienced people who know how to do the job for my clients and not just some flunky who thinks that a certification certificate would look good on their wall.

As for unprofessionalism, if you are getting this type of person your screening process needs to be reworked. There are these types in any profession, doctors, lawyers etc. So why should the IT industry be any different?

For some of us, we don't look at our 'jobs' as a paycheck, but a talent or calling. We have been in the industry for 10 - 20 years and bend over backwards to get the impossible done.
The problem i see is that today we have every tom, dick and harry going through college thinking they have a degree which entitles them to call themselves programmers. They see it as the fast track to a big bank account and as such have little true heart for the software industry.

I would say there is a union already, Microsoft.

Some people have said that, professionalism is holding yourself to a higher standard.

I agree with some of the above listed items as being professional, but others our just someones opinon and should have nothing to do with professionism.

Just because your level of professionalism and standards are high doesn't mean you'll succeed. The professionalism of your boss, and the company as a whole, impacts your ability to succeed as much as anything. I'm finding this out daily in my current position.

I took this position with a mid-sized company about 8 months ago, after being released from Active Duty military service. I was hired to perform on-site product installations, provide escalated SQL support for our products and assist in platform certification and customer acceptance training. I now do all of this, with one of the fastest response times and highest customer satisfaction ratings of anyone in my department. I have also written various .NET applications that our customers (many of them in the Fortune 500) are completely thrilled over, as they simplify the process of using our software immensely.

Recently our programming teams have *come to me* looking for solutions to problems within the company's software products. Let me say that again: The professional programmers who developed and implemented this company's products are coming to the SQL support guy for solutions to their .NET unmanaged code/Interop issues!

So what, may you ask, do I get for all my trouble?

1) I get a paycheck that is well below the industry average (this from every source I could locate) based on my experience, certification, etc.

2) I get excuses instead of the bonuses I was promised prior to accepting the position; even though the company is doing well, and has surpassed their sales goals for this year.

3) Even though the company's doing well, I get told not to expect a substantial raise - maybe 1 - 3% (LOL).

4) I get to pay for the software I use (VS.NET) to write applications for them. The one quarterly bonus I have received (remember I've been here about 2 and a half quarters now) *almost* covered *one* of the software packages I've had to purchase on my own. I look at it more as a *partial reimbursement* check than a "bonus". And that "bonus" was less than was originally agreed to in our pre-hire agreements.

5) I have to travel all over the place constantly, and put in for reimbursement later (effectively LOANING this company money out of my pocket for 4 - 6 weeks at a time!!!) And yes, I have to pay the credit card interest out of my own pocket.

6) I get to pay for any books that I need while writing programs for this company out of my own pocket.

7) And I also have the honor of paying for my own certification study materials and certification exams with no help from this company. That's OK though, as it helps assuage any guilt I might have otherwise felt when I added these upgraded and new certifications to my resume and re-post.

Bottom line is that:

-I now own my own personal copies of several software packages.

-I have a solid foundation for a very extensive personal technical reference library.

-I have achieved/upgraded my certifications, including my MCDBA on SQL 2K, and am working toward further certification.

-I feel personally that I owe this company absolutely *NOTHING*. No loyalty. No going above and beyond. Nothing except the very basic 3 things they hired me for. Period.

-I have begun to pull back - I do not feel the need to give 110% when my employer won't even reimburse me for books and software required to do the things they ask of me.

-I am very, very actively seeking better, more equitable opportunities; even burning vacation days to go on job interviews.

In general I agree with your observation that ethics are sorely lacking in the IT field. However I want to know what that has to do with certifications. As a matter of fact, some of the most unethical behavior that I have seen are by those who have managed to become "certified" and yet who are totally incompetent (that's a different discussion though).

Stick with one arguement or the other, if you would.

I've been in the I.T. field for 27 years now and have seen first hand exactly what RknRIKid has posted and is talking about. Myself and some of my peers have had numerous heated debates over this topic and I have won over the most number of people everytime with my explaination. The problem lies not so much with educators as a majority. But, how that educators or trainer teaches the newbe how to work or do his job PROPERLY! As we all know, some teachers just don't care or are just not worth a darn. But, as a whole the educators do a fine job. But, as I said, it all starts on who is the first person/teacher/trainer who has the first influence on that newbe. I was taught old school. My father and the I.T. trainer/teacher I had must have been casted from the same mold. They both had the same outlooks, No. 1 and always the most important-as they drilled it into my head was " If you are going to do a job, do it right the first time" you won't have to go back later to fix it. No. 2 "Think out your steps before you tackle any job". No. 3 "Before you completely finish your work, go back and recheck what you did, just before you leave". These have always served me well to this day. It all boils down to who reaches that newbe first. I work with a very young tech and sometimes it drives me insane to have to go behind him and correct what he missed just because he was in a hurry and didn't want to go the extra mile. I now get all the requests for help/service from the CEO's and Staff because they know that when I'm done they don't have to worry that I left something out or screwed it up. The young tech has asked me several times why none of the Staff call him anymore-DAAAAA. Nobody is teaching morality, ethics or old school to our next generation! I hate to admit it, but I see my own son starting these bad habits he's pickup from his buds and it's a never ending struggle to convince him not to look for the easiest/quickest way around a task. I WILL WIN in the end though, I will just keep drilling it into his head until he gets it. Hey, all you young Tech out their, would you rather have a Doctor operate on you and is willing to go the extra mile for you? or would you rather have a Doctor operate on you that's looking for a shortcut so he can get to the golf course on time? How did you just answer that last question??
Come on people, give me some feed back!!! Am I right, or what????? Lets teach these new great young people HOW TO WORK PROPERLY. I'm done now!

If people don't have a way of determining your skills because they don't know what you do or you are a new hire they need something to go on.

Not saying the Cert makes the Tech, just helps you recieve some of the credit you deserve.

Same as dressing nicely. Doesn't make you work better, but gets you job so you can work.

Many Techs don't have Certs and are GREAT at what they do, just don't plan on being taken seriously by people outside your group.

Just like in all comunication, know who your talking to and talk in a way they understand.

They understand degrees and certs.

Also, most employers will pay for you to take the cert tests. So why wouldn't you?

Peace FGarvin. I am not trying to take anything away from you or anyone else in any way or form.
Just trying to point out anything that can help people advance or even get that first job, ya know?

In reading some of these postings, I am very satisfied to now be retired. In my day we were profesionals and we were careful of our actions because a security clearance (governmental and/or industrial) was almost universally required. Knowledge, dedication, attitude and morals were necessary for any measure of success. We proved our competence by taking charge of our environment and correcting any omisions or errors - not through iodiotic and destructive actions such as creating a virus. (We did sometimes play games on each other like inserting a self removing statement "The 'Rim Loader' is now being worked on" but never anything which would in any way delay completion of the projects. Badmouthing those we worked with was a no-no, there were other ways to eliminate or correct these few inept or troublesome individuals. Those who did not measure up were simply passed by to where they could not cry or complain, which we see so much of today.

That's a very intersting accusation in light of some of the discussions I've read. Such as CEO's who think it's so much fun to download porn on company owned equipment. Or high ranking officials who expect the IT staff to work on their own personal or their wives personal computing equipment.

yikes!!

A messy desk is not an indicator of unethical behavior. Sometimes it's just a person with a small desk and alot of work.

I carefully read what RknRlKid had to say about professionalism, IT Professionals, and the TechRepublic community and I would like to offer an alternative interpretation for consideration. I've been in IT for 13 years now and by the checklist provided I am a "professional".

A problem I perceive is that these manifestos are written in abstract or for a perfect world, as it were. Our world is not perfect and all too often we don't have the time or resources to do the quality of job that our professionalism would have us do. I am not denying that there are some very unprofessional people in IT. I do believe that the majority of people in IT, as in all professions, honestly aspire to be true professionals. On the other hand, there is no profession that doesn't have its stories about the incompetent or unprofessional doctor, lawyer, accountant, etc. As well, the provided list of qualities that identify a professional suggest that a professional is well compensated for their qualities. This too is not always the case in the real world.

Instead of taking the negative view that the TechRepublic community is a group of unprofessional, incompetent, whiners, consider that it is a group of professionals seeking the advice and support of other professionals in dealing with some unprofessional people they may encounter in their work. These unprofessional people may be IT workers, other co-workers or unprofessional managers. When you strive to reach a level of professionalism that may not be shared by your peers, superiors, or subordinates, it is difficult to maintain a positive attitude. Sharing such experiences can provide insights, solutions to try, or just lighten the burden.

Maybe the stories related are biased toward the worst case scenario, but when was the last time you said, ?I really need some help here because things are going great!?

is that when they invest in employee's betterment (is that a real word?) it engenders loyalty to the company. One would think that if a company was willing to pay you a competitive salary, they would have no fear that you would leave for a "better paying job". Personally, statements like that from employers throw out red flags for me... I just wish they would say some of these things *during the interview process* to give you advance warning of who to avoid.