Everyday I see and hear IT Pros complaining about viruses, hackers, Microsoft bugs, etc. We are calling for the blood of the creators of viruses. The Windows server crashes and we swear at Microsoft for their buggy OS.
Have we forgotten why we have a job in IT admin/support?
It is because of these problems that exist in IT that we have a job. I certainly wouldn’t have a job if Microsoft produced an unhackable, bug free OS. Fortunately these things aren’t going to disappear. Hackers are getting smarter, viruses more elusive, and software bug will always exist. I say this is a good thing. It keeps us on top of our profession. We have to get smarter to keep our network secure with as little downtime as possible. Which means we get to keep our jobs.
Another issue I have is with educating the user. I’ve heard this subject discussed countless times, but I’m yet to hear someone say how careful you should be when doing this. I have no problem with teaching your users what to do and what not to do so they can do their job. But, I don’t believe you should explain to a user how you solved a specific problem on their pc. My lecturer at Technikon told me once “Don’t share the knowledge you learn here with people not in IT. You’ve spent alot of time, money and hard work to earn that knowledge.” I think he was right. Don’t go into an indepth explanation with a user or non-IT person even with the simplest of problems. Think of how you learnt how to solve that problem. It may be real simple and easy to explain for you now because you had a similar experience before, but you had to work to get that knowledge. You’ve earnt that knowledge and thats why you were called in to fix it.
Now don’t get me wrong here. I do believe its an absolute necessity to share knowledge within the IT community. The IT industry is possibly the harshest industry in the world right now and we do need to work together to get it back on track. And this is exactly how we get better at our profession. However, my Doctor doesn’t tell me exactly how to diagnose myself so that I don’t need to go to him anymore. Get my drift?
