IT Employment

I'd swear you were describing our company.

Yeah ... describes us to a "T". Incidentally - people wonder why I no longer have hair on the top of my head!

-CB :-)

All our companies sail in the same boat....and all off us live the same hair raising (or is the word plucking off???) lives....

and people go about asking...What do techie guys do all day anyway ?? )

If we don't tell our 'clients'/'consumers' (whatever the new _in_ word is) what we do for them, how will they ever know?

We *cannot* rely on management to tell them. This thread is about the cluelessness of most management.

We have to be our own PR agents. I don't mean bore them senseless with technical details. We need to talk to the people we are working with/for and treat *their* problems just as seriously as we do our own.

I'm not suggesting we don't already do this, but all too often I walk into a workplace and discover it's practically ICT v Everyone in a smackdown contest.

If something cannot be done in ten minutes, tell them why - what you have to do and how long it will _probably_ take. Double emphasis if you have to leave something before it's finished to deal with another problem. Tell them why, make sure they know you consider their problem important, and try to give them an idea of when you'll be back - or how they can find out.

This works with to a small extent and with a very select few users. I make it a point of never to leave without fully testing any changes, and a true attempt to explain what the changes are: rarely every helps!!

Users and management don't want explanations. Explanations are viewed as excuses. They don't want to have to think about anything they believe should be an IT issue - even when it really requires a user decision. They resent having to lower themselves to admit that IT actually understands their business better than they do themselves.

That's scary! and I thought I just landed with a "bad" company....

With the Shoe String Budgets and A$$ on fire work people expect the IT dept (read Techies) to answer the questions like Why do we use this Antivirus and not THAT ...
Well we could answer ... The reason is that this is cheaper that that one !!!

IT depts generally have to deal with multiple deployments at the same time ... eg .. just last week we had to implement Antivirus, Domain .. Internet Domains ... etc ...

Well all this costs money ... (For upgrading as the company needs grow)... which has committies to decide ... but a new water cooler would arrive in a day or two once someone says it is needed

People do not think of all this and expect techies to explain in detail the reason WHY DID WE USE THIS PARTICULAR ANTIVIRUS ????

Sadly, it's not what you know it's who you know that gets the big account... this is the same as why we techies seem to get all the idiot managers... they might not know much but they do know that to get anywhere they hafta get their noses brown.

We have to market out ideas and ourselves... and be proactive in the workplace. If something isn't working say so and document it. Be firm... if X antivirus isn't working, document it and ask for a different brand... if everything is limping along ... suggest a better way.. and do it in writing.

Talk is cheap... action commands attention.

Unfortunatly that brown nosing manager will be quick to blame everyone but himself when the proverbial shi*t hits the fan after a major failure or security breach.

So you have to protect yourself... if your having trouble be professional... mention it in a memo... then letter... then by letter with copies to "higher ups" and so on... If your working in a poisoned work environment.. time to get the heck out.. start sending out those resume's (or CV's) while your still working.

Richard in Canada