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Ten Dirty Little Secrets You Should Know About Working In IT

I like a good "xyz ten" list (where xyz = top, best, worst, ...) as much as the other guy. And though I admit that the notion is, in most cases, rather shallow (oversimplification <> clear and concise delivery of a message) it often makes for an uplifting (funny) read. Here's one:
  1. IT pros frequently use jargon to confuse nontechnical business managers and hide the fact that they screwed up
  2. Some IT professionals deploy technologies that do more to consolidate their own power than to help the business
  3. Veteran IT professionals are often the biggest roadblock to implementing new technologies
  4. You’ll spend far more time babysitting old technologies than implementing new ones
  5. Vendors and consultants will take all the credit when things work well and will blame you when things go wrong
  6. Your nontechnical co-workers will use you as personal tech support for their home PCs
  7. Certifications won’t always help you become a better technologist, but they can help you land a better job or a pay raise
  8. You will go from goat to hero and back again multiple times within any given day
  9. It will be your fault when users make silly errors
  10. The pay in IT is good compared to many other professions, but since they pay you well, they often think they own you

Naturally, I did not come up with it. So, I have to give credit where credit is due - check out the original (and expanded) version here

Comments

  1. Corollary to #3. Oldsters are always expelled from IT, and Age Discrimination is the law. The statutes are ignored. Watch what has now happened to that team of ours from back-in-the-day on "G" wing: 10% or more of them, cast out in 2010, every single expulsion being over 55 years old. No Federal agency bothers enforcing the written statute; it's quite passé.

    Corollary to #5. IT work is considered worthless. Janet Jackson's "What have you done for me LATELY?" is another de facto LAW. IT folks are like experts who work for years on a car, only to have some idiot drive it into a tree--or more often, in fact, into a pedestrian. There is zero sense of lasting accomplishment.

    Life's a game, in truth. I do like your take on that. See my own considerations at ludamus.blogspot.com . (As I was setting things up, my Russian skills vanished totally--я забыл слово « играть »! So like any geezer, I reverted to my childhood language in the title, к сожалание).

    Keep up the good work! You are far smarter thank you know!

    ReplyDelete

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