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:
- IT pros frequently use jargon to confuse nontechnical business managers and hide the fact that they screwed up
- Some IT professionals deploy technologies that do more to consolidate their own power than to help the business
- Veteran IT professionals are often the biggest roadblock to implementing new technologies
- You’ll spend far more time babysitting old technologies than implementing new ones
- Vendors and consultants will take all the credit when things work well and will blame you when things go wrong
- Your nontechnical co-workers will use you as personal tech support for their home PCs
- Certifications won’t always help you become a better technologist, but they can help you land a better job or a pay raise
- You will go from goat to hero and back again multiple times within any given day
- It will be your fault when users make silly errors
- 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
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.
ReplyDeleteCorollary 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!