Unhappiness...thy name is IT

DublinWriter

Is it just me, or just everyone in IT hate their job?

I read a recent survey in the UK that stated that 50% of IT Managers actually 'hate' their users...sorry, internal clients.

I've also personally noticed that the vast majority of people working in a non-tech IT role (BA, Arch, PMs, Management) are actually and wholly incompetent.

So is IT, as I suspect, one of the most unhappy and dysfunctional sectors to work in? - I guess I really should qualify that by saying that I ask the question in relation to internal corporate IT functions and not in companies where IT is the eventual product.

CiaranC

People moan and whine about every job. IT is no different.

Creamy Goodness

I loved my IT job. I was a Intranet tools developer. Everyone around me loved their job.

Although I'd hate it if I was in IT support. Would drive me nuts

Keano

I want to work in IT so wont complain if I get my break.

AARRRGH

I don't hate my IT job, but I do think it's a weird profession.

MagicMarker

So lads (no girls in I.T!), have people started randomly quoting lines from the I.T Crowd over the last year or two?

Every time I'm around an I.T guy now, I just want to say ''have you tried turning it off and on again'' etc etc, however I have resisted........ so far.

the_syco

DublinWriter wrote: »

I read a recent survey in the UK that stated that 50% of IT Managers actually 'hate' their users...sorry, internal clients.

Ah, this is normal. The clients are usually dumb as f**k. The current client that I support are grand, mainly. Some of them are a bit clueless on what I mean by "PC", but apart from that, they're good people. I do IT Support, and it's not too bad. The job became good once I stopped caring about the customers. Once you do that, you can giggle when their PC blows up, and they demand you fix it.

tk123

MagicMarker wrote: »

So lads (no girls in I.T!).

I'm a girl in IT!

MagicMarker

tk123 wrote: »

I'm a girl in IT!

No you're not, don't be telling fibs now!

mikemac

"Turn off your PC and turn it back on"
Yep, the lads over in IT seem very stressed whenever I call them, that's their solution to just about everything.

We've also noticed the firewall blocks most sites, that includes shopping sites the girls use, no girls over in IT.
Strangely the firewall doesn't block any football sites at all and it's IT who control this, hmmmmm...

Anyway OP, most employees in most sectors whine about their job, it's not just IT

doolox

Information Technology is a relatively new sector, finding its feet and hasn't had time to develop a tradition and an esprit de corps like you might find in,say nursing or the army.
The general public have not yet clearly defined what they want from IT as a work sector and they haven't had time to build up a protective system to stop stress and other abuses building up. For example one wouldn't think of abusing a nurse or a guard half as quickly as people abuse and hector the IT people, much to their discomforture and it makes their job tedious stressful and unpleasant.
Companies haven't yet developed an expertise in choosing appropriate levels of IT for their enterprises and attracting and retaining the right staff. Like any frontier IT can be fraught with difficulties, pitfalls, failures and chancers and anyone trying to do their level best in the job can be frustrated by ignorant bosses, less than helpful colleagues.
By its very nature, IT takes the skill, discretion and judgement out of work and makes it dull tedious and repetitive for most of the time. Viruses and other software attacks can keep them on their toes however but contribute to the lock-down mentality where experimentation and bottom up, evolutionary improvement is difficult if not impossible. Contrast that with older technologies where gradual improvement was brought about by the junior worker with the detailed technical knowledge to do so.
Today he is locked out with passwords reserved for the elite only and job satisfaction in IT for the junior ranks has suffered as a result.

HashSlinging

Great post, im in IT, I think the big problem with IT is its your job to "help" and helping "all the time" is your job, I personally don't mind that end of things. Your also an expense to the company..

IMO Also there's zero art to it, no personal expression, prev I used to be a chef ! and really miss the expressive nature of cooking although I dont miss the hours..

leeroybrown

I wouldn't say that everyone in IT hates their job. Lots of people in IT have good jobs that they're very happy with. The big difference I tend to notice between IT and a lot of other careers areas is that an awful lot of people seem to hit a burn out point, typically around the ten year mark, where they've had enough and feel that they just have to leave the sector. I'm sure it happens to plenty of people in other sectors but from what I've seen it appears to be an order of magnitude worse in IT.

This is probably worse for employees working in front-line IT support who have to constantly deal with people who have no clue about what they're doing and are unable to provide reliable information or follow simple instructions. I deal with end users but it's not a problem as most of them generally have a very high education level and some technical competence.

I work in a niche are of the 'IT' industry but I actually view 'IT' as a term of abuse. I'll only use it to describe my own job to avoid having to go into details for someone who won't actually understand. Many of the connotations that have built up are bad. Ultimately, it's an area of penny pinching, understaffing and the culpability in many companies.

CiaranC

leeroybrown wrote: »

This is probably worse for employees working in front-line IT support who have to constantly deal with people who have no clue about what they're doing and are unable to provide reliable information or follow simple instructions.

If you are still doing support after 10 years in IT you are in the wrong job.

Sleipnir

mikemac wrote: »

"Turn off your PC and turn it back on"
Yep, the lads over in IT seem very stressed whenever I call them, that's their solution to just about everything.

That's because when something happens to a user's PC, their hand automatically picks up the phone and dials I.T. looking for a "solution". As in, I.T. have to do something. For many, many, many small problems that users have, a reboot solves it. Word won't open, reboot. I can't access my personal drive, reboot. My adobe files come up blank, reboot.

mikemac wrote: »

We've also noticed the firewall blocks most sites, that includes shopping sites the girls use, no girls over in IT.
Strangely the firewall doesn't block any football sites at all and it's IT who control this, hmmmmm...

Don't worry, the guys in I.T. will have full and unfettered access to the internet, not just the football sites!

Saint_Mel

In my current IT role for about 6 months and love it (VB/VBA/MySQL) ... however I spent 4 years in my last job and every day I lost a little bit more of my will to live!

Sleipnir

I'm in my current role for about 5 years and it used to be great but I'm still supporting users .
I have had some great projects here but they've dried up in the last 6 months and some people have left and not been replaced so I find that I'm dealing with the crap more and more.

Stupid time to leave a company though. I'd hate to leave and then hear people made a small fortune getting voluntary redundany!

watsgone

tk123 wrote: »

I'm a girl in IT!

Me too,

though in fairness I am not to "fond" of the job

Tom Dunne

I think it depends on what you do.

I was fortunate enough to start out in a support role that encompassed every imaginable technology. Yes, it was tech support, but it along with the usual "My password won't work" there were distributed applications that took a helluva lot of detective work to figure out where the problem was.

I think at one stage we counted over 600 different applications that we supported. And that's not including the hardware.

From that, I found a niche that I am still in and, for the most part, I can say that I enjoy.

1st line support is like a right of passage. Any IT professional worth their salt has to do it. The key is not getting bogged down in it, and moving on to something that actually interests you.

Eoin

HashSlinging wrote: »

Great post, im in IT, I think the big problem with IT is its your job to "help" and helping "all the time" is your job, I personally don't mind that end of things. Your also an expense to the company..

I think part of the problem is that tech support people can forget that they are there to support the business, not administer it. When I was in tech support, I was guilty of it too. I would bitch about people who asked obvious questions, instead of thinking that a customer's problem was dead easy and quick to solve.

This type of attitude can make people reluctant to contact the IT department, and they start doing stupid things to try and fix the problem themselves, which can end up exacerbating it further.

I remember reading an article about an IT support team that were not allowed deny any request. They had to first evaluate alternatives and if one couldn't be found, then they had to refer it to the IT manager who would make the final call. This resulted in an IT department who weren't seen to make arbitrary decisions and who were seen as approachable and helpful - plus the support staff themselves got to play around with new technologies as well.

I hate it when IT departments are in charge of what websites are appropriate for staff to visit. This is not their job. Obviously sites with illegal content, pr0n, pirated software etc have to be blocked immediately. But football sites, shopping sites and all that - these should be blocked only at the request of HR or management.

masonman

Its a generic thing I guess thats relates to so many professions.
I have worked in a large multinational IT company for the last number of years. I have users who can be trying but its my job and I get on with it- same as any job really.

HOWEVER OP, you raise a very intersting point thats very relavant to me and I think the IT industry in general.

DublinWriter wrote: »

I've also personally noticed that the vast majority of people working in a non-tech IT role (BA, Arch, PMs, Management) are actually and wholly incompetent.

The people who really P1ss me off are colleagues who are working in IT related roles who have absolutely no technical ability, aptitude, awareness, savvy. Somehow they find themselves in "Process" roles and spend their time trying to micromanage and question your every action. Most of my day is spent repeating myself to these Morons and explaining an IT concept to death (Just short of reaching for the glove puppets to get my point across). Or worse still trying to rectify their F-ups by setting others straight on their mis-informed ramblings/speculation This doesn't add any worth within a company. But the overhead is overlooked.


I'm sorry, but if you are working in any kind of job within IT you need some background in how things work- this means needing a certain level of technical proficiency. This kind of phenomenon is huge in IT - Any of the jobs I have worked in there have been a huge volume of people in jobs that frankly were not needed and whose "function" could be absorbed into an existing technical team. Problem is it takes good Management to spot the areas where this could apply, and because of politics or some other reason its not applied.


All this is compounded by the current economic climate, I've seen technical colleagues being let go when they were really needed to keep certain operations ticking over. We have had to pick up the pieces to save face to Customers, yet these process people remain safe.
Anyone found the same or am I just being un-fair?

A fresh perspective would be nice, as this is chipping away at me.

masonman

eoin wrote: »

I hate it when IT departments are in charge of what websites are appropriate for staff to visit. This is not their job. Obviously sites with illegal content, pr0n, pirated software etc have to be blocked immediately. But football sites, shopping sites and all that - these should be blocked only at the request of HR or management.

+1, I agree (Minus the HR dept as they are usually the dogs barking for Management or on a power-trip)

fergalr

When you say IT, do you mean tech support and administration?

A lot of people would include software development as part of IT.

I love software, it's great. Most of the people I know in software love software too. If I didn't get paid to work in it, I'd code for fun anyway. (Not necessarily the same stuff, and not necessarily with the same pressures, but still). I think job satisfaction levels are very high.

In fact, a lot of people like software development so much, that they do it for free - not sure this is a good idea for the profession generally!

There's definitely some IT jobs better than others out there, but it beats so many areas...

dazberry

I've spent the last 5 years in a finance company writing software (having spent 10 years prior in a variety of other companies doing the same thing) - its pure HELL. I love writing software and think its the best job in the world, but not when its for these goons.

Its such a horrible horrible place, the complete dev team would walk out tomorrow if there was somewhere else to go. The amount of lickarsery that goes on in incredable, and the whole PM, BA and management layer just exist to create problems themselves so that the can be seen as solving them.

So if you have any self respect, and any interest in what you do - don't go near finance.

D.

little lady

I worked in IT support for about 8/9 years and loved it until about the last year/year and a half but that was due to the fact that I didn't like my boss rather than the job. Having to work for him turned me completly off and I lost interest so changed careers.

90% of people were fine but you did get the odd few that were REALLY annoying and expected you to fix all problems IT related or not.

the_syco

CiaranC wrote: »

If you are still doing support after 10 years in IT you are in the wrong job.

Tom Dunne wrote: »

1st line support is like a right of passage. Any IT professional worth their salt has to do it. The key is not getting bogged down in it, and moving on to something that actually interests you.

10 years is only too much if you mean 10 years of front line support.

eoin wrote: »

I hate it when IT departments are in charge of what websites are appropriate for staff to visit. This is not their job. Obviously sites with illegal content, pr0n, pirated software etc have to be blocked immediately. But football sites, shopping sites and all that - these should be blocked only at the request of HR or management.

Ehhhh... then who's job is it? The post rooms job?:rolleyes: Also, you are there to work. If the company thinks that you spend too much time on non-work related sites, they'll stop access to them. These sites are also blocked by adding certain words to the filter. The IT can often access all sites, as they need to access all sites, in case they don't have the solution for your problem, and need to search for it (Adobe Reader throws up all sorts of weird errors).

pwd

I've worked in several IT jobs, both in IT and non-IT departments (sales mainly):

Thinking over what has made me happiest and most annoyed, I'll list a few factors I think have strong influence on job happiness levels in development roles:

Levels of transparency about who does what, and who thinks of what. The more the better of course. It gets rid of idiots and assholes.

Levels of freedom, influence in projects' direction, room to be creative and to innovate

How much you learn from doing the work, how much variety there is in the work, how much new stuff you can do

Quality of software and code. There is nothing worse than being made to do things in a blatantly idiotic way.

How much you are removed from politics. You're generally faced with a lot more politics in permanent roles than in contract ones, I think.

Salary is a factor, but it's not the most important thing. I took a 67% paycut to walk out of a job I disliked, and into a role I like. I consider it a good decision over a year later, and think my long-term prospects are considerably stronger thanks to doing so.

DarkJager

eoin wrote: »

I hate it when IT departments are in charge of what websites are appropriate for staff to visit. This is not their job. Obviously sites with illegal content, pr0n, pirated software etc have to be blocked immediately. But football sites, shopping sites and all that - these should be blocked only at the request of HR or management.

Of course its our job, we have a network & data to protect so we obviously will not allow potentially harmful sites to be accessed. There is no discussion regarding that. Also, football, shopping, bebo, facebook, myspace etc have absolutely nothing to do with work. I agree that there needs to be a balance in what sites can be accessed, but users seem to think they have a god given right to view whatever they want. They don't.

Eoin

the_syco wrote: »

Ehhhh... then who's job is it? The post rooms job?:rolleyes: Also, you are there to work. If the company thinks that you spend too much time on non-work related sites, they'll stop access to them. These sites are also blocked by adding certain words to the filter. The IT can often access all sites, as they need to access all sites, in case they don't have the solution for your problem, and need to search for it (Adobe Reader throws up all sorts of weird errors).

Ehhhh Mr rolleyes, it is the job of the people who manage the staff, NOT the people who manage the network.

In my last company, internet access was completely blocked to message boards, blogs and newgroups. Bit of a pain in the hole for someone in development as that cut out probably 50% of the resources available to us on the internet. To get access, I had to get approval from my line manager, his manager and then an IT manager. When you were given access, it was per site not per category so it was pointless requesting access. These were sites completely related to work, in case I haven't spelled that out clearly enough.

These were arbitrary rules imposed by the people who managed the network, and who had a startling lack of cop on as to what resources a developer might need. We had to fight for 3 months to get local admin access on our own desktops. I was given out to for having non-standard browsers on my PC - despite being one of the developers on our corporate website.

These are the kind of blanket rules that piss me off. They show an absolute minimum of insight into what the customers / end-users need in order to do their jobs.

Eoin

DarkJager wrote: »

Of course its our job, we have a network & data to protect so we obviously will not allow potentially harmful sites to be accessed. There is no discussion regarding that. Also, football, shopping, bebo, facebook, myspace etc have absolutely nothing to do with work. I agree that there needs to be a balance in what sites can be accessed, but users seem to think they have a god given right to view whatever they want. They don't.

Yes - sites that are harmful to the network should be banned as I said earlier.

But football, bebo and all that - that is not your business and just because you have the technical ability to close off access doesn't mean that you should be the decision maker. That is the job of the people who manage the staff.

CorkFenian

I agree with the poster regarding not being in front line support for longer than 10 years.I'm in 2nd level for 3-4 years, working at financial companies.Where IT is treated like an expense funnily enough,when the opposite is true IMO. Dealing with 3rd party companies, 3rd party routers, desktop,backup, exchange, DR etc..A lot of companies dont recognise worth of IT.The good ones do IMO..Looking to get into pure 3rd level\server support at companies..Very competitive now...Not just about amassing certs anymore..All about good experience..If i had to think of working in deskside support without studying or working towards something else.I just couldnt do it.. :-)

tk123

My fav. part of my job (sys admin) is making stuff better/more efficient like replacing that crappy server and speeding things up or finding better ways of doing stuff etc etc. I start to hate the job when a server blows up and its panic stations trying to get a replacement up and running asap or dialing in all evening to do something. Oh and being on call?...It SUCKS! :pac::D

Eoin

tk123 wrote: »

My fav. part of my job (sys admin) is making stuff better/more efficient like replacing that crappy server and speeding things up or finding better ways of doing stuff etc etc. I start to hate the job when a server blows up and its panic stations trying to get a replacement up and running asap or dialing in all evening to do something. Oh and being on call?...It SUCKS! :pac::D

Oh yeah - forgot about being on call. Nice for the extra cash, but can be a real drag. One time my colleague who I shared the rota with took extended sick leave for 3 months because of a spat with our boss, and left me on call 24/7 for the three months. I was a nervous wreck by the end of it.

the_syco

eoin wrote: »

Ehhhh Mr rolleyes, it is the job of the people who manage the staff, NOT the people who manage the network.

I disagree. True, it's the job of the people who manage the staff to write the policy of internet access, but they often tell the people in IT what to do. The IT people will then disallow the categories that (HR?) wanted banned.

eoin wrote: »

EBit of a pain in the hole for someone in development as that cut out probably 50% of the resources available to us on the internet. To get access, I had to get approval from my line manager, his manager and then an IT manager. When you were given access, it was per site not per category so it was pointless requesting access. These were sites completely related to work, in case I haven't spelled that out clearly enough.

Ah, gotcha. I've come across a lot of people who include anything to do with a PC as "IT work", as opposed to actual IT work, such as coding, tech support, and being an admin for the network. In some companies, the last 2 are one section.

=-=

I've also found that the IT people who organise the network will have a better clue of what sites not to ban than those in HR. I suppose it depends on the politics of the company that you're in.

DarkJager

eoin wrote: »

Yes - sites that are harmful to the network should be banned as I said earlier.

But football, bebo and all that - that is not your business and just because you have the technical ability to close off access doesn't mean that you should be the decision maker. That is the job of the people who manage the staff.

But again, it is our business as those sites have started to get their fair share of viruses in the past few months. Why should I have to re-image a load of PC's or restore backups just because someone wants to check their Bebo and infects half the network? And its not the job of the people who manage the staff to determine which sites are blocked, its the job of the people who manage the network, who tend to know quite a bit more about PC's & security than someone who is in HR.

Eoin

DarkJager wrote: »

But again, it is our business as those sites have started to get their fair share of viruses in the past few months. Why should I have to re-image a load of PC's or restore backups just because someone wants to check their Bebo and infects half the network? And its not the job of the people who manage the staff to determine which sites are blocked, its the job of the people who manage the network, who tend to know quite a bit more about PC's & security than someone who is in HR.

Again - if a site is a danger to the network, then yes; it should be blocked.

Making arbitrary decisions on what sites people shouldn't be looking at because they are not work related is not your business unless you have a specific mandate from management.

Just because you might not see why someone might need to access a certain site should not give you the authority to block it. In case it needs saying again - unless there is a danger to the integrity of the network.

the_syco wrote:

I disagree. True, it's the job of the people who manage the staff to write the policy of internet access, but they often tell the people in IT what to do. The IT people will then disallow the categories that (HR?) wanted banned.

I don't have an issue with that. This is implementing the request from the decision makers. I am talking about IT staff who take it upon themselves to create whitelists of sites that can be accessed, or have an overly restrictive and inflexible policy.

pauldiv

IT is a weird profession right enough.

It is not a grown up field like Electrical or Mechanical Engineering; things move too quickly and become outdated fast then you need to go and sit more exams to keep the bosses happy. It's like running on a treadmill.

I have a programming degree myself but during my 4th year I realised that there was no way I could work in IT. I could not tolerate the politics and the backstabbing.

Stress is worse now than ever and I think if I did go into IT I would have in a dark place right now.

Having taken the risk and not getting an IT job I concentrated instead on developing a little business using just a PC and a dial up modem from my home in the sticks. Its doing ok now and it proves that you dont need a job among the rat race to live and be happy.