Abused IT Workers Ready To Quit 685
An anonymous reader writes to tell us that new research is suggesting as many as a quarter of all IT staff in small to medium businesses have suffered some sort of abuse and are looking for careers elsewhere (PDF). "The study also found that over a third have suffered from sleepless nights or headaches as a result of IT problems at work, while 59 percent spend between one and 10 hours a week working on IT systems outside normal hours. ... The biggest cause of stress among IT staff is problems arising from operational day-to-day tasks, the survey found. Another major cause came from loss of critical data, according to Connect."
Re:My pu55y aches (Score:5, Informative)
God complex? You must be in a small shop where the "experts" always say "I'll do it" instead of explaining to the new hire how things work, which helps them keep their "know it all, do it all" facade intact. Most large shops have people who are more willing to help others by explaining how things work, DON'T copy corporate secrets to their USB drives, and try to make things easier for everyone. Emotional? Sure. Stress makes people want to become emotional. Whiny? maybe on some message boards, but most of the IT people I work with are stoic, in person. If ANYONE reads another employees mail, unless directed by corporate security or HR, will be fired if caught. I imagine most other large businesses have similar policies.
Re:Obviously... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:That sucks but... (Score:3, Informative)
The terminology tells how bad it used to be: "interns" used to not leave the building. "Residents" lived there but were allowed to leave during time off. "Attending" physicians actually lived elsewhere and came to the hospital. Those are not the conditions these days, but ask a resident you know how far it really is from the truth.
Re:It's not so bad (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe you should have become an electrical engineer. My job's ridiculously easy, with long periods of not doing anything, while the bosses try to decide what project they want to do next.
Or maybe that's just because I work for the defense industry. (shrug)
Re:name of the game, sucka. (Score:3, Informative)
CIT/CIS/MIS can do development. It's just day-to-day business development rather than theory and simulation stuff. CS in many schools is actually a theoretical mathematics degree with some time learning the syntax to run the math on a computer.
Re:In another news (Score:4, Informative)
Time to order another tape safe...
Re:Obviously... (Score:3, Informative)
I've worked in IT, and been an IT manager, in both small and large organizations. My experience is, both types of organizations are abusive to their people, sometimes in different ways. The small organizations tend to overwork their people, paying for inadequate numbers of people but expecting them to provide world-class service as if they're a Fortune 500 corporation. The big organizations tend to turn into Dilbert-land, with pointy-haired bosses torturing everyone with the stupid management paradigm du jour and occasionally firing random people as scapegoats for the boss's failures.
Regardless, I don't think it much matters what size company you work IT in; my experience is that, while the article claims about 25% of IT workers are treated abusively, reality is more like close to 100% of IT workers are treated abusively.
Sleep Data Sleep (Score:3, Informative)
Don't sleep at your desk. Find a spot to catch those 2 or 3 hours of sleep before sunrise.
I preferred to sleep behind the big environmental units (AC + dehumidifier). The loud buzzzzzz of the unit was a lullaby to me. And sleeping on the floor was better than sleeping in a chair head in arms on desk, neck pain ow.
Re:I am glad I work with UNIX systems. (Score:5, Informative)
If that's your idea of abuse, the waaahmbulance is definitely coming to pick you up.
Clearly you've never managed Exchange servers. Or Windows desktops, for that matter.
Re:I am glad I work with UNIX systems. (Score:1, Informative)
I hear that, I've positioned my job to support Linux Servers ONLY, and have a much happier life. I still have to answer an occasional Winderz question, but for the most part i refuse to support/USE Windows servers. There are just to many flaws. How can anyone in their right mind trust their information with such crappy software?
Re:Part of the problem is Ego. (Score:3, Informative)
Wow, I don't know why you're taking so much heat. What you're saying is exactly true. I mean, really, a good developer is going to have to know the ins and outs of all the business rules and procedures before he can write or maintain software that implements those rules.
Sure, he may not know that Sandy in accounting is touchy about people using her stapler, but he knows how to process the return requests she needs. What he doesn't know is the human element of the job. Sure, in a perfect world, that would be an issue, but let's face it: office politics are just as critical to getting work done as the processes you use to do them.
I work for a small company, and I HAVE been called on before to do some *CRITICAL* thing that no one else there knew how to do, because people were out sick or whatever. And when someone new comes in, I usually end up having to train them, because no one else knows how to do every job here. I get, "hey, help us figure out what's going on with this order" at least once a week. All the information is in the software, too, they just don't know how to use it, and they forget things they don't use on a regular basis. I've had to show some features to my boss at least five times, because each time she's forgotten it's there.
Re:It's not so bad (Score:1, Informative)
That's because Management uses Windows.... and the worst thing they ever have to deal with can easily be handled by an OS reinstall.
Example of IT abuse (Score:1, Informative)
Ok, ok, at least we CAN work from home right? Wouldn't you love to with these conditions? Nooo, this isn't just for some data entry jocky, the whole of IT.
Real email from today:
The following is an excerpt from IT Operations Policy that will go into effect next week if you work from home. Please assure you comply.
Work from Home
Participation in the Work-From-Home program is a privilege and not a right of employment.
IT Operations personnel working from home must meet the following requirements.
1. IT Operations personnel must track their activities through the day from a high-level view through their Outlook Calendar. A screenshot of this view will be submitted to their supervisor at the end of the day.
2. Cisco Soft-Phone is a required tool and is to be setup where the employee will answer the assigned phone number during work hours.
3. Microsoft Communicator is a required tool and will be set to "Available" while sitting at the workstation. The calendar link will be turned off by un-checking the "Update my presence based on my Outlook calendar information" box (shown below)
screenshot
This allows the Office Communicator to track presence at the keyboard with a green dot showing instead of showing in meetings, etc.
4. Personnel working from home are expected to be at their workstation for 8 hours during the working day. Absences of more than 15 minutes require an email to be sent to their working group and their supervisor advising of the departure, the purpose of the departure, and the expected return time. This is not for approval, but just a notification so others may know what to expect.
Re:Small companies rock. (Score:4, Informative)
Sure, there are stressful moments, where I am definitely out of my normal comfort zone. But I prefer it to the mind-numbing boredom of doing the same task again and again, as I did when I worked for a large company.
That said, while smaller companies are usually better, small companies can suck too - especially when they are losing money. When I worked for a company with 40 people, I still had no autonomy, no diversity of tasks, no learning of new skills, and I was routinely asked to work long hours for no extra pay. So rather than working for a small company at all costs, I'd say work for a successful company.
Re:It's not so bad (Score:3, Informative)
Unless "chronically unemployed" means "to lazy to look for a job", they are counted by the goverment.
The 7.2% US unemployment rate counts anyone who wasn't employed, could work, and tried to find a job.
Re:Part of the problem is Ego. (Score:3, Informative)
I agree, it has more to do with the nature of the job making IT people arrogant asses. If you are working in IT for a mid-sized company, you are probably coming in contact with a lot more people than in most other professions. Most of these people are faceless, being either behind a phone or an email, so they appear less like actual people and more like "users". These users exhibit all multitudes of behavior, from embarrassed & apologetic to rude & impatient. They are solely calling you to do something for them, while expecting to give nothing back, other than maybe a quick 'thanks, you are teh bomb, blah blah'. Sometimes they ask you to do something trivial, or something impossible (with your limited resources and time).
Frankly these users are technically less competent than you. They are usually clueless to the effort involved in carrying out the requested task, and completely oblivious of time constraints that you may have due to other job responsibilities/tasks. You may perform a minor miracle and no one will understand why it was a miracle. For every stupid question you answer, you are asked a dozen more stupid questions. No amount of hand holding will ever make the "users" any smarter. Even the most affable-natured IT person is worn thin by the constant barrage of requests, especially ones coming from irate users. In the end, you learn that no amount of effort is ever going to make the users happy, so you learn to adapt. You get of your ass and only make an effort when the requests comes from the big bosses or those that you report to. For all other users you adopt a policy of minimal support. If it is not an emergency, you find a way so you do the least amount of work. The longer you are at the job, the better you become at this. And so you become an arrogant ass (in the eyes of the users).
So how to get IT people to work for you? You can get the big bosses to light a fire under their ass, and they will work for you, admittedly grudgingly. Or you can find a way to differentiate yourself from the other faceless users. Be extra nice, let them know that you are a real person by showing your face. Always thank them, and let them know that you value their time, even if you think its their job to be helping you. Of course you may do all this and get nowhere. In that case go back to tip #1.
And yes, I've done my bit in IT.
Re:It's not so bad (Score:2, Informative)
He sounds like an ass for bragging and that's why you looked down on him.
I've also seen too many CS degrees holders that are just utter failures as programmers. They were following the money trail and joined the CS major to chase the money during the boom. They learned how to take and pass tests but have no real skills or inclination to do CS work. The degree just indicates that you've pased the necessary tests and gets your foot in the door. A degree does not necessarily imply any skill. The crash culled a bunch of them, but there are still too many people joining CS with no computer knowledge prior to entering CS.
Re:It's not so bad (Score:3, Informative)
I don't know. I do think a person needs a time to unwind, but at every place I've worked I've tested the water to see if it'd be OK for me to work 3 12-hour or 4 10-hour shifts a week. I find I tend to "zone in" on programs after about 5 hours of concentration and things start to fall into place with a great deal of rapidity; of course, that means that I'm just starting to get productive when it's time to go home. Nobody ever bought it, but oh well.
The failure in most of these cases (me, being one of those small shop, do-it-all sysadmins) is that I was being tasked with tech support at the same time as sysadmin tasks. That kind of puts a crimp in a person's ability to concentrate on problems, and likely wasted an hour or two a day simply due to distraction and having to get back to the previous task once a quick tech support task were to be completed.