IT Job Satisfaction Plummets To All-Time Low 453
cweditor writes "IT job satisfaction has plummeted to a 10-year low, according to a recent survey. Another on general job satisfaction rated IT a paltry 45%. From the article: 'The CEB's latest survey found that the willingness of IT employees to "exert high levels of discretionary effort" — put in extra hours to solve a problem, make suggestions for improving processes, and generally seek to play a key role in an organization — has plummeted to its lowest levels since the survey was launched 10 years ago.'"
No more working for the man (Score:2, Insightful)
IT employees in the category of "highly engaged" workers has fallen to 4%
That's why there is a growing movement toward mastering our own destiny, becoming entrepreneurs and working for ourselves. Putting together a cool app in your spare time [fairsoftware.net] is way more fun, and it you hit the jackpot, bingo! No more clueless boss!
Re:No more working for the man (Score:4, Insightful)
Agreed, but (Score:1, Insightful)
This article is so poorly written it is hard to take it as a valid source.
My anecdotal evidence suggests that they're exactly correct in their conclusions that we IT workers need to GTFO, misplaced double negatives aside.
Bad Economy = Bad Management (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm coming from the hourly IT support side of things and moving into management (getting an MBA in the process) and the traps that managers fall into when dealing with shrunken budgets and raised expectations are so blatantly obvious to me that I'm having a real hard time not grabbing my superiors (who're by no means techies) by the collars and shaking some sense into them. We're in a transitional period of history, IMO (did I mention I'm a historian too?) where the status of employees as resources rather than liabilities is in danger from too many people thinking that better/faster/cheaper can apply to people as well as processes.
ManicMonkey (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe this is due to the dumbing down of people working in IT management in general. Nowadays an untrained monkey can become a CIO after attending a corporate brain washing seminar from Microsoft and learning the industry key buzzwords eg (sharepoint). These "managers" hire people who use buzzwords and the cycle continues.
When you get down to it, it's pretty monotanous... (Score:4, Insightful)
I think people are just waking up to the fact that the actual work is largely just drudgery, after you get past all the hype of being a part of the 'computer age'. I gave up all work associated with sitting a desk all day and changed my direction. And I was doing something ostensibly interesting for a living, computer animation at an A-list production facility. But in the end it was sitting at a computer in a dark room for at least 10 hours a day. After I turned 30 I lost my taste for it. The output was great, the process not fun. I'm much happier doing various tasks in a multi-hatted job in a very interesting field. Syousef has a good point about shifting priorities as you get older, and that's why IT is largely a young person's job. It's something you do to gain experience, then move up or on to something else. We are lucky in America to have that kind of choice, given enough self initiative. If you don't like your job, do something else. As a white collar worker you generally have that choice if you're willing and capable of learning a new skill set.
Re:No more working for the man (Score:5, Insightful)
Been there done that. It's thrilling trying to go out on your own into the wild blue yonder of a startup, but the failure rate is high, it requires being good at wearing multiple hats, and it's not for people with mortgages to pay.
Re:Bad Economy = Bad Management (Score:5, Insightful)
Around 1999/2000 there was a thought that tech was going the highest paying major in college, and that attracted a few people who would have otherwise gone into other fields. The best tech people are the ones who live around it, read tech news such as this site here, and come home to more pixels than they have at work. Anybody who believes the only tech they need to know is the one or two programs they use at work is blindsided by world events too often.
Re:Not attracting new blood, good suggestions igno (Score:1, Insightful)
I think we'll need another tech boom - one that doesn't revolve around outsourcing.
Since bubbles aren't sustainable despite the continued failed attempts by the Federal Reserve and other government entities trying to make them so (because it's the politically right thing to do), there will be a bust period and the state of things will be either the same or likely worse than before.
Re:Bad Economy = Bad Management (Score:2, Insightful)
No, the best tech people are the ones that solve the problems that their business needs solved. Sometimes that comes from the guy who knows the technology, and sometimes that comes from the folks who understand the problem.
And when you're really lucky, you get both parts of the equation from the same people ...
Huh, I wonder why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Job satisfaction is at an all time low in the only skilled career where the employees are routinely treated like crap? Who'd have guessed?!
That's why I'm planning on changing careers ASAP and am already sending out resumes. I've only been out of college for a few years, but it's more than enough experience in IT to know that I don't want to do it for the rest of my life.
Perhaps... (Score:5, Insightful)
Every year, the news comes out that US workers are some of the most productive, and every year their productivity rises....
Yet actual wages have stagnated, and even retreated since the 1970s.
Perhaps the days of a free lunch are over, and companies are gonna have to start compensating people appropriately for their work.
Re:No more working for the man (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No more working for the man (Score:5, Insightful)
No kidding. I saw this news item on a guy in san carlos who took out a 1.3million dollar mortgage based on his startup salary. Beyond my lack of comprehension for how he could possibly cover the payments on a startup salary, he apparently didn't consider the risks very carefully, and as it would happen, the startup went belly up. Now he wants people to pay his mortgage for him.
http://helpuskeepourhome.org/ [helpuskeepourhome.org]
Meanwhile, I didn't buy a home I couldn't afford, and for some reason no one wants to just give me money.
Re:Bad Economy = Bad Management (Score:4, Insightful)
I think in these tighter times, companies need to start re-evaluating which resources are most valuable to their business. And in my opinion, if they do this objectively, they will begin to realize how much value IT adds to their operations. If they don't, this rebellion will simply continue, and they will be SOL.
Limits (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:ManicMonkey (Score:3, Insightful)
Today I would not even look twice at a job offer to create a "social networking" site for somebody unless it were already an existing, viable enterprise. Because if it's not, there is about a 99.9% chance it is somebody who just wants to jump on a bandwagon they don't understand. And that's a job I'll pass by, thank you very much.
Re:Bad Economy = Bad Management (Score:2, Insightful)
More mature IT is just... less exciting (Score:5, Insightful)
... and that's in the best interest of the business. The business likes predictable systems and services.
Most of us slashdotters with low userid numbers can vouch for the fact that a whole lot has changed in the last 12 or so years.
IT used to be the wild west. UNIX was not widely well understood -- even by software developers. UNIX servers were inaccessible. UNIX servers were big bucks. Linux was obscure. Hardly any computer hardware or software did much of anything out of the box. Sysadmins, consultants, and IT workers were worth their weight in gold -- because that wasn't any other option.
Now... IT is mature. Hardware is cheap and reliable. Linux is ubiquitous. Linux admin experience is not rare. apt-get or yum can deploy massive amounts of useful, nearly preconfigured software in minutes that would have taken sysadmins WEEKS or MONTHS to build, deploy, patch, etc in the past.
When I first started in IT, building a server was an *ART*. Each one was unique -- from the hardware to the disk layout to the partitioning, to the OS, to the locally installed software. Building a server was like building a Stradivarius.
Now, building a server is like stamping a kazoo out of tin. I can make 500 kazoos a day. They're all the same. I don't even need to log into them once.
In the past, general IT folks were quite often the white hat security experts who learned by doing/experimenting. Now... most companies have security teams an intrusion detection systems that sound alarms if anyone runs nmap on nessus.
Your average IT guy USED to have endless opportunities to be a hero by introducing opensource software options that almost nobody else in the company knew about. Linux in the mainstream has changed all that.
A *GOOD* IT worker used to have almost magical abilities to do orders of magnitude more work. Now, large scale admin processes are much more widely understood, there are many more tools, and those magical processes are well documented and demystified so that even the junior IT folks can do them.
How many IT jobs today involve compliance? How rewarding is compliance-related work? I bet that some of the lack of willingness to suggest process improvements is somehow tied to the process baggage of IT compliance.
I still like my job, but it's changed a lot. I don't *just* do IT. I add value to my company. Today, IT needs to be much more closely integrated with the business. IT needs to be a business partner. I doubt any businesses today would hire a BOFH.
Re:Bad Economy = Bad Management (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes you have to know the tech you're working with, but that's not what he's talking about. The "guy who knows the technology" is someone who is knowledgeable about all kinds of technology and not just what's being worked with, which may or may not be useful depending on the problem.
Re:Bad Economy = Bad Management (Score:5, Insightful)
What I find so ironic about MBA programs is that one of the required things they teach in the class lineup is management and employee morale. Employee morale isn't just liquid latex Fridays or coffee in the break room. It takes actual diplomacy and person to person interaction, so people don't just go to work for a paycheck, but actually feel valued.
Why is this important? A lot more work gets done at a company where salaried people are willing to work on something, just to make sure the company makes a sales goal, as opposed to people just wanting to "do their eight and out the gate." Don't forget that high morale makes the need for internal security less pressing because employees will be proactive in security issues.
The MBA degree isn't the issue as much as the people who get the degree tend to not heed what they are taught, and had to pass in order to receive that degree. So, a PHB who has an MBA who runs a company into the ground does know the consequences about bad company morale, and has no excuse about not knowing what would happen.
Re:More mature IT is just... less exciting (Score:4, Insightful)
Metaphorically speaking, the real problem is that management has not learned to recognize the difference between a backyard mechanic and a master mechanic.
Re:No more working for the man (Score:4, Insightful)
Software development is writing code. IT is going around to people who are never happy because something is broken. I did that as a field tech for 3 years and never once did I walk into a situation where the person was happy. Then it was the mystical game of figuring out if the problem was hardware, software, our stuff, another venders stuff, etc..
Re:No more working for the man (Score:5, Insightful)
Meanwhile, I didn't buy a home I couldn't afford, and for some reason no one wants to just give me money.
Hah! Don't you feel foolish now.
My father once said, to paraphrase.. "you can be one of those complaining about the people getting free cash.. or you can be one of the people getting free cash."
+1 insightful, in retrospect.
Re:More mature IT is just... less exciting (Score:5, Insightful)
IT is a commodity. Sharp IT managers see that virtualization will bring extremely powerful APIs and with a little bit of workflow and orchestration magic, their needs for the most skilled IT talent will stay the same or reduce as quantity of work increases over time. As much as people in the IT trenches may wish things to not change, change will continue. Fewer people with less skills will be able to manager larger numbers of systems and services.
Google for just about anything IT related, and you'll find THOUSANDS of hits on how to do it. Step-by-step instructions. Video walkthroughs. Preconfigured VM images. Despite what us IT folks may think -- that's UNUSUAL and somewhat unique for computers and IT. How many people can google "ubuntu ldap kerberos" or "linux drbd mysql" and follow the steps?
The "master mechanics" become architects and software developers who design "cars" that require fewer visits to the mechanics. They design process that is simple. They implement service menus that look more like a fast food menu. They automate their jobs and move on to more interesting work.
Re:No more working for the man (Score:4, Insightful)
The other problem is that most apps on phones (android or iphone) are small efforts that can be written in 200 or 300 hours. If you write a popular one that's that simple, it will quickly have an open source or freeware clone. There was a market there when it was a new thing, but not now. Non-simple apps may make money, but those take real time, real effort, and real investment in QA and development.
Re:Perhaps... (Score:3, Insightful)
That kind of situation cannot last forever. Sooner or later companies will learn that this is loser behavior.
So I hope! I, and most IT guys I know, make less money than your average teacher, secretary or convenience store manager. Imagine if every teacher in the world went on strike for two weeks.. wohoo! Two weeks off from school!
Now imagine if every person in an IT-related job went on strike for two weeks. The world would end. No shit! People would likely loose electricity, gas and communication (phones, cell, internet). Hospitals are completely dependent on their IT-systems working. Trains, large boats and airfaire would stop dead.
No, I'm not saying every system would die within two weeks without maintenance, but enough of them would that it would create som real freaggin' huge problems! Not to mention the user's need to be led by the hand through the nigh unfathomable maze that is finding files you've saved, finding the right icon to click to launch the application you use every day, sending e-mail, etc.
Companies are sowing what they seeded (Score:5, Insightful)
The jobs of half of your colleagues have been outsourced to India or replaced with Indian "consultants" in temporary placement, your "time flexibility" is always seen as "you need to work more hours today" never as "you can go home earlier today" and, especially in these times, you know that you can be fired for any reason whatsoever that has nothing to do with your performance.
Mosty of us working in IT know for sure that the company will not be there for you, so why should you be there for the company above and beyond the call of duty?
(I do know one or two examples of small companies in which the Directors are close enough to the employees to actually care about them. In big companies, however, you're just another number in the ledger).
I long ago left "traditional" employement in IT for freelancing: I came to the conclusion that "the company" didn't care when the technology bubble burst when companies started firing the same people that just months before had been working their asses of giving their 110%.
Everyday when I come to work I'm surprised how so many of my colleagues still settle for getting less that half as much as I do in exchange for the illusion of job safety and a fickle bonus which has little relation to their actual performance (I work in the Finance industry now, bonuses are mostly dependent on the performance of the business unit you work for which pretty much just follows the market for the types of instruments they trade).
Re:More mature IT is just... less exciting (Score:5, Insightful)
There are also thousands of online resources describing how to be a CEO, and how to be an accountant, and even how to make $14,000 in 3 days.
Does following those instructions make you an expert? Hell, no.
You could probably follow those thousands of pages of instructions to assemble a replica Shelby, complete with chrome valve covers and dual stripes, in 6 months or so... but that doesn't make you a mechanic. Nobody would pay you to do it for them, because they could do the same thing.
But give the parts to a master mechanic, and (to illustrate just one advantage), he or she could probably do the same thing in a week. And do it better. Because they know what they are doing.
There is an old story, nearly a century old now. There are multiple versions of the story, but there is strong evidence that it was originally about Charles Steinmetz, who, as an early electrical engineer, occasionally did contract work for that up-and-coming company, General Electric. Keep in mind this is early 1900s.
GE had spent a lot of money designing and building a new, large electrical device. (Generator, motor, HV device, who knows? Doesn't matter.) But their machine didn't work, even after weeks of their best efforts to find out why. So they called in Charles Steinmetz, who had done work for them before. Steinmetz agreed and went to their plant to check it out. He walked around the machine, from time to time putting his ear to the side of it. Finally, he took a piece of chalk out of his pocket and made a big "X" on one of the access panels.
"Your problem is under there," he said. And he left.
The GE techs removed the panel and sure enough, they found a defect, and after they fixed it the machine worked as it should.
But GE management was surprised, about a week later, when the mail contained an invoice from Steinmetz for $10,000.
Astonished that he would try to charge that much (a lot of money in those days) for what amounted to a few minutes' work, they wrote back to Steinmetz, requesting that he itemize his bill.
He sent them back an itemized bill, as follows:
Marking an "X" on the side of a machine: $1.00
Knowing where to put it: $9,999.00
Did they pay his bill? Goddamn right they did. He saved them a shitload of money.
Never underestimate the real value of an expert.
Re:Bad Economy = Bad Management (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No more working for the man (Score:3, Insightful)
My thoughts exactly. I'm not sure who I'd rather donate to: some scammer in Nigeria or some guy who bought a house way beyond his means.
At least the Nigerian would actually make use of the money instead of it ending up in a black hole mortgage that has no chance of being paid off.
Re:Huh, I wonder why? (Score:5, Insightful)
If I didn't do it as a job, I'd do it as a hobby
And that is the problem. I am a "veteran" as well (20 years working on the field) and what I can see is that people is always too willing to engage, forgetting about what they should be getting back.
By nature, our work involves a lot of learning and a lot of looking at how things are done and trying to improve them, making procedures more efficient or finding new ways of achieving goals. If you ask me this is quite close to the kind of work executives do.
More and more, companies depend on IT both for efficiencies and for competitive advantage. This is not only on "Tech" companies like it used to be, but in most of the big ones, and it is starting to spill on the medium size ones as well. TFA acknowledges this.
We manage a critical part of their operations, yet many of us enjoy work so much that we are happy with giving economic rewards a secondary position. That is a mistake.
I went freelance consultant and the economic rewards are much better, but you know what? respect for my work also went up, and so did working conditions. Now I feel like if someone wants me on his organization they'll have to provide far more than what they are offering to cubicle workers.
If more IT people would take this view where you have to be rewarded for everything you do for your organization, things would be quite different. It works for salespeople and MBAs really well. They don't move a finger without getting something back. Either money or better working conditions.
Re:No more working for the man (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bad Economy = Bad Management (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is probably why MBA is a masters program. The assumption is you have some domain specific background either from experience by that point you start an MBA or from an undergraduate education. The trouble we have to day all those undergrad business majors moving directly to the MBA programs, having never done any business.
Re:No more working for the man (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Huh, I wonder why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Grass is greener on the other side of the fence syndrome.
Sure, IT people are treated like crap as nerds. But Sales people are treated like crap as aggressive bullshitters. Marketing people are treated like crap as third nipples who waste everyone's time and "don't get it". Field Services people are treated like crap as gophers who have to travel. Finance folks are treated like crap as "bean counters".
The best solution to being treated like crap isn't to move laterally to another discipline, it's to move vertically up into the power structure. The higher you go the less often you're treated like crap. It never really stops, though. Even the CEO gets called to the mat by customers sometimes. At least at that point you're getting treated like crap on the company jet.
I know, become a customer! Well, then you're just working for some other power structure that will treat you like crap.
Become a hermit? Then Mother Nature treats you like crap. It never ends. :)
IT field avoidance should be a no-brainer (Score:5, Insightful)
Occam's razor: off-shore labor is a lot cheaper, therefore employers will off-shore every possible job. If you do your job sitting in front of a computer, then your job can probably be off-shored - if not now, then certainly in the near future.
Furthermore, the simple laws of supply and demand dictate that the few jobs that are not off-shored, will have a glut of qualified applicants. The experienced developers who have their jobs off-shored, will clearly try to leverage their existing training and experience into the few remaining IT jobs that can not be easily off-shored. This causes a glut, and drives down wages.
The IT worker glut will be increased even more by improved automation of information system maintenance, standardization of software, and non-IT specialists who are increasingly sophisticated with information technology.
There can be nothing to stop this devastating trend, due to the following:
1) Corrupt USA politicians
2) USA IT workers are not willing to organize
3) Influential corporations have effectively distorted the issues
So there you go, it's as simple as that.
IMO: this trend is presently in it's infancy. The present trend has very little to do with the present economic slump. In fact, when the US economy recovers, this trend will accelerate even faster. The present situation for US IT workers is much better now, than it will be five years from now.
http://techtoil.org/wiki/doku.php?id=articles:no-brainer [techtoil.org]
Re:Perhaps... (Score:5, Insightful)
Where is this that auto mechanics are living the dream? Where is it that auto mechanics are allowed to run free like nobel laureates without oversight because they have all the wisdom and chutzpah to get their jobs done? Television somewhere?
IT folks are people like any others and their jobs aren't any more difficult than anyone else's in the corporate family. Don't romanticize their roles with enormously biased analogies involving Lamborghinis and Volkswagens.
Smart companies will push their IT departments, their Sales departments, their Marketing departments, their Finance departments, etc. as hard as they can. Their demands should normally be "stretch" goals because they've got competitors who will put them out of business if they take it easy for too long.
Um... Salary? (Score:4, Insightful)
The place I used to work for... I loved the technology. I cared about its quality.Loved my co-workers. In return? Low wages, zero freetime, a douche bag who I'd have to clean up after, broken promises of change/tools/company car... My eye would twitch with the stress... While the sales people would gloat about the new house or car they just bought with the convoluted deal they sold and said 'make this work, and you have 2 days.'... (the new digs are the complete opposite experience.)
Lots of IT shops are glorified sweatshops.
Re:Huh, I wonder why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Great in theory. In practice, not so good.
I'll give you an example: I was pulled onto a project where we had 60 days to come up with a method of handling an acquisition that would make the company about $10 million. During the kickoff meeting (at which was we discussed the need for extensive overtime, getting up at 3 AM to launch the product to production, and so on), I asked what us developers would get as a reward for our hard work. I was told, and I quote, "You get to keep your job."
Now, could I have stood up for myself and refused to work like that without some sort of reward? Yes. And it's likely I'd be unemployed right now as a result, and equally likely that the rewards I ended up with (which involved a significant raise several months down the line) put me ahead of where I'd be had I made a fuss and stomped off. In addition, in the area I live in many of the other places I could work treat their people far worse. So for each individual the correct thing to do is often to keep your head down and take it, even if it sucks.
The only way out of that is some sort of collective action, probably a unionized IT workforce. There are 2 major reasons this doesn't happen:
1. It disagrees with a lot of developers' politics. They associate unions with Democrats (justifiably), and so if they are Republicans or libertarians or anarcho-capitalists, they dislike the idea of forming a union, even if it would help them out significantly.
2. The constant threat of outsourcing. If you succeeded in getting a union for all IT workers in the US, most companies would say "fine, all the development and administration work will be done by H1B recipients or done in Bangalore."
Re:Perhaps... (Score:3, Insightful)
His replacement.
Re:IT field avoidance should be a no-brainer (Score:2, Insightful)
USA IT workers aren't willing to unionize because we know that leads to what's happening to the auto industry. Unionized companies eventually collapse under their own weight. Unions had their place in time but now we have labor laws. They aren't needed anymore and indeed, they are counter productive. If someone knows they can't be fired, they tend to become lazy. I know, I worked in union shops before I went back to college.
Half my co-workers were worthless. On night shift they smoked pot and slept on the job, stole tools from each other and generally sucked to be around. I had one guy set up a trap for me. He was pissed off that the current union starting wage was adjusted for inflation and higher than in 1965 when he started. That irked him to no end and he took it out on me because I was New Guy. I didn't tell him how much I made, there was a chart that was handed out once a year at union meetings. Everyone knew how much everyone else made because that is defined by the union.
Unions are a lower form of communism, nothing more, nothing less. Your pay is decided by how much time you have put in, not your quality of work and union workers are always pissed off about something ridiculous.
You think stuff is being outsourced now? Unionize it and watch what happens. There's no incentive to work hard and everyone in a given job description makes the exact same wage regardless of what miracles they can pull off or how talented they are.
The union experience I had boiled down to union workers being the biggest bunch of sniveling infants I've ever had the misfortune to be associated with. They were all miserable and in the union because they couldn't do anything else.
If someone tried to start a union where I work, and I found out about it, I'd do everything in my power to get them canned as fast as possible. I definitely don't want that bullshit where I work. If our profession started becoming unionized, I'd become a bartender before I joined a local.
Re:Huh, I wonder why? (Score:3, Insightful)
So you're admitting you go a reward for your hard work... and then saying you should unionize because you didn't get ENOUGH of a reward? Or something like that? You got a significant raise, and you don't think that had anything to do with your big 60 day project.
You sound like an average ungrateful twit, to me.
Re:Perhaps... (Score:3, Insightful)
And yet, in many parts of the world, those important but easily replaceable professionals are paid noticeably more than highly skilled and extensively trained IT workers. And by an incredible coincidence, they are the same ones who belong to unions and threaten to go on strike from time to time.
Go figure.
Re:Huh, I wonder why? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, I'm saying that at the time the project was given to me, I was offered absolutely no reward whatsoever. For instance, they could have at the time said "and for your hard work on this, we'll give you a $2000 bonus". They didn't, just said "do this or you're fired". In 20/20 hindsight, it was in fact the right decision, but that was because management was feeling generous.
And in fact there was a few months later a similar project in which the entire tech team was worked effectively double-shifts for months, and despite assurances that our work would be recognized we haven't seen a dime extra.
Compare that to sales teams who are routinely given a 10-15% cut of whatever they sell.
Re:Um... Salary? (Score:3, Insightful)
All true.
I know it is not easy saying no. I've left 2 workplaces due to this. Unfortunately, it is pervasive in the industry. I spent the first 2 years of my working life working what I would think now are insane conditions.
As in industry we either grow a pair and be professionals...
or we grow a pair collectively as a union.
Whether valid or not, the fact that businesses see most IT people as replaceable cogs... then maybe those areas should be aiming for unionization instead of acting like professionals.
But I'll still put the vast majority of the blame on us in industry. The number of us who go well above and beyond what we are paid is extraordinary. The number of us who take pride in being smarter and working harder than the rest is astonishing. I've seen people proud of the fact they stayed at work until 1 am finishing up some code. The number of us (me included... I still can't get rid of this habit... I don't have the heart for it) who let 'lesser engineers and IT staff' get by via giving away our knowledge and expertise for free is astounding. This only enforces the idea that we are replaceable cogs.
Until we change our attitudes, I'm a little hesitant to simply blame management. Management also has their own stresses. If you're lucky, you will end up in a nicely managed company with good management from top to bottom. But if you're like most companies, your manager is stressing from the demands of his manager. He'll pass that onto the workers, unless they're willing to stand up for themselves.
Pardon me if I sounded a bit off in the other post. I know how hard dealing with management is.
Re:It's because the view of IT is changing (Score:3, Insightful)
There's no such thing as overeducated, merely educated enough to qualify for a job better than the one you have. Education is a human good, not a device to get you ready for your job allocated from Your Corporate Lords and Masters. You're thinking of job training.
Re:Huh, I wonder why? (Score:3, Insightful)
You shouldn't have to do extensive overtime, or in fact any overtime at all, to keep your job -- whether or not they feel generous give you a bonus or a raise at the end without having offered it in the first place. There's a damn reason we have laws mandating overtime pay after a 40-hour work week: to discourage employers from forcing their employees into double-shifts and waking up at 3AM just to rectify the management's incompetence.
Re:Perhaps... (Score:3, Insightful)
Well as I remember there were these people called strike-breakers or "scabs".