IT Managers Are Aloof Says Psychologist and Your Co-Workers 378
dcblogs writes "IT managers see themselves as 'reigning supreme,' in an organization, and are seen by non-IT workers as difficult to get along with, says organizational psychologist Billie Blair. If IT managers changed their ways, they could have a major impact in an organization. 'So much of their life is hidden under a bushel because they don't discuss things, they don't divulge what they know, and the innovation that comes from that process doesn't happen, therefore, in the organization,' says Blair."
Simple Answer: (Score:5, Funny)
Kryten 2X4B-523P
Re:Simple Answer: (Score:5, Funny)
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
That's why he created git.
Re:Simple Answer: (Score:4, Funny)
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
That's why he created git.
Linus may prefer you to capitalize the 'H.'
Not surprised. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not surprised. (Score:5, Insightful)
Take up smoking. It's amazing what you can learn from your fellow outcasts.
LOL... (Score:2)
Most People are Uninterested (Score:5, Insightful)
Speaking for myself, when I try to describe IT projects that I find really cool to non-technical people (say 75% of the organization), they're just not interested. Not saying they're too stupid to get it, not saying they're too stupid to understand its significance, but they've been conditioned to think of IT as something that other people do. There is a problem on both sides of the culture divide. I don't know, nor do I particularly care which side "started" it, but to overcome it, IT people are going to have to share, and non-IT people are going to have to be more willing to engage.
well, let me tell you about my awesome accounting (Score:4, Funny)
project. its really , really, cool... you see we take the general account ledger, and we balance it based on the length of time the charge has been on the current report, whereas before we were simply going line by line ,
im sorry, .. are you ok? it almost looked like you fell asleep there. my brother in law has narcolepsy -- horrible disease. did you know that the first person to discover narcolepsy was sinus grimbald in 1823, when he happened upon a lemur collector in guernsey.. .
Re: (Score:3)
Do you care about the goings on in other sectors of your company?
Re: (Score:2)
People worry about their job being automated out from under them.
If you are going to remove >30% of their daily responsibilities then you'll need to work with leadership to help them understand how it allows the affected group to make the company more money with the same work (which will positively impact their bonuses).
Still people dislike change or learning new things so some set of people are going to react badly to any change to the current methodology.
Re: (Score:3)
My first lesson on that topic was when I was around 19, working at a small business that included a print shop. At the time, OCR software was relatively new, so I thought I'd introduce it to the layout department. I sold the idea to management that it could save time scanning in documents instead of having someone type them in, and they loved it. However, one of the ladies that was responsible for entering everything into the typesetter was less than enthusiastic -- she thought this would put her out of
Re: (Score:3)
The problem is, at most companies these days, if you get automated out of a job, then out the door you go. At a company that actually cared about its employees, and cared about employee loyalty and practiced it as a two-way street, this wouldn't happen: they'd move you to another job that wasn't automated yet, or they'd train you to do some higher-level work (like running the automation) somewhere. But American companies by and large don't give a shit about their employees, as they're just a drag on the b
Re: (Score:3)
Makes you wonder why employees don't give a shit about their companies.
And since the power is held by bosses almost by definition, they can get away with stuff their underlings can't.
It's not a level playing field.
Re:Most People are Uninterested (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are going to remove >30% of their daily responsibilities then you'll need to work with leadership to help them understand how it allows the affected group to make the company more money with the same work (which will positively impact their bonuses).
You're kidding, right? These advances never let "the affected group make more money with the same work". They let the affected group make more money with fewer people and the same work. And the only bonuses that are positively affected are those of the executive staff.
I understand the need to move technology forward, but until the people at the top start understanding the need to give people a means of living, I see no reason to help them out any more than I'm obligated too.
Flip Side (Score:5, Interesting)
Flip Side -- we need to be proactive about communicating with the retards who break our system. How many times have you pushed a patch that breaks something, intentionally? Usually a security threat. You've got the power, send an email to all that explains why you're fixing something, and what liability the company has if it's not fixed. This is called propoganda, and it's good. Also, send out good propaganda when you can. The fucking marketing drones didn't sell anything. Your website sold $300M of product. Make IT look like a profit center, and you look like a god. Make it look like a bunch of dick-bags and you'll be an easy cost center to target.
Re:Flip Side (Score:5, Insightful)
we need to be proactive about communicating with the retards who break our system.
Nope. Nobody would ever think somebody who says shit like this is aloof, insular, or difficult to get along with.
Re: (Score:3)
And if it happen once that you came in on Tuesday of this week to discover that someone thought his office was too warm so he blocked open the door to the R&D building and all the internal doors to get to his office for the entire long weekend what would you say? Now what would you say if it was someone every weekend that did that, or every night? And lets pretend for a moment that management doesn't really get how HVAC works either; I mean, they are just trying to cool thier offices right? Why be so ha
Re: (Score:3)
My soft skills are just fine thank you. However your math skills need some work.
5. Do it again ... ...
6. Do it again
7.
12984.
12985 Do it again
What do you suppose we do for number 12986?
The point you miss isn't that the same guy is doing it over and over, it is that all end users continue to make the same mistakes over and over again. Running a computer and all its foibles is part of their job. Just this week I had a user respond to an internal email that in big block letters said "This email is an automated
It's difficult to discuss things (Score:5, Insightful)
...with people whose eyes glaze over the second they realize you're talking about computers.
I don't know anyone who didn't start out as an ever helpful enthusiastic talkative person, and they all become jaded over time. People just don't want to hear about it. They have their job, they expect you to do yours without bothering them about it.
Re: (Score:2)
Well ...
When their eyes glaze over, that's when you get out the nails and hammer. If you stick it to their forehead, they'll never forget. The only annoying part is the screaming, but you get used to it after the first three or four, and people really do remember after the first few examples.
Re: (Score:3)
People just don't want to hear about it. They have their job, they expect you to do yours without bothering them about it.
Their eyes also glaze over when the air conditioner repairman starts talking about details of condenser recharging, or whatever. Computers are appliances these days, and appliance repair isn't very interesting.
Re:It's difficult to discuss things (Score:4, Interesting)
This is as close to an accurate yet concise description of the problem as I've heard. It just misses one important point, the willful ignorance of non-IT folks.
Across multiple companies the one immutable truth to IT is that the majority of non-IT folks expect the handful of IT folks to do 90% of their job for them, because a computer happens to be involved. Any attempt to teach them even the most basic technical issues directly related to their jobs results in an arrogant dismissive "You're IT, you fix it, I don't do computers." attitiude, or worse an "I don't care how hard it is to make happen, I put in the request yesterday, so you need to have a new eCommerce site up and running for tomorrow's launch."
In those cases, being unresponsive is one of the few possible ways to force them to become less incompetent, because then they risk failing at their own job. IT always working like mad to pull rabbits out of hats just gets the pressure turned-up that much more as insane expectations become creeping normalcy.
And while it may get you off the hook the first time around, blaming IT as you consistently fail is hit-or-miss at best. Of course those that do make a lot of noise complaining about IT may get an all-too-responsive IT team, detailing what a time-sink you've been, how utterly unable to perform your job function you are, and perhaps finally, a not-so subtle hint about the fact that the IT team may very well have a higher salary than you, which you are wasting on trivialites.
Explains the Predator Drone Base Hack (Score:2)
bossy control freaks (Score:5, Insightful)
Present a better idea and it doesn't get a fair hearing. Get brain-dead unappealable policy decisions because the system is geared to the lowest common denominator. Being TOLD what the best UI is.
You end up serving the fucking data, rather than the data serving you.
Wrong People Always Get Promoted (Score:5, Interesting)
IT Managers Are Aloof Says Psychologist and Your Co-Workers
The wrong people always get promoted. This is not news for nerds. This is reality.
Give me a story where somebody intelligent and thoughtful gets into management and this would be news. Even on Slashdot, you've got a lot of Managers getting up-moderated [slashdot.org] for basically telling people that they only promote hard working people [slashdot.org] (I think we all know this is a lie). Of course Managers and supervisors think of themselves as fair and intelligent, and as rational as Adam Smith's invisible hand. If only they knew!
References:
http://ask.slashdot.org/story/11/12/28/0058250/ask-slashdot-handing-over-personal-work-without-compensation [slashdot.org]
http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2593454&cid=38510268 [slashdot.org]
http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2593454&cid=38510098 [slashdot.org]
Er, no. (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, what a ridiculous pile of pseudo science. I've been in IT for 20 years now, and worked with three or four organizations in very different industries. Each time I start out with a really positive attitude, a "this time it will be different" approach. I'm going to be interested, and helpful, and friendly, and communicative. After about a year I can't do it anymore. It's not for lack of interest or trying, it's because the average user approaches the technology they must interact with daily as either a black box or an inconvenience or both. How a person can know the intricacies of double entry bookkeeping but fail to understand why opening every single attachment they receive is verboten is beyond me. Learn a little - just a little - about the tools you need to do your job and then pay attention to what you're doing. Your computer is not that complex to use, and essential to your job. You know the rules for arbitrating a marital dispute in Iowa, but you can't remember not to Save As the document you insist on using as a template?
If I had wanted to be a cat herder or a kindergarten teacher, I would have pursued those options. I went into a field where I had assumed I would be dealing with adults who even if they didn't understand exactly what they were doing they would at least take responsibility for their actions. You can only endure "I didn't click anything" or "I know you've told me before, but how do I...?" so many times. Eventually you really start feeling like you're not being listened to or appreciated, and then you start wondering why you bother talking at all. Nobody I know in this business wants to keep secrets or appear aloof, but when it becomes apparent that nobody is listening to you when you talk, why bother sharing at all?
Er, Yuk, Yuk... That's All Greek To Me! (Score:2)
If one more person rudely interrupts my answer to their question by proclaiming their ignorance for the Nth time, I may just snap.
Many times I've imagined interrupting someone's unwelcome narrative by making this proclamation. Considering it's usually a one-sided broadcast, tuning them out is an easier choice. Choose your battles and all...
Re: (Score:3)
Never slug it out with your boss if you value your job.
No, your boss being a control freak doesn't count as a valid excuse.
Re: (Score:3)
Interesting. I went into IT after deciding I didn't want to get a masters to teach disinterested children when I could teach disinterested adults with just a bachelors.
It took me a couple tries, but I've finally found a company where, with vigorous effort, I'm slowly driving spikes of knowledge into my coworkers' skulls.
It is quite rewarding when the VP finally comes to you with a screenshot of an error message or an account manager realizes that "left click once" doesn't mean click repeatedly until someth
She needs to tell us about the people ,,, (Score:2)
... who ask for utterly stupid things. For example the secretary that called IT for support because she was required to change her password and it wouldn't let her change it to the same one she had been using for the past year. Please, Billie Blair, why is it that WE IT people have to deal with such stupidity.
Re:She needs to tell us about the people ,,, (Score:5, Insightful)
Be glad they are stupid. Their stupid is paying your bills.
Nowhere was the question "Are they justified... (Score:5, Insightful)
to that aloofness?"
In other words, this whole article biatched about IT workers, but never even bothered to look for one moment at the other side of the coin: the users who habitually refuse to change habits, who blame IT for every mistake they make, make demands on the IT guys and girls that are not reasonable, and then wonder why IT sees themselves as beleaguered and under siege.
Instead, she boasts that she knew how to tame IT when she was a dean by bullying them with her position---exactly the reason why IT people see themselves as abused and reviled.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
to that aloofness?"
In other words, this whole article biatched about IT workers, but never even bothered to look for one moment at the other side of the coin: the users who habitually refuse to change habits, who blame IT for every mistake they make, make demands on the IT guys and girls that are not reasonable, and then wonder why IT sees themselves as beleaguered and under siege.
Instead, she boasts that she knew how to tame IT when she was a dean by bullying them with her position---exactly the reason why IT people see themselves as abused and reviled.
Guy at my last job is your classic IT person. Hates doing support, acts like a jerk to people he deems to not be on his level. But he also manages most of the internal servers, the NAS, backups, what have you, and if something goes down - because he's an ass to everybody when everything's working 99.99999% of the time, they come down hard on him the 0.00001% of the time it doesn't. And it drives him bananas because he doesn't understand that you get what you give. I called the customer service manager f
key logging (Score:4, Insightful)
Or perhaps... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Or perhaps... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Not unique to IT (Score:5, Insightful)
In a large organization, I see other folks behaving the same or worse as IT managers: ...
- Human Resources, ever try to reason with one of them that their policy needs to reviewed or does not help in attracting talent?
- Finance; yes, once I have the PR, the sole source agreement, the market analysis, I'll get a PO and the invoice will be paid in six months after the vendors berates and tells me that they'll never do business with us again
- Legal or Privacy department; seriously, never ever try to disagree with them or propose a different point of view
- Researchers; full of primadonnas; the leadership is even worse
The article is BS; most of the items could apply to any other area or field
Responsibility without power (Score:5, Insightful)
The IT (in US terms, not technical professions in general) guys are there to enable everyone else to interact. They aren't given much power - only what is minimally needed to give everyone else what they want.
I can empathize with your typical IT guy attitude - you strive to help every day, and do help a lot of people - but end up seeing the same self-inflicted wounds over and over again. At some point, the only way to meaningfully care for people is to take a zen attitude, point them to resources, and accept that most will refuse to take even the simplest steps towards understanding how things break as they misuse them.
And you have to rely on humor over time. The net appearance may be 'aloof' - but it's difficult to help the sometimes aggressively and willfully ignorant often looking to place blame and not end up with the eyebrow-raised incredulous look coming up.
It would be lovely if we could all have a Carl Sagan friendly sage look about us in every difficulty - but we won't. Even Carl Sagan probably looked perturbed and sarcastic at some points along the way - same with Gandhi and Mother Theresa too.
Better aloof than full on BOFH.
Ryan Fenton
But I like the BOFH! (Score:2)
Phasers on kill (Score:5, Insightful)
I am not someone who is offended easily. That said, the author of this article and the 'subject matter expert' that was interviewed have offended me greatly.
Three pages of stereotype. Here, let me summarize and save you wasting 5 minutes of your life. . . . . . "IT people are not the best communicators." oh, wait, this comment was made by someone with an advanced degree in in psychology, I guess it must be legit.
Here is the rest of the article in a nutshell -
IT managers are aloof, technical people with a skillset that an organization cannot do without. They have been 'gifted' since childhood with a technical mindset and they believe that the world is against them. They want people to bow to them as the come into the room (direct quote) and it is difficult to get anything out of them.
I had to laugh when the sme stated that as a dean she could "force them off their high horse". From experience, when managers "force" technical people to do something or provide something, the end result is a piece of garbage that doesn't work right, upsets the customers, makes the IT department look bad and does the "forcer" get blamed for the poor results? No, the IT department loses credibility in the end.
This person doesn't get that most of the reasons IT folks "don't communicate" with those outside of IT is for a very basic reason . . . . . we start talking and we get BLANK STARES as a response!
I love her definition of 'c-level' folks.
The final straw in this article is the last paragraph. Steve Jobs was a BUSINESS MANAGER, not an IT professional. He ran a company and and 'forced' the technical people to dance for him.
Re: (Score:2)
If his comments are based on research, then he's talking in tendencies, in statistical averages, not saying each and every IT manager is a dick.
Re:Phasers on kill (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't this a perfect example of the problem?
Not all stereotypes are accurate, and they are certainly unfair to just blanket apply to all members of a particular group, virtually guaranteeing whatever accuracy they may have had has been diluted to nothing. At the same time, they do not tend to appear out of the ether. A stereotype exists for a reason.
Take your response as an example, an attempt to deny and refute the article. Let me do the same to your quotes above as you did to the article: "IT people do not communicate with others because when they do the others don't understand and every time somebody else tries to get involved they fuck it up and produce garbage!" Isn't that exactly the attitude the article you're dismissing refers to? "This is my fiefdom and I don't want you involved because you clearly can't do it right" is a pretty damn strong case for saying that IT managers are aloof and poor communicators.
Let me give you the perspective of the dean and other upper-level management folks: If you try to talk to them and you get blank stares in return, you are doing it wrong. If an IT manager is a highly technically competent person, that is an amazing advantage -- but they are, first and foremost, a manager. If their primary function was getting into the nuts and bolts, their position would not exist or at best would be called a "team leader." This person is a manager, and part of that is the ability to talk to those above them in terms that they understand. They do not need a boatload of technical details, they need a business case for what you are proposing. Why do we have to spend more on System A than System B? If it is physical interoperability, just say so. They do not need the specifics, and they will certainly understand "we need this set of features to talk to the systems we already have in place." Understand that they are not technical people, that is why they hired you, but that that does not mean they are not capable or should not be kept involved in the process. They like fancy charts and powerpoint presentations, not technical specification sheets.
If the IT managers are not willing or capable of filling that role as a go-between between upper level management and ground-level workers, they are in the wrong position. That happens a lot, particularly since a lot of organizations see a managerial position as something you promote a good worker into as a reward for that work. That does not make them good managers, not by a long shot. Luckily, it also does not take a lot of effort to figure out how to talk to non-technical people such that they understand what is going on and are involved in the process. A lot of IT workers want IT to remain a mysterious black hole that nobody quite understands in some attempt at job security, but the reality is that if they do not see the value in what you do you're going to be the first ones out the door if times get tough. Possibly to their great detriment, but that is of small consolation to a swath of suddenly unemployed workers.
A great IT manager is a good manager and a good technical person, able to liason between those two groups. A good IT manager is a good manager who isn't great with IT -- somebody able to keep upper management happy and, more importantly, off his workers' backs but who might not be technical enough to avoid his staff putting one over on him. A bad IT manager is somebody who can't manage worth a shit but is good with technology; they just end up micromanaging and getting in the way of the people actually hired to do the work, helping neither side at all.
Re: (Score:2)
I would say that the lines you disagree with are perfect descriptions of nearly all the IT heads that I have ever met and I have a good test. In all the straight-laced companies where you know their head(s) of IT how many had a "unique" style? That is long hair in a company full of crew cuts. (Or worse long hair on a receding hair line) Or were morbidly obese in a company where
Re: (Score:2)
when I work on someone's computer and they turn around 3 days later and say "I got a error on my screen that says my printer is out of ink, it never did that before, what did you break?"
You have to understand people's motivations. Whether or not this person is actually a moron, what they are fishing for here is a paper trail in which you say "it's not your fault (nor mine) that your printer ran out of ink, that just happens occasonally, and here's how to go about getting that fixed" such that they do not have to go to their PHB with a "my dog ate my homework" excuse for why that report took a day longer to get to his desk than he asked for.
Never attribute to malice what can be attributed
Let me explain the opposite... (Score:5, Interesting)
It might help to understand where the "typical IT manager" goes wrong by seeing how it can be done right.
One of the first IT jobs I ever had was working for an IT manager of a ~150 user organisation. He was relatively new himself, which wasn't unusual because all of his predecessors were fired one after another. They just couldn't get along with management, couldn't make their needs understood, etc...
This new guy is still there, over a decade later. Why? Because he talked to managers in their own language. Instead of turning up to monthly board meetings in jeans and saying some buzzword-laden crap, he'd turn up in an expensive suit, put on a gorgeous powerpoint presentation which very clearly showed simple charts and graphs of things like "this is going to hit zero in a month, and that's bad because it'll stop our business". Half the time, he didn't even explain that it was disk-space he was talking about, or put numbers on the graph axes. Every month, he'd turn up with nice consistent reports full of simple charts printed in colour onto glossy paper, ending with a simple multiple-choice business decisions with dollar figures and pros and cons.
In the eyes of senior management, he turned IT from a dark pit where money is burned into a clearly separated set of projects and ongoing expenses that made sense to them. Yes, we have twice as many people now, so we're going to need twice as much storage. Obvious if stated right, not so obvious to someone who doesn't even know what "storage" really represents, why it runs out, and who uses it for what.
Here's the thing though: He couldn't solve a computer problem to save his life. That didn't matter, because he just hired competent underlings to do that work.
Re:Let me explain the opposite... (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the first IT jobs I ever had was working for an IT manager ... He couldn't solve a computer problem to save his life. That didn't matter, because he just hired competent underlings to do that work.
And that is the EXACT purpose of a manager. One of my recent managers was very similar to this guy - and probably the best manager I have ever worked for. He didn't know didly squat about the technologies we use, couldn't write a SQL statement to select 1 from dual, but he freely admitted to it on day one. He went to all the senior management meetings as prepared as he could be. If he didn't have an answer, he asked us after the meeting and then followed up with our recommendations. The senior management team loved his work because they were getting real answers and our team worked very efficiently. We enjoyed working within his team because he was always on top of things, had a well organized plan for our work - but most of all because he interjected himself between any business user and us when they came bearing work or requests.
Our teams profile rose greatly because we were able to provide a LOT more work to the rest of them due to this single manager. Sadly for us though, he has moved on to bigger and better things (though good for him) and our team is now being led by three managers who combined are no-where near as good as him. Shame really.
Re: (Score:3)
One of the first IT jobs I ever had was working for an IT manager ... He couldn't solve a computer problem to save his life. That didn't matter, because he just hired competent underlings to do that work.
If he didn't have an answer, he asked us after the meeting and then followed up with our recommendations.
Yes, this. I found in my time as a pointy-hair type (not IT management, engineering management) that the most powerful question I could ask of one of my staff is: "What do you recommend?" -- Hell, their is no way I could keep up with all the technology. I expected my staff to teach me how it worked (enough of it anyway) that I could make sensible plans. Another powerful question is: "What do you need in order to make it happen?" This question only works if you actually pay attention to the answer and act
Re: (Score:2)
Great post.
Re: (Score:2)
Any professional IT manager should be capable of understanding technical matters raised by his colleagues (the word "underlings" is not something you should use in an IT environment) and how to present that information to non technical people in words or graphs that they can understand. In fact the IT manager must have a firm grasp on IT related matters which actually includes software, hardware, networks as well as being aware what e
Blame it on women (Score:3, Funny)
Pretty straightforward (at least, anecdotally) (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Like we care... (Score:3)
Give them an inch... (Score:2)
Organisational Psychologist Study (Score:4, Funny)
"I really don't like talking to them," says 20-year IT veteran Charles ("Heap Space") Edwards. "They always seem to have some agenda on their mind, but they can never tell you what it is short of wooly motherhood statements. I want precision, but I've never seen a decent spec come out of the OrgPsy team".
According to the report, 9 out of 10 IT managers "wouldn't piss on an organisational psychologists if their keyboard was on fire".
Re: (Score:2)
Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
--
BMO
Badly structured (Score:2)
As a former IT type: (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not aloof. I'm just an asshole. Get it right!
And get the frack out of my office!
Re: (Score:2)
Too many egos... (Score:2)
I guess I've been lucky (Score:3)
The only hard-nosed "dictator" manager I ever had was actually my shop-floor customer in one of my early jobs working at Northern Telecom. But it turned out it was just how he measured people's skills and knowledge -- if you weren't willing to defend your ideas against his "attack", he felt you hadn't thought things through and needed to go back to the drawing board.
Once you earned his respect by arguing your ideas successfully a few times, he became a real joy to work with because he respected your opinion without you having to prove you were willing to defend it again.
Maybe if more IT staff took and applied their courses in logical discourse and philosophical arguments, they'd be better prepared for dealing with such management styles. Too many of my co-workers over the years were lousy speakers and presenters, and couldn't convince anyone they were right about anything, so they were always frustrated and claiming that everyone was against them.
Try Toastmasters or sign up for some philosophy courses at your local university. If you need the practice at presenting an argument, it's invaluable and a lot of fun.
Don't blame people for "not understanding" if you don't know how to express yourself.
As a retired IT manager of 25 years... albeit (Score:3)
Re:and you wonder.. (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, we're just afraid you'll all find out our dirty dirty secret that networks and computers really ARE magic.
Repairo Catfiveo!
Re:and you wonder.. (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, all magic incantations end in "o", but you must put a semicolon at the end for it to work... unless its vbscript.
Re:and you wonder.. (Score:5, Funny)
Given the article, does your attitude qualify as irony?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:and you wonder.. (Score:5, Funny)
Given the article, does the fact we all seem to have kingdoms to give away qualify as irony?
Re: (Score:2)
I doubt it. The article is about IT managers being difficult to get along with. "datavirtue" is complaining about syntax variations in programming languages. Managers don't know anything about programming at such a low level, so it's impossible for datavirtue to be a manager. Managers only know enough about programming languages to make up impressive-sounding soundbites about synergies and gaining traction.
Re: (Score:2)
it's from the Bible and it is a metaphor for letting one's talents shine rather than covering them up
and yes -IT managers should be evangelizing the work their department does and explaining what the real benefits of their various initiatives will be for their users OR the organization.
-I'm just sayin'
Re: (Score:2)
BOFH magic (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because you can't understand the BOFH, doesn't mean his knowledge is secret. If you can't understand him... how do you know he didn't already tell you everything????
Re:BOFH magic (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:and you wonder.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
I like me.
-Caboose
Re:and you wonder.. (Score:5, Insightful)
"We must find more ways to break down the defensive walls of IT. You know, the ones they built for themselves by spending their whole lives learning, instead of just exploiting the hell out of people around them and casting them aside. Once that's done, we can kick them around like your average receptionist (we call them customer service reps, to give the illusion of respect). We want swappable cogs we can throw away whenever we want! We 'productivity specialists' are sure that's how you foster, 'innovation'."
Re:and you wonder.. (Score:5, Informative)
if you can't beat them, join them.
Re:and you wonder.. (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a flip side to that coin.
I walk around a good portion of my day talking to users and seeing how things are going. I am the opposite of aloof and quite approachable. However, I have been told on many occasions, "Why do you have to make things so complicated?". Drives me nuts.
They literally cannot tell the difference between bullshit and the truth. Both makes their eyes gloss over and they stop listening.
Do you think doctors are bullshitting you? Do you expect them to explain things to you in technical terms as if they were talking to another doctor?
So why IT?
That's the problem. Everyone expects computers to not be that complicated and that we are just overrated janitors. They have no idea just how complicated it can be, and no real appreciation either.
We are damned if we do, and damned if we don't as far as explanations go, and nobody wants to take any responsibility.
How about the famous line, "But you touched it last?!"
Not a great pick-up line unless you own a Ferrari? (Score:5, Insightful)
(Where'd my mod points go!?)
Any conversation with someone you've just met will eventually get onto the subject:
Q: What do you do for a crust?
A: I work in IT
Q: Oh - I need another drink, be back soon (yeah right)
Nobody outside the field understands it. They don't care (& why would they) unless their poxy PC has problems.
Of course IT are going to be somewhat insular.
Re:and you wonder.. (Score:5, Interesting)
the only other profession that comes close to IT in its ability to baffle the common folk would be the various fields of professional engineering, with all their respective hodge-podge of numbers and symbols.
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Well said. In my experience as a IT manager, I found most of the users to be clueless and not really interested in the processes on the network that they worked on.
I got tired of being saddled with by people who seemed to want to bitch and whine, rather than doing their jobs with the tools provided,.
Subsequently I am no longer an IT manager
My two bits.
Re:and you wonder.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you think doctors are bullshitting you? Do you expect them to explain things to you in technical terms as if they were talking to another doctor?
Actually, yes, I do, or at least fairly close. Maybe I'm weird, but I learned enough about anatomy in my education somewhere that simple terms like "fibula" aren't going to trip me up, even though I'm not in the medical field myself. Even if I don't understand everything the doctor says, I'd rather hear it all and ask for clarification if necessary, as I understand enough to know if he's bullshitting me or if he really does know what he's doing. There's enough incompetent doctors out there that I want to make sure I found one who isn't.
Everyone expects computers to not be that complicated and that we are just overrated janitors.
Actually, they think of you as overrated auto mechanics, and they think computers should be just as simple. The problem with computers is that in many environments, you're dealing with not only something that's enormously complicated and to be quite honest, not very well engineered, but you're also dealing with something that's quite opaque as all the source code is secret and you have little idea of what's really going on under the hood, and little to no way to find out. At least with cars, everything is highly modular, each module is engineered and tested, and if you're a dumb mechanic you can just swap in a "known good" part until the problem goes away to isolate the problem. There's no real engineering in most software.
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Most of them wouldn't know how to fix or maintain their cars either. But at least some of them can drive.
I don't think cars are as simple as you make out. Have you never heard someone use the expression "what goes on under the hood"?
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The sad fact of the matter is that to users, IT is just a bunch of computer janitors.
Re:and you wonder.. (Score:5, Insightful)
The sad fact of the matter is that to users, IT is just a bunch of computer janitors.
With attitude.
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Part of the problem is the (media promoted) idea that an education.means being vaguely literate, and knowing how to learn some guff by rote.
While I accept that most Western educated people know a bit more than the Nigerian terrorists who believe that "book learning is unIslamic (haram)"
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
because managers often don't have a clue how computers work, IT can bullshit their way out of any disaster and create a level of job security for themselves that many other professions can only dream of.
Heh... except when your manager has done your job before, and proven him (or her) self in order to get that managerial position. Unless you know that manager's background, tread very carefully when trying to bullshit them, because I can guarantee you that I know enough about your job to see through it (I was a trainer for third line helpdesk before I moved into my current position), and if you try that crap with me your job will be at far more risk than if you simply tell me the truth. Everybody screws up f
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I see the hatred towards IT from non IT comes from the companies higher management.
When IT and upper management get together, they seem to agree on purchases, directions, procedures, levels of security, SLA, costs, goals, and expectations.
These "things" that are agreed on are never explained to the non IT people or managers in the company and it seems these other managers that do know don't tell their own people what they agreed on and why or do not want to take the responsibility for admitting they agreed
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I/O psych is huge and much of it is about improvement efficiency and workplace conditions for employees. This guy might be going beyond the studies a bit, especially in extrapolating intent from behavior, but if what he says is based on research then he's not talking about all IT managers, but the tendency for IT managers to be that way.
Of course, if you don't like the science, you're feel to take the creationist's path over it and be all butthurt. That works, too.
Re: (Score:2)
Org-psych is closer to science than individual psych. One reason being, the data from which to investigate group behavioral theories in an organizational setting is very easy to obtain in sample sizes adequate for scientific analysis, due to the nature of the settings, which are more uniform than with individuals.
But you still have to watch out for the hacks. If they start trying to teach you organizational psychology concepts, instead of just administering their tests and gathering their metrics and taki
Re:Bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
A pseudoscience with a lot of power is still pseudoscience (sorry L. Ron). Since you mentioned fallacies, that's the "Argumentum ad Baculum".
Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
You had me until that line. Any doctor, neurosurgeon or not, who would decide the worthiness of a patient by his station in life or whether or not he is an addict, is not fit to be called "Physician". One of my best friends in life was the head of surgery for a major US teaching hospital. She was the first woman to perform a heart & liver transplant in the US. She testified before Congress numerous times on various issues regarding health and medicine.
She would never hesitate to "take splinters out of some crackhead's big toe" and she actually spent a lot of time treating people who others might consider society's dregs.
I know it was a throwaway line for you and you were just trying to make a point, but to be honest, that attitude seems to have informed your notion of "IT" as well. That IT workers would need to "gear down" their brain to translate things to "normal" people in order to not "snap and take a claw hammer to peoples' faces".
It' doesn't take a "lower gear" to communicate with people who don't spend their time with information technology. In fact, there's not much harder than explaining things simply. It's a skill that few people have, and very few who work in IT. Being able to communicate without condescension is an amazing skill, to be treasured and cultivated. Even (or especially) if your some "Redhat Certified IT Pro".
Just remember, IT pros, there's a clock running on your specialty. Every day it becomes a little less special. If you don't take the time to broaden your approach a little bit, and learn how to communicate, you're going to find yourself about as useful as an IBM card-punching machine in the 21st century.
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>NEVER make the end-user feel stupid.
But this is impossible. The glassy stare cuts in about 30 seconds to a minute into any conversation dealing with IT or computers in general.
Try convincing someone that "IE is not the Internet"
It took me /months/ to break someone of that habit.
--
BMO
This is not just for IT managers. (Score:5, Insightful)
It struck me hard in in Aerospace, when management went to "training seminars" and came back all holier than thou. I was more concerned with stability of phase-locked loops at the time, and I became very concerned over the lack of concern our managers seemed to express about our products. Everything became "the bottom line". Cost centers. Profit centers. Presentation. What is the minimum amount of effort that will result in getting paid. Suddenly, "Pride of Workmanship" became a bad thing as it was an inefficient use of manpower.
Well, we banged around for a few more years riding on the reputation the guys before us earned.
As we "redefined the organization", our clients re-evaluated what our name meant.
Things dried up.
Being one of the noisier ones bemoaning the micromanagement I had to take, I was one of the first dismissed..
Yes, I have studied "Obedience to Authority" by Stanley Milgram. I would urge everyone to read his book. Its tiny. Its a research paper by Stanley Milgram of Yale University, a psychology major, doing a thesis on what got into the German people to do the things they did to the Jews.
I found the book very shocking. What he did was set himself up as an "authority figure" by wearing a white lab coat, and he would see just how far people would go in obeying him. People would actually electrocute others they did not even know once they had shifted responsibility of their act to someone else. Stanley called this state of obedience as "agentic", as being an "agent" for someone else, who was - as you know - Stanley himself.
Some of us have a moral compass that will not let us do such things. Stanley noted that. There were a few that simply would not obey when they were ordered, no matter what he did. He did not label them "not a team player", but I am sure today's "leadership types" would.
This crap even got into my church.
I have pontificated on slashdot long ago on my spiritual beliefs, why I believe there is a creator, and my frustration with religion.
I sat through one "leadership" lesson, and was told things like "if you need them, you can't lead them".
That goes against everything in me. I have got to make those under me feel worthless and dependent so they will follow me? I call bullshit.
If they are going to follow me, they will do so if they believe I know how to do it and have all of our best interests at heart. More down the line of the of the leader of Terra-Nova. Not because I threaten them with bad performance reviews and layoffs. I've been there. No way I want to inflict this bullshit on anyone else. This kind of crap is for the kids who like to pull the legs off of bugs. The worst leaders I have worked under were the ones who placed great value on "being the leader", not "doing the work". I work best with those whose prime ambition is "doing the work".
This new stuff sounds like some greedy industrialist trying to staff a 1800's style sweatshop with the cheapest possible labor, Its the form of capitalism that gives the whole concept a bad name.
Re: (Score:3)
One of the most informative and insightful comments that I've seen in a really long time. Welcome to my friends list.
It's hardly a surprise that everything is going to hell in hand basket with that sort of leadership you describe. The real surprise is that it's taken so long to get there. I guess people somehow work despite their leaders.
Re:Ha - "aloof" (Score:4, Interesting)
Absolutely, I've seen this directly a number of times, it's in fact a major factor in deciding to leave my old job.
I worked for an engineering firm, and it's background was that it had split in two about 10 years ago, with it's IT staff going to the other section, leaving no one in IT in the section I was working at. As a result they chose one of the engineers who had a "passing interest in IT" to become the IT manager. Over the next 10 years by paying enough consultants he'd managed to cobbled together something that roughly resembled a network.
I joined the firm as a software developer, with the aim of starting out their software development section from the ground up, but as I had an IT support background I found myself rapidly becoming relied upon for IT support help because I was the first person who had entered the organisation in 10 years who actually had a proper idea of how IT should really be done.
The problems weren't just technical though, the IT manager held grudges, if someone had asked for some last minute help before they went on a business trip, he wouldn't like that, he'd hold it against them and do his best not to help them, sometimes outright maliciously moving their network file share without telling them and waiting until they'd spent some time figuring out why they couldn't connect before fixing it for them. He was socially inept to a massive degree such that when our phone lines went down he dissapeared to another site because he was too scared of the concept of picking up the phone and talking to someone at the other end to get it sorted such that our company was without phones for 2 solid weeks. For the same reason he wouldn't get quotes from other IT suppliers such that the supplier he'd been using all this time was charging him £800 for £450 laptops with the same kind of markup on everything from software to printer cartridges- the fact the supplier had a brand new £50k car, and took him to lunch every christmas didn't act as a clue that his supplier had far too much spare money. I offered to train him on IT security so he could get a policy written and in place pointing out that if we got hacked and data covered by the data protection act stolen, he could be held personally responsible and at the end of the training he said "Right, so can you write the policy then?" as if nothing I'd spent the last couple of days teaching him had actually entered his inept mind - his excuse was that he was too busy, but then as he also had never bothered with IT support issue tracking software and did everything ad hoc, ignoring those users he didn't like's issues then how could anyone ever know what his workload was? Laughably when I'd already made the decision to leave, he managed to lose the entire intranet due to hard drive failure because well, setting up a backup on a Linux box would require some actual effort on his behalf. Lucky I'd taken a copy of the database for local dev work on it. He'd avoid sharing anything with me because he saw me as a threat, knowing full well I could do his job AND mine, but it didn't really work, because I understood his systems better than he did anyway so the only stuff he was hiding was stuff I could figure out myself anyway. Oh, and he didn't believe in UPS' on servers because he had one on a server once and it made it crash, apparently.
I raised it with HR a number of times when it reached a point where it was an outright danger to the business, and whilst they recognised my concerns the attitude was "Well, we've got to give him a chance...", as if the last 10 years of utter ineptitude wasn't bad enough, but the problem is that they'd never known any better - to them, this was a good IT manager, they had no idea how it was supposed to be. Our company was taken over and as part of that our UK operations expanded, lo and behold, they'd been taken over by someone with IT even shitter than they had so he was promoted to head of UK IT, when in reality what they should've done at that point was bring someone wh
Re: (Score:2)
Australia
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No one can be stupid enough to think that immigration is typically a result of a country "sending" their citizens to another country. Can they? Can a person be so stupid while simultaneously existing long enough to learn how to walk and talk?
You're not familiar with Australia, are you?
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There's a reason they have parachutes.
Often the best way to make money is to milk the company for all it's worth and then bail out with a suitcase full of stock options before the plane crashes.