January 7, 2009 at 2:36 pm
I currently inhabit a high-walled cube in a small group (4) in a small shop (30 - 40) in an insurance company in the midwest US. My group makes my job fantastic as we all have the same work ethic and we all help each other when needed. We don't fraternize outside the office much but we all get along quite well. Our manager doesn't mind 'getting his hands dirty' because he makes a point of learning what we do and he gets involved bit not too much! Plus, there is no finger pointing here and thankfully our manager buffers us from the politics.
But, our culture here in the user areas is pretty antiquated and somewhat old-fashioned. Lots of realtives work here (yikes!) and management styles are, well, archaic. Lots of micro managing, disrespectful bantering and the like between the user areas. Hopefully, a new CEO coming in a year will amend some of this.
The worst IT shop had to be at either a municipal city office (no budget and old technology) or at a large HMO support office that didn't know how to plan and everyone treated each other horribly (it consisted of a lot of NE transplants to the south - not a good outcome).
I once worked at a small software company in this same building and it was great as they had 1) a panoramic view of downtown 2) free snacks 3) great owners and co-workers and 4) free in-house MS training. Alas, 9/11 ended all that.
January 8, 2009 at 9:16 am
communication with management needs to be there, but for the most part, management needs to let workers do work. Get the stuff out of the way that bothers them and slows them down.
January 8, 2009 at 9:24 am
What???? Managers as facilitators and not dictators?
Steve, that's blasphemy.
Mia
I have come to the conclusion that the top man has one principle responsibility: to provide an atmosphere in which creative mavericks can do useful work.
-- David M. Ogilvy
January 9, 2009 at 4:05 pm
I am lucky at my current position, we hit 9.5 out of 10.
The only partial exception is #3 because Vista "presents no compelling reason for us to upgrade", Office 2007 "presents no compelling reason for us to upgrade", and SQL 2008 is too new.
January 9, 2009 at 6:33 pm
WILLIAM MITCHELL (1/9/2009)
I am lucky at my current position, we hit 9.5 out of 10.The only partial exception is #3 because Vista stinks, Office 2007 stinks, and SQL 2008 is too new.
I don't mind Vista, like Office 2007, and probably should have chosen 2008 when I had the opportunity to choose 2005 or 2008.
Jack Corbett
Consultant - Straight Path Solutions
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January 10, 2009 at 11:06 am
Definitely choose 2008. Not sure Vista stinks, but it isn't much better than XP in many ways, and worse in some, notably using resources.
January 10, 2009 at 11:23 am
steve, out of interest, why would you choose 2008 at this point?
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January 10, 2009 at 12:29 pm
I edited my post to sound less grouchy but I still don't think Vista and Office 2007 have any advantages over their predecessors for developers and DBA's, unless they're writing features targeted for those new versions.
January 10, 2009 at 4:00 pm
I don't think 2005 has any advantages over 2008. 2008 is essentially a 2nd version of 2005 with features bolted on. Now I wouldn't necessarily use some of those new features without extensive testing, but the core parts of 2005 are essentially those of 2005.
January 10, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Steve Jones - Editor (1/10/2009)
I don't think 2005 has any advantages over 2008. 2008 is essentially a 2nd version of 2005 with features bolted on. Now I wouldn't necessarily use some of those new features without extensive testing, but the core parts of 2005 are essentially those of 2005.
I'm glad the "core parts of 2005 are those of 2005", I'd be disappointed if they were the core parts of 2000:D
Jack Corbett
Consultant - Straight Path Solutions
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January 11, 2009 at 10:41 am
You'd think I'd be used to typing 2008 by now.
The core of 2008 is the same as 2005.
August 30, 2013 at 6:07 am
We scored a 1 out of 10...
August 30, 2013 at 10:11 am
Sorry to those who grump about goverment IT but here we probably rate an 8 of 10. We are an established state agency that IT people from other agencies woudl like to come work for. It has taken a few decades to get to this point but the work has been paying off.
Not all gray hairs are Dinosaurs!
October 27, 2015 at 9:33 am
October 27, 2015 at 10:29 am
Whether an IT department is Great or Lousy; it's determined by the aggregation of those of us in the department.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
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