The 7 Upsides to IT
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For me it is building things and fixing things. Granted, a DBMS is a non-tangible thing when compared to building a cabinet or refinishing a coffee table. I'm into wood working and want to be a cabinet maker as a second career when I've had my fill of I.T.. The real crux of the issue is knowing what makes you happy. In my case is is building and fixing things whether they be databases and servers or furniture. The second most important thing is to enjoy what you do. If you know what makes you happy and have an opportunity to perform that role you are luckier than 95% of the workforce ! You know those who either dread to go to work or those who cannot wait to get out of work.
RegardsRudy KomacsarSenior Database Administrator"Ave Caesar! - Morituri te salutamus."
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1. Depending on which company you work for, not all the IT guys get highest powered machine. My PC at home has more power than the laptop my company gave to me.
2. Not everyone can work remote; it is still up to the company policy. As a matter of fact, my company just posted a new policy that IT people cannot work remote anymore because the other departments complained why IT people can work remote but they have to fight the traffic to go to the office to work.
3. What Perks? Let me know which company besides Google has perks.
4. It depends on the company, your skill, your geographic location and a lot other things about the salary. If you earned $75000, you at least have 7 to 10 years experiences, also depending on what you are doing, location and company is also a big factor. Five years ago I had an interview with TOP 10 fortune 500 company– a bank in update NY (one of their subsidiary), they offered me a job. I had 16 years of experiences. The pay was so low even the president of the recruiting company had to call me to apologize. They pay me $10,000 less than what I was earning at that time. The recruiting company said if he knew their pay was so low, he would not waste my time and sent me to interview.But the biggest problem I have is seeing many people do not have good technical skill and still earning that kind of money!!!
5. Changing the world, yes, definitely, thanks to the one who create PC, WWW, and many other software. Now the kids use Microsoft words to write their papers, you can’t even read their hand writing. They use computer to communicate – email, chat room, messenger, space.com, faceback.com. They don’t even know how to interact with people. Also they write everything in short form and low case –lol, bf, gf….One time I had to read an email from a high school junior – all lower case, spelling mistakes, no punctuation, it was awful. And people complained why the high school graduate these days cannot even write a good sentence.
6. Boredom – all the time, especially if you are on production support. You are looking at the same program over and over again. Training on new technology – company now usually cut the budget for training and you have to learn on your own. Or even better, the company does not even upgrade their software and hardware as long as they are run fine. So no need to learn anything!!!!!
7. You are right, our profession is a joke.
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Looks like somebody needs some "alone time".
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There is an upside?
WOW
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I love my job.
But the thing I hate most is the belief that somehow, if the device uses electricity, it is my department's responsibility. Like when a battery powered clock failed last week, someone actually called me to tell me. Once an electric stapler showed up on my desk, and I didn't know why. Got an email telling me it broke, and asking me to "take care of it."
hahaha
other than that, I wouldn't have any other life. There is no joy greater than using rkill to mess with a remote user's head.
BTW, I know you're joking about the lawyers, but honestly, that's a profession where you really get to use your mind and your creativity, and rarely is one day teh same as teh next - precisely the attraction to IT, I think.
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I tend to think of lawyers as making a living by trying to better define (or in some cases, further obfuscate) the "gray areas" of life. One of the things I enjoy most about IT is that there aren't as many "shades of gray" to deal with (at least not below the management level).
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I'm doubly fortunate in that I'm an IT worker in South Florida. Let me tell you, those 1100-page WROX books are total chick-magnets on the beach.
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Happy being in IT is one thing, proud to be in IT is another...
A few years ago - at a former employer - there was a talent show. The idea was to mimic "American Idol" and draw talent from local employees. The prize was $500 I believe.
One of the IT guys suggested forming a band. At first - as usual with most "IT" people - there wasn't much interest. Then he suggested that if we win, we donate the prize to help one of our fellow programmers who had a son with some serious health problems and was struggling with the medical bills. Six of us immediately volunteered to play.
We won the contest with a standing ovation. It became clear that the popularity of the band would be something we could take advantage of so we started recording and cut an album. We sold every copy in 2 days! At the time, Christmas was right around the corner so we went right back to the studio and started recording some Christmas songs. The resulting album sold every copy we had.
As a Christmas present to our struggling coworker, we donated $3000 to his medical bills.
If you'd like to hear a few of the songs like X-10 Sally, Santa Sold His Sleigh on Ebay, Got the IT Blues, ... surf here: http://www.theslowkid.com
I hope you enjoy listening to them as much as we enjoyed playing them.
Ken
PS A little background on the songs:
- At the time, our company was being purchased by another firm overseas. Their corporate logo was, well, hot pink. We -had- to take a jab at it.
- "Mr. Harding" was the CEO at the time.
- "Quagmire of doom" was a favorite phrase of our beloved (and slightly manic) IT security guy.
- X10 popups were all the craze a few years ago. Some of you might remember them: advertising miniature "X10" cameras with scantily clad models prominently displayed. Some times you could get several "pop-ups" decorating your screen if you hit the right (or wrong) web sites.
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I really don't understand when people say IT is easy money. Maybe your perception is skewed due to experience, training and or education. First starting out you can't sit there and say that it was easy. At my university the compsci program was regarded as one of the hardest and most grueling. It took up a lot of your time and required constant study and many 30+ hour days. This is coming from engineers (mech, chem, elec, aero) and Physics majors who had to take C++ programming course equivalent to around a 200 level course.
I still find this the case having to work >40 hours a week just to try and keep up. From reading various articles to burying my head in a wrox book, it’s a constant challenge which some issues may be hard and some less challenging but never easy.
Maybe that is just me and I am stupid.
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Ben, noone said it was easy. It is like any other profession. Look at me, Saturday night about 8:00 PM and I am checking things out. Later at about 2:00 AM Sunday morning (actually 3:00 AM due to ths DST time change) I'll be on again just to make sure that all of the applications and servers I am responsible for do their thing correctly. I think that anything you really want is worth the work. It also helps to enjoy what you do and find it fulfilling. If you cannot enjoy your career and find fulfillment in it maye it is time to think of a change. Believe me I've been there. I gave up a number of well paying professions in the industrial sector before finding my niche.
RegardsRudy KomacsarSenior Database Administrator"Ave Caesar! - Morituri te salutamus."
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It's not easy, but I think we have great rewards. Talk to doctors and lawyers. They worked 100+ hour weeks in school! And they get to dress up, work insane hours after school, and while they make more, I wouldn't trade.
I can't believe I forgot dress code. That should be #1!!
BTW, I was setting up the database daily newsletter at 5pm yesterday, and now I'm up at 7, which feels like 6, checking on the migration to the UK and working the phone. And it's Sunday!
It's still way easier than lots of other jobs I've known.
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Just to clarify. I was not trying to sound like a downer before. I knew what I was getting into when I stepped into the IT world (can’t see myself doing anything else really). I just did not understand where the “easy money” came from. It might have been a reference to the lack of labor intense duties the role requires.
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Many IT positions have to be on-call too including the DBA. (Although in my last company, when I called the on-call DBA, no one ever answered my call.)
I was on-call in some company, if the production job died at 2:00am, I had to go in to fix it at 2:00am. It was in the 80s and there was no VPN and PC and the system was main frame COBOL program, so I had to go in the office to fix it. When I was on-call, it was for the whole week, if you had a bad week, then you did not get much sleep.
I may not work as much as a doctor or a lawyer, but still I always work more than 40 hours a week.
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Ben, this is what I was saying before. If you think programming is hard, grueling work, you are not a programmer. If you think programming is fun, then you are in the right place. Otherwise, why torture yourself?
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Unfortunately a bad IT manager will make the environment very gray for all. The irony can be rather upsetting considering that, yes, we like to think that there are places in this world, like in any software or other engineering project, where rational, logical thought can prevail. Unfortunately, that is not the real world.....
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