June 26, 2008 at 8:33 am
I don't care what others call me as long as I get paid. My mother doesn't even know what "IT" is; she just knows that I "work with computers".
Although I am trained in programming and design, my career has exposed me to more than just designing and developing systems, such as hardware and networking, including gateways.
Programming computers is what I enjoy, but in my role as a developer, I also have experience with designing databases; although I am not a DBA for a production environment, but I do run SQL Server on my home network. With one of my employers, I realized adding an index would shave some time from a long running query for a web application. Working with the DBA, we were able to cut the query time from 1 minute 45 seconds to 30 seconds.
I also have experience with networking, routing and gateways from working for a computer manufacturer, but I am not a security person. Also, our household has had a network since 1994.
That networking experience, from the computer manufacturer, helped me salvage a disaster recovery test without having to call one of the networking guys that was taxed with helping support the overall disaster recovery test. I realized that the client computer was on a different subnet and was not able to access the Citrix server. I doubt that one of my fellow co-workers would have figured that out.
Ralph
June 26, 2008 at 8:34 am
I just say I work with computers, and everyone then asks if I work for Microsoft! 😀 I don't have a problem with being called "IT guy" or "IT gal" by lay people; it's because they don't know what else to call me (Systems programmer / analyst is just too long, and doesn't make sense). And to most people, the moniker "IT guy" (or more likely "computer guy", because no one knows what IT means) carries connotations of knowledge and power, so how bad can that be?
I vote we try to change "IT Guy" to "IT Wizard"; I think it's more descriptive.
And the whole "guy" thinks is really a social anomaly. Try calling your doctor by their first name, and check your reaction to it - it can be hard to say "Marshall" rather than "Doctor xxxx "! We've been carefully trained in the respect of certain professions, from the time we were children. When I was a child, they had just built the first "computers" (the kind that filled the floor of a building...) We haven't had time to establish the "respect" that older professions have. And I'd ask, do we really want to go that route? Doctor's perform magic, we perform magic, but do we need the swelled head that goes along with it? (I'll keep the swell paycheck, tho!)
It's a good thing I've been reading this at home, because I've busted out laughing at some of the responses, so I think we can safely add "...with a sense of humor" to any description of IT Folks. 😉
Remember what those letters after the names stand for: :hehe:
BS - Bulls**t
MS - More s**t
PhD - Piled higher and deeper
(oh, and I got that from someone with a PhD after their name...)
Steph Brown
June 26, 2008 at 8:42 am
I had great fun being asked what I did for a living and saying 'Security Consultant' then being asked why I had 4 computers in the house if I was a security guard... 🙂
AMO AMAS AMATIT AGAIN
June 26, 2008 at 8:50 am
Damn you're tellin me grave robbin's required for the medical profession.
*hastily lifts barrow covered in tarp, a leg and arm protrude from it*
Er..just going to town via the cemetery won't be long.
I suspected those guys, Burke and Hare, weren't SAP consultants! 😀
Hiding under a desk from SSIS Implemenation Work :crazy:
June 26, 2008 at 8:55 am
I think the last time I got offended at how someone referred to me in the business setting was about 8 years ago when I got stuck doing an Access VBA application integrated with FileNet for a client and one of the clients introduced me to a coworker as "an Access developer" *shudder* I've been called IT, developer, programmer, architect, consultant, code monkey, business analyst, and probably b*tch behind my back... But I digress.
I get more offended when I see posts on forums (from other computer-related professionals) saying "Dear sirs" than I do to any reference to an IT guy (or myself as an IT guy/gal) because the inference there is that anyone who possibly might have a useful answer to the question must have a Y chromosome.
Now for some levity... a few stories.
A couple years ago I had some heart issues and was referred to an electrophysiologist (one of the many kinds of heart specialists referred to in a previous post). While he had me strapped to a tilted table but before the actual testing he was asking me some questions about this idea he had for an online health database. The terminology he was using made it clear he knew absolutely nothing about computers, web applications etc, and I found it amusing that I was having to translate what I said into 3rd grade language to talk to a guy who had more schooling than I did.
About 10 years ago I briefly had a general practitioner who insisted on translating all his own language into lowest common denominator when speaking to me even though I thought I'd made it clear from the nature of my questions that I was pretty well educated and also had some medical background. He kept asking me if I'd been to see the "woman doctor", so I asked if he meant the gynecologist or whether he would prefer I switch to a female general practitioner. (I ended up switching anyway because he annoyed me so much).
The point of these stories is pretty much the same...when describing what you do or need to discuss technical things, no matter what they are, it's best to give people the benefit of the doubt and then just dumb it down until their eyes light up.
--
Anye Mercy
"Service Unavailable is not an Error" -- John, ENOM support
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." -- Inigo Montoya in "Princess Bride"
"Civilization exists by geologic consent, subject to change without notice." -- Will Durant
June 26, 2008 at 9:05 am
Great editorial, Ted, and thanks for the day off (sort of) 😉
I have a friend who's an anesthesiologist. People will hear he's a doctor and ask him about something, and he'll then say what kind of doctor he is and they leave him alone. Maybe we could all just say we work on mainframes? Most people know those and aren't likely to have one for you to work on.
I think a lot of it is the respect and schooling other professions go through. Not that it makes them more competent, but it provides for a certain level of knowledge and a set of skills that we realize are hard, even if we don't understand them completely.
Engineers aren't called the "engineer guy" and a PE has some respect since it implies that you've achieved something. Granted, you might ask someone if they can help you with your wiring and they'll then say they're an EE, so mistakes happen.
I'm not a tech support guy. I've begged off from friends, referring them to a service or giving them advice, but I don't touch keyboards. I know how complicated things are and how easily I could make myself look stupid as well as not help them at all. Even Mom I pawn off on others, which is easier since she's 2000 miles away. If you really want me, it's $100/hr.
My wife has helped friends, usually trading IT time for horse time or babysitting, which has worked out OK. However she's also gotten jammed up with lots of time spent on a PC instead of doing something else that would have been more profitable.
I call myself the "computer guy" to most people, maybe even programmer (select * from sys.server_principals is technically programming), and leave it at that. If they know more, I'm a "database guy" or "data janitor", cleaning up the, ah, slop.
June 26, 2008 at 9:08 am
Anye Mercy (6/26/2008)
I get more offended when I see posts on forums (from other computer-related professionals) saying "Dear sirs" than I do to any reference to an IT guy (or myself as an IT guy/gal) because the inference there is that anyone who possibly might have a useful answer to the question must have a Y chromosome.
And I thought all good DBAs had a dominant Why? chromosome 😉
A couple years ago I had some heart issues and was referred to an electrophysiologist (one of the many kinds of heart specialists referred to in a previous post). While he had me strapped to a tilted table but before the actual testing he was asking me some questions about this idea he had for an online health database. The terminology he was using made it clear he knew absolutely nothing about computers, web applications etc, and I found it amusing that I was having to translate what I said into 3rd grade language to talk to a guy who had more schooling than I did.
I had a similar-ish situation many years ago when I used to work in a hospital's IT department and had to fix PCs for (medical) senior consultants. They saved lives, but knew diddly about DOS/Windows. It taught me humility when I realised knowing something someone else doesn't didn't make me smarter than them. I hope never to forget that lesson.
Good stories, Anye. Thanks.
Semper in excretia, suus solum profundum variat
June 26, 2008 at 9:18 am
This reminds of when I told someone I was a data warehouse developer at Publix (a southern super market chain) and they asked me, "Oh yeah? So which warehouse do you work at?"
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|Ted Pin >>
June 26, 2008 at 9:21 am
umailedit (6/25/2008)
Here in India "IT guy" means Income tax guy. I dont know what people in Information technology industry are called though i am inside that industry!
Ouch, well I guess there are some really good reasons not to be known as an "IT guy". :unsure:
June 26, 2008 at 9:21 am
I've been working with computers since 1974, and have seen the transition all the way up from punched cards and tapes. I don't know if this is the true way that the term "IT guy" began, but at my workplace when they first started using the term Information Technology and abbreviating it as "IT", a few upper managers (read codgers) were teasing about who was the "IT girl" (1927 movie reference for star Clara Bow). Naturally this quickly evolved into the "IT guys".
Regarding professional titles and usage, I agree I wouldn't call you an IT guy -- I would call you a Data Engineer. A Data Engineer has a different knowledge base from a Software Engineer -- I know, because I consider myself a Software Engineer aspiring to delve into the deep Data Engineering wisdom.
June 26, 2008 at 9:28 am
Ted Pin (6/26/2008)
This reminds of when I told someone I was a data warehouse developer at Publix (a southern super market chain) and they asked me, "Oh yeah? So which warehouse do you work at?"
proves the curve I say - we are all in the upper quartile of the graph when it comes to understanding IT or having an interest in IT, everybody else isn't and it won't ever change, neither will the names because the inner workings of computing are not as previously stated part of mainstream culture - medical problems are.....
Star Trek got it wrong - who would send their most gifted t(r)echies off into space? They could die, be captured by the klingons anything. 😀
We do not send our scientists off to war these days or in the past why would we do it in the future.
No we are dangerous and must be labeled and held in bunkers carrying out research to prevent us from taking over 😀
Hiding under a desk from SSIS Implemenation Work :crazy:
June 26, 2008 at 9:28 am
It taught me humility when I realised knowing something someone else doesn't didn't make me smarter than them. I hope never to forget that lesson
Very wise words.
I was doing some work for a leading Forensic psychologist a few years back. A superbly intelligent and articulate person. In fact possibly one of the brightest and most interesting people I've ever met.
Quite out the blue they stated "I've moved desks but I still get my email. How does it know were to find me!?". They looked deeply puzzled and slightly amazed by this.
As you said not knowing something is not a crime and they are still (despite the entertaining question) one of the brightest folk I have ever met.
AMO AMAS AMATIT AGAIN
June 26, 2008 at 9:29 am
I think you're being too sensitive. I don't refer to my doctor as a general practitioner, and I call specialists doctors. I imagine that within the field, they are more precise in their terms than we are who are outside of the field. Same with IT. We can't expect those outside our field to have the same nuance and understanding as us. To those outside, when they ask what I do, I say I'm an IT Guy. If they want more specifics, I say I design, create and maintain databases and data warehouses. I don't say DBA because even that has it's own subsections that even non-DBA IT guys don't get. Some DBAs are more development DBAs, others are more maintenance DBAs.
June 26, 2008 at 9:36 am
It just a title.
"IT Guys" is fine.
I personally don't think it is degrading to be call an "IT Guys"
June 26, 2008 at 9:43 am
When asked more often then not I will say 'They pay me to play with computers' I usually am asked again and I tell them that I work as an applied computer scientist who is trying to implement new technologies in specific business areas.
If I am asked a question about desktop support etc I say that is not the area of specialization that I am in.
I call my Doctor by his first name, talk on the phone to CIO's from various states on a first name basis and I do not care what people call me. If they are comfortable with IT Guy or want to call me by name I do not care. It does not matter.
For the most part I would rather be called an IT Guy then one of those $%^#*&!!@ers, computer vermin, or over paid leaches. When you look at what we could be called, IT Guy is not that bad.
Have a great day fellow IT Guy's, life is good!
Miles...
Not all gray hairs are Dinosaurs!
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