The good and bad about working in IT

Posted on October 6, 2008
Filed Under Development, Programming, Software, blogging |

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There are many reasons why I feel strongly about this topic and why I must blog about it. For starters I work in IT and a lot of my friends do not understand what I do exactly. Some think that if you are in IT, you know everything from fixing PCs to virtualisation to databases and networking. That is not true. Like the medical profession a General Practitioner will not be able to perform a heart surgery. You will need to see a heart surgeon. The same in IT. A network administration will not be able to code and develop web application because they are both specialist areas. As for what I do, I build and engineer applications, both Windows and Web but I am more interested in Web applications development. Now that I have made the point, I would like to share with you this brilliant article by Jason Hiner which I stumbled upon on the TechRepublic website. It is entitled 5 things that suck about working in IT (and 5 things that don’t).

What sucks (according to Jason Hiner, which I totally agree with)

1) You get a lot of fingers pointed at you
When error messages pop up and system outages occur, employees and managers quickly start pointing fingers at IT. The pressure is intense to get things fixed quickly to keep users from losing productivity. That’s part of the job and you always have to be prepared for it. In fact, some IT pros even get an adrenaline rush from this type of high-pressure stakes.

The problem is that IT pros hear loud and clear when things aren’t working, but they rarely get much appreciation during the other 99% of the time, when systems are running smoothly.

2) People assume you’re an expert in all things tech
When you’re an IT worker, non-techies tend to assume that you know everything about all tech subjects. For example, if you’re a help desk technician, you get questions about how the company’s Web site is built. And if you’re a Java developer, you can expect to field questions about how to deal with spam and spyware on an employee’s machine.

There are tactful ways to handle this, but many IT pros can’t help but get a little frustrated, or even feeling a little inadequate. Worse, because you’re a techie, a lot of your co-workers will come to you for advice on buying PCs, digital cameras, and TVs. Some will even ask you to fix their PC for free or help troubleshoot a problem with their cable modem.

3) You have to continually retrain, on your own dime
I think it’s fair to say that no profession on earth is changing faster than the IT field right now, and that’s not likely to change any time soon. The pace of development and innovation in hardware and software products is staggering. As a result, the knowledge that it takes just to keep your current job is always growing and morphing. IT pros have to take responsibility for their continuing education or risk having their skills and knowledge become obsolete within a few short years.

This is a constant struggle. The big challenge is that many companies don’t officially recognize this problem, and so IT pros have to use free resources like TechRepublic to stay current, or pay for training out of their own pockets. In the past, TechRepublic surveys have shown that more than 50% of IT pros pay for their own training.

4) The hours are long and irregular
Lots of jobs in the knowledge economy require long hours, so it’s not unique that many IT professionals—from developers to administrators to systems integrators—have to work overtime on a regular basis. However, what does set IT apart is the scattered irregularity of those hours. Most IT workers are always on call, or are at least part of an on-call rotation, in case critical systems go down during off-hours.

In addition, many IT pros have tasks that they need to do when there aren’t as many users on the system. That means coming in early to run backup routines or staying late to update an application or patch a server after most of the users have logged off at the end of the day.

5) The job market is tumultuous and in transition
During the late 1990s, people flooded into IT, chasing the promise of $65K/year jobs that were going unfilled because of the lack of qualified candidates. IT professionals who were already in the field could hop jobs and get significant pay raises. IT pros were in demand. But it didn’t last. The dot-com implosion and the wrapup of the Y2K fixes meant that a lot of tech jobs disappeared.

Since then, the off-shore outsourcing phenomenon and the H1B visa issue have put further strain on the IT job market in the U.S. and abroad. Many IT professionals run the risk of building their skills, experiences, and their careers, only to have their jobs shipped overseas to save costs. That means IT professionals have to be particularly adept at managing their own careers in order to avoid being unemployed or underemployed.

What’s good (also according to Jason Hiner)

1) You’re the hero when you solve problems
When an employee is desperately trying to get a critical project plan finished under deadline but accidentally deletes the latest version of the file and then calls IT in a panic, an IT professional can swoop in and recover the file. Pow! Instant hero status. Some grateful employees will even bake you cookies, invite you to the finance department’s annual barbecue, or tell everyone in the company who will listen what a miracle worker you are. Those are the days when this job will make you feel like a king.

2) You get to play with cool stuff
Although most IT pros spend more time babysitting older technologies than they do implementing new ones (as I first noted in 10 dirty little secrets you should know about working in IT), you’ll still get to play with plenty of new stuff, too. Whether it’s deploying cool new laptops and smartphones for executives and senior managers or implementing the latest server and networking gear in the data center, it’s always fun to get new stuff in the IT office, pop it out of the box, and see what it can do. For the IT pros who really love tech, this part of the job is like being a kid who gets paid to play with the world’s newest toys.

3) You help make people more efficient
When you break it down, the IT department’s job is ultimately to maintain the highly complex tools that help modern workers do their jobs—and to implement new tools that can make those jobs even more efficient. It’s all about streamlining business processes. There’s a tremendous satisfaction in helping workers take a process that used to take two hours, and through a bit of software and automation magic, turn it into a 15-minute task.

4) Your job is rarely dull or stagnant
There are some jobs in IT that can be monotonous, such as running backups or low-level programming task where you spend most of your time fixing bugs. But those are definitely the exception and not the rule. For most of the jobs in IT, the products and the conventional wisdom it takes to manage them are changing so fast that IT pros have to constantly educate and re-educate themselves just to keep up—and keep their jobs. IT pros sometimes complain about having to do this continual self-education (often on their own time), but this is also part of what makes it great to work in IT. There is a natural excitement and energy in IT because the field is evolving so rapidly and there’s always something new to learn.

5) You get to be a revolutionary
From the continuing leaps in microprocessors to the arrival of Web-based applications to the coming spread of wireless broadband, technology remains a revolutionary force in business and in the lives of average citizens. IT professionals have the privilege of being able to serve as catalysts in the revolution if they focus their efforts on using technology to improve the organization and the lives of its workers every day.

My thoughts

The point about having to constantly retrain and how the market is always changing is so true. An IT person is always doing technology catch-up. What you know today and the skill sets that you pay lots of £££ to train five years ago will be obsolete and you have to start the cycle of learning, training and updating your CV with the new skill sets you just acquired.

I don’t see an Accountant or lawyer having to do that. Yes, the accounting standards and regulations may change over time but it is not revolutionary like IT.

Playing with cool stuff is one thing that gets an IT person excited and motivated. I remember I was the first in the company to install and setup SQL Server 2005. Of course that came with other responsiblities. By being the person who installed SQL Server 2005, I suddenly “became” the database administrator who knows all about SQL Server 2005 and ended up migrating all the corporate databases to the new version.

So why do I continue in this profession. Simply because it is interesting. You may ask, if I were to start all over would I choose IT. I think I would although it comes with frustrations sometimes but which profession doesn’t?

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