.. or lack thereof. "What!?" say you. Well I hope this is the case rather than what my suspicions lead me to believe. But I get ahead of myself.
I was recently on a game. Now I have played this game for years and have used the same client software for years. (ZMud if anyone cares.) So while playing another person mentions they are rebuilding all of their macros, scripts, etc in ZMUD due to a hard disk failure. He is having a problem with a math function so I go to the creator's site to peruse the forums as I KNOW I have seen a similar little app there. (It just calculates number of enemies killed experience gained and averages.) When i connect to the forums my pages starts to "roll". It perpetually refreshes. I mutter about the damn Opera update and fire up Firefox - Same thing. Hmm So I fire up the old I.E. Old in that it is NOT updated. Page loads fine. I report it in the forums and go on my way.
Next day I check to see if they have any idea what it could be (I did check the obvious as well as run an internet search on similar problems. I may have an idea, but so far this is the ONLY forum where I have seen this behavior and I would LOVE to know what changed there so I can figure out what is fighting with what.) I see a reply from another user and it says HIS version of Firefox runs fine and so it must be something with my machine did I check for viruses, etc. I reply to the condescending tone of the post with yes, it used to work and has stopped so I thought just perhaps someone might be interested in the issue as it may affect readership. Went on to explain it is a known issue with Forefox and Skype (which I do not use), but was also occurring in OPERA and seems to only work with an out of date I.E. I have not gone back to check further responses yet because now we get to what REALLY leads me to hope that it is a lack of literacy on the part of IT professionals.
Dh has been complaining his account loads slowly and his internet browsing is slow. I watched him the other day. It does seem slower than either my daughters' or mine. I look at start up, devices, etc. I notice under adapters there is one, 6TO4, that is not loading and there are MANY instances of the driver attempting to do so. So, what is this adapter and why is it not working? I punch in a search for it and find many forums with posts addressing this. I pick a techie helping techie forum and settle in to read.
A person who is a database person posts the exact issue with his laptop with Vista Home Premium. He is hoping a network guy will tell him if what he thinks (that he can safely disable this) is true. He mentions that he has followed the usual track of checking it, searching the driver, searching the MS site, checking for upgrades, etc. Sounds like what I am looking for.
There are 5 answers to his issue. 3 of them tell him to download and upgrade the most recent version from his laptop manufacturer. One tells him to check for ad ware and viruses. The last one points him to an article on the MS support site that states it is a component put in place for enterprises going from a v4 protocol to a v6 protocol as a stop gap and that most people are safe disabling the device. (What do you know a meaningful name from Microsoft I am impressed!)
I hope that the first 4 'professionals' have problems reading for it seemed to me the user with the issue stated he had attempted those actions. I hope they were not just posting something so that they could have their name out there and add to their branding. Because if that is the case they did more harm than good. They have proven what users have said about techies is true. They never listen, they never believe you and they are useless.
I expect a bit of condescension on a gaming forum. After all most people on those are NOT professionals, or if they are they are they are not required to behave as such. (the owner is always polite btw and I recommend ZMUD and CMUD) But on a forum where all members are thought to be in the same field although with different areas of expertise, I would never expect people to rush to get a message up so they can raise their activity level on the forum, or so that they can get a thrill in seeing their name on a technical forum. I would hope they are professionals. So I suggest HR departments start enrolling their IT staff in literacy programs. It seems they need it.
Showing posts with label branding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label branding. Show all posts
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Friday, September 5, 2008
The I in IT
Once upon a time the IT department was kept in the basement and thrown bones every so often. The rest of the company never understood them and that was fine with everyone. We were let out of our cages to go fix stuff. We were faceless, nameless (as one manager said were were the Shadow Ninjas we fixed stuff and you rarely saw us do it.)
Somewhere along the line all that changed. It was sometime in the 90's. Probably about the time Windoze 95 was released. Suddenly we were adored, worshipped and fawned over. Salaries went skyrocketing and people began to flock to the field.
Then it started happening - branding, image, marketing yourself as an IT professional. It was no longer enough to do your job and do it well, you had to be known; in some cases being known counted for more than knowing your job. Then the bottom fell out of the market for IT professionals. Why is that do you think? Well some maintain we did it to ourselves to some extent and that the nails were driven in by those who are impressed by the look not the knowledge. Egos have ballooned and more and more we see sites, blogs and information that are written by people who bow down to the almighty *I*.
First, let's look at the boom in IT. In the late 90's IT was the place to be. Consulting companies like the now defunct EDS (bought out by HP in July) had strict requirements to be a programmer with the title Software Engineer or Systems Analyst. But almost none to be a Business Analyst, even though in many client locations they performed the same or very similar tasks. Usually a BA cost less than an SA though the client.
Now like most companies, each job title had a level and each level a salary cap. Let us say an employee was a BA level 1. That would mean they had a salary cap of say 30K. So, for a raise you had to be promoted by a manager to a BA level 2 and then you could code pound merrily until your salary broke say 45K. Only thing was a BA level 3 was a manager type. Many code pounders do not want to be a manager and deal with HR things, so as an employee under them approached the next cap; good managers would sound them out and mentor them as to their next step in the company, bad ones forced techies into management. Most of them left the company because they hated being a people person.
The hybrids went to SA boot camp. Most of us never wanted to be more than a Project Manager or Team Lead. A full class at the beginning was around 30. Usually that whittled down to about 20 by the end. The thing was over half the class was frequently comprised of people from the marketing side of the company. When asked why they wanted to become coders, most answered, "Because I can make a lot of money."
That *I* should have been the first red flag to the industry, the answer was not because technology was cool, or users needed friendlier apps, or companies need better systems that are secure or that tools could be more efficient. It was about the person. Unfortunately, that has carried over into the present day. More next time.
Somewhere along the line all that changed. It was sometime in the 90's. Probably about the time Windoze 95 was released. Suddenly we were adored, worshipped and fawned over. Salaries went skyrocketing and people began to flock to the field.
Then it started happening - branding, image, marketing yourself as an IT professional. It was no longer enough to do your job and do it well, you had to be known; in some cases being known counted for more than knowing your job. Then the bottom fell out of the market for IT professionals. Why is that do you think? Well some maintain we did it to ourselves to some extent and that the nails were driven in by those who are impressed by the look not the knowledge. Egos have ballooned and more and more we see sites, blogs and information that are written by people who bow down to the almighty *I*.
First, let's look at the boom in IT. In the late 90's IT was the place to be. Consulting companies like the now defunct EDS (bought out by HP in July) had strict requirements to be a programmer with the title Software Engineer or Systems Analyst. But almost none to be a Business Analyst, even though in many client locations they performed the same or very similar tasks. Usually a BA cost less than an SA though the client.
Now like most companies, each job title had a level and each level a salary cap. Let us say an employee was a BA level 1. That would mean they had a salary cap of say 30K. So, for a raise you had to be promoted by a manager to a BA level 2 and then you could code pound merrily until your salary broke say 45K. Only thing was a BA level 3 was a manager type. Many code pounders do not want to be a manager and deal with HR things, so as an employee under them approached the next cap; good managers would sound them out and mentor them as to their next step in the company, bad ones forced techies into management. Most of them left the company because they hated being a people person.
The hybrids went to SA boot camp. Most of us never wanted to be more than a Project Manager or Team Lead. A full class at the beginning was around 30. Usually that whittled down to about 20 by the end. The thing was over half the class was frequently comprised of people from the marketing side of the company. When asked why they wanted to become coders, most answered, "Because I can make a lot of money."
That *I* should have been the first red flag to the industry, the answer was not because technology was cool, or users needed friendlier apps, or companies need better systems that are secure or that tools could be more efficient. It was about the person. Unfortunately, that has carried over into the present day. More next time.
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