How Much Respect Do You Get?

droidlev asks: "In our continually fluctuating economy I have seen a drastic change in the level of respect that I receive. As a technician I've grown accustomed to a heightened level of respect when I walk into a client's office. Not to say that I have a God complex, however, it feels good to walk into a room and be appreciated. I'm passionate for the computer work that I do; I'm 'GEEK' for it. People know that I'm there to help and solve their problems. There is good amount of value in this extra level of appreciation and respect. This is especially true when you are developing business relationships (and of course it never hurts to be liked). In recent times, however, I've been cast in a different light; actually more like a darkened shadow. I am now seen as a necessary evil instead of the 'all powerful technician.' So I ask what your experiences have been, either as a computer technician or another professional? Have you seen a change in the level of respect that you receive?"

"Businesses are trying to save every penny they have. Unless something significant goes wrong, they handle a situation themselves. This only compounds the severity of a problem. By the time I get there, everything has gone to hell and I get a look (the it's-all-your-fault look) from every cubicle and every office. In the past, exceptionally dedicated service translated to loyal clients that didn't mind paying a little bit more. Once I was the problem solver, now it seems I am yet another flame to burn their money."

Thats why I don't work for end users

[Anonymous Coward]

That un-impeachable belief that end-users have that technicians are somehow supernatural in their abilities becomes a real liability when things go wrong. After years of working for end users and trying to educate them past their beliefs that the work I did was somehow voodoo or magical, I got a job working for a large company with a well-established IT group and I'm no longer responsible for end-user requests. My bosses and peers are all technical and if something goes wrong, its easy to explain why and deal with the problem. Believe me, the grass IS greener on this side.

Re:It's more like politics

[grub]

Having to deal with techies and reality is an annoyance for managerial types.

I've seen a lot of geeks waltz into a manager's office with attitude. That's wrong, the users call when they have a problem. Go in, fix it, be nice. If they ask what happened explain it in non-geek terms. If they don't act nice after then rm their user directory. ;)

days of praise, days of blame, days of defiance

[codeonezero]

So working as the jack of all trades computer guy for a public relations company, I have seen days of praise and days of defiance. Maybe overexaggerated there on the language.

Anyway when I added a feature to Access that allowed staff to go from a record they were looking at to the beginning of a business letter in Word, I got kudos from management. One of the vice presidents (this is a small company of about 30 employees) came down and said thanks. He said "wow that is so amazing and so useful, never in a million years would i have thought of that". Something like that. I probably exaggerated a little.

The same vice president claimed "I know you do your job, but don't take it personal, I think you don't know what you are doing" when I told him that the blackberry that he had bought would not open attachments sent to it unless we installed expensive software. Not only that but he was having problems with his set up. He wanted things working a certain way but wouldn't tell me so it seemed like I was screwing up.

So I know I'm an asset to the company. Sometimes I'm met with praise and other times with defiance. Most of the time I'm completely ignored as I go about my daily routines.

So I say that's kind of normal, can't expect praise every day.

The general rule is management wont notice if things are working just fine unless they are conscientious. Or if they notice they wont bring it up that often as they are busy dealing with things that are not working. But if something breaks and the person woke up on the wrong side of bed, May God help you. :-)

Check y'all's statistics

[benhocking]

I'm 6'2", and I'm taller than about 97% of other men (in the US). If you're 6'5", you're taller than about 99.7% of other men, and if you're 6'8", well, you're just too tall, at least according to this calculator [shortsupport.org]. (6'6" is taller than 99.9% of other men, but that's as high as the calculator goes.)

P.S. The calculator is a pop-up, so you'll need to allow those if you want to use the calcuator.

Re:Yeeah, I don't buy it.

[Fulcrum of Evil]

If you need to rant against your cow-orkers, there's The /that place/, where such behaviour is accepted (and usually appreciated).

You mentioned that place on slashdot?! As if the eternal september wasn't bad enough...

My advice

[MinkeyBrines]

In my I.T. career, I have found that people will either treat you as Hero or Villain. The problem is that both of these are skewed perspectives that stem from a much bigger problem: You have chosen to stand between a person (the user) and their psychosis (a fear of the unknown). It wouldn't be such a problem if it weren't for the greedy companies trying to make technology sexy at any cost. This creates a perceived need for the technology, the "fax effect" tipping point of which, causes everyone else to be dragged kicking and screaming into the Information Age, which brings us here.

This kind of field attracts people with an infinite learning-curve pain threshold. We, the tech geeks, are *numb* to it. We will happily reboot the machine for the 50th time in a row to isolate the cause of the problem to identify the solution with the least long-term negative impact on performance, security, or whatever else the system was designed for. Not so for your joe sixpacks and soccer moms.

I like to think of us tech geeks as digital pushers with the users as junkies. Not all addictions are equally bad... However, if you lose perspective, you will fall into the trap of enjoying watching the rapture of your junkies a little too much to realize you're in a locked room with them and you just gave them the last bit of tech crack you have... Not a pretty sight.

My advice: Don't let people tell you how to do your job. You're the expert. Make them take ownership of their issues. Never assume someone is too stupid to figure it out themselves. Never make promises to deliver by a deadline unless forced to at gun point. You can't give an estimate on how long it will take to fix until you know what *might* be the fix. It takes time to research the fix and even then it might not fix it. Don't try to be a Superman. You're not. You don't wear a cape and can't fly. It's better to retain your power and watch your ass as best you can. OWN EVERYTHING YOU TOUCH. What I mean is this: read every email, know every password, be able to get back in if they lock you out. This isn't wrong. You're SUPPOSED to be the most trusted person at the company. Why not? I.T. is the *lifeblood* of any company. Any fool that messes with the cook deserves what they get.

That's no urban legend..

[spineboy]

That's a true story. I was living in NYC at the time (early 90's) and a bunch of NYU students did tear up a significant portion of several streets just north of the Village. I remember after a week of seeing the traffic wondering when the road dept. was going to fix it. As a side benefit - many people used those streets as an pedestrian zone and it was fun hanging out in the middle of the streets.

Re:Yeeah, I don't buy it.

[Glonoinha]

Stack / heap pretty (extremely) important for C/C++ programmers, but simply ghosts in the machine for Java / VB programmers or infrastructure guys.

For what it's worth - stack is where all the memory is allocated for variables that are declared when the program is initialized (compiler knows to set up the compiled code to set up a certain amount of memory local to the application to put pre-defined variables into) and the heap is a bunch of memory outside of the application's local boundry that is requested from a shared pool, given to the app to store dynamically created memory variables in, and (hopefully) given back to the system when it isn't needed anymore.

The stack is like your back yard, and the heap is like a big field that everybody in your neighborhood shares.