KILL.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Counting down the last few months of my job before I hand in my notice (and how sweet that will be, after a decade of corporate TS), I realised that the reason I am quitting (apart from finding a much more interesting way to make money) is not the callers.

The callers are fine. I can handle the callers.

It's the rampant stupidity and wilful ignorance in my very own workplace which are driving me out the door.

Management who for eight years have dealt with crisis after crisis by burying their head in the sand, instead of setting up procedures to handle tsunamis of incoming calls when some developer breaks thousands of PCs with another untested patch. Developers who get off scot-free after trashing the organisation time after time. Supervisors who think they (and everyone else) should be grateful to have a job which is the digital equivalent of the janitor with one toothbrush at Amal's House of Dodgy Curry, Weak Beer and Salmonella.

Of course, that's about the only level of job those particular supervisors have the skills for.

If I hear "Oh, but if the users weren't being continually screwed over by the developers, the SOE, management, and everything else, we wouldn't have a job!" one more time, I will be carving "No, YOU wouldn't have a job, you useless waste of skin" into random appendages with an apple peeler.

So help me, if I ever hire anyone with this kind of attitude, you may unscrew the top of my skull, remove my brain and use it as a bookend, because I sure as hell won't be missing it.

Comments

[ravenshrinkery.livejournal.com]

The reason supervisors in pretty much every field can get away with the "how grateful you should be to have this job" line of BS is because people don't actually go and find better jobs. If they did they wouldn't do it. Maybe it's me being naive, but the only time I've ever seen anyone ever leave because of that line was when it was a POS cow orker. I was glad to see them walk without notice.

[jahbulon.livejournal.com]

I agree completely. I can handle the callers fine if the organisation I work for doesn't screw them over every two weeks. The biggest problems we ever had was when the company made major screw-ups then tried to hide the fact from the customers.

[jecook]

Total agreement.

In my case, It was my own stupidity that's resulted in my current situation. ::sigh::

It might have been the stress too. I've had a _lot_ of extra crap dumped on me in the past month, and I might have just broke under the strain.

[fragbert.livejournal.com]

Supervisors who think they (and everyone else) should be grateful to have a job which is the digital equivalent of the janitor with one toothbrush at Amal's House of Dodgy Curry, Weak Beer and Salmonella.

Welcome to metaquotes.

[harry-whodunnit.livejournal.com]

Supervisors who think they (and everyone else) should be grateful to have a job

And let's not forget the other phrase that boot-licking toady managers trot out, the one that gets used when you announce you've found a better job: I'm disappointed you don't have more loyalty to the company. ;)

[ravenshrinkery.livejournal.com]

Let me give you a picture of my local job market - Rochester, NY.

There are some major tech companies that have been around forever - Kodak, Xerox, B&L, as well as many smaller startups, the ones that gobble up anyone with a sense of clue. The trouble is the big boys have hit hard times and had mass layoffs over the last few years. The University of Rochester/Strong Health is now the largest employer in the region.

Then there's a number of outsourcing firms. Unisys leads the pack, along with a number of lesser known companies trying to outshark and lowball each other for national contracts. Given that all the big boys can't hold onto their labor, there's all these people that have massive experience and work credentials, families, and oppressive mortgages to pay. They're willing to take $20k a year plus shitty commission and deal with "at least you have a job" bullshit from incompetant managers with a two year degree from the local community college until anything better opens up. For a few of them it hadn't in the two years I was there.

Short story: there's more real "technology people" floating around out there with serious credentials here. My best job was working as a floor supervisor for some of them. There's all types, and the best managers sometimes can only do damage control.

[tecie.livejournal.com]

I couldn't agree with you more.
I suppose that's why I've been bouncing from job to job with an average time of one year per position.

It's not about the users - at least with me it never has been. It's about the system. It's about making sure that the system works within specs. The only time I'll care what some idiot user thinks is if the system is so adversely impacted by something that it effects their productivity.
But that's all a matter of perception and preference. If you enjoy working with humans, then it's a different story.

As for management, I think I've gotten the sampler platter of the worst possible choices for management. there has been
- Uninvolvement to the point of one where I didn't meet my first line manager in person for a year and a half.
- Complete ignorance of what my job actually entails, which has led to even the simplest request resulting in shouting matches
- Attempts to use factory management techniques against programmers.
- micromanagement
- threats of monitoring every call and every email
- assignment of positions without informing the assigned
- Getting into political pissing matches with commercial customers and/or other departments.

Usually these managers are trying to cover two things:
1) They don't know how to manage. This is not a skill that can be taught without a willing student.
2) They don't know what their subordinates actually do for a living.

As a tech, I'm sure you can appreciate the desire to know how things work. If an IT manager does not share this desire, then she cannot know how her subordinates think or what their definition of their job is. Most IT managers I've seen are political animals, and in my opinion an utter waste of skin who shouldn't be allowed near people who want to work on problems for a living.

I wish you luck in your new endeavors, whatever they may be. I'll probably be kicking around in tech support until I finally give myself a heart attack from a fast food diet and stress levels that are through the roof.

[toxico.livejournal.com]

Speaking as a Tier 1 support guy, I call BS on this as a gross generalization.

As the admittedly least-qualified person hired with the group I rode in on (and three out of the five of them were fired long ago), I still managed to have the qualifications to perform my job and perform it well.

I pray I never receive a call from you, as it seems that I'd be on the receiving end of a barrage of holier-than-thou.

Anecdote Theater Time™:I remember receiving a call at the end of my shift from a gentleman with a similar attitude. Obviously anything I suggested that involved him getting off his ass and doing any work wasn't good enough. Sorry Chunk, but the fucking Truffle Shuffle ain't saving your database; time to start over.

What set me over the line, after he kept me on the phone arguing about the solution for two hours past the end of my shift was "I know you don't really know the product and just want to go out and party."

My response: "Actually, Sir, my daughter's day care closed thirty minutes ago." Funny how the solution I suggested in the first place suddenly worked.

> > Anyone who has a modicum of talent with computer rarely, if ever, actually puts up with that kind of shit.

Wrong, Bucko. Anyone who has a kid, pays child support, a mortgage, a car payment, has bills to pay and has a modicum of talent "with computer" will gladly put up with that kind of shit.

[toxico.livejournal.com]

Good riddance to a bad situation for you. Cheers on rising above.

[jecook]

+1.

[http://users.livejournal.com/shiara_/]

This is universal for most corporations, methinks. At least, I know I was nodding in agreement with your posts, and I'm a lowly SME in my division.

Mind you, I'm working on a degree part-time, so I guess I've already made a decision about what I'll be doing career-wise.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Usually countered in my workplace with "I'm disappointed you don't have more loyalty to me. After all, according to your own stats, I'm the only person standing between you and the unemployment line. Now go get me a muffin."

...but I'm in a somewhat unique position ;)

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Eh, well, I'll probably be bored enough in the first couple of weeks to go and offer my now-extremely-high-priced services to various managers in the same organisation. After all, I have the most experience with these guys, so they're the best place to strike first.

Well, I say 'offer', it'll be more like "Gimme a truckload of cash and total freedom to do whatever the hell I like. And a muffin."

These will just be part-time jobs, something to do while settling in at my new location. I have two possibilities in the works - one where I offer to cut more than a million dollars a year off my current team's running costs for a hefty commission, and one where I offer seven years of national-HQ insider knowledge to the IT manager in one of our state-level offices. The first one will pay the bills for years to come and require almost zero work, the second one will give me somewhere to turn up to on weekdays and a paycheck I can wave at my mortgage lender (and then blow on shiny toys).

I can do both of these in my sleep, leaving plenty of time to make some *real* money. After all, if there's one thing techs tend to do better than the masses, it's pattern recognition, extrapolation, theorising, testing, proving and solution creation. And there are much more profitable places to do that than on an IT helpdesk.

65 days to go. Wish me luck, hey?