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Why everyone hates the IT department

pcpro.co.uk

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Re: Why everyone hates the IT department

#51

Post by mkopinsky »

oz wrote: post #42
ShardPhoenix wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This attitude might be ok for managing the average office worker's machine but when it comes to jobs like programming that are not highly regimented, it's just not good enough. Get out of my way and let me do my job. I'm glad I'm at a company that lets us do whatever we want to our machines (we use a VM for the few things that require IE).

I'm also a programmer, and agree completely - I think devs should have admin rights on their boxes, and at the very least access to VMs for testing Ultimately, it's an issue of trade-offs: I guarantee that since you're allowed to go wild on your machine, the IT cost to support devs is higher. It's not right or wrong, simply a matter of trade-offs. It's up to an individual organization to determine an acceptable trade…

OTOH, the IT cost to support competent users is lower, since they don't come crying to you every time the printer needs paper.

In the scheme of things, I wonder which effect predominates.

Re: Why everyone hates the IT department

#52

Post by mkopinsky »

Bo102010 wrote: post #37
fuzzix wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"A lot of my problems with IT departments would be solved if the IT folks recognized that people with degrees in computer engineering and computer science tend to be able to take care of their own machines" But that's not true. I work as a developer or an admin depending on my mood and the money, I would not consider one able to do the job of the other even though I have done each with the same degree in hand. The di…

I don't doubt that the skills that make a good system admin are distinct from those that make a good engineer. I do doubt that the people making and enforcing IT policies that, e.g. lead to insecure versions of Java being installed on thousands of machines, are more capable than I am at managing the machine I need to use.

It's not only a question of skills, it's a question of knowledge.

I am a good developer, but I don't have the slightest clue about e.g. ActiveDirectory. The IT department in my company is nothing spectacular, but when it comes to the kind of issues that I know nothing about, I am glad they have set policies that I just need to follow unthinkingly.

Re: Why everyone hates the IT department

#53

Post by mkopinsky »

thought_alarm wrote: post #8

An idea I once had to improve morale within the R&D group was to have some sort of semi-regular contest within the group where the winner would get to fire one IT guy of their choice.

The IT department's morale builder is a contest where the winner gets to pull the network cable from one luser's cube.

Re: Why everyone hates the IT department

#54

Post by gatlin »

KyleBrandt wrote: post #30
gatlin wrote: post #3

I feel like ranting - maybe this will generate a good discussion. Most of my experiences with IT have been fine. I worked at a Texas state agency once, though, that caused me to dream about throwing IT workers out my office window. For starters, I was not allowed to use my own equipment. They rattled off some gibberish about security and support even though my mail client supports SMTP and I can read Office files jus…

It seems like a lot of your dislike of the IT department is a redirected dislike of these policies enforced by IT. In most law firms, government, and big finance you will likely encounter a lot of these sort of policies. Some of these policies make sense, even though the reasoning is not obvious. The policies are created because of constraints around laws and auditing and they can result in some nasty solutions. Othe…

I didn't elaborate my original story for brevity. Their firewall inexplicably blocked some technical articles I was trying to read for my job. So Firefox through my own proxy was the only way.

Also, I reported all these tricks when I left. I hope they read my emails.

As for seizing root on my current machine - okay, you got me.

Re: Why everyone hates the IT department

#55

Post by gatlin »

knieveltech wrote: post #40
gatlin wrote: post #3

I feel like ranting - maybe this will generate a good discussion. Most of my experiences with IT have been fine. I worked at a Texas state agency once, though, that caused me to dream about throwing IT workers out my office window. For starters, I was not allowed to use my own equipment. They rattled off some gibberish about security and support even though my mail client supports SMTP and I can read Office files jus…

If any of my "users" where to pull any of the bullshit stunts you've listed here on my watch I guarantee you I'd have them fired within five business days if it meant I had to send spoofed mail from their address containing horse porn to the head of HR to pull it off. In a medium to large company, IT's job isn't to make you happy. This is typically impossible thanks to a combination of understaffing and budget issues…

> I'd have them fired within five business days if it meant I had to send spoofed mail from their address containing horse porn to the head of HR to pull it off

At least you're creative when you put ethics in the back seat.

Re: Why everyone hates the IT department

#56

Post by loupgaroublond »

cletus wrote: post #5

There are three big problems with IT departments (IMHO): 1. Anyone who is sufficiently skilled to be good at his or her job in the IT department is almost certainly overqualified so the system self-selects out good people; and 2. Like any other support role people only tend to notice you when things go wrong; and 3. My general experience with DBAs, sysadmins, techs and the like is that they generally resent you for a…

Let's see....

The skills you need to do IT aren't something you can really learn in school in any way shape or form. These include customer service skills, understanding the needs of a business intimately and learning how real business are run. The people that are passionate about doing IT in that context are far and few between. Since it's seen as a service job, it forces a lot of people into other disciplines after a couple of years behind the helldesk.

Many IT shops also fail at communication. There is a lot that we do behind the scenes and no IT shop i've been at is doing a decent job constantly reminding everyone why they are there. Organisations need to know what improvements IT is working on and how it will better serve their needs, and they need to get excited by it. People get excited when Apple introduces new technology, but they get less excited when suddenly they can log in everywhere with the same password. Market that better.

IT, Operations, DB and Co. will resent you for asking for things when they are already busy putting out fires, fulfilling all your other requests and being the whipping boys and girls of your organisation. Google is a notable exception because their IT department is far better managed than most. Make sure all your technical service departments are tightly aligned with the mission critical things in your org and make sure management is shielding them from requests that get in the way. The more focus the techs have on core things, the faster they get done and suddenly the more spare time they have to help you get your project done on time too. Time management and business planning is key here.

Finally quit this 'for the CEO' or 'for Alan' mentality. If someone's computer fails, it should be replaceable within a couple of hours. This special person who's making a larger salary than you should understand better than any one else, never be dependent on a single point of failure to run a business. This doesn't mean a CEO has to be a tech genius or your star programmer an IT genius. They should just be smart enough to ask their IT department ahead of time 'what do i do when my computer fails?'.

Re: Why everyone hates the IT department

#57

Post by gatlin »

quanticle wrote: post #39
KyleBrandt wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like a lot of your dislike of the IT department is a redirected dislike of these policies enforced by IT. In most law firms, government, and big finance you will likely encounter a lot of these sort of policies. Some of these policies make sense, even though the reasoning is not obvious. The policies are created because of constraints around laws and auditing and they can result in some nasty solutions. Othe…

Getting around the policies just to get around the policies makes you an ass, I agree. Getting around the policies to do your job, on the other hand, does not. I worked at a firm where I was asked by a VP to perform some testing on a VM. The VP wanted the test results by the end of the week. IT said that it would take at least three weeks to approve the specific VM software for my machine, even though there were othe…

That's actually very similar to my situation, and I sympathize.

I was told verbally that I could use IIS, Access, and Perl (I didn't know it at the time) to whip up my project. And then inexplicably a number of Perl tutorials were flagged by the agency firewall at the time. Also, I tend to read sites like this one in case something useful comes up - and of course, these kinds of sites are blocked.

I illicitly installed IIS, Access, and Perl while waiting for approval and the day the guy came in to install I faked some meeting so he'd come back in 20 minutes, uninstalled everything, and then let him install things.

But that's not as funny to me as the original telling.

Re: Why everyone hates the IT department

#58

Post by gatlin »

oz wrote: post #43
gatlin wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like if you'd been my IT guy at the state agency, I'd have had a much better time - simply because I would have had intelligent arguments :) The reason the printers were like this is some initiative by our dumbass Governor called "Team for Texas," I'm told. It's not my IT guy's fault but it is dumb IT policy which is definitely why IT people get bad reps (even if it's not their fault) which I think is relat…

"I can't imagine it would take more than a cursory look at Notepad++ to vet it." This, right here, is the issue. You simply don't know what is involved. "I can't imagine why you need to draw blood to see if I have AIDS, Doctor" The specific program is not the issue. IT in the enterprise is all about centralized/standardized management and configuration. Every deviation from the standard is gonna increase the burden o…

Side note: I don't envy what you do but kudos for doing it well.

Re: Why everyone hates the IT department

#59

Post by notatoad »

the simplest reason that everybody hates the IT department is because there's such a huge competency disparity. during the average workday, the people you interact with during the course of your duties will be roughly at the same competency level as you, and you can talk to each other as roughly equals even across vastly different fields. The IT guy, however, could be at the complete opposite end of the spectrum (either way). if you're some low-level cubicle drone and you're calling the IT guy in charge of the ~100 computer network covering your floor, chances are he'll be the smartest person you talk to all week. he resents you (for good reason) when you call him up to ask how to save a file, the sentiment comes through and creates bad feelings. if the smart guy running the network has managed to scrape together a bit of budget and hire somebody to handle his front line support stuff so he can get some real work done, it's also possible that the guy who answers your support call will be the dumbest person you meet all week. either way, it makes for a bad experience.
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