techworld.com — Cochrane, who was speaking at the launch of a Star Technology report From basement to boardroom; recognising the business value of IT compiled by the Yankee Group, said that the way that IT departments were run was ?stupid? and that working in IT was more akin to a ?prison sentence.?
Mar 31, 2006 View in Crawl 4
prot0colMar 31, 2006
He also thinks IT is like window washing...good times, pass the squeegee
Closed AccountApr 1, 2006
personally id just like to know where he's done time, what what he was in for to have some kind of a frame of reference...
butlershouseApr 1, 2006
Rant on :I try to take a the position with my Clients that if the Application can load and their Data ( document or database ) can be accessed then thejob of the IT department has been completed. However many seem to think the job of IT is to do all those tasks for which the end user feels they are either untrained or unhappy in completing .e.g. Changing the content of a web page, Running a Mail merge, making a document print within the form boxes, typing the correct username into the username field, opening a application from within the start menu ( cant count how often people ask me to choose the .. send to desktop ... shortcut ) .And then there is the way you are usually greeted by an end user. Theres rarely any pleasantries , few if any remember that being polite is an important part of society. So your usually greeted , as you walk through the door in the morning, with such wondeful opening statements as :"Oh ! Doug, um printer ?" This ones brilliant, the user has anticipated that you are not only technically profecient but also omnicient and mind reader. Clearly the printer failing to work for them has reduced their personal vocabulary as well."Oh... uh Johnny , um the email is down " Ahh great , despite claiming to be quite computer illiterate this user has masterfully deduced that the email is down. Such a wonderfully sweeping term which so clearly encapsulates the fact the the user has a particular problem. Of course its quite possible that this loud explanation will cause a cacophony of other usersto chirp in with similar plaintiff cries of email down problems. "Simon, my document keeps scrolling onto the second page on the printer, can you replace the printer to fix it!"Similar to the above this particular end user has no concept of how the application might operate or that possibly you cannot fit 88 lines of print out on a 80 line page!. And its worth noting that the statement is neverphrased as a question but a statement, you are so owned!"Sally,, oooh Sally, yes um the Internet is down "OMG , Splosion! really , the internet ? down ? wow and i though possibly it might just be that particular website because , yes look see, you can still surf cuteponies.com and some usefull news sites. so clearly the internet as down .Day in Day out, rude people who are only ever comming to you when its broken, failed or just not operating to their requriements. You are only seen when its a problem and when its all working and theres no problems it not because youve taken time to ensure the user has gotten training and is operating the equipment to appropriately. No its all working because , as far as the users are concerned, you are not touching anything !I love working with computers, I actually enjoy working with end users I just object , as does any employees or supplier, to being treated in a rude or abrasive fashion. I object to the way in which an end users rudeness will be written off as acceptable because the technology is causing them a problem. My personal stance is to be abrubt with abrubt users and polite wih polite users. since everyone is always explaining that you should treat people as you expect to be treated , i can only conclude the rude people want to be treated rudely. There ... thats my rant done with ... no doubt these comments will be googled in the future.
spectre_25gtApr 1, 2006
If you didn't notice, the receptionist talked about in the article was female. Maybe the OP was talking about that situation.Don't be so quick to judge.
molecoolApr 2, 2006
Exactly! Hate it or love it - Windows is able to get the job done. WHY install and pay for a new product? Because the old one is insecure and broken and Vista is supposed to fix all this? Heeeeeyyy, waaaiiit a minute - isn't that what they told us about XP?? When are people going to wake up and realize that we're being gipped? Now look at OS X - shiny, functional, hip, cool, doesn't crash, a lot less hassle - might run Windows apps soon. Guess what I'll spend my money on...Anyway, the article was badly written - almost embarassing - no central thought, just a mass of assumptions, hyperbole, and ranting on subjects the author had no clue about. Sometimes I agree with the prison thing though - it's not supposed to be taken literally. But just today I interviewed for a gig and although it's a very successful company the IT department looks like a f**king Turkish prison. People are crammed into little spaces and look really miserable. How can an industry squeeze the joy out of such a cool job? Remember when writing code was fun? You were sitting in front of laptop in your dorm at 3:00am writing something really amazing? You got it to work and fell into your bed, only to debug the new code in your sub-conscious? Now, the second we try to bring 10% of that fun factor into IT you'll see people write inspired software again. In the meantime software is just the product of the people who write it. Why do you think - OS X feels and looks like fun and Windows feels like something that wants to grab your soul and flush it down the toilet? ;-)Sorry for the ran - it' just kept coming.
karyykApr 3, 2006
Yeah, I can just see myself telling an end-user to fix the problem themself. This guy is obviously out of touch with your average employee (as well as the hiring practices that keep them coming in).
commentyApr 8, 2006
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