
Why everyone hates the IT department - pwg
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/features/371254/why-everyone-hates-the-it-department
======
cletus
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 asking them to do things, making the entire
experience unpleasant. I'm not sure if such people are attracted to such
positions or such positions end up making such people but whatever the case,
"surly" is a commonly appropriate adjective to use. The cliche of the bearded
UNIX purist exists for a reason.

At Google, I've generally been very impressed with our support people, both
the field techs and the SREs. I would hesitate at calling Google's recipe a
success for running IT because it may simply be that we're picking the cream
of the crop, which obviously not everyone can do.

It is worth noting that field techs do have a career path in operations
(possibly management) as well as being an ex tech (a field tech assigned to a
particular executive). If Alan Eustace's computer stops working his ex tech
basically needs to drop everything and get it fixed. Such people not only need
to be technically good but they need to exert their (considerable) influence.
It's amazing how quickly things can change when it's "for Larry" or "for
Alan", etc.

~~~
Locke1689
I think Google is also exceptional because the tech support is for other
technical employees. When I went down to a Tech Stop it didn't feel to me like
I was "going to see tech support," it felt more like I was going to see
another technical employee who happened to do tech support.

Then again, I was only an intern so my time there was limited.

~~~
mkopinsky
I imagine that being tech-support-for-techies, you also end up with
interesting issues, rather than "can you put that link back on my desktop" or
"my printer's not working again". No self respecting techie will do tier 1 or
tier 2 support if he can help it, but in a tech environment it might actually
be interesting.

~~~
middus
To be honest: I'm a "self-repsecting techie" and I won't spent time on "my
printer's not working again" if I can avoid it.

------
andrewfelix
I hate to reinforce stereotypes. But in every Agency I've worked in, most of
the IT staff have been under-skilled computer enthusiasts with inflated self
worth. This in my opinion is what creates a schism. Many IT staff sell
themselves as being much more knowledgeable than they actually are. So when
presented with a problem that goes over their head they tend to get defensive
and shitty.

I've found the nicer the IT staff, the more knowledgeable they tend to be.

You can test my theory for yourself. If you have a cranky IT staff member, ask
him/her to help you with a problem you know they can fix. Note their tone.
Then ask them to help you with a problem that goes beyond their skill level.
Note their tone.

~~~
johngalt
Technical skill isn't that important for front line staff. Most IT shops will
have a bunch of $10/hr types handling "how do I fix this excel formula?"
questions. And they have a phone number for the big guns when they need it.
Please don't interrogate people who probably know they are relatively
unskilled. It's like talking about weightloss to someone who already knows
they are fat.

The $150/hr techs you will rarely see are super nice, and would _absolutely
love_ a problem they haven't seen before. Your best bet is to try and shorten
the path to them.

~~~
andrewfelix
_"The $150/hr techs you will rarely see are super nice, and would absolutely
love a problem they haven't seen before"_ This is kind of what I was trying to
get at. The guys who know their shit, relish a challenge.

~~~
ryall
You have a point there, as long as you define a challenge as teaching someone
to remember their own password. Or maybe explaining to people that they should
put a customer's ID into the ID field (as opposed to the surname, address or
date of birth fields). Or is the challenge explaining to the same people the
exact same things for the 20th time, without screaming maniacally?

------
gatlin
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 just fine. Also, for an agency focused on security
their insistence on using Windows XP was baffling.

Secondly, I was told I could only use a certain browser because of another
incoherent argument relying on "security." Interestingly, nothing was done to
keep me from putting a pocket version of Firefox on a flash drive and connect
to my own secure proxy. This is because the IT guys had no idea such wizardry
was even possible.

Thirdly, for some reason print jobs were routed out of the office to a data
center in San Angelo and then routed back to the printer down the hall.
Printing a single page was non-deterministic and painful, never mind my final
reports. This was a result of some state mandate about consolidating IT.

And then there was the time I tried to install Notepad++ to do some minor dev
work (they hired a CS undergrad to do financial work so I thought I'd do more
than estimate results). 2 weeks later I was approved to use a similar text
editor on the grounds that I already have a task bar to manage multiple
documents - a tab bar is completely unnecessary and Notepad++ requires further
scrutiny. 3 weeks later I had a Perl interpreter.

At my current job they forced me to let them change the root password on my
issued machine to something they knew and I didn't. I get why you do this:
because you cannot fully trust people and I dealt with sensitive data; fine.
Afterward I re-installed my OS and set my root password back. I don't
understand why they don't think these things through.

~~~
oz
I was a sysadmin for a financial services firm, and then for a Big-4
accounting firm, so I may have some perspective:

1\. _"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 just fine. Also, for an agency
focused on security their insistence on using Windows XP was baffling."_

The first rule of System Administration [0] is to start every host in a known
state. The reason for this is _predictability_ \- as the sysadmin, you know
what to expect - certain software is installed, certain settings are
configured, etc. You simply CANNOT manage systems at scale without this
approach. Without it, testing, upgrades etc. are a shots in the dark.

Another issue is ownership. Let's say you get company email on your personal
BlackBerry. You're mugged, and the device is stolen. A competent administrator
will immediately issue a WIPE command from the BlackBerry Enterprise Server,
so that all data is erased. But wait! Those picture of your daughter's recital
were on the phone. They're gone, and you're gonna be pissed. With a company-
owned device, the expectations are different.

A friend of mine once had to re-image the laptop of a senior executive. Turns
out, the only pictures of her daughter's high-school graduation were on it. A
year later, he's still having to feed her stories about ongoing efforts to
retrieve the data...

Regarding Windows XP, OS upgrades are not to be done lightly. It requires very
extensive regression testing for all Line-of-Business apps. Believe me, there
isn't an IT guy there who doesn't want the upgrade to Win 7, but after a time
in this business, you learn to tread carefully, as information systems can
break in all sorts of subtle ways and management doesn't want to hear it.

2\. _"Secondly, I was told I could only use a certain browser because of
another incoherent argument relying on "security." Interestingly, nothing was
done to keep me from putting a pocket version of Firefox on a flash drive and
connect to my own secure proxy. This is because the IT guys had no idea such
wizardry was even possible."_

Again, standards. When their enterprise web-based ERP system that's been
tested in IE6 and works fine breaks when you're using Chrome 15.0.874.121 m,
who's gonna get the call? Oh that's right. IT. Multiply that by a few hundred
machines, and your network is unmanageable.

There exists technology to control USB drives, but in most organizations, it
won't fly - they're simply too convenient. Besides, how do you expect the VP
of Sales to load his iPod? Definitely shame on your IT guys for not blocking
outbound connections to your own proxy at the firewall.

3\. _"Thirdly, for some reason print jobs were routed out of the office to a
data center in San Angelo and then routed back to the printer down the hall.
Printing a single page was non-deterministic and painful, never mind my final
reports. This was a result of some state mandate about consolidating IT."_

This sounds like the state's fault. They were probably sold a solution that
promised centralized tracking / routing of print jobs, based on parameters
such as job submitter, color vs monochrome, time of day, printer availability
etc. Not IT's fault.

4\. _"And then there was the time I tried to install Notepad++ to do some
minor dev work (they hired a CS undergrad to do financial work so I thought
I'd do more than estimate results). 2 weeks later I was approved to use a
similar text editor on the grounds that I already have a task bar to manage
multiple documents - a tab bar is completely unnecessary and Notepad++
requires further scrutiny. 3 weeks later I had a Perl interpreter."_

I was a sysadmin, and _I_ had to get written and signed approval from my
Manager, the Security Manager and the CIO to install _any_ non-standard
application. Pleasant? No. Necessary? Yes - everything needs to documented;
otherwise these things spiral out of control _quickly_.

5\. _"At my current job they forced me to let them change the root password on
my issued machine to something they knew and I didn't. I get why you do this:
because you cannot fully trust people and I dealt with sensitive data; fine.
Afterward I re-installed my OS and set my root password back. I don't
understand why they don't think these things through."_

Don't take this personally, but sysadmins hate people like you - you make
unauthorized changes and make our lives difficult. Your IT guys sound
incompetent though - why weren't BIOS passwords in place to prevent booting
from CD? And since you say root password, sounds like you were in a UNIX /
Linux shop. If you were in an AD environment, after reinstalling, you wouldn't
have been able to join your computer to the domain without domain
administrator credentials.

I understand that the situation sucks, but there are good (at least for a
particular meaning of good) reasons why it is so. There is room for
improvement on both sides.

Whew. Felt good to get all that off my chest. No hard feelings?

[0] Tom Limoncelli - The Practice of System & Network Administration.

~~~
ShardPhoenix
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).

~~~
oz
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-off.

Edit: Grammar

~~~
bdunbar
_I think devs should have admin rights on their boxes_

I no longer support dev desktops, but I do admin the systems they use -
servers, databases.

I'm cool with what you say in principle. If we're talking your own desktop,
sure, no problem. As long as you're responsible for cleaning up your own mess.

But root on 'my' dev servers - no way, Jose. Those guys don't know unix, don't
know what they're doing with root. They get shell accounts, they can do what
they need to do.

Maybe it's the way we're setup. Typically 'the' box they're using is shared
with other devs and applications. One fubared 'rm' as root and they've taken
down great chunks of our development environment.

~~~
oz
That's why I preach VMs. They can go wild on those - just teach them how to
create and revert to snapshots. They'll love you forever :)

~~~
bdunbar
I use VMs myself - invaluable for the stuff I've done with RoR.

One problem with VMs is they would not work very well with the dev
environments I support: JDE and ancillary applications.

------
patio11
Moral of the story (and very applicable to individual HN members): don't be a
cost center.

~~~
bodegajed
Easier said than done. Most upper management will always see it as a support
for the company like HR. I don't think that will ever change in the future.

Moral of the story. Don't work at an IT department, work at software
companies.

~~~
diego_moita
I've been in both sides (software and non-software) and agree. In software
companies the IT department is better for simple reasons: they are more
valued, their costumers demand more competence from them and people do less
stupid things in general.

------
tshile
The one thing the article didn't touch on, one that I feel is the biggest
problem larger companies face, has to do with the constant cycling of the tier
1 and 2 support staffs. You have 3 different types of people that work in the
lower tiers. The first being the hard working, knowledgable, and often fresh
out of college/training people who are only going to be there for a few months
before their potential is realized and they're snatched up by another
deparment or (even worse) another company. The second group would be the ones
who are good enough to keep their job; they show up, know enough to not fall
on their face every day, but otherwise are not going to move up the ladder.
The third group are the ones that simply can't hack it and are fired or quit
after a few months, or sometimes years if they can fly under the radar often
enough.

This leaves the teir 1 and 2 support staffs in a crappy condition. The only
people worth keeping are the ones jumping at the first chance to get out of
the 'helpdesk' role. So the IT deparment is left with their only real
interface to the rest of the company being comprised of (often) barely
adequate people. An individual's experience when contacting the IT department
litteraly depends on who answers the phone; will it be a person from the
first, second, or third group as mentioned above?

Hopefully the trend will change in the future, but it's probably going to
require higher pay while allowing those people to also do more advanced things
to keep them challenged/happy (that still may not be enough, because to be
honest we don't like dealing with the regular day to day helpdesk-style
problems anymore than anyone else in the company likes having them). Large
companies are just too compartmentalized to do that, so we may all be doomed
:(

------
Bo102010
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.

Also, if they would quit telling me that I can't run VLC because it's not
secure, when they have 3 year old versions of the Java Runtime Environment
installed on everyone's PC.

~~~
fuzzix
"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 discipline of designing stable, maintainable systems & networks or writing
code to requirements precisely and accessibly are distinct and often wildly
different. Little of it comes with your degree.

That said, my current gig is quite good in that regard: "We support A, B and
C. If you want to use X and Z you're on your own. Here are the guidelines on
security and patching."

~~~
Bo102010
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.

~~~
mkopinsky
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.

------
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.

~~~
itg
he resents you (for good reason)

Disagreed, IT should not be given a pass to resent people just because they
don't understand and have as much time and training with computers. Nor do I
agree that the IT person will be the smartest person in the room. Everyone has
their own set of skills that they are good at. Put the IT guy in sales, if he
fails miserably what good are his technical smarts?

If it's the role of the IT department to support users, they should be helpful
and courteous, no matter how "stupid" they think of the request. Should I ever
have an IT worker who has the stereotypical "better than you attitude", he
will be gone in a second.

~~~
notatoad
It's not about time or training, it's about basic problem solving skills and
intelligence. A shocking number of people really are complete idiots. I'm not
just talking about not being good with computers. Everybody _doesnt_ have
their own set of skills, some people really are good at nothing.

------
makecheck
There's a rule that applies to pretty much anyone in any organization in any
industry: _if you don't really know what you're talking about, you shouldn't
do much of the talking_. This applies to both sides of any conversation.

If IT will _listen to_ and _understand_ customers, and if customers do the
same when looking at IT, then things go well.

But IT is the type of job where "the same" job description can exist at
companies that do radically different things. You may hire IT people that have
no background whatsoever in your company's specific area. It is imperative
that IT new hires be people who are willing and able to learn a lot.

In my experience the "hate" for IT comes only when dealing with people that
have no interest in what you actually need: people who are convinced their
policy or "solution" is brilliant.

------
zecho
The best IT staff don't spend their time bitching about idiot operators in
their companies. They give them the tools to empower them to do their jobs.
This comes down to management. If your management sees IT as merely a cost
center, then you're probably going to get shitty IT. If they see it as an
efficiency center, you're going to attract better IT. Any manager worth their
salt understands that a one-size-fits-all IT strategy is probably stupid. It's
not about creating efficiency for the IT department, it's about creating
efficiency for the profit-generating arms of the company.

But then again, I work at a company that allows the programming team to have
their own network, buy their own machines and do whatever they feel like with
them (within certain bounds, of course, like PCI compliance).

------
tux1968
There are a ton of things that could be said on this topic. But one basic
issue is that most IT departments are built from the ground up on
diametrically opposed goals. The first being to equip the company with the
tools it needs to function. And the second being to avoid any change with
undue risk or opportunity for abuse.

Typically IT managers' self-interest calls for a focus on the second goal. So
upper management must create incentives that reward a focus on the first goal
and diminish the consequences to IT when something goes amok.

For situations where risk management is more critical, a separate department
that can share its message and enforce policies across all departments can
help reduce conflicts and allay suspicions of IT having unhelpful motives.

------
linuxhansl
That is because IT in many companies IT is a not-innovating, ticket handling
entity.

I've certainly seen my share of it.

You file tickets for everything, there is no "thinking" from IT's side, they
just do what they are told. This effect seems to be proportional to the IT
departments size.

Often this is also a result of misguided policies. I worked at places where IT
was explicitly barred from hiring programmers that could help automating the
processes.

------
vonskippy
First off, any department is ONLY as good as it's management. Don't like IT,
don't blame the worker, blame the manager. Second, most users have an IQ
somewhere between a pet rock and a retarded monkey. Even a Special Ed teacher
loses there patience after explaining the same thing over and over and over
and over again. Third, IT is NOT your personal Slave - Learn how to operate
your own damn computer. Forth, IT and Helpdesk are TWO different skill sets,
don't hate IT because you have problems with the Helpdesk. Fifth, most places
underfund IT, then bitch when things don't work out. Sixth if IT is so damn
bad, fire the lot and see how long your company stays afloat - IT keeps
everything except the stupid users working perfectly, but the one thing they
don't control (i.e. the users) is the one thing that causes 90% of the
problems

No, I'm not in IT (I'm a Scientist, not an Engineer), but I've observed plenty
of people bitch about IT when most times the fault is strictly their own.

------
jff
Although there are some insanities with the IT situation at work, I have to
say that I'm pretty pleased with one aspect: You can install your own OS, have
admin, install whatever software you want, just fill out the appropriate
exception form online. They just won't support it--and for computer scientists
and computer engineers like the people in my group, that's _perfect_. Other
groups, with other types of scientists or support staff, get a corporate
image.

Now, there's some insanity with our network from time to time, but I deleted
the big rant I wrote in favor of keeping the post positive about my employer.

If you undervalue your IT department, you won't be able to get good people to
stay. If good people won't stay, you end up with the bad ones--their solution
is always to reboot or reformat, they don't know how to actually make
reasonable changes to the environment so they just maintain the status quo.
There's no IE9 upgrade plan at all, because they already know how to support
IE6 and aren't willing to even look at IE9. Now everyone else hates the IT
department, and if any good IT employee shows up, he's either going to run
screaming from the interview, or stick it out for a few months before
realizing all of his co-workers are idiots.

~~~
DanBC
> _just fill out the appropriate exception form online._

Do you also have to agree to pay the fines / go to court / appear in news when
anything serious goes wrong?

RSA (pretty much the definition of a clueful security company) got hacked
because someone opened a malicious email attachment. Imagine how much harder
that is to prevent when people are using a bunch of different softwares.

------
ozgurc
The people who do not work at IT usually think that we don't do anything, or
chatting away all day. Because we are always writing stuff on keyboard
whenever they came. We CAN'T be working all that time so we are "chatting"

When they call for their problems while we try our best to help them in a nice
fashion but because we don't personally go there and meddle with their
computers we become the bad guy.

I think charlie stross's analogy of the IT department with the secret services
is correct: when things go correct nobody notices us and when they don't we
are the first to be called and blamed for. And has to spend nights to fix it
whether it is an user fault or not. What we do is quite black ops to those
outside of it, because they are on the end result: their internet
connection/software/hardware is working or not.

As an IT guy, I have several projects that has to be finished by xmas and I
don't have time to hold hands and/or cry why they are hating us, if they are.

------
InclinedPlane
Because IT is viewed as a department that is staffed by sub-par engineers, and
a discipline that is less demanding than, say, software development. This then
feeds into hiring standards and compensation levels and voila it becomes a
self-fulfilling prophecy.

------
thought_alarm
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.

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

~~~
oz
Pull network cable? Pfthah! We disable the port at the switch...

    
    
      SW1(config)#int Fa0/1
      SW1(config-if)#shutdown
      1w4d: %LINK-5-CHANGED: Interface FastEthernet0/1, changed      state to administratively down
      1w4d: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface   FastEthernet0/1 changed state to down

------
melling
They use upgrading to IE9 as an example. However, many companies are still
running IE6 and IE7. Windows XP was replaced in 2006 and it's still pervasive
on corporate desktops. 16GB of RAM is $100 and it's useless in the average
corporate desktop.

Sorry, but I think corporate IT departments just try to grow large and be as
risk averse as possible.

~~~
bdunbar
Growing large and risk averse is what all bureaucratic organizations do.

Using IE6 as an example, in my case at least, for that isn't accurate.

In 2002 I installed a brand-new shiny system to replace our then paper-bound
order system. Required IE6.

Fast-forward to 2011 - the version I installed is still in use. IE and Firefox
latest work 'ok' for the client, but the administrators must maintain a copy
of IE6 [1] for their functions. [2]

We didn't upgrade in 2004 because the costs were prohibitive. We dropped
support in 2006 because the cost to support our obsolete version went through
the roof, and we were going to implement those functions in JDE 'real soon'.

I stopped supporting the system in 2007, and it went to another team, but
we're still using the thing, same version, in 2011. IE6 is still required, of
course, for the admin stuff.

All of the decisions that force a handful of people to use IE6 were made above
the IT level.

In this case, at least, ain't us man.

[1] Or Safari with UA set to IE 7. [2] It's a shiny pop-up java thing that
looked real slick back in 2001.

------
erikb
I tell you a secret: Everyone hates every department beside from his own. It's
kind of normal, because different departments rely on each other, but don't
really know or care about the problems of the other departments.

------
_m4
Well, no organization should complain too loud if it is not valueing the IT
department as much as it does its profit centers. The situation in the most
companies is that IT is trimmed as cheap as possible, so what do people expect
to happen??

Also, for some reason, IT departments seem to get or develop goals that are
not aligned with the business. In my current place, IT is actually actively
working to make the life of R&D departments harder. It's not even the question
how to create a secure environment in which people can still do more than
Office and Email.

------
known
I do not hate my IT dept. They're very prompt.

------
10100101001
I don't hate the IT dept.

~~~
10100101001
I got downvoted for not hating the IT dept.

