

Why are IT people notoriously condescending?  - zitstif

"Why are IT people notoriously condescending?"<p>It just seems that most people I've met in IT come off as very condescending, I have even been known to come off this way and I'm trying to be more aware of this.
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theDoug
I don't believe it's any more prevalent than the public service sector or any
other field where one group is typically inundated with the requests of
another group, and where request/action responsibility is never reciprocated
to even out the power dynamic.

Add to that the issue that IT workers rarely get to deal with their users when
things work well or perfectly. When IT systems work, they're invisible to the
users, and no one thinks to go say thank you. Again this isn't just in IT-
things that just work become invisible, and we don't tend to appreciate them
until they fail and then are quickly restored. Then we go back to ignoring
that the system exists.

If the strong majority of your experience in automobiles were crashes, or the
only time you saw your parents were when they were angry, your opinions around
automobiles, their operators, and parenting would be drastically different
than others.

There's also just the simple fact that people who tend to deal with machines
more often than people may not end up perfectly socialized and end up reacting
in a way that feels natural but might be seen as 'different' to those who
would work in (say) a daycare all day, unintentionally coming off poorly. A
company's Social Club planner is going to have a very different view of what
"fun" in the office is compared to most people, I think it just comes down to
expressing appreciation and trying to remember that everyone is trying to do
their best.

I do hope none of this was read as being condescending, I don't intend for it
to be.

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Masterwoob
I rarley talk down to other technicians regardless of experience. I always
think it's worthwile to listen to what other techies and IT staff have to say
since experiences vary and sharing knowlegde is important. And by that i mean
giving just as well as taking. If I meet an older technician I greatly
aprreciate every second he/she sacrifices in order to answer a question. I
also feel obliged to treat pepole with less experience the same way that I
myself appreciate to be treated.

When it comes to pepole outside of IT however i rarley bother with being
polite. here's some of the reasons:

Pepole generally treat IT staff badly. Things should "just work" and if they
don't we're the ones left witht the noose around our necks. No bad descisions
made by HR,Economy or senior management could ever have any effect in the
outcome of a project or the quality of service. Most pepole in the
forementioned departments know little or nothing about what IT is actually
doing yet they often play a big part in important desicions concerning the IT
enviroment in a company. If something goes to hell its always "the servers
aren't managed properly" and never "it's because we denied you the budget
needed for new hardware so we could show off a .1% better margin this
quarter". It's never "My god we should have listened when you told us you
needed a new programmer since the workload has skyrocketed latley" and so on
and so forth.

Making a change in how IT is managed is rarley done based upon logical
conclusions and reasoning and very often done based upon numbers in a
spreadsheet. It's the first thing companies cut back on in bad times and it's
the last thing companies spend money on in good times. This often results in a
"They don't understand us and they don't care about us" attitude amongst the
IT staff. Most of us love what we do and care just as much about the company
we work for as any other person. how do you expect us to treat pepole who
constantly tread on our toes and then hangs us when we can't run the mile fast
enough?

here's a real life example for you: a person with a position quite high up in
the hierarchy walks into the room where the 1st line technicians reside and
want's an extra screen. The reply he/she get's is "I'm sorry we only have a
few spares left and we want to reserve those for pepole whose primary screens
break." he then replies "Yeah yeah, but you can buy new ones." this is when it
turns ironic. the technician replies "No sir i'm sorry but we can't do that,
you see we have a very tight budget as costs are rising so we don't have much
of our budget left and we have to manage that carefully in order not to run
out". The manager is clearly annoyed and walks of in a huff after clearly
stating that "In that case the IT budget has been very badly managed, i think
that it's a shame you can't do your jobs properly". This could have been true.
If it hadn't been for the fact that they recently merged with another company
and this was not given a separate project budget at all. resulting in the IT
department having to spend almost all of their budget mergin the
networks,ad's,financial systems etc of the two companies. This was not planned
for at the beginning of the year when budgets were set. In this case an IT
employee got a verbal beating for a desicion made by higher ups and it clearly
shows a lack of understanding from senior management and economy in how IT
works and what's needed budget wise to make things work. And you know what,
it's not the first and most definatley not the last time similiar situations
will occur.

*Edit to format the post a bit it was a huge wall of text and not very readable(first post here so i'm not quite familiar with how things work yet :) )

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misterhaywood
If someone is in an advisory role, it's easy to take their advice as
condescending.

When a non-IT person has correspondence with an IT person about IT stuff it
could come off as condescending because more often than not, the shared common
knowledge is not there.

You probably could come off less condescending if you teach your users in
terms of "Best Practices" instead of "Things to Avoid".

<http://hustletips.tumblr.com>

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noodle
i think its simple. when someone from IT has to "help" you, its usually
because of something you did, or did indirectly because of a lack of basic
computer knowledge. when your career is based off of the ignorance (and
sometimes downright stupidity) of others, you tend to adopt that type of tone.
it provides you more general control over situations.

~~~
joezydeco
I've noticed that I can sniff out pretty quickly who is actually interested in
what's going on and is willing to learn things so they can fix it the next
time. (Hint: these people also tend to appreciate your services).

It's the remainder - the _Idontfuckingcarejustgetitfixed_ crowd - that ends up
with my disdain and condescending feelings after a time. You know they'll
never learn, they'll never _care_ to learn, and you're just an obstacle to
whatever is waiting on the other end of that Powerpoint or Farmville run.

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Mz
At the risk of sounding like a snob (though please note I am not in IT):

Folks who are reasonably bright are often given hell in school and become
social outcasts because of stuff teachers, society and other kids do (teachers
are really bad about holding up the smart kids as examples to follow even
though no amount of studying will make the other kids that smart and, no, it
really isn't anything the teacher did though they are trying to take credit
for it). Condescension can be a form of ego defense -- ie "I have few if any
friends and I know you hate me on sight just for being me, but I'm better than
you and probably make more money".

You can often get past something like that by overlooking it and being
genuinely nice to them and sincerely respecting their
brains/ability/contribution instead of resenting it and trying to fight for
the limelight with them. Only the occasional hardcore asshole will persist for
long with consistently asinine behavior in the face of genuine, sincere
niceness and respect/appreciation.

(Though, really, all the folks from IT at my company that I can recall
interacting with have been just genuinely nice to me from the get go.)

