Why are IT/Tech Support people freaks?

[salm]

Being able to present yourself professionally is as much a part of many jobs (i.e., jobs that don't involve the words "would you like fries with that?") as the actual technical skills involved.

Sure. The thing is to find out what is considered professional. Like mentioned above i´ve allways been at interviews where stylish but casual were considered professional (for the designer folks, not for the manager and salesman folks).
Another example for suits being highly unprofessional is if you work for companies like Red Bull that have forged their image to be a drink for extreme sports, a sector where suits are considered extremely uncool.

What i´m basically saying is that while your´re not going to be doing anything wrong with a business outfit in most cases there is a significant number of exceptions where you´re better off with other styles. Therefore it´s always smart to inform yourself about a company beforehand and then show up to the interview accordingly.

[dragon]

Hey I resemble that Actually for the most part people that call me with IT problems are more than satisified with my support. Granted there are some peole that call that I want to strangle, but I try to be as polite as possible.

[Thunderfire]

I get delegated with interacting with these assclowns on a daily basis because I grok their lingo and usually act as sort of a Universal Translator when they have to speak to the rest of us.

My experiences with tech support/IT guys and (very few) gals is that they're all freaks. Every single goddamn one of them is a certifiable loon that needs to take lessons in basic human interactions.

You'll need to hire different support guy/gals then. Hire teachers/social workers with IT skills. They have all the social skills you need and they should be good mediators between the freaks in the IT administration/SE department and the rest of the company.

[Rye]

Well, mostly to echo what others have said, IT tech shit is easy to do, especially if you have more experience with it due to lack of social interaction, heh. That said, this isn't something I've seen doing IT tech stuff here, here it's mostly been normal guys in IT departments in all honesty, but then again, I've worked mainly in schools and colleges, so maybe that has something to do with it. The worst person I've seen for this was the head of IT at my high school (where I also worked for a while) who all the other IT guys hated because he was only there through nepotism.

On the whole most of my experience has been that they're normal people with geekier pursuits usually. The only time I've ever gotten frustrated and disdainful of customers is when people say shit like "I've had to call you back to this room 3 times this week, this is ridiculous" about a printer not working and it turns out the printer was just unplugged every time and the customer thinks it's not their job to learn how to plug things in because the cleaners unplugged it. That is frustrating, I don't care who you are, you could be Francis of Assisi and that would make you wring out a squirrel.

[Stravo]

Bear in mind that my experiences are seen through the lense of legal tech support people. They usually tend to be lower level flunkies who picked up some tricks of the trade concerning legal software and so they are now suddenly IT support people in a law firm. Many of these folks actually demand not to work with people. They just want to futz around with computers and software and have no interactions with their clients/customers. Let me get this straight, you want a tech support job but don't want to actually support people? How can I get a job like that?

I had one young lady tell me to my face in an interview. "I can't do attorneys, you know? They can be very demanding and between you and me they tend to be assholes."

I smiled warmly as I handed her my business card and said "Yeah, we tend to be, don't we?" The expression on her face made the rest of the painful interview process worth it.

Perhaps as I read some of these responses I am being harsh because of the niche industry my tech pool is coming from but I just can't fathom how people like this exist out there and continue to find work. Worst of all for me on a purely performance based issue is the amount of outright lying people do on their resumes and in person about what they know. I can't tell you how many people have been hired over the years who claim to know something and in the end we find out they either only know as much as we the users know or fake it completely and have no knowledge at all. I have taken up the philosophy from the show House - Everybody lies. I assume a tech guy is lying in an interview and in a resume and make him prove to me that he knows all this stuff as best I can in 20 minutes. It works wonders feretting out the worse offenders.

I've been toying with creating some sort of black list of people who we identify as liars to circulate in the industry but my labor law pals immediately told me to stop that idea in its tracks. I guess we must continue to subsidize ignorance and fraud.

[Uraniun235]

They just want to futz around with computers and software and have no interactions with their clients/customers. Let me get this straight, you want a tech support job but don't want to actually support people? How can I get a job like that?

How narrowly are you defining 'tech support'? If you mean 'person who is tasked with going out and helping users', you're right, it's absurd; but if you mean 'anyone in IT', then depending on how big the IT department is, this is actually possible. With larger groups you can have people who are focused on maintaining the infrastructure (servers, network switches, username management, etc.) and rarely if ever see a non-IT person.

[brianeyci]

Well here's a quick question Stravo. Starglider was going in some other thread I forgot that the IT shortage was partly because corporate leaders are trying to hire IT personnel on the cheap.

Are you trying to hire IT personnel on the cheap? I know Faram and good IT people with computer science degrees make 80k+. If you paid an IT department head 100k+ I'm sure you'd find someone with a Masters or Ph.D. computer science who wasn't a faker. No offense but you get what you pay for.

[Stravo]

They just want to futz around with computers and software and have no interactions with their clients/customers. Let me get this straight, you want a tech support job but don't want to actually support people? How can I get a job like that?

How narrowly are you defining 'tech support'? If you mean 'person who is tasked with going out and helping users', you're right, it's absurd; but if you mean 'anyone in IT', then depending on how big the IT department is, this is actually possible. With larger groups you can have people who are focused on maintaining the infrastructure (servers, network switches, username management, etc.) and rarely if ever see a non-IT person.

The job description includes "daily interaction with litigation teams including paralegals, attorneys and partners to support legal software and electronic discovery issues" We expect these support folks to attend meetings, come to our desks to investigate and troubleshoot software issues and advise on the proper way to use the software we have to meet our electronic discovery needs.

I actually think it's an awesome job oppurtunity in that you're not stuck in a cublicle somewhere in the background but actually become part of the litigation team, get face time with people and are an integral part of any electronic work we do. You actually get to do more than just fix computers and such.

Unfortuntately it seems the vast majority of candidates WANT the faceless nameless mindless cublicle work. I don't get that.

[Zac Naloen]

Well here's a quick question Stravo. Starglider was going in some other thread I forgot that the IT shortage was partly because corporate leaders are trying to hire IT personnel on the cheap.

Are you trying to hire IT personnel on the cheap? I know Faram and good IT people with computer science degrees make 80k+. If you paid an IT department head 100k+ I'm sure you'd find someone with a Masters or Ph.D. computer science who wasn't a faker. No offense but you get what you pay for.

Spot on, if you advertise IT support for minimum wage you'll get fakers and idiots. But if you advertise it for good money you'll find the graduates and the experienced IT folks coming for interviews.

[Starglider]

Spot on, if you advertise IT support for minimum wage you'll get fakers and idiots. But if you advertise it for good money you'll find the graduates and the experienced IT folks coming for interviews.

Though you'll have to be careful how you advertise that, as a lot of decent graduates will automatically turn down a 'tech support role' as an uninteresting dead-end even if the salary is detailed. You'd have to give it an interesting title and describe it enticingly (unless you're willing to pay so much that it isn't an issue). Of course you will also need someone genuinely competent in the interview to screen out the fakers, leave it to HR and you'll probably get a neatly dressed buzzword-spouting moron.

[Uraniun235]

The job description includes "daily interaction with litigation teams including paralegals, attorneys and partners to support legal software and electronic discovery issues" We expect these support folks to attend meetings, come to our desks to investigate and troubleshoot software issues and advise on the proper way to use the software we have to meet our electronic discovery needs.

I actually think it's an awesome job oppurtunity in that you're not stuck in a cublicle somewhere in the background but actually become part of the litigation team, get face time with people and are an integral part of any electronic work we do. You actually get to do more than just fix computers and such.

Unfortuntately it seems the vast majority of candidates WANT the faceless nameless mindless cublicle work. I don't get that.

That's a real shame that you're getting a lot of jerks applying for it; if I were looking for a 'cubicle troll' job, I wouldn't waste your time by applying for the position you described. I agree that that's a really good job opportunity, because it offers the promise of being able to do a lot of social networking which is important most anywhere but also very much in IT; as you said, there are a lot of fakers out there and it can really help to have someone who can recommend you.

I once had a co-worker who at one point said to someone that even if he didn't know everything the position asked for, he'd bullshit his way in anyway and work his ass off once he was inside to try and cover for it. He eventually got canned after he tried to half-ass his way through installing an IP phone system.

I would suggest looking into candidates who have worked at financial institutions; they're more likely to have had to deal with arcane regulations and are probably more familiar with a professional environment.

[Lonestar]

Geez Stravo, to echo Edi, where the Hell are you getting these people?

I admit that my expierience with IT support has been limited to (1)20-man network on a boat, of which only 6 use it on a regular basis, and I'm one of them, and (2)Being a Junior sysadmin at a large federal building that shall remain nameless. Now, granted, in either case there are a lot of uniformed people who don't take shit from techs, but I've only heard of one or two technicians(and no sysadmins) who acted in a manner you described. And they were the shitbirds of the shop. (I have, however, been accused of having a short temper with our call center personnel. I think that goes back to an incident where I had duty on a Saturday and I was the only guy who coulod go look at a VIP in the building, and the phone center wanted me to drop everything and help some guy in the graphics department over the phone with his home computer. I may or may not have told the phone center guy that he needs to goddamnit get his priorities in order.)

Besides being amazingly unprofessional, and just plain assholes, has it not occurred to any of the techs there that "networking" doesn't have to mean computing? That, at some point in the future, this may bite them in the ass? Or if they are great guys, work well with people, they might run into them later and they'll get a hook up?

I'm not doubting your claims, but maybe there's a difference between a "corporate" enviroment and a government one, because that kinda crap wouldn't fly here, and our IT support structure is set up in such a way we have had techs right our scripts for just about everything to make it as painless as possible.

[Thunderfire]

The job description includes "daily interaction with litigation teams including paralegals, attorneys and partners to support legal software and electronic discovery issues" We expect these support folks to attend meetings, come to our desks to investigate and troubleshoot software issues and advise on the proper way to use the software we have to meet our electronic discovery needs.

Looks like you need a computer consultant and not a lowly support guy. The people you discribe should never be able to get past the tests and the job interview.

[Darth Wong]

I once had a co-worker who at one point said to someone that even if he didn't know everything the position asked for, he'd bullshit his way in anyway and work his ass off once he was inside to try and cover for it. He eventually got canned after he tried to half-ass his way through installing an IP phone system.

This is a consequence of the early days of IT. There are a lot of people who got IT jobs in the early days by bullshitting their way in and relying on the fact that the people hiring them knew even less than they did. And in an annoyingly large percentage of cases, those people became entrenched fixtures at whatever companies hired them, often ending up in a well-paid supervisory position over newer hires that actually had far more knowledge. In short, that was quite common during the 1990s, when IT guys were treated like demigods. I expect it will diminish in future.

[Starglider]

This is a consequence of the early days of IT.

I think you mean 'the dot com boom', in the mid 90s. The term 'IT' as a description of the field became popular in 1980s, and the field existed under other names since companies first started making widespread use of computers in the late 1960s. The 'early days of IT' would be the 1970s at the very latest, at the peak of the first big wave of rolling out mainframe/dumb-terminal based applications. Looking back at magazine articles and similar, there was a lot of 'oh no automation will replace us all' in the late 70s and early 80s as a direct consequence of computing technology becoming visibile in people's everyday lives for the first time.

[Darth Wong]

This is a consequence of the early days of IT.

I think you mean 'the dot com boom', in the mid 90s. The term 'IT' as a description of the field became popular in 1980s, and the field existed under other names since companies first started making widespread use of computers in the late 1960s. The 'early days of IT' would be the 1970s at the very latest, at the peak of the first big wave of rolling out mainframe/dumb-terminal based applications. Looking back at magazine articles and similar, there was a lot of 'oh no automation will replace us all' in the late 70s and early 80s as a direct consequence of computing technology becoming visibile in people's everyday lives for the first time.

Sure, office automation had been around for a long time. But "IT" did not become a household term until the 1990s. I certainly don't recall anyone throwing the term around in the 80s.

[Kanastrous]

You don't have to interact with people outside your office as part of your job?

Sure I do. I meet with vendors and construction coordinators and sfx and vfx supervisors and personnel, I meet with locations managers and owners, I meet with transpo and camera and lighting people, with writers, directors, producers, and anyone else with whom I need to have contact, in order to do my work, which at one time or another is just about everyone on the crew.

Which disincludes suits, except on very rare occasions, because there isn't much reason for me to interact with them. And, why would I want to?

Maybe I'm just used to a different type of artist/designer, but if you showed up to an interview at my firm not wearing a suit, you'd probably be SOL unless we were hiring you to work in the mail room or something.

*shrug* never done mail-room or similar scut-work, so I wouldn't know what's involved in that kind of interview. I guess you are just accustomed to a 'different type of artist/designer.' The entertainment industry doesn't appear to function interchangeably with a lot of other businesses; if I were spending my time at architectural or interior-design firms, then yes, I would dress and present differently, although the nature of my work would remain pretty similar.

Being able to present yourself professionally is as much a part of many jobs (i.e., jobs that don't involve the words "would you like fries with that?") as the actual technical skills involved.

Sure. In my line of work 'presenting yourself professionally' means demonstrating your capability to get the work done to spec, to schedule, and to budget, and working well with your crew. Your personal appearance is still important, of course, but it's a very distant second.

Plus in most corporate situations, being dressed in a nice neat suit just gives you a psychological edge.

My edge is based upon outperforming my competitors; there's nothing else to base it upon except politics, which I practice as little as I can get away with. But then again, my end of the operation isn't particularly corporate.

Interesting. It´s my impression that if you apply for an artsy job around here it´s even frowned upon if you dress business style because for an artsy job you´re expected to be hip, trendy, youthful and all that crap which outfit wise can translate to blue sneakers with bright orange stripes, khaki cargo pants, a bright blue adidas jacket and a black base cap.

Because the entertainment business graylines relentlessly, you do sometimes see 50+ year old designers, etc doing that blue-sneakers-orange-stripes thing...which is kind of sad.

[Starglider]

But "IT" did not become a household term until the 1990s. I certainly don't recall anyone throwing the term around in the 80s.

I have several vintage mid-80s textbooks which use the term profusely ('ICT' was also popular - in my recent experience that actually seems to be coming back into vogue, at least with analysts). I love those old mid 80s books with their rainbow colour schemes, quaint notions about the role of microcomputers and boundless optimisim. But yeah, terms like that take a while to progress from 'buzzword used by self-proclaimed industry visionaries' to 'in general use by experts' to 'known to the average layperson'.

[General Zod]

Sure. In my line of work 'presenting yourself professionally' means demonstrating your capability to get the work done to spec, to schedule, and to budget, and working well with your crew. Your personal appearance is still important, of course, but it's a very distant second.

With everything I've been taught and experienced, the first thing a potential employer is going to notice is your appearance and how you dress. So you might know all there is about your industry, but if it comes between you and another guy who's got equal experience, chances are they're going to go for the guy with the better kept appearance. Least that's how its worked for nearly every place I've interviewed at.

[Kanastrous]

With everything I've been taught and experienced, the first thing a potential employer is going to notice is your appearance and how you dress. So you might know all there is about your industry, but if it comes between you and another guy who's got equal experience, chances are they're going to go for the guy with the better kept appearance. Least that's how its worked for nearly every place I've interviewed at.

In my experience personality appears to be the tiebreaker, more than appearance, when people show up with equally-impressive portfolios, recommendations, and resumes. At least, in the hiring decisions that I have been in on, myself.

But, I expect that you're right, when it comes to any environment which could be described as being to any degree a 'business' sort of place.

There's a designer-who-shall-remain-nameless, whose personal appearance (and hygiene!) is so dreadful that she has picked up nicknames like Pigpen and the Art Department Bag Lady, but she is so damned efficient, accurate, and good at the work, that we hold our collective noses, and work with her when she's available.

But, that's admittedly an isolated case, in what I think is a pretty non-standard industry.

[Xon]

With larger groups you can have people who are focused on maintaining the infrastructure (servers, network switches, username management, etc.) and rarely if ever see a non-IT person.

If those type of people actually do talk directly to a customer something is seriously broken.

Infrastructure support and customer/internal support are completely different rolls, but a lot of people lump them both under "IT support".

[salm]

Because the entertainment business graylines relentlessly, you do sometimes see 50+ year old designers, etc doing that blue-sneakers-orange-stripes thing...which is kind of sad.

Heh, well, i´m in 3D and there is no one over 50. Many in that business seem to do the blue sneakers thing. Modelers are an exception. They´re all metal heads and dress accordingly. Even the girls.

[Durandal]

Are your prospective IT hires university-educated? I've known lots of assholes like this but they were generally posers. The guys who took CompSci in the Math Department at UW were usually reasonable.

I'm sure they were. UW is an excellent engineering school, so I seriously doubt a significant number of its computer science graduates go on to "IT" work. IT work (tech support and system administration) generally isn't where computer science graduates end up. And if they do end up there, it's because they couldn't hack it in an engineering position.

Note that I'm not knocking on the IT profession in general. There are some excellent tech support and sysadmin guys out there who know how to interact socially. I've worked with more than a few. But they are pretty rare.

[Edi]

They just want to futz around with computers and software and have no interactions with their clients/customers. Let me get this straight, you want a tech support job but don't want to actually support people? How can I get a job like that?

How narrowly are you defining 'tech support'? If you mean 'person who is tasked with going out and helping users', you're right, it's absurd; but if you mean 'anyone in IT', then depending on how big the IT department is, this is actually possible. With larger groups you can have people who are focused on maintaining the infrastructure (servers, network switches, username management, etc.) and rarely if ever see a non-IT person.

The job description includes "daily interaction with litigation teams including paralegals, attorneys and partners to support legal software and electronic discovery issues" We expect these support folks to attend meetings, come to our desks to investigate and troubleshoot software issues and advise on the proper way to use the software we have to meet our electronic discovery needs.

I actually think it's an awesome job oppurtunity in that you're not stuck in a cublicle somewhere in the background but actually become part of the litigation team, get face time with people and are an integral part of any electronic work we do. You actually get to do more than just fix computers and such.

Unfortuntately it seems the vast majority of candidates WANT the faceless nameless mindless cublicle work. I don't get that.

Stravo, how do I get hired at your company?

Seriously, if there was that sort of job open here somewhere, I'd jump at the chance. From what I understand, the firm you work for is a big one and what you describe, would be a dream come true job for someone with my skillset, qualifications and general bent. Those morons that have been hired there are wasting golden opportunities and it makes me want to kick their ass to next week and back for it.

[Norseman]

The job description includes "daily interaction with litigation teams including paralegals, attorneys and partners to support legal software and electronic discovery issues" We expect these support folks to attend meetings, come to our desks to investigate and troubleshoot software issues and advise on the proper way to use the software we have to meet our electronic discovery needs.

I actually think it's an awesome job oppurtunity in that you're not stuck in a cublicle somewhere in the background but actually become part of the litigation team, get face time with people and are an integral part of any electronic work we do. You actually get to do more than just fix computers and such.

Unfortuntately it seems the vast majority of candidates WANT the faceless nameless mindless cublicle work. I don't get that.

I can only talk for myself, but there wouldn't be enough money in the world to make me take the position you just described.

Before you ask I should add that yes I'm the IT Department of a small ad company, no I'm not in it, these days I'm pretty much all of it. My job includes holding the odd course; fixing computer problems for the rest of the company; helping draft (and occasionally translate) mission statements; etc etc. Most of the time I still spend developing webpages, and webpage systems.

If I wanted to be in marketing I would have gone to Business School, if I wanted to be a lawyer I'd go to law school. I didn't, I went for an education in English followed by IT science.

However integrating them as a part of the litigation team? Having them sit in on meetings (other than meetings that deal more or less exclusively with the IT segment)? This is helpful how? What conceivable benefit could you or they get from this?

No really I'm baffled here!

If you want them to have an understanding of the issues that face you, then yes I could see that it'd help to meet with them; to talk about what kind of IT systems you need, and asking then for opinions and options. I could see how getting lots of feedback during the planning and implementation phase would be excellent (there's not enough of that I can tell you).

I can certainly see that it's a benefit to be able to give face to face assistance if you need that, or to give courses and classes in how to use it.

Beyond that? Not so much.

Then there's the fact that a lot of IT technicians, even the ones that can be outspoken and helpful, chose the job precisely so they could avoid the kind of situation you describe. Being with people, going to meetings, being part of "the team", is really a horrid chore that can only be endured for a short while if absolutely necessary.

In such circumstances sitting in a no name cubicle (or better yet small office) working on computers is wonderful; it gives you the luxury of being allowed to be alone without having to pay attention to a bunch of morons yatting about stuff you don't give fig about. Indeed comparing it to a luxury good is a very apt example, if you consistently buy luxury goods it has a similar effect to you having a lower wage: You have less money available. Accepting a lower wage in return for being left alone most of the time is, by many people in the IT industry, a luxury comparative to a fancy car or a big apartment.

I'm not a true hard case in that department, since I'm fully capable of handling a lot of social activities. However the job you describe? Sheeze, I'm not sure if I'm qualified as I have two years of college level IT education (I got a job before I finished the three year course), and several years of experience. However even if I was qualified I would, at best, regard it was something to tide me over until I could get something else.