This is something that’s been eating me up for a while, and if you can’t unload on a blog, what can you do.
Apparently, according the the government there is an acute shortage of IT professionals in the UK and there is some suggestion that every child born must “learn IT” or be subject to a control order and an ASBO before they are 11. I can believe this suggestion (the one about the shortage, not the ASBOs) because I work with people (and have worked with people) promoting a level of professionalism which simply does not exist.
I don’t want to be uncharitable, because many of these people are personally perfectly nice (and some are not) but it strikes me as bizarre that people for whom their sole experience seems to be a vague admiration for a cray mainframe in 1977 are employed to manage mission critical IT within organisations. It’s difficult not to be personal – so as a method of avoiding this I will tell my favourite few anecdotes with IT support (or people purporting skills in technology in general) – Feel free to add some of your own. (and further – feel free to hum “at the sound of the swinging cymbal” while you read the rundown)
1. Online broadband agent, whilst in remote control of my computer “This computer has no internet connection”
2. Argos salesperson when recieving returned cordless headphones “if you say they hum near electrical equipment, why don’t you try using them away from the equipment?” – er, no.
3.Generic IT Wallah “It was working when I gave it back to you” – No it wasn’t
4. The perrenial chestnut, “have you tried unplugging it?”
5. “It could be the soundcard”, – “Really? – It’s the screen that’s causing the problem” “Oh, perhaps it’s the video card then” Yeah, perhaps…
6. “Yeah, of course I can fix it” 3 days later… “I didn’t say I could fix it”
7. “It’s non-standard XML”
8. “Oh, that’s going to take a long time”
The rest are personally abusive and long winded, but I’d be happy to share them if enough people ask.
My issue is that people “in IT” everywhere get extra money, exemption from workplace surfing rules and exemption from the norms of everyday good manners (or so it would seem) and seem to not have to have any tangiable qualifications – begging the question who is the idiot here? – answers on a postcard.
