Are Information Tech People Too Arrogant?

[Yavin4]

I work in an off-shoot of IT. It's IT, but not hardcore IT. I've noticed that a lot of ITers tend to be extremely arrogant about themselves and their abilities.

I'm not saying that knowing computer networks, databases, and programming languages is no small thing. However, we're still only talking about computers. It's not brain surgery nor curing cancer. It's friggin computers for Chrissakes. They're no more vital to our way of life than cars. You don't see arrogant auto mechanics.

[Writer]

1. ...

;)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=R7RuolTf9ho

[mainegreen]

2. You don't see arrogant auto mechanics? Oh really?

Let me introduce you to my old mechanic.

[Yavin4]

4. I don't have a Car, So Maybe I was Wrong There

I just hate ALL arrogant people.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

3. I work in an IT dept at a college in a semi-tech position and I think

the arrogance hierarchy is as follows:
1. Librarians
2. (Other) full time faculty
3. Public Safety
4. Administrators
5. Secretaries in academic offices
6. Part time faculty
7. IT people
8. Other classified staff

[DS1]

5. adjusted

1. Librarians
2. Department Heads
3. (Other) full time faculty

[Yavin4]

6. Librarians?

What are they so arrogant about? The Dewey Decimal system? Come on.

[redqueen]

8. They know BOOKS!

And books are the smartest things of all. So they are therefore the smartest people of all.

I think that's how it goes, anyway... :shrug:

[Parche]

15. IT People

I think all of them need to get..................

:shrug: :hi:

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

34. Most IT people would agree with you.

:rofl:

After all, it's number two on the Earl Butz Hierarchy of Needs.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

33. Here's why I ranked them tops: >

At our college, at least, the actual "librarians" are full-time tenured faculty but they're supported by classified staff who not only do most of the work, many of them are degreed in library science and work as "librarians" part-time at other public and private institutions. The staff are capable of doing almost all the same work as the faculty librarians and frequently find themselves doing so. Now, if you want to see one of the faculty librarians go into an arrogant hissy-fit, in her presence simply refer to one of the staff employees as a 'librarian.' You'll be corrected on proper job titles and the faculty-staff food chain until your ears are bloody stumps.

[Aristus]

7. I see the perception of IT guys as arrogant on TV and stuff, but in real life,

almost all the IT guys I've ever know were really nice and friendly.

[Yavin4]

9. I'm Not Saying That Some of Them Aren't Nice

But on some msg boards, they act as though they're God because they're Unix Admins.

[Blue-Jay]

10. First response from any IT person after a call/email:

"Uuuuhhh. Did you reboot?"
"YES! Now get off your ass and take a look at this, if you don't mind."

I actually stuck a guy with the nickname "Reboot Bob" because of that.

[redqueen]

11. Ah, that's a generalization...

you could make lots of silly claims using that kind of thinking.

That said, I heard a story about an IT guy who was anything but arrogant. He was incompetent actually, but they still kept him around, for what reason I don't know... anyway, so this guy is always doing things that make his incompetence hilariously plain to everyone around (except himself, of course)... so anyway the funniest thing I ever heard involving this guy was one time when there was some problem in the cabling and they had to get under the floor to see what was what under there... and to get under there you had to crawl halfway under the flooring so this guy is mostly under the floor, with only his legs sticking out. so mr. helpful (but incompetent) is standing there watching his co-worker's legs there as the guy inspects the cabling... so he's standing there, god knows why, just watching... and he must have figured out after a few minutes of standing there watching that there really was no real reason for him to be there... but being the enthusiastically helpful person he is, he asks his co-worker, "do you want me to hold your legs for you?"

From what I heard, the people around who heard this statement were nearly choking on their own tongues trying not to laugh at the poor guy.

I love the stories about that guy. :)

So anyway I was just saying that I do know of a few IT people who are very much not arrogant at all, but are actually pretty nice people to work with.

[bleedingheart]

12. Arrogance is the mask of the moron

the more arrogant someone is the more likely they are really pretty stupid...

Doesn't matter the profession.

Humility and inquisitiveness are indications of intelligence.

[Yavin4]

13. Bingo!

"the more arrogant someone is the more likely they are really pretty stupid..." See W.

"Humility and inquisitiveness are indications of intelligence." See Gore.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

32. It's very often a mask for SOME sort of insecurity.

Some may be very good at their jobs but worried about their value.

[Magrittes Pipe]

14. We're just tired of your stupid fucking questions.

[hunter]

16. No problem. I just reinstalled everything. Where do you keep your backup files?

You didn't back anything up?

:eyes:

Too bad.

[HughBeaumont]

17. Yep. There are a few on this site.

The "all forms of BASIC = for dilettantes" curmudgeons, the "real programmers don't USE IDEs" old salts, the "They don't know Assembler, they ain't even gettin' interviewed" snobs. Fucking boring. We have a few of these where I work, and while they may have knowledge and may occasionally share it, a simple conversation with them is like a Bataan Death march. We're talking ZERO social and communication skills.

[Yavin4]

19. In the end, It's Still Just A Machine

And knowing how a machine works does not make you a genius.

[HughBeaumont]

22. Absolutely.

It makes you valuable to you or a CEO. It doesn't provide "value added" to humanity.

[fudge stripe cookays]

18. "MOOOOOVE!"

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

20. Of course not. My only demand is that the mere mortals bow before me in the proper fashion.

Is that too much to ask?

[alcibiades_mystery]

21. Primary computer problem: loose screw on the keyboard

:-)

[deucemagnet]

23. I think it's an unfair characterization, for the most part.

On the other hand, if I had to solve PEBKAC and ID 10T errors all day, I'd probably get a little testy on occasion. :)

[Burma Jones]

24. Shut Up

[grace0418]

25. Nearly everyone is good at something. So I get really annoyed when I deal with

anyone cops an attitude with me about their area of expertise. At the ad agency where I worked, the guy who would come to fix our computers was the biggest prick. He could reduce people to tears. I almost fell for it myself one time, then I decided to dish it right back to him. He shut the hell up.

[no name no slogan]

26. No. End-users are too ignorant

STFU and RTFM, n00b!!!1111oneoneeleventyone!!1111

[Pied Piper]

27. No, the users are stupid

Part of my job is to "welcome" all new staff and introduce them to their computers. I say, "This drive is for your personal use, this drive is for your department, and this drive is company-wide. DO NOT save anything to the desktop or the C-drive, because if something happens to your computer, we cannot (read: won't even try to) recover it."

At least once a week, I get a call from a user who didn't listen to a word I said, and says to me, "All of my files on the desktop are gone!" I say, in a most patronizing voice, "Did you hear what I told you on your first day here?" I make them wait about 2 or 3 days, then I recover their stupid files. In the meantime, they have rewritten all of the missing documents. Hmm, you've been here six months, and you were abe to recreate ALL of your work in just 2 days?

Sometimes, I think that HR scrapes the bottom of the barrrel when they screen new applicants.

"I can't print to the printer down the hall!" Me: "Why don't you try to print to the printer that's 12 feet away from you in the OTHER DIRECTION?" "It's too far to walk!"

"I'm having trouble printing envelopes (because I've been fucking around with the settings)" Me: "Why don't you sit down at this typewritter, and bang out those two envelopes that are giving you trouble?"

:mad:

What I really don't understand is why some new staff members look at their computer as if it's an invention of the future. Hello! You're 40 years old, and you've never seen a computer before in your previous work experience? Do you know how to use a photocopier? Do you know how to answer the telephone?

I've had users tell me that something is wrong, you need to come to my desk immediately, only to find out that they haven't turned their monitor on.

Don't get me wrong - I love my job, but sometimes...

Thank the goddess there is an infiinite pool of morons to be hired. It's called "Job Security".

[skygazer]

35. Do you remember everything anyone told you on the first day of your job?

Yeah, there are people who are morons but getting all pissy because someone forgot something you told them on their first day at a new job is pretty silly - and yes, arrogant. People are told about 7000 things on the first day of their new job.

Then they call you for help because that's your job and you're patronizing to them. Charming. You must be a real peach to work with.

I understand getting irritated with people - I work retail. Believe me, I meet several hundred irritating people every day. But my job is to deal with them - your job is to provide computer support. I don't understand why you get to pick and choose what you will or won't do or what you consider important or unimportant. Your job is to do it, isn't it?

I believe that's what the OP is talking about - people who seem to feel that you're wasting their time when you simply ask them to do what they're there to do - help with computer issues. Most of us can use them - not all of us understand how they work or why. The car analogy is a good one - most of us drive. Can most of us figure out why we're leaking oil or replace a head gasket? No. That's the mechanic's job and he doesn't expect us to know it.

[Pied Piper]

36. Actually, they don't need to remember a fucking thing

that I say to them on their first day, because I give them a packet of printed information which tells them exactly everything they need to know: where to save files, how to access their email from home, etc.

All they have to do is read the stupid handout - it's all there.

And yes, I am a real peach to work with. I may sound like a complainer, but I'm really a pretty nice guy. I like working with our users and helping them to solve their problems. You'd have to be seriously stupid if you found yourself on my bad side.

Case in point: We used to have an employee here whose job involved correspondence with some of our major donors. Every single day, for three months, she called us to help her with printing envelopes. I'm not kidding. Every single day, for three months. Every day she would mess around with her print settings, even after we told her to leave them alone. It got so bad that the IT director had to tell her boss that she was eating up too much our our time and that we would no longer help her with printing issues. She was eventually fired.

[ChoralScholar]

28. Our IT people

live to be an impediment to any efficient work.

[entanglement]

29. On a related note, "IT" is just too generic - misleadingly so

From your post I see you're referring to tech support, sysadmins and the like. These are the guys who interact the most with users. You're less likely to deal with programmers, software engineers or computer scientists. Hence your impression that they're just a glorified version of car mechanics?

To extend your car analogy, if tech support is like a car mechanic, coders are the guys assembling the car, software engineers are the guys designing the car and computer scientists are the ones inventing new concepts like turbochargers and twin-cam. The upper-end (computer science) is intensely cerebral, distinctly non-trivial and of great utility to humanity. Once you know what kind of stuff these guys do, you develop a healthy respect for them.

[BlooInBloo]

30. Not when they're around programmers.

[mikeytherat]

31. Maybe not arrogant, but sometimes I get a bit indignant.

Especially when someone tells me that 20+ years of work and professional certification is "just computers." To me this smacks of the "I-don't-understand- it-so-it-must-not-be-hard" philosophy.

We all have areas of expertise. A good buddy of mine is a brilliant neurosurgeon, but when it comes to electronics or automobiles, he is all thumbs and I am his first line of defense (and yes, I mine his areas of expertise about medicine all the time!).

mikey_the_rat

[fizzgig]

37. i don't know about arrongent

but a few of the IT guys at my office don't listen to me terribly well.

my dad has been doing network management for as long as i can remember, so i know all the basic troubleshooting. i also know to come to the IT guys with as much information as possible.

not long ago, an application on my computer was giving me fits. so i shut down the application and restart it. didn't help. so i reboot the computer. that doesn't work. so i completely powered down the machine. didn't work.

so i call IT...here's how the conversation went

me: (application x) isn't working. i restarted the program, i rebooted the computer and i shut the computer down and it's still not working.

IT: restart the program

me: already did

IT: oh. well, reboot

me: already did

IT: did you shut the computer down?

me: :banghead: yes, i did

IT: well, i have no idea what's wrong. i'll be over in a bit

another time i called IT because the printer wasn't working. now, keep in mind there are only two printers in my department and they sit next to each other.

me: this is kagehime in (dept) and our printer isn't working. it's showing (error)

IT: what printer?

me: the printer in our department

IT: but what printer?

me: the only printer here, the one by X's desk

IT: i have no idea what you're talking about

:wtf:

that said, we have gotten some new IT guys who are very helpful

[Xenotime]

38. What is it you do that you are good at?

Are you arrogant about it?