I've always found that the main issue of IT Departments (whatever sphere you work in) is that techy/geeky guys like to be just that. They're happy to be at the "coal face" day-after-day coding/maintaining/administering, utilizing tools at their disposal whilst learning new ones. For some it is our raison d'etre - it's why some of us spent all those years at Uni/College/training courses.

Then you get non-techy people who usually (although not all cases) become the Project Managers/Tech Sales/IT Directors. And of course they work "above us". In many cases they don't have a definitive grasp of IT issues. Some know nothing, some understand a lot, some understand a little (these are the dangerous ones IMO) Some like to say "yes" all the time to clients without consulting the techy guys if a request can be accomplished. Some just don't understand "all that technological clap trap" and have no desire to understand which is where problems can occur.

Of course you rarely get techie people moving up the corporate ladder as (like the editorial touched on) your not one of the boys any more, you spend more time in meetings and less time at the coal face and learning new technologies. You drift away from what you started out doing. Some might like this and some might not.

Being a SQL DBA contractor for over eight years I've seen this is many places, although not all and that's the better places where I've worked is where it takes some "give and take" - an appreciation on both sides of what each techy/developer & manager/PM does each day and how they should work together to get things accomplished. I have actually worked in places where a manager of a development team would never talk to his team face to face and rarely sent emails to them. He felt intimidated by them, but they lacked any team cohesion and direction. Needless to say project deliverables and accomplishments were rarely achieved.

Great editorial.

qh