December 14, 2019 at 5:00 am
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The harsh reality of charitable IT work
Best wishes,
Phil Factor
December 14, 2019 at 2:21 pm
True, there are times when those in IT are expected to be broadly knowledgeable far beyond reality. But I also saw a number of times where some of the folks I worked with made CLAIMS of being knowledgeable far beyond reality. They were very good at expostulation and pontification but when (pardon the pun) the chips were down, they were pretty much worthless.
As far as being dismissed for lack of capability, once in my 40-plus years in IT and 11 years of management did I need to dismiss an individual due to lack of learning and adapting ability. I hired a young man directly out of his two-year community college studies where he had apparently done well. The unfortunate reality was that he did not dig in and become useful, and did not fit in well with other IT staff, instead being content to drift along and wait for specific and detailed direction.
So yes, in all sorts of IT work and other occupations, there is always the harsh reality. Sometimes you have to just walk away. We'll all experience this eventually.
Rick
Disaster Recovery = Backup ( Backup ( Your Backup ) )
December 16, 2019 at 8:52 am
In my desktop support days at an engineering company, it used to amuse me to see the incredulous looks from people when I resorted to consulting the "Help" menu in MS Office applications. It was a look that said, "But you're IT - you should know how to do everything!". Our users generally had more experience of using Word and Excel than I did. The way I saw it, I just had a knack for figuring out how to do something, or quickly finding out how to do it from online support. I couldn't be expected to know everything about everything. Heck, I was supporting myriad engineering products in addition to the usual Microsoft applications, and training was non-existent.
December 16, 2019 at 1:10 pm
... it used to amuse me to see the incredulous looks from people when I resorted to consulting the "Help" menu in MS Office applications.
The true base of knowledge is not in knowing all the answers as much as it is in knowing how to find the correct answer.
Rick
Disaster Recovery = Backup ( Backup ( Your Backup ) )
December 16, 2019 at 6:49 pm
I've worked in the non-profit field for over 20 years and most of these organizations do not need experts, we need jacks-of-all-trades. I'm the DBA, network admin, system admin for multiple systems including SQL, phone system admin, etc. We only have four IT staff for 1100 users so everybody has to handle multiple jobs.
Sometimes it would be nice to be a master in a specific filed of IT, but that's not practical for most charity/non-profit companies.
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