June 26, 2008 at 4:10 am
I agree that it is a grammatical problem. You can’t “be” an IT or a cable like you can "be" a doctor or lawyer, but you can be a person who works with IT or with cable. So you are the cable or IT person (guy).
And the IT industry comes with many specialized areas as does medicine (podiatrist, internist, gastroenterologist, cardiologist, etc.) and law (divorce law, corporate law, patent law, criminal law, etc.). We generalize people in those professions as doctors and lawyers even though a person in one specialty may not have the slightest clue how to go about doing what another specialist does.
If you aren’t actually involved in the industry, the technical nuances that may be defined by titles can be meaningless.
When I was in 1st grade in the very early 70’s, my class did a project where we assembled a notebook of our father’s jobs. Each of us received a mimeograph sheet (do you remember these old purple smelly things?) to write where our dad worked, what he did, and to draw a related picture. I had done my due diligence and asked my dad the night before what he did for work. He told me he was a “Systems Analyst”, and he worked for a company that made special tools for the automotive industry. What meaning and interest is that going to have to a 1st grader in the early 70’s?
When it came time to write / draw our stuff, I couldn’t even remember what my dad had said, so I looked for something interesting but not obvious (that could obviously be proven wrong). I wrote, “My dad works at […]. He makes balloons.”
Even a 1st grader can understand what that means!
June 26, 2008 at 4:45 am
Todd: dude that cracks me up 😀
I once did confuse "IT girl" with "it girl", damn I was naive, when I was younger, but thats a whole other story NSFW. 😉
IT trouble shooter tends to be the work I do, I tend not tell people my profession at first an then tell them I fix websites - this usually changes the conversation to something more mundane as those not in the industry fear such things. 😛
Major B: you are always so funny - you and Phil Factor should do stand up together at the next DB conference/Pass Summit. 😀
Hiding under a desk from SSIS Implemenation Work :crazy:
June 26, 2008 at 4:51 am
Um, thanks, Shaun :blush:
I'll admit I try to keep my posts as lighthearted as possible, but I never really thought of them as funny as such. Pleased to have added a smile or two to your day.
Semper in excretia, suus solum profundum variat
June 26, 2008 at 4:58 am
majorbloodnock (6/26/2008)
Um, thanks, Shaun :blush:I'll admit I try to keep my posts as lighthearted as possible, but I never really thought of them as funny as such. Pleased to have added a smile or two to your day.
I was not intending to play down what you say, its always good advice with a dry humour slant to it.
I personally find it amusing in an ironic way. 😎
Its like Dilbert (Scott Adams) - people its not comedy, its tragedy - because its all true happening somewhere in the world today and you have to laugh or else you'd cry. 😀
Hiding under a desk from SSIS Implemenation Work :crazy:
June 26, 2008 at 5:05 am
Shaun McGuile (6/26/2008)
I was not intending to play down what you say.....
I didn't even see your comment could be taken that way, so no worries.
Semper in excretia, suus solum profundum variat
June 26, 2008 at 5:07 am
"IT guy" seems to be a general term used by someone who doesn't really understand technology. I would compare it to a "Brain Surgeon" being called a "doctor", or a "Trial Attorney" being called a "lawyer".
I have never been offended by non-technical people not understanding/appreciating the complexity of what we accomplish, but I have been offended by technical people not understanding/appreciating the complexity of what we accomplish.:)
June 26, 2008 at 5:09 am
I've always thought the average person just doesn't understand what I do so I'm happy to be called an 'IT Guy' by the layman. If a colleague / peer referred to me as the 'IT Guy' or worse 'Tech Guy' I would be insulted.
In fact, I have been likened to Chandler Bing on two occasions due to nobody knowing what I actually do. Not even the good wife (though she has seen me carve up some XHTML / CSS site in PFE and commented that it looks quite easy... bah!! I made it look easy! She should see my OO design and O/R mapping skillz ).
I now tend to avoid the Free Tech Support problem by promising to do something, doing it wrong, then recommending someone else. Most people probably think I'm really bad at 'IT' because of it, but hey, it's worth it for a quiet(er) life.
June 26, 2008 at 5:26 am
I hear ya... I'm a software consultant developing a ERP-system add-on in .NET and SQL Server 2005 and last week one of the employees at the company asked me, "So when you get done with this project, what are you going to do? Just go back to fixing computers?" The "IT Guy" (which in my case is "IT Gal") mentality applies... to the outside world, we're all just "guys that fix computers", regardless of what we actually do! There's no differentiation between hardware support and system architecture....
June 26, 2008 at 5:29 am
In India we call it Software guys instead of IT guy. But we not categorized them. A software guy can be programmer, architect, analyst, System admin, desktop engineer, end user, data entry operator, etc. Mostly we do not categorized them......
June 26, 2008 at 5:31 am
😀
June 26, 2008 at 5:47 am
"IT Guy" is just laziness or ignorance on the part of the speaker and you certainly shouldn't get in a huff from being called that by folks who aren't in the business. It's no different than saying that you're going to the "Doctor"... you hardly ever identify which type of doctor you're actually going to because you usually don't actually know the real title of the doctor. You might get close like "heart specialist"... but that's as bad as the "IT Guy" because there are a lot of different types of "heart specialists".
Such suck it up... be happy they at least recognize you're in IT... there's bigger things to worry about especially amongst friends... like which kind of beer or scotch you're going to drink with them today 😉
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
June 26, 2008 at 5:52 am
Of course, if they call you "data ferret", then feel free to suggest DIY gynaecology as their next choice of hobby 😉
Semper in excretia, suus solum profundum variat
June 26, 2008 at 6:05 am
When people ask what I do for a living and I tell them I'm a DBA, they get a blank stare and their eyes slowly glaze over. When I explain that a DBA is a database administrator, I can actually hear "Dreamweaver" playing in their heads. So I go on to say I am in IT. "Ohhh, IT... my PC is doing this strange thing... blah, blah, blah...". After running through this scenario several times and people I barely know asking me to come over to fix their PCs, I decided it's better to just tell people I am a proctologist. Most people know what a proctologist is so I do not get the blank stare or glazed eyes. Better still, I do not get requests for a free home examination.
June 26, 2008 at 6:12 am
Ted,
IT guy was a step up for me after being called the DP (Data Processing) guy for so long. Guess I can live with it for awhile.
What gets under my skin is when someone refers to me as the
Expert
. Usually it just means that their time is more valuable than mine, and they would prefer that I figure out what they did and undo it.
Cheers
June 26, 2008 at 6:16 am
I guess the difference is that plumbers,doctors and lawyers have certificates from official bodies on the wall, and the IT guy taught himself...
I'm not recommending the service from the self taught doctor..
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