When is a COMPUTER SOCIETY not a computer society?

.....when it is the AUSTRALIAN Computer Society.

I have the qualifications necessary to join but it occurred to me that these
people are still stuck 40 years ago. There are people with no qualifications
who could run rings around those with them.

So what DOES make an I.T. worker? The job, gotten because of the paper
qualification or the fact that you do the job regardless of it and do it
well?

IMHO, it is the latter AND the sort of person who hungers for more "computer
knowledge" all the time.

What makes a good I.T. employee? To me the answer to that is the employee
will stay late and fix the problem and after a long and hard day of work
will get home and turn his computer on seeking more knowledge not because
the person is trying to get one up on someone but because the desire to know
more is so strong. Such a person never needs to be supervised, they just
need to be told a problem exists and to go fix it.

When you get that sort of person even without the qualifications, the
company needs to hang on to the person because they are rare. Unfortunately,
the ACS seems to think this sort of person isn't necessarily an I.T. worker
or worthy of being called one because they didn't sit for the exam and get
the credentials.

In the end I decided two things about the ACS:

1) They must be SO flush with cash that they don't need the income from that
ever growing part of the population that does the I.T. worker job but
doesn't have the qualifications to do it.

2) If they can be so prejudiced, they really should be left to their own
devices. They seem to rigid and inflexible to change and that means in
another 40 years, no-one will remember they existed.

 

So what advantages are there ?

If we're talking about the same mob, I got an invite from them to join,
oh, maybe 8-10 years ago, and I don't have any "qualifications".
Certainly nothing formal.

Being a naturally suspicious person, about the only thing I saw was
their asking fee... ;\

[snip]



______________________________________________________
Richard Rudek. MicroDek, Chatswood, Sydney, Australia.
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I've seen by experience how little paper means. One phone
call to a previous employer saying "that dude was fucking
good" means a hell of a lot more than any MCSE toilet rag or
uni toilet rag.

One of my big probs, I didn't like dropping probs that annoy
me, and I rarely get the chance to stick to them, so I did
that a bit. Problem is you suddenly find that you're setting
precedents for others in your dept that might not want to
waste their unpaid time like that, and some dickhead
"clients" come to expect it because you helped them out in
your own time, so then you suddenly realise that it's so
much better to just do it when you've got your own projects
you're working on such as network based shit as opposed to
client based shit, but then you find that those projects are
so much easier worked on from home, and many years later you
find that you really couldn't give a **** about even doing
that, because you're already working anything from a 40 to
50 hour week for 37.5 hours pay every week and you just
can't be fucked any more with anything except having a life
in what little free time you have. Gets simple. **** em.
Comes down to that.

I find that under the patented "**** em" guidelines we've
been able to build a great team, that happily do that 40 to
50 hours a week purely for the pride of the fact that as
much as our "black sheep" status seems to contrast against
the other depts we (being made up of drunken bastards, metal
heads, and every bloody thing else under the sun) can shit
the work in bloody well considering our skeleton level of
staffing and still manage a life away from work.

The first person I ever see doing stupid shit like I used to
do (hanging around to the wee hours just to fix one annoying
problem you'll never be thanked for fixing anyway) I will
promptly kick in the arse and throw to our version of
Siberia until they have repented.

Wears off like any drug.

Those sort are the ideal support techies, most of the people
I work with are like that regardless of level of ability.
That's what makes the team I work in so bloody great, we all
get along, we all work like a team, and no-one needs a
baby-sitter. If someone can't do something, they generally
know who can and talk to them, and then they know too or are
shown how to. The concept of keeping knowledge to yourself
is out-dated, and strangely enough that's what ties us all
together so strongly I think, the fact that we stick
together against shitloads of hostility (thanks labor) due
to lack of support now compared to in '99, seems to have
bred a "support network" of people all pooling together to
get shit done, and skill/knowledge sharing is a fucking big
part of that.

I heard more about the ACS back in 99 when I first got a
qualification than I ever have since. Why would I care
now??? I wouldn't be shedding tears over membership if I
were you, I never bothered and it hasn't hurt me at all. In
fact I've never heard of anyone I know in the industry being
a member to be honest. Not an Eastern States club is it?

An MCSE is as much of a joke by the way, just to wind you up
about a previous thread! 8]

Why do you care so much??? I've been in the industry for a
long time and I don't hold any bitterness towards them, I
just never bothered to sign up.

 

Make that '89 by the way.

 

They DO have some ways to help people but it is limited to helping people
who, for the most part, dont need it.

Do you work in an I.T. position? Why I ask is that they DO allow you to send
in an attempt to join but then require proof of your degrees etc. So, you
may be INVITED if working in an I.T. position without qualifications but
have to give proof of qualifications.

Yeah I wasn't thinking about the fee really but I did think that if they
need membership fees, they sure are limiting their options.

 

Agreed but then it depends what you were attempting to employ that person to
do. Eg, was it just to pull PCI cards out of computers and the occasional
build - simple stuff - or was it more along the lines of what some I.T.
people get paid in excess of $60K a year to do? If I admit to no
qualifications when going for a job (and that isnt the case) but say I know
what I am doing *AND* get the chance to prove it, I can get the job but
living in the real world, I know there is just about no-one who does that in
I.T. even though there are a lot of GOOD people like that. Couldnt afford
the time to get the degrees and taught themselves how to do it anyway and
love doing it. What makes the better employee? Obviously that person and not
the person who just saw the dollar signs.

Yeah but there honestly DOES come a point where you are wasting your time.
To simplify this, say that you have a simple Windows based machine which is
barely operating in Windows and you have done everything you know yet still
cant identify the problem and the user says that there is no problem losing
data on the machine. In that case should you indulge yourself or spend 45
minutes, at best, reinstalling Windows and having it running OK again? If
you are charging an hourly rate and this is someone's work machine, the
answer is to reinstall. If it is your own machine at home, then sure, waste
time for fun and knowledge.

Interesting thought. Unless I am sick, I work every day from about 7AM till
near mid day, have some lunch AWAY from the computer (lunch can be 4PM some
days) so as not to stuff things and go back maybe 15 mins later to work till
near 4PM and break till 6 and back to it an hour later until midnight. That
is a normal day for me and admittedly I dont do that 7 days a week but most
of the time it is. I intersperse work at home with time in newsgroups when I
need to "back off" a problem and let it go so I can come back fresh.

Been a Heavy Metal lover for so long I dont remember any other time yet
there is some straight JAZZ that really gets me, too. Drunken? Naaa, been
there done that and it negatively affects my work so I dont get into that
any longer. Interestingly, the RIGHT heavy music often makes working easier.

If staying till 1AM makes them unable to work properly in the normal work
hours, sure, good idea.

Depends on the person. Never has for me and it has been a LONG time,
personally.

That is the sort of person I am talking about - however if that person
doesnt have a "qualification", you wont find their name in the hallowed
halls of the ACS, apparently. However, that person does the job.

I am interested in the fact that you all get along. I find I.T. workers I
have known (and this doesnt apply unilaterally) to be mostly solitary
people, a lot of whom like to build empires and the occasional one who
ideally matches another so will open up only to that person and then only
about job related stuff or possibly a little more. I find that doesnt make
them the ideal "team" people but it certainly doesnt make them a bad worker.

Not out-dated, honestly. It is rampant amongst the security people and I.T.
forensics "experts". The reason is that this knowledge may lead to THAT
thing they want and they dont want their work mates getting there ahead of
them off the knowledge THEY have. It is stupid keeping it to yourself, but
it isnt out-dated. It's still often used.

Sounds like Nirvana under constant threat. The threats may be from jealous
people wanting to be part of that!

In fact I know people in it and interestingly, some have sway in Federal
political circles in regards to I.T. matters. Also of interest, though they
advise, some of them, the correct thing, the Feds rarely use it and the ACS
backs the Feds.

I have had them not even know a mouse and port were broken and to fix that
by plugging in a serial mouse. That simple yet they couldnt do it! Oh and
why "fix" it that way? The machine was needed NOW, no taking it away, no
stuffing about.

Have a look at who the Feds refer to when making I.T. related laws and
wonder why the idiots still roll out useless legislation against things that
cant be stopped by them anyway. Eg, you can still view porn if you want to
though it is illegal to have hard porn sites in Oz. They thought they could
stop online soft porn and all they did was drive the money to the hosting
site from an Australian company to an American company from a guy in Qld who
made a legitimate business out of it. They "outlaw spam" and use that to
tell the public they are doing positive things about spam. Whoever it is in
ACS that they get to comment on these things, if they are listening to them
when they comment, they are being fed bullshit! As a result, some of their
laws negatively affect us! That's one reason.

 

....when it is the AUSTRALIAN Computer Society.

Hmm I would certainly be interested in your IT abilities. Are you talking
about programming here or some help monkey who helps mrs. smith save her
word documents to the right place.

 

well we have a saying at work about uni grads

"educated idiots"

and sadly in a hell of a lot of cases it true

 

Unknown said....

To give you an idea, our IT co-ordinator has whatever degrees that was
required in the 70s to work on the SECV computer gear. These days, she
oversees the day to day ops on the corporate IT infrastructure. Her
underling doesn't have a degree. Just those quals that you get from
TAFE, and doing the MS courses. The rest of the work is contracted out
to a local IT support mob that was formed when the SEC was privatised.
Their best guy is a sparky, but with a CoT and 30 years industry
experience.

 

I started I.T. work life that long ago in a bank. Very interesting stuff
when I was picked out of the general banking arena to work there because, on
my application to work in the general banking arena, I had written that I
was "interested in anything to do with computers". Didnt take an I.T. degree
to start as a "trainee operator" back then.

 

Not in the WA State public service, management as opposed to
techys get that sort of pay (network admin with all of its'
inherent responsibilities and stresses only cops around the
50 mark where I work, guess-work on that though, but looking
at a little over 1350 a fortnight clear, but then that's on
HDA as opposed to substantive, so it's probably a tad higher
for a substantive). Nearly everyone we've employed in my
dept have started off as entry-level desktop support. It's
ability that pumps them up the ladder and qualification
doesn't come into it (an MCSE who is also uni-qualified we
recently put on is still only an entry level techy, and
probly wont get any higher based on ability, although I'd
give him 1000% for dedication and willingness to work, yet
on paper he is more qualified than a number of much higher
level staff).

And none of the people I work with are limited to pulling
cards or the occasional rebuild, they'd never last if that
was the extent of their ability, and that's going down to
the bottom of the ladder. If we wanted that we'd hire
highschool kids for peanuts.

The only problem is getting your foot in the first door.
After that if you're good you wont have any problems. No
employer with a brain would take qualifications over
verifiable work history.

Anyone that is more interested in the dollar than the job
(but lets face it, none of us would work if we didn't need
an income) is the sort that aint going to be all that great
at anything they do. Luckily most people pick a career they
think they'll enjoy doing, not just the industry they think
will make them the most bucks.

Most definately, and a good techy wouldn't waste that time.
Not the example I was giving, I used to hang back to fix
system problems that HAD to be solved, nothing like just
getting a PC going again that I could just reimage.

I'd never bother wasting time on even trying everything you
know. If you can't fix it in 10 to 15 minutes and it's just
a client desktop machine you then make a backup image (all
of 10 to 20 minutes unattended meaning you can be doing
other work while it's imaging), dump the skel image back
onto it (10 mins max, again unattended) and then deploy any
additional required software back to the PC along with a
copy of the backup image for any required data restores
(generally given with a strong warning on how we don't
gaurantee HD data and that it should have been stored on the
network). Not only does it fix the problem, it also gives
them a fresh new clean install and clears up any other
unknown problems that may have existed.

Many years back I would've gone for the indulge option at
work just for the deluded reasoning that to know what the
problem was would benefit us later if the problem re-occurred.

Now I spend a lot of time arguing with techies that feel
that same way, about the reality of the situation which is
that if it takes you a day to fix something that can be
fixed in less than an hour not only are you costing your own
time, but also costing the time in lost productivity for the
person waiting on the fix, and as a cascaded effect costing
even more on what is lost due to that delayed productivity,
and that unless the problem is something that is wide-spread
there is no financially viable reason (and that's what it
all comes back to at the end of the day when someone else is
paying your wage) to "know" what the problem was when
neither the company nor the client give a shit what it was,
both are more interested in the quickest possible resolution.

How much of that "work time" do you get paid for??? When you
get treated like shit by the govt the incentive to do unpaid
work rapidly vanishes. We all still do heaps, we're just
selective on who we do it for when the clock stops counting
the dollars, and why shouldn't we be??? As soon as that
clock stops we're doing favours, not paid work. If labor
want that added effort perhaps they should pay for it, or
perhaps they should hire enough people to do the job, like
we used to have.

Not into the jazz, but into most styles of music, heavy
metal is just what I grew up with and my preferred style
(primarily due to the skill involved, which is why I'm much
more into old metal than the newer stuff, the old lead break
seems to have died with most newer bands). Techno crap and
stuff like that being exempt from my "most styles" comment
though, that aint music, it's just digital noise, I'd rather
listen to a modem.

We've got it going all the time at work in the office, even
non-metal heads find themselves getting into it after a
time! 8] As for the piss negatively affecting work, it
depends on how much/when you drink. Being a drunken bastard
doesn't have to interfere with work, and if it does you
shouldn't be doing it.

More a case of I'm paid to supervise these people, and
coming from private industry I couldn't give a **** what the
govt definition of "supervision" is, my definition is that
the best way to get good work out of people is to look after
those you supervise to the best of your ability, and then
they will give the best work they are capable of doing. The
public service seems to have no concept of loyalty, but it
works in our dept. Not to mention that for the most part
they are good friends so I take it badly on a personal level
as well as on a professional level when they are taken
advantage of. One part of looking after them is making sure
that they don't idiotically (like I used to) bust a gut til
the wee hours fixing shit when the place aint paying them
for it and wont ever thank them for it. Not to mention that
the govt will take advantage of that later and use the fact
that the work is getting done to decline any request for new
people. Nah, **** them. They want the work done they can
fucking pay for it. We all work well over our paid hours,
but if I can limit that to it being a favour basis for
people we get along with or only when it's to help our own
team out of the shit I'm going to do so.

You don't take speed do you??? ****, when I get away from
work these days I either get stuck having to finish
something off remotely or not wanting to know about work. If
I'd made commitments to people I get along with I'll keep
working after I get home, but **** doing it for the place
itself any more.

**** the ACS then. I've got the quals, but I wouldn't bother
with them if they're that plastic.

If you're not a team player then you ARE a bad worker in
anything other than the smallest of workplaces. Our mob is
very diverse but we all get along, and we all socialise to a
small extent outside of work (we've all got our own lives,
but we occasionally get together for an all-nighter piss-up
BBQ). I'd hate to think that the stereotypical IT dept still
exists anywhere, but that seems to be what you describe.

I'd say it's only used by those that are insecure in their
own ability. Knowledge isn't worth shit without ability, and
if you're confident in your own ability then you wont have
any problems passing on knowledge.

Nah, it's more frustration from clients that were used to
the levels of support we used to be able to provide with
more staff and less to support 5 years ago, we've been
downsized yet had much more to support thrown at us, and
some clients can't think outside of their own little boxes
well enough to work out the basic maths behind this and the
problems that are now being encountered due to this
situation caused by our illustrious state govt. I can't
blame them for the frustration, but I wont wear their blame
chucking. One of my favourite lines is "well who did you
vote for in the last state election?", "What's that got to
do with it?", "Only that I didn't vote for the fuckers that
did this to you so it aint my fault, did you?". Tends to get
disgruntled responses from some, but I just don't give a
**** any more.

Outsourcing is a dead give-away, but then it's something
that is inevitable, the global economy is coming, like it or
not.

Seen similar.

Nah, I still say who cares. Politicians make stupid
decisions every day, no amount of advice (good or bad) will
ever stop that.

 

Agreed, plenty that are good, but plenty that are crap.
Parroting knowledge with never equate to the ability to
apply knowledge.

 

It can likewise be said that parroting knowledge doesn't necessarily equate
with possessing a high intelligence level.

 

Exactly, being a walking textbook isn't much good when you
can buy the same textbook much cheaper than hiring said
walking textbook. It takes a brain to use that knowledge,
but it just takes a sturdy memory, regardless of
intelligence level, to be able to rattle off info that may
or may not have any useful meaning to the rattler.

 

There are essentially three aspects of this to be considered. Such are:

1. The extent of one's understanding of that knowledge.

2. The extent of the truth of that knowledge.

3. Extending that knowledge beyond the prevailing concepts of the times.

Doing so requires far more intelligence than merely memorising and
parroting knowledge to make one appear intelligent to oneself as to
others.