Blackmoor Vituperative

TechRepublic has an article titled, “Five things I hate about corporate IT“. They did not list a single reason I would place in my own “top five”. So for your enjoyment, here are five things I dislike about corporate IT:

1) Micro-management of software.

A skilled worker is competent to choose her own tools. What matters is the end product, not the tool used to create it. Only in the field of IT does a man in a ill-tailored suit think he is competent to choose what tools other people are allowed to use.

2) Marching boldly into the 20th century.

If I have to use Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Office, or Lotus Notes ever again, it will be too soon. It’s 2010 — why are large companies still using office productivity software from 1990? And do not even get me started on people who intentionally use Windows servers, or web applications that only work with Internet Explorer.

3) Security through stupidity.

Controlling what web sites I visit has almost nothing to do with security. Preventing me from using SSH or sudo is the opposite of security. If I gamble on company time, fire me. If I sit and look at porn instead of doing my job, fire me. Crippling my internet access has only one consequence — it makes it more difficult to do the job you are paying me to do.

4) If they can’t see you working, you aren’t.

It’s 2010. Gasoline is expensive. Pollution is bad. Even the notoriously inefficient Federal government has policies in place to encourage telecommuting. So why do federal organizations like DECA and otherwise reasonably well-run companies like Royall & Company forbid Unix systems administrators from telecommuting? I will tell you why. In both cases, it is because management thinks that if they can’t SEE you working, then you aren’t working. Welcome to 1950.

5) Responsibility without authority.

As Information Technology has become a commodity, the people who support that commodity get less and less respect. We used to be experts. Now, we are just a line item in the budget next to “janitorial services”. We have responsibility without authority. We aren’t permitted to make decisions to ensure that systems are reliable (that exalted status belongs to the well-paid men in the ill-fitting suits), but we are held accountable when things break. We are told what we need to deliver when, after it has already been promised, even though no one ever asked us if that was a reasonable thing to promise. We are burdened with minimizing the consequences of the bad decisions made by others, trying to make silk purses out of sow’s ears.

TechRepublic has a question-and-answer thing they do. One of this week’s questions is from a young person in high school in New York, asking if going into software development would be a good idea.

I was getting ready to write a response explaining why I would not recommend any young person go into IT, particularly software development. I was going to talk about how things were back in the mid-1990s, when I started, and how they have changed.

And here is Jake Leone, who has written it for me.

Well, done, Jake. Well done.

So I was reading today that the Obamas pay $1.8 million in federal taxes. And I got to thinking, “Wow. They pay more than 45 times in taxes what an average American earns in a year.”

I know that a lot of people felt (and probably still feel) that Barack Obama, due to the ethnicity of his ancestors, was more in touch with them than the previous umpteen generations of rich old men who had been elected President of the United States. I questioned that perception at the time, and I still do. I just don’t think that someone whose taxes are 45 times what I earned last year has much in common with me, regardless of where his — or my — ancestors were born.

He did not grow up in downtown Newport News and get bussed a half-hour to a high school in what was then the nice part of town. He didn’t eat government cheese and get vaccine shots at the free clinic. He did not get a job at the shipyard straight out of high school.

I am not complaining. My life has been good, and I have few complaints. I’d rather be me than him, any day.

Nor am I criticizing the Obamas for being wealthy. I am sure they’ve worked their asses off to get where they are. Kudos to them. But I am not under the delusion that this President has anything more in common with me than any other ridiculously rich politician elected to high office.

I received a letter from the Henrico County police department today. I applied for a position as an Animal Control Officer, and the next step is to successfully complete a “physical agility” test. In order to qualify for that, I had to go to a doctor and have them check me over for a “statement of physical fitness”. I passed! Chubby and old I may be, but at least I am not about to drop over dead.

The next step is the “physical agility” test in April:

• Climb a six foot barrier
• Complete a one-quarter mile run/walk
• Jump a four foot culvert
• Dry-fire a police pistol
• Drag or carry a “human simulator” (a 155 pound weight)

The first four activities must be completed in three and a half minutes, while the human simulator drag has to be completed in under one minute.

I am pretty excited about this.

In case I was wondering if my decision to get out of IT (eventually) was just an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato… the fine folks at TechRepublic and ZDNet have put my mind at ease. The era of independent IT consulting is, indeed, over.

Even as little as five years ago, an IT consultant was an outside expert called in to solve problems, or to create value for a business who wanted to find an edge over the competition. As the holder of knowledge and skills few others possessed, we were respected, and clients listened.

This is no longer true. IT has become a commodity: widely available, aggressively priced, and valued as much as a business values its janitorial staff or the company that handles its payroll. IT is simply another necessary cost which provides no significant business benefit other than to keep the status quo in place.

A good friend of mine, who provides technology policy advice to the state of Virginia, put it this way: when there is a job that your business needs done in a way that no one else is doing, you want to hire the best you can find and make sure you keep them. When that job is something every business needs to have done, in pretty much the same way, it makes sense to outsource it at the lowest cost possible. IT is just overhead, like janitorial service, or building maintenance, and it is put in the same category in the business’ ledger.

There is nothing here to “ride out”. IT has become a commodity, as valuable and respected and as easily replaced as light bulbs and batteries. We had a good run while it lasted, but technology and society have moved on. One might as well try to open a boutique that sells paper towels.

Dixie Sommers, assistant commissioner for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, recites a list of the 10 occupations that the BLS expects will provide the greatest number of new jobs over the next decade. The bad news? Six of the top seven fastest-growing occupations are low-skill, low-wage jobs.

Not great news for me. IT has become a commodity for businesses, much like janitorial service or payroll — a necessary expense, and one which a great many people are willing to provide, aggressively competing on price in the process. The days when legions of businesses were scrambling to hire the best and brightest IT people for a competitive advantage are over. We have become temps.

There is no sense in gnashing our teeth, tearing our clothes, and bemoaning a changing society. As with buggy whips and “copyright”, the days of earning a lot of money just by goofing around with computers is gone — whether or not people want to admit it.

So, what to do? Change fields entirely? I have not the stomach for the health care industry, so that’s right out. Switch from Computer Science to Accounting, perhaps?

Or perhaps find a niche that will allow me to struggle on, perhaps not quite as comfortably, but still in the field that I love. Perhaps I should strive to break into auditing, and work toward a CISA certification.

I am not certain. What I do know is that I will not be able to continue on the path I am on. It was paradise while it lasted, but nothing lasts forever.

This is for any potential employers or hiring managers who might take the trouble to Google me before scheduling me for an interview: I do not sign covenants not to compete. If you do not want me to use my skills for the benefit of your competitor, then treat me honorably and pay me fairly. It is just that simple.

There is an implicit assumption behind these “noncompetes” that the employer’s needs and wants are more important than those of the employee. Employer-employee is a business relationship. Each gives something. Each gets something. They are equals. Any agreement of any kind that favors one over the other should be rejected out of hand.

Have you ever seen a noncompete where the employer is forbidden from replacing the employee for six months if they leave? Of course not. That would be ridiculous. So why do people sign promises that they will be unemployed for six months after leaving a company?

When I was younger and more easily intimidated, I would sign nearly anything an employer asked me to sign. I am older and wiser now. If the agreement does not treat both parties fairly, I don’t agree to it.

Note that a covenant not to compete is not the same thing as a nondisclosure agreement. Preserving the trade secrets of a previous employer is just ordinary ethical behavior, and I have and will preserve those secrets with or without a nondisclosure agreement. Since signing a nondisclosure agreement will not alter my behavior in any way, I will cheerfully sign one — as long as it is a nondisclosure agreement. At least one potential employer has asked me to sign a “nondisclosure agreement” which was, in fact, a covenant not to compete. I suspect the irony of that attempted deception was lost on them.

I think I may get out of IT.

I am tired of Windows and the poor decisions it encourages. I am tired of companies that ostensibly hire you for your competence and professionalism, and then micromanage your software choices and filter your internet access. I am tired of companies that make ritual humiliation part of the interview process. I am tired of competing with people from India who are just as smart as I am and who will put up with more BS.

Most of all, I am tired of companies that see IT workers as little more than D-cell batteries of knowledge — just as disposable, and just as easily replaced.

Maybe I am just tired.