diffaldoReal Struggle đ
I have a colleague making close to twice my salary struggling with ITâŚbut heâs extremely skilled at his actual job.
Yeah my bet is that the meme is facetious
Onno (VK6FLAB)Nope itâs not facetious ⌠Iâm an ICT professional and I see this regularly.
Ok then, sure itâs extreme but document handling is not necessarily a key (or even important) part of their work. Yes they absolutely shouldnât need to use 15min or get help to save a document, but if their skills in their actual job are spectacular and they produce the work of two in that area, of course they still should be compensated well. I donât know your specific case, but this is almost the case I mentioned.
gustofwindItâs pretty funny how the people who only have computer skills are hating on people who only have their own skills too
Computer support is literally only useful to other humans doing useful stuff
These people have 0 usefulness outside of helping the guy print a pdf and yet they consider themselves so high and mighty
This is like saying Software Developers have a useless skill set, except to make the important, value creating, end users more productive.
You said it even better
Sad life huh
Iâve been in IT since it was called something else.
90% of the work I do is to enable other people to do their job.
Before IT, these people did their work on paper, which took more people, and more time, but they still did their work, and my job didnât exist.
These people have 0 usefulness outside of helping the guy print a pdfâŚ
Until you click on a phishing link.
This is the curse of IT. Perpetually undervalued yet absolutely essential. If IT were ever to disappear, the businesses they support become walking corpses.
It chaps my ass that everyone working in business has grown up with computers being essential to business yet its somehow still acceptable for them to be functionally illiterate in using them.
Sometimes its so fucking bad that the equivalent would be someone being granted a drivers license and given a car but they have no idea how to put it in park, let alone use the brakes.
IT are the Dunedain Rangers protecting The Shire. Theyâre not popular, theyâre barely acknowledged, often scorned, but without their presence The Shire cannot be.
My industry could abandon most technology and weâd be fine but things would just take longer to do đ¤ˇââď¸but everyone I know still appreciates and respects IT anyway
Most people just use their computers to accomplish other things in life and then go about their business without developing actual computer skills. The reason yall in IT is cause you were obsessed w computers enough to truly learn how to use them.
You could always learn how to code an awful system that requires IT support if helping people print and plug in cables isnât rewarding enough
If your work involves using a computer all day, but you canât be arsed to learn how to use it, Iâm going to assume the rest of your output is incompetent too. I see this all day.
In the case of my colleague heâs expert-level in the software tools we need for our actual job, but he struggles with basic office tools like MS word and excel.
The more I read here the more all these people come off as being super insecure and jealous that their skills are just to help people with real skills do basic computer stuff
Iâd say it has more to do with feeling under-appreciated for what they do to help workforce. To their colleagues theyâre treated as little more than lowly keyboard jockeys until theyâre needed for an IT problem, then theyâre sent back to languish in the computer mines.
At the end of the day itâs more a managerial problem, as they arent treated as an equal contributor to the group. Despite how much they contribute to overall efficiency and productivity.
In a capitalist landscape we are trained to only ever be good at one thing. If you do more than one thing, you are worth less because then clearly youre not as good at your primary profession. Even if those other skills benefit that primary profession.
There are, of course, exceptions where managers understand that well-rounded employees provide a bulwark against mistakes and thus inefficiency. But for the most part, if youre not spending time on things that are not your primary responsibility, like learning tangential skills, youre losing them money.
As an Engineer, I need to know:
-At least two professional-grade drawing softwares -Word processing skills -Presentation skills in documentation, such as InDesign -Excel -Quick comprehension in a mountain of contractual documents -Digital Document Management -Two languages minimum
I have already skipped a bunch of soft skills.
Working with engineers as my profession, these are not professional requirements, they are personal requirements. They make you a better prospect when hiring, but spending time to learn those skills while actually on the job makes you a liability.
One of the jobs I had when working with engineers was basically doing all the digital document management and word processing/excel tasks.
Again, im not saying those skills, or their equivalent in other professions, shouldnât be part of the general lexicon. Im saying taking the time to learn them, while also being paid, is discouraged. KPI is a thing, and learning new skills makes that go down.
I am not sure about your projects. Other than InDesign, all I mentioned are essentially project /client requirements; daily operation in the site office is going to be crippled in one way or another if you donât know how to use those software. Sure, you donât have to know two drawing software programs; they are being framed as âextraâ on job ads, but it is really handy when there is an opportunity to make an impression on the client.
Of course! It can and should be something that is encouraged in most, if not all, workplaces.
Im saying thatâs not the case, even going outside engineering. The emphasis is on learning and polishing your primary skill, not tertiary, or even adjacent skillsets. If it happens and improves workload, great! But if we catch you doing it when you could be making money instead, for shameâŚ
I would say in professions like engineering, where you are doing more problem solving, there is a higher tolerance. Especially since a lot of PMs and supervisors are or were engineers themselves. But tolerance is not acceptance.
Yeah, but I mean if you are fully qualified for the job and the company is being run efficiently, and there are no projects that have nasty extra demands/complaints that deviate from the norm and the skillset of the company. Why need tertiary skills aside from your boss having a sense of humor âyOU sHoUlD leARN thIS, i pAy yoU tO lEaRNâ?
Besides, what I have been mentioning are NOT tertiary skills; they are becoming primary skills, but no one actually wants to admit that. It is a constant reminder to your superior that they canât elevate you even if they want to.
It sounds to me you are talking about a cultural problem called conformity. Sometimes it becomes so stiff that even working efficiently requires permission because someone is adverse to change.
Iâm talking about a cultural problem started by Henry Ford over a hundred years ago called the assembly line. Where you only have one job to do and you do it over amd over with little variation. It started in industry, but shows itâs face in every profession.
Im glad your personal experience is better, but that doesnât mean it isnât a very dangerous trend in most professions that this entire post is literally complaining about.
Yes, situations should be more ideal for the worker. But theyâre not. That is my entire point.
âWorking with engineers as my professionâ
âHenry Ford over a hundred years ago called the assembly line.â
Engineering IS a multidisciplinary career; you are not going to do finite element analysis on a stack of paper, I donât even think governments will accept a full-blown hand sketch drawing. Everyone will at least want a cad file, everyone will want to use software with interoperability, paper doesnât do thatâŚ
Now letâs talk about skillset inflation and wage stagnation, while babysitting your colleagues being paid more than you.