Why being the only IT person is a bad thing 14

[Mike555]

Is doing a good job worth it if your boss does not give you any credit for your work? The purpose of this message is to see if anyone besides myself has had a common experience.

I work for a small company of about 110 employees. Alone, I am responsible for all technical support for all employees. This includes everything from installing new OS's to setting up desktop shortcuts. A lot of my friends tell me I have the best job in the world - I work independently as the singular source of IT knowledge within the company. However, I have recently been starting to feel very much alone at work.

I feel that 99% of my work goes unnoticed because I do all the technical stuff by myself. My manager works with our claims processing system making sure that insurance claims pay correctly. He has no clue what I do because he is not technical and he ignores things he doesn't have to understand. His job does not require him to be technical.

Last year I built the company website...and everyone just thought "Well, Mike's the technical guy and technical guys build websites". When we migrated from WinNT to Win2k with no major problems everyone just though "Well, Mike's the technical guy and technical guys upgrade Operating Systems." When I had to learn SQL in one week in order to implement a new system to comply with new government regulations, management basically said "Go at it, MIke...your're the technical guy, right?" The fact is that no one in the company, including my manager, understands the technical aspects of what I do except for me.

I also find myself simplifying technical stuff all the time. It gets to the point where I basically do not give myself any credit for my work because I always have to explain stuff to people in basic terms (especially MANAGEMENT!!!!!!). I'm the last person to gloat about my work, but I'm starting to feel like I need to in order to get any type of credit. And I don't want to do this.

Can anyone offer suggestions as to ways I can help others understand what I do? Or am I just stuck inside an endless loop?

Thanks.
Mike

 

[iSeriesCodePoet]

Looking at all of these post just proves one thing. At the executive level most companies see IT as an expense, they don't look at the ROI on the projects a person does, they only then seem to realize the amount the person does when he leaves.

To all, I think if I really felt I was underpaid. I would to to those jobs sites and get some salary information similar to what you do and try to stay in about the same market. Then say, I could go to this job for X amount more. Also, as was stated before, make them see what you do all day, and why it is hard to do, and why this training is good for you.

I am lucky, my company sees us as process improvers and cost cutters. We have improved documentation of trasactions while cutting the time it takes to do it. Take some aproaches like that. By doing X, I have saved your secretary y amount to time per day. Say you save her 1 hour a day. Tell them, that by doing this, you saved them (give a dummy number for her salary) at $10/hour about $50 per week. When they start seeing that you are saving them money, they might decide that your are worth the salarys you are showing them.

I did that on a project. We are delivering reports over the web instead of snail mailing them. We delivered 4000 one month, at about 10 pages average that is over 40,000 pages we saved the company, not counting shipping and handling costs. Talk about return!

Anyways. I hope my rambling does help some.

iSeriesCodePoet
IBM iSeries (AS/400) Programmer

Want to have all your bookmarks in one spot?

http://www.koldark.net/bookmark4u/

Make your links shorter:

http://makeashorterlink.com/

 

[mmorancbt]

Another note about this. I have worked for companies that undervalue talent as well. However, I really think that is not the norm.

My recommendation to someone who really believes their company does not value solid contribution and innovation is to start looking for another employer. If there is a top down de-valuing of your worth, you may be fighting a losing battle.

If the problem is simply perception and lack of understanding the reporting method I outline above works wonders.

If every place you ever go and/or ever work de-values you and/or does not place much importance on your contribution I would begin to look internal. It is rarely coincidence or a long string of "bad luck." Although I meet many who hold that view.

I had an employee who, whenever I left the office or was out of town, would spend hours reading the paper, surfing the web, and "chatting". After two meetings trying to correct the laziness I fired him. Later, I was on an online forum and saw a post from him where he complained how his employer had fired him because "he was threatened by his talent."

He went on to say that he had been underpaid and found this true at most places he work. FYI: I am not indicating that about any post above - I'm trying to make the point that if you are constantly having conflict with multiple employers I would look internal. If not and you are in a bad situation (one that is indicative of company culture) then look to move on. Life is WAY TO SHORT!

Having consulted for since 1992 I have found the a) companies pay me well due to perceived and actual value and; b) I have not been out of work for more than 3 weeks since 1992 when I started consulting.

I mention this to point out that companies do pay when they deem it valuable, and that there is work out there. I have been contacted several times in the past 2 months with project work-several weeks to months. If your company is not giving you your due, change it!

I will admit that companies are more hesitant to hire FTEs these days, instead looking to hire talent as needed for a "just-in-time" workforce. They would rather pay more short-term than have an extended expense and develop that talent.

It is a phenomenon that began back in the 1990s and has been furthered by the excesses in I.T. of the late '90s.

As a business owner I converted my entire staff to contract in 1999. I would rather make a smaller margin on profitable projects than a higher margin and have "dead weight" around when work was slow.

I paid my workers well for production and gave them insentives for "bringing in work". That is what corporate America is doing and will continue to do.

My personal opinion is that it is great for the industry!

Matthew Moran

 

[KornGeek]

gbl,
Just as a suggestion, you can still learn outside of work, on your personal time, without spending money. Borrow some books from friends or from your local library, and spend some time in the evenings studying.

It may not be as efficient as training classes, but it's a whole lot cheaper.

Another possibility that might (or might not) work for you would be to look into rearranging your schedule. If they want you to work more hours, maybe you could shift the hours you work, or work a split schedule. This could help prevent paying the nanny overtime and still allow you to put in the hours they want to see. Unfortunately, it would cost you time that you could spend with your wife.

Finally, I agree with mmorancbt. If they don't value you, find someone who will. I worked for a company making far less than the industry average (less than half). When I asked for a raise, it was denied. I found another job, worked there for almost a year (where the corporate culture began declining at a geometric rate) and decided to leave. I went back to my previous employer around double my previous salary. They appreciated what I did and how difficult it was once I was gone.

 

[scriptscribe]

A couple of months ago my boss resigned and I thought, "Great, now I'm going to have to prove myself all over again to someone who won't see me, may never meet me (he's at another location) and won't know what I do." To make matters worse, my IS positon was moved from the IS department to the Contracting department! I then was told by my new boss that she wanted to install "Remotely Possible" or some other Back Orifice-type product on my computer and then I heard through the grapevine that she wanted to hire two new people to do my job. "Great," I thought (again). "So she wants to install spyware on my rig to try and catch me playing Minesweeper or something, wants ME to train two new people and then wants to drop the hammer on me as soon as these newbies have the slightest grasp of the job. Screw this, I'm outta here." This new boss then fired two other IS people who were also transferred to her dept.

I told a friend at corporate that I had an interview lined up and that I was leaving the company. This person then strolled into my new boss's office and told her what I thought was going on. A few minutes later I got a panicked phone call from my new boss, stating that she had no intention of firing me. She only wanted to install spyware on my computer because she had no idea what I did and neither did anyone else and she was worried what would happen if I got hit by a car or something. Haha. She then explained that she was hiring two new people to take the mundane garbage off my desk and allow me to work on projects and more challenging tasks.

The last place I ever thought I'd be is in the Contracting (!) department when all I've ever done is IS-related work, but I'm still doing the same stuff, so it's fine. Plus, although this new boss is notorious among employees as being a first class be-yotch, I have zero problems with her. She's been great to work for and anything that I want (reasonably) I get. I wanted a new faster computer to process large-scale Access queries...got it. Wanted flex hours...got it. Etc.

This all goes back to building bridges and working hard. When I was in the IS Dept and she (new boss) e-mailed me or my old boss with a task for me, I always dropped whatever I was doing and cranked it out as quickly as possible and now I'm reaping the benefits because of it. Granted, it *looked* like the situation was going to go the exact opposite way at first, but as it turns out, I currently work for a boss who appreciates my work even more than my old boss did, because she benefitted from it directly for a couple of years before I came to work for her.

Work hard, learn new skills and you'll never be out of a job.

As for picking up computer books, ebay absolutely rocks. For the $50 you'd spend at Barnes and Noble to buy one book on SQL, you could get that same book and four others on ebay. The most I've spent there is $12 for a $59 MFC book with the cd still in the wrapper. Most of the time though, I end up spending more for shipping than I do for the book itself. Bought Visual C++ Reference Part 1 for $.01 and $3.99 shipping.

Wow, I'm all over the place...I'm really rambling today...3:15PM? Must be time for more coffee.

 

[algernonsidney]

I also work as the sole techie in my organization. It's generally people who are very non-technical and is almost all female. I also get asked to do anything that involves heavy lifting (like changing the water on the water cooler) and don't mind that.

I do feel kind of lonely sometimes. I liked having a couple people to talk about tech things with. I don't have that now.

But it's also nice because I have a lot of trust. I like using Pegasus as my e-mail client on my PC, and that's okay. If I want to change something, I can. They do control the money though.

Working with normal people has been good also. And I have hardly had any caffienne since January.

Chris