After several years of working in IT many highly qualified programmers
and top system administrators face strange symptoms which might be
defined as "allergy to IT environment". Among them:
1.
You feel that you need to explain things to idiots well too often
and that after your explanations they will go their idiotic way
anyway; only few people are qualified enough to do quality job (at the
same time, if all people around look like idiots, you probably need to
look in the mirror ;-)
2.
You observe tremendous waste of talent and resources, a
kaleidoscope of stupid decisions adopted by IT brass and crave escape.
At this point you may also understand that IT with its current
outsourcing mania and related run to the bottom is a mouse trap with
no good escape path...
3.
You suddenly realize that different types of PHBs such as "control
freaks" (the most common and the most dangerous category), "soap ,
"wanna-s" and "know-nothings" are not only caricature characters in
Dilbert cartoons. They are actually the most common IT managers types
and your manager is not an exception.
4.
Working for a completely crazy control freak or a half-crazy right
wing authoritarian jerk, or know nothing who is school friend of
vice-president of IT is much less fun that you expected in college.
Your resentment is growing day by day and several times you already
was razor-thin close to being summoned on "red carpet" for friendly
counseling. You start to understand that the key task of IT brass is
to impede wherever possible the adoption on useful technologies as
they might threaten their existence. And that there is a real danger
of severe punishment for anybody who still has the remnants of sanity
in the selection of applications or architecture. Especially if he/she
is trying to introduce something new.
5.
Your career is blocked, your job is at risk and instead of
competent employee promotion (you :-) as exemplified in Peter
Principle ("In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to or above
his level of incompetence." ) you see harsh reality were the most
ineffective and vicious people around you get promoted to where they
can do most damage: management. This actually does not violate Peter
Principle, if you think about it...w
6.
You understand that the politically correct clichBebubblesfraudss
like "IT culture", "team work", and, especially, "empowerment" in your
environment are oxymorons and wish you had the guts to resign.
7.
But you need to feed your family and understand that even if you
can find another job, other organizations are probably as bad as this
one or worse.
If you think that three or more points in this list are true about
your current position, don't fall in despair -- help is coming. Join
Softpanorama IT Slacker Society.
Below you can find the IT Slacker Manifest. The key motto is "give
yourself a break -- slow down". Stop moving electrons way too fast.
This is a society for IT "neo-slaves" who are only superficially
different from the "damned of the service industry", condemned to
dress up as clowns all week, or mid-management lemmings who waste all
their lives in pointless meetings.
In order to join you just need read and accept the following manifest
and click on one of the advertisements at any page of the Softpanorama
Web site to pay your annual fee :-). You need to realizes that this
is the time for IT wage slaves to hit back and that you can make a
difference being an underground member of this resistance movement.
Here are the key ideas which we proudly call "IT Slacker Society
Manifest." They are only few of them and they are definitely devoid of
usual corporate BS (see also Ten Commandments of Software Development
Slackerism) :
1.
You need to accept that you are a modern day slave and try to
resist overexploitation on the IT plantations. There is no scope for
personal fulfillment in regular corporate IT. May be there was some in
the last century but those days are long gone. Please understand that
like people at Wall Mart or McDonalds you work for pay-check to feed
yourself and your family and need to survive till 66 without getting a
stroke or something even worse. It you die at 55 or get stoke at 45
nobody will thank you for this sacrifice in the name of some stupid
organization or some even more stupid project. Give yourself a break
and for some part of the day just do nothing. Tell everyone that
you're going to be "busy" and will be unavailable. Whether you choose
to tell them that you're actually setting aside some time to do
nothing, or you just give them the vague explanation "I'm going to be
busy" (busy doing nothing!), tell them not to call, visit, or
interrupt unless it's a real emergency. Set an alarm on your cell
phone when your "do-nothing" time is over, so that you don't have to
constantly look at the clock and count the minutes.
2.
It's pointless to try to change the system. Opposing it simply
makes it stronger. Consider your own work experience and answer this
question: "How many incompetent employees or managers have you
encountered and how many were subsequently fired?" Fired, not
relocated or bumped upstairs, so to speak. Although this is very sad
to see, but promotion from one level of incompetence to another level
of incompetence does not negate the Peter Principle.
3.
Beware of excessive zeal in pushing keys on the keyboard and
moving electrons too fast. While you can think about yourself as a
brilliant programmer or administrator it does not matter one bit. In
reality you are just a special kind of mover -- electrons mover. And
as such you can be replaced by almost anybody sitting next to you. Or
outsourced to some remote or not so remote place. So work as slow as
possible, do quality job to preserve your dignity and reserve some
time to venture outside your cubicle. Despite your excessive zeal to
push keys on the keyboard you need to spend some time (not too much,
if you can help it) cultivating your personal network so that you're
untouchable when the next outsourcing wave or reorganization comes
knocking in the your door Try to spend some time making real contact
with those around you instead of sending email and using IM. As
system provide you with the lunch break never try to skip it to do
more. This is your tiny slot of personal time and you need to use it
in full to eat and communicate with people, not to push keys on the
keyboard. This means sticking your head out of your cubicle, leaving
the server room, and dealing with the real people. As Prince Kropotkin
once noted about his prison guards, "people are better then
institutions."
4.
You're not judged on merit, but mainly on your appearance. That
means that you need to learn to use IT jargon: management will suspect
that you have insights. You cannot manage your boss, if you speak in a
language he finds foreign. You just need to be vigilant against going
too far and demonstrating excessive zeal in this area as quantity
tends to turn in quality ;-)...
5.
You may benefit from avoiding "in the trenches" jobs and positions
of responsibility. Please understand that if you'll work twice harder
and under more stress for a raise, it will eventually come. And will
be just peanuts.
6.
Try to navigate yourself to the most benign IT positions such as
research, strategy, security or any other position where it is
difficult or impossible to assess your contribution. Slow down when
programming: nobody will praise you for the work anyway, so do quality
work that ensure your personal satisfaction.
7.
If you managed to get into sinecure job, never move. You will be
surrounded by people whom management tends to protect not by regular
IT trench solgers; it is usually the guys in the trenches who are the
most exposed to outsourcing and risk their physical and mental health
fighting close hands IT combat. Working among snow flowers, as
management cronies are called in eastern Europe is a nicer, more
friendly environment as they are confident in their job security.
8.
Cultivate good relations with upper management and learn to
identify similar thinking people who, like you, understand Peter
Principle and believe the system is absurd enough not to fight it
(quirks, peculiar jokes, warm smiles might be telling signs of your
potential allies).
9.
Always be nice to consultants on short-term contracts. They are
among few people in IT who do real work and do it quick.
10.
Don't fool yourself that the absurdity of corporate IT environment
cannot last forever. That it will eventually go the same way the
communist system went. It actually might happen someday for one
particular corporation, but this would be largely an unfortunate
incident. The problem here is that if you wait it to happen your life
might well be too short to enjoy the crash, not mentioning that you
can be hurt during it...
11.
A more sound approach to consider this to be a regular working
environment to which you need to adapt to. There is little merit in
becoming a corporate IT revolutionary who fights the system on
barricades and die for the cause.
WARNINGS
For those of us who are non-stop workaholics, doing nothing for
hours can actually be pretty difficult! At first you may feel nervous,
jittery, and restless. Try to think twice a day about absurdity of
your corporate environment for at least five minute and you might feel
better. You can reread this manifest each time if you wish, but this
is not strictly necessary for an underground member of IT slacker
society. Such meditation about the absurdity of corporate IT might
help you to abandon the bad habit of overusing computer at home and to
help to force yourself in the after work hours to visit the beach,
stare at the water, and just do nothing for an hour or more instead of
being glued to computer the screen.
Try to relax and understand that doing nothing does not mean that
you're being unproductive or irresponsible. Keep in mind that you are
doing this in order to clear your mind and ultimately extend your life
and thus increase your total productive work time. Ultimately, setting
time aside to recharge your batteries will make you more productive,
creative, and more able to concentrate in the long run, and that's
very good for work...
If you're like the Energizer bunny in that you keep kicking
keyboard again and again, find some open source project and try to
contribute to it. That also will help you to maintain your
qualification and might raise your self-esteem.
Train yourself not to hit keys for at least 30 min and then
gradually increase this period. You will be surprised with the
results... If you really can't handle the idea (or guilt) of doing
nothing and find yourself glued to the computer at home, then learn
how to fish. That way you just sit by on a beach and say,
