The Defining Philosophy (2nd Part)

(...continued...)
Well, that would be just peachy if it were true.

You'd also be out of a job, and your employer would have keypusher triggering the reports, or maybe even a scheduled task...

Look, the personal computer is a tool, first and foremost.
As I have already said, it is the primary tool for many peoples' jobs.

So why is use of this tool and understanding this tool not seen as something essential?
The general lack of skill one can see in the average office would never happen say, on a shop floor. On the floor, you know the job, you know your tools or you don't have a job.

So why the double standard? More to the point, why is this not even a recognised issue in the workplace? Why is it the IT Department's fault when a user cannot remember their password/how to print/to save their documents to the network?

Why is there not a push to increase the level of skill for the end user?

Let's be serious here, this is not the fault of the user. Yes, I said it, and some of my former colleagues will want to tar and feather me now, but hear me out...

This goes deeper than the end user, this is a real systemic issue in many workplaces. There is no motivation for user self-education.

The solution employers tend to use is to create a helpdesk, but wether you do that locally or outsource it to India you get the dame result: a high-turnover department of mostly young people who get in, up their income and use it as a springboard to go somewhere else because it is a thankless, often demoralising job.
I have seen it myself in several organisations in a few industries... and it is only getting worse. Employers - spend your IT dollar better: give baseline computer training to your line employees (especially your sales guys...) and free the resources in your IT/IS Departments to work on those CRM and BI and portal apps you have been eyeing lustily since you saw them mentioned in the Wall Street Journal.

The Defining Philosophy (1st Part)

So sayeth the old school UNIX admins:

In the beginning there was the system
Just one for a whole bunch of people... no, really...
And there were those who managed the system
Maintained its code, cared for the hardware
Some were paid
Others merely did it out of curiousity or enlightened self interest
...
And then came the PC and there was one on every desk
And the managers and users cried that it was
A Good Thing
And more geeks got paid
And the bar industry was happy
Then... one day... the managers and user lost sight of something
There were first whispers
Then grumblings...

You get the idea.
Somewhere along the way, personal computers and certain widespread commercial software applications, and some not so widespread ones, became the tools of the job for a big chunk of the workforce.
And then, well, then things got interesting.
Someone somewhere decided that because they were working with a computer, that they didn't actually have to know how to use it.
The software should do that for you, right?

Bienvinguts...

Well, català never was my strong suit, so that's probably a butchered spelling.

Yes, well... this is the place for online rants, in general about the way we live and work, and specifically about the way it all goes down if you work in IT Support at any level.

Trust me on this, I have worked in almost every level of support (excluding retail, big box or otherwise), and have seen enough to have something to tell.

While it has been interesting, it certainly hasn't always been pretty. Or fun. At times it wasn't even worth it.