“IT” Workers
Initially I wrote this rant some time ago after reading a bunch of IT related news stories that just irritated me greatly. Enough that I actually had to vent and writing it down was quite soothing. I present this as a post now after editing it and moderating the wording to make it sound less angry (because as we all know we can say some pretty stupid things when we let the anger speak). So here it goes…
I get annoyed constantly when I see or hear an article or advertisement where people lump everybody that work in the computing field into the “IT worker” category. It’s irritating when journalists do it, but it really riles me up when I see the ads on TV for those “IT schools” that claim you can have a career in IT by doing a simple six week course. It’s annoying because the computing field is very broad and applying the IT label to everything just cheapens it.
To me applying the IT label to the field of computing is like lumping electricians, electrical engineers, and high energy physicists in the same group.
They’re not!
Electricians are tradesmen that work with their hands performing practical tasks like building or repairing existing electrical devices and wiring. Electrical Engineers design and create entire new sets of devices from ideas and available components. While the high energy Physicists pound atomic particles together creating quarks, neutrinos, and tiny black holes. Each occupation performs an essential task in society, but each occupation requires a completely different skill and mind set. Therefore it makes no sense to lump them into such a broad category and assume the skills they have are interchangeable.
Would you ask your particle physicist friend to install your home wiring? Or ask an electrician to design a new television? I’d wager not.
To put this into the computing perspective, IT people are the one’s that maintain the computer systems that we use to do our work every day (a thankless job no doubt). Software Engineers design, develop, and test new pieces of software, creating the programs people use from nothing but mere ideas from one’s head. Computer Scientists on the other hand get involved with research related to how we use computing resources. As you can see these are quite varied tasks, each of which requires a different set of skills and a different mentality.
So naturally I get annoyed when people classify all computer based occupations such as Software Engineering and Computer Science in with IT.
I have an idea that this is partly due to the image that has been cultivated by society of anyone that works with computers being a stereotypical geek/nerd working in a dark and dingy office. Over time this image has been self-reinforcing and has created a barrier between the “computer geeks” and the rest of society, especially in business. It is this barrier that has made people simply lump all computing professions into the IT category.
For this situation to change we need to change the culture in the industry, then we need to raise awareness of the wide spectrum of available professions within computing. Once this happens people will realise that there is more to computing than just system administration, or just programming, or just playing games, and then they might stop using the IT moniker.
Therefore for now I urge people to not automatically group all of the computing fields as being the IT industry, there’s far more to it than just computer management.
And yes, this means that I will not fix your computer!
