What's involved in working in IT.
Discussion
Loads of grief, hardly any thanks, loads of grief, loads of research, loads of grief, long hours, loads of grief, everyone thinks you have an easy job, loads of grief, everyone thinks you know everything about IT, loads of grief, loads of stress, loads of grief, everyone also thinks they know about IT, loads of grief, doing it as hobby is not the same as doing it as a living, loads of grief 
Working in IT covers such a massive range of everything though doesn't it? everything from helpdesk guys, to programmers, to roll out guys, to engineers and everythign else inbetween.
I spent a couple of years on and off while at uni working for an "IT company", i spent time working on the helpdesk, which basically meant to talking to people about there hardware problems.
You wouldn't believe the number of times people woudl phoen up and complain about things not working, to find out that they wern't plugged in.
I spent a couple of years on and off while at uni working for an "IT company", i spent time working on the helpdesk, which basically meant to talking to people about there hardware problems.
You wouldn't believe the number of times people woudl phoen up and complain about things not working, to find out that they wern't plugged in.
All sorts of different jobs and roles in IT, not all techie stuff either.
I work in an IT department, my role is user requirements with some project management thrown in. This means knowing what my business wants to do, gathering the requirement, fitting it in with the IT (or not as the case may be), project manage it through development/testing to delivery.
This is only part of it - I don't do any programming or any techie stuff. Lots of other jobs in IT which I'm sure others will comment on.
I've posted a question in the Jobs section recently about working on a farm
I work in an IT department, my role is user requirements with some project management thrown in. This means knowing what my business wants to do, gathering the requirement, fitting it in with the IT (or not as the case may be), project manage it through development/testing to delivery.
This is only part of it - I don't do any programming or any techie stuff. Lots of other jobs in IT which I'm sure others will comment on.
I've posted a question in the Jobs section recently about working on a farm
I reckon its like being a pilot.
Piece of piss when it's all going swimmingly...you let the computers do all the work.
When it goes wrong...that's when you need them....
Except there's no trolley dollys to impress and generally less snazzy uniforms.
Good personal hygiene seems to be optional too.
ETA and there are usually fewer aeroplanes involved too.
Piece of piss when it's all going swimmingly...you let the computers do all the work.
When it goes wrong...that's when you need them....
Except there's no trolley dollys to impress and generally less snazzy uniforms.
Good personal hygiene seems to be optional too.
ETA and there are usually fewer aeroplanes involved too.
Edited by DrTre on Saturday 5th December 12:23
I manage our internal network, give some 3rd line support to customers and provide the technical interface between the developers and the final product so essentially driving good practice and giving them direction on how to design the applications/services to run effectively on servers/clients.
I work from home, I get paid well and on the whole I enjoy it.
I have worked in various places over the years starting on the helpdesk as most do and getting all of the shiny qualifications (MCSE,A+,N+ etc) before moving onto DB roles and design roles.
Personally I enjoy it as I like new technology and fixing problems and after trying other career routes I now realise I'm cut out to do this stuff.
I work from home, I get paid well and on the whole I enjoy it.
I have worked in various places over the years starting on the helpdesk as most do and getting all of the shiny qualifications (MCSE,A+,N+ etc) before moving onto DB roles and design roles.
Personally I enjoy it as I like new technology and fixing problems and after trying other career routes I now realise I'm cut out to do this stuff.
The job was easy (helpdesk) yet frustrating. Mainly due to end users being stupid. Not their fault but they could be a bit more helpful when they have a problem.
The worst bit is everyone you know saying, "Oh Ace works in IT, he'll fix your computer for you!!!". How about no?! Not my fault you installed Bonzi Buddy and Ask toolbar along with 50 other bits of malware and your computer is "going slow".
The worst bit is everyone you know saying, "Oh Ace works in IT, he'll fix your computer for you!!!". How about no?! Not my fault you installed Bonzi Buddy and Ask toolbar along with 50 other bits of malware and your computer is "going slow".
I.T is a VERY vague, broad term.
It's like saying I'm in the NHS. What, a porter, a receptionist or a consultant doctor or medical director?
I'm in "IT" but never say that if asked (as my wife would answer "doctor" when asked what she did, not "oh, I'm in the NHS"). I just say I'm a programmer (used many languages, C# and vb.net currently if asked) although my role includes some degree of consultancy with our clients (we are a small company).
Also, the experience is quite different is in large/small teams/companies (I have worked in both) and although roles are same/similar, in reality quite different at times.
So, OP when you ask what's involved in "IT", is there a particular area you are thinking of? Networking, support, programming and so on??
It's like saying I'm in the NHS. What, a porter, a receptionist or a consultant doctor or medical director?
I'm in "IT" but never say that if asked (as my wife would answer "doctor" when asked what she did, not "oh, I'm in the NHS"). I just say I'm a programmer (used many languages, C# and vb.net currently if asked) although my role includes some degree of consultancy with our clients (we are a small company).
Also, the experience is quite different is in large/small teams/companies (I have worked in both) and although roles are same/similar, in reality quite different at times.
So, OP when you ask what's involved in "IT", is there a particular area you are thinking of? Networking, support, programming and so on??
pokethepope said:
Learn: "Turn it off and on again."
HTH.
Most users don't have the patience to work with the support person when diagnosing the problem, never mind getting a failed service or process to reinitiate. So its quicker to hit the big button and get the PC to restart them on a reboot.HTH.
One takes 3 minutes the other takes longer and a lot of misunderstandings. Not to mention that a lot of users seem to lose self sufficiency when they talk to a support person .... "Yes, the left mouse button twice" etc.
Most IT work involves getting a computer to do something that a human wants it to do. Whilst at first this sounds straightforward, once you factor in the fact that computers have zero intelligence so have to be instructed what decision to make in every single circumstance, and users quite often don't know what they want in exact enough detail to instruct the computer, then it all becomes more difficult. Especially when you get different users with different requirements on the same systems. Then you get an idea of why it takes so long to get anything done in a large multi user networked environment.
I work "in IT", and the job I left in July consisted of everything from people phoning up to say their printer isn't working, and asking if it's plugged in, got ink/toner in it, switched on, and then going and finding that there is no paper in it, through to managing and re-instating kit that runs the production lines, after they have crashed again.
I looked after Desktops, Laptops, Servers, Network, Printers, Scanners, Plotters, PDA's, mobile phones, building infrastructure, moving desks, light bulbs, and getting new keys cut.
I also seemed to be the point of call for anyone in the company who had a problem with their home PC ("If you have a minute, can you just have a look at this!") which was never something straight forward.
Used to work 12 hour shifts officially, but quite often could be anything up to 18 hours if we had a big problem.
No overtime, no bonus, dumped with all the s
t no other department wants to take on, underpaid when compared with other equally qualified people in other departments, and get made redundant at the drop of a hat, as the department is seen as an overhead, who sits there with nothing to do (partly because we do our job properly, and partly as we can do so much from our desks!) rather than contributing to the smooth running of the company.
If you are seriously considering a career in IT, think very hard about it. I've never done anything else, and so have just taken another IT job, but I'm now totally off my rocker after 16 years in the IT game.
I looked after Desktops, Laptops, Servers, Network, Printers, Scanners, Plotters, PDA's, mobile phones, building infrastructure, moving desks, light bulbs, and getting new keys cut.
I also seemed to be the point of call for anyone in the company who had a problem with their home PC ("If you have a minute, can you just have a look at this!") which was never something straight forward.
Used to work 12 hour shifts officially, but quite often could be anything up to 18 hours if we had a big problem.
No overtime, no bonus, dumped with all the s
t no other department wants to take on, underpaid when compared with other equally qualified people in other departments, and get made redundant at the drop of a hat, as the department is seen as an overhead, who sits there with nothing to do (partly because we do our job properly, and partly as we can do so much from our desks!) rather than contributing to the smooth running of the company.If you are seriously considering a career in IT, think very hard about it. I've never done anything else, and so have just taken another IT job, but I'm now totally off my rocker after 16 years in the IT game.
Edited by AndrewTait on Saturday 5th December 20:51
AndrewTait said:
If you are seriously considering a career in IT, think very hard about it. I've never done anything else, and so have just taken another IT job, but I'm now totally off my rocker after 16 years in the IT game.
Different sort of folks like different challenges.I've been computer programming for over thirty years now,
and I still love it. It is in IT, but it is a world away from
answering helldesk calls.
Typical challenges I get are things like being given a
lump of Java, C or C++, sized from 100K lines to a million
lines or more and asked to make it go lots faster, or remove
hundreds or thousands of bugs from it.
Problems like that can't be solved by answering a few
telephones and doing a bit of internet surfing - it takes
real skill and experience.
It's all 40 hours a week work - anything more and you
will spend a lot of time correcting mistakes you made
when you were tired and confused.
So if you like a challenge, can work logically and in
teams where required, thrive on masses of complex detail and don't
mind the public's poor image of the job as a bunch of anoraks
doing advanced typing, then it could be for you.
dcb said:
AndrewTait said:
If you are seriously considering a career in IT, think very hard about it. I've never done anything else, and so have just taken another IT job, but I'm now totally off my rocker after 16 years in the IT game.
Different sort of folks like different challenges.I've been computer programming for over thirty years now,
and I still love it. It is in IT, but it is a world away from
answering helldesk calls.
Typical challenges I get are things like being given a
lump of Java, C or C++, sized from 100K lines to a million
lines or more and asked to make it go lots faster, or remove
hundreds or thousands of bugs from it.
Problems like that can't be solved by answering a few
telephones and doing a bit of internet surfing - it takes
real skill and experience.
It's all 40 hours a week work - anything more and you
will spend a lot of time correcting mistakes you made
when you were tired and confused.
So if you like a challenge, can work logically and in
teams where required, thrive on masses of complex detail and don't
mind the public's poor image of the job as a bunch of anoraks
doing advanced typing, then it could be for you.
I work very hard for the money I get, and there are not many of the benefits that say a sales rep may get (bonus, commission, etc.) Unless you work for a company which is in IT services (be that technical support, or software development), then you are always seen as an overhead, and are always being looked at as an easy target when cost reduction is on the cards, and that you get some pretty s
tty jobs sometimes, just because no one else will take them on.I wouldn't do any other job, as I enjoy the challenge, and the fact that you never have the same problem twice.
I just wish that sometimes people would help themselves. When you work on a 5 acre site, and get called over the far side of the site twice in an hour cos people won't put paper in the printer themselves it starts to boil the piss a bit.
I work in IT and Im currently running a project with a mate that will bring Total Return Swaps to a large Investment Bank.
There is only 2 of us, the system is brand new, bespoke and scratch built as the old system is not the best and to incorporate the existing Data model would be absolute suicide on our behalf.
So were do you start?
You have a 3rd party system that wants to feed you a TRS and so you need to create a system that accepts the feed, stores it, allocates it using a trade matching system to a relevant instrument and if it can be matched it is, if not it is left in a waiting pattern and then informs the trader to use manual intervention.
Also the feed may not be from the 3rd party system it could be manual input via a trader, so that needs to be incorporate.
If your TRS changes in any way Economically or non economically it needs to be reported to the client via a legal agreement, this is to a seperate 3rd party system, so that needs to be designed and built, plus this needs to work in real time.
So now you have the trade and allocated it, it needs to be visible to the trader so we better create some screens.
But wait, if a corporate action occurs, then we better feed that in and then send it down to the relevant areas.
Then once the trade is in the system, what if we want to remove the trade off our books and we want to give it to someone else (aka financing) so we need to create a financing trade system to go in conjunction with our system.
At the End of every day you need to recalculate every trade with the EOD security pricing, Interest rates and FX rates... this recalc of the system must be quick so lets throw a quad core system at it and on every core we will have 2 threads running, but wait that is not enough so lets have 2 of them and get the recalc of the several thousand trades down to 10 mins, yay!!
So we have the data model, the allocations, the screens, the confirms, the calc model, corporate actions, but wait we have forgot:
Swap rolling
Bulk inputs and changes
trade flow and through put
audit system
reporting system
and many more.
between the two of us we must write the tech specs and get sign off.... not least we forget creating the system which is in C#, SQL, CAB, SyncFusion (why of fking why) and incorporates everything from Multi threading to remoting to Database interaction.
Now lets give us til early April 2010 as the go live date.
So we must be specced up, designed, implemented, tested, UATed, OATed and finally released in little over 4 months.
This will then bring in £X millions a year into the bank.
Scared us... fk yes, but the challenge is immense and so much fun.... but we are working every hour we can and respective OH are getting peeved at the lack of us as its 8ish - 7ish a day every day and then work at weekends, but the accolation of getting a rep of 2 people doing that in our industry is unbelievable.... bring on 2010!!
This is an example of one extreme in IT, scary yet?
There is only 2 of us, the system is brand new, bespoke and scratch built as the old system is not the best and to incorporate the existing Data model would be absolute suicide on our behalf.
So were do you start?
You have a 3rd party system that wants to feed you a TRS and so you need to create a system that accepts the feed, stores it, allocates it using a trade matching system to a relevant instrument and if it can be matched it is, if not it is left in a waiting pattern and then informs the trader to use manual intervention.
Also the feed may not be from the 3rd party system it could be manual input via a trader, so that needs to be incorporate.
If your TRS changes in any way Economically or non economically it needs to be reported to the client via a legal agreement, this is to a seperate 3rd party system, so that needs to be designed and built, plus this needs to work in real time.
So now you have the trade and allocated it, it needs to be visible to the trader so we better create some screens.
But wait, if a corporate action occurs, then we better feed that in and then send it down to the relevant areas.
Then once the trade is in the system, what if we want to remove the trade off our books and we want to give it to someone else (aka financing) so we need to create a financing trade system to go in conjunction with our system.
At the End of every day you need to recalculate every trade with the EOD security pricing, Interest rates and FX rates... this recalc of the system must be quick so lets throw a quad core system at it and on every core we will have 2 threads running, but wait that is not enough so lets have 2 of them and get the recalc of the several thousand trades down to 10 mins, yay!!
So we have the data model, the allocations, the screens, the confirms, the calc model, corporate actions, but wait we have forgot:
Swap rolling
Bulk inputs and changes
trade flow and through put
audit system
reporting system
and many more.
between the two of us we must write the tech specs and get sign off.... not least we forget creating the system which is in C#, SQL, CAB, SyncFusion (why of f
king why) and incorporates everything from Multi threading to remoting to Database interaction.Now lets give us til early April 2010 as the go live date.
So we must be specced up, designed, implemented, tested, UATed, OATed and finally released in little over 4 months.
This will then bring in £X millions a year into the bank.
Scared us... f
k yes, but the challenge is immense and so much fun.... but we are working every hour we can and respective OH are getting peeved at the lack of us as its 8ish - 7ish a day every day and then work at weekends, but the accolation of getting a rep of 2 people doing that in our industry is unbelievable.... bring on 2010!!This is an example of one extreme in IT, scary yet?
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