What do you do when the smelly stuff hits the fan? What goes through your mind when users are having problems? Do you whinge, whine, and say things like: "Damn those pesky lusers", or something equally insulting? Perhaps you see an opportunity in the making to shine, or make the user's day better?
It seems that the IT camp, much like American politics, is a two party state.
On the one side are the “Whiners”, those people who think the whole world should operate according to their rhythm. They hate having to deal with problems, especially if they are the cause. A problem is something that must go away, either by dropping it on someone else's lap, or redefining it as a “system” issue that cannot be fixed, or just ignoring it. And when it cannot be ignored, then whine, whine, whine and whine some more. Maybe, they will be forced to do something about it, in that case, something gets done; quickly, dirty and not necessarily fixing the problem but the annoying boss, user, or whoever wielding the whip is satisfied. For goodness sake, they have work to do, and interesting problems to work with, like that Rails 2.0 application, or optimising the database to squeeze an extra 10ms out of it. Important stuff. Whiners do not always whine out loud, but they will do anything to avoid having to work on stuff that is “boring”.
In the other camp, are the “Entrepreneurs”. These guys love problems. Every problem is an opportunity to make their life and the lives of all those around them better. By making the client happy, they gain a good reputation. Problem happens, opportunity happens, and stuff gets done. These people realise that without problems, there cannot be solutions and IT is all about solutions. There is a reason that entrepreneurs do well, they are not afraid of getting the job done, and are willing to take the time to do it well (even though that is boring). Theirs is a career, not a “job”.
Which are you?
Thursday, January 3, 2008
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