Schewanick Computer Services

From my experience working for corporate aliens, from what others have told me, and from numerous articles on the internet, I have come to the conclusion that managers of many corporations show considerable disrespect to their technology workers. Throughout my career, I've had a several bad experiences. This was one of my worst.

A couple of years ago, I worked as a systems administrator for a private college. A new School Director just started his administration. When a new School Director takes over, instead of doing anything job related, usually the Director cosmetically starts changing his or her environment. Office furniture gets transferred from one room to another, pictures are moved from one wall to the adjacent wall, and a host of other labor intensive but irrelevant activities are scheduled. Some of these tasks required furniture movers. To save money and get bigger bonuses, management, instead of hiring the needed help, found it appropriate to use their technology instructors. They did not ask for volunteers, nor did they offer additional pay. They just outright ordered them to become laborers for a day.

Being a systems administrator, I believed I was immune from the furniture moving experience. I soon found out differently.

As a systems administrator I took care of approximately 300 computers (with internet connectivity) in the classrooms and offices. I assisted all office personnel and instructors with their computer, networking, or internet problems. I had two people under me. Whenever new computers came in and needed to be set up, either me or one of my assistants would physically unpack the computers and monitors and set them up for the user. If a computer had to be moved from one office and set up in another, this was considered part of the job, and I had no problem doing this.

There was a classroom that had over twenty computers that were old and of very little use. This classroom was going to be turned into a teachers' lounge and the computers were to be stored in a closet upstairs. Eventually they were to be donated to charity or thrown out. The Director of Education, who was my boss, ordered me and my assistants to move the computers upstairs. I told him that the computers were just junk and my skills were not required for this undertaking nor was it a part of my job description. I pointed out that I didn't spend all this time and effort learning practical skills to be treated as a furniture mover. I also told him that I wouldn't ask my assistants to do it, because that's not part of their job either. He told me that if I felt that way, I should look for another job. I said, "No, you fire me!"

Tempers flared and to avoid getting physically violent, I left the building and walked around the block several times. After I came back, they called me into the School Director's office. The School Director was the Director of Education's boss. He only gave me a pep talk about "pitching in" but didn't fire me. One of my assistants was ordered to move the computers, and he did. I avoided termination, simply because no one knew anything about what I was doing. My assistants were excellent workers, but were relatively inexperienced.

Later, they got a new School Director. Eventually, management found a replacement for me and used a trumped up reason to fire me. Not long after that, the entire school chain was forced to close by the federal government.

The school had several departments reporting to the School Director. They were Management, Education, Business, and Sales departments. The systems administrator didn't have a department. I was placed under the Education Department, even though I had to service every other department as well as the School Director. It seems that corporate did not think technology was important enough to be given a department. Then they would've had to pay me the much higher salary of a department head.

All the managers had nice offices, but the systems administrator's office was in the server room cluttered with old computers, hard drives, cd-roms, and other assorted parts. This is a typical arrangement for working systems administrators. There are corporations that hire useless tech managers that are only familiar with buzz words. In these cases, the managers would get the big offices, and the ones that actually do the work would get the server rooms.

Being a systems administrator, I could have easily found ways to compromise corporate data. I strongly believe that, no matter how abusive these corporations get, it is wrong to get back at them by sabotaging their systems or corrupting their data. Corporations do have a fear of retaliation. When they fire the systems administrator, they give no notice, change all passwords and provide an immediate security escort off the premises.

Technology instructors, programmers, and web designers are also subject to all types of abuse. I've seen programmers who wrote some really creative code but whose names were never mentioned in the company newsletter. Their technologically illiterate managers were highly praised instead.

If you look to sites like rent-a-coder, you'll find that you can get fancy websites for next to nothing. You can even buy 10 articles for your site for as little as 50 dollars (5 dollars per article). That's because so many good designers, writers, and programmers from countries like India and Russia are willing to work for relatively low pay. Since currently there is an ample supply of creative people, this abuse will continue.

In America your chances of becoming management material improve greatly the less you learn. When I went to college studying engineering, I met this man that never could understand the subject matter taught in class. When I ran into him years later, he was a highly paid manager working for the state. He told me that the only technology he needed for his job was to "know who to call".

There are two types of degrees, ones in real fields like Biology, Chemistry, Computers, Engineering, Web Design, etc. and the ones usually held by management like the Masters in Business Administration (MBA), or a Doctorate in History, Literature or Education. A lot of times, someone working as a cashier for McDonald's has more common sense than a typical PhD in Education. On the other hand, people with more practical degrees actually possess real skills. If it weren't for people that create and understand technology, we would still be at the mercy of the Bishops of the Inquisition, all holding Doctorates of Divinity.

With some exceptions, corporations generally tend to hire MBA's, PhD's in Liberal Arts, or inept individuals with technology degrees as management. They are perfectly suited to the requirements of corporate culture. They just have enough brains to follow orders from corporate, but are not creative enough to challenge any directives.

I don't think that my views of management are unique. You only have to look to the comic strip Dilbert and note the intelligence of the "boss" character. The strip wouldn't be as popular as it is, if it did not satirize the truth.

Let me warn the corporate alien management of today: Stop treating your technology people as "go-fors"! One day they'll just get fed up and quietly walk off the job. Without them your data driven, email centric cyber world cannot long endure.

About the author:

George Lunt is someone who feels the world is getting too corporate. His writings relate the individual's struggle with big government and big corporations. His website is http://www.corporate-aliens.com.

This article is George Lunt. All usage of this article must include a citation to the author and a link to corporate-aliens.com.