Benefits of a job in IT

[BradleyT]

For all those "undecided" people in college I say go for a degree in IT.

You get to surf the internet all day long and chalk it up as "research". I bet some of the people with the highest number of posts here (and on most message boards) are in IT.

[randomchamp]

One of the reasons for that is the long hours they put in /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Shajen]

[ QUOTE ]
For all those "undecided" people in college I say go for a degree in IT.

You get to surf the internet all day long and chalk it up as "research". I bet some of the people with the highest number of posts here (and on most message boards) are in IT.

[/ QUOTE ]


You'd be correct sir.

[B00T]

You get to look and see which employees spend all day long on here. Thank god my IT guy is too busy lookin at p0rn to take notice of the rest of us doing nothing.

[holeplug]

I had an internship this summer in an IT department and basically all I did was surf the web all day. The best part was that my boss actually told me to do it or "you'll get too much done in one day." I didn't complain.

[CCx]

IT is great...i get to boss around a team of grubs, sit in my office and play poker and look at porn all day while browsing this god awful forum (and many others)

the nights/weekends/holidays that i have to work on occasion can't hold a candle to getting a fat paycheck while coming to work dressed like a goon and kicking back with my feet up

it's good to be the boss (P.S. work for a small company, or you'll never enjoy any of these benefits...and possibly have to wear a shirt with a collar on it)

[2planka]

Pros: people rely on you, every company (just about) needs IT folks, you get to be condescending, free computer upgrades (on saturdays, so I'm told).

Cons: you may, one day, kiss a girl.

[VBM]

mmm. possibly? I work in IT, but I can tell you plenty of ppl are plenty nervous about information workers abroad (India & China) displacing them. rightly so, as someone running a company; if you had to pay someone;
1. in Banglore $5/hour to do the same job you pay someone
2. here $15/hr to do (not to mention paying their insurance costs, etc)

who would pick #2?

IT salaries have also been stagnant over the last couple of years (as a whole, please don't reply me with, "not me, i got a 10% raise last year!"...plenty of ppl didn't) and products constantly change and if you don't keep up, eventually, you are obselete.

Also, depending on your personality, it may not be a fulfilling career; as nothing you do as an IT-ant will have significance to anyone in 5-10 years.

But, this may be a "grass is greener" thing...how many people are really fulfilled by their careers?

[BradleyT]

$15 an hour if you suck at your job lol. Even entry level pays more than that.

[Demana]

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Cons: you may, one day, kiss a girl.

[/ QUOTE ]

That never happens...

[scotnt73]

yep. i got most of my posts while at work. unfortunately they put in a content blocker 6 months ago and the proxy server is no longer in my building and under my control so 2+2 is blocked and i can only surf it at home now.

[AncientPC]

So VNC home and browse 2+2 from there. You're in IT aren't you?

[wonderwes]

[ QUOTE ]

who would pick #2?

IT salaries have also been stagnant over the last couple of years (as a whole, please don't reply me with, "not me, i got a 10% raise last year!"...plenty of ppl didn't) and products constantly change and if you don't keep up, eventually, you are obselete.

Also, depending on your personality, it may not be a fulfilling career; as nothing you do as an IT-ant will have significance to anyone in 5-10 years.

[/ QUOTE ]

Who knows what the future will hold. Possibly a cellphone implant directly into your skull. However, the evolution of technology is showing we will only get a more connected society. I worked for an internent provider. The one drawback was the Internet never closes, so someone always had to be around to watch the network.

IT jobs do have low pay. $15 an hour? That's not bad at all. Most companies try to squeeze their IT budget in employees and hardware. Some IT jobs (admin jobs) have huge stress. However I will agree with the forum, the IT field is great. Probably half the work of a normal 8 hour work day, can sit by a terminal, surf the net, do stuff at your desk, and have a pretty coasting work day or week.

Also, you don't know hell unless you had to phone trouble shoot with customers back when everyone was using windows98.

[AncientPC]

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Also, you don't know hell unless you had to phone trouble shoot with customers back when everyone was using windows98.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes I do, I worked at the ITS Help Desk on campus for 3 years. /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[TimM]

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Also, you don't know hell unless you had to phone trouble shoot with customers back when everyone was using windows98.

[/ QUOTE ]

Come on, I had to phone support people trying to run old DOS programs in Windows 95.

[wonderwes]

In the old neighborhood I was in, Verizon (GTE at the time) setup a switch with all the new homes. The switch squeezed more calls than physical phone lines. Result? Any v.90 (56k) modem would reach a max connection of 28.8bps (usually 26.4). So people got that along with random disconnects. Explaining how this work to the basic clueless customer on why it takes so long for a 1 meg picture file to get d/l on her email client on a 26.4 connect, was not easy.

Luckily those days are over. Except my friend just told me to go work at Wayport, the largest wifi provider for public places (airports, hotels, resturants, etc), doing basic tech support. Wireless tech support cant be that hard can it? Hmmmm, troubleshoot wifi. Sounds actually like an easy job. Shame you can not put poker skills on a resume.

[AncientPC]

Remember when UT started adding in free wireless access around campus? It was hell then.

Nothing compares to the hell every fall when 10k+ freshment move into dorms though.