IT job that doesn't require

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pontifex

Lifer
Dec 5, 2000
43,804
46
91
Originally posted by: Injury
No matter what profession you are in there is always someone who has no idea about your job and will not have the patience to understand. There will always be someone who is not trained in the same way as you that insists they know your job just as good as you.

I think what you are looking for is to be in a position where you don't deal directly with customers/users.


Aside from that... if you don't have the patience to help people whose personalities clash with yours, then you should seek employment where you can be picky about who you help... ie: Freelance work, private consulting, contract work.

yes, exactly
 

torpid

Lifer
Sep 14, 2003
11,631
11
76
No. If you find one, let me know. It doesn't seem impossible. It should be that you are answering to the end user in a way that is beneficial to the company and NOT to the company in a way that is detrimental to the company AND users. It doesn't happen that way. Even if you are making the products for the users, the company will always be full of morons who think they know more about Usability by looking at a random screen than you can prove with even the most accurate usability lab session. They will tell you how to do your job and order you to do complete buffoonery such as disable resizing of fonts or try to make the back button disappear by installing a virus.
 

clamum

Lifer
Feb 13, 2003
26,256
406
126
Originally posted by: meltdown75
Originally posted by: clamum
Be a lumberjack? I dunno.
if he's an emo lumberjack, he'll get to cut himself, too!!! everyone will be happy :)
lol.

Seriously though, I dunno OP. Depends on your interests too, cause working at a job where you don't interact much with customers wouldn't be that much better if you didn't like what you were doing. What about something like photography? Take pictures for Playboy or somethin dude.
 

buck

Lifer
Dec 11, 2000
12,273
4
81
Vacations, massages, and outdoor activities are what help me. As others have said, there are much worse jobs out there.
 

kranky

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
21,019
156
106
Originally posted by: kevman
try pre/post sales

Pre-sales has to be the sweetest gig ever. Answer some questions, demo things that you know will work, then move on. When the customer actually buys the product and has problems, you're not involved.
 

Steve

Lifer
May 2, 2004
15,945
11
81
If you have twelve years of experience, why not become a consultant/contractor?
 

torpid

Lifer
Sep 14, 2003
11,631
11
76
Originally posted by: Steve
If you have twelve years of experience, why not become a consultant/contractor?

Because then you get even more idiots who tell you what to do?
 

Steve

Lifer
May 2, 2004
15,945
11
81
Originally posted by: torpid
Originally posted by: Steve
If you have twelve years of experience, why not become a consultant/contractor?

Because then you get even more idiots who tell you what to do?

If you play your cards right, you can charge your own rates, as well as pick and choose your clients. I'd put up with some idiocy for $100+ an hour.
 

GoatMonkey

Golden Member
Feb 25, 2005
1,253
0
0
Originally posted by: zoiks
Systems Engineer.

Wrong. There are fewer people to deal with, but when you do deal with them it's a bigger headache.

Every job has to answer to someone at some point. You just need to win the lottery.
 

andy04

Senior member
Dec 14, 2006
999
0
71
Originally posted by: GoatMonkey
Originally posted by: zoiks
Systems Engineer.

Wrong. There are fewer people to deal with, but when you do deal with them it's a bigger headache.

Every job has to answer to someone at some point. You just need to win the lottery.

You might still have wife !!!
 

Descartes

Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
13,968
2
0
Originally posted by: Steve
Originally posted by: torpid
Originally posted by: Steve
If you have twelve years of experience, why not become a consultant/contractor?

Because then you get even more idiots who tell you what to do?

If you play your cards right, you can charge your own rates, as well as pick and choose your clients. I'd put up with some idiocy for $100+ an hour.

If only it were so simple.
 

GoatMonkey

Golden Member
Feb 25, 2005
1,253
0
0
Originally posted by: Steve
Originally posted by: torpid
Originally posted by: Steve
If you have twelve years of experience, why not become a consultant/contractor?

Because then you get even more idiots who tell you what to do?

If you play your cards right, you can charge your own rates, as well as pick and choose your clients. I'd put up with some idiocy for $100+ an hour.

Consultants do the work that nobody else wants to do. The work is irregular also. There are good reasons that consultants make a lot of money. It's not worth it.
 

randay

Lifer
May 30, 2006
11,018
216
106
be an IT contractor for small businesses. do your shit well, and you should have no problems. when you do you arent actually around so they cant bitch to you about dumb things that they will eventually learn to live with 5 minutes after it happens.
 

Nightfall

Golden Member
Nov 16, 1999
1,769
0
0
Originally posted by: pontifex
Originally posted by: Injury
No matter what profession you are in there is always someone who has no idea about your job and will not have the patience to understand. There will always be someone who is not trained in the same way as you that insists they know your job just as good as you.

I think what you are looking for is to be in a position where you don't deal directly with customers/users.


Aside from that... if you don't have the patience to help people whose personalities clash with yours, then you should seek employment where you can be picky about who you help... ie: Freelance work, private consulting, contract work.

yes, exactly

Ok, let me help you out here.

I have no idea what your education is, what certs you have, or most important what your experience level is. If you want to deal with users/customers, IT is going to be very tough for you. Every position in IT is going to require some user/customer interaction. Some jobs more than others. Help Desk is going to require it more than Systems Engineer. That being said, if you want to limit your user/customer interaction, my advice would be to move up the ladder.

If you are in help desk now, its time to start moving to systems admin. How do you get there? Certifications and experience. If you have a college degree in IT, that really works in your favor. Start working towards your MCSA. Dedicate yourself to the technology. You will find a job as a systems admin or network admin somewhere.

I can tell you right now that education, experience, and certifications all help you in getting a job where you deal less with day to day user issues. It won't remove them totally, but you won't be the first line of defense anymore which does help.
 

child of wonder

Diamond Member
Aug 31, 2006
8,307
176
106
I worked in the Broadband Internet Services Group at an ISP for a while as a Sys Admin. I managed the customer email, DNS, web hosting, etc. servers plus some other internal servers. There was a separate department that handled internal user issues so we never got bothered by them and customers couldn't call us directly, just tech support.
 

Scarpozzi

Lifer
Jun 13, 2000
26,392
1,780
126
I'm a sys admin. It's rare that people call me directly, but when they do I usually answer their questions and help them out to the best of my ability. It gets lonely down here.

<----works in a cold basement that's a certified bomb shelter
 

pontifex

Lifer
Dec 5, 2000
43,804
46
91
i guess i ranted too much in my op, but what i really mean is getting away from the help desk position and having to help every dumb users do stupid crap. I know i'm going to have to deal with idiotic management no matter where i go.
 

Goosemaster

Lifer
Apr 10, 2001
48,775
3
81
<---technical adviser for a very ambitious and frankly, incredibly interesting Engineering project. Sure the small stuff is irritating as **** sometimes, but it can potentially pay off.

The fact is that IT is a support division designed to facilitate business and rarely is that not the case. By definition IT/IS/MIS/CIO/CSO/ etc are all support positions that are an expense with regards to the bottom line.
The BEST that you can do is improve efficiency and save them some money.

We are truly "building maintenance engineers" that have to worry about stuck bits gumming up the works and making everything run smoothly for everyone around us.

We worry about bits.
Janitors worry about turds.
We all deal with the sh!t.