I.T. Professionals Almost Have No Right to Decline a Work at Hand

IT Students, fresh IT graduates, first time IT job hunters, hear me. In this article I am going to discuss how an IT professional is functioning and their outlook inside an office or corporate place.

Most of the time IT professionals can be seen sitting in-front of their computers. I am not going to sour grape in this article just to justify why IT pros are always seen sitting in-front of a computer.

What your co-employees think about you

Not all of your co-employees will appreciate your profession. If you are working in an office with more than two hundred employees, chances are some of them will always by chance see you sitting in-front of your computer

They will, in turn, think, that you are not doing anything all day long. It's a bitter pill to swallow but it's the truth that's how some or most of your co-employees think about you.

What I am about to say next is up for debate.

Most of your co-employees think that you do not deserve your compensation. Be prepared to receive criticism as blunt as "he's not doing anything".

It's a criticism that is not exclusive to your co-employees. It can come from any person on the company that you are working for.

What some of you co-employees do not understand

IT professionals by nature are "on-call" employees. Meaning, they only going to perform a task at hand when something goes wrong.

With the precedent above IT professionals always have idle time. When you see an IT professional sitting in-front of a computer it could be their idle time or they are remotely performing a job to a computer owned by your sister's company if any.

Some IT professionals can be seen reading something in their monitor. Why?

Technology is a fast face industry. If you do not self-study you will be left behind. The next time you see an IT professional that seem to be reading something on their monitor they could be just performing a self-study to keep their skills up-to-date with technology.

If something goes wrong you need to fix it, do not elaborate

You are hired to fix IT problems, if something goes wrong, go fix it, it’s your job, you have no right to decline whatsoever.

If the work being requested is somewhat for the personal consumption of an employee, decline it right away.

How do you fix a problem

Do anything possible if you are fixing something. After you are done troubleshooting tell users to test it and then ask them to report to you if the problem still exist or not existing anymore.

Wait for the call, do not let the day pass without receiving a call.

If you think they are busy you can always be the one to call them and ask them if the problem still exist.

In that way they will not be able to point fingers on you if they are not able to do their job.

Some old truth

I have seen some employee blame a slow computer program when they are not able to beat a deadline or do their job.

You can avoid this situation by confirming to the user who reported to you a problem if the problem still exists or has been fixed.

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I am an I.T. professional (Computer Engineer) working in a private company, a blogger, a father and a husband.