It seems that a lot of people with no actual technical ability want to be in the computer industry because that is where they feel they can make money. In general lots of training companies help enforce this by telling people they can get them certified after a week or a month’s worth of classes.
You have many Microsoft Certified Trainers (MCT’s)[1] out there teaching people things all of the stuff to pass a cert test and nothing to actually make things work. In fact, I question whether many of them could make things work on their own. You have people writing crap articles based on the crap information they know which does nothing to help the situation at all.
You have companies enforcing the important of certs because they are putting that down as requirements to talk to people for technical jobs and actually hiring brain dead MCSE’s or other certified folks instead of actually doing good interviews and figuring out who is good or not. Then wondering why the hell their stuff runs so crappy at the same time their costs are going out of control. If they were lucky enough to get someone good but who is a little more expensive, they look at them as the first thing to cut when things are running well for a while and there are no complaints.
And yes… I do believe MSFT has some blame in this as well for the MSFT specific technologies because of their pushing pushing pushing to get people certified so they can look to the businesses and say “Look, how great are we, we have given a way to measure the capability of people and we have flooded the market with these folks so you can get good people for cheap as they are readily available everywhere.
Couple this with everyone and their cousin thinking that since they can compile “Hello World” it makes them an application developer so they write complete piece of shit applications that some VP or CE* sees a limited demo of so says “WOW, that is what we have been missing, look how great and easy that is, that is what we need. It works great for me to do this or that so it must work great for 200,000 people doing the same thing at the same time!!! Stop everything else and implement this thing so we can save several hundreds of millions (or several thousands in the small shops)”. The folks who have to make it work, if they have any clue are like, hey this actually sucks, but more likely, they just kick it through either because they don’t have a clue or they stopped caring and then the crappy ops people are stuck with it and can’t figure out how to make it work well either (if indeed it is possible) and their costs go up trying to make it run and in the meanwhile the users are all hating life. And eventually someone says wow, this all sucks, we need to change it all which costs even MORE money and if all of the same people are involved where the few (yes few) good people still aren’t listened to then another even crappier system is built.
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So this rant is brought to you by an article I read this morning in the magazine called “IBM Systems Magazine”. It is the magazine put out by a little company called IBM that is basically propaganda on how great their systems are and why everyone should be running either a mini or mainframe or some crazy Linux cluster. I don’t mind it being propaganda, if there was a similar magazine from MSFT or HP or Dell or whomever, they would all be the same. It wouldn’t make sense for IBM to put out a magazine that said you were stupid for running an I5 520 Express with I5/OS or AIX or Linux now would it?  I read the magazine because I like to see what their propaganda looks like at any given time. Gives me some insight on where they *might* really be possibly.
The article talks about a small company of less than 100 people doing Hair Salon supply stuff who have an application server and only about 25 WHO ACTUALLY USE THE APPLICATION that was running on Windows and was running so poorly that monthly OT costs went up to $13,000 from $1300. The app used to run under DOS and when that was the case the company ran at OT costs of $1300 and could process 130-150 orders daily. Switching to Windows took them up to $13,000 in monthly OT costs and processing dropped to less than 100 orders a day. They went so far as to bring in a consulting company to try and figure out what was wrong who failed completely and utterly. They don’t mention the consulting company, I wish they had, but they probably would have been sued for mentioning their names because no one wants to be associated with being brain dead. So after 9 months of running on Windows the company decides to throw it all out and go to a green screen app on a 520…
There is a place for IBM Minis and Mainframes. An application used by 25 people to process 150 orders running on hardware that cost probably no less than $15,000 and who knows how much in application costs and support (small companies absolutely do not have the resources locally to support mini/mainframe hardware/OS/Software) is not someplace I would generally consider the right place.
This company suffered from crappy technical people. Probably crappy application developers who put the app together for them, crappy system designers/integrators who designed and built their system, and crappy operators, Bob from down the street who got his MCSE and a free lollypop after going to MCSE bootcamp put on by MCTs who couldn’t tie their own shoes…
It is very frustrating, Windows has its issues, I absolutely agree with that and there is no way that it is the right answer for all cases, it is a hammer, some problems call for a screwdriver or a torx wrench. However, due to the huge number of morons working on Windows I see more screwed up Windows deployments than anything else. Sure there is a matter of volume too, you see far more Windows deployments as well, but the averages are all skewed. You see a greater percentage of good UNIX deployments than Windows deployments because the UNIX admins for the most part have a clue. You see a greater percentage of good Mainframe deployments than Windows deployments for the same reason. The guy who was stocking the bread shelves didn’t decide one day to be a UNIX or mainframe admin/integrator/developer and go off and take a couple of classes, get certified, use a listserv to get some hard questions answered to make it look like they knew what they were doing, and then get thrown into a high level good paying job doing a half ass job on UNIX, he did it on Windows. Then in the end when he fracks it all up, Windows looks like it is a shit OS when in fact, it was just some dumbass person working on it that was the problem the whole time.
So what recommendations do I have?
1. Companies, stop requesting certs for interviews for Windows positions. They are worthless. The MCSE, MCS, MCD are all pieces of shit. Someone isn’t good because they have one. They are good because they were good already before they had it. I have not once, since 1996 or so when I first started hearing about these certifications ever thought that people working towards them actually learned something good that they couldn’t have done on their own.
2. CE*s and VPs… You ASK your people what you should be implementing, you don’t come down with decisions on high with actual product names and implementation details because you were high and saw something in a trade show that worked great in the artificial environment set up to make it look great. Your opinion is not only worth less than someone doing actual integration and support work in your environment, it is INFINITELY worse. You are too high up to understand the deep technical details of your organization and you shouldn’t be trying, you choose directions you want to go and then you depend on your people to do the investigations to find the best way to accomplish those directions and if they come back and say, hey, could we talk about this direction, we aren’t sure it makes sense… LISTEN. If you find that you MUST be paying that close of direction to the deep details, then you have the wrong people, find better people. Also stop golfing and eating and partying with the vendors. If you have stock or other forms of kickback with any of the vendors you use or choose to use, I think you should be fired and possibly even shot.
3. Companies developing applications. Stop doing half ass jobs thinking people will pay for it anyway. If you don’t understand what you are doing, either don’t do it or find someone who does understand to help you and isten to them. Just because you have the only or best app in a certain field doesn’t mean you are doing it right. If someone points out something you are doing wrong, correct it, don’t defend the stupidity. If you find a customer willing to tell you what you frelled up, LISTEN TO THEM. When you have a choice you can make which gives flexibility to configuration for the customers, choose to have some default but be flexible in allowing them to change it. If I encounter your app and you require a specific group scope or a primary group or something else as assinine, I am going to tell you straight up you are your app sucks as well as whomever is trying to use your app as well as everyone else I can tell. on the flip side, if you do a good job, I am just as quick to say that.
4. Technical people… Having a certification or degree does not mean you have any skills other than the ability to pass a test. Never misunderstand that. If you catch yourself thinking, I know something because I am an MCSE, step back and think harder about it. Until you have proven something out personally that you have learned, it is propaganda. This goes for all hardward docs, all software docs, SDK’s, you name it. Assume it is wrong until you have proven it is right. Do not believe for a second you will be an amazing technical person working 9-5. The folks who are really good never stop thinking about this stuff because it is something they like. If you think you are going to stop roofing houses and go be a 9-5 computer person and be amazing at it, stick with roofing. At this point if you are anything but a desktop answer monkey and you do not have multiple systems set up at home (either virtual or physical) then you are almost certainly not as good as you think and you aren’t arming yourself to even get close. On the flip side, having those systems at home doesn’t make you good, actually working on them and breaking them and fixing them and reconfiguring them does. This means that you must take personal time doing it. If you don’t have that personal time to do it don’t be whining about how others do, it is a matter of priorities. I don’t whine that I am not a good dad and say I deserve things that a good dad does but I don’t have because I didn’t have the time. If that is what I wanted, I would spend the time on that. Finally, the computer and technical industries are not for everyone, it is very likely you could be one of those people it isn’t for, there are a lot of people that fit that category who are in it so I expect the chances are high for many people that it isn’t right for them. Try to figure that out and get out if it isn’t for you. You may like it all day, but if you suck, stop hurting others with your suckiness. Play to your strengths, feeling you can correct for your weaknesses is just downright stupid thinking even though that is the common viewpoint of most people and companies.
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[1] Note, I don’t dislike all MCTs, there are a couple I have met who are worth a shit. 🙂
Very interesting post Joe. It’s actually worse in some sectors of the tech world. In some places MCSE, degrees or experience don’t mean much. The only thing that matters is if you have a security clearance. The golden ticket in some parts of the country… but I digress.
What I often see is that those of us that have networks at home and play and use them are often the scorn of others; people will often say that we have no life. What I always say to those people is this. When you hear of great athletes like Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods practicing like crazy and putting in all that extra effort do you call them losers or say they need to get a life? It’s actually the complete opposite, Tiger, Michael and others are praised for their work ethic. I look at people in the computer industry that do all this extra work the same way. I praise them and I believe they deserve all they get and I admire those folks. You definitely fall into that category.
As far as the MCSE I sort of disagree with you if the person has kept up with it. If I see someone that has a MCSE in NT, 2000, 2003 and now going for 2007 next year then I at least think they are in it for the long haul and at least putting in some effort. Yes there are those with no certs that are great but what I see is that most people learn what they work with and that’s all. So the MCSE can expose them to some things that they may not see at work. Yes there are tons of bad MCSE’s too but there are also a lot of bad people that have no certs. I think in the end a good thorough technical interview will see through a lot of that.
I also agree with your assessment that the average UNIX admin is better than the average Windows admin. UNIX guys are more likely to like this stuff like you said.
So you don’t put any credence in any degrees? What if the kid is has good grades and a computer science or EE degree from one of the top schools (MIT, Stanford, etc)? Although you don’t see those kids becoming windows admins.
I’m 31 now and as I get old I don’t get mad about this anymore. The people that do the 9-5 and never read one book, magazine, website, and don’t run any VM’s at home used to piss me off too but now I just accept it and if you are good you usually get recognized by your coworkers and bosses. In the end I realized that a lot of the 9-5 people you mentioned are just trying to take care of their kids and family and they are not trying to be the king or queen of the tech world but rather just trying to provide a decent middle class life for their family and that is not so bad.
I’m also surprised by the number of windows admins that don’t even know what Vista is at this point.
Joe:
One word: AMEN!!
I was a Unix sysadmin before I got into Windows administration. I cannot believe just how bad many of these winadmins are, and they ALL have MCSEs!
My only comment is that there are some of us who take pride in their MCSE. I acheived mine based on hard work, study, implememting, testing, breaking, fixing. I do agree that there are many out there who “learned” to pass the tests and probably could not install Windows properly if they had to. But there are many of us who do know what we are doing, and took the tests and acheived the certificate. I know MS is making an effort to make the tests based on real world. Let’s hope they get there and we can weed out the professional test takers.
Dave
the point is, you cannot test for the real world. the reality is, you take tests in med school that ask you to solve difficult problems and make a diagnosis on the assumption that there is something wrong: this is where MS tests are completely useless; they assume you have to solve a design problem and or easy misconfig. Unfortunately, testing really useful problem scenarios for the MS world means testing real scenarios: bugs/crashes/security issues. This is where the CCIE seems to be the best model – they make you take a grueling paper exam that drills you on the most arcane minutiae and then throw you ina room with a broken network and make you fix it. The cost is prohibitive for most unfortunately. The better alternative would be for MS to start an internship program – farming out parttime internships at various companies willing to take on someone in learning mode and pay MS some kind of fee with some guidance and mentoring from MS or elsewhere. This would produce good admins and the benefits would go all around (and is a great way for newbie’s to get that foot in the door).
On the unix issue, i’ve always felt that the thing that helped me understand windows/exchange/internet problems was having great exposure to unix. And i have to say, of the best Exchange engineers I work with today – the best ones come from unix backgrounds.
Mike:
There are degrees that I have respect for (say PhDs out of MIT), but in general, as you mention, those folks aren’t going out to become admins. Respect aside, having a degree, even a EE doesn’t necessarily make you good. It could simply mean you had the money (or could get a loan) and were able to put in the time. I can’t really think of anyone I know (from PhD down to uneducated wretch) that became “good” because of their schooling, they were usually good on their own outside of school, school possibly enabled them but that was about it. This isn’t just the tech world, I have a high school friend with an MBA who was pretty worthless before it and is just as bad after it and can’t get a job to save his life even with the MBA. His wife is “uneducated” by his standards but far more useful and valuable than he is by a mile though she puts herself down because she isn’t degreed. In the end my opinion is that neither a degree nor a certificate make someone good. People need to prove that outside of those items.
I am not mad that people are in the industry and not working hard at it, I am a little frustrated that the ones that suck reflect so strongly on the industry. If someone were good and only read one magazine a year, I wouldn’t say a word. But we have too many idiots in too many important places doing things they shouldn’t be anywhere near. The humourous thing is that they feel they are entitled to anything done by anyone doing a much better job just because they may have the same position.
Oh, don’t let anyone make you feel bad for doing things outside of work to enhance your skill. As you mention, the folks who care and do well at the things they do put the effort in.
Dave:
Were you good before you started studying for your MCSE or were you already good and trying hard?
Jackass:
Exactly. And maybe that is what it should become, an expensive long drawn out process. The problem here though is that MSFT doesn’t want it to be difficult to get the cert or else people won’t do it and they want as many people as possible to have the cert. At any point if it gets too difficult and people back off of it, MSFT does something to entice people back again. I think that is probably one of the core issues. MSFT needs to want a certificate that proves something, not a certificate used for advertising and telling businesses how they have so many certified admins available.
Joe,
I am an MCSE. However I don’t feel that this is a true indication of my skill level. I constantly tell people who want to be in the “IT” field that being an MCSE dosn’t mean anything if you are not good at your job. I constantly explain to these people that my line of work isn’t really a 9-5 job it is more like a 24 hour a day job. Besides the long hours working on issues affecting my end users, I spend hours building, reading, destroying, and fixing my personal network constisting of both physical and virtual machines.
I do feel that I am somewhat good at my job, but yet I don’t ever think that anyone can be great at a job that is ever changing and evolving. I pride myself on my constant learning and quest for knowledge. I think that is what seperates people in this field. As I do one day (I say that as I am a “young pup” in this field.) hope to have the breadth of knowledge that you and other people have in this industry.
That being said. Even though I don’t recommend anyone purse the MCSE title unless they honestly can back up the certification with actual knowledge, I do feel that keeping up with this does help me a little. Not a lot, and I never will expect it to.
Matt Johnson