Slideshow: The Top IT Loves and Hates

Today on Tom's IT Pro:Ten Things I Love/Hate About IT, Swimming with Sharks in the IT Fish Tank, and
Senate Bill Has IT Pro Overtime Pay in Crosshairs.

Tom's IT Pro Technical Editor Julio Urquidi spent many years in healthcare-related enterprise IT. Like other IT professionals, Julio found a lot to like and dislike about working in an IT shop.

In his latest feature for the site, Part I of a two part series, Julio takes us along as he walks down memory lane serving up a slideshow outlining things he Love/Hates about the technology, management and environment of the IT trenches.

Part I of this informative (and amusing) slideshow covers the things Julio Loves/Hates about Windows, Linux, On-Call, Training, and being called upon to be a Jack of All Trades in IT. Part II of the Ten Things I Love/Hate About IT will address the good and the bad of Open Source, Test/Dev, Legacy Hardware, Redeploying Old Hardware, and IT Politics.

Most IT pros will be very familiar with many (if not all) the aspects of the job that Julio covers in his articles. In the comments section, be sure to let us know about the areas of working in IT you have a Love/Hate relationship with.

"As human beings, we learn to adapt, but regardless, things that come up can be either obstacles, challenges or opportunities," Julio notes in his introduction. "It really depends on how you look at it."

So while there is something to dislike and like about many aspects of an IT career, how you view and address them in the long run will determine your level job satisfaction and effectiveness as an IT pro.

In an earlier article, Swimming with Sharks in the IT Fish Tank, Julio talked about how fish tanks are one of the better analogies for corporate IT management. 

"Technology changes as easily as the landscape in the aquarium," Julio explains. "That hiding place you use to have is now a plant; too many top feeders are grabbing up most of the fish food before you can get to it; decreased water levels affect mobility and encourage getting too close to the enemy … and so on."

As the economy improves and more IT jobs pop up, other fish tanks will look much more appealing. This is not just something IT pros should keep in mind, but the managers and companies that hire them as well.

Another important article Julio wrote that's extremely relevant to the careers of IT pros addressed a Senate bill that had overtime pay for IT professionals in the crosshairs. The CPU Act would amend Fair Labor Standards Act to eliminate overtime pay for many IT workers.

"I once worked 33+ hours straight trying to get a patient documentation system back online," Julio writes at the beginning of the article. "As a gift for my hard work, via upper management, my CIO gave me 15 dollars worth of coffee shop gift cards as part of an “employee retention” program. Apparently, I was going to need the energy from the coffee as I had to cancel my vacation plans and stick around for the rest of the week in case we had any outage-related problems."

Because Julio was a “manager-class” employee (where he managed computers and not people), he wasn’t compensated for his time and was asked to remain available for the rest of the week.

Not fair at all. The CPU Act placed many additional types of IT pros in danger of receiving similar treatment.

James Alan Miller is Managing Editor of Tom's IT Pro. He is a veteran technology journalist with over seventeen years of experience creating and developing magazine and online content. Founding editor of numerous business and enterprise computing sites at the internet.com network, James headed up the After Hours section at PC Magazine, as well as hardware and software sections of various Windows publications.

See here for all Tom's IT Pro articles written by James.