After reading the "Ten Things About IT" thread I felt I couldn't relate to it. Some if it is true I suppose, but even those things are just cast in such a negative light you wouldn't find me repeating them. Here are MY "Ten Things About IT":



1. Helping Users

Whatever specific role you play in I.T. you will no doubt be helping some user, some way. With the right mindset, there is a lot of satisfaction to be taken from this. We don't just grind out widget after widget, we help the widget makers. Remember that even if it isn't always appreciated the way that we want or expect, we play a critical role in our organization.

2. Making a difference

I've worked with a lot of I.T. people. The I.T. folk that sit in their office and wait for alarms to go off or users to complain are always unhappy. The group that proactively searches for projects to make their organization more effecient or less error prone are the people that get true enjoyment from their days. We get to see the big picture, and with that there comes a lot of opportunity to clean up business processes and reduce rendundancy.

3. Knowledge

Knowledge is king, baby. I know when the company is doing well, and when we're not doing so well. I don't have to worry about the unknown or feel like I'm being led on by anyone. In fact, I wrote the report that tells us how well we're doing. I know what our strengths and our weaknesses are. That kind of information is usually reserved for top-level managers, but our position often requires us to have the same information without the same amount of responsability.

4. Physical Ease

The number one injury I am most at risk of is back pain. From slouching. 'nuff said.

5. Enjoyment

I LOVE what I do. I got into the computer thing at a very young age. I started getting paid for it when I was 19. I slowly learned to hate it, my hobby turned into work and I resented it. It wasn't until I started challenging myself again that I found out how to love it again. Every morning on my walk into work I think to myself, "How can I challenge myself? How can I improve this company as a whole?" Now I take a great deal of pleasure from working towards bettering this business. I can confidently and proudly say that I have saved this company thousands of dollars, improved our effeciency, lengthened our visibility, and saved hundreds of hours in redundant work. There is a huge amount of job satisfaction in that.

6. Stability

We will always be needed. I cannot imagine a day when a machine replaces us, because that machine would eventually need us to fix it.

7. Heroes

CDW (Who I LOVE) had a campaign about "IT Heroes" and I think they really nailed it. We are often presented with the damsel in distress and it's rare that we don't get to be the hero. Deleted a file on the server? Oh no! But wait, here comes IT Guy with a nightly backup! Computer bluescreened? Here comes IT Guy with a repair! Of all I do, the custom applications, the database optimizations, network infrastructure, my favorite tasks are the deleted files and crashed systems. Restoring a deleted file is often magic to users. We are praised and lauded as Gurus in the field for these simple tasks.

8. Spiceworks

You know it.

9. Moolah

I get paid well and have from a young age. Not everyone, even in this field, is so lucky. The standard starting wages for I.T. careers are much higher than many others. I know chefs at 4 star resteraunts that don't get paid as well as I did when I started. More specific applications and the $'s stack up exponentially.

10. Mystery

The ladies LOOOOOVE the mysterious guy. But really, when I worked for a pizza joint people would ask what I did and after "Pizza Maker" the subject was dropped. Now when asked people often grill me for details. We have very interesting jobs and there are not a lot of us out there. My friends and family respect that I work in an intellectually challenging career. You can be the smartest pizza maker out there, but in I.T. you'll have the credibility to back it up.



These may not be your top ten so I encourage you to comment and tell me what you love most about your profession. What motivates you and gives you the most satisfaction from I.T.?