🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <geoffmD6s3xH.7nM@netcom.com>,
Geoff Miller <geoffm@netcom.com> wrote:
>A former boss of mine once mentioned a tidbit he'd picked up somewhere
>along the road to his MBA.  It seems, and my own experience backs this
>up, that an interesting intellectual transformation often happens to
>people whose jobs involve specialized skills or information that's
>required by a wider group of people: they become arrogant and contemptous
>of those whom they support, and irritable when it comes to receiving
>requests for assistance.   They come to think of themselves as a sort
>of aristocracy, since those great unwashed masses aren't members of 
>their privileged priesthood.  They are, after all, mere users; who
>are they to disturb our cloistered contemplation of the infinite?
>
>I've certainly known system administrators and MIS people who fell
>victim to this mindset, sometimes to an incredible degree.  In one 
>case I had to remind the individual in question, in decidedly 
>less-than-diplomatic terms, of his place in the greater scheme of
>things -- i.e., his membership in the class known as "support 
>personnel."

I don't disagree with any of what you said, but there is another factor
at work, namely supply and demand.  A friend of mine has a brother who's
basically a sys-admin, and according to him demand for these people
is going through the roof.  If you know you can get another job at the
drop of the hat, you presumably are less likely to conceal any natural
arrogance you might have.

'Course, it's self-righting to a certain extent.  Make sys-admins
expensive enough and soon enough someone will find ways of automating
their jobs, or making them less necessary.  In the short-run however...

Then again, it also seems that sys-admins don't necessarily get treated
very well by their employers.  I've heard there is massive turnover
at Netcom, for instance.

RNA