Information Technology Dark Side

What are the five words you absolutely can’t say at the office? What are the phrases that will bring you “on the carpet” (so to speak) faster than any other? Is it “BS”? What about “sucks”? Or the dreaded eff bomb? Heck no. I’ve heard these words used at all levels of organizations I’ve worked [...]

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One of my personal little trials in life is that my last name is difficult to pronounce. I grew up in Texas, where my name was abused tremendously. It only makes matters worse that my family uses an unusual pronounciation of Christiansen: Kris TEE ann sen (not Kris chen sen). I can’t tell you how [...]

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Yet another performance review idea – it’s midyear’s at my employer. This is an idea I’ve been working on for a long time, and it’s one for which I really have to give someone else the credit. Allen Childress, this one’s for you. Thanks for the idea! Dungeons and Dragons (and other RPG’s) give us [...]

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I’ve alluded to this before in a previous post about Interviewing the Interviewer, but I feel the need to elaborate on this a little. I have a mental tool that I have used for years to help me describe my workplace to others – the BSCP, or Bureaucratic Scale of Corporate Process. The scale, which [...]

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In most companies, changing a broken process is about as easy as building a defibrilator from household components. Sure, Macguyver could do it, but would you want my home-made defibrilator used to resuscitate you after a heart attack? Not me. It is particularly difficult to change an inefficient process in a time of reasonable stability. [...]

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A few days ago I saw a bumper sticker that reminded me of a lot of IT people. It was a list of nine political/social topics, all of them with a red “anti” symbol (you know, a red circle with a line through it) over them. The list included all the “hot” topics of the [...]

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Check out Penelope Trunk’s Blog, Brazen Careerist. It’s got lots of great advice – her most recent post is about getting a raise.

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What is the one skill that you think is consistent among all of the most successful IT people ever? Is it one of these: Object modeling? Function point analysis (yawn)?? COBOL? Database design & administration? Javascripting and HTML? Enterprise Integration?

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What is job security to you? I’m sure it means a lot of different things to a lot of people. To most, it probably means knowing that you’ll have the same job tomorrow that you have today – that your current job will always be available to you as long as you just keep coming [...]

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Is there a difference between geeks and nerds? Let me tell you what Webster says: Geek: 1 : a carnival performer often billed as a wild man whose act usually includes biting the head off a live chicken or snake 2 : a person often of an intellectual bent who is disapproved of. What the [...]

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