Dragging your feet, won't keep your seat

  You have officially done it, landed that first big job, decided to venture down the route of continued education, you even took the time to find your perfect career path, and now what?  Will your continued employment be based upon your interview?  Absolutely not, as a matter of fact your continued employment is based on your drive, your desire, and your push to move forward.  Maybe drive isn't the path everyone will push for, becoming the next CIO or CTO may not be in your cards, being comfortable in a position is an important goal to achieve.  That said, you will have to show you want to stay, you will have to prove your worth, you will have to prove you aren't lazy.

  Brutal sounding introduction wasn't it?  Not intended, but brashness was, because there seems to be a pandemic occurrence among the young and newly baptized IT personnel that they are in for life the second they walk through those glass doors on their first day.  Their eternal employment goals are in tact, and no matter what they are sainted in the realm of the technomancer.  They aren't though, their future employment goals remain on their shoulders, a future filled with budget constraints, ever changing landscapes of the IT community, finding ways to deal with workplace stress.

  Plague Mentality

  Here is the mentality of those sad plague victims I speak of.  They are in that seat, and if they are in the mood to be lazy, they will opt to do nothing, OR if they do decide to do something, its in some way counter productive, thus pushing off the more complex tasks to someone else to deal with, maybe instead of finding a truecrypt replacement or find a new VOIP system, they intentionally break a system to continue with it.  After long enough of this type of mentality, they plague victim eventually just ends up looking incompetent and detrimental to the department and... is a disposable commodity.

  Does this really happen?

  Sadly for some reason this does happen, and far to often these people get away with it, they either poison the pool as a whole, or just sneak under the radar and get avoided due to their perceived lack of intellect.  In my short tenure I've seen far more of this than I'd even expect, and its a bit appalling, but once again if they can get away with it, why do they care?  Here are a couple real world examples of it.

  A user who was told to change a roll of paper in a printer after hours, simple roll change, put roll on spindle, feed roll in printer, it only goes in 1 way, everyone is happy.  This particular user loaded the paper backwards every time he went to load it in order to intentionally jam the printer for an extended period of time in order to keep him from ever having to change the paper again.

  A user was asked to learn a new program, which he decided was not something he wanted to do, in order to counter act, he decided to just start deleting files, and purposely changing paths internally (which both take a certain level of knowledge might I add) to brick the system at least once a week.  Guess who no longer uses that program?

  A user would frequently delete entire projects once or twice a month stating it was a mistake and he would have to stay and get overtime to make the deadline in time for the client.  Once would be sensible, twice come on now, but on a regular occurrence?  Now its getting ridiculous, especially when the files weren't deleted just copied to the local C: drive, and the over time was expensive nap and internet time.

  Did they get away with it?

  Not for long, but they all seemed to get comfortable in their positions, they all believed they were the untouchable few due to either their tenure, their knowledge, or a non-water proof sheet of paper that says they are smart.  All of their actions were excusable a hand full of times at best, but when it became regular, yet they thought they were bullet proof?  Was honestly a bit disgusting.  None of them are here anymore, nor will they come back, a meticulous decision to abuse the system to either relax and get paid for it, to not have to learn, or to just avoid work all together, only hurts you in the end.

  So... what are you getting at?...

  Never get too comfortable, never think you're an irreplaceable commodity, because you aren't.  There is a college student somewhere chomping at the bit to become the next IT guy.  Don't get stuck in the mindset that you're an IT blessing to anyone who employs you, instead constantly look for ways to be praised or show value in new and creative ways, show your value and prove your worth.  Never be lazy.

  If you have any comments, questions, or concerns, let us know in the comment section below.  And as always, be safe my fellow goblins.

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