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Nine and a Half Ways to get Yourself Fired From an IT Department
By Gerry McLaughlin
There are a lot of fools around who will do many of these things automatically without this advice. Perhaps this advice may make them think twice.
1. Produce work that constantly falls over in Systems Testing and in Production.
2. When the manager gives his weekly/monthly talk to the department, make sarcastic comments to those nearest to you that the management can't hear (or so you think).
3. Under pressure, put a couple of changes into Production untested. After all the back-ups are run, the program falls over again, and there is no time for a further back-up. Systems will be up late in the morning, and the big boss will be telling your boss to make sure it doesn't happen again. He will not be very pleased with you to say the least.
4. Use your lunchtimes (and work times) to look at porn on the net. The Internet is not very secure and Technical Support is normally the biggest rumormongers and gossipmongers in the building.
5. Keep checking your share prices on the Internet or over the phone and tell your fellow workers things like, "I made five grand today".
6. At the Christmas Party make a play for your boss's wife, challenge him to a fight when he complains, or better yet, say he is no good at his job in front of his wife and those who work for him. He won't get rid of you right away. That would be too obvious. He'll wait for just enough time to elapse so that it doesn't seem that he's dumping you for that reason. Certainly, don't expect a contract renewal if you are a contractor.
7. Go behind your boss's back to your big boss. Rat your boss off for incompetence, giving examples. The Big Cheese now has to decide whether your boss goes or you go – and you're the hot favorite. The Big Chief won't like employing someone who 'does the dirty' on his bosses. After all he might be next.
8. Refer to the full time employees as 'Permies' and make derogatory comments about their abilities. They have better access to the boss than you have – and will use it.
9. Have a go at one of the senior users on your project (preferably the Project Sponsor) saying that he or she knows nothing about IT and would be much better to leave the project to you and your colleagues. It is better to do it while the IT manager is there, too.
10. Bring disks or CD's into work that you don't bother to check for viruses. Eventually you will bring one in that will infect everything. Better yet, if the CD doing the infecting is a porn CD.
I've seen all of these things happen. I wonder if our readers have seen them happen too – or can add fresh ones to the list.
About the Author
Gerry McLaughlin has fulfilled every role in Software Development from Trainee Programmer through Systems and Business Analysis, Project Leader and Manager, Systems Manager and Chief Information Officer with a department of 80 people. Tens of thousands of IT Contractors visit www.ITContractor.com each month to keep themselves in touch with the market.
Article Source: http://www.simplysearch4it.com/author-articles/3161/1.html
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| Some other articles by Gerry McLaughlin | |
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