Building the Perfect IT Person

While that model is still being sorted out, Novak, along with other CIOs interviewed by eWEEK, is on the lookout for the holy grail - a designer IT person who can adapt and thrive in changing environments and still remain valuable. To be sure, the ultimate IT worker doesn't exist; he or she is a figment of CIOs' collective imagination.

The perfect IT person must have patience when on the other end of the line is a user who doesn't know the difference between the computer "desktop" and the "desktop" on which the computer sits. that actually happened to me. very frustrating for me since i assumed everyone knew, who users a computer, what one's "desktop" was. i kept my cool though...:)

CIOs are discovering the age-old three-way conundrum: Adaptable, Valuable, Low salary. Pick two.

You can have it good and cheap.
You can have it fast and cheap.
If you want it good and fast, it's not going to be cheap.
- Contractor's Mantra.

From the article:

"The truth is that IT is just not valued that highly by the people in charge—rather, it's still being viewed as a cost center by many companies that focus more on business."

I can't agree more with this statement. It's sad, too, because IT is (in most industries) one of those absolutely critical business elements. There are a few organizations that recognize this. Fortunately, the company I work for is one of those few. We are a marketing logistics company, dealing with very physical assets, but by staying ahead of the IT curve, we are able to provide services to our clients that no other company can. As a result, the owners recognize IT as one of the main reasons for our tremendous growth and great competitive advantage... and it shows on the bottom line.

Want the perfect IT Guy:

#include
#include

int main()
{
bool condescending, arrogant, needHelp;
attitude(&condescending,&arrogant);
needHelp = true;
while(!condescending && !arrogant && needHelp)
{
cout

Basically the perfect IT person is as follows:

1. Always at their desk regardless of what problems they're currently handling.
2. Picks up the phone on the first ring and has an instant, 5 second solution to anything.
3. Works after hours and on weekends without complaints or expectations of bonuses, rewards, or salary increases. Vacation not in person's vocabulary.
4. Is clever enough to keep old crap running (servers, desktops) without spending a penny of their budget.
5. Has at least one degree yet happily works for a $30k/year salary regardless of the cost of living in any state/city/country.
6. Can do anything; anything said person cannot do will be resolved within the hour via some googling and experimentation.
7. Works in such a way that every process undertaken is thoroughly documented, so much so that the individual is instantly replacable and the new person coming in just 'follows the yellow brick road'.
8. Is very friendly, approachable, and a master at dumbing it down for the average COO, CEO, user, manager, you name it.

That's a perfect IT person from management's point of view. Now, here's the perfect IT person from an IT point of view.

1. Is adaptable and learns fairly fast, doesn't have to be instructed frequently on how to complete everyday tasks.
2. Works reasonably hard but always saves the last hour of the day for a quick fragging in UT2004 with the rest of the IT staff.
3. Never, ever starts nasty, undocumented projects on Friday. Ever.
4. Is a jedi master at extracting 'needs' from users. No users ever truly know what software or hardware they need at any given time, particularly new users. It takes a sixth sense to roll a machine out to most of them, especially specialized users like CAD designers.
5. Willing to lift heavy stuff without breaking a sweat from time to time. New servers have to be racked up and that takes a little muscle.
6. Degreed or not, make sure you're competent. Nobody likes a paper MCSE or a pedigreed CCNA that doesn't even know when or how to reboot a production server or router.