The Information Technology Shell Game

The holidays are over and even though I worked throughout them, I actually have to go back to work. January is my least favorite month to work. Mind you I am not trying to complain. I have a job and I know a lot of IT people still out on their ass.

So many in this current economy have lost their jobs, especially, in the technology field. Companies will always look to reduce the bottom line and get rid of liabilities like Information Technology. To my fallen brothers and sisters in IT, I feel for you. You did everything you were told to do and still got a rim job. You studied hard, went to college, learned a trade and then applied your trade into a job, and for what? To get it right up the rear. All during the nineties I would meet more and more kids that wanted to get into the technology arena. It was the fastest growing field at one time in the early Clinton years. (Ah, remember the happy go lucky Clinton years.) Unfortunately, what happened was that the market got flooded. While companies found more and more ways to reduce IT spending and head count there were more and more graduates with Computer Science degrees.

I saw it first hand where I used to work, Harris Bank. I would look at these resumes of people looking to do desktop support who were way over qualified for it. You’d have a guy with ten years experience who was a network engineer and have every certification in the world. What usually had happened was that the place he worked for cut IT spending, outsourced the job he was doing so he went from making eighty five thousand a year to nothing. So, he would come in and interview for a job making fifty five thousand. As bad as I felt for these guys I would never suggest hiring them. I knew that they were only using the measly desktop support job as a stopgap until they could find something a little more glamorous. I wanted someone who wanted to be there and was not going to leave in three months.

The other resume I would see is someone right out of college. I felt even worse for these unfortunate saps. Four years of college studying your ass off and you finally graduate. Only to find out that you have to move back in with Mom and Dad because you have no dorm, no job and suddenly you have to pay off that student loan. You take a job at the local Kroger bagging groceries just to have money to make ends meet. All the while you have been lied to.

You thought that was what the American dream was all about. Study, work hard and one day you will be on top. Only you learned something along the way. You were lied to. You are just cattle. A number, a statistic, a paycheck. Corporate America doesn’t care about you. They will give you all the bullshit excuses to treat you like crap so that they can sleep better at night, while making money off your dead carcass. Sorry about tossing you and your family out on the street but, we are losing money and we need to cut costs. We need to make sure the stockholders can gain on their investment, we owe it to them. (Meanwhile, without saying so, telling you they owe you shit.) You did a great job but that job was sold off to India so we can pay Saboo over there, $5.00 an hour to do your job and not have to give him any benefits.

Do I have an answer to this, sadly I don’t. I don’t pretend to. I was raised to treat people fairly and with respect, have morals, do the right thing and make your country proud. Corporate America is a soulless bitter existence. One that I, along with so many others learned the hard way. Never trust them and always keep on eye on your own ass. That is all I can suggest. In the end you are the only one who you can trust. Remember that and beyond all else never, under any circumstance believe what they tell you.

Maybe, just maybe things will get better. I doubt it, but I can always hope. Even after being beaten over and over again into submission I still want to believe that there is a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow. I must be delusional but hopefully someone out there with some power grows a conscience and attempts to change things for the better. One can only hope.