The club I ain't in.

In my career, I’ve finally come to openly acknowledge what I’ve suspected all along about IT Management.

It’s a club – and you (i.e. me) ain’t in it.

Actually the real discovery is that IT managers and ‘leaders’ (as senior managers like to call themselves) are really nothing more than a clique, like the ones I recall in elementary and particularly secondary school. There is a correlation between trying to please to be popular in school vs. sucking up and doing management’s bidding in order to obtain a better position and salary.

I think in both cases it’s why I’ve always been able to survive long enough to either get through it or just plain eke out a career, but nothing beyond that. I was never popular in school, not much of an athlete, and while I could occasionally make the honor roll, I wasn’t focused enough to sustain it long enough for it to take me anywhere interesting. So I floundered. I was pretty much a failure at school (a big part of that was I was enrolled in something I really didn’t want to be in, nor make a career of), but was able to parlay that into another career – namely IT.

Since then, I’ve managed (pardon the pun) to survive largely to logic, honesty, facts. That and not being an asshole. It’s a double-edged sword.

On the one hand, I’ve managed to survive. And where there’s been trouble, I’ve been able to work out and help things succeed where possible and where feasable.

On the other hand, that’s about as far as I’ve ever gotten. I’m useful, but never ever really considered valuable; at least valuable enough to be considered a manager or beyond.

But maybe that’s a good thing – how?

Maybe in not being such a manager or ‘leader’, I’m spared getting too drawn into the minutiae of all things idiotic in IT. That has allowed me to at least spend time on things more important to me. Though honestly if I could find a way to do those things and maintain the life I currently have, I would.

Time will tell whether things get better or not, I guess.