There was a day when I was extremely proud to call myself someone who worked in this magical field of “Information Technology”, but of late I have found myself disliking the term more and more. The meaning has changed in the eyes of the general populus, and in turn has changed how most people in the field are treated. Information Technology is so vague and broad a term any more, it is akin to walking up to a friend of yours and calling them a mammal. Yes, it is technically correct, but you could be implying they are a cat for all the specifity that it offers.
It is all too common in this day and age, to have that ‘one person’ in the family you go to with something like “oh, will you fix my computer?” or “you know, I’ve got this great idea for something that’s totally not been done a hundred times before.” (Sarcasm added) And the best part? None of that has anything to do with what I do for a living, it is merely an assumption on behalf of the general population as to our titles.
And it is not even limited to my narrow part of the whole of IT. I can sit down with anyone for days on end, explaining the day to day life of someone in my field of work, and the end result is almost always the same:
Them: “So, that’s what it’s like in IT?”
Me: “No, that is what it is like in my narrow tiny field”
Them: “oh… so I’ve got this computer problem…”
To give you an example of the issue, here is a brief listing of jobs posted on CareerBeacon, a job listing site here in Canada:
- Web Developer
- Network Analyst
- Business Analyst
- System Administrator
- Database Administrator
- Quality Assurance
- Project Manager
- Helpdesk Technician
- Resource Coordinator
- Bilingual Customer Service Representative
- Software Developer
- Java Developer
- PHP Developer
- .NET Developer
- C# Developer
- Python Developer
- COBOL Developer – wut?
- Technical Writer
- Digital Instructor
- Implementation Specialist
- Game Designer
- Network Technician
- Business Management Associate
And this is merely a small spattering of the titles offered at the time of this writing, the rabbit hole goes a lot deeper if you look over longer periods of time.