Unfortunately, dirty jobs -- whether you're being chained to a help desk, hacking
30-year-old code, finding yourself wedged between warring factions in the conference
room, or mucking about in human effluvia -- are necessary to make nearly every
organization tick. (Well, maybe not the human effluvia part.)
The good news? Master at least one of them, and you're pretty much guaranteed
a job with somebody. We don't guarantee you'll like it, though.
Here are seven of the dirtiest jobs in IT, and why your organization needs
them.
Dirty IT job No. 7: Legacy systems archaeologist
WANTED: INDIVIDUALS FAMILIAR WITH 3270, VAX/VMS, COBOL, AS/400, AND OTHER
LEGACY SYSTEMS NO ONE ELSE REMEMBERS. MUST BE ABLE TO TYPE ENTIRELY IN CAPITAL
LETTERS FOR EXTENDED PERIODS. APPLICANTS MUST MEET MINIMUM AGE REQUIREMENT OF
55.
Believe it or not, COBOL developers are still in demand, says Jim Lanzalotto,
vice president of Yoh, a technology
talent and outsourcing firm.
"I'm looking at a job listing right now for a PeopleSoft business analyst,"
says Lazalotto. "Buried in the middle of the description, it says, 'writes
COBOL as needed.' Here's another one, for a senior program analyst with a background
in IBM WebSphere, EDI, Unix, and secure file transfer protocol -- 'knowledge
of COBOL a plus.' Imagine your average 29-year-old hipster applying for one
of these jobs. 'You want me to know what?'"
You'd think these old systems would have died off years ago, but larger companies
-- especially in financial services, manufacturing, retail, and health care
-- cling to them like drunken sailors to a lamppost.
"I know of at least one major office supply retailer that powers its site
by connecting AS400s to Web front ends," says Andrew Gelina, CEO of Syrinx
Consulting, in Waltham, Mass. "The cost of rewriting or migrating these
apps is huge and the risk is high, so they look for any way possible to reuse
and reconnect to modern technologies. It's like marine archeology. You'll need
a spelunker to dive deep into them, figure out how they can be bolted and duct-taped
into a more modern integration engine, like a SOAP/XML front end."
The good news? Experienced techs willing to do these dirty jobs may discover
reliable income streams as they ease into semi-retirement.
"There's an interesting inversion principle at work here," Gelina
says. "The value of people with skills built around those systems had been
going steadily down for a long time. Now that companies can't find anyone to
work on them, the reverse is true. If you're a consultant who specializes in
one of those older technologies, you've got a pretty good niche."
Dirty IT job No. 6: Help desk zombie
Excellent entry-level opportunity for multitasking individual with low
self-esteem. Ability to read from scripts a plus. Potential to move up to bug
scraper, password reset technician, or tape rotation coordinator.
Here's the job that every IT professional hates. Bruce Kane, senior consultant
at M3 Technology Group in
Charlotte, N.C., defines a dirty job as "anything where you have to visit
or talk to end-users. Help desk, desk side support, etc. Icky! Users
have cooties!"
Of course, users often feel the same way about support techs, says Kris Domich,
principal datacenter consultant at Dimension
Data.
"When you contact tech support, a lot of people feel like they're either
talking to an idiot or being treated like one," Domich says. "There's
a fine line between being courteous and being patronizing, and many techs don't
know where that line is."
As more organizations move to 24/7 operations, they may also need the services
of the more specialized Graveyard Support Vampire, who shuns the daylight and
lives by the glow of the network console.
"Why this person actually wants to forge his or her days for the joy of
nocturnal employment is a dark, dark mystery that shall forever span the vast
expanse of space and time," says Lawrence Imeish, principal consultant
for Dimension Data's Converged Communications Group. "But it's often imperative
that IT folks manage their equipment off-hours so as to avoid impact on day-to-day
business activities on their networks. System reboots, patch applications, and
troubleshooting also typically occur after-hours and could be a cause for system
failure in and of themselves if not properly addressed during the evening hours."
Dirty IT job No. 5: On-site reboot specialist
Seeking individuals for on-site support of end-users. Must be familiar
with three-fingered Ctrl-Alt-Del salute and power cord reconfiguration. Ability
to withstand a variety of environments and personality types; concealed-weapons
permit a plus. Individuals with anger management issues need not apply.
Closely related to the help desk zombie, but even lower on the totem pole,
is the on-site reboot specialist. Unlike help desk or support vampires, the
on-site rebootnik must venture out into the physical world and deal with actual
people.
Joel Bomgar worked his way through college as an on-site support specialist.
He recalls hot sticky summers spent driving Mississippi back roads in 100-degree
heat, providing "sweatnical" support to clueless end-users.
"First there's the heat," Bomgar says. "Then you show up at
the customer site, and the server room is a closet. Loud, dusty, dingy, and
there's nowhere to sit down. You end up standing wedged between the server and
the wall for hours at a time. It's like flying on a regional jet. Everything
about it is uninviting."
It was this experience, Bomgar says, that ultimately inspired him to start
Bomgar Corp. (formerly
Network Streaming), a Ridgeland, Miss.-based provider of remote service solutions
for SMBs. By adding a Bomgar Box appliance to a company's network, remote technicians
anywhere in the world can access an end-user's PC and troubleshoot it.
Providing non-site support also puts some welcome physical distance between
techie and customer.
"What makes on-site support dirty is interfacing with the user,"
Bomgar says. "People's workstations are often a nightmarish wreck. They
issue you into a tiny room covered with dust, grit, and grime. The keyboard's
broken and the mouse doesn't work, but they're used to it."
For their part, customers don't have to stop working while the tech takes over
their machines (or stand near some college kid who's just been driving in 100-degree
heat).
"Tech support becomes so much cleaner when you don't have to go deal with
all those environmental variables," Bomgar says. "You get to interface
with the technology without the grit, grime, and dirt associated with support."
Dirty IT job No. 4: Interdepartmental peace negotiator
Looking for self-starter skilled at moderating tech disputes between
warring factions within the same company or between company and its client.
Must possess experience in ego-stroking, manipulative massage, and hand-to-hand
combat.
Cats and dogs, Democrats and Republicans, Martians and Venutians -- they're
downright chummy compared to warring departments within many enterprises. Unfortunately,
at some point they've got to pull together for the good of the company. That's
when you call in the negotiator to smooth ruffled feathers and break up the
fights.
This comes up a lot when different sides of the organization need to collaborate
on, say, a company wiki, intranet, or portal, says Syrinx's Gelina. Somebody's
got to play the heavy -- what Gelina calls the "Portal Majority Whip"
-- to keep everyone on the same page, following the same rules.
"If someone is not riding herd on this, renegade elements will crop up
and threaten the stability and usability of the portal," Gelina explains.
The problem? "The IT people want centralized control, while the typical
users want to move forward at the speed of business without restrictions,"
Gelina says. "They don't want to have to wait for IT to decide something
before they can move. Satisfying those two camps can be tough."
But this battle isn't always geeks against suits; sometimes it's geeks vs.
geeks. Dimension Data's Domich likens the job to herding kittens.
"The Cat Herder has to keep multiple architect-level technologists focused
on a common cause to a common problem," Domich says. "Even if it seems
redundant at times, it's essential to have systems -- or, in this case, people
-- in place to keep technology architects on schedule."
Domich adds, "IT project managers are gluttons for punishment." As
if we didn't know.
Dirty IT job No. 3: Enterprise espionage engineer (black ops)
Seeking slippery individuals comfortable with lying, cheating, stealing,
breaking, and entering for penetration testing of enterprise networks. Requirements
include familiarity with hacking, malware, and forgery; must be able to plausibly
impersonate a pest control specialist or a fire marshal. Please submit rap sheet
along with resume.
Social engineer, con artist, penetration tester, or white hat hacker -- whatever
you call it, Jim Stickley has a dirty job that actually sounds like fun. As
VP of engineering and CTO of TraceSecurity
in Baton Rouge, La., Stickley gets to talk his way into a client's offices,
sneak into their datacenters, make off with the company's vitals, then come
back later to show them where their internal security broke down.
The best part? He gets to wear disguises. Pest control specialist, AC repairman,
OSHA inspector -- Stickley and his crew have a closet full of uniforms. But
fireman is a particular favorite. "At one place you're the fire inspector,
and girls fall all over you," Stickley says. "The next place you're
wearing the pest inspector suit and you're the scum of the earth."
First, Stickley and his team take over the company's e-mail system and schedule
an appointment. Then they show up in the appropriate fake attire. Whoever has
been assigned to watch them usually leaves after about five minutes, Stickley
says. If not, they send her out to get them coffee or offer to show her a (fake)
dead mouse they found in the corner. That usually does the trick.
Once she's gone, they sneak into the security room and take all the backup
tapes, load Trojans onto the servers, or plug wireless devices into the network
and hack it from the parking lot.
"If we can get the backup tapes, we're done," Stickley says. "Every
piece of data you'd want -- mothers' maiden names, Social Security numbers --
is on those tapes. We've also walked out with computers, boxes filled with loan
documents, and applications for patents that have been drawn up but not submitted.
It's amazing."
Stickley says he's penetrated more
than 1,000 locations and has yet to be thwarted. The dirty part: Coming
back the next day to face the people you just 0wned.
"You feel dirty, if nothing else," Stickley says. "People come
up to you and they're mad. 'I can't believe I got you a cup of coffee.' But
ultimately you're just trying to help them out. Nobody gets fired for screwing
up. The whole point is to learn from the experience."
There's at least one person who doesn't gain much from Stickley's exercise
in creative insecurity, however.
"I feel really bad for the real pest inspector," he says. "The
next time he shows up, boy does he get beaten down."
Dirty IT job No. 2: Datacenter migration specialist
Position involves relocating and reconfiguring datacenter over impossible
distances within a ridiculously short time frame. Prior experience as cable
jockey, rack-n-stack grunt, console monkey, and/or log zombie a plus.
Moving a datacenter is a dirty job. Moving one halfway across the country in
48 hours -- that's a really dirty job. But that was the task facing Scott Wilson
and his firm, Marathon
Consulting, when one of its clients needed to close down its Chicago datacenter
the day before Thanksgiving 2003 and open for business in New York the following
Monday.
Wilson tried to persuade his financial services client to set up a duplicate
center in New York; they could power down the Windy City operation, light up
the Big Apple, then gradually move equipment as it was needed. No good, said
the client -- too expensive. So at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, his people loaded
roughly 80 machines into trucks and drove nonstop to New York.
"We tracked the trucks using GPS, so when they reached the Holland Tunnel,
we went to the datacenter," says Wilson, managing director of the Brooklyn-based
Marathon. "We spent the next 48 hours setting it up and getting operational.
But we got it up."
Unplugging everything and cleaning out the muck that's collected over the years
is bad, Wilson says. "Cables sit for years in half-baked air-conditioned
rooms that are dusty and nasty."
But the worst part is putting Humpty Datacenter back together again. "Most
datacenters aren't labeled correctly and have been put together by 10 different
consultants and in-house employees who each have their own ways of doing things,"
Wilson says. "And recabling someone else's work is always fun."
Fortunately, migrating datacenters isn't something firms do very often. But
when they do, it's an ordeal. IT pros resent having to do grunt work, but they
also understand it's part of the job.
"On the other hand, moving 10 racks of servers from Chicago to New York
in 48 hours at the end of the day feels amazing," says Wilson. "The
gratification is definitely there."
Dirty IT job No. 1: Sludge systems architect
Seeking individuals with demonstrated ability to squeeze over, under,
or between confined spaces to solve technical problems. Candidates should be
prepared to work long hours for low pay under adverse conditions. Must not be
allergic to sawdust, vermin, airborne pathogens, or sewage.
Sometimes dirty jobs are just that -- dirty. These days, technology goes everywhere:
oil rigs, pulp mills, sewage plants, you name it. Somebody's gotta clean up
the mess and keep the lights on.
"One of my early network projects was a network upgrade for a plywood
mill," says Roberta J. Flinn, a senior IT architect for IBM
Global Services' network practice in Beaverton, Ore. "We successfully
found all but one of the switches to be upgraded. After a full day of searching
and climbing around in the 'rafters,' we finally found the switch on a mezzanine
above the planers. It was completely covered with about 6 inches of sawdust
and still running."
But few IT gigs get earthier than Dan King's job as a process control engineer
for a Texas sewage treatment facility in the mid-1990s.
"Among other things," King says, "I was responsible for crawling
around the sludge dryer -- that's where the poo goes after it's extracted from
the water -- trying to figure out how to program the computers to run the conveyors
at speeds that would get the sludge dry enough so that it's not a sloppy muddy
mess, yet not so dry and dusty that it would catch on fire."
A particularly smelly fire was the reason King was assigned to the project
in the first place, he adds pungently.
To keep the "sludge" at the right consistency, King used an '80s-era
programming language called CL, made by Honeywell
Industrial Control Systems, to move the conveyor belts at precisely the
right speed and send the right amount of electricity to the dryers. That was
the easy part.
"Then I had to crawl around the belt and reach in with my glove to check
the consistency of this muddy, slushy mess while watching the temperature."
After that formative experience, King went to grad school. He's now an SAP
consultant and NetWeaver Integration specialist for CapGemini
in Houston. He says even that job can get dirty sometimes, especially when he
needs to convince clients to give his people access to the things they need
to get their work done.
"Some days, I'm still up to my hips in poo, but it's bull poo," King
says.
After writing this article, Contributing Editor Dan Tynan felt the need
for a really long shower.
