If you're an IT pro, consider yourself among the lucky and well compensated.
It's a Wonderful Life
If you're an IT pro, consider yourself among the lucky and well compensated.
- By Em C. Pea
- August 01, 2000
My beloved took me on a field trip to one of those drive-thru
safari parks. The animals had it pretty good: plenty to
eat, time to romp around; form focus groups; envision,
plan, and develop boilerplate code; whip up an enterprise
architecture; all that sort of stuff. I was envious for
a moment, until I realized that 1) they don’t have Fabio,
2) they have no life other than their job, and 3) they
don’t get paid.
Which brings us to the topic of this month’s issue, the
annual Salary Survey, a.k.a. "How @#!$-ing Lucky
Are We, Anyway?"
This is not to say that life’s a bed of roses in MCPville.
We do work for a living, and many of us work hard (Auntie
hopes you’re in this group). Unless you’re a Microsoft
Certified Visionary (only five or so in the U.S.), you’re
probably spot-welded to your cell phone and beeper.
The easy out is to say that we’re victims of our own
success, but that’s not accurate at all. What we do—systems
development, architecture, programming, support—has become
as essential to the health of most businesses as balanced
books or a really good holiday party. Look at what happened
when ILOVEYOU hit. All it did was foul up some computers,
right?
A decade ago, it wouldn’t have been too big a deal, but
in The New Millennium, that virus was as malicious and
destructive as a local school board election. Did you
work on the virus cleanup or any others since then? You
earned your nickel that week.
So if you do your work well, you likely get a good raise
annually, and perhaps a good bonus, and maybe some options
along the way. Enjoy it; you’ve earned it.
Just don’t get smug about your success. You could be
doing the same quality of fine work in a factory job and
get your butt handed to you when another company paying
10 cents less an hour underbids yours. You could be in
a not-for-profit or a public service job and be told when
you get your three percent annual, “Hey, that’s what everyone
in this business is getting.”
Don’t think that IT is the whole world. Remember that
your envious salary and perks are partly a function of
a labor shortage. Remove that shortage and we’re all smiling
when we get our three percent.
Don’t believe me? Then consider that bit about the hours
you work. How often can you say “No” to the evenings and
the weekends? In most workplaces, the thought process
you know is running through the mind of your customer
or employer is, “I pay them all that damn money. I don’t
care if they have a life outside the job—they’re going
to fix this or I’ll bring in someone else who can.” We’re
as much pieces of meat as the office temp; we’re just
more scarce and higher paid.
Do you think we’d fork over the ticket price to the safari
park if the animals weren’t so rare? If Fabio and I lived
next to a pack of baboons, we wouldn’t pay good money
to have them jumping all over the Land Cruiser, leaving
their paw prints and developing disaster recovery scenarios.
Fabio would probably have them over for touch-football,
and Auntie would be teaching them how to mix a batch of
frozens.
About the Author
Em C. Pea, MCP, is a technology consultant, writer and now budding nanotechnologist who you can expect to turn up somewhere writing about technology once again.