I read an editorial recently by Ted Pin over at SQLServerCentral.com, and I have to agree with him 100%. His beef is with the term "IT guy". That is, even though many of us work in IT, we don't necessarily like to be referred to as "IT guys"... Why? Well, because of the common perception of what "IT guy" means. If you've ever seen the "Nick Burns" Saturday Night Live skits, you know exactly what I'm talking about. The general population equates "IT guy" with the rude helpdesk guy that they are forced to call when Excel crashes, or worse yet, with the Beetle-driving Geek Squad from Best Buy... To put it bluntly, I don't fall into this group and I don't want to be categorized as though I do.
What I have beef with is the broad categorization of any person who works "with computers" for a living all into the same group of "IT guys". And my beef breaks down into two parts.
First, there is the "guy" part of the title. By tacking on "guy" at the end, it cheapens the whole thing. To quote from Mr. Pin, "When we refer to other professionals, we definitely don't say "the plumber guy," or "the doctor guy," or "the lawyer guy." If you say those out loud, the inclusion of "guy" somehow changes the connotation, and not in a good way. (Try it.)".
Second, is the grouping of all technology professionals into this one group of "IT guys". I think many professional software developers (or data warehousing experts or enterprise architects, or many others) would agree that being grouped together with pre-entry-level helpdesk techs is irritating. I imagine that most neurosurgeons wouldn't want to be categorized together with CMAs (certified medical assistant) and be called "medical guys". I mean, let's be honest here...
Before I offend anyone else, let me clarify something. I am in no way saying that there is anything wrong working the helpdesk (or any other job, for that matter). I know where I came from, and I have held a wide range of IT jobs from helpdesk to network administrator to webmaster to developer to consultant. I have been an "IT guy", and there is nothing wrong with it. I'm really not trying to be elitist.
Having said that, I still don't want to be called an "IT guy", because I feel that my experience and skills separate me from that title. Does that make me an elitist? I guess it kinda does. Oh well.
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