So, I just need to rant for a minute about what’s just happened. It’s made me feel fairly disposable as a worker. I work in I.T. support. I help people who can’t operate technology with highly complicated issues. I am highly skilled, well trained and I have a diverse set of understanding for technical issues.
Last year I took a new job. The old job was an MSP, or Managed Service Provider; if you don’t know what that is; an MSP is the IT department for companies too small to have an IT department. That’s the summary. The new company is both an MSP and an ISP as well as just about everything else you can imagine for IT… hosting webpages, and all the associated nonsense, phones/VoIP, colocation (Datacenter stuff)… everything. Basically, when someone was signed onboard with this employer, we did it all.
Starting out, everything seemed fairly normal, a bit more involved, since we do more than the last company, but nothing too crazy. The part that irked me, is that as MSP, we own a client, we do everything for them, including, but not limited to all their computer/server/network work (which I expected), but also their phones, internet service, hosting, email, etc. everything… which is a bit more than I expected, but I was managing okay.
In March/April, things changed in my personal life, where I was having to drive my SO to work (she doesn’t have her license, and we don’t live in a place where she can reliably get a taxi/bus/other transportation), the problem is that her work is 3-11, where I work 9-5, in another city. So I tried to work with my workplace but they wouldn’t let go of working from the office, so I ended up on an insane schedule of commuting to the office (over an hour drive each way), then leaving the office at 1PM, to be home for 2PM, to get her to work for 3PM, then GOING BACK TO WORK. I wasn’t able to keep up with my workload… in addition, I’m driving her home at 11, getting home at midnight, then getting up at 5-6AM to get a shower and do it all over again. I couldn’t sustain that for any reasonable length of time, and I burned out. My doctor issued a notice to my workplace that I am unable to continue working for the time being, they accepted it and I went on disability as of early may, until now.
Currently, I feel much better, compared to when I was burning out in April, and I feel a lot better about going back. The SO has also been working on getting her license and her own car, so within a few months I won’t have to even think about whether she can get to work or not, since she will have a car and her license to drive herself there. A week or two ago, I contacted my workplace to let them know I was ready to return. We had a few emails back and forth to resolve the matter of the doctors recommendation and disability diagnosis. Once all that was completed, I thought I was ready to go. Big nope.
I got word yesterday that instead of bringing me back, they’re laying me off.
So not only did they have the callous attitude to force me to drive to the office and back several times a day to try to maintain a poor life scenario (I asked to WFH, which they absolutely could do, since they did it over COVID without significant issues)… but when I burned out as a result of their ridiculous demands, and took some time off, instead of welcoming me back and holding my position, they filled in the gap while I was out on disability, and laid me off when I was able to return.
I feel so abandoned. I won’t complain about “where’s the loyalty” because there’s never been a time in my career where “loyalty” has ever been something I’ve felt that my workplace ever gave me; and all evidence I’ve seen says that companies have zero loyalty to anyone. Maybe one day in the past that was true, but it’s definitely not been true for the entirety of my working career; but here I am, a highly skilled individual, with specific skills that will absolutely help the company succeed, that they know I have, that they’re just going to throw away… and for what?
The excuse they gave me was financial downsizing, but it’s a company of about 12-18 people, so it’s not like my job was part of a larger dismissal of people, they’ve lost, laid off, or otherwise shed employees at a very slow rate. Some of my (now former) coworkers have said that several people who have voluntarily left their positions, have been replaced during my time away; but me? no. Apparently my knowledge isn’t worth enough to them.
I’m currently on the hunt for a new employer. IMO, these guys are fools to throw away everything I know. The only challenge I face right now is finding someone who will see my value. IT support jobs are usually underpaid in my local area, and too many companies are going return to office and I’m not easily able to find remote (WFH) type employment. The jobs are there, but it’s hard to find one that’s worth my time. The core issue IMO, with the low pay, is that it’s a non-union position, but if I can find a union job, I’m all in.
Wish me luck!
Tech is a tough nut to crack, because the platform economy, social media, and techno-utopian ideology has shaped much of the software industry into a kind of self-styled professional managerial class, its workers generally apathetic and often staunchly antagonistic to addressing structural issues.
Nevertheless, as software is a labor intensive industry, worker cooperatives may be formed relatively easily in principle, and many are being formed.
Software may be an industry that emerges comparatively early with strong representation by worker-controlled enterprise, without necessarily benefiting so directly from unions.
Software and the whole developer community will probably get it together before the rest of the tech industry does.
The main difference I see with programmers/developers/whatever (people who write software), is that they’re usually producing a good that can be sold, therefore their efforts directly relate to customer sales and customer retention from a business standpoint, thus they are usually better treated and compensated, but aren’t. I mean, none of the workers in the tech industry, IMO, are treated well… actually scratch that, not even just tech, any workers are generally treated poorly in the absence of a union, where they might be treated like they exist as more than numbers on a page, by force.
IT support and general IT staff are usually considered a “cost center” by management. Something you need, not something that you want, so workers in this field are generally taken advantage of whenever possible. Even medium-sized businesses generally only have one IT person if any at all (more than a few are hiring out to an MSP instead). The companies do not care about their IT staff, as long as they exist and can take blame for the technical things that go wrong, and with any luck, fix them and make the rest of the company productive to make money.
What many business owners need a lesson in, is the undeniable truth that companies are no longer selling a product, they’re information management companies that make money by selling products/services. Almost everything in the modern era is computer/network/server driven, whether in the “cloud” or not. The sales process relies on phones, which have almost entirely moved to VoIP, and email, and usually involves some server running CRM software or similar. Everything they do is on the computer now. Companies can no longer exist without the IT department doing their job effectively. That’s just one example, and you can cut and paste the ideas to pretty much any job in a business. There’s very few exceptions to this in most modern businesses. Unless the company is a tech-driven industry, and even then, IT is just a cost center. They don’t realize how important we are; not right now they don’t.
I think IT services (e.g. administration, support) and software development are effectively separate industries as concerned for labor organization. Business has clumped the two occupations into a single general category, but the reasons are in service to their own interests.
Software developers recently have not shown broad class solidarity or class consciousness.
Of course, some do exhibit such traits, and some have managed to find each other and to create pockets of organization and resistance.
Largely, however, the current generation of the occupation has been captured under the trance of techno-utopian ideals, as embodied in Silicon Valley, if not the more classically liberal ideals of Wall Street, and has been too comprehensively enclosed in its own bubbles to reveal any notice or concern that the systems operating from such ideals have been immense failures for the mass of the population.
I can definitely agree that the system has been an immense failure for the mass of the population. If the majority ever figure that out, then the thieves at the top are in major trouble.