7 Games People Play with IT employees

By this time you must have read Games Indians Play. now lets take a look at IT games...

Name Dropping: Most people drop names of famous or important people in everyday conversations to let you know that they are well connected and powerful. This technique is use by IT Managers in meeting where they drop names of Directors of VP's. This is done so subtly unless you are 'in the know' you will not catch it. One give away is when a manager starts to use the same director's name more than twice and saying that "I will talk to about this". this might be true or it could also be a first time manager trying to tell you who is in charge.


Using Corporate Speak: Every specialization has its own jargon words.So people talking about WBS(work Breakdown Structure) might not have read 'The Mythical Man-Month'. software folks are artists, they create ideas out of thin air. Most great artists don't do their best work only for money, that is why programmers work on open source projects. Open source gives freedom to create interesting stuff. So just because a manager uses WBS, deadlines,etc... it does not make him an artist.


Employee of the Month: This is oldest trick in the book. But subtly tuned in IT to award folks with kudos letters from customers to drive the organization spirit. This is used in one on one's. A gentle hint that you are also expected to get these sort of things.


Strong Managers Network: The managers network might not look very close. This is just a facade. Every organization has a network of peers at each level. So the next time you are wondering whats up with this guy, just remember how you had messed with his peer.


Hiding Deadlines: This is a neat little trick. Suppose the deadline is 10 days away. You will be informed that it is only 5 days away. So this give a buffer time. In case you check in broke the code. Also early delivery makes your project manager a knight in shining amour.


Getting you to over commit: This is a classic. Stating that you need to finish this work by end of the month with out clarifying how much work it will take. Result you will end up slogging on weekends to meet the month end deadline.


Telling your team that you are an expert: you might not have written the code for google pagerank. But it will surly sound like you are the sole technical guru. when you feel like this just
check if you have been Knighted or your name has popped up next to Linus Travolis, Tim Burners Lee, etc.