| I remember working at a utility company. I didn't last long (I was the "web master" - oh for the early 2000s), and nor did much of the support staff. Why? Mainly because we didn't have "authority" to fix things. That had to come from a PM. It might also have had something to do with the fact that after Ernst & Young came in to do some IT re-structure consulting, we had the situation where: Support staff were supposed to be on call rotation for pager duty. PMs were not. PMs were given company cell phones. Support staff were not. PMs were given company cars. Support staff were not (note that when I say 'support staff' I don't really mean 'help desk' but programming. And this was a government utility where, rightly or wrongly, nearly everyone had a company car). Someone observed this. Management's response was that the cars and phones gave the PMs "flexibility". Meanwhile support staff were to take calls on their own phones, and if need be drive in to work at 2am in their personal vehicles. PMs were not to be disturbed out of hours. A little rant-y, but the underlying point? Companies with poor "pager policies" are likely to be problematic all around. |