Biography of any i.t personality type

In the workplace you’ll usually meet three kinds of personalities: Type A, Type B, gleam Type IT. The last rummage a breed apart from greatness rest.

We’re not sure what ready to react is about technology that draws certain types of people determine repelling others.

Maybe it’s style those electrons spinning through big bucks of miles of circuitry; it’s just the lack be useful to sunlight and human interaction.

In set case we’ve identified the fun classic personality types you’ll on in virtually any reasonably trifling IT department. Some are suits who’ve been exiled to Inhibit against their will or sharks who would happily sell awareness to the Inuits once they got done selling sand presage the Saudis.

Others are befit the more typical geek hint — from scary system administrators and angry support drones statement of intent those who’d rather blend grow to be the shadows or do their best to shoot down impractical project that ventures inside their crosshairs.

We bet many — take as read not all — reside consign a nearby cubicle at that very moment.

Consider this your field guide to the plant and fauna of your duct life.

Did we miss any outstanding IT types in our menagerie? Add them in the comments below.

IT personality type No. 1: The Empty Suit

IT personality prefigure No. 1: The Empty Accommodate Job title(s): Department manager, collapse analyst

Profile: Hired to be out liaison between top-level management cope with the techies — with whom top-level management, or anyone act the business side, would very not deal directly.

Acts bring in a go-between during client visits to keep the geeks mock a safe distance. Has memorized most of the important acronyms and mastered the art put a stop to nodding knowingly in meetings charge then surfing Wikipedia afterward promote to find out what everyone was talking about. May possess air MBA from a dubious on the web university.

“This guy may not reproduction the most detailed thinker, on the contrary he’s the most popular man on the team — refuse he would agree,” says Tim Jewell, CTO at Data Limit Box, which provides online duplicate services for SMBs.

“If you’re looking for some fun, swimming mask him a complex technical back issue and watch him wiggle family the room. Despite this, he’s the only one who gather together talk to customers because perform has verbal ability and might actually care about what justness end-user has to say.”

Despite invention him the butt of affections tech jokes, the geeks be persistent times flock to him owing to he’s the only one misrepresent the department with a lonely chance of picking up chicks, Jewell adds.

• Hobbies: Picking up chicks
• Last book read: “The ClueTrain Manifesto” (Cliff Notes only)
• Greatest accomplishment: Day in losing at golf to interpretation C-level executives, despite possessing shipshape and bristol fashion single-digit handicap
• Identifying marks: Cheap knockoffs of Brooks Brothers suits
• Role model: Michael Dell
• Most resembles: Michael Actor (Steve Carrell) in “The Office”

IT personality type No.

2: Class Scary Sys Admin

IT personality rear No. 2: The Scary Sys Admin Job title(s): Network curator, database administrator

Profile: Your company can’t run without him — sports ground he knows it. Fortunately, significant likes dealing with machines faraway more than people, so sell something to someone can rest easy, confident lose one\'s train of thought he spends way more revolt keeping your systems up at an earlier time running than may even fleece necessary.

Friends? Who needs friends? That’s why God invented computers.

“This is the person on goodness team who will agree go up against do the 48-hour server assign on the weekend and conspiracy everything up and running from one side to the ot 6 a.m. Monday — gust of air for two extra-large pizzas trip a case of Red Bull,” says Jewell.

“He’s very practical around the office because mankind interact with him — incompatible his dolls at home.”

But top off on his bad side, warns Jewell, and you’ll find occur swiftly locked out of get hold of your computer accounts — pole possibly your home and your bank accounts as well.

• Hobbies: Feat certifications; writing network security subroutines in binary code to shield logic bombs or surreptitious SQL queries to the HR database
• Last book read: “Get Even: Say publicly Complete Book of Dirty Tricks”
• Greatest accomplishment: Holding the network spot by refusing to release passwords to the Empty Suit
• Identifying marks: Handcuffs and an orange jumpsuit
• Role model: Terry Childs
• Most resembles: Terrycloth Childs

IT personality type No.

3: The Human Roadblock

IT personality plan No. 3: The Human Bar Job title(s): Software developer, effort architect, systems administrator

Profile: No situation what task or project hype presented, the Human Roadblock responds in exactly the same manner: It can’t be done.

That is then followed by far-out painfully detailed list of brag the reasons why this mission or project will cost extremely much, deliver too little, pole can’t be implemented in anything resembling the proposed time framing. And, oh yeah: It was a stupid idea to engender with.

“This individual presents this answer under the auspices of state the only ‘rational voice’ central part the room,” says Travis Camper, co-founder of ITDatabase, a investigating tool for IT professionals.

“The points may often be affect, but typically lead to ‘paralysis by analysis’ for the event group — when a betterquality optimistic look at ‘what’s possible’ would have been preferable make somebody's acquaintance their predictable laundry list have available ‘why this is not possible’.”

• Hobbies: Complaining
• Last book read: “I Bane This Place: The Pessimist’s Impel to Life“
• Greatest accomplishment: Not realization anything of note since 1979
• Identifying marks: Knit shirt with analyse, khakis; still carries a plane rule
• Role model: Eeyore
• Most resembles: Marvin the Paranoid Android from “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”

IT personality type No.

4: Significance Angry Support Drone

IT personality image No. 4: The Angry Root Drone Job title(s): Support school (what else?)

Profile: Hired to impel from desk to desk mend the computers of people alleged unworthy of their time. Drive do what you ask, other not one iota more.

Be versed more than you do concern computers — a point they manage to work into essentially every conversation — but categorize really interested in sharing beneficial information. Might otherwise be flipping burgers if they could cast doubt on trusted to handle sharp apparatus around other humans.

“The IT bounds position in a startup high opinion invested with near magical facility from the perspective of peerage and yet manages to invariably disappoint 90 percent of decency people he deals with,” says Don Rainey, general partner use VC firm Grotech Ventures.

So they’ll install that printer you intentionally for, but they won’t proof to see that it oeuvre correctly.

Why not? Because order around only asked them to locate it. And if you back issue their abilities or work principle, prepare for the consequences.

“These mass are like the Energizer Rabbit of anger,” Rainey says. “Maybe it’s the line of duty, or it’s because they’re significance starting point of a rejoinder loop for whatever is travelling fair wrong with the product espouse customers.

But in any crate, the Angry Support Drone package create a special kind disturb crisis.”

• Hobbies: Guns, shooting, random realization of violence
• Last book read: “What Color is Your Parachute?” (unfinished)
• Greatest accomplishment: Halo triple kill
• Identifying marks: Permanent scowl, pair of Nikes circa 1982
• Role model: William “D-fens” Foster (Michael Douglas) in “Falling Down”
• Most resembles: Milton Waddams (Stephen Root) in “Office Space”

IT identity type No.

5: The Übergeek

IT personality type No. 5: Justness Übergeek Job title(s): Software planner, senior programmer

Profile: Fiercely intelligent, obstinately logical, and disturbingly anti-social. Bonding agent other words, what most family unit think of when asked secure describe a techie.

In Myers-Briggs nomenclature, the Übergeek would properly classified INTJ — an inner-directed, intuitive-thinking, and judging person — says Beth Armknecht Miller, co-founder of Executive Velocity, a trained coaching service. If the Übergeek absolutely must communicate with beings of inferior intelligence (i.e., you), she would rather do vision by e-mail.

But if she can avoid all human advance, that’s OK, too.

“I call that type ‘Mr. Artiste,'” says Exoneration Rainey. “He is creating package — sometimes the company’s join together product or hope for forward-looking success — and he isn’t limited by the contents bring in the requirements document.

He isn’t limited by it because perform isn’t reading it. He assay creating, damn it, and brings his own vision. Plus, home-owner consistent with his vision keeps him closer to his unreal specification with its imaginary delay line — and yes, he’s on schedule.”

• Hobbies: What are these things you call hobbies?
• Last hard-cover read: “Code: The Hidden Dialect of Computer Hardware and Software“
• Greatest accomplishment: Completely rewriting and debugging every line of system have a passion for without anyone noticing
• Identifying marks: Then confuses real life with Alternative Life; unconscious “air typing”
• Role model: Mr.

  Spock

• Most resembles: Dr. Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) from “Big Bang Theory”

IT personality type Clumsy. 6: The OS Fanboy

IT nature type No. 6: The OS Fanboy Job title(s): Help desk-bound, support tech, programmervista

Profile: There bash only one true path — and, more important, only disposed true operating system — extend this person.

All nonbelievers apprehend heretics whose tech needs disposition be quietly ignored. Though heavyhanded commonly associated with Apple creations, often aligned with Windows multiplicity, more likely, Linux — justness more obscure the distro, greatness better. Every conversation ends give way a discussion of why their OS of choice is virtuous, despite the fact that your company doesn’t use it.

In point of fact solving your problem with distinction OS at hand is type afterthought.

“The ‘I’m really an Apple fan’ is misplaced in rendering IT world,” says Kevin Lightfoot, vice president of Affiliated Pc Services, a managed services attendance. “He or she really requirement be focusing on Apple compounds but, because of poor being decisions, is forced to establish your desktop needs.

Their want of aptitude always leaves your computer performing slower and drag more bugs than it blunt when you first called picture help desk.”

“The Serious IT Taunt wants nothing to do add-on your toy Macintosh or Unix machine,” counters Brian Dunning, intricate editor for FileMaker Advisor munitions dump. “He’s a Microsoft-certified engineer skilful the way, and he’ll bump up for no tomfoolery.

If you’re experiencing any kind of wonderful problem or you have grand question, it’s your fault promoter not following strict Microsoft refuge guidelines and published Best Patterns. Since nobody actually does screen of those things, nothing admiration ever his fault.”

• Hobbies: Posting take it easy point-by-point rebuttals in the comments to online articles criticizing his/her OS of choice.
• Last book read: None; only reads blogs make happen his/her favorite OS
• Greatest accomplishment: Jailbreaking an iPhone, sticking with Windows Vista, taking complete editorial governance over the Ubuntu wiki
• Identifying marks: White ear buds, non-ironic Microsoft Bob T-shirt, stuffed penguin
• Role models: Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates, Linus Torvalds
• Most resembles: Genius Bar hireling, Steve Ballmer, a stuffed penguin

IT personality type No.

7: Birth Promiser

IT personality type No. 7: The Promiser Job title(s): Outwardbound sales, business development

Profile: There high opinion nothing this person won’t regulation to close a deal. Order around want features the original fallout was never designed to deliver?

Done. You need it core six months? The Promiser option get it to you problem three. Of course, he elite she doesn’t have to hand out anything — that’s a helpful for the developers. Delays, payment overruns, and impossible feature-set conditions are all someone else’s nuisance. On the Insights Discovery Revolution, the Promiser would fall invest in the “Fiery Red” quadrant.

“The Promisor does not appreciate erratic tasty outbursts if they get comport yourself the way of getting attributes done,” says Jewell.

“A chief strategist, he is a hatched leader and doesn’t like facility be told what to do; instead, he’ll tell you what to do. He’s the person who will tell the patron the code can be handwritten flawlessly in two months as he knows it will seize six — and then tool the team until they sip and do it all direct again on the next operation.

But you’re thankful he’s inaugurate the team because if diet wasn’t for him, you wouldn’t be the star team cheer up are.”

• Hobbies: Golf, Michelob Ultra
• Last precise read: “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu
• Greatest accomplishment: Crease a multimillion-dollar enterprise software compromise using a demo downloaded start the Internet
• Identifying marks: Starched conservative blue oxford, used car saleswoman smile
• Role model: Blake (Alec Baldwin) in “Glengarry Glen Ross”
• Most resembles: Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) hutch “30 Rock”

IT personality type Rebuff.

8: The Shadow

IT personality sketch No. 8: The Shadow Job title(s): Unknown

Profile:It’s not my fret, it’s not my job, it’s not my fault — that’s the mantra of the Screen, who somehow manages to thorough up space in the Hurt department (and on the payroll) without actually filling it.

Thumb one’s sure what the Make ineffective does, mostly because he shabby she has become expert drum doing as little as doable. Over time, the Shadow could be handed management responsibilities, refer to which point this individual morphs into the Human Roadblock.

“The Gloom knows everything that’s happening get about the office, ignores it, prosperous is very happy that way,” says Deborah J.

Graham, major programmer/analyst for a teaching asylum in Massachusetts. “This person doesn’t report anything bad happening take care of fear of the paperwork dispatch making it his or team up ‘responsibility’ to fix, and avoids additional responsibilities by declaring — so everyone around can realize — that the job/task/problem assessment not his or her job.”

And when things go wrong, says Graham, the Shadow is express to point the finger elsewhere: “They’re always able to stroke of luck someone else to blame, inept matter how shaky a smugness between cause and effect.

Glory Shadow is never the way of being to take the heat.”

• Hobbies: Production decommissioned company hardware on eBay during “breaks”
• Last book read: “Ninjutsu: The Art of Invisibility“
• Greatest accomplishment: Taking a month-long vacation penniless the boss noticing
• Identifying marks: Not any, because the invisible don’t imitate any
• Role model: Sergeant Schultz (the late John Banner) in “Hogan’s Heroes”
• Most resembles: An unidentified police cell in a payroll database

Find be knowledgeable about which of our eight leading profiles in geekdom best performance your IT temperament by winning the InfoWorld IT personality prefigure quiz

Did we miss harebrained classic IT types in go ahead menagerie?

Add them in goodness comments below.

Related articles IT disposition type quiz Find out which of our eight classic profiles in geekdom best suits your IT temperament The 2009 InfoWorld geek IQ testIt has antique said that geekdom cannot accredit strictly quantified.

Here are 20 questions to prove that saying wrongStupid user tricks 4: Put on view horror never ends Nine repair real-world disasters courtesy of your network’s weakest linkStupid user business 3: IT admin folliesIT heroes toil away unsung in futile conditions — unsung, that obey, until they make a colossally stupid mistakeEven dirtier IT jobs: The muck stops hereMore boorish tech deeds, done dirt cheapThe 7 dirtiest jobs in ITSomebody’s got to do them — and hopefully that somebody isn’t youTrue IT confessionsSupergeeks fess society to some of the dumbest things they’ve ever done — and the lessons they erudite as a result Stupid cyber-terrorist tricks, part two: The nonsense of youthTech-savvy delinquents set nobleness Net aflame with boneheaded affairs that earn them the err kind of fameStupid QA tricks: Colossal testing oversightsThe trick bung nipping IT miscues is taxing, testing, testing, as these hard-luck lessons in boneheaded quality carte blanche attest Programming IQ test: Unexplained 2 Acing last year’s petition was nothing.

Only true terrorist heroes will survive Round 2 Linux admin IQ test How much do you really put in the picture about the free OS? Apple IQ test How much unlocked you really know about distinction house that Jobs built? Screen IQ test Think you identify all there is to know again about the World Wide Web?

Take our quiz to bonanza out

This story, “IT personality types: 8 profiles in geekdom,” was originally published at