Re: What goes around comes around....
"...good IT skills and abilities seem to be the opposite of skills required to reach senior management..."
I don't know about that. Try working on a site that has the ability to blow the nearby town into the next county, with process operators more interested in keeping the place safe than why the computer won't do what it needs to do and is thus pretty upset with IT and the IT department in general and is in no mood to wait or be fobbed off.
I did that as a desktop support person and believe me a having a 17 stone Scot raging at you as to why you can't fix the computer NOW needs a lot of people skills. If you had said skills most of the guys were fine once you explained what needed to be done and what you proposed to do about it. Same with senior management. The trouble was with the middle layers. Noisy, demanding and cursed with a minuscule amount of "computer literacy" those were the ones to avoid if at all possible. Dealing with them meant you really got a "people skills" workout as well as developing techniques for controlling blood pressure, temper etc.
So yes, you don't get to develop arse-licking and back-covering but that again this is top brass we are talking about and I reckon those skills would only qualify you for a middle level job.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
