IT professionals just want appreciation and for you to reboot your computer

Suspecting they are tired of wearing the dreaded Red Shirt, the Ipswitch® Network Management Division surveyed more than 140 IT professionals in the U.K. to find out more about what motivates them, how they spend their days, and even what super powers they secretly wish to possess.

According to Ipswitch’s “Red Shirt Survey” the one thing that users could do to make IT admins happier is appreciate his or her hard work (50%). This is followed closely by rebooting their machines before asking for help (36%) and at the very least, be transparent about what applications they have downloaded on their work laptops (7%).

Considering 35 percent of admins surveyed indicated that they spend between 40-60 percent of their time reacting to network or user problems (and 18% spend a whopping 60-80% of their time doing so) it’s no surprise that they’d like more appreciation.

“An IT professionals’s work is never done. They are on the front lines, and oftentimes the first to take the hit. They spend far too much time troubleshooting and reacting to problems associated with crucial technology their fellow employees rely upon to innovate, collaborate and do their jobs,” said Ennio Carboni, president and general manager at the Ipswitch Network Management Division.

Additional findings include:
· When asked what makes them happiest to watch and play outside of work, Big Bang Theory rated first (17%) followed by Star Trek (14%) and Game of Thrones (13%).
· When asked what would make them feel more empowered at work, 42 percent indicated the ability to choose and buy the technology they need, 20 percent would like x-ray vision to figure out the source of a problem on a network and 17 percent just want the recognition of having a tough job.
· Activities that respondents noted as causing the most bandwidth hoarding are video platforms such as YouTube or Vimeo (55%) followed by music streaming services such as Pandora or Spotify (11%) and iTunes (9%).

Carboni added, “We continuously ask our customers what drives them, and what drives them mad, in order to help make their jobs easier. While we’ve sent the request for x-ray vision technology to our R&D department, many of the other issues can be solved with network monitoring software and a simple recognition of just how hard their jobs are.”