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The Professional Tech

A professional tech displays professionalism, which might seem a little trite if it weren’t absolutely true. The tech presents a professional appearance and follows a proper ethical code. I call the latter the Traits of a Tech. Let’s take a look at these two areas in more detail.

Appearance

Americans live in a casual society, and I think that’s great, because I prefer dressing casually. The problem with casual is that perhaps our society is becoming too casual. New techs sometimes fail to appreciate that customers equate casual clothing with a casual attitude. You might think you’re just fixing somebody’s computer, but you’re doing much more than that. You are saving precious family photos. You are keeping a small business in operation. This is serious stuff, and nobody wants an unclean, slovenly person doing these important jobs. Take a look at Figure 2-1. This is our resident illustrator (among other job descriptions), Ford Pierson, casually dressed to hang with his buddies.

I have a question for you. If you ran a small business and your primary file server died, leaving 15 employees with nothing to do, how would you feel about Ford as a tech coming into your office looking like this? I hope your answer would be “not too confident.” Every company has some form of dress code for techs. Figure 2-2 shows Ford dressed in a fairly typical example, with a company polo shirt, khaki pants, and dark shoes (trust me on that score). Please also note that both his shirt and his pants are wrinkle free. All techs either know how to iron or know the location of the nearest cleaners.

Figure 2-1 Casual Ford

Figure 2-2 Professional Ford

While we are looking at this model of a man, do you appreciate that his hair is combed and his face is cleanly shaven? It’s too bad I can’t use scratch-and-sniffs, but if I did, you’d also notice that Professional Ford took a shower, used some deodorant, and brushed his teeth.

I hope that most of the people who read this smile quietly to themselves and say, “Well, of course.” The sad truth tells me otherwise. Next time you look at a tech, ask yourself how many of these simple appearance and hygiene issues were missed. Then make a point not to be one of the unkempt techs.

The Traits of a Tech

When I was a Boy Scout in the United States, we learned something called The Boy Scout Creed, a list of traits that define the ethics of a Boy Scout. Even thought I haven’t been a Boy Scout for a long time, I still have them memorized. “A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.”

My goal here isn’t a sales pitch for scouting in any form, but rather to give you an idea of what we are trying to achieve: a list of ethics that will help you be a better technician. The list you are about to see is my own creation, but it does a great job of covering the CompTIA A+ objectives. Let’s dive into the traits of a tech: honesty/integrity, dependability/reliability, adaptability/versatility, and sensitivity.

Honesty/Integrity

Honesty and integrity are not the same thing, but for a tech, they are so closely related that it is best to think of them as one big ethic. Honesty means to tell the truth, and integrity means doing the right thing.

It’s simple to say you have to be honest, but be warned that our industry often makes it difficult. IT technicians get a lot of leeway compared to most starting jobs, making dishonesty tempting. One of the biggest temptations is lying to your boss. A new tech driving around in a van all day may find it convenient to stretch the truth on how long he took for lunch or how far along he is on the next job. Being up front and honest with your boss is pretty obvious and easy to understand.

Being honest with your customers is a lot harder. Don’t sell people goods and services they don’t need, even if you get a cut of what you sell. Don’t lie