IT People has Low EQ?
I just stumbled a rather interesting article saying there’s this stereotype that IT people has lower EQ compared to other person say in Finance, HR and so on. Well, I have two different views on this.
First view, regardless I like it or not I was graduated from an IT college and currently working in IT company so I am pretty much an IT guy. Unlike common perception, life in IT is not always boring, actually it’s kinda entertaining. I am able to see some secretive data like financial year report, people’s salary or how some people claim to have family of 5 children where the truth they don’t have any children for the sake of cutting tax. In other hand, most of the time we are invisible. People tends to take things for granted, if everything is working fine somehow IT guy seems to be non-existent. Nerd with no-life hiding in the corner having his orgasm with a box called PC. But when some problem arises, there it is, people expect IT guy to shoot all their problems like superhero!
Somehow this is a typical stereotype of IT people in the society. Introvert, very good techically, prefer to deal with machines rather than people, geeky, nerdy, no social life,etc,etc. I admit although I am not on the extreme but most of the things mentioned above I have them in me.
The questions are: Does IT people really has low EQ? Are IT people just made to be good with machines and bad in buiding relationship with people? Or Is it the environment, the working place that made IT people behave in such a way?
Back to the article by Anthony Dio Martin (the article was written in Bahasa Indonesia), he mentioned that characteristics of IT people are (1) Uses more IQ than EQ in working (2) very little emphathy and seldom uses emotion in taking action (3) Hardly socialize with other people (4) tehnical (job) oriented rather than people
Things get worsen coz IT people tend to socialize with other IT people only. I personally feel that sometimes it’s difficult to talk with non-IT guy as I dunno how to start a topic, or the topic soons get dry. People who knows me in real life know what I mean 
The interesting point is, he mentioned that people tend to not be fair with their colleagues in IT. IT guys is treated only as troubleshooter, if there’s a problem. If anything goes right, there is no appreciation. Lucky for me, my client is not that bad (yet)
The second point, IT guy seldom being involved in important decision making, only when the technical problems arise they are involved. Another point, IT guys are branded as Nerd, being left alone. Which is why he mentioned why EQ is important for IT guys nowadays. As IT becoming more and more vital to an organizaiton nowadays, IT people have access to many important areas of the organization from the company’s information, financial, employees’ personal information, etc. Imagine that if the IT guy is mischiveious and malicious, those data can be used in the wrong way. Without a good EQ, IT tends to have conflict with other parties. And also, this is also a challenge for people in IT to overcome these false stereotypes.
Enough of the stereotyping, what do you think? Do IT people has low EQ?
