Who in your office is both loved and cursed – possibly all in the same day? The “computer guy.” We love it when he saves an important file, recovers a damaged hard drive or brings our e-mail Inbox back from some high-tech black hole. We get mad when that same beloved computer guy can’t get the server back online immediately or blames our problems on “user error.” Such is the life of IT workers.

This article from ComputerWorld highlights the low IT worker morale and sinking job satisfaction. A 2009 job satisfaction survey by advisory firm Corporate Executive Board found job satisfaction among all workers continues to decrease. And among the IT workers it surveyed, it’s just as bad.

From an article citing the survey:

The CEB’s latest survey found that the willingness of IT employees to “exert high levels of discretionary effort” – put in extra hours to solve a problem, make suggestions for improving processes, and generally seek to play a key role in an organization – has plummeted to its lowest levels since the survey was launched 10 years ago.

IT workers typically work way more than 40 hours and are on call to handle problems – even on days off or vacations. One of the best ways to improve morale is to reduce the hours. People are less productive when they’re maxed out, stressed out and tired, so pushing for 60- and 70-hour work weeks isn’t effective.

Look for ways to become more efficient by streamlining processes, automating reporting functions or offering more training so employees can do their jobs better.

Check out this article for some more tips on boosting morale and let us know what suggestions you have.

We’ve previously written about making effective presentations, focusing on such tips as keeping it short, not overdoing the PowerPoint with 102 slides and important, yet complex, material in a handout instead.

But we love this column from Dan and Chip Heath (authors of “Made to Stick”) about using your presentations to “show, don’t tell.” They point out how painful presentations can be for the speaker as well as the audience. (Great line: “It’s like a breakup talk with fewer tears and more clip art.”)

The “show” aspect of presentations is about bringing real examples and demonstrations into your presentation – much more powerful than reading text from some slides.

Have you done a great “show, don’t tell” presentation? Let’s hear about how you made it work.