Appreciating Your Stressful IT Job?

in the trenches asks: "I'm a married, 24-year-old male, and like many posters here on Slashdot I work in the IT industry. I currently work as a website developer (mostly design-related work), but I also do some Perl and PHP programming. As most of you probably have, I've often wondered if I wouldn't enjoy working in a less stressful environment. I've even gone as far as to wonder if I'd prefer some sort of factory job or similar over my current field of work. The problem is this, I LOVE developing websites, but I HATE the stress and responsability that comes with a the job. How do you all cope with the stress and responsability that seems to come hand-in-hand with an IT career?"

Comments

Have a baby.

[arkanes]

Have a baby. You'll leave work each day with a song in your heart, knowing that there will be a minimum of bodily fluids to contend with.

Re:Have a baby.

[BobLenon]

Theres only a couple of reasonable ideas:

* Drink - often ;)
* Threaten to set building on fire - Milton Style
* Destroy the internet .. after that im not sure ;)

Re:Have a baby.

[Joey7F]

What the fuck does that mean? Go out and start boning...

--Joey

Easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple. Be unemployed... Also seems to go hand in hand with an IT career.

One word

[Anonymous Coward]

BEER

I became team leader.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now everything is my fault, your problem. :)

|\/|a|2ij|_|a|\|a

[Anonymous Coward]

just smoke a bowl every day before work

Re:Same here... ...but you learn how to cope.

[sydb]

I work as a journalist... abaility... neing... teh... minnutes... (indriectly)... returing... paniced... wer...

Yeah, I'd be stressed too!

Marry a Bitch

[Anonymous Coward]

You could marry someone you hate. Having a wife that sucks makes your job stress seem much less important. Which reminds me, I heard a good joke the other day in a movie I was watching: "Yesterday, over breakfast, I made a Freudian slip. I meant to ask my wife to pass the butter, but instead I said, 'You bitch! You've ruined my life!'"

Re:Marry a Bitch

[arnie_apesacrappin]

One day a co-worker of mine was having a really bad day because of his divorce. He imparted these words of wisdom:

"You know what marriage is? Find a woman you hate and buy her a house."

Re:Marry a Bitch

[Anonymous Coward]

Having a wife that sucks makes your job stress seem much less important.

Hear, hear! But what if she doesn't want to?

Re:Marry a Bitch

[JordanH]

• "You know what marriage is? Find a woman you hate and buy her a house."

I don't know if Steven Seagal said it first, but:

"Instead of getting married again, I'm going to find a woman I don't like and just give her a house." - Steven Seagal.

Re:Marry a Bitch

[gray code]

The glass is half full guys, not half empty!

reminds me of a joke:
The pessimist says, "this glass is half empty."
The optimist says, "this glass is half full."

the engineer says, "this glass is exactly twice as large as it needs to be."

Re:Marry a Bitch

[hendridm]

Um, this is Slashdot. Beggers can't be choosers ;)

Re:Marry a Bitch

[chaoticset]

"Love" is something you get from a dog. "Support" is something you get from a shoe insole. "Hassle" is a synonym for "relationship". "Legal hassle" is a synonym for "marriage".

Re:Marry a Bitch

[uncleFester]

The pessimist says, "this glass is half empty."

not only is the glass half-empty.. it's also evaporating.

-r

Re:Marry a Bitch

[KrazyRussian]

The optimist believes that this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist is afraid that the optemist is correct.

Re:Marry a Bitch

[bsartist]

Or you could do what I did and marry a loving, supportive woman.

Sounds like a good plan... are you sure your wife won't mind?

Re:Do the same as everyone else here

[TheRaven64]

You idiot. Only a complete moron would come up with such a mind-numbingly inane idea. I honestly can't believe that you wasted the bandwidth required to spout such complete drivel.

Hey, you're right, it does work. Thanks.

A wife that sucks...

[zerofoo]

Wouldn't exactly make me want to go to work....

-ted

One word:

[ELiTeUI]

Xanax

Alcohol. Lots of it.

[dinskeep]

And that's just during lunch.

Beer.

[nappingcracker]

yep.

Re:caffeine

[tirloni]

isn't this called addiction ? I would rather live in the woods than write COBOL.

Re:Working to your full potential

[AKnightCowboy]

I think if this sort of thing isn't against OSHA standards, it should be. Stools should be required for any employee that would otherwise have to stand in one place for hours.

There's a funny Seinfeld episode where George insists they give the security guard a chair because the poor guy has to stand around for 8 hours. He of course falls asleep once he finally gets a chair. ;-)

Re:Same here... ...but you learn how to cope.

[MyHair]

Hey, give him a break: his editor was out of the office.

Re:caffeine

[grahamlee]

Sorry, but I can't resist asking this. Is it true what they say about your fingers? :-)

Re:Stress?

[Tablizer]

I am in the Army, just got back from the War in Iraq in July 03 and have to go back for another whole year....I used to think my IT job was stressful, but not even close to having things explode around you

Obviously you have never been in charge of a server being slashdotted :-)

Re:Work for a University

[skinfitz]

here's also a few perks, like lots of good looking women on campus all the time

I dont know about you, but personally I just find that depressing - like life saying "look what you can't have".

Re:caffeine

[alatesystems]

I have 2 bosses.

Bob: 2 bosses?
Peter: 2 bosses Bob.

Chris Benard