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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?"
Stress is what we feel when our current abilities are being challenged. It's also at these times that we grow as individuals - we learn to deal with situations which once caused stress, and hence become more capable. This applies whatever the cause of stress, even if it's a stupid boss that's doing your head in, you have to learn to deal with stupid bosses.
I think you're much to young to stop growing, much to young to run from stressful situations. I also think you're too young to be married, but your early marriage is associated with your personal needs to grow as individual. Maybe you've already grown all you want.
So obviously it's a personal choice how much stress you want to endure, taking into account how much you have already grown, how much you want to grow further, and your capability to do so.
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
I work as a journalist. I'm 26, and starting to learn how to cope with stress and the fact that a single small slip of the keys could land my employer in a multi-million lawsuit.
The answer is; with the years, you get more confident in yourself. You know that the abaility to do it is in you, and is neing used, so it's nothing to worry about. Focus on teh task instead.
But occasionaly, I do get a bit worried. Like five minnutes ago, where the competing newspaper said (indriectly) that my story about the returing caskets with soldiers from Iraq was dead wrong (Among the pictures from thememoryhole.org were some pictures of caskets frome the columbia accident). I paniced a bit, yes, but though calmly about it, investigated my case, and discovered that the pictures I had discarded (since they wer taken during the day, while the pictures I used were in the night) from columbia had not been included in my article. And therefore it was 100% correct.
In other words: Trust your instincts.
Take up a martial art as a hobby. I recommend Judo for maximum stress relief. I would link to the article about how to be a hacker but I can't remember who wrote it (maybe RMS?). In the article, whoever wrote it said being involved in a martial art is very important to becoming a successful hacker (not cracker). Many days I can't wait to get to judo so I can imagine the idiot who is causing me stress at work as I beat on someone else (who then thanks me for beating up on them). I sleep great at night, have good blood preasure, and only accumulate a days worth of stress each day before working it off at the dojo.
Find out what's really bothering you. Is it really the stress and responsibility, or is it the money, the lack of advancement, or something else? This is very important, because if it's really the stress then it means that (e.g.) no matter how much they pay you, you would feel the same.
Once you know what really bothers you start thinking what you can do about it. Maybe a lack of advancement is because maybe you didn't finish college (I don't know you - I just know several people that work in IT in that exact situation). Maybe the stress is because you have several bosses that ask stuff for yesterday and you just need to come up with a way to prioritize everything effectively. And so on and so forth.
Changing job fields like that is risky because you don't know what awaits you. And if you don't address the core problem and make sure that changing job is the best solution, then it's going to come up again in any job that you do.
The ENIAC Demo Competition
I was going to do an Ask Slashdot about this, but this topic is somewhat related. So I have a question for those of you with degrees and such that moved into careers: I may have the opportunity to take a Web Development job in another state doing PHP/MySQL work and Mac OS X support. The job description falls squarely into my interests. The problem is, I'm only 19 and finishing my frosh year in college. Would it be worth it to a take a full-time job like this and go to night classes to get an associate's degree? Does anyone here have specific experiences with the difference between earning an associate's and a bachelor's degree in the high tech field?
I was in the same position as you were about three years ago. I love developing web sites with PHP and MySQL, etc., but I absolutely hated working in a corporate environment with the associated stresses. My advice is to stick it out for a few more years, while simultaneously hoarding as much money as possible and planning your next move - to a job that you enjoy that is a variation on your current one. For example, I now work in the adult industry developing porn web sites. There is still some stress, but I love my job, and I still get to use my primary skill set.
Ah, you lucky guy.
I'd love to be developing websites or something. I love the challenge of trying to do that kind of stuff, but I also know the stress it can cause as well (just from my hobby website stuff)
Thing is, having done a lot of less-stressful things I don't love so much, I can tell you now, you're lucky being in the more stressful job you DO enjoy. You go home with a wonderful feeling of achievement when you're doing something challenging that you enjoy. You won't get that with a factory job.
Best advice I can give you is to find ways to manage the stress a little.
Quite frankly I have been lucky enough to have a job as an Embedded Firmware Engineer for 25 years. Remember the catch phrase"Intel first from the begining" I was there. Beta'd the 8051, 8086, 80186, 29000, 29020 and the list goes on.
This led to marrige breakdown of two marriges something that happened to a lot of my co-workers.
My advise is simple. Try and make your family first and advise work your family / life / health comes first.
When picking a mate try and find someone who would partner with you at work and shows a genuine interest. This might be an artist that does books as well for web sites and the graphic artist can rise in them. Anyway you get the picture.
And finally try and work towards a end that you can live where you want run your own business and the work comes to you. All you need is that high speed connect. Work when you want. Go fishing or ? when you want.
That's what 25 years tells me. And no I didn't, I wish someone had told me.
Regards John
Vista, the single biggest argument for Desktop Linux! It doesn't "Just Work"(TM).
I've got a nice cushy IT job now, working as a security engineer for a nonprofit. About half the staff at the organization are developers or system/network engineers. It's not very stressful.
:)
Last year and the year before, I was working as an engineer for an IT consulting company. It's great experience, but it's a lot more stressful than working in one department for one set of people on one small set of projects.
I don't know if I'm weird, greedy, or just a masochist, but I'm giving up my cushy IT job to go finish a degree (any degree!) and become a market maker (that's a term some stock/options exchanges use for a floor trader that provides liquidity). Talk about a stressful job. The nice thing is the money and the skill you gain in doing it - if I wanted to retire after 5-10 years with a mil or two and just trade a few hours a day/week for the rest of my life, I could. Plus, I hear they have LOTS of vacation time!
I claim first use of "Error No. 0B" - or "No. 0B error." It'll be the new ID 10T!
I used to love computers. Seriously.
I used to have a passion for everything. I used to love learning every minute detail I could about whatever it was I was interested in.
And one day, it all just stopped. I think it was when my interests became intertwined with my job. When what I was "interested in" was dictacted to me by whoever was paying me.
I have often times thought about pulling and "office space", and just ditching the whole thing, and doing something physically rewarding, but somehow, I end up stuck in that part of the movie where you're getting paid more and more for doing less and less. And like with crack cocaine, it's just hard to say no.
Any profession has a basic problem that, at some point, it becomes a job. The bigger question is how to keep it in balance. I'd encourage you to develop hobbies that are not related to computers; I took up woodworking and woodturning. You're married (and presumably not all that long), so it's worth thinking of cultivating your marriage and spending time with your children (once you have any, if you don't have any yet). Working for charitable causes is helpful also, especially in that it helps you see the value of your own career. (There's always someone worse off than you are.)
That having been said, some jobs simply are not conducive to this. Bad hours, bad boss, tedious work, etc. I stand by my oft-stated assertion that working with a good team of people (defined as coworkers you enjoy working with) is worth a LOT of money. In that case, look around for a position that's better for your soul. But even then, it'll become work some day.
In any case, there is a bigger picture to be kept in mind. I cannot speak for other faiths, but from my vantage point as a Christian, there is a lot to be said for developing an understanding of vocation. Your abilities are not purely of your own doing. What you have been given (money, ability, etc.) should be used for a greater purpose, as the parable of the ten talents (Matthew 25:14-29) shows. When viewed with this attitude, it's easy to see the "job" as the grunt work that provides for the real, but unpaid, task of giving time, money, or ability elsewhere. Speaking from experience, the stress becomes bearable as you realize that you tolerate it for a reason.
My solution was to build a potter's wheel and kiln, and throw pots. It was demanding enough a task that I couldn't think about stuff at work, but took little enough that it wasn't stressful in it's own right. Between that, and playing DOOM (Take That, BOFH! BLAM!) I managed.
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
I've worked on the line before at Dell. It sucked. I was standing up in front of a bench all day long (they say standing up makes us more productive) running custom diags on laptops, servers, PCs...and other Dell shit. The point being, it was very stressfull. Both on my back, and having to keep my "numbers" up on the line.
Fuck it, I will never do another job that involves standing in one spot and not moving around. In fact, I often wondered if this type of 10 hour day labor is compliant with OSHA standards?
Life is not for the lazy.
For some people, the undervalued feeling can be worse then the stress. It really depends on the individual.
Being from the military, I've had a wide range of responsibility and have done some very stessful things. Many times, I've performed ~12 hours of extensive safety checks and signed the dotted line that all nuclear protection systems, alarm systems, and monitoring systems were fully tested and ready for a reactor startup. Then moving over to the position of reactor operator and performed the actual reactor startup. All of this knowing that in a few more hours, I will be heading out to sea about to leave my life and family behind for 3 straight months with little to no real world communications. I've done reactor startups at sea with a room full of people watching and monitoring my actions. I've been involved in "incedents" and had to explain to the big men what I thought happened and why I took the actions I did.
All that is fine and dandy but I made a decision to not continue that type of work. I got into "computers" because I enjoy them. 5 years later that enjoyment is now starting to wear off. Working my way up to Network Admin or whatever I am doing now is great and I enjoy the work and challenge but the *relative* lack of stress and lack of responsibility is hard compared to what I was doing and is a hit to my personal happiness. It was much worse with my previous jobs as I worked up the IT chain. I am happier overall where I am now but I know I can handle much more, that hole is something to consider.
Stress is relative to the person experiencing the stress and not always proportional to the responsibility involved. Having a job with great stress but no responsibility to go with it would be something I could not do at all. I imagine running a cash register at a busy fast food chain would be extremely stressful but the payoff of performing such work would be hard to justify.
On one level, your 24 and prone to these feelings. I've been there, done that.
On another level. Shut up. Suck it up and be a man. Do you have any idea how many people would kill to be in your shoes right now? I lost my job in IT and now work at a damn grocery store. My bills are killing me when 2 of my old pay checks would put me back in the red. I have to listen to people like you whine all day long "waaaaah my feet hurt, my back hurts, my but hurts, so and so said this and that about me". If you can't hack it then work at McDonalds making waaah burgers and french cries.
I work with a guy that's missing an eye because a bungie cord hit him while undoing it. He's got 2 damaged disks in his back and walks with a limp. Yet everyday, he wakes up, gets to work and lifts boxes, stocks shelves and never once complains about somethng as petty as stress. He has responsibilities and comes from a generation that did what they had to do to survive, they didn't grow up like a bunch of pampered prima donas with cell phones and lattes.
Get over it. The first part to getting over it, is to quite your whinning.
I suspect the largest cause of stress in the IT industry is the self-analysis done by people having little respect for what they do.
We think it is easy. Deadlines are set by people who think it is easy and can be done quickly. We think End-Users are dumb because, "it's easy".
It isn't easy. It takes time. And satisfying the end-user is far more pleasant than satisfying a deadline.
Some of my friends, and family think my job shouldn't be causing me stress. Heck, I don't even work overtime. (I work as a Programmer/Analyst.) My biggest cause of stress? Me. I want the project to work right the first time around. I want it to be within the deadline. I want it to satisfy the users actual requirements, not their stated requirements and I'm never given enough information to do all the above the first time around.
Long before the project, whatever it is, is used by end users enough to give feedback on issues and problems I get a new project with a high priority and won't see the prior project (for fixes, screen changes, process issues, etc turned up by the user in the first day) for 3 weeks[or more], which is long after I've changed mental gears.
The stress in that job will make you switch back to you cozy IT job and not regret it. Seriously, a cook usually dies before s/he's 55. The time constraints are ridiculous, and if you screw up, you'll have to do the same thing again even faster. Become a chef, and love your old job's stress.
No, I'm not a cook, but I've worked as one (not at McDonald's -- that doesn't count!). The really bad thing was that I learned how to cope with stress, and that really freaked out my co-workers.
Developing tons of web sites for a web design company under customer deadlines while trying to produce a profit is stressful.
Developing and maintaining a single large web site for a large non-profit or non-IT organization is markedly less stressful.
No matter what you're doing, the stress goes up when you're dealing with external customer deadlines, pointy-headed-bosses that constantly change project scope, and the urgency to sell stuff fast or perish. Conversely, if you have the luxury of being an internal developer for a stable company whose main focus isn't actually IT, things get more predictable and stable. I'm not saying there's no stress at non-IT companies, I'm just saying it's a lot worse when you're the guy whose work pays the checks for the rest of the staff.
If you're working for an IT company, consider your next job at a non-IT company, like non-profit organizations, city government, services companies, etc. The money's usually lower, but the pace is slower, the demands are more lax, and you don't have the stress of trying to put bread on other people's plates by the merits of your own coding.
What's your damage, Heather?
Make sure it is for a courier company that doesn't use electronics to guide you through your route and make sure you are doing pickups. Make sure it is in a city that you have never been to before (move temporarily) and change routes on a regular basis.
Eons ago, I used to work for DHL in the Boston office (I was born and raised in Minnesota and have since moved back) doing pickups on several routes (I think I still could easily find my way around there easily). This was before the cool electronic devices that organize the routes for the driver. I consider that to have been the most stressful job I have ever held. There is nothing like the stress of picking up packages on a time-schedule, when you have to find your way with a paper map (I was sent out cold to areas I had never been to before) and also getting calls for pickups (over a radio). Unlike some of the other couriers, I managed to stay away from heavy drugs and alcoholism (although the occasional drink after work could be quite relaxing).
Yes, my current position (I manage 150 Windows machines, including the domain controllers and samba services [plus help people who run a hundred or so self-managed Windows machines] - co-manage several hundred sun, sgi, linux and FreeBSD machines - run the DHCP and DNS Servers, and co-manage the network switches and router where I work) can be stressfull at times.
Perhaps working a truly stressful job will give you a better perspective of what real stress is. A simple job has the stress of boredom. Even a bus driver has the stress of possible people with knives and guns and stupid riders who stand right next to the curb when the bus pulls up (think what the stress level of injuring a passenger by running them over would be). Every job has stress. If it isn't the type of stress you can handle, then you are in the wrong line of work.
I've been professionally coding for 20 years, and I took a 5 month break to help my old man work in the sun, carting limestone blocks on some real estate property he was working on. Very hard, grimey, dirty, exhausting work in the harsh Aussie sunshine. A far cry from the cushy coffee/edit/compile lifestyle I'd plugged myself into in California for far too long
Best 5 months worth of work I've ever done. Sunshine, fresh air, daily exercise regimen disguised as 'work', and a decent wad of cash from the ol' man at the end of it.
Made me appreciate the beauty of code even more, when I finally got back to my laptop
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
I've found the the people that get the most done get the most additional assignments. A Navy chief once told me "if you want something done, find the busiest person and give it to them". The point being that most everyone else is a slacker. I found myself doing most of my division's work on the submariness I was on. It shouldn't be any wonder that I wasn't very happy and had a lot of stress.
Perhaps it's ironic and perhaps not that the people that slack off seem to be the happiest. So now that I've been out of the Navy for nearly 12 years (6 in), and working 80 hour weeks on average during that time, I can tell you my current recipe for coping: twice the normal daily prescribed dosage of Prilosec (doctor says to) in an attempt to heal an esophagus damaged by stress induced esophagitis. And antacid at least once every day or two on top of it and about 20 hours less per week. In large doses, this kind of work related stress is terribly unhealthy. Other people I know that are about 40 as well in IT have developed stress related problems dealing with their stomachs and colons. I'm sure it doesn't help that I come from a largely unemotional waspy family and live with an emotional woman of Italian decent.
It's not worth it. Frequently, the fuck ups when they do something right get rewarded because it's so unexpected. The people that crank out huge volumes of work go unrecognized because it's normal.
The paradox isn't unlike what used to happen when smoking in the work place was much more common. Smokers got their hourly or every couple of hours smoke break while the non-smokers toiled away. If a non-smoker stopped for the same break, they were ordered back to work because they were slacking off. The smoker continued to be rewarded for what essential was behavior that took time away from work and (and caused health problems).
This means not only are we competing with our fellow employees but it seems we are competing with every other developer out there. This was actually worse in the old days, when every fricken new .Com out there had a better way to do your work. Instead we have the added stress of being "Outsourced" tomorrow.
Don't sweat it
I see so many computer jockies trying every darn new trick in the book, every new technology that comes around. Not that a good developer shouldn't stay current with what is happening, but what is far more important is to understand what you can do. What are you capable of? Stay true to that. Identify those times when you are doing something just because it can be done. Instead work on trying to make sure that what you do will fullfil the needs of your audience. The stress cannot be eliminated completely, but make sure you are stressing over the right things. Like having fun and doing the right kind of work for your company.
Don't try and do more than what you are capable of doing. If a project is going to take 6 months then tell them it is going to take 6 months. Be as honest with yourself as you can be and be as honest with your company as you can be. Eventually everyone reaches an equilibrium and then the stress just melts away.
Then I got laid off, and couldn't get a job for a year. At first I worked at it, then realized that every company I talked to wanted the equivalent of "20 years Java experience", yet didn't want to pay for anyone who had even 2 years experience.
This job sector used to be pretty good, but as far as I can tell it has leveled with most other blue collar jobs. I'm going to open a dog kennel myself.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Sure, there are times when it can get stressful, but the stress isn't CONSTANT like it is with jobs in the business world. Managers aren't constantly worrying about the bottom line, just providing the best environment possible for students and researchers.
There's also a lot more freedom to play with open-source technologies. For instance, our entire server base is Linux-based, and we even use a linux-based central virtual router, which has given us pretty much 99.999% up-time since we implemented it.
There's also a few perks, like lots of good looking women on campus all the time, being able to attend cool lectures and events (I was at the astronomy dept. star party last night, observing the solar system through a 12" reflecting telescope) and other random things.
If you can find a university IT job or research position, go for it. The atmosphere certainly beats the business world.
I never understood why employers that hire people to do this type of work don't put STOOLS in front of the work stations. I mean, stools aren't exactly expensive, and employees can sit down and be comfortable doing their job.
Standing in one place for a long time is very bad for your feet and back. My mother used to work at a department store years ago and she was actually FORBIDDEN to sit down! What sort of evil is this? Would it be that hard to put stools behind the cash registers so employees could be comfortable?
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.
-Z
I'm an Army Reservist who just spent six months in Baghdad as a combat photographer. I found that to be less stressful than my civilian software engineer job. (I wish that was a joke but I'm not kidding.)
Agreed. I'm 26 and we just had our first child a month ago. Before, work was a challenge (deadlines, numerous projects, etc.). Now, I find that work is a place of relaxation, where I can focus on something and get it done. I actually asked my boss for more work. When I'm at home, I deal with a sleep-deprived wife, a fussy baby (gas), etc.. I have maybe 15 minutes to do the things I want to do (eat, read e-mail). Work is a breeze in comparison. Either way, I've always enjoyed the work. It never was really a bad kind of stress. It's just that now I know that there can be situations in life that make the stress of work pale in comparison.
Stress is like cholesterol. One kind is good, the other bad, and we do ourselves no favours lumping the two together.
1: Good stress: You're crossing a road and a car screeches around the corner and hurtles towards you. Instant stress. Your adrenaline levels soar and your heart thumps. Result? You take control of the situation and leap out of the oncoming vehicle's way (or die).
2: Bad Stress: You're up to your ears patching hundreds of boxes against the MS04-011 vulnerability and some idiot comes along and tells you to drop that and concentrate on rolling out a shortcut to things unspecified to everybody's desktops. Your boss left suddenly a few weeks previously and your team leader is off on paternity leave. (This scenario is horribly close to what happened to me this week.) Yo have responsibility, but no authority. It's a killer.
I graduated from college in 91 and worked the same stressful IT job til 95. Then I said: screw this -- and decided to get out of the whole business (I was an application programmer).
I sold what I had and decided to travel for a while -- a while which ended up to be 2 years and 3 continents later.
I learned a lot during that time, and came back full circle to the IT industry with a healthier attitude. My philosophy now is: mental health, emotional health, physical health. In that order. If you get mentally broken down, the other two soon follow. And it doesn't work the other way around. You can't exercise your way to better mental health.
Also: bad stress is normally caused by stuff that is out of your control. Next time you feel stressed out, check to see why. Unreasonable deadline? Sys Admin can't get his sh*t together for your app to run? Bug in your IDE? Project Leader is a Dick?
Out-of-control stress is usually an environment thing. If it doesn't change (or you can't change it), it's often a sign to start looking for a different company.
I'm a consultant now and can honestly say that the company culture makes MUCH more difference to your daily routine than "being in the IT industry".
but it's not a joke.
I took a job with the Govt. (state, not federal)
Until just over 2 months ago I had a very stressful IT job. I won't go in to the details, let's just say it was getting worse and I didn't see it getting any better. I liked the job, I liked the people, I liked my boss and coworkers, but it was just getting ridiculous.
I went to work for my State Govt. In my case I was lucky enough that I have friends who work in IT there and a guy who used to be my boss went to work there so I had a foot in the door.
Old Job: 65+ hours per week salaried (overtime? yeah right), having to let vacation disappear because I don't have time to take it and it doesn't roll over year to year, travelling all over the place and being responsible for Everything IT. Constantly worried about the next reorg.
New Job: 37.5 hours per week (with comp time for more hours worked) vacation that accumulates year over year, just being responsible for my little corner of the world with people who can cover for me. Job security is pretty solid if you don't commit any of the Big Sins (get caught with porn, do something to embarrass the higher ups, etc..) I come in, I give good value for my time and I go home. I don't get an upset stomach on Sunday afternoon thinking about Mondays anymore.
Downsides? The bureaucracy is mind-numbing.
Conversations like this:
"Why can't we just fix this?"
"Politics. You'll step on the toes of the guy who's supposed to do this."
"You mean he wouldn't be grateful we did it for him?"
"Uh, no."
Meetings. Good God they love their meetings. We needed to relocate a bunch of servers from one of the state agencies to the server room right outside my door. So we have a meeting with the affected people. Fine. Then two days before the Big Move they call another meeting "just to make sure everybody's clear." Ooookay. Things that I would have handled in the past with a flurry of emails and a phone call now take 3 face-to-face meetings with 6-8 people.
Boredom. Seriously. My old job was much more challenging and interesting. There's plenty of work for me to do, but I think I actually miss the stress to some degree.
Coworkers. Don't get me wrong here. There are a lot of hardworking intelligent people here. One of the smartest bitheads I've ever had the pleasure to know is the main guy who helped me get this job. The guy who is my boss now is very good at his job. OTOH there are people who will reinforce every bad stereotype of a Govt. employee you ever heard. And it's almost impossible to get rid of them. You just work around them. On a brighter note, I can work at what I consider to be a leisurely pace and still out-perform a lot of people.
Raises have little or nothing to do with your job performance. You won't get rich working for the govt. Fortunately the only outstanding debt I have is my mortgage and my wife's student loans when she went back to school to get her RN, so while I don't make big money I make enough to pay the bills and buy a few toys.
I'll leave you with a quote from the guy who used to be my boss to make you understand why I'm here.
"There are people here who think they're stressed out. They've got no idea what the fuck they're talking about. The only stress I have is what I put on myself. Y'know, I recently got an offer from [company we both worked for] to come back. They offered me a substantial raise over what I'm making here. I turned them down. They asked me why and I told them - I don't travel, I don't work nights, I don't work weekends, I get to see my family and the difference in the stress is indescribable. It's just not worth the money."
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it." Col. Jeff Cooper
doesn't mean we should only pro-actively focus on the bits that suck, though.
don't take life in the modern world for granted, is all i'm saying. for every one 'my life sucks' blue collar digit-pusher, there are a few hundred thousand 'my life really sucks' shit-grinders.
here's a bit of advice. if you decide you can't handle it in the machine any more, go back to the jungle and help those who want in to the machine, in...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
I'd never of thought a simple change of scene, a slight change in job etc. could have such a profound effect. I'm far more productive than I ever was and never have to take work home with me. I look at pictures of myself from about a year ago and I it frightens me.
I guess what I'm really saying is do something about it. I feel a fool for having "lost" the best part of my 20s to that situation. It was damn frighening but the decision to leave was the best thing I ever did.
After a stressful day at my IT job. Nothing does a better job of making that melt away then my smiling 1 year running around the corner to greet me at the front door.
-proud dad that had to share...:-)
After three layoffs as a system admin and ops manager, I decided to call it quits in tech, at least for now. What now? GO BACK TO SCHOOL and get a useful degree that isn't going to get OUTSOURCED TO INDIA. Not to mention the jobs I used to do pay 10-20K less EVEN if you get the job.
My stress level is way down, work a crap job that gives me %50 tuition back, and only 20 hours a week. Kickass student loans around 8k/semester. Low interest rates.
So, I'm going to finish my psych degree, so I can deal with all those suicidle leftover dotcomers. Great.
Not caffeine, but still, near the mark.
;^D
The answer, my friend, is *not* blowing in the wind, but within you. Obviously, stress is an inner reaction to some external conditions. External conditions are (mainly) not in your hand to be changed, but internal do.
Stress is an animal reaction caused by a "run or figth" situation, as you know. There's not any real situation when developing software (despite what some "jokers" here could say) that will be better managed by (literally) running away or figthing, so there's no real need nor useness for stress to arise, so you "just" have to develop an inner state that understands and answers to this fact.
You should find your way, but I'd say that physical work, specially non-competitive martial arts like Aikido or Iaido, will go quite a long way (by themselves and by the fact that they will make grow your internal equilibrium, your self-confidence and will make you more a sociable guy... Well, you might loose some "geeky karma", but I think it is still quite a good deal).
The end result is that your boss won't change his way: he still will -probably, shout at you, try to impose unreasonable endlines and all the stuff, but it won't press so much upon you, on one hand, and you will be more able to just say "no", when "no" is the right answer, on the other.
Oh, yes! and you will be able to break him some bones or cut his head off with a nifty sword if he pisses you too much, as an added bonus
There's also a few perks, like lots of good looking women on campus all the time...
BUT, have you ever talked to any of these good looking women?
My sig can beat up your sig.
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Sure, there are times when it can get stressful, but the stress isn't CONSTANT like it is with jobs in the business world. Managers aren't constantly worrying about the bottom line, just providing the best environment possible for students and researchers.
You experience is the polar-opposite of my University work experience. I was Sysadmin of an engineering dept. of a major university. The politics were so evil I believe Satan avoided the place. I was also unfortunately stuffed into the position as an hourly employee with no overtime allowed and had to build the entire IT infrastructure (alone) for the dept. No plans had been made, I had one brand new lab of 25 computers with only the vagaries of the proposal for it. Nothing I did was fast enough, no matter how many problems I overcame and what I got accomplished someone found fault with it. After a year at it the stress caused my health to deterioate badly. Another year and I lost my job thanks to the state's flakey funding.Losing the job was stressful at the time, and it took till last month for me to find another job in the IT field, but it also took all that time for my health to get back to where it was when I took the University job. So in the long run it was probably for the best.
My advice? Find out what you're stepping into, if you'll be building the infrastructure or the only IT person run like hell. If it's already established and you'll be part of a team it might be worth it. I do miss the perks of lectures and such. (And yeah, I enjoyed seeing all the good looking women on campus too, not tha I got to leave my building much to see them though...)
That said I'm extremely happy to not longer have that job. I miss the pay and I miss a lot of the folks that worked in that dept and elsewhere on the campus. I certainly don't miss the politics though. Good riddance to that. The only time I ned Maalox nowadays is when I make tex-mex the way I like it. I'm now self-employed. I've been working for a telco/isp in the area, one I've done contract work with for years. If I make as much money each month this year as I did last month I'll take home 3 times what my former job paid me, literally. I now work from home on hardware I'm confortable with in an environment where I'm at ease. I can cook a healthy lunch with ease while working. I'm doing things I enjoy doing and my opinions and sugestions aren't dismissed out of hand because the wrong person, me, thought of them. They pay me for my opinion and suggestions, not as the office whipping boy. It's a much better situation. Much more healthy.
I highly recommend you try to find something similar. Since you have kids you need to have a separate office space where you can work relatively undisturbed. You can still break after lunch to play catch or change a diaper. You do need your own working environment though. I highly recommend it. Best of luck.
A lot of this comes from ridiculous presumptions about how long this stuff takes (a version of this is my sig, in fact). Yes, I was hired to know how computers work so that the boss and the users wouldn't have to - but that doesn't excuse absolute cluelessness, either. The managers seem to be thinking, "Well, shit, I could draw a web page/user interface/human genome project with drawing paper and crayons in like a half hour - and these people have computers to help them, plus training to back that up! If it takes longer than, like, five minutes, they must be ripping me off!"
Of course, nobody ever considers the fact that we all say the same things regarding deadlines... it's sort of like a nation of auto users who say, "Oil has been sitting in the ground for 65 million years - the oil in my car should last at least that long without needing to be changed. The mechanics who say it needs to be changed every 3000 miles are just trying to rip me off!"
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
I have a relevant 'story'.
I am now 24 years old, I was given my first computer at the age of 11, learned to start repairing it around the age of 12. by 14 I had my first dedicated BBS running 24/7 (for 5 years too). By 16 I was working in a local 'mom-n-pop' shop. at 17 I picked up a rough understanding of networking...at 18 I was an onsite network tech for a fortune 500. At 19 I was their 'Junior Engineer' (they called me an engineer, I'm a little to modest to go along with that).
At 20 years old I quit that (very) high paying job and spend the next 3 years doing consulting on and off, but I quit that too.
I love computers. It's an excellent hobby, and it it's an amazing tool. I have realize that I hate working in IT.
Funny thing was, though, that even with a good 10+ years of computer experience and an excellent exmployment history I couldn't land a job at the local stop-n-shop, mcdonalds, or...well...anywhere.
I finally got a job at FedEx making shit money, building massive amounts of muscle rapidly (between 11k and 17k lbs an hour of lifting, roughly...I could empty a full-length trailed of boxes by myself in 45 minutes or so) and also destroying my joints. I loved it. Years earlier I said "man, I bet it'd be cool to have a job where they point me to a pile of boxes and tell me to move them 'over there'." But didn't get enough hours there, so I got another job.
I quit that and have been learning a new trade working in a large screen-printing shop. I am making worse money than fedex payed, my schedule is absolutely horrible, not to mention the abundance of hazardous chemicals processes.
I love it. I haven't been this happy in years. Even though a massive amount of other things 'could be better' in my life, and quite a few hardships have acosted me in the past year.....I have never been this happy with my job. It's still a job, and I hate it based on that....but, there is just something soul-sucking about working in IT.
I don't really care to go back to 'computers' ever again. Perhaps this is just a hiatus, but I doubt it.
1) It gives you something to look forward to and work towards.
2) It requires and promotes responsible financial planning.
3) It gives you a feeling of control.
4) It restricts your "suffering" to finite periods of time.
5) It recharges your creative batteries.
6) It opens new possibilities.
7) It gives you quality time to spend with your family and friends.
8) It gives you a chance to catch up on technologies YOU are interested in instead of what your job requires.
9) It gives you a chance to do positive things you will be able to reflect on when you end up in a nursing home or are disabled at a relatively early age.
It can be done even with a mortgage, a family and a slow economy. You might have to make sacrifices in your long term goals but in the long run you will probably benefit from a richer life experience.
I don't think it has hurt me in many interviews. Most people express admiration for taking such a bold step and admit they would like to do it themselves. If it has hurt a job prospect I probably wouldn't do well working for such a person.
I am a software engineer on paper (BS), however instead of development/programming
.... so at one place (ISP) I ended up dealing with foreign customers, registering domains, giving phone support while in the background I was writing system maintenacne scripts .... (not a good idea)
... when you are 22-25 it's fun to do cabling in a 60x60cm vent hole covered with birdshit ... or installing microwave antennas in -20C on a rooftop ... ... or receiving a page that you MUST go to work immediately because someone kicked the plug on a server and now it does not stand up ......
.. ...
... built a little bubble, where no boss, no marketing crew, no-one is bugging me ... ....
..... ... I can develop my lagging marketing skills... and the best of all: I have no cellphone or pager .. (well I have one for emergencies - too much *jungle-enduro-dirtbike-riding* ...
...
... but since I do not feel like it (because it's saturday, and because I am sleepy) probably within an hour I will be covered in mud and pulling the gas on my dirtbike"
... it just started to rain... gotta get wet :)
I did network/system administration (linux/*NIX/cisco) since the late 90s for ISPs, for development firms, and lately for online casinos...
ENOUGH!
Partly because at many places I ended up doing stuff I would not wish for my enemies. System administrators end up doing the *all around crap* as soon as they discovered to be able to do more than it's in the contract
At the other place I ended up receiving phonecalls at 5am to get to an other city to fix a crashed windows network (*nix sysadmin remember?)....
Not crying
ENOUGH... I said again when I started to do networking/firewalls for an online casino... and ended up fixing customer support windows machines, because after fixing everything there were no more crashes/problems on the cisco/linux department...
Crap machines, 0 ergonomics, crowded workplace cubicles, overcooled machine environment
Enough... so I rented a tiny office with a 128k line
and I am running my own circus
for 6 months now I'm living from affiliate programs and occasionally I do stuff for people I know
I can run my own servers however I want them
The dark side: when you do your own business, you easily end up working for a month without weekends... and that sucks, but when you build your own little empire, it makes a difference
ps: actually since I am "on my own" I sometimes make less money than before, sometimes I make more, but at the end I have the uplifting freedom of being able to choose between: "spending the time at the office even if you do not have anything to do" or "going home early just because not feeling so productive today"
anyway it's saturday and I came in to work
when you are working for someone else the only thing you are missing is *choice*: to do anything without permission/guideance/supervision/orders - on your own
Pfft... join a highly deployable combat unit. There's nothing like getting "trained up" for combat stress by sleeping 45 minutes at a whack for a grand total of four hours in freezing temperatures, only to be running around with a weapon and combat gear when you're not sleeping. I remember crouching on one knee up against a tree during a 2am patrol and actually dozing off up against the tree. And no, this wasn't a two day exercise.. we did it for weeks on end and I know of one unit that used to do this stupid shit 270 days out of the year.
I'm exactly in the same situation, working as a xhtml/php developper and sysadmin.
It used to be fun but I now fed up with the job because it never ends.
When I leave off the bed, I read my emails and discover already mails from the job. For important stuff I immediately start working from home.
Then I go to the office. Because there are tons of small but "very urgent" stuff to complete, I often have to eat in front of my computer instead of going out.
I leave the office at a random time. I can't tell my girlfriend and my daughter "I'd be back at 6:30pm", I don't know, it depend on the work.
Then, at home, I turn on the computer, review slashdot, read my professional email, complete some tasks that I couldn't complete before leaving the office, etc. Then I Google for hints on things I will have to do at work the next day. Then I keep an eye on servers, watch Cacti graphs to be sure that everything is ok on the network.
Finally I go to the bed. And no, I can't sleep quietly. If a server goes down I receive a SMS and I have to immediately bring it back up. And maybe go to the office, regardless of the day and the hour. In this very last case, I get some extra salary, but I'd prefer to not have that salary and be totally free of my job.
This is fun for some time. But now I really dream of a work with fixed working hours. And a work that _really_ ends when I'm back home.
I've been thinking about opening a shop to sell shirts. Yes, the salary would be minimal, but at least, when I'm back home, the job is finished. I can do anything else. If I would turn my computer on, it would be to have fun with it or to work on my own projects.
I'm almost sure with such a life style I'd feel better, stressless and I'd better enjoy the life despite the minimal salary and the fact that my IT studies would be pointless.
{{.sig}}
I would say you should go into self employment. You set the timeframes and people will pay what you ask because they don't know any better.
I know where the stress of my job comes from.
It is not from the difficulty of the work. I enjoy challenges. (I get stressed if I get bored.)
The stress comes from a job where I am expected to perform above and beyond everyone else, yet I get paid 2/3rds of what I am have made on average for the last 6+ years. (I refer to it as "job lite". All the responsibilities of a regular job, but with a third less paycheck.) I have over 20 years of experience in the IT industry and I am barely scraping by.
My current job covers my bills and food and *nothing* else.
What bothers me is that my employers know this and are just taking advantage of the economic situation.
What is even more bizzare is that they expect some sort of loyalty out of me.
My boss is buying a new house and I can barely afford my rent.
As soon as something better comes along, I am outahere!
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
But for you "grow up" means "give in" and "give up". Just because you are unhappy or disappointed with how your life is turning out - regrets - doesn't give you any reason to react negativevly against those who still have hope.
You are simply trying to justify your lost opportunities and poor decisions by convincing yourself that neither you, nor anyone else, could have done any better.
Well let me tell you what. I am doing better. I am happy. I have an excellent balance between work which I enjoy and personal time which I enjoy.
I am not married and do not intend to be. I have no children and do not intend to.
I can help others still. I don't have to live for myself and a wife and kids. I also have a very strong relationship with my family.
Whatever floats your boat, but don't come down on someone else just because they haven't bought into the wife/responsibility guilt trip.
Woah. You, sir, have issues.
Yes, I do have issues -- let's call them "concerns" -- about the world around me. And I won't apologize that I'm not an apathetic jellyfish mindlessly following what the entertainment companies and Daddy Government tell me. If I think there are problems, I will speak out about them, and the weakening of the US public -- which is related to the loss of liberty through government-encouraged lack of individual responsibility -- is one such problem.
I used to be in the Navy and the stress I've encountered in (one particular) office job I held since was far worse than anything I encountered in the service.
Perhaps, but unless that particular office job was fairly similar to what this person described as his "stressful" job, then how is that at all relevant? I can certainly think of "office jobs" that would be extremely stressful, but what he described isn't really on that list.
When your kid comes home from school upset because of something that got said or a bit of fisticuffs the appropriate response isn't to say "shut up, you've never been under enemy fire". As a child in their world something awful has happened.
Quite so -- but we're not talking about a child coming home from school, we're talking about an adult in the workplace. My very point was that he needed to grow up and act/think like a responsible adult.
It annoys me when I say (sic) people like yourself taking a cavalier attitude the problem and using the military as a reference point.
Well, you'll just have to be annoyed, because a person like myself is someone who has been in the military and has been in a job like the one in question, so I'm not going to apologize for comparing the two based on my own experiences.
No Laughing Allowed!
I work as the sole sysadmin for a small ISP, which means that I have a pager that can go off any time, any day. Stupid little mistakes like blown semicolons can result in thousands of customers not getting service. And then there's dealing with bonehead customers.
But I'm not stressed out.
My boss admittedly helps a lot as he doesn't ask for deadlines, just to get things done as soon as possible, and when it's done it's done. I cooperate by doing my best to make sure things happen. I naturally desire a finished product, and as such they get done in a reasonable amount of time. I also don't treat the job as if the responsibility for the operation of the universe rests solely on my shoulders. Sure, the pager might go off at 3am, and I might have to get my butt to the server room in 15 minutes flat (this is doable for me), but I don't have to act as if every second counts, and that I should shoot everyone that gets in my way. I still manage 99.9% uptime, which is mostly defined by the design of the system and leaving things be anyway.
My wife works at a Visa call center as a customer service rep. It's a place with high turnover, irritating idiots that ream you out over $5 that they rightfully owe, and high expectations on the part of management. It's also a place where management works hard to make sure they can keep employees longer than two weeks, by offering great benefits, allowing the CSRs to vent about boneheads, bonuses for hard work, and free food. They also have a very clearly defined reward structure for their top performers.
But what she does for her stress is her gym membership. It's good for her health, it's helping her lose weight, but most importantly, she can beat the crap out of the machines instead of the customers, and exercise generally helps a lot with stress anyway.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
This is actually very productive if you can train your body to do it properly. It's called a polyphasic sleep schedule (Uberman sleep). You essentially train your body to go directly into REM sleep (the important sleep) right when you lay down. The end result is several extra productive hours a day; considering that you only sleep for about 15 minutes at a time every 6 hours.
Thomas Edison (documented) and DiVinci (rumored) used this technique.
The only drawback, however, is that you can only stay awake contiguously for about 6 hours at a time until your body FORCES you into a nap.
A ton of information about it can be found on the web and in print. Of course, don't lose any sleep over the cost of that book over at Amazon.com.
WARNING: My personal experience has been that it is EXTREMELY DIFFICULT to go back to a normal (6-8 hour a night) sleep schedule after getting into a routine such as this. I did it for quite some time with no ill effect, however, when I started working for an employer (where I couldn't get a medically approved "nap") it became quite tricky to maintain. If you work for yourself, however, it's very effective. Another thing to note, is that alcohol can seriously affect this process.
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
Wives go from giving oral to being oral.
You get plenty of blowjobs before you're married. They're leading you in.
Once you're married, that's the end of it. It's all "you bastard, do this" "you bastard, do that" "give me this" "give me that"
I knew a guy once, had a great perception of women. He was a bit nuts, but was absolutely correct about this. Everything a woman says is "I need" or "I want", which translates to "give me", and it almost always translates to money.
Try this observation sometime. Don't say tell her you're doing it, just listen to what she's saying.
"Hi honey welcome home. How was work today." = "I want..."
"Do you think we can go out tonight" = "to be entertained. Spend money on me."
"Honey, I saw this great dress at the mall" = "Give me money, I want a dress"
"I love you" = "pull out your wallet schmuck, I want something"
Damn, my girlfriend saw me typing this. Guess I'm going to the strip club tonight. They're blatently honest about it. "$?? for a lapdance". "Want me to sit and talk to you? Buy me a drink and pay me $??"
I did have a few strange opportunities through my life. I've worked, known, and dated a few strippers (not all apply to any of them), and I've gone to strip clubs and would just sit there, and when they had nothing else to do (slow night), they'd just sit down and talk to me. One girl I was dating, I'd give her $10 in $1 bills while she was dancing, and she'd give them back to me at the end of the dance. The perception is, if someone else is paying she must be good, so they'll pay too. It worked. Guys, you're all suckers. It takes a lot to be on the winning side with a dancer, and the most important part is, never be a customer at a strip club.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
"...if you'll be building the infrastructure or the only IT person run like hell."
And yet I had the opposite experience that you had, where I basically built the IT labs in the department I worked at from the ground up. I'm no longer working in the academic arena, but for very different reasons. Mainly I wanted to get out into the corporate world before it was "too late." I've been told many stories of how difficult it is to leave an academic environment for a corporate job, so I wanted to get out before it was too late and experience it for myself, make a little more money and save a good chuck of it for family/retirement, etc. In academic you have to expect you'll make a lot less than in the corporate.
Mainly I found that a University job is a fantastic place to retire at. Establish a family, get a load of workplace experience, get all your ducks in a row, so-to-speak, and then leave the corporate world for the academic. There you can relatively take it easy in a lower stress environment, allow your kids and wife go to college for half-price (and you for free for anything you want, even piano lessons), and perhaps if you're interested, teach a few classes at night for some extra dough (if you're qualified).
Right now I think I may go back to academia when I'm further along in my career, but things can/will change between now and then, and I could have a whole different outlook on the situation.
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