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Disillusioned With IT?
cgh4be writes "I have been working in the IT industry for about 12 years and have had various jobs as a consultant and systems engineer. Over that time I've had the chance to do a little bit of everything: programming, networking, SAN, Linux/AIX/UNIX, Windows, sales, support, and on and on. However, over the last couple of months I have become a little disillusioned with the IT industry as a whole. Occasionally, I will get interested in some new technology, but for the most part I'm starting to find it all very tedious, repetitive, and boring and I'm no longer really interested in the hands-on aspect of the business. I suppose going the management route is one option, but I would still be dealing with a lot of the same frustrating technology issues. The other route I had in mind was a complete career change; take something I really enjoy doing outside of work now and try to make a career out of it. The only problem is that I have a wife and kid to support and my current job pays very well. Have any of you been through this kind of career 'mid-life crisis?' What did you do to get out of the rut? Is making a complete career change at this point a bad idea?"
Do what you love. In the end it is all that matters.
My family is full of Nutts, especially Uncle Dick.
So you have a nice little nest egg stashed away, right? Saving for retirement? Rainy day fund? How much reserves you got to start something on your own?
If you do, then start thinking about doing that right now while you have this well-paying job, and spend some of your evening hours developing a business plan, potential clientele, educating yourself.
If you don't, then you need to take a few years to build that nest egg up, to be responsible to your wife and kids.
If you're in the U.S., you should look around you at what is happening to the economy, and what direction it's headed. THEN make up your mind about whether you want to change careers right now.
I know this is a bad thing that Americans don't like to dwell on but you should be happy you have a solid source of income and work in comfortable environments. Most people outside of the industrialized world can't say that. The only problem is that I have a wife and kid to support and my current job pays very well. If you can't find joy in your job and you can't find another job with comparable income, then find joy in your family. Generations before you have worked in mills, textile plants, mines, slaughterhouses, etc. all in the name of their wives, daughters & sons living a free life. Again, if I were you, I would opt to be thankful I can provide for my family under much better circumstances (and probably at much higher pay with inflation taken into account).
On the other hand, I recognize that the young idealist in us all strikes every now and then. But you've got a family and a paying job so I would recommend you focus on those aspects instead of risking them. I guess if you do decide to act on your instincts, ask them if they're willing to accept the risk for your happiness at work. They're now part of your life and depending on you so respect that and be responsible.
My work here is dung.
I have a wife and kid, and had a long term career that I was fundamentally bored with. I quit, went to back uni, and ten years later don't regret a thing.
I say take the chance, or risk looking back in ten years and wondering where your life went, seriously.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
Can you make money at it? Do some informational interviews with people in the field. Cold call around and tell them what you are doing, see if they will talk to you. Most people love to talk about their job. Then you can make an informed decision. Go over your finances, estimate how long it will take for you to get established in your new field, and save up more than that.
Then go for it. Plenty of people change careers and are happier for it.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
told me to tell you to hang in there. She probably didn't marry a landscape engineer (yard mower) intentionally. Perhaps you should start exploring other things you can do to give your life purpose: volunteer to help stupid kids, keep poor people from eating each other, or help a sleazy, lying politician get elected. I expect the 'mid-life crisis' is a recent phenomenon that started picking up about the same time Americans started having more leisure time to stare at their navels and contemplate their existence.
Everything should be a means to an end with the goal being to protect and support your family.
If your job pays good money, be a man and provider and sacrifice your happiness so your child can have a better life. Having 8 hours of boring yet high paying work is better than having 8 hours of fun yet low paying work, because the boring life is better for your wife and kids welfare.
IT sucks. It's a hard, high-stress field that demands constant study and practice.
This is why it pays well.
Don't expect to be able to hop out of the field and be able to command the same salary unless you have some well-established, lucrative backup profession.
If you really can't take it anymore, expect to downsize your life somewhat. Lack of stress may make up for lack of cash.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
No surprise, the IT industry is maturing (slowly, but steadily). Things should be getting a little more boring for your standard administrator, we have begin to learn and apply the lessons learned over the last 40 years (a.k.a. "best practices", a terrible buzz phrase but an accurate one). So now you have a choice: you can leave IT and find another fiend that is less mature and still growing rapidly, or you can find an environment that still encourages and rewards innovation and new ideas, in other words the difference between slowly tweaking the system so it is more efficient and creating entirely new systems (that may or may not be more efficient, only one way to find out =). My advice is change your job before you change your career.
Well, let's face it. You didn't get to be an astronaut who went on to be President and beat off an invading alien dinosaur army while curing cancer and feeding a billion starving people, while mistresses of all potential clamoured for your body.
Oh well.
Take some of that dough, get yourself a nice tv and a good bottle of whiskey, enjoy your family at home. You hunter now, must bring home bacon for family. and, if the job you picked sucks, well, at least you got the big tv and a bottle of booze.
welcome to america buddy....
This is my sig.
You have what I like to call Baskin Robbins Syndrome. It's where you really really dig ice cream - UNTIL you get a job where you can eat a bunch of free ice cream. You now loathe ice cream.
Unfortunately this cycle is perpetual. Baskin Robbins Syndrome applies to any profession. So even if you're immensely interested in what you do for a living, you will eventually grow to hate it. Don't you think Taco and crew have had mornings where they wake up and go "wow, fuck slashdot, im going to go be a hamster farmer..."
I went through this a few years ago with IT security. I even tried going into gaming. Eventually I solved the problem by taking a year off of anything work related to travel and clear my brain. This isn't an option for a lot of people, but if you can do it, it will change your perspective in a huge way.
-- http://www.criticalassets.com
Choose no life. Choose sysadminning. Choose no career. Choose no family. Choose a fucking big computer, choose hard disks the size of washing machines, old cars, CD ROM writers and electrical coffee makers. Choose no sleep, high caffeine and mental insurance. Choose fixed interest car loans. Choose a rented shoebox. Choose no friends. Choose black jeans and matching combat boots. Choose a swivel chair for your office in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose NNTP and wondering why the fuck you're logged on on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting in that chair looking at mind-numbing, spirit-crushing web sites, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing your last on some miserable newsgroup, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up lusers Gates spawned to replace the computer-literate.
Choose your future.
Choose to sysadmin[1].
[1] It might fuck you up a little less than heroin[2].
[2] ObFootnote.
If you want to do what you love for all of your life, you shouldn't have kids. The moment you have kids, what you love no longer matters anymore.
The moment you have kids, all your hopes, your dreams, you can throw all of it in the trash. Once you have those kids your purpose in life is those kids and nothing else matters besides those kids.
Just because you feel like doing something else it doesn't change the fact that your purpose in life is to protect your family (your kids). It does not change the fact that you are the only person in the world who can protect them, and they need you.
So what you love doesn't have anything to do with how able you are to provide to your children. You might not love IT anymore, but if it pays well, nothing else matters because the whole point to your existence is to protect and raise children.
If you aren't having kids, then the situation is different. If you don't want kids then you are free to do whatever makes you happy for the whole of your entire life. As long as it pays decent, you'll probably find and keep a woman somewhere in between.
What I'd suggest is to keep your current job for the time being, and spend some time looking around for what you do enjoy doing. This may or may not be work related. Start and abandon some hobbies, take up martial arts, take some college classes either inside your field or far away from it. But your goal is just to find something you find meaningful.
Supporting a family and loving your work is a tough balance - it would be much easier if your focus was one way or the other, and you will make little compromises on either side. If you make too big a compromise either way, for too long, you will end up regretting it.
So my balanced suggestion is - look around for something that excites you. Give yourself some time to find it. Meantime, don't quit the day job.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
I am in a similar situation as you...15 years in the industry and burnt out. I try and try to put myself in the mindset of "just work your 8 hours and collect your paycheck" but I can't. I WANT to have passion and excitement for my work, but just can't seem to find that anymore.
:-)
So what can we do about it?
A lot of this depends on your life circumstances. Since you're married with kids the career change can be a scary challenge. However, perhaps you and your wife have an excellent financial position (i.e. low debt) and can afford to scale down your quality-of-life a teeny bit and you can take a pay cut. Or, if you're totally insane you can start your own company. Start a Subway franchise or something.
So here's some of the options as I saw them:
-Complete career change: The problem here is that this is kind of the same solution as "rewrite all the code from scratch". Read this to realize why this is a bad idea. You are throwing away *TONS* of sunk costs in experience and education.
-Go back to school (maybe at night) and learn another trade, then transition to that. Safe, but slow. Initially expensive.
-Get a hobby, part-time night job, or something that peaks your interest. I started teaching adult algebra classes at night and I love it! Yes, IT during the day still sucks but teaching at night makes it way more bearable.
-One-off career change...can be difficult but doable. Maybe hire a professional career counselor or resume writer.
The closest I've come to solving this dilemma is getting hobbies and part-time night jobs that scratch my itch. Also, I try to force some of the fun back into my day job. For example, once a week I'll take a few hours and just play with a new language or tool just for fun (although my boss would probably get mad if he found out I was on-the-clock).
Unfortunately, its hard to find a practical solution to career burnout. I believe in a lot of ways this is a spritual problem. i.e. "true happiness is wanting what you have not having what you want", etc. See if you can find satisfaction in your family, in making a salary to feed and care for them, and in focusing on fun stuff outside of work (camping, sports, gaming, arts&crafts, reading, whatever...). Difficult, I know. But be happy that your job is Mon-Fri 9-5 and you're not roofing houses or something REALLY sucky.
Hope this helps. Good luck.
"You cannot find out which view is the right one by science in the ordinary sense." - C.S. Lewis on Intelligent Design
1. Chase your passions. Work in a field that you can be passionate about. The best way for you to be happy and successful is to chase your passion. Crazy examples: maybe you want to create new content in Second Life. Maybe you'd be happier teaching troubled teens how to use woodworking tools. Maybe your dream is to be a park ranger. Figure it out.
2. Don't worry about money. Restructure your life so that you can chase your passion. Figure out a way to live with half of your current salary if you have to. Live somewhere that you don't need a car. Hike with your groceries. Use public transportation. Work from home.
3. If you don't know what you're passionate about, hurry up and find out now, before you're dead. You only have one life. Don't waste it as a slave, doing what you don't want to be doing.
Consider this very seriously. Nobody is forcing you to do what you've been doing. Don't be a sheep, take control of your life, because if you don't there's plenty of other people who will.
Get your finances under control. Reduce your need for money. The difference between how much you make and how much you must spend reflects the size of choices available in your life. Reduce your dependence on needing a lot of money each month, and the number of choices available to you increases dramatically, and your freedom increases dramatically.
In my case, I used to own two cars, now I own none. I moved to another state that is 1/2 the price for housing. I quit eating out, started buying things like pinto beans and rice, and cook all my own meals. After restructuring my life, I have far more money and options available to me.
Once your finances are in order, and you learn to do without things like starbucks every day and whatnot, you may find you have the freedom you need to pursue your dreams. It may take years to get to that point, but you must try to take control. Otherwise you forfeit control of your life to the will of others.
I used to work for a paycheck. I still do my job to support my family and lifestyle.
But I *work* for a non-profit that I love and enjoy (check the homepage). It's got all of the same pitfalls that my jobs have had (petty power struggles, empire builders, personality conflicts, budget BS, the works), but the overall mission and work environment are awesome. I watch mistakes get made at my job, and I get to *not* make those mistakes. I learn about something new that could move us forward as an organization? I've got a near consequence free environment to try it out.
And one of the best parts of it all....as a volunteer I can just walk away. When going out to the hangar and hanging around WW2 bombers just isn't fun, or I don't want to deal with some of the people....I don't. I exercise the luxuries that I just don't have at my job.
I've heard that several of the Apollo astronauts have problems with depression after their missions were over. They had become men with no mountain left to climb. They had focused their lives on a goal and, once they'd achieved it, they were left with a giant, empty "what next?"
Rather than going all 'Fight Club' and destroying what you've made of yourself in favor of becoming a self-actualized burger inversion specialist, why not try and create something greater. Use your skills somewhere that make you happy, even if you've got to log 40 hours of boredom to support those 10 hours of doing something interesting.
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
Have you considered "doing what you love" as a part time job? Start small, see if you can grow your passion into a money-maker.
There would be a couple of advantages to this:
You can experiment with the new career idea while maintaining the IT career as a saftey net.
Making the thing you love a job means that you make the thing you love a job. Some of the greatest pleasures we have are precious because they come in small doses. Turning your passion into a responsibility may rob you of the joy it brings now.
Either way, good luck with the decision.
and realize that some things are of far greater value.
While job satisfaction is something we should always strive for we seem to have a generation who doesn't see a reason to sacrifice, for however long, to meet truer and more important goals.
Sorry, family comes first. You provide for them then you provide for yourself.
So basically I saw "suck it up" "quit whining" etc... and I think its valid, sorry but IT is easy street. If you don't enjoy your job then look elsewhere but make sure the important stuff is taken care of. Whining about your job on a message board is just asking for it. He should already be looking, have an up to date resume, and going to work doing the best job he can so that there is no threat to his ability to provide for family.
We aren't all handed life on a silver platter but it says a lot about us on what we consider important. I think doing a good job is important but when it comes down to it, I choose family first. If this means grinding out a job I don't like till something better comes along then I do it. Like the post you replied to people have an incredibly arrogant idea of what constitutes a bad job - we have it damn easy when it comes to working conditions. I watched the guys building my house in the hot hot Georgia sun and was thankful I had a different set of skills. I grew up on a farm and knew that while that lifestyle has many appeals it was not for me.
I see no jealousy in that reply. I do see that it may hit too close to home for someone.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Isn't it a flawed assumption to assume (at least what I think people are assuming here) is that the "higher paying job" is better for the kids. What if you take a lesser paying job, that pays 80% of what you got before, but you love it AND you get 8 hours more a week to be with your family (due to less "unpaid" overtime, assuming you are salaried)? Plus if you are doing what you like, your overall happiness might tend to be higher, and trickle down into your relationships. Just some thoughts, no hard scientific facts.
...and say that putting your family through some short-term sacrifice/danger/inconvenience may not be a bad thing is the longer-term payoff is worth it. Let's say you take a temporary income hit in order to switch careers. The payoff is that you're happier, don't snap at the kids and wife as much, have higher earning potential, feel more satisfaction with your life. Sounds worth it to me. My reaction to all of these 'dig ditches and put up with it for the sake of your family' posters is that they're being overly fatalistic.
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
Around 1880 or so, an exciting, growing field was "stationary engineering". Factories and cities were getting steam and electric power, and people were needed to make it all work. This was a good field for a bright young person interested in technology. "Stationary engineers" installed the equipment and kept it going.
Stationary engineering is still an active field. There are about 120,000 members of the Stationary Department of the International Union of Operating Engineers, keeping the wheels going around, the boilers hot, and the pressure within limits. The symbol of the IUOE is a steam pressure gauge. These are important jobs. Without them, industrial civilization would literally grind to a halt.
It's been a long time since stationary engineering was an exciting growth industry. Today, it's a dull maintenance job. That's where most of information technology is going.
Except that IT isn't unionized.
You were supposed to have automated all the repetitive parts by now. Or are you using that point and click stuff that you can't script?
"Buck up and be a man! Get you arse to work.
Probably 90% of the people out there HATE THEIR JOB."
I've never understood people who define themselves as tough guys because of how well they endure their own self created misery.