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Most IT Admins Have Considered Quitting Due To Stress
Orome1 writes "The number of IT professionals considering leaving their job due to workplace stress has jumped from 69% last year to 73%. One-third of those surveyed cited dealing with managers as their most stressful job requirement, particularly for IT staff in larger organizations. Handling end user support requests, budget squeeze and tight deadlines were also listed as the main causes of workplace stress for IT managers. Although users are not causing IT staff as much stress as they used to, it isn't stopping them from creating moments that make IT admins want to tear their hair out in frustration. Of great concern is the impact that work stress is having on health and relationships. While a total of 80% of participants revealed that their job had negatively impacted their personal life in some way, the survey discovered some significant personal impact: 18% have suffered stress-related health issues due to their work, and 28% have lost sleep due to work."
"Management" as being the worst part of I.T. fits right into my career experience.
I've worked providing computer resources to non-technical (or at least not technical in computer areas) people during my career, and I have had a number of bosses who just would not listen. Some of it was that computer work was so outside their experience that it was magic, and if something is "magic" it takes no time or money to do. Users and management see too much stuff in I.T. as nothing more than flipping a switch because of their low knowledge level.
For other bosses it was a more fundamental problem that's seen everywhere: management not listening to an expert when he/she says something they don't like.
My advice to managers of all sorts: you should choose between two states with experts: trust the person you hire and listen to what he/she says or get rid of that expert. There should be nothing in the middle. You are going to lose those experts if you constantly second guess them or force them into situations that they have told you are not sustainable. Learn to listen.
It is strange, when you think about it, the way that the IT department tends to get segregated off from the rest of operations. You have companies where people do 100% of their work on a computer, where the company *can not function* when the Internet goes out, and yet IT is treated as an afterthought. The people running these companies think that running an IT department is as easy as "running out to Best Buy and picking up a computer," and then they get annoyed when their IT services are unreliable.
I would have thought that, with as ubiquitous as computers are in business, IT work would be considered valuable. It's as though you have a company that ships things across the country by truck, but they don't think their mechanics are important, and they freak out when the mechanics want to have proper equipment for fixing the trucks. And worse, they don't think any of their truck drivers need to know how to drive. When their drivers put the truck in a ditch, they complain that the mechanics haven't made the truck crash-proof.
If I'm the head of the department you work in, then my No. 1 job is to clear obstacles out of your way so you can do yours.
The best boss I ever had once told me, "My job is to make sure that you don't have to worry about anything except doing your job."
That is, if your job is to make sure the server has zero downtime, his job is to take care of the office politics, budgeting, etc. so that you can focus on keeping the servers running. Some other manager within the company decides he doesn't like you? Well that's your his job to deal with. You need a piece of equipment that won't fit into the budget? His job. HR has stupid requirements for filling out timesheets? His job. Any goddamn thing other than showing up in the morning and keeping the servers running? His job.
Keeping the servers running? Your job.
And he fulfilled his job description. My job at the time was a fair bit more complicated than "keeping the servers running," but the point is that I had a job description, and I didn't have to deal with anything that fell outside of that job description. And do you know how I knew what my job description was? My manager made it very clear, because it was his job. He didn't want me to spend my time trying to figure out what I should and should not do. He made it clear that if I was unsure what I should be doing, I should ask him because if I'm confused, then he's not doing his job.
Now that's a goddamn manager. I miss that guy.
There is quite a lot of evidence that societies where the wealth gap is smaller (say Norway) are a happier. In other words it's not so much what you are getting, it's more about getting your "fair" share of it. Makes sense when you look at a bunch of smiling African villagers all living hand to mouth. If you follow the money = happiness theory those villagers should all be suicidal.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.