Any other Dopers getting tired of working in the IT industry?

The BBQ Pit
1

The reason I ask is because I am starting to have serious “blah” factor in my job. You see, I work as a Network/Telephony engineer for a major teleconferencing company in the US, and it is starting to seem like people expect too much out of too few people.

I am only 25 years old and make very good money for what I do, but I sometimes crave the family nuturing atmosphere that friends and relatives seem to have at their jobs. Everywhere I have worked, its work before all else and its like pulling teeth to use a few of the 100 or so hours of vacation I have built up. I have been heavy into the industry for around 5 years or so and it aggravates the shit out of me how there is (in my case anyway) zero recognition for a job well done. Its the mentality of the users that gets my goat. They dont even know your alive until the equipment/software goes down. They raise hell and make you look like an incompentant ass but neglect to compliment you on the speedy fix or how everything has been running smoothly for months/years up until the break down.

And the supervisors arent much better. Getting job after job piled one on top of one another before any of them get done, then getting the evil eye because you picked the wrong one to start sucks too. “Make a SQL db for this; Start running these reports 3 times a day; Get with the manufacturer and find out such-and-such”. All of this garbage and you still need to find time to make sure the equipment looks somewhat clean and small stuff like fans and crap dont go out on them. I dont like how, almost everywhere, they will load an employee up with a full persons worth of extra tasks/responsibilities and pay them an extra few grand a year, instead of hiring another worker like they need too because its cheaper.

Then there is the people who call you with technical problems. I dont even want to get into that as I have seen this topic covered many times in this forum.

Regardless, I am thinking I want to make a career change but with the job market how it is right now I just feel lucky to have a secure job that pays well. I am thinking I may want to be a fucking lineman or some shit like that. Maybe drive bulldozers or something. I did that for a few years and atleast it was less stressful. I feel like my jobn is on the line here everyday. I guess I just contradicted my self there, but I mean that they know that there a million IT workers un employed out there right now, so if you wont do it for them, some other schmuck will for 5k a year less.

Anyone else feeling this pain?
By the way, I am typing this on a server with no spell checker so I am sure I butchered alot of wurdz.

2

Yes, absolutely. I’d switch careers tomorrow if (a) I knew what I wanted to do, (b) I had the skills to do it, © could get a job at a time when every IT company in London is sacking staff and (d) could afford the pay cut.

3

That’s part and parcel of building infrastructure. The reasoning seems to be that if it works 99,8% of the time, it must be because it’s childishly easy. And when it’s so easy, then of course breakdowns can only be explained by an obvious and unexcusable lack of competence. A fact that’s best communicated to you while you’re trying to fix the problem.

That being said, it’s a matter of finding the right employer. I’ve been lucky (and unlucky) in that respect - I served time for two years in a consultant company, and while I learned a lot, I was also fairly miserable on a regular basis. If you think customers are unpleasant on the phone, try telling them to their face that their problems are effectively unfixable and the day it took you to figure that out from their undocumented mess of a network is billable time. (FWIW, I used to long for my lumberjack days. Cut down trees. De-branch trees. Haul trees to woodchipper. Drive woodchips to customer. Think of whatever you want. Be home at 5! Such a simple life. Then I recall the cold, the rain, the snow, the mud and pre-dawn cleaning of diesel fuel filters in freezing cold…)

WTF, IT is indoor work without heavy lifting. If you’re that fed up, start looking for another job. I’ve worked at a few places with great colleagues and even bosses with a clue or two. They do exist.

S. Norman

4

Wait until you’re pushing 45 and you are the oldest one in the room - “hell, I have to do all this and inspire the rest of them as well?”

Then you lose your reading glasses and you swear everyone is picturing you with slippers and a rocking chair …

5

Spiny, that’s one of the most cogent things I’ve ever read in this forum. Do you mind if I quote it when I hear someone complaining about metro service?

6

I understand completely.

I will add this one item.

Alot of the IT guys HATE the ones that try to fix things for themselves, but they are your best friend really.

They nearly ALWAYS get stuff fucked up even worse than it was. But, they are the ones that start to get some clue how tough it can be and actually appreciate you when you come to their rescue.

7

Spiny has it neatly tied up in a bow. The End User expects their computer/IT services to be like the light switch: Push a button and it lights up. Further, the advertising spin pushed by various nameless companies and conglomerates would have the typical End User believe that the system can do anything you can imagine, and do it effortlessly. Nope.

In one respect, we’re our own worst enemies, because the End User never sees us sweat until it hits the fan, and by that time, the User is sweatting harder than we are. A minute or two per call getting friendly with the User counts for a lot When It All Hits The Fan. Even whenyou’re anonymous, patience in the face of adersity really helps. The Users DO remeber good service. Too bad there are a handfull of #$*&! jerks out there to give the rest of the Users a bad name.

As for the “Blahs”, well, try and migrate into something new, or try Consulting. Consultancy isn’t a big ball of fun, but it can be rewarding, both financially, and personally, and you will see a wide variety of engagements. Of course, it’s stressful, too, so renew your Prozac[sup]tm[/sup]!

8

Bah. Typos out the yazoo. :mad:

9

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by matt_mcl *
**

Please do, I’d be honoured.

10

I need to comment from the perspective of one of those users: I’m an IT manager who has to deal with Lucent, AT&T, Ameritech, and the various “value added partners” those three fling at me.

It’s a nightmare part of my job, and I’ve had the opportunity in surveys to say that I would rather put out my eyes with broken-tipped pencils than deal with them.

I have to say that I’ve never had a problem with an individual. I’ve developed a good phone manner over the last few years, and I can usually have a decent conversation with whomever I’m speaking to, who is usually fairly reasonable and generally knowledgable. What makes the job so fucking godawful is the organizations.

I’ve never been able to call one person and get a problem fixed. I’ve never been able to call one person and get a straight answer to a technical (or worse, a billing) question. I’ve never gotten hold of anyone without spending at least ten minutes wandering through an automated phone system. On one phone call I got bumped through four of the schizoid personalities of Lucent: Lucent itself, Avaya, Expanets, and the Avaya Customer Care (separate from the previous Avaya).

My employer is big enough that AT&T has a management team for us: there’s Rob, the Big R, the overall account manager; Cindy, our voice rep; John, our Data rep; Mary, the clerk; and Nancy, with whom we renogotiate our contracts every three years. Yet I still can’t get a straight answer; every question, every plea is met with “let me call around and see what I can do.”

Three years ago, we switched from Ameritech to AT&T, which involved changing all ten digits of our phone number. Ameritech directory services still gives out our old number, which they’ve handed out to a small business that now receives calls meant for us because the old number showed up on someone’s call display. We’ve spent thousands on technicians dialing into our Definity switchboard, looking for some elusive configuration file listing the old number. I’ve spent days wandering through various help lines at Ameritech, met every time with a cheerful tech who says “alright, sir, I’ve filed your problem report; it should be fixed within 48 hours.” It never is. AT&T gave up trying to address the problem six months ago.

This is all by way of saying, Phlip, that the frustration, the irritation, the simmering anger with which you’re often confronted is almost certainly not directed at you, but is a result of the Kafkaesque telephony market. Like dinosaurs who’s tail brain hasn’t figured out that the head-brain has been undergoing a stroke for the last two decades, the companies in North America selling telephony services are a bunch of reflexively twitching, necrotrizing limbs of a long-dead behemoth, AT&T.

Thank god for email.