Losing sleep because of work

TheFORCE

I'm not stressed or anything, just a concerned employee. Last night I was able to finally fall asleep at midnight and was waking up every hour or so. I am not stressed because so far I think I am doing all I can, but I am concerned because I am not getting any help. For the past 2-3 weeks I have worked non-stop with no breaks. If I have taken a break, it was a meeting break.

I have 6 projects under my belt currently that I am either directly involved and responsible for the completion or projects that require my involvement. These projects range from high visibility to high risk. I have been going back and forth with IT for 3 months now trying to get 3 VM's up and running and only last week 2 of them got created. Now I need an SQL account for my vendor to start their installation and IT is just ignoring my requests. In the mean time, our contract has been running for 3 months and the company is paying for something we haven't even developed yet. It is so frustrating that I want to punch someone in IT. Seriously, how hard and how long does it take to build 2 VMs and an SQL account? I think it's ludicrous. On top of that my team is understaffed, so everything falls on me. I try to convey a sense of urgency and importance to all the parties involved and feels like no one cares.

This is my first time I have to manage so many projects at the same time so maybe this is what keeps me up at night, I don't want to fail because I know that these projects will solve a lot of our problems and I will gain tremendous experience by completing them but feeling overwhelmed when I am not getting any help. Who else has felt or feeling this way and how did you manage?

knownhero

Have you escalated this?

TheFORCE

Of course, in every email the person's manager is cced as well, I am follwoing up 1s a day sometimes twice a day. My manager is also inundated with other tasks so they probably dont even look at my emails.

joelsfood

How long? About three minutes for the account, maybe 2-4 hours for the VMs, depending on last time my template was patched.

TheFORCE

joelsfood wrote: »

How long? About three minutes for the account, maybe 2-4 hours for the VMs, depending on last time my template was patched.

LOL thanks Joel you putting salt on the wound now. Can't wait to open my work email and see if I have any replies. Funny thing is everyone knows the urgency of these projects as they will affect the majority of our user base. So they should take it a little seriously too, but they do not.

636-555-3226

Document it all in writing to CYA. Escalate it if you feel it needs escalated. If your manager either isn't doing anything or isn't doing it well, walk over (if they're close) or email cc the next person in the food chain to see if they can get some traction.

colemic

'Is there a reason why this isn't being done? I haven't gotten any response to these requests.' might be a good phrase to throw in an email to the individual with them, their boss, and their boss if warranted.

wd40

I think you should include the financial aspect of the projects.

State clearly that you are losing $$$ amount for every month of delay and that it already cost the business $$$ amount because of the delays.

Business hate to lose money.

rockstar81

There could be a number of factors which are delaying things - storage, vm capacity, licensing issues etc

josh.armentrout1

rockstar81 wrote: »

There could be a number of factors which are delaying things - storage, vm capacity, licensing issues etc

But even with these factors, OP should be at least getting some sort of answer from those that he must reach out to, in order to document what's going if any stakeholders begin poking around asking questions.

slinuxuzer

Document, open tickets for traceability, and quit stressing over things that you can't control.

Oh and quit kidding your self, tossing and turning until midnight and then waking up every hour is tremendous stress. Ask me how I know...

iBrokeIT

Well if tickets and emails aren't getting the job done I don't see how more of the same will suddenly fix the situation.

Try having a face to face or phone conversation with the person to speed up the process. Ask for specifics like a time and date when it will completed and if there are any obstacles.

UncleB

Why not ask the team who handle the calls what the formal complaints procedure is as this is beyond a joke.

This will mean there is a complaint lodged which the IT manager will have to deal with if there is any procedures in place - and you can copy the managers boss for good measure if you really want to get a reputation as someone not to be messed with.

It could backfire mind you, so it would be a calculated risk.

In the end if this is the state of play then look to move to another employer and get out of that place - it isn't doing your health any good and you could do without an ulcer or heart attack.

good luck
Iain

deth1k

Start caring less as noone else does and things will fall into place, you are making work more importaint than your life. I've seen it so many times in the past. It's not your money that goes down the drain, as long as you can prove you've done your bit right theres nothing to worry about.

ImYourOnlyDJ

UncleB wrote: »

and you can copy the managers boss for good measure if you really want to get a reputation as someone not to be messed with.

It could backfire mind you, so it would be a calculated risk.

In the end if this is the state of play then look to move to another employer and get out of that place - it isn't doing your health any good and you could do without an ulcer or heart attack.

good luck
Iain

lol copying everybody in the food chain happens wayyy too much where I work. And sometimes people skip those that will be doing the work and only email the managers and in most cases the managers just forward the email down the line until it reaches the person doing the work (taking longer than it would have taken following the correct procedures).

I almost wonder if IT is just as stressed and understaffed as you (no excuse for not responding though). It wasn't too long ago that it would take a month or two to accomplish what you are asking where I work, simply because there was a giant to do list (200-300 projects if I remember correctly) and not enough people to do the work. We ended it doubling the size of our department and things are much faster and less stressful.

I 2nd looking for a new employer. Its not worth the stress and almost sounds like its just the way the company runs. If your manager isn't doing anything and their managers aren't either, then something is wrong.

joehalford01

Document in writing. It would be a good idea to draft a memo outlining the issues, steps taken, and your estimated completion date of the project based on the current resources allocated to you. It does not have to be negative, just, something along the lines of "The project completion date is Jan 30th, I estimate completion to be March 30 based on the above issues." Print it on letterhead, sign it, and give it to all of the stakeholders. If they don't care, you can sleep after that knowing you have an extension. If someone gets upset later, pull out your copy and give it to them. You can also email a copy with a read receipt or ask them to sign receipt of the memo and return a copy to you. It just depends on how squeaky you want to be.

TheFORCE

You guys provide good advice. I've taken some steps like continuesly escalating or following up on a daily basis but i dont want to be the hated new guy yet. You know how some companies are, people start thinking "who is this that wants to do all these changes after working with the company only 9 months".
The account finally got created so now I can start my work. As far moving on to a different company, this is not the right time for me. As i mentioned the projects I'm working on will allow me to gain huge experience. I'm working on implementation of a federated identity product for our SSO solution among others, something I've not had the change to do before. I'd like to see the project completed. Of course I'm always open for advancement but it has to be a real good opportunity.

cwelber

Try some meditation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kajp0IfQZ7g

I have had stress on the job too at times, (haven't we all). I think a major skill is to do the best you can, and then let go completely at the end of the day. You have to have downtime. If you've done your best, that's all you can do.

NetworkNewb

deth1k wrote: »

Start caring less as noone else does and things will fall into place, you are making work more importaint than your life. I've seen it so many times in the past. It's not your money that goes down the drain, as long as you can prove you've done your bit right theres nothing to worry about.

As much as I think this doesn't sound that great, I definitely agree with it! You are doing everything you can to let others know the situation while your working your a$$ off as well. If something doesn't get done, you can prove you've put in more than your share and reached out for assistance and not got a response.

You have to look after yourself first and keep yourself sane. Doesn't sound your company is worrying about it and letting the pressure fall on your head instead of theirs.

UnixGuy

I understand it's a stressful situation but your health is you priority man. Ask yourself this: would this issue matter to you in 5 yrs time? in 20 yrs time?

It's an important skills to be able to separate work stress and leave at work. Hit the gym hard and lift heavy weights, do some recreational activities that keep your mind off, do some competitive sort of sport, socialise, go out with friends/family. You work to live, you don't work to kill yourself. Think about it.

alias454

They are probably just as understaffed and overwhelmed as you are. Yes, spinning up a VM only takes a few minutes as long as they are using templates or some other type of provisioning mechanism but what is the rest of their process? Patching, Monitoring, Provisioning IP's whatever. Is this turn-around time normal and do they have a documented process for building servers? Also, what other stuff are they working on that you don't know about? Three months definitely sounds like a long time. However, most ops guys I know have a little BOFH syndrome (we aren't happy until you're not happy ); excessive emails may keep your request down at the bottom of their list. I'm not saying it's right but it happens...

You can turn this around though by learning to let go of things you cannot change. An old saying about flies and honey might also apply, maybe buy them a box of doughnuts or something.

Good Luck