IT the least stressful job?

So I was pondering life today and realized that every time that I think about my current job I actually get a peaceful feeling. Then I start thinking about IT and I really think the profession aligns with who I am as a person.

I have held many jobs including: Military, Sales, Education, Avionics, Customer Service, Food etc... and all of them stressed me out.

IT is the first job that I have had that I actually feel comfortable in and at ease when I do it. Its crazy that I just realized that as I have been in IT for almost 5 years, but I don't get a lot of self reflection time.

I guess the only downfall is that I am bored at times, but I would rather be bored than on a stressful time crunch.

Anyone else feel that IT is one of the most stress free jobs?

EDIT: I work in information security so my point of view might differ.

http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/1875-stressful-careers.html

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Comments

netsysllc

I think most people would say the opposite, especially if they are doing help desk.

TheFORCE

It depends on the job, level, position and industry. There is some stress at every level. The good thing is that stress tends to go away faster in IT related jobs that others. Unless you are dealing with highly publicized breaches.

aderon

Yep, my job is completely stress free. I get an enormous amount of time to myself which I usually use to study, learn, game, browse the internet, etc, so I keep myself busy. The craziest part is I still feel like I'm learning way more at my current job than I was at my last one. Go figure O_O

I'd definitely stick with any of my IT jobs over some of the other non-IT jobs I've had in the past (Overnight janitor for a Mexican fast food joint comes to mind). I think perspective helps too. If you've worked truly shitty jobs, I think most situations feel like an upgrade.

E Double U

I haven't done anything outside of IT that wasn't an internship or summer job so its hard to compare. Overall I would say that I've had a stress-free career, but I could also credit that to my easy-going temperament. I've had a few stressful days in each position, but those were isolated incidents and never on-going stress of that role.

techfiend

Mostly stress free except when problems arise then it can be a very large amount of stress. Rarely boring because there's always things to learn.

fmitawaps

I'd say It can be fairly stress free most of the time, once you've got a few certifications and have risen to the point where you're not doing phone calls (help desk) or crawling under desks to install computers (desktop support) anymore.

I've worked jobs that were pure manual labor in the past, and when I was in college, I remember one job in particular where 20 or so of us were doing the physical work. One fat ass boss with an attitude was barking orders to work faster, bend down to do things on the ground but DO NOT SIT DOWN, etc., and then there was one guy in khakis and a dress shirt and tie, with sunglasses and a clipboard, talking to the fat boss man. I stopped and looked around at the situation, looked at the workers, boss man, and his apparent boss, and thought "That should be me", meaning the boss's boss. "I'm too good for manual labor. I'm better than this job and all these manual labor people, I'm smart enough to be the manager." Well, it certainly took many years of misguided jobs and lame ideas to finally land in IT, where I should have been straight out of high school, but I'm making up for lost time now.

networker050184

Management is probably the biggest factor in stress I've seen during my career. Leadership that thinks ahead and takes care of their people can really make for a stress free work environment. Even so, I'd think IT in general would fall more towards the stressful side than your average job with up time being so critical these days for many businesses.

kohr-ah

It depends on the company and the policies they hold to how stressful it can be I'd think.

If you work at a place where an outage occurs and as long as you get it back up and running in a very short amount of time. (Less stress)
My place if they miss 1 email it is the network's fault and I am surrounded by men in suits (More stress)

nascar_paul

I agree that up-time is vital and outages are HIGH priority for today's businesses, but I also think that the user base is more knowledgeable about the infrastructure that they use to work and understand the importance of planned downtime and maintenance and security events. So as long as you've got a thought out plan and keep surprises to a minimum, then you're 90% stress free. But it's one of those things that easily said and takes A LOT to accomplish, like "eat well and exercise" or "show up everyday".

UnixGuy

Depends on what you do. Technical support type job where you constantly need to up-skill and respond to (critical) issues, then that's very stressful.

IT/Security auditing, paper work, excel sheets, compliance type work....it can be a very relaxing (and repetitive) job.

Depends on your character..

anhtran35

Stress can be a KILLER. I had a demanding boss years ago. Most stressful job while working in a NOC. He was an extreme micro manager. Had nights where I dream about killing him. Not a good environment. As a manager myself, I look to make sure my technicians welfare supersede anything work related.

NetworkNewb

networker050184 wrote: »

Management is probably the biggest factor in stress I've seen during my career. Leadership that thinks ahead and takes care of their people can really make for a stress free work environment. Even so, I'd think IT in general would fall more towards the stressful side than your average job with up time being so critical these days for many businesses.

Agree with this! I had one IT job where it was one of the best jobs to work at, then after a new management took over became one of the worst! It was at a smaller company, it only took about a year after the new management to come in that everyone in the IT Department found a new place to work. (was only 4 us) I actually put in my 2 weeks notice without even having another job lined up at the time. It was that bad. Boss was a micro manager and every little thing was life or death.

Also, in regards to stress. I think a lot is how a person is able to deal with stress. Some people put a lot of pressure on themselves and over think things, even with things that don't matter much.

pevangel

When I started in IT, I must say it was the least stressful job I had. As I moved up in IT, the stress just kept adding on and on. Right now I am at the most stressful job I've ever had. I can probably move on to something not as stressful, but I won't be learning as much.

gorebrush

The job I have now is the least stressful. I work for an outsourcer, so in charge of hundreds of networks, but I'm on top of my networking game, so any task I am given I can deal with ease. When I didn't know a lot and I was in charge of a handful of servers, that was far more stressful in the early days of my career.

Stress is very subjective.

blargoe

IT doesn't stress me out, buy the company I work for certainly does.