Feeling Overworked...

Daniel333

So, as you guys know I spend most my time working in a help desk and sometimes in the field. It's not fancy, but it pays the bills. I get a mix of admin and help desk tasks

I was assigned a few mini-projects all week -
1) Attend training and deploy 3 anti spam solutions for 3 clients, Webroot.
2) Deploy an App-V server.
3) Train two news guys.
4) Replace certs for all the companies on our list for this month (about 10 certs).
5) Run patches for 60 clients
6) Set up some Cisco phones + IPSec tunnel.
7) Rewrite login scripts for a large company
Take ownership of a domain and DNS from another managed services client (political!!)
9) Convert a client static distro lists into dynamic and test with the users
10) Set up HDI training for our help desk
11) Regression testing for our CRM app

This was assigned to me last Friday. I am off tomorrow. 5 days, okay I said. 2/day. Maybe some OT. Not a problem.

During this time I received over 50+ additional tickets misc issues, setup droids, blackberries, spyware, desktop software installs, printer installs, server alerts etc. It was simply overwhelming. I put in about 50 hours on. And many hours unpaid (only way I can compete) I counted over 30+ IMs/emails from HIGHER level techs asking me for help or trying to **** crap on me. I was also pulled into 3 MEETINGS.

I was prepping to leave for the weekend today to hand things off. I still had 15-20ish user tickets left. Not too bad considering.

I took sooo much heat from management. I really wanted to blow up. Took me over an hour just write "sorry, we'll someday get to your ticket" emails they had me write.

I just felt hate rays all over me and smack talking. I am really feeling abused right now. Just needed to vent a little. I suppose at least one manager was feeling my pain, he pulled me in the break room and we had a beer after I got tore into.

I've talked to a few people and put out a few resumes. Nothing so far. Starting to feel bad about that. So I suppose that is compounding things.

We have another office I can work at, I think starting Monday I am going to start working out of there. I think I am "too available" and it makes me the target for what ever crap comes my way.

...end vent.

the_Grinch

Feel your pain (but I don't have it as bad as you do). I work for a growing managed service provider and have more bad days then good. I am lucky in the fact that I don't have to go onsite. Just take it one day at a time and know you will find a place you want to be.

ibcritn

Yea it sounds like you might work for a smaller company....I know my last job sounds a lot like what your going through.

IRONMONKUS

That's a lot... find your happy place... Ohmmmmmmmmmmmm

msteinhilber

I hear where you're coming from, I'm running into this myself lately. Mine is largely due to being with a decent sized company with a very poor infrastructure and only a few IT staff so I've been getting projects I've literally been working on for several to a half a dozen months that shouldn't take so long by any means but we're all just all over the board with duties and tasks and get frequent interruptions from the daily grind of e-mails and phone calls for your typical helpdesk stuff.

It's very easy to get burnt out in that sort of situation, I'm there myself now where it's hard to really motivate to get much done for me given the constant feeling of any level of nut-busting never being enough to get remotely caught up. All you can do is stick with it and try to keep a positive attitude, though that can be incredibly hard. I try to look at what I'm involved in and think about what I'll take away from it experience wise that I can utilize to find employment that's not as chaotic. Dealing with people higher up along with end-users who often times don't have any sense of what precisely needs to be accomplished to achieve whatever it is they desire (which they often think is an instant work of magic for you to do) further adds to the stress unfortunately.

What I try to help make the burden less is to distance myself from a co-worker who really has no business being in IT but I have to deal with him anyways, release myself into my own zone be it listening to music or a podcast, and often times working on projects from home either if I head out of the office early and finish my day at home or just put in extra time after hours - the more laid back and relaxed atmosphere of home does wonders to make the projects I'm working on seem less chaotic