I knew I had made a terrible mistake in entering the IT field... [Long Story]

hurricane1091

OP is right in regards to it does suck to have to keep studying stuff (mostly optional studying though) when normal people get to do funner things. OP is right that some people just love the technology so much it is insane, but for most it is just a job and most people are not even great. Would be nice to have a job that is low-stress, ends at 5 PM 100% of the time, and doesn't change too much. For what I make, there are definitely better jobs out there that I would rather be doing. For what I think I'll make though, I think it would be hard pressed for me to get paid that without being in the financial or medical realm - neither which I have an interest in. Pros/cons, ups/downs, up to the individual to decide. It's 19 degrees outside and I see construction dudes working - and it really doesn't matter what they make because there is 0% chance I would want to be doing that right now and if you'd ask them, they would probably would kill to switch with me even if it meant a pay cut. Grass always appears greener on the other side.

I mean, I left my house at 7 AM, I will get back by 6 PM. I will eat, go work out, come back and shower, and if I am not lazy maybe I'll study. That's a pretty crappy day to be honest. I could work from home, and I could skip the gym, and I could never study and just go do other things. I think that is important to understand - I am choosing to do these things. I have no idea if it is the right or wrong way to be living, but it's what I'm doing and it seems okay? I don't plan on it being this way forever. I'm working hard now while I am young and able to. I very much expect to have much better weekdays later in life.

Node Man

Every job is always changing. Even if you don't feel or see it. IT is different than many other jobs because it has a built in awareness of change. IT is different than many jobs because we can self improve at our own pace outside of the workplace. Embracing change, or carefully managing or implementing change, is a skills that the best IT people have. Anytime I hear an IT person say they refuse to learn anymore, I know their career is already over.

And I don't buy that nerds don't get girls thing at all.

kurosaki00

I think OP is talking of a worst case scenario. You can always have some balance with life. But the truth is that at least during your first years, or at least pre-senior engineer/manager level, you will have to work your ass off. Most positions above entry level are full time, meaning you get paid decently but if you pay 40 hours or 75, you get paid the same.

You also have on-call duties often, change windows, some companies have a cluster F and you can see change windows happening every weekend. On top of that you will need to keep your certifications up to date, so thats more time off your free time. Until you get a decent position with a lot of experience behind you, you will want to keep acquiring new certifications. Thats more time off your free time.
On top of that, let me give you a personal experience. On my previous employer at one point I was requested to do something completely unrelated to my normal duties. I told my manager that it would take a while, I dont know how to do it so I need to research/learn. He said sure, but get it done.
So I had to take off my free time (or dead hours @ work if available) to learn new stuff from my job.
You have that + change windows every week + oncall week + recert studies + new cert studies = shitty personal life.

^ That is the life of a lot of people on IT. Is it worth it? I'm 6 years into it and I'm not sure.

Params7

Nice bait OP. You got many.

dlvega0030

Having an appropriate balance between personal life and professional life is a must. The important thing is to get that balance ASAP. Time passes by, and if you don't get your priorities straight right of the bat, in the future it might not be so easy.

Iristheangel

kurosaki00 wrote: »

That is the life of a lot of people on IT. Is it worth it? I'm 6 years into it and I'm not sure.

what you are describing with working late, weekly changes, etc - Is it really IT that's not worth it or your current job? It sounds like your job might be the issue if you're not getting any sort of balance at ALL.

As far as gigs that require you to stay up to date and learn more to move up - it all depends on how much money you want to make and your ambition. If you don't mind not having job security and don't want to constantly study, there are plenty of jobs for you out there that you can be a lifer at but the chances of hitting a pay cap, a ceiling as far as career growth or one day being completely outsourced or automated out of a job is higher. This goes for almost any industry.

UnixGuy

kurosaki00 wrote: »

^ That is the life of a lot of people on IT. Is it worth it? I'm 6 years into it and I'm not sure.

you can always choose less stressful environments that requires less overtime/weekend. I've been in jobs that needs zero weekend/over time, they exist. Do one/two certs per year and viola!

Mike7

If you are lucky and entrepreneurial, you may be able to find that job that pays well and allow you to watch youtube everyday.

As IrisTheAngel mentioned, there are IT jobs around where you have little to do. Just do not expect much in terms of pay and opportunities to learn, and if your job is ever made redundant you will difficulty looking for a new one. In some places, employers are complaining about IT talent shortage yet IT professionals have difficulties looking for jobs. Both groups are rights, employers are unable to find competent people with the correct skill sets and IT pros do not upgrade or do not have the right skillsets. With IT, you need to constantly upgrade yourself and gain new skills.

Back to reading tea leaves to predict that next wave after cyber security.

fitzlopez

Leonardo Fantastico wrote: »

... You have to have a cell phone attached to your belt buckle and a bluetooth ear piece in case anyone has to know what TCP Port 563 does at a moment's notice. ...

In case anyone was wondering TCP Port 563 was used for NNTP over SSL/TLS. I had to look it up, was driving me nuts.

Now to watch some Babylon 5 reruns.


P.S. Thumbs up for OP. Good story made me smile.

Chev Chellios

Back to reading tea leaves to predict that next wave after cyber security. This x2

Great post by the way OP had me laughing far too much!

philrozzi

I'm a new member here and trying to maybe get into IT and I find your post very plausible.

For me personally the way I see it is either get into IT, earn less money but basically sit on your ass all day or get a job as an electrician with my cousin making more money and bust your ass everyday for the next 20-30 years.

My cousin does commercial work and makes six figures and will retire early but he always wished he went to school and got an easy job dealing with stock trading.

darkerz

I feel like this is a snow ball effect in IT, where the rolling doesn't get good until you are at a critical mass.

Let me explain...

After some many years of hard work, projects, studying, the works - countless certifications and seminars alike, at one point I stopped. That was 3 years ago, I just went to work and made it my goal to force myself on my day-to-day to pick up challenges. Not comfortable with it? Getting anxiety thinking about it? THAT's what I need to do.

The last 3 years have been the absolute best of my entire career development. The stages of my past were...

"I know everything"
"I don't know what I don't know"

And now it is...

"I don't know anything and that's ok, lets figure it out".

Being good at figuring it out and leveraging good, previous experience in a way that maximizes your business or technology impact & scope is essential. Don't be a gear-head who configures, implements, deploys and fixes boxes. No. You want to be the architect, the solutions developer which can influence both technology and business decisions within an organization.

Actually, right around the time I stopped hanging out here, ironically, is when things really took off. Now at MSFT and have experienced and done things that books haven't been written about yet. It's all about landing in a place that empowers you to make bold claims, bold assumptions and to succeed - or fail, spectacularly. Either way, its always preferred to... some book and a home lab.

But, you won't be given the opportunity for that unless you have those books, certs and home labs under your belt Chicken and egg to IT happiness.

kurosaki00

Iristheangel wrote: »

what you are describing with working late, weekly changes, etc - Is it really IT that's not worth it or your current job? It sounds like your job might be the issue if you're not getting any sort of balance at ALL.

It's hard to say. On my first IT job.. pretty young, almost no experience, my senior network admin did not want to be kept being called by the noc every night so like 2 weeks into this job I became the official 24/7 contact for network outages. I did such a good job, the systems team offered me a position. I became a Jr System admin, automatically became the after hours contact again. Guess what, for after hours, the network alarms process was, network admin, if don't pick up, jr system admin. So the same douche who threw me to on call duties 2 weeks in, constantly did not picked up the phone and I had to deal with issues. I reported him several times with higher ups and nothing ever happened.

Next job, not much to complain besides the amount of work vs pay. To this day is the biggest load of work I've seen in one place. 40-50 tickets easily per day.

Previous job, is the one I was talking about changes every week, sometimes 2-3 days of changes and on top of that 7 days of on call per month. The people were great, pay was decent. But to be working so much after normal hours and on top of that you were responsible of investing your personal time to better business/department processes, its just BS. Personal time severely reduced.
I also got laid off a week before Xmas, no severance or anything. Business quotes restructuring change due economic hardships.

A month unemployed layer (very difficult to find a new job during holidays) I got a new job, so far is great, pay is very good. This may be the good one I've been trying to get.
What I'm saying is, so far this "good" IT job does not exist. Sometimes the pay is worth it, but for what I've experienced, you sacrifice your personal time A LOT.
There is a lot of potential but there is a lot of sacrifice in this field. And the location sometimes means everything (If not, move to PR and try to get an IT job right now).

PS I was unemployed when I wrote that previous msg, wasn't going through a very nice phase.

LaSeeno

I've had quite the opposite experience.

kurosaki00 wrote: »

It's hard to say. On my first IT job.. pretty young, almost no experience, my senior network admin did not want to be kept being called by the noc every night so like 2 weeks into this job I became the official 24/7 contact for network outages. I did such a good job, the systems team offered me a position. I became a Jr System admin, automatically became the after hours contact again. Guess what, for after hours, the network alarms process was, network admin, if don't pick up, jr system admin. So the same douche who threw me to on call duties 2 weeks in, constantly did not picked up the phone and I had to deal with issues. I reported him several times with higher ups and nothing ever happened.

Next job, not much to complain besides the amount of work vs pay. To this day is the biggest load of work I've seen in one place. 40-50 tickets easily per day.

Previous job, is the one I was talking about changes every week, sometimes 2-3 days of changes and on top of that 7 days of on call per month. The people were great, pay was decent. But to be working so much after normal hours and on top of that you were responsible of investing your personal time to better business/department processes, its just BS. Personal time severely reduced.
I also got laid off a week before Xmas, no severance or anything. Business quotes restructuring change due economic hardships.

A month unemployed layer (very difficult to find a new job during holidays) I got a new job, so far is great, pay is very good. This may be the good one I've been trying to get.
What I'm saying is, so far this "good" IT job does not exist. Sometimes the pay is worth it, but for what I've experienced, you sacrifice your personal time A LOT.
There is a lot of potential but there is a lot of sacrifice in this field. And the location sometimes means everything (If not, move to PR and try to get an IT job right now).

PS I was unemployed when I wrote that previous msg, wasn't going through a very nice phase.

dontstop

Some sage advice in this thread. Not sure how I missed it.

Leonardo Fantastico

Just an update... I'm still working in the IT companies. World has changed quite a bit.

JDMurray

I thought you might have switched over to the world of being a programmer by now.

MrsWilliams

You have to realize that telling a woman, "I work in IT" kills sexual attraction faster than saying, "I have herpes".

  

MrsWilliams

Leonardo Fantastico said:

Just an update... I'm still working in the IT companies. World has changed quite a bit.

What a surprise 

UnixGuy

@Leonardo Fantastico

full detailed update on your career for the past 8 years, pretty please 

and a selfie of your pony tail...

scaredoftests

I think it all depends. I am a woman..I like IT, but I don't spend every waking moment thinking about it. Balance and lots of exercise to deal with the nonsense.. <and a sense of humor>. Usually, when I say I am in IT, I get a question about how to fix something or what kind of cup would fit in that holder that comes out of the computer.  

yuddhidhtir

UnixGuy said:

@Leonardo Fantastico

full detailed update on your career for the past 8 years, pretty please 

and a selfie of your pony tail...

Yes Please! at least the career update of your last 8 years and also your opinion about the IT now.

LonerVamp

Pretty big thread necro, but figured I'd drop some thoughts, especially as I can't agree with anything the OP said.

I feel like I should apologize up front, but I will judge someone who complains about IT, dreams about bigger things, and then stays in a phone support role.

Secondly, there's no reason to compare yourself to the "Jabbas." You don't have to beat them. You just have to be as good as you can be and look for better opportunities and move upward or at last move to better fields.

And then, you "escaped" and did IT work elsewhere...wut?

It honestly sounds like OP should have just taken some time to look for a better job, get some exercise, maybe pound some beers with some bros after the gym? Or at least stop whining about no hobbies/exercise and actually do it. And way too much fixation on physical appearance and conquests. (I know, we'll veil this with talk about being healthy, but that's too often smoke and mirrors...)

Hopefully OP is in a much better place financially, professionally, and even personality-wise.

Johnhe0414

I was wondering how i missed this post, then realized it was from 2011. The good ole days.

scaredoftests

I didn't realize this was from 2011. wow..

Fulcrum45

I vaguely remember this post from when it was still showing up in 2013. I've changed a lot of since then and I hope the OP has too. I used to sit in the office long after everyone else had left working on "we just told you today but we need this by tomorrow" type projects but I got over a lot of that. After spending two years overseas as an IT contractor in Afghanistan away from my family I don't allow myself (or anyone else) to take my time with them for granted anymore.    

matt333

I'd disagree with most of this except the part about the reading/studying doesn't end and that you have to like/love it to put the work in. IT doesn't make you fat or that you can't exercise because of your job in IT.
You lack discipline and eat shitty food.
You waste your time watching TV and some other activity that don't add anything to your live. Go to the GYM. 

If you change that then it won't matter if you work in IT.

That Random Guy

What I find funny is how you managed to post this "long story" and actually expect not to turn some heads—and I don't mean that in the "oh hey, lookie" kind of way.

I think you've just stayed in the wrong places for too long if this is what you think every IT person is going to wind up doing or experiencing.

I don't like generalizing—and no I'm not "offended" or demanding "PC culture" but what you've described can't and won't apply to everyone.

The picture you've painted is called a stereotype and it's obvious to me you're just trolling at this point. Who writes such a bogus post?

AvgITGeek

Trolling from 2011 and still getting bites when the OP themselves dug this one up couple of days ago. Let it die.

UrbanBob

He ain't wrong. It's hard to compete when you only like your job and this is their entire life.