Both Spouses in IT - What's your experience?

Within our marriage, both of us are in IT... networking and systems/desktop. My background is networking. Now I do more cloud, network automation, etc. though. Just would like to know if there are other folks in which you and your other half are both in IT. For a while, we actually both worked at the same company, LOL! We didn't have any issues, though I was concerned about there being marital stuff spilling out at work.Thankfully things were mostly under wraps and now I am at a new company anyway.

What has it been like for you? Do you ever feel competitive? What IT areas do you and your spouse work in? Do you study for certs together? Do you feel like you "shop talk" too much outside of work with your significant other. I know it can be easy to just default to talking about work when you are both in the same field. Were one of you in the field before the other? Just wondering if there are any other IT couples out there.

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Comments

Codyy

That actually sounds pretty cool except for the working for the same company part, I love seeing my GF(and I believe future wife) as much as possible, but don't think I'd want to spend another 8+ hours a day at work with her. You're bound to get tired of each other at some point?

Node Man

In the broader context, i wonder if it is good idea for spouses to work in identical fields. Especially in the same company. I fear competitive spirit may supersede love&marital support.

martaw

Codyy wrote: »

You're bound to get tired of each other at some point?

We did not tire of each other because we worked in different departments... networking vs desktop support. We would see each other pass by in the hall or in the breakroom. Other than that we mainly would see each other at lunch. Eventually our schedules did not really allow for that.

Node Man wrote: »

In the broader context, i wonder if it is good idea for spouses to work in identical fields. Especially in the same company. I fear competitive spirit may supersede love&marital support.

I am more the competitive one and I seem to stand alone in that. LOLOL. Again, being in different sub-fields helps. We know different things, so not really any competition.

Zartanasaurus

I guess we are loosely in the same field. Mrs. Z does healthcare IT consulting on ERP systems. It's completely different than what I do, but it's still under the IT umbrella. The only real downside to both being in the same field is if there's a recession that heavily affects IT, we'd probably be at higher risk to lose our jobs simultaneously.

lsud00d

I like the vocational separation with the S/O, but that doesn't mean we don't do nerdy things like play video games together

theanimal

Node Man wrote: »

In the broader context, i wonder if it is good idea for spouses to work in identical fields. Especially in the same company. I fear competitive spirit may supersede love&marital support.

I would see more issues coming from the whole Everyone else vs Network Admin thing. Oh, an application won't work, well it's 100% without a doubt no way in hell anything but the networks fault. Hun, I told you it's the network, my servers are fine, now go check the firewall.

kurosaki00

that actually sounds pretty cool
I mean, can discuss work topics, take/give advices
You finish with a book and pass it over

Same work place, I dont know

Personally, my gf thinks I work in the matrix so...yeah

Roguetadhg

I'd like to have a spouse to understand computers more than "It's for ****." Having someone else that studies a lot would be even better, like a doctor/nurse. Mostly for the understanding of being a workaholic / studying.

I wouldn't want to work at the same place, however. It's my vacation away from her.

UnixGuy

I doesn't sound like an issue to me, it can actually be cool! However, I'd rather a spouse that does something completely different so I can avoid conversations about work with her

wes allen

Not strictly IT, but there are a bunch of Husband/Wife pro photographer teams out there. My wife and I did that together for several years and I loved working with her. Mostly.

She isn't really into IT, though she sorta studied for A+ for a couple weeks - I could see us running a small IT focused company together, with her doing the management/accounting side.

nosoup4u

Would be interesting but I actually get tired of IT/Tech and need a break from it when I get home and I often enjoy hearing about her personal training stories and nutrition rants. Plus watching her teach yoga from time to time has it's perks!

WiseWun

My wife just completed college studying Computer Networking and I'm already in the field. I have been pushing her to get her CCNA, she doesn't really like IT but decided to finish the program. Will see how things go. I too wouldn't want both of us to work for the same company.

Nemowolf

Not personally as the misses and i are not in any related field at all ... My old boss was the IT manager and his wife was a network person at a big name netoworking device and services company. The only thing he mentioned as being a negative was that occasionally he would sigh about how much more money she made than him and how it made him feel inferior at times. Otherwise, they were as happy as clams and both kept their work lives fairly seperate. He wouldn't get a call from her about anything she was dealing with unless it screwed up scheduled plans outside of work.

instant000

What has it been like for you?
Great.

Do you ever feel competitive?
Hrm. Not really. If she would retire me, I'd let her. Then I could post on TechExams all day long! (Hrm, probably be doing something else, though, like voluntary audits for nonprofits or something like that.)

What IT areas do you and your spouse work in?
Me - Network/Security
Her - Network/Voice

Do you study for certs together?
Not really. We tend to study at different paces, with different focuses. I do tend to tell her what books are good to read for a given topic, and she does the same for me.

Do you feel like you "shop talk" too much outside of work with your significant other. I know it can be easy to just default to talking about work when you are both in the same field.
N'yet, but mostly because I actually like IT overall, and since what she does is slightly different, it'll be interesting still.
We do lend each other tips on things that one might be more experienced in than the other.
Heck, I was doing something the other day, and she knew about the default setting for the network adapter being turned off in ESXi. She saved me the time of looking up the documentation for the problem! I appreciated having that! If you do things long enough, you forget stuff

. It's great, since women forget a lot less.

Were one of you in the field before the other?
I was in the field a few years ahead of her. No big deal. I encourage her to accelerate, but she wants to take it slow

About7Narwhal

kurosaki00 wrote: »

Personally, my gf thinks I work in the matrix so...yeah

I lol'd.

As far as both being in IT goes, I think it would be fine assuming you aren't both in the same concentration. If I work as a Server Admin, I don't think there would be issues with desktop support, etc, etc. But when you both have the same job you run into competition in regards to pay, progression, success, and even how to handle an issue at work. IT is diverse enough where two people could both work it but be a total novice when it comes to your position.

tekalon

Husband does more web design/development and some programming and I'm doing help desk/mobile support while learning programming and security. He's also more iOS and I'm Android. We both live with what we do, work and school and then side projects for fun. He's helped me with a few programming issues, mainly for school and I wasn't understanding a concept. He asks me for my opinion on websites he's designing (do you like this scheme,color, font, etc).

VAHokie56

I just wish I met more hot chicks in IT

I do think it would be awesome to be able to talk to my gf who I spend a ton of time with about the stuff I do and study and have an engaging conversation. I kind of agree with the other poster, she might as well think I work in the matrix and punch a time clock with Mr.Smith everyday while getting Neo's coffee. Suppose some rabbit holes are just not meant to be followed...woe is me.

Unforg1ven

WOAH.........

Beautiful females work in IT?????? My very foundation of this existence is currently crumbling beneath my feet.

Clevernamehere

I work 50/50 desktop support and sys admin while the girlfriend tests software. We don't work at the same company but we used to before I got into IT. Never had any problems then but we didn't see each other at all during the day (except maybe at lunch.) At home I wouldn't say we talk shop, more like "hey guess what I did today". Mostly though we leave work at the door. No studying together either. I've been slacking on my studying lately and I know she has a few testing certifications but I honestly couldn't tell you what any of them are.

7of9

I'm a network engineer. My husband is a Citrix/Cloud engineer. It is great being able to understand, at least on a basic level, what each other go through at work. If I start talking too in-depth on a technical issue, all he pretty much hears is "network, network, blah, blah, blah." If he gets too in-depth on a server or Citrix issue, all I hear is "server, server, blah, blah, blah." However, we both understand the challenges of supporting users, the basics of what each other do, and the office politics of working in IT. We also are support of each other when project deadlines loom or outages or oncall eat into personal time.

However, it is sometimes a challenge when both of us are on call at the same time or both have big project deadlines. It can be tough to balance those at times. He also has to contend with me spending all of my time with my coworkers, who are almost always all male. Sometimes that means a hint of jealousy, other times it means he wants to punch them when they're being buttheads to me. Most of the time, he gets along great with them.

rsutton

I wouldn't mind being married to another IT professional, as long as she wasn't better than me at what I did.

Seriously though - it would be cool to talk shop with more females.

7of9

I'm better at him at networking. He can run circles around me when it comes to anything server related. The balance works well and we often consult each other on projects where our fields intersect.