Dealing with stress?

I am working as a contractor doing desktop support at a military base and is starting to stress me out. From the customers, the amount of work, lack of support, etc. Is really stressful... I tried to move up into a sys admin position but they say I lack experience. I have all the required certs and my boss gave me a good recommendation. But since I don't have any prior sys admin experience they would not even give me an interview.

So how do you guys deal/cope with stress?

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shodown

apply for other jobs and see where you really stand. If yo put in good work, done your time and they aren't looking to move you F them time to move on.

Arysta

I'm in a similar situation. I'm doing phone help desk support for a government contractor. It's my first IT job. I was excited until I realized the amount of ridiculously stupid people I have to talk to on a regular basis. ("Double click? Ok. Uhh nothin' happened. Wait. With uhhh this here right or left mouse button?") Things that should take 5 mins take 40. Each call I get is like a mini nightmare.

I'm starting to think I'm not going to get through the "pay your dues" stage of things to get into something better.

Forsaken_GA

willanderson1111 wrote: »

So how do you guys deal/cope with stress?

Three words -

Hitman: Blood Money

Matt27[lt]

Used to do long distance running. Now started judo class and World of tanks.

physicskid

True, when stress starts impacting performance, there is suggestion to start looking to other positions. And the situation you're going through, willanderson1111, I'm personally not surprised to see the other potential roadblocks such as people saying you lack experience though you have the certifications. Let me offer another perspective I see.

I got two things I see and I suggest you look at:

1) Identify your stressors or triggers.

2) Once you identified them, what are you personally going to do to manage them?

Let me explain.

In your work day, triggers are the events, circumstances or even things that make you stressed. Even annoyed, or makes you bewildered. For instance, not everybody out there is computer literate. And because of this, people are going to do silly things with their computers. Another example: do you get stressed when too many projects or tasks start coming your way? This part will involve looking at yourself in the mirror and personally asking yourself what really makes you stressed.

You've identified your triggers and what really makes your ticker go beating out of control, write them down!

Finally, what action plan are you going to do now that you identified your triggers? I personally see this everyday. I have a wonderful group of people on the call centre I work with. Even though they are quite technically keen, I still encounter "silly" situations, such as enabling the proxy connection versus disabling the proxy connections in Internet Explorer and I have shown them many many times. My solution with this is to let it slide. Why get stressed and angry/annoyed when people ask questions? In my mind, there's no point wasting my energy to be negative when I can use my energy to be positive and helpful.

Does this make any sense? I believe there are people out there that can read and sense people's vibes, whether positive or negative. I firmly believe that if you understand my words here, potential future opportunities will see this because they will see you in a different light.

I wish you the best.

N2IT

Smoke cigars and drink scotch!

-DeXteR-

For me Stress busters are -
1.Online gaming
2. Regular Gym Workouts
3. Watch New Movies
4. Go for a long drive !

Povilas

-DeXteR- wrote: »

4. Go for a long drive !

This is one of stress causing factors - especially when you live in country where gas cost over 7$ per gal and going up every day, but your paycheck is 10K per year and going down. This is real stress

kiki162

Contractor companies are just nuts IMO. I've been at the same place you are, and I didn't have experience in 1 area, and they totally blew me off. Needless to say I went from one branch of the government to another, and I have a great job now.

Remember that anyplace you work, you are going to have idiots to deal with, whether it be on the phone, in person, or just in general...that's a given. It's what you do with your stress and how you manage it that gets you through.

Not sure if you have a degree, and what certs, but you may have to "pay your dues" for a little while, untill you find something better. I deal with stress by running, getting sleep, and not letting the "dumb s***" bother me. Also striving to improve my skill level keeps me going too.

In order for you to "move up" you have to gain the skills needed to get yourself in the door. Obviously you know that you can go so far with certs and not enough experience. Work on creating a lab at home (like if you want to get into Windows Server 08 and VMWare Server) and start from there.

VAHokie56

I like to set new personal goals outside of work. Like setting a new benchmark in the gym or running a 10k. These goals don't have to be EXTREMELY difficult, its my idea that small accomplishments will build confidence and that will transition to the other aspects in your day to day...

Oh ya online gaming,Alcohol and cigarettes are good to...just not as productive

SteveO86

Gym, running, scotch, going out, do something you enjoy.

As far the job you can only do what you can do. If your current employer is not willing to work with then look elsewhere.

Everyone

Here's the deal with that... Having worked as a Senior Systems Administrator on a Government contract, I saw Help Desk/Desktop Support level people from the same contract try to get into a Systems Administrator position every single time one opened up.

Let me tell you why they rarely get it. Yes they lack experience, but most of the time, they also haven't demonstrated a willingness to get the experience, and aren't doing that great of a job in their current role.

The Systems Administrators deal with the Help Desk/Desktop support people all the time. When a position opens up to work with them, and it's an internal candidate that they work with every day, they get asked for their opinion.

If you constantly escalate tickets that you should have been able to do yourself back to the Systems Administrators, they will not like you. This means you have either failed to demonstrate good troubleshooting skills, which are extremely important, or that you've shown you're just too lazy or don't want to deal with the customer any more and pass them on to the next level of support at every chance.

You need to do very well in your current role before they will even entertain the idea of moving you up to that level if you apply. The fewer tickets you have to escalate to them, the better. If you take the time to show an interest in fixing the issues that are either above your current level of knowledge, or can't be done with the privileges you have on the network, it will get noticed. When you send something like that up, go back and talk to the Systems Administrators. Tell them you'd like to help resolve the issue, ask if there's anything you can do to help, show initiative, and learn. When they stop having tickets sent to them for the same issues because you were able to take care of it at your level, they will notice.

Whenever you have down time, try to talk to them and ask them if they'd be willing to teach you things. Do it without bugging them though.

There was 1 Help Desk guy that did this when I worked on the contract. There were others that had been in that role for a lot longer than him, they always applied for the Systems Administrator jobs every time they opened up, but never got them. This guy did what I am telling you now, and when I left the company for a new job, our Jr. Admin got moved up into my position, and this Help Desk guy got moved up into the Jr. Admin position.

You have to realise that a lot of people on these government contracts are ex-military. They think a little differently. If you seem like a "dirt bag", they won't want to see you promoted. If they think you're "****-hot", they'll go out of their way to help you get ahead.

Xcluziv

-DeXteR- wrote: »

For me Stress busters are -
1.Online gaming
2. Regular Gym Workouts
3. Watch New Movies
4. Go for a long drive !

Pretty good alternatives to relieving stress.

I never let my job stress me out. Something I enjoy doing, even if alot is stacked on my plate never gets to me. As long as you stay optimistic about the situation and calm you will be fine

L0gicB0mb508

I like to drive on the highway at night with my headlights turned off. Of course I prefer to be going the wrong way on the highway doing this. It really kills my stress, and it beats doing heroin.

phantasm

Battlefield Bad Company 2 when my family is not around, when they are around then just relaxing with them helps.

N2IT

L0gicB0mb508 wrote: »

I like to drive on the highway at night with my headlights turned off. Of course I prefer to be going the wrong way on the highway doing this. It really kills my stress, and it beats doing heroin.

Rep LOL

You could do both. Deathproof on junk

ibcritn

Everyone wrote: »

Here's the deal with that... Having worked as a Senior Systems Administrator on a Government contract, I saw Help Desk/Desktop Support level people from the same contract try to get into a Systems Administrator position every single time one opened up.

Let me tell you why they rarely get it. Yes they lack experience, but most of the time, they also haven't demonstrated a willingness to get the experience, and aren't doing that great of a job in their current role.

The Systems Administrators deal with the Help Desk/Desktop support people all the time. When a position opens up to work with them, and it's an internal candidate that they work with every day, they get asked for their opinion.

If you constantly escalate tickets that you should have been able to do yourself back to the Systems Administrators, they will not like you. This means you have either failed to demonstrate good troubleshooting skills, which are extremely important, or that you've shown you're just too lazy or don't want to deal with the customer any more and pass them on to the next level of support at every chance.

You need to do very well in your current role before they will even entertain the idea of moving you up to that level if you apply. The fewer tickets you have to escalate to them, the better. If you take the time to show an interest in fixing the issues that are either above your current level of knowledge, or can't be done with the privileges you have on the network, it will get noticed. When you send something like that up, go back and talk to the Systems Administrators. Tell them you'd like to help resolve the issue, ask if there's anything you can do to help, show initiative, and learn. When they stop having tickets sent to them for the same issues because you were able to take care of it at your level, they will notice.

Whenever you have down time, try to talk to them and ask them if they'd be willing to teach you things. Do it without bugging them though.

There was 1 Help Desk guy that did this when I worked on the contract. There were others that had been in that role for a lot longer than him, they always applied for the Systems Administrator jobs every time they opened up, but never got them. This guy did what I am telling you now, and when I left the company for a new job, our Jr. Admin got moved up into my position, and this Help Desk guy got moved up into the Jr. Admin position.

You have to realise that a lot of people on these government contracts are ex-military. They think a little differently. If you seem like a "dirt bag", they won't want to see you promoted. If they think you're "****-hot", they'll go out of their way to help you get ahead.

Great advice!

To the OP if you do decide to leave consider looking for a smaller company. Typically this gives you exposure to a lot of areas (small companies wear many-a-hat) and typically your a lot more likely to get Sys admin experience even in a help desk role.

Anonymouse

Before I used to take a bunch of smoke breaks at work and everywhere else in life. Cigarettes are bad so I quit though. At work I'll go nap in my car over lunch or put my headphones on and blast some music so I can ignore everyone and everything while I'm on break. When I get home I de-stress with either videogames, anime, manga, bicycling, or lifting weights. There's a lot of stress on my crappy commute too so I usually just yell at everyone on the road.

nhan.ng

N2IT wrote: »

Rep LOL

You could do both. Deathproof on junk

Same. I lol'ed at that. Thx for the morning laugh

switchrat

Hello, I guess I'm missing the stress in your post. Sounds to me you have a great job in your field wiht plenty to do. Look at it this way, if you think you're going to be the head cheese working on all the lastest gear...well get in line. what you can do is take everyday as a learning tool to make it there. Every trouble ticket stupid jack ### you deal with helps your cause. Dealing with the small stuff is key to handling the big stuff, as every big project gets hammered with the small details, like who brought the transceiver, or firmware CD..... Something as small as a signature on the letter of Auth can stop a job. Your not under stress you are just very business learning your job...go out a kick some *&^

Maybe you not getting paid enough,,know that can be stressful:)

later dude