Is IT ever a 9-5?

jerseyIT92

Just wondering what other people feel about this. Is it ever 9-5? Or is there always on call, weekend shifts, etc?

Find more posts tagged with

Free for TechExams community: Cybersecurity salary guide

Compare cert salaries and plan your next career move

Button

Comments

kurosaki00

helpdesk/tier 1 is usually a fixed hours job. But anything after that is rarely on a fixed hours/shift.

ssnyderu2

I work 8-5 with OT as needed.

I dont think I have ever worked a job thats 9-5, most have been 8-5, 9-6 or some variation of 8 working hours with an hour for lunch.

Mr. Meeseeks

Last job was 7 - 3:30 about 2/3 of the year. During season it was 7 until ??. Basically on-call 24/7/365 being the JOAT.

Current job, different company, 8 - 5. Sometimes I will do some remote work after hours or on the weekend but always balance out to 40 hours/week.

Like others have said, it all depends on the company and structure.

Reseven

8-4:30/M-F unless there's something out of the ordinary going on. This afternoon there was a power outage and our printer server did not come back up. I had no idea the printer server was at our physical location and not at the data center where a power outage would not have affected it.

I guess you learn something new everyday. I'll have to investigate as to why this server is not at the data center.

pevangel

MeatCatalogue wrote: »

This. Once you move into engineering or architect roles, you work when the "decision makers" are available, not when problems happen.

Not always true. I work where the "decision makers" are also on-call so engineers and architects still have to be part of the on-call rotation. There are some outages that just can't wait until business hours.

Kinet1c

I'm in a follow the sun support rotation right now so I typically work my hours and I'm done in terms of work, never done in terms of learning though.

gespenstern

I WFH and have flexible hours. Actually nobody tracks how I spend my time, so sometimes I don't work when I don't want to. Plus, I'm the most productive during late evenings and nights, so I'm usually not that active during a day, prefer to read something passively or collect some other information. I'm on-call though once in 4 to 6 weeks. That being said I usually work for 10-14 hours a day. Rarely go out of my home. Sometimes several days pass by without me getting out.

jibbajabba

No on-call, 9-5. Mo-Fr ...

matai

7-330 for me, one virtual day a week

Chitownjedi

7:00-3:30 here.. no on call

VinnyCisco

9 - 5 for me. Mon - Fri. Sometimes stay until 5:30, but no on-call or crazy overtime.

hurricane1091

pevangel wrote: »

Not always true. I work where the "decision makers" are also on-call so engineers and architects still have to be part of the on-call rotation. There are some outages that just can't wait until business hours.

I would agree with this. The engineers are the ones who know how to get things done in the first place, who else would handle an outage? We have an internal NOC, but if there is an outage and they can't get it fixed, it goes up to the engineers.

UnixGuy

My last job was 9-5, super relaxed...then I did something stupid and moved to SecOps..hello on-call.

alias454

I'm in healthcare and work at a hospital so there is no such thing as 9-5 per se. We have "scheduled" hours, which are very flexible. If you want to come in at 6am you can, if you want to come in at 9am you can. Most scheduled maintenance is performed off-hours between 8pm through 5am depending on the day the maintenance is scheduled. As a network admin, we are on-call 24/7 for the systems we maintain and operate with a rotating on-call for general issues like password resets, account lockouts etc.

I perform work on project related stuff after hours without extra compensation, not because I have to but because I enjoy what I do. I won't do paper work on my own time but I will spend a few hours at night researching something that also serves my own interests as well as my employers. I think the question "Is IT ever 9-5" depends on what you consider work. If you count studying for certifications or learning new technoligies as work then I would bet everyone on this forum puts in more than 40 hours a week.

Regards,

Gess

I can't believe not a single government employee has chimed in. I have a choice whether to work 8hr days, or work 9hr days and have every other week be a 4 day week (5/4/9). I also get to choose when I start my day which is great. Very flexible. One of the real undersold benefits of federal work. I didn't even realize it was an option until after I had started working. I'm doing patching/security compliance at the moment but everyone in my facility (servers, networking, plans, desktop, admin) have the same schedule options.

Before this I worked for a government contractor. Had to work 40 hours week, and they really didn't care what time I came and went.

Just funny seeing so many people say IT is 'never a 40 hour week' while ignoring the substantial public sector.

techfiend

Time for me to start caring about federal jobs if that's the case, I can't always meet strict times and it's cost me jobs. Currently working a flex schedule with a private company and having trouble finding other private companies that offer it. I just have to put in my hours between 7 am and 8 pm M-F. Can take any day off unless a project is going on. Unfortunately that's one of the few perks of the job, but it's huge, along with telecommuting at times. I'm 1 of 2 on-call during those times but 90% of the calls are a 5 minute remote task. The other 10% is a 5 minute drive from home, so not bad.

Gess

For clarity's sake, in my current position I tell them when I want to come in (and effectively, when I want to leave by adding 9hrs and an unpaid lunch) and my schedule is set by that. It's not flexible in the sense that I can come in at 6am one day and 9am then next, I always come in at 7am but if I want to I can change that to 8am (or whatever) with one pay period's notice. There are flexible/telework/remote GS jobs but not at my facility. I just work a Compressed Work Schedule and get to set that schedule within the time bands they allow.

Alexsmith

For the public sector, I know of many co-workers who work a set schedule (9-5) and unless they are on-call they don't work beyond that schedule. These aren't just low level employees but lead engineers, managers and admins.

DunklerEngelVNV

I'm not federal, but state. I work for my County's Office Of Education as a Site Computer Tech. When I started it was 8-5 M-F. Recently my boss asked if my schedule was working for me and I said that it was, but that 7:30-4:30 might benefit me in getting a head start to my day. He agreed and I've been on the new schedule for the past month or so. No on call, and very rarely OT if approved. However the Systems Analysts (Engineers basically) typically work 8-5 and Monday-Saturday every other week which is massive OT.

tahjzhuan

Depends. I work 9-6 and do not take work home with me for the most part. This is part of the appeal of the position that I am in. Had an on call rotation at one point that was eventually phased out.

gadav478

Never worked 9-5 other than the first month after a promotion for training and occasionally when needed. Contractors here usually get the worst shifts but I'll usually take whatever shift is necessary to gain more relevant experience... plenty of time to study too so it's bittersweet, more sweet than bitter.

xengoreth

As a contract sysadmin, I work 8:00 am - 5:00 pm M-F with additional flexibility when it comes to hours as long as I basically work 40 hours a week.

Unless overtime is approved, I am not allowed to go over. However, if something really were to break or if a project needed to be turned around more quickly, I would certainly stay until it was fixed!

This is quite different than being an actually employee, as with my last position as a QA Engineer. In that position, which was part of a software shop, I had to work until I was done. The key there, however, was the policy of under-promising and over-delivering was important. It's nice to want to work 60+ hours each week, but that sets an unmaintainable pace. It's the responsibility of the worker to recognize this and to realize that the quality of their work increases as their hours decrease. I tried to keep things around 45-50 hours a week. Sometimes the sysadmin-ish stuff I had to do in that role could really be time consuming.

Deathmage

My job is 8 - 5 but I normally don't arrive until 8:30 but don't leave til 6 for rush hour traffic. I typically find I get more server maintenance done after 5 when everyone leaves. No on-call, very relaxed, IT are respected as if they we're the executive branch.

dou2ble

networker050184 wrote: »

It seems like the mid level operations type is where the long hours come in. Help desk guys are usually normal eight hours. Engineering/design usually work normal hours. The ops guys that take the escalations and run maintenance are where the long hours come in. So just suck it up while in that stage of your career and you'll be to the promise land in no time!

Those long hours early in my career helped set me up with a strong foundation. I got to learn a lot on the job and at a faster rate. Now I appreciate the standard 8-5 with the option to work overtime. But I'll never forget the long hours that got me here.

paul78

Maybe it's just me - but I don't remember any time in my technology career where it was ever 9-5. Personally, I get back what I put into my career. If you want 9-5, you can probably find it. I know lots of people in other career fields - doctor, lawyer, indian chief, and it's pretty much the same and not unique to IT.

OfWolfAndMan

Hours are only relevant if you make them relevant. If you truly enjoy your job, you don't care when you get called or if you stay a few minutes after standard hours... to an extent

.

People that are only in IT for the money are more commonly inclined to do the less quality work in my experience. Not saying it's like that everywhere, but some places require cleanup due to these kinds of previous people.

hurricane1091

People are in every field for money first and foremost. I'd love to be a professional soccer player, but if you paid me $100 a week, I couldn't live off that and I wouldn't want to do it anymore. And no one wants to work 60 hours weeks and get paid for 40 hours. I think it's healthy for people to have an interest but also use compensation as a driving factor as well.

nascar_paul

hurricane1091 wrote: »

People are in every field for money first and foremost. I'd love to be a professional soccer player, but if you paid me $100 a week, I couldn't live off that and I wouldn't want to do it anymore. And no one wants to work 60 hours weeks and get paid for 40 hours. I think it's healthy for people to have an interest but also use compensation as a driving factor as well.

I think you won the Internets on that one. Very solid point. I know that I love what I do, but I'm spending at least ten or fifteen hours per week studying to move ahead cause I know what I'll be doing NEXT even MORE!

eansdad

I worked 7-3:30 for 9 yrs at a school district. Nothing happens at night so never needed to be called in.

chmod

OT OT, OT should be my initials.

I work for one of the biggest vendor of telecom equipments, I take escalations for the MS contracts we have, the internet backbone of 2 of the biggest mobile operators run on our equipments plus the billing centers, also the engineering planning, budgeting and deployment of some projects are my responsibilites.

Sometimes i work 100 hours of OT. I get paid for each single OT hour.