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I've been an IT worker for most of life, and I'm still trying to figure out an exit strategy. All of the above are true. Weekends, holidays, nights, long days, and it doesn't get any easier.
A rolling stone gathers no moss. The longer you stay the more youre labelled 'subject matter expert', especially by these folks who shouldnt be in IT.
I kinda like it. I just always look back during college years when I was worried that I'd never be this relevant.
Sometimes I enjoyed not picking up my phone and/or slowing down to make a drink before calling back, knowing theres a lot of corporate climber status keepers praying to hear back from me.
I really do not know anyone who died from IT related stress.
I do, well not died but came darn close not to mention physical breakdown of body parts. Constant stress takes it's toll over the years, many of the people I worked with have either had heart attacks,strokes,spinal injuries (cervical),severe carpal tunnel and chronic illness.
After a couple of years I ended up being on call 24/7-365 because our wonderful new CEO decided we needed more profit and cut overhead/staff to get us there.
Intrusion into your personal life occasionally is expected with any high end relatively high paid job BUT it shouldn't become the only thing allowed in your life. When the job takes over it's time to move along.
I do know someone who was in a position similar to mine, ended up suing under the FLSA and winning big time for non payment of overtime even though he was "salaried".
I've been doing this for over 30 years for many different companies, and I can't believe sometimes how much of life I've missed out on. Right now, I just had my first weekend off after working every day since mid-December, including one all-nighter right before New Year's eve. For about a year now, because of the constant threat of security breaches and hackers, everyone must carry their Blackberry on them 24x7, even on vacation.
I've been an hourly contractor most of my rather long software development career. Though I get paid for every hour I work, I haven't seen any decisions ever by higher level management to NOT use my time afterhours, on-call, weekends if there was a need; I've =always= been treated the same as a regular employee except I get paid for those strange hours (or, if that's the never-overt arrangement, I get equal paid time off for those afterhours hours). Some jobs became more temporary than they were supposed to due to funding "problems" at the client, but things like afterhours work, especially during Production pushes of software, were standard stuff shared by all. And in at least a couple cases, I've been treated VERY nicely by clients - gifts, dinners, parties, etc JUST as if I was an employee - it was just the philosophy of the particular clients.
But...as a contractor I had zero problem telling a client I was going to be taking 4 weeks off to head over to, say, Taiwan for vacation mid-winter. That, of course, was always when I hadn't taken any time off earlier so the average "time off" was at least reasonably similar to regular employees (typically greater but not always).
The only career I have ever had is IT... I'm 29 and been at the same place for over 11 years now. I enjoy what I do, but having gotten married and wanting to start a family... I just can't see doing it anymore. Going back to school soon to change careers. There is no work/life balance in IT unless you get to a departmental manager level.
The only career I have ever had is IT... I'm 29 and been at the same place for over 11 years now. I enjoy what I do, but having gotten married and wanting to start a family... I just can't see doing it anymore. Going back to school soon to change careers. There is no work/life balance in IT unless you get to a departmental manager level.
It depends on where you work in IT. If you're a user (network guy, Sql developer, etc) that supports business, you're at the mercy of business. But if you're a technology creator, you generally make your own schedule.
Where I am I do everything - one man shop. I truly like it that way and having done it so long I don't think I'd do well as part of a team. When I was young and single, it was one thing - hell, working at night gave me something to do when I was bored - but as I age I can see how this job gets too stressful.
The only career I have ever had is IT... I'm 29 and been at the same place for over 11 years now. I enjoy what I do, but having gotten married and wanting to start a family... I just can't see doing it anymore. Going back to school soon to change careers. There is no work/life balance in IT unless you get to a departmental manager level.
Actually you can get away with a lot more when you are married and have kids
The BF and have talked about only staying in this field for a few more years, then making a career change to something with less demanding hours. We both know that we cannot sustain this pace indefinitely - he'll probably stick it out 5 more years; I may try to stick it out a few years longer.
Not sure what we'll do, but we came to the realization last year that we will need to make this change for our health.
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