Most of my adult life I have work in Information Technology (IT).
I came to excel in troubleshooting and reveled in fixing even the most difficult of issues. Well down the road of my career, I have come to understand that most of the time, it is mostly a thankless profession. When I was the CIO of a company, I worked 80-100 hours per week for hard work and mediocre pay. When I went to a software company, I was initially paid more for less hours in a much lower position. While I loved my coworkers (and still do), they piled on more and more work to the producers and less to the "non-producers". Moved to another software company, lot's of work and never given the original promised position. Eventually my own company and then teaming up with an MSP...
You know what the common thread was in all of this? Someone is always mad at you on an almost daily basis. I wish I was exaggerating but it was always a constant. CIO? Board has problems they want you to "address". Support or support manager? Customers don't call support when they're happy, by the time they call they're ready to chew your head off. While some at least were thankful at the end, more often then not after venting on you (and your team) and then having fixed the issue, angry words or ticket closed.
Let us not forget the constant pressure of owners and executives for you to perform, no matter the personal cost. Long hours and hard work often left me so drained that I came home white faced and barely able to carry on a conversation. I have to say that my last employer was possibly the most fair employer I have ever worked with but even he could not protect me from the constant barrage of customers, it's the nature of the business and it was my job.
So after coming home white faced and near listless yet again, my wife finally asked if I was happy with my job. An obvious no then prompted the now seemingly obvious question "What would you like to do?".
I came to excel in troubleshooting and reveled in fixing even the most difficult of issues. Well down the road of my career, I have come to understand that most of the time, it is mostly a thankless profession. When I was the CIO of a company, I worked 80-100 hours per week for hard work and mediocre pay. When I went to a software company, I was initially paid more for less hours in a much lower position. While I loved my coworkers (and still do), they piled on more and more work to the producers and less to the "non-producers". Moved to another software company, lot's of work and never given the original promised position. Eventually my own company and then teaming up with an MSP...
You know what the common thread was in all of this? Someone is always mad at you on an almost daily basis. I wish I was exaggerating but it was always a constant. CIO? Board has problems they want you to "address". Support or support manager? Customers don't call support when they're happy, by the time they call they're ready to chew your head off. While some at least were thankful at the end, more often then not after venting on you (and your team) and then having fixed the issue, angry words or ticket closed.
Let us not forget the constant pressure of owners and executives for you to perform, no matter the personal cost. Long hours and hard work often left me so drained that I came home white faced and barely able to carry on a conversation. I have to say that my last employer was possibly the most fair employer I have ever worked with but even he could not protect me from the constant barrage of customers, it's the nature of the business and it was my job.
So after coming home white faced and near listless yet again, my wife finally asked if I was happy with my job. An obvious no then prompted the now seemingly obvious question "What would you like to do?".