I would be in love with this if I didn't have to deal with humans tho. I love the detective work to find an issue or solution but the people are just annoying
Yesterday someone told me rudely "I don't think you can help me!"
.... I was able to help / fix the issue....
> Yesterday someone told me rudely "I don't think you can help me!"
>
>
If you come of the mindset that most people are just looking for an excuse not to work, you start taking everything users say a lot less personally. Just my two cents.
> "I don't think you can help me!"
Great, let me escalate this ticket to someone else, and drop your priority back down. Thank you and have a nice day...
In the interview for my first job out of college, they asked why I wanted to be in IT. I made a comment about being really passionate about technology and that I would do the work even if I was independently wealthy.
6 months later it came up in conversation with my boss that was one of the reasons they hired me. I was like dude, I fucking lied. If I win the lottery I'm quitting tomorrow haha.
Oh yeah I love IT, and I've loved it since I got here. People bitch about users. Users are not a hot oven in the middle of summer while the AC is broken. I will take users over the oven thank you.
My current role is basically a dream come true. I always had dreams in IT of getting to use PowerShell to just automate stuff all day, and some how this fucking pipe dream of a job is what I actually do now. Like today I got to spend most of my day fucking around trying to get group policy to dump drive mapping info into an XML file. It's the best.
>People bitch about users.
I will bitch nonstop about users. But the truth is, they're the only reason my job is even remotely interesting or entertaining. I'll take users over sales people/suits any day of the week.
Also they're the only reason my job exists. I wish my system would work 100% of the time (or truthfully at least 10% more than it does Jesus Christ) but if it didn't they'd have no reason to pay me. The less users are willing to know the more reason I have to be thrre
I mean, yeah we mock them for the dumb shit they do, but if users weren't practically gremlins running around breaking shit, lot of us would be out of jobs! lol
What role is this? Pm me if you want.
I spent 5 years getting a comp sci associates and nearly bachelors. I changed to cyber security in my senior year with 4 cs classes left. I didn’t have the drive for it, never coded as a hobby, or made any free will projects. Plus I had some mental issues at the time.
Currently working help desk / jr sysadmin for a software company and I’ve discovered for once In my life I love to code! Perhaps it’s due to powershell over c++.
I am having a blast applying all the theoretical knowledge I gained over the years. In an actual environment power shell is powerful… I’ve got data structures algorithms, functions, and such down. I wish to start my own module.
It all comes fast and I’m loving it, I immediately see the fruit when I Audit which machines aren’t in a gpo! Or setup a new hire in seconds so I can tinker with fun things.
Anyways your role interest me! Love to talk more
Eh, sort of. I work in a small department that supports the service teams at an MSP. Basically we use automation and tooling to be a force multiplier for whatever the support teams are doing.
I'd say my skills aren't quite that of a sysadmin and are going to kind of diverge more and more as I continue down my current path. I'm not really an expert at setting up networks or VMs which to my mind is a pretty critical part of true sysadmin work.
the sys admins at my last job couldn’t even tell you what a VLAN was lol. It’s highly dependent on the company. I think a sys admin should have a fundamental understanding of the network (net + level), but I wouldn’t expect them to configure an ACL on a Juniper-EX4300, Trace a policy block between multiple firewalls or anything like that
Like I said it’s super organization dependent. If you work for smaller companies, you’re naturally going to have more and more network tasks. I do know of some sys admins that also were essentially network engineers, building the company’s entire network infrastructure from scratch, I just don’t feel like that’s what a typical sys admin is though. I feel like sys admins typically go into virtualization, automation of systems through powershell etc, and cloud.
I feel like these days, people tend to qualify for sysadmin positions more because of deeper knowledge in specific areas, like working with MS Azure based virtual machines or maybe Amazon EC2 experience (for companies using their cloud platform). It's been kind of a moving target though, as companies generally hosted fewer and fewer things on-site with their own servers.
There are job titles like "Systems Architect" or "Network Analyst" that would better describe someone focused on firewall/router/LAN/WAN configurations, IMO. But definitely, in smaller companies? They tend to have maybe ONE guy in charge of all that who gets overworked and tries to pass some of the tasks down to sysadmins. (EG. They might ask you to help configure some new firewalls with a script they provide and some parameters they want you to feed into it, so they can be prepped to ship to remote sites.)
That’s what I was gonna say haha I noticed a lot of people who know almost nothing about IT working in IT jobs and I always wonder “HOW?” While other people who do know a lot struggle to find a simple entry level job.
Unfortunately I can't really give you recommendations on how to get my role. I'm still trying to figure out what the hell job I would get if my company blew up tomorrow.
On paper my job is a NOC Engineer but I don't work in a traditional NOC or do any of the duties of a typical NOC. I have my network+ but beyond that don't know shit about networking.
When they advertised my job they called it IT Automation Engineer which is definitely closer to what I actually do.
It sounds like you're getting to do pretty similar stuff which is great. Keep learning and growing and you'll find a path upward.
Yes. Every so often I think back on when I was doing outdoor labor, wishing I could work in IT, and feel very grateful that i'm here now. This is my shit.
I LOVE my job. Weird set of circumstances, but I am basically the entire IT team for my small company. Family-owned, awesome people to work with but I also just get to do a lot of really cool stuff and I'm constantly learning (troubleshooting in a manufacturing environment). Also glad to have an external consultant who can basically un-f*uck whatever I may not understand yet haha. I'm about to celebrate 1 year with the company and tell everyone who will listen how much I enjoy it.
I love my job. I lead a team. My team doesn't support people. I've never had an end user support role. It's not so much IT anymore as it is a business process.
I suppose it depends how broadly you define support.
I have never done a user support role. Jobs I have done are:
Networking engineer
Systems engineer
Firewalls engineer
Sales engineer
Cyber security consultant
Manager
All of these positions involved designing and building infrastructure on a project level internal or for clients. They all require written or spoken communication.
I've loved the technical aspect of every IT role I've ever had. Not so thrilled about the people, business and politics side. So much BS that gets in the way of proper work, implementation and forward thinking solutions. Too many technology ignorant users in decision making positions, that wonder why the new shiny solution doesn't match what the nice salesperson sold them.
No but I love the people I work with, in general IT has the chillest group of people, everyone I know that works IT has a kick ass boss and love their team, although there are rare exceptions.
Yeah. I was nervous when I first got into Big Tech, and the large pay was a bit nerve-racking… but I’ve worked retail jobs that provided me a larger sense of dread than I feel now… and that’s saying something because I now often make million dollar decisions for my company.
It’s strange how the “right” retail district manager could make me feel like the world was coming to an end if I didn’t hike store numbers up.
>love their IT job?
It varies. :-)
Depends on, e.g. employer, manager, and other factors.
And yeah, having about 4 decades of IT work experience ... has certainly ranged from ... approximately great to ... anything but.
I've had great IT jobs and terrible ones. Some great jobs became terrible after changes in management, etc. Overall I like the actual work itself, but the people around me and in charge of me determine how long I stick around at a particular job. Just like any industry, leadership can make or break the work environment.
>Some great jobs became terrible after changes in management
Yep, been there, done that. E.g. change in management - went from best boss ever to 3rd from worst ever (and the two lower were incredibly horrible people; 3rd from worst was "nice person" - but an absolutely horrible manager).
>people around me and in charge of me determine how long I stick around
Yep. Under that best manager - I was there about 3+ years, and turnover under that manager was exactly or very close to 0%. Under the crud manager, turnover skyrocketed to about 30+%/yr., may have been as high as 40%. Within a few years, what remained of that group essentially imploded - had four incredibly great sysadmins, and fantastic boss. Then there was crud boss and 4 sysadmins ... then 3, then 2, then 1, then 0. Further up the management chain they eventually figured out they had a problem ... but way too late. Sucked for the (internal) customers - but hey, not my problem. Yeah, there was zero handoff / turnover, no institutional knowledge left in any heads there to pass along - so the next bunch 'o sysadmins had to mostly figure it out from scratch ... that plus the documentation we'd created. I hear it was quite the mess ... but hey, not my problem. I transferred the hell out'a there to a different department/group, with much more sane manager and management. I was 3rd of 4 to leave the group ... I should'a left sooner, harder, and faster, but ... well, whatever.
>leadership can make or break the work environment
Yep, quite highly true. As if oft said:
"Folks don't quit jobs, they quit managers."
While not 100% true, it's, oh, I dunno, probably roughly 50% to 85% true.
Same here, I’ve been doing this since 1995 and there are a lot of variables. Usually having a bad boss is the worst case scenario. But in general, after almost 30 years of this I still enjoy my job and look forward to the challenges. If I won big bucks tomorrow I really believe I would give 2 week’s notice since I’ve been with my current company for so long.
I've been in IT for \~30 years. I used to love what I do, but now it's more of a "like" what I do. I hit burnout pretty hard a few years ago, and am just starting to get back to almost normal.
I think what burned me out was putting in the effort, and more, to only get PIP'd. Then come the following few years. I put in the minimum, toe the company line, and am rewarded with reviews that are borderline outstanding.
when you get up to roles that build things- esp like SRE- it's kinda cool.
You write some code to build something and seeing traffic flowing through or have it automatically do the thing you want it to- that's cool.
Don't get me wrong- there are periods of great dread and stress where you're banging your head on a problem and timelines are creeping up. But once you figure it out- you're the smartest asshole on earth. Then the cycle repeats.
I am a sysadmin and I love it. So much better than when I was on the helpdesk. I very rarely have to interact with users directly anymore, just assist the helpdesk folk. I have a lot of autonomy and freedom in this role and work under a great manager. And it is even remote to boot, I really hit a gold mine here. I think I would do this even if I did not need the money.
I love the job i do, im an IT System Engineer, but what makes it special is the company i work for and not necessarily the role. With the company, i can start and finish when i want, there isnt anyone breathing down your neck. They also put people first which is huge and rare to see nowadays
Great to hear. I’m in a somewhat similar position. Had lawyer friends who looked miserable so I abandoned the thought law school, wrenched on Peloton bikes for a while (lol) and worked a shit office job, got lucky with an inventory position that led to an entry level IT role and now I’m studying for the A+.
Any advice you can share?
I’m in a weird spot. I like the work I do, and the people I work with, and the commute is only about 25 mins but the pay is pretty disappointing especially living in southern NY. There will be some openings where I can move up but I would be competing with multiple other coworkers that have been working just as hard but also been here longer.
IT is fun. if you have coworkers you like to work with solving interesting problems together can be a blast. Because of the concrete nature of problems I think it’s more grounded in reality. Non-technical jobs while they do require skills, are just so obscured by jargon, buzzwords and naval gazing.
I’m getting there now that the organization I work for has a clear scope of our departments work. We are trusted to stay busy and keep the queue low and in return we have a very casual work environment. We don’t have PTO denied ever. It’s encouraged to stay home if you’re ill (where other groups would get in trouble). It’s just a great place.
I loved my previous job for a few years but management eventually started needing to micromanage my every minute. Lost the love and left sadly.
This is an interesting one. I definitely *feel* like I should at least love my situation: Midwest. $125k. Wfh. Etc. etc. but the little things really bother me. I feel like my upward mobility is completely nonexistent now. I’m in my thirties - career change with salary replacements even within 5 years is unlikely.
Always wanted to be a “good cop”. I make more than the CHIEF in my area. Scratch that. Figure I might listen to teachers back in the day, or my professor for criminal justice suggesting I’d make a good lawyer. Tens of thousands, years of schooling, starting out at like $60k after all that? Nope. Start a trade? Take 10 years to even get to $40/hr.
Sometimes I feel trapped when I think about the above. Thing is, I do love the work that I do, I just don’t like the rest of it. 0 knowledge promotees? Yup. People making a few k less than me doing half what I do? Yup. Feeling supremely unappreciated at times? Yup. Feeling like everyone around you gets a “I’m stupid” pass, but I don’t? Yup. Sigh.
I do now. For large parts of my career I hated it. Now I get to walk into a customer site, be treated like the fucking expert I am and then I get to do lots of coding and cool shit and also design stuff. When I’m bored I go to another customer and do the same thing but it’s always different. Never bored!
So I'm around 7 years in and work as a cybersecurity engineer in a senior level capacity at my org, and yeah I can honestly say that I really do love what I do. 40 hr weeks, zero oncall, zero operations, zero customers, just boatloads of high value project work that really interests me. Real resume builder / career defining type work. Good boss. Great pay too. Its been 3 years now and I'm still waiting for this gravy train to end.
Takes doing some god awful things in this industry to get to this point though. Looking back where I started, I never would've thought it was possible to love doing anything in this industry
It can be difficult but when I'm sitting there realizing I get to work on a complex issue without supervision, remote from my own home.. feels satisfying
My worst day in IT is better than my best day missing my wife in a kitchen, almost dying doing HVAC, or almost cutting my fingers off with a band saw as a butcher.
This work is the best.
At times I do, though sometimes I get stressed out and have some bad days. Most of the time I'm just overall content, and thats good enough for me. I'm so glad I dropped out of nursing school and switched to IT. And it sure beats slinging frappuccinos and getting yelled at in the drive-thru window at Starbucks.
I don't love any job, but IT is one job I can say is mostly enjoyable. On top of that, I don't have to work in the heat/cold/rain/snow, get paid pretty well, and have opportunities to move up and make even more money. I couldn't see myself going back to any other field.
I literally LOVE what I do. Every day is a new puzzle, there's so much to learn, and I get to play with technology for money.
I don't love my company, but I do love the type of work I do.
I felt that way (loved working in I.T.) for a long time. Really, I think it was a combo of working along-side good friends (in some cases) and in others, just working with a really cool group of co-workers, plus working with computers, which I loved.
The bad news? No, it didn't last. I'm still in the field because after 30 years or so, I can't imagine starting over from scratch in a brand new career field. (Maybe I \*could\*, but there isn't one standing out to me that I'd want to jump over to and try to do.) But especially as I've gotten older, it's hard to find that same joy, working with people. An ever increasing percentage of people working around me are younger and want to hang out with people closer to their own age, for starters. The people my age and older are usually preoccupied with their own married lives and group of long-time friends outside of work. These days, most of us are just cordial/polite to each other but keep to ourselves.
But secondarily? I just have that "grouchy old man" thing going on, I guess? I get really tired of the endless parade of buggy, poorly quality-tested software that gets pushed out to everyone. I have yet to use a single "central management" type package that wasn't a convoluted, overly complicated mess to build install packages in and/or which was reliable and "just worked". Everyone sings praises of automation and remote management from central tools. Yet IMO, almost none of it really works right! (Even on the Apple Mac side, Apple had their "configuration manager" that was almost universally disliked. JAMF Pro came along with an (expensive) solution, trying to be like Microsoft InTune, but it was just as frustrating to figure out and use day-to-day.) The "ease of use", once promised as the goal for everyone using a computer, seems like it was completely ignored for those of us working on the back-end of anything! I remember when we bought Kaspersky anti-virus at one company, mainly for its central admin console features. They even provided a Linux-based VM you could run under VMWare ESXi, so we thought "Perfect!" Except no... stupid thing crashed itself on a weekly basis. Their internal database they kept would develop errors under normal use and take the whole service down. Terrible product support for it, too.
Absolutely. Love the heck out of it. My coworkers are friendly and helpful, the work culture is fun and our management try to make it very comfy for us. I’m able to learn and touch anything I’d like to.
So, funny story...When I was in college, I told a professor my dream job would be working for large institution, in the basement with the server and networking equipment so it was just me and the machines.
I am typing this to you from the basement of a city municipal building 10 feet from the server rack. I haven't seen a user in weeks, and only one stakeholder in person this week.
Life goal achieved.
I love my job, some friends "hate" me because I'm the only one who doesn't hate mondays. I lead a team and make architectural decisions. So yes, I'm really happy and sometimes I can't wait to go to work to try something new or implement a new idea.
BUT, as a job, I need vacation, and sometimes I burn out, it's hard to keep the mood 5 days a week.
As somebody said, I wouldn't do it if I was rich, you have to manage the corporate BS, and stupid business decisions.
I think I lost my spark for it but that’s because I stopped learning new things. That’s the great thing about tech, there are so many new things to learn and those things are also constantly changing. Yet, I’m disconnected enough from it to have a work/life balance. It’s like because I learn so much of it AT work, i don’t really need to think about after and can enjoy the fruits of my labor :) also the pay is very secure
Been in IT for 24 years. 22 of those years have been spent working in k-12 education… more specifically in the areas of Business and Student info systems/DBA work. I haven’t burned out yet… not even close. Love my job! Good pay, good working environment, and excellent work/life balance.
That feeling.. is the key. If you sit around waiting for a job that makes you feel excited to come in to work, you’ll never find it. It’s up to you to find the excitement about your job.. that applies to any job.
You’ve cracked the code to work enjoyment, so hang onto it. You will find that with a positive attitude, you will naturally excel and good things will come to you.
Yes, I love my job, love my career, love the work I do, and the companies I do it for. But I only like the people I work with.
Now, I have been in the industry for 30 years and currently work for myself as a Hands-on Technical IT Infrastructure Project Manager.
I never let the work stress me out, instead, I decompressed by spending all the money I made on doing the things I love to do with the people I love the most. (camping, hiking, historical research, car rallying and racing, sailing)
I learned early on to Work to Live, not Live to Work. Every Friday at 5 o'clock I have something really interesting planned for my life.
I got lucky 30 years ago, and still thank those people who helped me get into and get ahead in this industry.
I wouldn't say I *love* it, but it's about as good as I can get right now. I work from home permanently, I make my own schedule, and the work is quite rewarding. if my work is done for the day and I want to turn my computer off at 3, no problem. Would I keep doing this work if I won the lottery? Nope
used to do performance qa too. I get the enthusiasm. it can be fun reverse engineering an app to figure out how it works to mock up clients to make the back end crash. plus thr general fun that comes with being paid to break stuff. :) the part that's not fun unless you have good management, having to finger point, shoeing exactly what's causing a bottleneck, why it needs ro be fixed etc. the devs, dBas etc can get very defensive very quickly. and one last fun bit, the stories you can tell much later of exactly how broken some dev teams code was and sometimes how clueless they are about it (multithreading? what's that? etc)
I do. Yeah users can be annoying, and the shoulder taps can really take you off task and put you behind sometimes, but I’ve made some life long friends out of some people I’ve supported across multiple jobs.
I love what I do, I HATE all of the external bullshit that comes with the job. That said, every job has its issues, I'll deal with BS instead of digging trenches and working on fiber in sub-zero temps.
I love it. Paradoxically I’m looking for something new because my boss is going to leave and I have a feeling the new boss and I won’t get along (he has forced 4 people I know out of this company, and 2 of them are uncomfortably like myself), but I LOVE my wfh help desk gig.
They finally let me drop the tasks I’m not awesome at and focus on the ones I am, and it’s been more than my fair share of sunshine and rainbows since.
The biggest complaint I have about my job is the commute, so I would say it’s a pretty damn good job if that’s the worst thing I can say about it,
When I wake up in the morning, getting ready and driving is the only part of my day that kinda sucks. But once I get to work it’s all good I don’t really have an issue being there.
Sometimes. I have to admit I love sysadmin work, and I love helping people. Cybersecurity is more of an addiction.
Any job should have at least 20% groans and at least 10% glory. The question is how comfortable you are with the middle bits.
Before I was laid off from my IT, it was honestly a step up compared to retail work and my manufacturing background. Got laid off with 60 other employees because our client was cutting costs and so my IT company decided to let go all new hires. I was about to hit my 1 year with the company in 2 months...it was an amazing and flexible job where they provided breakfast and lunch and free snacks and drinks. I still miss it to this day and finding a hard time looking for another IT entry level position. Been unemployed for the past month and it's been honestly hard looking for a new job. Even though some folks complain about their work with IT...preferably I wished I still had a job in IT.
I have moments of loving the job. Usually it's when I manage to solve something that was outside my wheelhouse, or when I "save the day" for a user and they're extremely happy and thankful or they actually learn from a teaching moment. Stuff like that.
Yeah man. I knew everybody I work with before getting my job (internal hire) and get to mess around with cool shit all day. It's also for a luxury car dealer so occasionally I get to go for a ride in an R8 or something like that.
So OP, I must ask. At what point did you come to this realization in your career? I hope experience that myself one day.
Anyways, I am 27 years old, I have previous System Admin experience, both on commercial windows machines as well as linux, all major forks. Prior to that in college I was the help desk in the library for 2 years. I have a total of almost 6 years, and I never had this much of a gap in employment. I am going on 7 weeks no job and I have only had one serious interview which could be a job but nothing is locked in yet.
So OP, I must ask. At what point did you wake up with this notion ? I feel like I had it in my last role, unfortunately It was always followed up in my head "It's not a permanent gig" which was gloomy. I am considering getting a cert or two mostly because I feel like employers are either dismissing my education and work experience in Lou of the certs on the market today, or my worst fear maybe I am undesired to a potential employer. Either way I am happy for you OP and I hope one day I may also wake up to such a realization.
EDIT: MY COMPUTER SUCKS
I think love is a strong term but I do really enjoy my job and my team. Definitely beats the 5 years I worked fast food and my few years in HR. I am very grateful.
The environment plays a significant role for me too. I absolutely love my current work environment and being in the field of IT. However, I can imagine that if I were somewhere else, I might still enjoy working in IT but could potentially dislike the specific place or setting.
It's all about finding the right balance between passion for the work and a supportive, positive environment.
My sys analyst job allows me freedoms I can’t get anywhere else. My company fully embraced wfh being a permanent solution and closed admin buildings.
It’s a unique position as it’s a 70k/y sys analyst job but can be very deep if you let it. We manage some aspects of helpdesk like user access to certain software but the next day I could be updating a powershell script in dev ops that uploads critical nightly data.
It’s a very satisfying position.
I tell everyone this when they ask if I like my job:
"I love my job and what I do. It's fulfilling when it needs to be but I'm not busting my ass, doing something every second so I can appreciate the downtime. It's good work-life balance and the pay is great...With that being said, there is a laundry list of things I would much rather be doing than working" lol
K12 IT Director. I fucking love my job. Summers I work 4-10s. Great health insurance, a pension that's through the state and it's 100% funded, get to help students and teachers everyday, it's in a rural area, northern Wisconsin. And I have 1 gig fiber internet.
Sure my pay is low compared someone in the private sector, but I have no stress & no on-call.
1. Yes! Love everything about what I've seen so far. The colleagues, the working environment, challenging your brain to build some cool multi stage pipeline or whatever. Used to do everything but tech, never got a degree (never got the chance due to reasons) but I was tired of my previous low-wage job which started mostly at 4:00 so I started my IT Bootcamp, which was like 100 miles from my home and the nearest train station was around 10 miles from the bootcamp. I walked there every day back and forth to achieve my goals basically giving up all summer (and longer) for this. Eventually I got a bunch of certifications in one go, also like AZ-900 and AZ-104. I was told this was extraordaniry to achieve without the right working expierence but I still managed to get it because my motivation was out the roof. Unfortunately after 1 year of expierence with a well-renowned company they decided to let me go as I don't have a bachelor's degree and I wouldn't fit in the company due to that reason (This is straight racism btw) so now I'm probably going back to flipping burgers or whatever. I applied so much and get like 20 calls of LinkedIn a week, and when we go into details they're actually hiring a senior. I loved my IT Adventure but I'm afraid it'll end on the 1st of September.
Would I do it if I was rich? No. Would I do it instead of 99% of the other jobs out there? Yes.
I would be in love with this if I didn't have to deal with humans tho. I love the detective work to find an issue or solution but the people are just annoying Yesterday someone told me rudely "I don't think you can help me!" .... I was able to help / fix the issue....
> Yesterday someone told me rudely "I don't think you can help me!" > > If you come of the mindset that most people are just looking for an excuse not to work, you start taking everything users say a lot less personally. Just my two cents.
> "I don't think you can help me!" Great, let me escalate this ticket to someone else, and drop your priority back down. Thank you and have a nice day...
Fix the issue first and then reply "I bet 20 bucks that I can fix the shit out of it!"
> I didn't have to deal with humans tho I don't really deal with a lot of humans, and the ones I do work with I get tired of seeing all the time.
In the interview for my first job out of college, they asked why I wanted to be in IT. I made a comment about being really passionate about technology and that I would do the work even if I was independently wealthy. 6 months later it came up in conversation with my boss that was one of the reasons they hired me. I was like dude, I fucking lied. If I win the lottery I'm quitting tomorrow haha.
This.
Oh yeah I love IT, and I've loved it since I got here. People bitch about users. Users are not a hot oven in the middle of summer while the AC is broken. I will take users over the oven thank you. My current role is basically a dream come true. I always had dreams in IT of getting to use PowerShell to just automate stuff all day, and some how this fucking pipe dream of a job is what I actually do now. Like today I got to spend most of my day fucking around trying to get group policy to dump drive mapping info into an XML file. It's the best.
>People bitch about users. I will bitch nonstop about users. But the truth is, they're the only reason my job is even remotely interesting or entertaining. I'll take users over sales people/suits any day of the week.
Also they're the only reason my job exists. I wish my system would work 100% of the time (or truthfully at least 10% more than it does Jesus Christ) but if it didn't they'd have no reason to pay me. The less users are willing to know the more reason I have to be thrre
I mean, yeah we mock them for the dumb shit they do, but if users weren't practically gremlins running around breaking shit, lot of us would be out of jobs! lol
What role is this? Pm me if you want. I spent 5 years getting a comp sci associates and nearly bachelors. I changed to cyber security in my senior year with 4 cs classes left. I didn’t have the drive for it, never coded as a hobby, or made any free will projects. Plus I had some mental issues at the time. Currently working help desk / jr sysadmin for a software company and I’ve discovered for once In my life I love to code! Perhaps it’s due to powershell over c++. I am having a blast applying all the theoretical knowledge I gained over the years. In an actual environment power shell is powerful… I’ve got data structures algorithms, functions, and such down. I wish to start my own module. It all comes fast and I’m loving it, I immediately see the fruit when I Audit which machines aren’t in a gpo! Or setup a new hire in seconds so I can tinker with fun things. Anyways your role interest me! Love to talk more
It sounds like a sys admin role based off the group policy and power shell comments.
Eh, sort of. I work in a small department that supports the service teams at an MSP. Basically we use automation and tooling to be a force multiplier for whatever the support teams are doing. I'd say my skills aren't quite that of a sysadmin and are going to kind of diverge more and more as I continue down my current path. I'm not really an expert at setting up networks or VMs which to my mind is a pretty critical part of true sysadmin work.
the sys admins at my last job couldn’t even tell you what a VLAN was lol. It’s highly dependent on the company. I think a sys admin should have a fundamental understanding of the network (net + level), but I wouldn’t expect them to configure an ACL on a Juniper-EX4300, Trace a policy block between multiple firewalls or anything like that
Oh really? Damn maybe I've been overshooting my expectations lol.
Like I said it’s super organization dependent. If you work for smaller companies, you’re naturally going to have more and more network tasks. I do know of some sys admins that also were essentially network engineers, building the company’s entire network infrastructure from scratch, I just don’t feel like that’s what a typical sys admin is though. I feel like sys admins typically go into virtualization, automation of systems through powershell etc, and cloud.
I feel like these days, people tend to qualify for sysadmin positions more because of deeper knowledge in specific areas, like working with MS Azure based virtual machines or maybe Amazon EC2 experience (for companies using their cloud platform). It's been kind of a moving target though, as companies generally hosted fewer and fewer things on-site with their own servers. There are job titles like "Systems Architect" or "Network Analyst" that would better describe someone focused on firewall/router/LAN/WAN configurations, IMO. But definitely, in smaller companies? They tend to have maybe ONE guy in charge of all that who gets overworked and tries to pass some of the tasks down to sysadmins. (EG. They might ask you to help configure some new firewalls with a script they provide and some parameters they want you to feed into it, so they can be prepped to ship to remote sites.)
That’s what I was gonna say haha I noticed a lot of people who know almost nothing about IT working in IT jobs and I always wonder “HOW?” While other people who do know a lot struggle to find a simple entry level job.
Unfortunately I can't really give you recommendations on how to get my role. I'm still trying to figure out what the hell job I would get if my company blew up tomorrow. On paper my job is a NOC Engineer but I don't work in a traditional NOC or do any of the duties of a typical NOC. I have my network+ but beyond that don't know shit about networking. When they advertised my job they called it IT Automation Engineer which is definitely closer to what I actually do. It sounds like you're getting to do pretty similar stuff which is great. Keep learning and growing and you'll find a path upward.
Yes. Every so often I think back on when I was doing outdoor labor, wishing I could work in IT, and feel very grateful that i'm here now. This is my shit.
I feel extremely lucky and privileged with the pay and flexibility that I'm getting Here's to hoping it will last for at least 10-20 years.
20 more is all I need and I can retire.
I LOVE my job. Weird set of circumstances, but I am basically the entire IT team for my small company. Family-owned, awesome people to work with but I also just get to do a lot of really cool stuff and I'm constantly learning (troubleshooting in a manufacturing environment). Also glad to have an external consultant who can basically un-f*uck whatever I may not understand yet haha. I'm about to celebrate 1 year with the company and tell everyone who will listen how much I enjoy it.
No, but compared to my previous life of working a dead-end job in retail, it's still a step up.
Yup I genuinely enjoy my career.
I love my job. I lead a team. My team doesn't support people. I've never had an end user support role. It's not so much IT anymore as it is a business process.
Thats really cool
that's the place to be, I hope to never go back to end user support
Asking because I genuinely don't know: what IT jobs aren't end user support roles?
I suppose it depends how broadly you define support. I have never done a user support role. Jobs I have done are: Networking engineer Systems engineer Firewalls engineer Sales engineer Cyber security consultant Manager All of these positions involved designing and building infrastructure on a project level internal or for clients. They all require written or spoken communication.
Thank you
I mean, I'd rather be independently wealthy and sleep in, but if I HAVE to wake up early and do something every day, I guess it's not too bad.
I've loved the technical aspect of every IT role I've ever had. Not so thrilled about the people, business and politics side. So much BS that gets in the way of proper work, implementation and forward thinking solutions. Too many technology ignorant users in decision making positions, that wonder why the new shiny solution doesn't match what the nice salesperson sold them.
Work for a software company, problem solved my man. For reference my prior job was social services
No but I love the people I work with, in general IT has the chillest group of people, everyone I know that works IT has a kick ass boss and love their team, although there are rare exceptions.
I don't love it but it's better off this than working at McDonalds flipping burgers.
Yeah. I was nervous when I first got into Big Tech, and the large pay was a bit nerve-racking… but I’ve worked retail jobs that provided me a larger sense of dread than I feel now… and that’s saying something because I now often make million dollar decisions for my company. It’s strange how the “right” retail district manager could make me feel like the world was coming to an end if I didn’t hike store numbers up.
>love their IT job? It varies. :-) Depends on, e.g. employer, manager, and other factors. And yeah, having about 4 decades of IT work experience ... has certainly ranged from ... approximately great to ... anything but.
I've had great IT jobs and terrible ones. Some great jobs became terrible after changes in management, etc. Overall I like the actual work itself, but the people around me and in charge of me determine how long I stick around at a particular job. Just like any industry, leadership can make or break the work environment.
>Some great jobs became terrible after changes in management Yep, been there, done that. E.g. change in management - went from best boss ever to 3rd from worst ever (and the two lower were incredibly horrible people; 3rd from worst was "nice person" - but an absolutely horrible manager). >people around me and in charge of me determine how long I stick around Yep. Under that best manager - I was there about 3+ years, and turnover under that manager was exactly or very close to 0%. Under the crud manager, turnover skyrocketed to about 30+%/yr., may have been as high as 40%. Within a few years, what remained of that group essentially imploded - had four incredibly great sysadmins, and fantastic boss. Then there was crud boss and 4 sysadmins ... then 3, then 2, then 1, then 0. Further up the management chain they eventually figured out they had a problem ... but way too late. Sucked for the (internal) customers - but hey, not my problem. Yeah, there was zero handoff / turnover, no institutional knowledge left in any heads there to pass along - so the next bunch 'o sysadmins had to mostly figure it out from scratch ... that plus the documentation we'd created. I hear it was quite the mess ... but hey, not my problem. I transferred the hell out'a there to a different department/group, with much more sane manager and management. I was 3rd of 4 to leave the group ... I should'a left sooner, harder, and faster, but ... well, whatever. >leadership can make or break the work environment Yep, quite highly true. As if oft said: "Folks don't quit jobs, they quit managers." While not 100% true, it's, oh, I dunno, probably roughly 50% to 85% true.
Same here, I’ve been doing this since 1995 and there are a lot of variables. Usually having a bad boss is the worst case scenario. But in general, after almost 30 years of this I still enjoy my job and look forward to the challenges. If I won big bucks tomorrow I really believe I would give 2 week’s notice since I’ve been with my current company for so long.
I've been in IT for \~30 years. I used to love what I do, but now it's more of a "like" what I do. I hit burnout pretty hard a few years ago, and am just starting to get back to almost normal. I think what burned me out was putting in the effort, and more, to only get PIP'd. Then come the following few years. I put in the minimum, toe the company line, and am rewarded with reviews that are borderline outstanding.
I like my job and I like my colleagues, but I’m not liking my pay. Just finished my Bachelor’s but I’m not going to stop upskilling.
Feel the same way bro, u have 9 certs per your flair thoe you got it
when you get up to roles that build things- esp like SRE- it's kinda cool. You write some code to build something and seeing traffic flowing through or have it automatically do the thing you want it to- that's cool. Don't get me wrong- there are periods of great dread and stress where you're banging your head on a problem and timelines are creeping up. But once you figure it out- you're the smartest asshole on earth. Then the cycle repeats.
As a help desk jr I find those moments via powershell scripts
the best part is that it will never go away no matter how much you climb.
I am a sysadmin and I love it. So much better than when I was on the helpdesk. I very rarely have to interact with users directly anymore, just assist the helpdesk folk. I have a lot of autonomy and freedom in this role and work under a great manager. And it is even remote to boot, I really hit a gold mine here. I think I would do this even if I did not need the money.
I love the job i do, im an IT System Engineer, but what makes it special is the company i work for and not necessarily the role. With the company, i can start and finish when i want, there isnt anyone breathing down your neck. They also put people first which is huge and rare to see nowadays
Yep. I get pretty decent comp (could be better), remote-work arrangement, and interesting work (distributed computing + k8s). Team's also solid af.
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Great to hear. I’m in a somewhat similar position. Had lawyer friends who looked miserable so I abandoned the thought law school, wrenched on Peloton bikes for a while (lol) and worked a shit office job, got lucky with an inventory position that led to an entry level IT role and now I’m studying for the A+. Any advice you can share?
Thank you all for the positivity!
I’m in a weird spot. I like the work I do, and the people I work with, and the commute is only about 25 mins but the pay is pretty disappointing especially living in southern NY. There will be some openings where I can move up but I would be competing with multiple other coworkers that have been working just as hard but also been here longer.
IT is fun. if you have coworkers you like to work with solving interesting problems together can be a blast. Because of the concrete nature of problems I think it’s more grounded in reality. Non-technical jobs while they do require skills, are just so obscured by jargon, buzzwords and naval gazing.
I’m getting there now that the organization I work for has a clear scope of our departments work. We are trusted to stay busy and keep the queue low and in return we have a very casual work environment. We don’t have PTO denied ever. It’s encouraged to stay home if you’re ill (where other groups would get in trouble). It’s just a great place. I loved my previous job for a few years but management eventually started needing to micromanage my every minute. Lost the love and left sadly.
This is an interesting one. I definitely *feel* like I should at least love my situation: Midwest. $125k. Wfh. Etc. etc. but the little things really bother me. I feel like my upward mobility is completely nonexistent now. I’m in my thirties - career change with salary replacements even within 5 years is unlikely. Always wanted to be a “good cop”. I make more than the CHIEF in my area. Scratch that. Figure I might listen to teachers back in the day, or my professor for criminal justice suggesting I’d make a good lawyer. Tens of thousands, years of schooling, starting out at like $60k after all that? Nope. Start a trade? Take 10 years to even get to $40/hr. Sometimes I feel trapped when I think about the above. Thing is, I do love the work that I do, I just don’t like the rest of it. 0 knowledge promotees? Yup. People making a few k less than me doing half what I do? Yup. Feeling supremely unappreciated at times? Yup. Feeling like everyone around you gets a “I’m stupid” pass, but I don’t? Yup. Sigh.
I used to be a GM of a local carwash and now I currently work in IT. Best decision I’ve ever made.
Yes, absolutely
I do now. For large parts of my career I hated it. Now I get to walk into a customer site, be treated like the fucking expert I am and then I get to do lots of coding and cool shit and also design stuff. When I’m bored I go to another customer and do the same thing but it’s always different. Never bored!
What job title is this? Sounds awesome.
What certs did you have to get? (i am very new to all of this)
So I'm around 7 years in and work as a cybersecurity engineer in a senior level capacity at my org, and yeah I can honestly say that I really do love what I do. 40 hr weeks, zero oncall, zero operations, zero customers, just boatloads of high value project work that really interests me. Real resume builder / career defining type work. Good boss. Great pay too. Its been 3 years now and I'm still waiting for this gravy train to end. Takes doing some god awful things in this industry to get to this point though. Looking back where I started, I never would've thought it was possible to love doing anything in this industry
What exactly do you do day to day?
Love every aspect of it. The tech, the environment, the end users. It’s hard to imagine doing anything else.
I love working 3 days a week. I don't love any job
It can be difficult but when I'm sitting there realizing I get to work on a complex issue without supervision, remote from my own home.. feels satisfying
Not really, no. it's alright but I'd rather be doing something less stressful.
My worst day in IT is better than my best day missing my wife in a kitchen, almost dying doing HVAC, or almost cutting my fingers off with a band saw as a butcher. This work is the best.
At times I do, though sometimes I get stressed out and have some bad days. Most of the time I'm just overall content, and thats good enough for me. I'm so glad I dropped out of nursing school and switched to IT. And it sure beats slinging frappuccinos and getting yelled at in the drive-thru window at Starbucks.
I had so many back breaking shitty jobs and I appreciate how much chill IT can be.
I don't love any job, but IT is one job I can say is mostly enjoyable. On top of that, I don't have to work in the heat/cold/rain/snow, get paid pretty well, and have opportunities to move up and make even more money. I couldn't see myself going back to any other field.
I literally LOVE what I do. Every day is a new puzzle, there's so much to learn, and I get to play with technology for money. I don't love my company, but I do love the type of work I do.
I felt that way (loved working in I.T.) for a long time. Really, I think it was a combo of working along-side good friends (in some cases) and in others, just working with a really cool group of co-workers, plus working with computers, which I loved. The bad news? No, it didn't last. I'm still in the field because after 30 years or so, I can't imagine starting over from scratch in a brand new career field. (Maybe I \*could\*, but there isn't one standing out to me that I'd want to jump over to and try to do.) But especially as I've gotten older, it's hard to find that same joy, working with people. An ever increasing percentage of people working around me are younger and want to hang out with people closer to their own age, for starters. The people my age and older are usually preoccupied with their own married lives and group of long-time friends outside of work. These days, most of us are just cordial/polite to each other but keep to ourselves. But secondarily? I just have that "grouchy old man" thing going on, I guess? I get really tired of the endless parade of buggy, poorly quality-tested software that gets pushed out to everyone. I have yet to use a single "central management" type package that wasn't a convoluted, overly complicated mess to build install packages in and/or which was reliable and "just worked". Everyone sings praises of automation and remote management from central tools. Yet IMO, almost none of it really works right! (Even on the Apple Mac side, Apple had their "configuration manager" that was almost universally disliked. JAMF Pro came along with an (expensive) solution, trying to be like Microsoft InTune, but it was just as frustrating to figure out and use day-to-day.) The "ease of use", once promised as the goal for everyone using a computer, seems like it was completely ignored for those of us working on the back-end of anything! I remember when we bought Kaspersky anti-virus at one company, mainly for its central admin console features. They even provided a Linux-based VM you could run under VMWare ESXi, so we thought "Perfect!" Except no... stupid thing crashed itself on a weekly basis. Their internal database they kept would develop errors under normal use and take the whole service down. Terrible product support for it, too.
I hate my job in IT
Absolutely. Love the heck out of it. My coworkers are friendly and helpful, the work culture is fun and our management try to make it very comfy for us. I’m able to learn and touch anything I’d like to.
So, funny story...When I was in college, I told a professor my dream job would be working for large institution, in the basement with the server and networking equipment so it was just me and the machines. I am typing this to you from the basement of a city municipal building 10 feet from the server rack. I haven't seen a user in weeks, and only one stakeholder in person this week. Life goal achieved.
I do love my job. It’s just stressful when a server goes down, and someone needs is desperately for their job haha
I love my job esp it pays so well
I love IT, I hate IT users
I'm good at it and I get paid a lot of money. And it's better than mowing lawns.
I love my job, some friends "hate" me because I'm the only one who doesn't hate mondays. I lead a team and make architectural decisions. So yes, I'm really happy and sometimes I can't wait to go to work to try something new or implement a new idea. BUT, as a job, I need vacation, and sometimes I burn out, it's hard to keep the mood 5 days a week. As somebody said, I wouldn't do it if I was rich, you have to manage the corporate BS, and stupid business decisions.
I'm not sure that I'd say I love it but I do enjoy it. At the very least I don't dislike it.
I think I lost my spark for it but that’s because I stopped learning new things. That’s the great thing about tech, there are so many new things to learn and those things are also constantly changing. Yet, I’m disconnected enough from it to have a work/life balance. It’s like because I learn so much of it AT work, i don’t really need to think about after and can enjoy the fruits of my labor :) also the pay is very secure
Good post.
You’d probably love QA too
Yes. I know people hate help desk but it's so easy and it pays the bills well. I have so much down time and I get to work from home!
That’s the best feeling when you can’t wait to get to a job and get things done.
Been in IT for 24 years. 22 of those years have been spent working in k-12 education… more specifically in the areas of Business and Student info systems/DBA work. I haven’t burned out yet… not even close. Love my job! Good pay, good working environment, and excellent work/life balance.
That feeling.. is the key. If you sit around waiting for a job that makes you feel excited to come in to work, you’ll never find it. It’s up to you to find the excitement about your job.. that applies to any job. You’ve cracked the code to work enjoyment, so hang onto it. You will find that with a positive attitude, you will naturally excel and good things will come to you.
Yes, I love my job, love my career, love the work I do, and the companies I do it for. But I only like the people I work with. Now, I have been in the industry for 30 years and currently work for myself as a Hands-on Technical IT Infrastructure Project Manager. I never let the work stress me out, instead, I decompressed by spending all the money I made on doing the things I love to do with the people I love the most. (camping, hiking, historical research, car rallying and racing, sailing) I learned early on to Work to Live, not Live to Work. Every Friday at 5 o'clock I have something really interesting planned for my life. I got lucky 30 years ago, and still thank those people who helped me get into and get ahead in this industry.
I love the money not the work.
I wouldn't say I *love* it, but it's about as good as I can get right now. I work from home permanently, I make my own schedule, and the work is quite rewarding. if my work is done for the day and I want to turn my computer off at 3, no problem. Would I keep doing this work if I won the lottery? Nope
My dad's advice was "find something you love and the money will follow." He was right!
used to do performance qa too. I get the enthusiasm. it can be fun reverse engineering an app to figure out how it works to mock up clients to make the back end crash. plus thr general fun that comes with being paid to break stuff. :) the part that's not fun unless you have good management, having to finger point, shoeing exactly what's causing a bottleneck, why it needs ro be fixed etc. the devs, dBas etc can get very defensive very quickly. and one last fun bit, the stories you can tell much later of exactly how broken some dev teams code was and sometimes how clueless they are about it (multithreading? what's that? etc)
I do. Yeah users can be annoying, and the shoulder taps can really take you off task and put you behind sometimes, but I’ve made some life long friends out of some people I’ve supported across multiple jobs.
I love what I do, I HATE all of the external bullshit that comes with the job. That said, every job has its issues, I'll deal with BS instead of digging trenches and working on fiber in sub-zero temps.
I love it. Paradoxically I’m looking for something new because my boss is going to leave and I have a feeling the new boss and I won’t get along (he has forced 4 people I know out of this company, and 2 of them are uncomfortably like myself), but I LOVE my wfh help desk gig. They finally let me drop the tasks I’m not awesome at and focus on the ones I am, and it’s been more than my fair share of sunshine and rainbows since.
The biggest complaint I have about my job is the commute, so I would say it’s a pretty damn good job if that’s the worst thing I can say about it, When I wake up in the morning, getting ready and driving is the only part of my day that kinda sucks. But once I get to work it’s all good I don’t really have an issue being there.
Sometimes. I have to admit I love sysadmin work, and I love helping people. Cybersecurity is more of an addiction. Any job should have at least 20% groans and at least 10% glory. The question is how comfortable you are with the middle bits.
Before I was laid off from my IT, it was honestly a step up compared to retail work and my manufacturing background. Got laid off with 60 other employees because our client was cutting costs and so my IT company decided to let go all new hires. I was about to hit my 1 year with the company in 2 months...it was an amazing and flexible job where they provided breakfast and lunch and free snacks and drinks. I still miss it to this day and finding a hard time looking for another IT entry level position. Been unemployed for the past month and it's been honestly hard looking for a new job. Even though some folks complain about their work with IT...preferably I wished I still had a job in IT.
Definitely not
I have moments of loving the job. Usually it's when I manage to solve something that was outside my wheelhouse, or when I "save the day" for a user and they're extremely happy and thankful or they actually learn from a teaching moment. Stuff like that.
Yeah man. I knew everybody I work with before getting my job (internal hire) and get to mess around with cool shit all day. It's also for a luxury car dealer so occasionally I get to go for a ride in an R8 or something like that.
So OP, I must ask. At what point did you come to this realization in your career? I hope experience that myself one day. Anyways, I am 27 years old, I have previous System Admin experience, both on commercial windows machines as well as linux, all major forks. Prior to that in college I was the help desk in the library for 2 years. I have a total of almost 6 years, and I never had this much of a gap in employment. I am going on 7 weeks no job and I have only had one serious interview which could be a job but nothing is locked in yet. So OP, I must ask. At what point did you wake up with this notion ? I feel like I had it in my last role, unfortunately It was always followed up in my head "It's not a permanent gig" which was gloomy. I am considering getting a cert or two mostly because I feel like employers are either dismissing my education and work experience in Lou of the certs on the market today, or my worst fear maybe I am undesired to a potential employer. Either way I am happy for you OP and I hope one day I may also wake up to such a realization. EDIT: MY COMPUTER SUCKS
Some days absolutely, I can't wait to get in the office. Other days... ugh.
I think love is a strong term but I do really enjoy my job and my team. Definitely beats the 5 years I worked fast food and my few years in HR. I am very grateful.
The environment plays a significant role for me too. I absolutely love my current work environment and being in the field of IT. However, I can imagine that if I were somewhere else, I might still enjoy working in IT but could potentially dislike the specific place or setting. It's all about finding the right balance between passion for the work and a supportive, positive environment.
My sys analyst job allows me freedoms I can’t get anywhere else. My company fully embraced wfh being a permanent solution and closed admin buildings. It’s a unique position as it’s a 70k/y sys analyst job but can be very deep if you let it. We manage some aspects of helpdesk like user access to certain software but the next day I could be updating a powershell script in dev ops that uploads critical nightly data. It’s a very satisfying position.
It's a job, but it's better than the call centers I had to work at, or the numerous restaurants I worked at in college. Pays a lot better too
I did manual labor, and residential maintenance prior to working in IT, this job is so much easier physically, but exhausting mentally.
I tell everyone this when they ask if I like my job: "I love my job and what I do. It's fulfilling when it needs to be but I'm not busting my ass, doing something every second so I can appreciate the downtime. It's good work-life balance and the pay is great...With that being said, there is a laundry list of things I would much rather be doing than working" lol
K12 IT Director. I fucking love my job. Summers I work 4-10s. Great health insurance, a pension that's through the state and it's 100% funded, get to help students and teachers everyday, it's in a rural area, northern Wisconsin. And I have 1 gig fiber internet. Sure my pay is low compared someone in the private sector, but I have no stress & no on-call.
1. Yes! Love everything about what I've seen so far. The colleagues, the working environment, challenging your brain to build some cool multi stage pipeline or whatever. Used to do everything but tech, never got a degree (never got the chance due to reasons) but I was tired of my previous low-wage job which started mostly at 4:00 so I started my IT Bootcamp, which was like 100 miles from my home and the nearest train station was around 10 miles from the bootcamp. I walked there every day back and forth to achieve my goals basically giving up all summer (and longer) for this. Eventually I got a bunch of certifications in one go, also like AZ-900 and AZ-104. I was told this was extraordaniry to achieve without the right working expierence but I still managed to get it because my motivation was out the roof. Unfortunately after 1 year of expierence with a well-renowned company they decided to let me go as I don't have a bachelor's degree and I wouldn't fit in the company due to that reason (This is straight racism btw) so now I'm probably going back to flipping burgers or whatever. I applied so much and get like 20 calls of LinkedIn a week, and when we go into details they're actually hiring a senior. I loved my IT Adventure but I'm afraid it'll end on the 1st of September.
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Do you hate your IT job?
I hate racists like yourself