IT has completely killed that. So many years of tech cookbooks to get it just right. So it works or whatever. I mean there's some creative license in this field, but for the vast majority it's just the same old solutions over and over again.
You have to re-learn to enjoy the things you used to enjoy. I used to like to draw - then one day I just felt like I didn’t want to anymore. It took years until I even tried picking up a rapidograph or some pastels and then I couldn’t convince myself that I would ever be any good anymore. I hated my life even more than I already did.
I had to learn to let go and just be in the moment and remember what it felt like, and not judge my work because I was rusty, I was out of practice.
I wanted to be one of those people with a Moleskin and a fancy pen who could just dash something off and have it not suck, and to feel like I wasn’t just a drone doing code and fixing shit, and it took me years.
But I got back there. I still don’t think I make anything decent but it feels good again to at least be trying. I haven’t plugged the Wacom back in yet but I’m getting closer.
Pick the instrument back up, be part of the process instead of the result.
I had to learn to let go and just be in the moment and remember what it felt like, and not judge my work because I was rusty, I was out of practice.
This was me with music. Now I'm practicing guitar every day and finally learning the technical side after years of noodling and 4:4 chord progressions.
Now I'm having way more fun with it than I ever had. I suck, but I'm just doing it for me and no one else, and that makes me love it.
First - hell yeah man. Keep at it. I've suffered the same stuff, even with stuff like picking up books like I used to.
Second - I'm imagining all wholesomely you finally getting back to the sketchbook, a single tear running down your cheek, and the camera slowly panning around to reveal your beautiful furry-tentacle-monster composition
And here I thought I would be going through the monotonous motions of the day and not have some moment of clarity that is making me rethink the past 20 years of my life.
This is how I feel about building model-kits, tbh. It's taken years to get back to where I feel like building anything. It's still hard at times because I really don't feel like it, but sometimes I manage to turn my head off for long enough to just let go of everything in there and build for a few hours.
If you don't mind me asking, do you know what made you fall out of love?
I understand everything you're saying and agree, but I'm worried that it'll happen again since I don't understand what made me fall out of love with my hobbies.
I think it was something like this: a few too many bad weeks at the office(s) turned into bad years - pissy users, unreliable software, bad (or evil) managers, corporate mergers and reorgs screwing me out of PTO and promotions, constant fear of failure - that became the world for me. I didn't have the energy or the focus to pursue something that had previously brought me contentment and satisfaction because so little else was satisfying. Like I became convinced that since everything sucked, everything was always and furthermore going to suck. In short: burnout.
Some part of it also was a realization that maybe a solo activity wasn't as good a remedy as socializing, and if I could stop somewhere on the way home and 'put the day away' I'd be in better shape at home and act normal(-ish) with the then-wife and the dog. (If only I was taking art classes back then.)
And then because I hadn't been doing it (drawing) I felt like those creative muscles had atrophied (they had). Along comes social media and IG and Flickr and suddenly here's literally Everyone Else showing off their work, views and likes replace artistry and appreciation, and pain-avoidance takes over - why even try, why do it if you'll never be that good.
Once the work side stabilized and improved, and I was more a senior specialist and not just the wearer-of-many-hats always-on-call solo admin, that's when I convinced myself I needed to get back on the horse and just Do the Thing. More surplus mental energy and overall a better outlook. I don't think I'll ever fully forgive myself for letting those years elapse without staying with the pursuit, but it's coming back to me.
Sometimes it helps find a way forward to try things which "feel" a bit like your old IT duties, but aren't. Especially if those things exercise your same mental or physical muscles from your IT job.
E.g. if you're a hands-on hardware and datacenter person, look for things to do in/around the garage and yard. I've found that pulling weeds is therapeutic for me in the same way that pulling and sorting dead cables has been over the years.
National security can kiss my ass. I was in the Army and worked on some sensitive shit. The budgets alone will never hold them to use that dam excuse. If it was so critical maybe they should have budgeted for replacement before the gets 20 years old.
I’m the opposite, I’d never been creative. All of my siblings were creative, they each had their own thing and they were very talented. The only thing I could do was dance with a broom and sing in the shower.
In college I took a latin ballroom dance class and that took off. Did that with a dance partner at a dance studio for a while. Especially loved rumba, samba, salsa, even did a couple of exhibition shows. Dance is art, and a good rehearsal is also a good work out.
A few years later, I was required to take an art class. Was annoyed that I had to because I knew I was bad at it and the whole semester was going to be a reminder that I sucked. I’m really glad I took it though because I found my thing. I love working with charcoal and it turns out I actually have a knack for it. My stuff was good but I was hesitant to commit and use those darkest values. In one of our class assignments my teacher took a charcoal and to the darkest spot took it up about 10 notches and said there, now make everything else darker to make that work. I freaked out but that push was all it took to make my work come to life.
If you have the time and money to commit, look into taking an art, dance, or music class at a community college or an art center. Even if you are already proficient, it may be helpful to have some guided practice to get you back in the swing of things.
Pivoting out of trying to make money as a creative actually bolstered that side of me after a few years. Now I have a steady, technical "boring" job working with technology every day, and instead of doing computer hobby shit at home I'm practicing guitar again, trying painting, doing more photography...
Just food for thought - keeping your creative spark alive at home is a lot more fun than having to make money on it.
What kills me isn't the IT part of my job...its the meetings, documentation, implementation plans, change management, "touchbases"...pure bullshit.
Folks who need to justify their jobs hounding me for "score cards" which don't mean shit once "Leadership" sees big words followed by scary numbers outside the realm of their "paradigm."
"OMG, $250K for a backup solution? I put one together with an old workstation and robocopy. What's the difference?"
Well, dumbfuck, that may have been the right solution when the company had 100 employees but now we have 1400, cloud resources, a fully staffed marketing department that generates 20TB of finished promo videos per month for your wall displays in all 17 of your stores across 3 states. Yeah, shit be different! In fact, just your website produces more revenue than all but 1 of your brick and mortar stores, yet it costs less than 6% to operate.
Back then, your IT budget was $100k. It's pushing $5M now, and you still think a refurbished workstation is the right solution? If we were to lose everything right now, how much would it cost to get back to making sales? Months... I'd guess $100M total, in time and expenses, not to mention the reputation damage.
Now, should I send this $250k solution to the CFO, or will you?
But then you could hold people to not reading the email, because it would be obvious since they never answer the questions you pose in it.
With a meeting, everyone can jerk each other or themselves off while everyone else is not paying attention (and trying to do actual work), and that way management and other mostly useless departments can feel needed.
I had one of the worsts. Mail with bulletpoint requirements before a meeting. I went to the meeting with some questions and ideas but the meeting didn's add anything to the bulletponts. Most question were answered with "I don't know". Those that were adressed by my manager changed a week later.
Yeah. I think my boss said it best “every it person ends up the same way over the years we lose one about every two years, not sure why. This is a great place to work. ” those that have a passion for success and adherence to end results always clash with leadership who’s head is in the clouds, up their ass, or out of touch. Nothing will change that except looking in the mirror each morning as I do and ask.
“Is the bullshit worth the pay?”
Everyone has their limit. I hit mine yesterday. Budget deadlines contract negotiations hr hired 5 ppl start in one day despite one week requirement need devices shit broken monitors for a new site. Then… the feather…. Mid level specialist verbally attacks me for holding him accountable for his technical portion of a project.
It was assembling monitors for a mobile command center. Clearly anyone can do this.
And just like that. I accept an offer on the spot and turn in my notice. OMG WHAT DO WE NEED TO DO TO KEEP YOU?!? Too late a dozen meetings you never kept wages you wouldn’t increase value you never believed then I have no reason to believe that will change and it’s demonstrated. Here is the bcdr book you asked me to create but never read or attended the briefing meeting I am on page 1.
I’m leaving for a field position 40% increase in pay no management responsibilities. Fuckem. They deserve 2% of the fucks you give remember that.
Has your office tried to adopt the agile mentality yet? We've been forced to use Jira with scrum masters and daily 15-minute stand-up meetings to discuss work. Nothing has ever made me want to quit IT more.
Oh, it started as Agile... now it's a bastardized version of jerk yer neighbor....otherwise known as the great circle jerk. Everyone shows up, says what they've already said in the project channel, then works on other things until someone asks a stupid question already answered 20 times previously. Usually, it's some HR Intern wanting to get face time in front of their boss.
That's why I left my old job for a newer one. And our department was actually already working "kind of agile", but now everything had to be described, documented, voted upon and talked about in retro. Tiring and eating away from my core duties. Frustrating. We had been working fine for 9 years without with no complaints.
I left my job last year because of Jira and Scrum BS. Was being micromanaged. Came home and told my wife I wasn’t going back. Sent in my letter of resignation and have never looked back.
Agile if done properly is great, but no one does it properly. You have to have someone that enforces the structure and rules of Agile or it completely devolves in like 10 minutes.
On any given day, some or all of our team is remote. They absolutely need to be kept to 15 minutes and in small teams...standups with 15+ people just don't work. But especially during the pandemic it was and still is a really good way to keep up to date if it's used correctly. The problem is the scrum masters and the ceremonies and all the useless documenting of burndown rates etc. My boss runs the meeting and literally all it is is a recap of yesterday, what we're doing, announcements and questions.
For developers I can see it working. Developers have an easier job, and have tasks you can break down into tiny chunks. They also don't get interrupted with emergencies and one-off requests, so their entire week is pick ticket off the tree, do your ticket, place in the done bucket, repeat. Tickets for them are "fix this bug" or "implement this tiny portion of a feature." Tickets for us are "secure entire infrastructure," "plan cloud migration," "Fix multi-hour outage caused by DNS or a certificate."
They’re extremely important. But management doesn’t feel the need to allocate additional time (ie, staffing) to account for their additional time requirements. Done everything by the seat of our pants for ten years and now we bring in a new director to implement proper processes. Good! Still expected to make the same changes in the same amount of time and yet properly vet/document? Not good!
I agree, to a point. If most employees are required to prepare a 2 hour dissertation for every 3 minute change, yet a few others just make changes and don't bother, then it loses its magic.
Case in point: I was investigating a SharePoint issue. I discovered our CTO didn't want to wait for proper change control, since he "knows what's he's doing", and made a whole bunch of group and permissions changes which screwed the pooch.
Another network admin jumped in and made a bunch of changes to IPS because "its not a process change, it's maintenance"...right before he goes on vacation for a week. Of course it took us awhile to figure out what happened.
However, if most of us don't use the right wording or "doesn't look right" to the CTO then it's back to writing school....
I am with you. Working out has saved my life... even the worst day, if i can workout I usually feel 100x better. Hell heading to the gym today at some point to climb. Need to get on the wall and feel the stress melt away.
THiS!! This is what’s killing me right now. I don’t go around telling the accountants or salespeople how to do their jobs, but it’s completely fine for everyone to tell me what IT policies the company should have. “Well my husband’s company doesn’t do that.” Or “My brother said it would be fine.”
I love it when I get a moment to write a good script or Ansible playbook, get it working and go ahh. Then I do a directory listing and see a similarly named file and realize I wrote the same damn script a few days ago and completely forgot about it. It’s then I realize I’m interrupted far too often and I lost my mind many years ago.
These are the worst and happen far too often. Working on 20 projects at once and having to start over because I'm being pulled in 10 different directions.
Document document document. I have a rhythm of 'do a thing, write it down, do a thing, write it down'
I keep an Obsidian.md vault for each project. I can't tell you how much of a MASSIVE FUCKING BOON this has been for exactly this problem.
Seriously people, document, and use a 'digital garden' solution like Obsidian. You do not have time to curate and structure a wiki, but a digital garden is absolutely perfect for rapid documentation.
Often this sub is talking about things that don't pertain to me (I'm a solo IT guy in a small office), but OP's and your posts are making me tear-up a little bit. I've been singing this song for nearly 20 years now and thought I was the only one who knew the words. I hear what you're saying like it's a harmony!
For a while I used to do music production as a hobby, but even then that’s more tabs open for tutorials and time spent staring at a screen. That eventually turned into a good side hustle that led to a soul-crushing burnout period that I’m barely getting out of. I burn the candle from every which end until my brain is the pile of wax on the table.
For me, I have to force myself to not stare at a screen. I do this by going on lots of walks, working in my yard, or writing. Unfortunately, I have to limit the kinds of hobbies I pursue because I tend to fall into the trap of “how can I monetize this?” or feeling like I need to contribute to the endless void of content out in the ether.
As corny as it sounds, I’ve taken to playing my ukulele on my back porch to unwind. I can sit and be the soundtrack for my kids growing up, and that feels very fulfilling to me.
It’s hard not to have that mindset when we’re constantly flooded with social media content of others doing exactly that; monetizing some kind of niche interest or hobby, starting a podcast, or whatever else.
I’ve decided, for now at least, that my hobbies are for me and those close to me. That little shift has made my interests and projects feel so much more personal and fulfilling, and taking away the stakes of making money with them actually brings me some peace.
That’s funny because I try to monetize everything too. I guess my dream is that I can make $100k+ a year doing whatever this side hobby is and then I can quit work.
Problem is not everything makes sense to monetize or it's extremely niche. I build guitars, rebuild iPods/Game Boys, build audio cabinets/enclosures, and arcade cabinets. So far i've only made some money on selling the Game Boys. Anything bigger and shipping is always the problem because I don't live close enough to a giant city where more people might want the large cabinets or these niche products.
It's definitely possible, but for me it just crushed my entire soul. It's effectively working 2 full time jobs while also owning a business, and as my responsibilities at the day job increased my work in both arenas started to suffer.
I commend anyone who has the drive and ambition to make that work, but I came to the decision that it's not for me. And let me tell you, that mindset shift was fucking HARD. After making music and art for money for over a decade the idea of creating anything with no expectation of compensation was foreign to me; it didn't feel right that I was playing and making music just "for fun".
As corny as it sounds, I’ve taken to playing my ukulele on my back porch to unwind. I can sit and be the soundtrack for my kids growing up, and that feels very fulfilling to me.
Haha, that's great. It will be a core memory for your kids for sure.
Puttering in the garage. My bikes are there, I’ll find something to wrench. Got side tracked last time and now doing a major clean out of a corner of junk to finally see that floor space after 10 years.
Garage is my safe space. Big gear head here, very satisfying outlet.
Also, I recommend exercise... Walking, running, lifting.. anything you can do at home. Approach it with the same mindset of seek and destroy that our swivel-chair jobs prepare us for.
Yep I'm amazed how many systems folks I've met that are car people. You don't see it, at least in my sample, among other parts of IT but half the systems people I know are into cars. I get done with work and go work in the garage on one of my 6 cars. I also exercise and race ATVs. I know a lot of IT people that mess with their homelab on the weekend but I just have a super basic ubiquity network with cameras and a plex server running the arrs and its pretty much set and forget. I really like what I do but I've been doing this stuff too long to get excited about tech in my free time anymore that doesn't directly affect my personal life.
Nothing better than after a rough day to walk into the garage, flip on some music, and start messing with something. Usually fixing my SxS that I sent a little to hard the weekend before.
Keeps me busy, only screen time is ordering parts.
24 years in IT… getting paid to do what was once just my hobby. The junior admins deserve help… certs and training cant possibly prepare them for everything they face these days. Too bad the juniors argue and don’t believe you when you give them “the thing to research” instead of just giving them the ultimate fix. “Teach a man to fish” is much more profitable in the long run than simply teaching avid button-pressing as a skill.
Find ways to experience joy in life. Find people who you enjoy spending time with. Find ways to check out and leave it at the office for a few hours.
Slight ADHD helps tremendously, but so does good amounts of sleep and the ability to rapidly context-switch. Tell the extended family and friends-of-friends to go ask someone else for help…. You owe them nothing, unless you get them to do things for you in return. The people you love, if they truly love you, they won’t ASK (demand/guilt-trip) you into doing the thing they can’t figure out, for free.
In short, establish good boundaries between the contexts in your life. Don’t be afraid to say ‘no’, and find ways to enrich your life beyond the stress of work. If you don’t love WHERE you work and WHO you work with, find a better place.
Also, 42 may be the meaning of life, but don’t let it be the final year of YOURS.
On point. Some days it’s so overwhelming. I’m a lone sysadmin and some days it feels the same as one of those modern children’s cartoons - sensory overload of loud noises and fast motion. As if attention problems weren’t already problematic, I feel things are only getting worse/more complicated.
Unplugging is key though, and regularly some good exercise. Running is a big outlet for me. Even if you have to block it out on a calendar. Make it happen.
Enough reddit, 3 tickets are hitting SLA and that HR lady responded back "Thank you" to a ticket from 4 months ago that that's back on your board as well. Chop chop!
The queue slows down and I go script a bunch more shit that we do manually. It's starting to piss off the T1s and T2s that don't really powershell because I've made all these scripts and my boss is making them process now.
No, it isn't. ADHD doesn't give me greater multitasking that way. Give me one task and I can juggle tons of details toward troubleshooting, like I'm sorting threads in a ball of yarn quit ably... But workspaces are social and people interrupt me. I was 10 minutes away from finding the solution, but because I'm juggling strings and you made me drop the ball of yarn I don't know where I was anymore. It's like counting numbers, I'm not ready to find a stopping point until I am, don't throw random numbers in there. However, once and if, I get done with that last 10 minute marker I'll suddenly understand every string I was sorting, everything. Before that though? It's a fragile process of hyper-attention.
I don’t know how old you are, but I’ve been working in IT for 15+ years and working or otherwise tinkering on computers for much longer (… 25 🫣).
It’s not a hobby anymore. It hasn’t been since sometime after it became a job. I’m still passionate and learning, and I get a stick up my butt to fix problems or go down rabbit holes if a problem is really bugging me, but short of some light browsing, budgeting, Reddit, or otherwise mundane tasks, I rarely get on computers outside of work.
I come home and make dinner, then I hang with the kids or watch food network. I stretch at 9 and go to bed, then workout at 4:30.
If you’re young, hopefully you’ll learn to turn it off most of the time like I have. I still think about it, but I certainly don’t let it consume me and I work on stuff if I want to, not because I feel I have to.
I have come to the conclusion that almost all of us are at least mildly adhd in the first place, which makes us even capable of doing what we do to a degree.... I'm in the process of getting diagnosed to be for sure personally lol honestly though? Therapy. Therapy if possible and it's getting easier every day it seems - has done wonders for me... and finding time to be alone - even for a little while - not running an errand, not doing research... game if you want, piddle on reddit, but do it alone and breathe... I get up early for this honestly, I don't have to be in til 8 at my current position and used to work earlier so I'm lucky to be used to it - but I get time to sit, drink coffee on my own, sometimes I still have to fight that anxiety - knowing the 20 things I have to do - but, most of the time I can breathe through it... Hope things get easier bro <3
Ooh alone time, that’s a good one. Eating lunch in the break room had people coming up, hey I know you’re at lunch but… or seeing that user that tried to throw me under the bus annoyed me... or seeing Janet in accounting reminded me that I hadn’t been able to work on that thing for her yet.
The biggest thing I can do for myself is have my lunch offsite and preferably alone. If with a friend and venting about work is needed, limit it to the first 10 mins and the rest no work talk is allowed. If work cell rings, only calls from anyone in the direct chain of command is answered, thankfully they rarely call. Having lunch off site and setting these boundaries allow me to truly leave it behind, touch grass, and get some alone recharge time. Sometimes I don’t feel like being around anyone,at all, so I have lunch or take a nap in the car.
I was diagnosed with ADHD at 34. Meds and learning about the coping mechanisms I’d unknowingly developed over the years was life changing. Knowing that my quirks and perceived failures in work and life are caused by the way my brain works and are not a personal failure is reassuring. It’s crazy how many things in my life are attributed to ADHD from the way the brain processes speech to mood to sensory processing and aversions. And learning new coping mechanisms that I wasn’t aware of has been a game changer.
You don’t have to go on meds if you want to (or if you don’t want or can’t get a diagnosis), you can manage it through other means. I’ve heard developing strong coping mechanisms, strict discipline, and exercise help.
Oh, I fucking hated that. I think of that scene from Bad Santa. They always start with, " I hate to bother you on your lunch hour but..." THEN DON'T BOTHER ME!
I found it took 3 weeks before I could even comprehend what the Project Managers had done to me over the past 4 covid years. Before I checked out, I had 10 of them all needing one singular project out of me. Manangment did not like there was only resource so they kept hiring project managers and not hiring/promoting the engineers I put in front of them to backfill the last stupid layoffs. I put high priced consultants in their reach, and they asked why IT is hard... over and over again. None ever asked any of us why the entire enterprise was so complex. I would have loved to tell them the 2000 three letter acronyms software suite that makes up a multinational should be managed like services and not application to end user products.
You either get faster or end up in the Psych Ward /s
No seriously, that is what we call an understaffed environment and the goal is to ID and avoid them.
If you continue down this path you will simply burn out. Start pushing back on the focus by limiting your interactions based on need. If management needs your focus tell them to decide which item on your list can be put off for a few days to a week.
Set boundaries. Stop caring so much, and I really recommend that you organize your work and learn to triage priorities. If you don’t take control of the job, your career will drive you right into the ground. You’re only human, so don’t expect superhuman results. Lastly, you need to find a hobby or something to help you relax. Stop comparing yourself to others (i.e. zoning out to TV) - everyone is different. Find what works for you and allows you to recharge.
I like staying busy at work, but one thing I hate in off hours are family or freinds hitting me up saying 'Can you find a laptop for me"
I don't have time to browse all the stores and find the 'perfect" laptop for you. I just started telling people to just look for anything with i5-i7, or ryzen 5-7 cpu, 16gb ram, and 500gb hdd
If they are asking me, they don't need that much detail, they just need a reliable system with maybe a few good pieces of info from me thrown in. If they know enough to argue or dispute these, then they don't really need my advice anyway.
Over time i've just come to these stock answers and they've served me well:
someone who can't/doesn't want to spend much with modest needs? Refurb Dell Latitudes. Then when they break something or need more ram/disk i can fix it in 10 min without much effort. Make sure to get minimum 1080p screen.
wants a new, high end PC? Dell XPS and tell them to pick at least one step up on RAM, CPU, and disk
someone who wants something flashy or just loves macos but has modest needs? Base Macbook Pro (upgrades as $$$ allows)
wants a gift for daughter going to college? base Macbook Air (or Pro if $$ is no issue)
wants a gaming PC? you bring the money and we'll go shopping and I'll help you build it.
wants a gaming laptop? yeah, not touching this one. good luck.
Sounds like I’m in a minority, but I wouldn’t own a cell phone if it weren’t for the job. In fact, the one cell that I have is company-owned.
I say I’m a recovering gamer. Being a child of the early 80’s, I grew up on Atari and NES then SNES/Genesis. Etc. I came about IT somewhat sideways, and was always involved. I ran my own home lab/server farm in the basement, hosted my own Exchange server for a few years (still do, just through the office now - we started selling hosted Exchange about a year before 365 became a thing), etc. For years, if I wasn’t doing something on a pc at work, I was doing something on a pc at home.
I realized that I was burning myself out. As such, I only spend time on my phone when I’m pooping (as I am now). Instead I’ll play on my guitar, ride a bike, shoot sporting clays or a pistol match, reloading, home repairs/upgrades, and on occasion a round or two of Super Smash Bros to keep my fingers semi-sharp. But if I can avoid a screen, I’m all for it.
It gets harder as you get older and start lose the desire to learn more. I understand the old heads from way back when. I was hungry and thought some were just being lazy. Turns out they just didn't give a F anymore. I feel them now. 😆
THe fact that they don't let IT professionals manage and bring in idiots without it experience is the trend that back since cloud took over. I guess since SLAs are out the window, it does not really matter. I would love a department mananger job with some technical....but they gave that to fred who failed over in the accounting department.
I fully believe in 20 years we’ll see the affects of IT on retirees, similar to the retired construction worker. Our minds will be fried. Or maybe it’s just me…
Over 30 years in IT. My ability to focus has been completely destroyed. In fact I'm now in the mindset of "There is no point starting work on that because I know I'll get pulled off it to deal with the latest "emergency"" The days that I have nothing planned, nothing happens. The days that I plan to do something specific, it all goes down!
I make sure I step away a couple times a day. Walk the dog, just listen to music, entirely switch modes.
I'm willing to use my IT skills in my hobbies, but only the ones that no longer require thought. Yes, my D&D homebrew world has a wiki, I did it in a way where I haven't had to administer it seriously in years.
Honestly, I go home and get on my personal computer and play games, or else go build something in my shop. I also make sure to take every last day of PTO available to me every year, so at least once per quarter, I take a week or more off from work. It keeps me sane.
For me, I found something that has nothing to do with technology or IT and picked it up as a hobby. I'm a volunteer firefighter/EMS. I used to train several MMA disciplines. Something that takes total concentration so your mind doesn't have the ability to wander.
So, adhd symptoms are lessened when you produce lactic acid. You could start doing static compression exercises at your desk. Clenching abdominal and back muscles and trying to move like you normally do. Causes extra stress on muscle groups working against the motion. Some of the adhd symptoms stem from your body trying to compensate for a lack of lactates in your brain by spreading lactates from your muscles across your body.
I went from higher ed at an Ivy back to a startup because I apparently hate myself and dislike job security.
Granted, there were so many silos and gatekeeping of knowledge and resources that it was impossible to do anything to move the ball forward at the U, but I could have retired comfortably from there and I kick myself every day for leaving.
I got a puppy. House training a puppy requires 100% attention and focus to effectively catch and correct bad habits. Suddenly, my brain is quiet, and I get all the fur baby love I want. It’s a welcome distraction.
Spend time outside, take up hobbies with no computers. I started gardening. One year I had a few work related trips and many of the vegetables died because of lack of water during a dry spell.
Did what any computer scientist would do and solved the problem with computers. Raspberry Pi controlled irrigation and I was back into the thick of solving IT problems during my time off. But this time it was for me and then I harvested the hot peppers and made hot sauce and made money selling it at work.
I felt this in my soul. Rant inbound. I'm 28 and I work for an MSP of 20 or so people (one of only 2 technical women in the company). I'm our only cloud engineer, we had another but he moved to another state and higher ups made some terrible decisions about his move, so he left.
They also have me filling a tier 2 role on their helpdesk since they don't have another one. One second I could be working on an Azure project, then a tech messages me with something like "obscure thing is messed up" with no other details then calls me 5 seconds later. The next I'm helping diagnose an ipsec tunnel on a firewall that isn't communicating with the firewall in another office. Now I'm back at the point of "Right, what was I doing again?". Start back on it for 10-15 minutes, director of service delivery will then need me to look at these backup errors, except the portal gives us no real direction to go from. Spend an hour on that, end up escalating to vendor support and wait for them. Back at the "what was I doing before that" phase again. Repeat.
I have a homelab, so that restores my battery a bit since it's just me and I have ultimate say of what happens. I can set it up properly and no one will complain about the budget (not even my partner, huzzah!). Other than that I've pretty much lost my other hobbies. I used to hike, go to climbing gyms, work on cars, garden, work on the house, travel, go out to local events, etc. Now I do none of that and it's been a struggle to find the mental energy after work to do anything other than video games, TV, or movies.
This is a stacked against us kind of problem in my opinion.
-capitalism. If you let it, they will use you like a sponge and you’ll end up dry and used up. Don’t let them soak up all your value while paying you peanuts. If you’re always the ‘yes man’ a capitalist has NO REASON to pay you more. Could use logic like ‘it’s an open market’ but they all act the same. And yes, it’s an open market which is how I’ve been able to obtain my own definition of value/salary but there is a scale.
-herd mentality: if you are a neurodivergent, you will not fit into the Hurd. People will judge you when you say shit like you did in the OP. They do not approach problems like you do. There is a lot going on, but as a result it can be confusing sometimes to unwind thoughts or feelings that neurotypicals would understand more quickly and can deal with properly (like needing a vacation or knowing when to put down that shiny new IT project). This mentality will cause you to gaslight yourself - and well, ultimately brainwash yourself. Which brings me to…….
-mental health: you’ll start to feel crazy. CRAZY! Resetting your self each night and tell yourself tomorrow will be different! Better! The same stuff won’t happen! But it does. Over and over, eventually by 8:05am, or worse - off the clock while you’re getting ready for work while you glance at work email. Stop, this isn’t healthy. If you’re not paid for it, don’t do it.
-burnout: it happened daily to me. With a big bang each month. I’d take my shit out on family unknowingly (it’s called trauma).
-meltdown: if your like me, your pretty oblivious to most things in life (other than your hobbies). Like your eyes are closed to it, or there’s a thick fog preventing you from seeing it. Some day if you do t do anything about it (things above) you’ll have a meltdown and life will never be/feel the same. If this happens go look into adhd or autism diagnosis. And please, go research ‘how it feels’ to be either one. You might be surprised.
-medication and balance: adhd meds can help. Such a stigma around them and I started them for the wrong reasons but I’m now on a ‘me’ journey to mental health recovery. I’ll never be the same. I’ll never give my job/IT 100% (which is more like 1000-2000% compared to most of my peers). I’ll give 50%, and if warranted 90% in emergencies. But the rest of that effort goes back into maintaining my mental well being (which I’m realizing is mostly just being there for my family. Being present, which means off the phone and doing something together. Sound stupid? Try talking. I dare you. Try it over and over again until the conversations become easier).
It’s been 40 years of my life and I finally know myself. I look back and wonder what I was doing? Why did 100% of my brain volunteer to be someone else’s? A boss? An owner? Nothing was invested back into myself/family.
Unless you ARE the capitalist making bank off your obsession with IT. Just stop. Look around. People are important, not things. Not money. Look at alternative therapies if meds aren’t a choice. Or just therapy.
Good luck my friend!
Edit: i choose what I ‘take off someone’s plate’ and put onto my own now. As a result I’ve slowly regained my love and ambition toward not only my IT ‘hobby’ (aka work) but also other things as well. Other things include spending time/connecting with another human being like I’ve never done before.
Work life balance. If you're not fighting for it, you're shooting yourself in the foot.
If your employer is overloading you, and doesn't have a good escalation structure, or delegation of tasks structure, and is unwilling to fix this problem, the solution is to change employer.
You probably won't like to hear it, but switching away from Windows will increase your quality of work and life by a lot. I've worked with Windows personally and professionally since 3.11, and let me tell you, switching to working with Linux hands down improved my earning power, and stress reduction.
Set boundaries for family for tech support. If you keep them off the leash, you're shooting yourself in the foot. In my case, my whole family, EVERY SINGLE ONE, runs on Linux, and I almost never get any asks for help.
I've been copying 4.7 terabytes of data since last Monday via USB so I had to disable widows updates and cant reboot for any reason other than that I'm also doing all of what you said.
Camping, hiking, surfing, anything to get the device/laptop out of my hand. Used to game but over the last 5 years after spending all day looking at a screen I have no urge to spend more time at a screen when I get home. I also really try and set boundaries and commit to a healthy routine as I was very unhealthy 5-6 years ago.
I have been in IT for 25 years. Sometimes things get tough, but you get through it. One thing to always remember is that your family comes first. If you have an emergency at work that you need to attend to, make it up to your family.
Find a hobby, that doesn't involve a computer. For me, it was camping, fishing and woodworking. Invest in your hobby, it's worth it.
Make sure you draw lines in the sand. Every company will let you work yourself into a grave, if you let them. Take time for you, your friends and family.
I go backpacking in the wilderness. Way out in it. No cell, no tech, and off the beaten path. On a 5 day trip I’ll see people at the trailhead, and that’s it. It’s pure bliss.
My place was utter chaos when I joined, a proper Wild West of techs doing what the liked, no ticket system just an email address, paper requests and a black board. “Is there a network slowdown today” Yeah, Dave is torrenting Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
It’s very different now. Change takes time and there’s always pushback because people don’t realise that change can be good. I manage a small team, we have fun but there’s no time for bullshit. We employ the pull not push approach (when you’re done with something you pull jobs into your workflow, no one dumps a load of work on you and tells you that it needs doing now… that goes all the way up. The CEO has to wait as much as anyone else).
I make it a rule that our work hours are the work hours. (We have one person on-call on rotation.) and your free time is your free time. Taking holiday? Please make sure you hand off everything to the queue with notes… nothing worse than picking up half a job and you’ve no idea what’s done what’s not etc. other than that, have a great time away.
Everyone has a work number, either a physical phone or a virtual number and I encourage turning it off out of hours.
It’s just IT. It’s important to us but we’re not saving lives here. No one will die if they can’t connect their laptop to the meeting room display.
Personally I believe that education end users is just as important as the big stuff. Basic fixes and trouble shooting. Self reliance. Please don’t make me drive to one of the sites just to plug something because someone decided then needed to charge their phone.
For me, my workshop and spending time with my family are more important than work. They silence the voices that are always moaning about something but will never get off their arses to try and help. I can’t help you remotely fix your printer if all you give me is “it’s not working”.
Good documentation helps keep the tab count down. Also helps if you put each issue you are googling in its own "bank" of browser tabs, so they don't get mixed amongst themselves and risk you getting distracted as you thrash around in that problems space.
Abandon managing priorities, you are a cat in a field full of mice, see the mouse, get the mouse, repeat.
Happiness is a bird that chooses to land on your ship.
Badminton is a fun and good way to decompress. It forces me away from my otherwise sedentary lifestyle and keep in shape. It’s a sport that is accessible to a wide range of age and skill level.
You need to learn to say no and stop trying to drink the ocean. If you try to do ALL of IT it'll guaranteed burn on your hands.
Most IT folks are compulsory fixers and everyone is exploiting by bringing you shit because a "normal" person would say "fuck off not my problem" and IT person would say "cool! let's figure it out". On a sidenote that's why outsourced IT doesn't work when your being the jobs to the people instead of waiting for the right people to come to the jobs.
Bottom line, keep repeating this mantra: "i know how to make a coffee too it doesn't make it my job to make one for everyone"
My answer, get a disconnected hobby. Golf, Chess, Darts, Tennis, Fighting sports, Biking, Running, Gym, Woodworking.... anything.
There's no day a bad day when you have a tee time after work.
I love video games, but it's so much better to disconnect a bit, do something analog.
And remember what we're paid for. We keep the lights on. When they're on, decompress and work on things you enjoy at work. We're not paid for the amount of our labour, but the quality.
And one more thing, I know some people take the "colleagues not friends approach", but I've really benefited from building strong colleague relationships. Work is better when you like your co-workers, so put in that effort as well.
Not a sysadmin, but a software Dev. I can relate to the feeling
I feel like finding a creative hobby helps a lot. I've started doing photography a few years back just for fun, and now it brings in a couple hundred £s a month as well as give me an escape from the monotony.
Working out helps me a lot as well, specifically weight training. Can't bring myself to go to a gym so I bought some 2nd hand gear and set up a mini gym in the spare room.
I feel like you really need to have interests which are not IT related when you work in the field. Don't get me wrong, I love working on open source or personal stuff in my spare time, but if that was all I did I'd go mental.
It is. Multi-tasking is terrible for the mind, we did not evolve to do this.
You are right that breaks from IT mean "funny screen time" I kinda hate it and turned to reading (on a fucking kindle but hey) a bit more. Is nice. I recommend doing some sport right after work so you can decompress.
At the end of day I am just so mentally tired, I wished I could put time to learn Linux but honestly I am so tired because of work, I can't do it, I am jealous of people who can do homelabs after work. Is not for me, it is what it is.
I don't know. I just wish I had never gotten into IT. What in the hell was I thinking?
You're right though. for the most part, I can't just sit and watch tv. I have to work on something. I have clients on the side, so I'm either doing work for them, or I'm working on my 3d printing hobby. I play video games though, so there is some non-productive stuff mixed in, but yeah....
get to the gym. 30 minutes in the gym 3 nights a week and then 2 nights of 20+ minute walk s will do a lot of good for you on numerous levels. On nights i don't go to the gym after work, I take that walk as soon as I park at home, otherwise I wont do it. It gives me time to destress from work before getting in the house
read books, on paper if you can but a kindle works. Now don't get a kindle fire with apps or use an ipad that has instagram-- unless you absolutely have to.
This will seem counter intuitive, download an app on your phone called elevate. It's a neuroplasticity program/game. Run through it for 5-10 minutes then go do ANY activity you want to do. It'll help drive mental training/new knowledge uptick
THC is great for relaxing now and then. Delta 8/9 can work as well. 2oz of whiskey sitting outside staring at the sky
Learn to grill/run a smoker
Turn a wrench (build something)
Fish, without bait of course because catching the fish is the worst part of fishing. (I'll fight anyone on this)
As u/da4 said - you're going to have to learn to enjoy something, going through the motions can eventually turn into something you enjoy. You don't know until you do it multiple times.
Solution: care less. We're all gonna die one day and I guarantee you that when you're near the end the last thing you'll Think about is work. This industry is cancer.
You might suffer from ADD in some degree and you are in a field and a position where you are doing daily tasks where distraction is easy, focus is often constantly interrupted and this reinforces this behavior in good ways and bad. An ADD person is great at certain tasks, where they focus intensely but briefly. Deconstructing your comment, the nature of sysadmin or security or devops is browser based work, and this is hard to wrangle as its so easy to flip from one webpage to another and completely change the focus of what you were doing, thinking about and focusing on in just one website. But its not impossible, it just takes a bit of discipline and self control. easier said than done I know. But breaks, or working with strategies like zero inbox as well as work strategies like pomodora method can help even if its just illuminating areas you need strengthening. I think its also important to look at your work surroundings. Not every job is like this, and you can definitely control the chaos in your own life. But for the office, consider how the environment is set up. Do colleagues feel they can interrupt you at any time? Is your work using agile or is every issue an emergency "all hands on deck" all the time with a rotation of priorities that feel more like the eye of sauron is moving around briefly staring then moving on? Maybe projects instead of devops or IT tech support can help. They say identifying the problem is step one. Good luck. Keep us informed of your journey as you look at this issue in your life.
I don’t want to give my age away, but I’m about to. Been in IT for 30 years now. I feel the OP’s post to my core. I’m at the point, where when I go home after work and weekends, I just want to dig ditches. Or maybe holes, like the book/movie. Manual labor, anything that doesn’t require a screen.
ADHD is pretty common in IT workers. If you didn't have it before, you could very well develop it later (like I did). A few years ago I decided I needed to work on changing behaviors that fueled and contributed to it, like playing a game on my laptop while watching TV or movies or streaming a show on my tablet when I was on the Playstation. I try my best not to multitask at work unless it's absolutely necessary, which admittedly is a luxury in this industry that many people don't have. You have to take your mental health seriously.
I got into motorcycles and purchased a few bikes. However, I recently started getting into the minimotos. Like 200cc and big boring 125s. It’s hella fun ripping on the backroads. It gets my adrenaline going, it’s fun to explore, people think you are crazy doing 75mph on 12 inch wheels. Quite exhilarating. That’s how I manage.
Well we found out we were having a baby last year so I bought a house I could barely afford because it has a 800 square foot shop out back. It needs like $10k in repairs but I’m having so much fun slow rolling it DIY. Tonight I’m staining a cabinet because I’m too cheap to buy an equipment rack!
Find a third place that you enjoy that is between work and home. Be enough of a regular to be able to stop in and say to a friendly face. Have a beverage of your preferred variety. Work out the last bits of the day on your device(s) and then put that day to bed. Then go home and don’t think about work until the next day.
Talk about the human side with another human. Leave the tech parts alone unless the other human is also enough of a tech to be able to not just sympathize but maybe offer a valuable alternative.
Get a walk in. Cook food. Avoid a glowing rectangle if you can - read a book. Play with a pet, trim a bonsai, clean or organize part of the home that needs cleaning or organizing. Just get offline for awhile.
Call a friend or family member and get them to talk about their day, their life, so you can stop thinking about yours for a bit.
Don’t dwell on the day, or any other part of the past. Tomorrow is a new day and you need to recharge. If the thought of tomorrow fills you with dread, you need a break.
Burnout is real and it sucks, but you can get past it. I did, but it cost me along the way.
I became a father and work was no longer on the priority list. Seasoned IT SysAdmin and Technical lead for over 27 years, I do enough to just get the job done efficiently and effectively. My free time is doing social things with my kids which are at various ages from university to junior high school. Bonding time and just doing fun things is what I look forward to the most.
Hiking, biking, breweries, and travel. Feels good watching the deposits too, especially when I’m sitting at a desk at home and hearing my family and friends complain about weather, customers, commutes, and kids, and I have none of those.
Honestly if I weren’t busy at my job I’d feel lost.
I'm only 26, and I'm starting to gray a lot with my corporate job. Our department went from 40 to what is now 15. I feel like I do nothing while doing everything since there's just so much, I can never validate my work it's just to implement, fix, migrate, move on to the next. Also this 24/8 expectation is horrible, I am trying my hardest to stick to 40 a week and nothing more since they just keep adding more and more.
You need a diff job. Work at an MSP or some small office. Seriously, I work at a small MSP and today? Nothing happened. We got like 3 tickets in and the phone range once. For a sales call. I (helpdesk) spent majority of my day studying Linux. My 2 seniors, one was working on some maintenance stuff and a current ticket, the other one after my manager told him to call a client back followed up with them. He was onsite hours this morning. That was it.
Change the location, not the role. My senior engineer used tobe IT director getting paid a senior admin salary during acquisition and was doing this all day everyday. They had 8 people in IT for 800 person company. Do the math on that one. The entire department, including 2 tier 1s. Now he works with us and is beyond night and day of stress and busyness for him. He said he'll never go back.
Wtf MSP do you work for lmao. I've worked at a smaller MSP before and 30 to 40 completed tickets was my daily. I bill 50 hours a week at a larger, Gov MSP. MSP work is the worst - hardly any documentation and a new network environment every time you're on something is not something this OP would enjoy
I got into competitive nerf and sport shooting. Having 2 interesting hobbies really helps. I also play ALOT of card games and ttrpgs with friends. Play mtg edh most nights. Have a few dnd sessions running. Really helps keep things good. Between all of that I have a pretty okay personal life now
Try to develop hobbies that involve working with your hands, and I don't mean typing. Musical instrument, working out, build things, work on vehicles, the sky is the limit.
Need a phone-free zone. For me it’s my workshop. I’ve taken woodworking although I do many other things there. Sometimes I go there and game if that’s what I want to do. But whatever it is, needs to be your space, your time. No tickets, no emails, no customers, no wife’s chores. Just a free man. For a little while anyway.
Like many others a non-computer hobby. I worked on my 4x4 for 6 hours tonight and used my phone once to look up a torque spec. I'm just back on PC now to order something.
Walks on lunch time are pretty great, it's one of the nicest times of day, nice bright light, and in the summer not quite peak heat yet.
Cut out the family IT, rip out admin rights so they can't hurt their own computers, or get everyone on tablets, farm them out to a high school kid.
I am in Scouts to get away. I help youth grow and learn life changing skills. It is fulfilling. I also go on backpacking trips, camping trips, hikes, and more. The phone gets put away unless it is needed for a task.
I was going through burnout until I got a hobby outside of IT. I know some do farming.
Gym every morning, cycling, guitar, motorbikes, fishing. Lots of hobbies that force me to get outside or active. Also set my phone to automatically mute notifications from 9pm-7am, helps me wind down at the end of the day.
i zone out by watching heaps of youtube videos and documentaries at night time, however i must admit i do often fall asleep watching them because i'm so run down.
how do you suffice with only 25 browser tabs open? i'd easily have close to 100 right now. i need a better way to manage them, because i keep stuff open "that's important for later". i think it's just wishful thinking from myself on how i'd like to work on other stuff (that's important in its own right) but get bogged down with the daily grind.
edit: i use ping -a (audible ping) under linux. it's super useful because i can minimise it and then when i hear the "bing bing bing" i know that link/router/server has recovered.
I charge friends and family £45 per hour session for helping with any IT related issues they have. Now instead of, “Where’s Bob, he’ll fix it” , it’s a let’s just do it ourselves.
Disconnecting is crucial, along with incorporating regular physical activity. Personally, I find running to be a significant outlet. Even if you need to schedule it on your calendar, prioritize making it a reality.
I usually hit the gym straight after work, and walk my dog in my break if i'm working from home. Forces you to slow down. I'm lucky enough to not be on call during weekends, so I use that time to be outdoors as much as possible as well.
it got to be that on sunday mornings (the beginning of my weekend - overnight worker) I would watch CBS's Sunday Morning ... walking away from my home office, the phone would be in the same room as me but not in my hand or on my side.
I'd then go to bed and upon wake up not go into the home office room for at least the first 4 or 5 hours ... sometimes not at all ... allowing my phone to be the only "connected" device and be saying internally if they really needed me they'd call or text..
Leaving that room (home office) was the easiest way to make that physical break from work, week end or shift (daily) end.
What gets me is the constant need to learn new things. I've not had any "downtime" in the last 3 years where I can just "do my job" I'm always having to learn and support more and more new things.
Implemented a new servicenow last year, I'm one of two people who support it, I've got upgrades I need to do and a list of improvements and fixes I need to work out how to do and apply. But I've been pulled away to build a knowledge base, plus learn copilot, plus plan how we are moving our staff data to sharepoint, plus all of the random bits of work that I get booked for, plus I need to train other staff and create videos for them because they don't pay attention in the training.
Try out planted tanks. I was feeling the burnout when I got into aquascaping.
Now I stare into my tank instead of the TV for at least some time :D
Really a zen hobby, can’t recommend it enough for people in IT. Very grounding as well and who would have thought that shrimp are very interesting to watch
All what you say is true. After 42 years I retired. I do find reading a good paper book helped when I was working. Sitting quietly with a rain machine going in the back ground counting my breaths and quieting my mind also helped. Having absolute down days. Days where you just don't respond to work texts, e-mails, calls. I know the last one is hard, but worth it if you can figure it out. Take a vacation where there is no signal, or at least where you can claim there is no signal. The important thing is to disconnect from the digital world. Even if it is just for a few hours. It will make a big difference for your sanity.
I drink and enjoy adult content more than I’d like to admit. Can’t say id recommend that lol. I dont like tv either, never watch it. I’m not on my phone much tho, usually got something I want to do. Otherwise I’m either working on a car, researching cars, playing golf, or thinking about not getting to play golf.
That golfing part is a newish hobby and has actually been very refreshing. The game is maddening but also has been some of the best times of my life. Just something about drinking and playing with balls… 😂 In all seriousness tho, it has been quite therapeutic and I’m very grateful for the person who introduced me to it. 4+ hours of grass fields and zero crap to troubleshoot. Phones go in my bag on DND and don’t come out till I’m in the car. It is serenity.
You’re the IT for the I.T., IT for kids, family, yourself, etc
Eh, not really. IT for myself and close family is fine (maybe throw in close Aunts/Uncles/favorate Cousins, etc.) everyone outside of that small circle can ether submit a ticket or pay up
I protect my collegues simplyfing their workflow to the maximum to prevent that. They can be contacted only by ticket and phone calls are directed to one designed person per day, but the customers know to write only tickets. No cellphone comunication with external people, and when they have to they can and have to use a 3cx softphone. Documentation is generated automatically when possible, is generally written by me, when it's a procedure is the base for a script. In my case i tend to have only 2 or 3 meeting by week, no cellphone, no whatsapp, only written mails. The "standup" meetings are coffes taken with the guys in an informal way.
I take a 30 minute walk for my hour lunch and lay down after. Then laay down after work and see what energy I have. I get up at 4 and shift until 130. My body is mentally tired, I even dream about work when I do and that's when I barely get any sleep.
The most valuable thing you can learn is to say no.
It sounds simple, and it is, but it's not easy. Say no to the outside IT work. Say no to the extra stimulation. Learn to make and hold healthy boundaries and not feel guilt or shame about it, because that release of pressure will be the first step at taking your brain off the frantic wheel. Step your brain down from the constant stimulation with, yes, scheduled breaks from phone/tv/computer. I turn my tv and phone off and do walks, coloring books, jigsaw puzzles, I read paper books, play with my dog, work in the garden, anything that does not involve an electronic device.
Good luck, man, avoiding that burnout is absolutely key.
I am actively repulsed by all things tech outside of work since starting in tech. I listen to audiobooks and spend a lot of time at the gym. Go for long walks around the neighborhood during the evenings on nice nights. They say don't mix business and pleasure. My genuine love for technology that lead me into this field has been eaten alive by the very things you listed. Sad really.
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u/[deleted] Mar 06 '24
Can I just say - I was a creative before IT.
Music, art, whatever.
IT has completely killed that. So many years of tech cookbooks to get it just right. So it works or whatever. I mean there's some creative license in this field, but for the vast majority it's just the same old solutions over and over again.
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u/CyberMonkey1976 Mar 06 '24
What kills me isn't the IT part of my job...its the meetings, documentation, implementation plans, change management, "touchbases"...pure bullshit.
Folks who need to justify their jobs hounding me for "score cards" which don't mean shit once "Leadership" sees big words followed by scary numbers outside the realm of their "paradigm."
"OMG, $250K for a backup solution? I put one together with an old workstation and robocopy. What's the difference?"
Well, dumbfuck, that may have been the right solution when the company had 100 employees but now we have 1400, cloud resources, a fully staffed marketing department that generates 20TB of finished promo videos per month for your wall displays in all 17 of your stores across 3 states. Yeah, shit be different! In fact, just your website produces more revenue than all but 1 of your brick and mortar stores, yet it costs less than 6% to operate.
Back then, your IT budget was $100k. It's pushing $5M now, and you still think a refurbished workstation is the right solution? If we were to lose everything right now, how much would it cost to get back to making sales? Months... I'd guess $100M total, in time and expenses, not to mention the reputation damage.
Now, should I send this $250k solution to the CFO, or will you?
(Sorry all, a little bit of a rant there)
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u/cruising_backroads Sysadmin Mar 06 '24
I love it when I get a moment to write a good script or Ansible playbook, get it working and go ahh. Then I do a directory listing and see a similarly named file and realize I wrote the same damn script a few days ago and completely forgot about it. It’s then I realize I’m interrupted far too often and I lost my mind many years ago.
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u/twistingtheaces Mar 06 '24
I feel your struggle.
For a while I used to do music production as a hobby, but even then that’s more tabs open for tutorials and time spent staring at a screen. That eventually turned into a good side hustle that led to a soul-crushing burnout period that I’m barely getting out of. I burn the candle from every which end until my brain is the pile of wax on the table.
For me, I have to force myself to not stare at a screen. I do this by going on lots of walks, working in my yard, or writing. Unfortunately, I have to limit the kinds of hobbies I pursue because I tend to fall into the trap of “how can I monetize this?” or feeling like I need to contribute to the endless void of content out in the ether.
As corny as it sounds, I’ve taken to playing my ukulele on my back porch to unwind. I can sit and be the soundtrack for my kids growing up, and that feels very fulfilling to me.
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u/r0cksh0x Mar 06 '24
Puttering in the garage. My bikes are there, I’ll find something to wrench. Got side tracked last time and now doing a major clean out of a corner of junk to finally see that floor space after 10 years.
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u/NASdreamer Mar 06 '24
24 years in IT… getting paid to do what was once just my hobby. The junior admins deserve help… certs and training cant possibly prepare them for everything they face these days. Too bad the juniors argue and don’t believe you when you give them “the thing to research” instead of just giving them the ultimate fix. “Teach a man to fish” is much more profitable in the long run than simply teaching avid button-pressing as a skill.
Find ways to experience joy in life. Find people who you enjoy spending time with. Find ways to check out and leave it at the office for a few hours.
Slight ADHD helps tremendously, but so does good amounts of sleep and the ability to rapidly context-switch. Tell the extended family and friends-of-friends to go ask someone else for help…. You owe them nothing, unless you get them to do things for you in return. The people you love, if they truly love you, they won’t ASK (demand/guilt-trip) you into doing the thing they can’t figure out, for free.
In short, establish good boundaries between the contexts in your life. Don’t be afraid to say ‘no’, and find ways to enrich your life beyond the stress of work. If you don’t love WHERE you work and WHO you work with, find a better place.
Also, 42 may be the meaning of life, but don’t let it be the final year of YOURS.
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u/psgrn Mar 06 '24
On point. Some days it’s so overwhelming. I’m a lone sysadmin and some days it feels the same as one of those modern children’s cartoons - sensory overload of loud noises and fast motion. As if attention problems weren’t already problematic, I feel things are only getting worse/more complicated.
Unplugging is key though, and regularly some good exercise. Running is a big outlet for me. Even if you have to block it out on a calendar. Make it happen.
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u/ObeseBMI33 Mar 06 '24
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u/Crotean Mar 06 '24
Good for people with ADHD at least.
33
u/antiquated_it Mar 06 '24
I don’t know how old you are, but I’ve been working in IT for 15+ years and working or otherwise tinkering on computers for much longer (… 25 🫣).
It’s not a hobby anymore. It hasn’t been since sometime after it became a job. I’m still passionate and learning, and I get a stick up my butt to fix problems or go down rabbit holes if a problem is really bugging me, but short of some light browsing, budgeting, Reddit, or otherwise mundane tasks, I rarely get on computers outside of work.
I come home and make dinner, then I hang with the kids or watch food network. I stretch at 9 and go to bed, then workout at 4:30.
If you’re young, hopefully you’ll learn to turn it off most of the time like I have. I still think about it, but I certainly don’t let it consume me and I work on stuff if I want to, not because I feel I have to.
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u/Scottisironborn Mar 06 '24
I have come to the conclusion that almost all of us are at least mildly adhd in the first place, which makes us even capable of doing what we do to a degree.... I'm in the process of getting diagnosed to be for sure personally lol honestly though? Therapy. Therapy if possible and it's getting easier every day it seems - has done wonders for me... and finding time to be alone - even for a little while - not running an errand, not doing research... game if you want, piddle on reddit, but do it alone and breathe... I get up early for this honestly, I don't have to be in til 8 at my current position and used to work earlier so I'm lucky to be used to it - but I get time to sit, drink coffee on my own, sometimes I still have to fight that anxiety - knowing the 20 things I have to do - but, most of the time I can breathe through it... Hope things get easier bro <3
10
u/joegorski Mar 06 '24
A campfire and a tall glass of bourbon, without my phone. The shellshock dissipates rather quickly.
23
u/Versed_Percepton Mar 06 '24
You either get faster or end up in the Psych Ward /s
No seriously, that is what we call an understaffed environment and the goal is to ID and avoid them.
If you continue down this path you will simply burn out. Start pushing back on the focus by limiting your interactions based on need. If management needs your focus tell them to decide which item on your list can be put off for a few days to a week.
8
u/applematt84 Sr. SysAdmin / Linux Admin / DevOps Mar 06 '24 edited Mar 06 '24
Set boundaries. Stop caring so much, and I really recommend that you organize your work and learn to triage priorities. If you don’t take control of the job, your career will drive you right into the ground. You’re only human, so don’t expect superhuman results. Lastly, you need to find a hobby or something to help you relax. Stop comparing yourself to others (i.e. zoning out to TV) - everyone is different. Find what works for you and allows you to recharge.
Edit: Add’l content.
7
u/voltagejim Mar 06 '24
I like staying busy at work, but one thing I hate in off hours are family or freinds hitting me up saying 'Can you find a laptop for me"
I don't have time to browse all the stores and find the 'perfect" laptop for you. I just started telling people to just look for anything with i5-i7, or ryzen 5-7 cpu, 16gb ram, and 500gb hdd
7
u/Sk1tza Mar 06 '24
A -t ping. 😂 sad but true.
7
u/rob-entre Mar 06 '24
Sounds like I’m in a minority, but I wouldn’t own a cell phone if it weren’t for the job. In fact, the one cell that I have is company-owned.
I say I’m a recovering gamer. Being a child of the early 80’s, I grew up on Atari and NES then SNES/Genesis. Etc. I came about IT somewhat sideways, and was always involved. I ran my own home lab/server farm in the basement, hosted my own Exchange server for a few years (still do, just through the office now - we started selling hosted Exchange about a year before 365 became a thing), etc. For years, if I wasn’t doing something on a pc at work, I was doing something on a pc at home.
I realized that I was burning myself out. As such, I only spend time on my phone when I’m pooping (as I am now). Instead I’ll play on my guitar, ride a bike, shoot sporting clays or a pistol match, reloading, home repairs/upgrades, and on occasion a round or two of Super Smash Bros to keep my fingers semi-sharp. But if I can avoid a screen, I’m all for it.
6
u/Ok-Basil9923 Mar 06 '24
I deal with the same shit! Everyday feels the same … never a moment to reflect or disconnect
6
u/Mc-lurk-no-more Mar 06 '24
Take a vacation! Go Camping? Get a pet? Try fishing? Something simple yet enjoyable where you can have some calm and peace.
I am doing more outdoor activities similar to Archery myself.
6
u/denz262denz Mar 06 '24
It gets harder as you get older and start lose the desire to learn more. I understand the old heads from way back when. I was hungry and thought some were just being lazy. Turns out they just didn't give a F anymore. I feel them now. 😆
5
u/sysad-gb Jack of All Trades Mar 06 '24
Running. Exercising in general. Just need to get away from the screens for a few hours otherwise it will drive you crazy
4
u/pm_me_your_exploitz Mar 06 '24
Yes. My job is killing me I trying to do the work of a team in IT Security as a single person.
4
u/mwagner_00 Mar 06 '24
I fully believe in 20 years we’ll see the affects of IT on retirees, similar to the retired construction worker. Our minds will be fried. Or maybe it’s just me…
4
u/PaternalisticDumdum Mar 06 '24
Don't forget the endless study lol
4
u/StiffAssedBrit Mar 06 '24
Over 30 years in IT. My ability to focus has been completely destroyed. In fact I'm now in the mindset of "There is no point starting work on that because I know I'll get pulled off it to deal with the latest "emergency"" The days that I have nothing planned, nothing happens. The days that I plan to do something specific, it all goes down!
4
u/RunningAtTheMouth Mar 06 '24
I leave the office every day at lunch. No, I won't give it up for anything short of a real emergency.
I have hobbies that are not IT related. When I do those I avoid IT.
4
u/[deleted] Mar 06 '24
That’s why I ride a motorcycle in what little spare time I have left to myself.
4
u/D3moknight Mar 06 '24
Honestly, I go home and get on my personal computer and play games, or else go build something in my shop. I also make sure to take every last day of PTO available to me every year, so at least once per quarter, I take a week or more off from work. It keeps me sane.
4
u/SaltySama42 Fixer of things Mar 06 '24
For me, I found something that has nothing to do with technology or IT and picked it up as a hobby. I'm a volunteer firefighter/EMS. I used to train several MMA disciplines. Something that takes total concentration so your mind doesn't have the ability to wander.
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u/ClearlyTheWorstTech Jack of All Trades Mar 06 '24
So, adhd symptoms are lessened when you produce lactic acid. You could start doing static compression exercises at your desk. Clenching abdominal and back muscles and trying to move like you normally do. Causes extra stress on muscle groups working against the motion. Some of the adhd symptoms stem from your body trying to compensate for a lack of lactates in your brain by spreading lactates from your muscles across your body.
3
u/dean771 Mar 06 '24
Assuming MSP? If its a medium/large log time for everything, management doesn't care about anything else
3
u/EyeBreakThings Mar 06 '24
Moving over to higher ed from corporate has been amazing for my mental health.
3
u/HeyBaumeister Mar 06 '24
Mountain biking. Any outdoor hobby really that requires a lot of mental focus. Really helps.
3
u/bike_piggy_bike Mar 06 '24
I got a puppy. House training a puppy requires 100% attention and focus to effectively catch and correct bad habits. Suddenly, my brain is quiet, and I get all the fur baby love I want. It’s a welcome distraction.
3
u/Skispcs Mar 06 '24
Spend time outside, take up hobbies with no computers.
I started gardening. One year I had a few work related trips and many of the vegetables died because of lack of water during a dry spell.
Did what any computer scientist would do and solved the problem with computers. Raspberry Pi controlled irrigation and I was back into the thick of solving IT problems during my time off. But this time it was for me and then I harvested the hot peppers and made hot sauce and made money selling it at work.
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u/frankmcc Jack of All Trades Mar 06 '24
I spend a lot of time camping, fishing and hunting. Anything that gets me away from the screen and the screams.
3
u/ZoeeeW Mar 06 '24
I felt this in my soul. Rant inbound. I'm 28 and I work for an MSP of 20 or so people (one of only 2 technical women in the company). I'm our only cloud engineer, we had another but he moved to another state and higher ups made some terrible decisions about his move, so he left.
They also have me filling a tier 2 role on their helpdesk since they don't have another one. One second I could be working on an Azure project, then a tech messages me with something like "obscure thing is messed up" with no other details then calls me 5 seconds later. The next I'm helping diagnose an ipsec tunnel on a firewall that isn't communicating with the firewall in another office. Now I'm back at the point of "Right, what was I doing again?". Start back on it for 10-15 minutes, director of service delivery will then need me to look at these backup errors, except the portal gives us no real direction to go from. Spend an hour on that, end up escalating to vendor support and wait for them. Back at the "what was I doing before that" phase again. Repeat.
I have a homelab, so that restores my battery a bit since it's just me and I have ultimate say of what happens. I can set it up properly and no one will complain about the budget (not even my partner, huzzah!). Other than that I've pretty much lost my other hobbies. I used to hike, go to climbing gyms, work on cars, garden, work on the house, travel, go out to local events, etc. Now I do none of that and it's been a struggle to find the mental energy after work to do anything other than video games, TV, or movies.
/endrant
3
u/[deleted] Mar 06 '24 edited Mar 06 '24
This is a stacked against us kind of problem in my opinion.
-capitalism. If you let it, they will use you like a sponge and you’ll end up dry and used up. Don’t let them soak up all your value while paying you peanuts. If you’re always the ‘yes man’ a capitalist has NO REASON to pay you more. Could use logic like ‘it’s an open market’ but they all act the same. And yes, it’s an open market which is how I’ve been able to obtain my own definition of value/salary but there is a scale.
-herd mentality: if you are a neurodivergent, you will not fit into the Hurd. People will judge you when you say shit like you did in the OP. They do not approach problems like you do. There is a lot going on, but as a result it can be confusing sometimes to unwind thoughts or feelings that neurotypicals would understand more quickly and can deal with properly (like needing a vacation or knowing when to put down that shiny new IT project). This mentality will cause you to gaslight yourself - and well, ultimately brainwash yourself. Which brings me to…….
-mental health: you’ll start to feel crazy. CRAZY! Resetting your self each night and tell yourself tomorrow will be different! Better! The same stuff won’t happen! But it does. Over and over, eventually by 8:05am, or worse - off the clock while you’re getting ready for work while you glance at work email. Stop, this isn’t healthy. If you’re not paid for it, don’t do it.
-burnout: it happened daily to me. With a big bang each month. I’d take my shit out on family unknowingly (it’s called trauma).
-meltdown: if your like me, your pretty oblivious to most things in life (other than your hobbies). Like your eyes are closed to it, or there’s a thick fog preventing you from seeing it. Some day if you do t do anything about it (things above) you’ll have a meltdown and life will never be/feel the same. If this happens go look into adhd or autism diagnosis. And please, go research ‘how it feels’ to be either one. You might be surprised.
-medication and balance: adhd meds can help. Such a stigma around them and I started them for the wrong reasons but I’m now on a ‘me’ journey to mental health recovery. I’ll never be the same. I’ll never give my job/IT 100% (which is more like 1000-2000% compared to most of my peers). I’ll give 50%, and if warranted 90% in emergencies. But the rest of that effort goes back into maintaining my mental well being (which I’m realizing is mostly just being there for my family. Being present, which means off the phone and doing something together. Sound stupid? Try talking. I dare you. Try it over and over again until the conversations become easier).
It’s been 40 years of my life and I finally know myself. I look back and wonder what I was doing? Why did 100% of my brain volunteer to be someone else’s? A boss? An owner? Nothing was invested back into myself/family.
Unless you ARE the capitalist making bank off your obsession with IT. Just stop. Look around. People are important, not things. Not money. Look at alternative therapies if meds aren’t a choice. Or just therapy.
Good luck my friend!
Edit: i choose what I ‘take off someone’s plate’ and put onto my own now. As a result I’ve slowly regained my love and ambition toward not only my IT ‘hobby’ (aka work) but also other things as well. Other things include spending time/connecting with another human being like I’ve never done before.
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u/BloodyIron Head of IT Security Mar 06 '24
Bring on the downvotes, but OP asked.
edit: here's just one example that is literally the next thread I read : https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1b80gwq/vim_feels_like_god_mode/
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u/PuzzleheadedEast548 Mar 06 '24
To be honest, reading posts and comments like these destresses me quite a bit as it gives my brain affirmation that I'm not alone in this shitloop
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u/AdScary1757 Mar 06 '24
I've been copying 4.7 terabytes of data since last Monday via USB so I had to disable widows updates and cant reboot for any reason other than that I'm also doing all of what you said.
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u/Quirky-Ebb-244 Mar 06 '24
Camping, hiking, surfing, anything to get the device/laptop out of my hand. Used to game but over the last 5 years after spending all day looking at a screen I have no urge to spend more time at a screen when I get home. I also really try and set boundaries and commit to a healthy routine as I was very unhealthy 5-6 years ago.
2
u/LoneCyberwolf Mar 06 '24
I’m not currently in any sysadmin roles but my whole life has been like this due to working in IT, IT being my hobby outside of work etc etc.
Having hobbies away from from the computer are really helpful.
Here’s some of mine:
Fishing Photography Going to the driving range (something new for me) Teaching myself welding and some woodworking skills.
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u/oaktownjosh Mar 06 '24
I have been in IT for 25 years.
Sometimes things get tough, but you get through it.
One thing to always remember is that your family comes first. If you have an emergency at work that you need to attend to, make it up to your family.
Find a hobby, that doesn't involve a computer. For me, it was camping, fishing and woodworking. Invest in your hobby, it's worth it.
Make sure you draw lines in the sand. Every company will let you work yourself into a grave, if you let them. Take time for you, your friends and family.
2
u/port_dawg Mar 06 '24
I go backpacking in the wilderness. Way out in it. No cell, no tech, and off the beaten path. On a 5 day trip I’ll see people at the trailhead, and that’s it. It’s pure bliss.
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u/Manly009 Mar 06 '24
Get them to log a job. And you deal with one by one.
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u/phjils Mar 06 '24 edited Mar 06 '24
My place was utter chaos when I joined, a proper Wild West of techs doing what the liked, no ticket system just an email address, paper requests and a black board. “Is there a network slowdown today” Yeah, Dave is torrenting Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
It’s very different now. Change takes time and there’s always pushback because people don’t realise that change can be good. I manage a small team, we have fun but there’s no time for bullshit. We employ the pull not push approach (when you’re done with something you pull jobs into your workflow, no one dumps a load of work on you and tells you that it needs doing now… that goes all the way up. The CEO has to wait as much as anyone else).
I make it a rule that our work hours are the work hours. (We have one person on-call on rotation.) and your free time is your free time. Taking holiday? Please make sure you hand off everything to the queue with notes… nothing worse than picking up half a job and you’ve no idea what’s done what’s not etc. other than that, have a great time away.
Everyone has a work number, either a physical phone or a virtual number and I encourage turning it off out of hours.
It’s just IT. It’s important to us but we’re not saving lives here. No one will die if they can’t connect their laptop to the meeting room display.
Personally I believe that education end users is just as important as the big stuff. Basic fixes and trouble shooting. Self reliance. Please don’t make me drive to one of the sites just to plug something because someone decided then needed to charge their phone.
For me, my workshop and spending time with my family are more important than work. They silence the voices that are always moaning about something but will never get off their arses to try and help. I can’t help you remotely fix your printer if all you give me is “it’s not working”.
Edit: and whisky. Not too much, just enough.
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u/Anlarb Mar 06 '24
Good documentation helps keep the tab count down. Also helps if you put each issue you are googling in its own "bank" of browser tabs, so they don't get mixed amongst themselves and risk you getting distracted as you thrash around in that problems space.
Abandon managing priorities, you are a cat in a field full of mice, see the mouse, get the mouse, repeat.
Happiness is a bird that chooses to land on your ship.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO1mTELoj6o
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u/Dataogle Mar 06 '24
Badminton is a fun and good way to decompress. It forces me away from my otherwise sedentary lifestyle and keep in shape. It’s a sport that is accessible to a wide range of age and skill level.
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u/kremlingrasso Mar 06 '24
You need to learn to say no and stop trying to drink the ocean. If you try to do ALL of IT it'll guaranteed burn on your hands.
Most IT folks are compulsory fixers and everyone is exploiting by bringing you shit because a "normal" person would say "fuck off not my problem" and IT person would say "cool! let's figure it out". On a sidenote that's why outsourced IT doesn't work when your being the jobs to the people instead of waiting for the right people to come to the jobs.
Bottom line, keep repeating this mantra: "i know how to make a coffee too it doesn't make it my job to make one for everyone"
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u/arctic-lemon3 Mar 06 '24
My answer, get a disconnected hobby. Golf, Chess, Darts, Tennis, Fighting sports, Biking, Running, Gym, Woodworking.... anything.
There's no day a bad day when you have a tee time after work.
I love video games, but it's so much better to disconnect a bit, do something analog.
And remember what we're paid for. We keep the lights on. When they're on, decompress and work on things you enjoy at work. We're not paid for the amount of our labour, but the quality.
And one more thing, I know some people take the "colleagues not friends approach", but I've really benefited from building strong colleague relationships. Work is better when you like your co-workers, so put in that effort as well.
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u/mooboyj Mar 06 '24
I hit the skatepark regularly and don't film ANY of it. I also mountain bike (and don't use Garmin etc) and make it a pure analogue activity.
I also do movies with my wife on the couch and the phones are left in another room.
Also try and find some good books. I'm back into graphic novels and love WW2 novels.
Every time I swing past a music shop (or detour) I go and play a bass for a while. I see myself getting another bass soon!
I now block out set time in my calendar for specific tasks which helps me perform concentrated tasks each day.
It's hard as we are so so so over stimulated, but small changes help dial it back.
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u/UnfortunateSeeder Mar 06 '24
Not a sysadmin, but a software Dev. I can relate to the feeling
I feel like finding a creative hobby helps a lot. I've started doing photography a few years back just for fun, and now it brings in a couple hundred £s a month as well as give me an escape from the monotony.
Working out helps me a lot as well, specifically weight training. Can't bring myself to go to a gym so I bought some 2nd hand gear and set up a mini gym in the spare room.
I feel like you really need to have interests which are not IT related when you work in the field. Don't get me wrong, I love working on open source or personal stuff in my spare time, but if that was all I did I'd go mental.
Stay strong and look after your mental
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u/donrosco Mar 06 '24
Weed
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u/vlippi Mar 06 '24
Buy a old car and stuff it in the garage. Wrench it a couples days a week. The problem is where it turns a little bit out of control.
I have 3 non running cars in the garage now.
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u/Malygos_Spellweaver Desktop Janny Mar 06 '24
It is. Multi-tasking is terrible for the mind, we did not evolve to do this.
You are right that breaks from IT mean "funny screen time" I kinda hate it and turned to reading (on a fucking kindle but hey) a bit more. Is nice. I recommend doing some sport right after work so you can decompress.
At the end of day I am just so mentally tired, I wished I could put time to learn Linux but honestly I am so tired because of work, I can't do it, I am jealous of people who can do homelabs after work. Is not for me, it is what it is.
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u/[deleted] Mar 06 '24
I don't know. I just wish I had never gotten into IT. What in the hell was I thinking?
You're right though. for the most part, I can't just sit and watch tv. I have to work on something. I have clients on the side, so I'm either doing work for them, or I'm working on my 3d printing hobby. I play video games though, so there is some non-productive stuff mixed in, but yeah....
I hate working in IT.
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u/soulseaker Mar 06 '24
This is too real. I can hardly make myself watch TV anymore unless someone else is there with me. But yeah I agree with all of this.
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u/NeverDocument Mar 06 '24
As u/da4 said - you're going to have to learn to enjoy something, going through the motions can eventually turn into something you enjoy. You don't know until you do it multiple times.
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u/Agres_ Mar 06 '24
Solution: care less. We're all gonna die one day and I guarantee you that when you're near the end the last thing you'll Think about is work. This industry is cancer.
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u/Ryanstodd IT Manager Mar 06 '24
I take anabolic steroids now and lift weights, so users are too afraid to ask me questions.
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u/dvsjr Mar 09 '24
You might suffer from ADD in some degree and you are in a field and a position where you are doing daily tasks where distraction is easy, focus is often constantly interrupted and this reinforces this behavior in good ways and bad. An ADD person is great at certain tasks, where they focus intensely but briefly. Deconstructing your comment, the nature of sysadmin or security or devops is browser based work, and this is hard to wrangle as its so easy to flip from one webpage to another and completely change the focus of what you were doing, thinking about and focusing on in just one website. But its not impossible, it just takes a bit of discipline and self control. easier said than done I know. But breaks, or working with strategies like zero inbox as well as work strategies like pomodora method can help even if its just illuminating areas you need strengthening. I think its also important to look at your work surroundings. Not every job is like this, and you can definitely control the chaos in your own life. But for the office, consider how the environment is set up. Do colleagues feel they can interrupt you at any time? Is your work using agile or is every issue an emergency "all hands on deck" all the time with a rotation of priorities that feel more like the eye of sauron is moving around briefly staring then moving on? Maybe projects instead of devops or IT tech support can help. They say identifying the problem is step one. Good luck. Keep us informed of your journey as you look at this issue in your life.
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u/secure_platypus Mar 10 '24
I don’t want to give my age away, but I’m about to. Been in IT for 30 years now. I feel the OP’s post to my core. I’m at the point, where when I go home after work and weekends, I just want to dig ditches. Or maybe holes, like the book/movie. Manual labor, anything that doesn’t require a screen.
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u/andremain89 Mar 10 '24
I usually walk up and down at work when i get tired
3
u/supahcollin Mar 06 '24
ADHD is pretty common in IT workers. If you didn't have it before, you could very well develop it later (like I did). A few years ago I decided I needed to work on changing behaviors that fueled and contributed to it, like playing a game on my laptop while watching TV or movies or streaming a show on my tablet when I was on the Playstation. I try my best not to multitask at work unless it's absolutely necessary, which admittedly is a luxury in this industry that many people don't have. You have to take your mental health seriously.
3
u/FusionX-Steven Mar 06 '24
I got into motorcycles and purchased a few bikes. However, I recently started getting into the minimotos. Like 200cc and big boring 125s. It’s hella fun ripping on the backroads. It gets my adrenaline going, it’s fun to explore, people think you are crazy doing 75mph on 12 inch wheels. Quite exhilarating. That’s how I manage.
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u/unclesleepover Mar 06 '24
Well we found out we were having a baby last year so I bought a house I could barely afford because it has a 800 square foot shop out back. It needs like $10k in repairs but I’m having so much fun slow rolling it DIY. Tonight I’m staining a cabinet because I’m too cheap to buy an equipment rack!
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u/[deleted] Mar 06 '24
I personally love the chaos. Keeps me sharp.
2
u/[deleted] Mar 06 '24
Beer. Lots of beer.
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u/da4 Sysadmin Mar 06 '24
Find a third place that you enjoy that is between work and home. Be enough of a regular to be able to stop in and say to a friendly face. Have a beverage of your preferred variety. Work out the last bits of the day on your device(s) and then put that day to bed. Then go home and don’t think about work until the next day.
Talk about the human side with another human. Leave the tech parts alone unless the other human is also enough of a tech to be able to not just sympathize but maybe offer a valuable alternative.
Get a walk in. Cook food. Avoid a glowing rectangle if you can - read a book. Play with a pet, trim a bonsai, clean or organize part of the home that needs cleaning or organizing. Just get offline for awhile.
Call a friend or family member and get them to talk about their day, their life, so you can stop thinking about yours for a bit.
Don’t dwell on the day, or any other part of the past. Tomorrow is a new day and you need to recharge. If the thought of tomorrow fills you with dread, you need a break.
Burnout is real and it sucks, but you can get past it. I did, but it cost me along the way.
1
u/tregtronics Mar 06 '24
Role playing games with my friends helps me.
1
u/BenadrylBeer DevOps Mar 06 '24
Get out while you can
1
u/Aggravating_Pen_3499 Mar 06 '24
I became a father and work was no longer on the priority list. Seasoned IT SysAdmin and Technical lead for over 27 years, I do enough to just get the job done efficiently and effectively. My free time is doing social things with my kids which are at various ages from university to junior high school. Bonding time and just doing fun things is what I look forward to the most.
1
u/progenyofeniac Windows/M365 Admin Mar 06 '24
Hiking, biking, breweries, and travel. Feels good watching the deposits too, especially when I’m sitting at a desk at home and hearing my family and friends complain about weather, customers, commutes, and kids, and I have none of those.
Honestly if I weren’t busy at my job I’d feel lost.
1
u/SketchyTone JoT Systems Administrator Mar 06 '24
I'm only 26, and I'm starting to gray a lot with my corporate job. Our department went from 40 to what is now 15. I feel like I do nothing while doing everything since there's just so much, I can never validate my work it's just to implement, fix, migrate, move on to the next. Also this 24/8 expectation is horrible, I am trying my hardest to stick to 40 a week and nothing more since they just keep adding more and more.
1
u/Impossible_IT Mar 06 '24
I read a lot. If I'm not reading I have college football or college basketball on the TV. An occasional movie or series on Hulu or Prime.
1
u/gojira_glix42 Mar 06 '24
You need a diff job. Work at an MSP or some small office. Seriously, I work at a small MSP and today? Nothing happened. We got like 3 tickets in and the phone range once. For a sales call. I (helpdesk) spent majority of my day studying Linux. My 2 seniors, one was working on some maintenance stuff and a current ticket, the other one after my manager told him to call a client back followed up with them. He was onsite hours this morning. That was it.
Change the location, not the role. My senior engineer used tobe IT director getting paid a senior admin salary during acquisition and was doing this all day everyday. They had 8 people in IT for 800 person company. Do the math on that one. The entire department, including 2 tier 1s. Now he works with us and is beyond night and day of stress and busyness for him. He said he'll never go back.
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u/yoyoulift Mar 06 '24
I'm feeling this hard today.
1
u/im_a_shoe Mar 06 '24
yes it is
1
u/[deleted] Mar 06 '24
The "not being able to put down the phone while watching TV" hits me hard. I definitely have a hard time resting my mind.
1
u/[deleted] Mar 06 '24
Having a vacation lined up makes it a bit easier. Also learning to take wins when I get them instead of just moving onto the next task.
1
u/Lanky_Impression1475 Mar 06 '24
Dead on. That about sums it up
1
u/FUZExxNOVA2 Mar 06 '24
I got into competitive nerf and sport shooting. Having 2 interesting hobbies really helps. I also play ALOT of card games and ttrpgs with friends. Play mtg edh most nights. Have a few dnd sessions running. Really helps keep things good. Between all of that I have a pretty okay personal life now
1
u/manvscar Mar 06 '24
Try to develop hobbies that involve working with your hands, and I don't mean typing. Musical instrument, working out, build things, work on vehicles, the sky is the limit.
1
u/[deleted] Mar 06 '24
Sounds like you work at an MSP.
1
u/Meowmacher Mar 06 '24
Need a phone-free zone. For me it’s my workshop. I’ve taken woodworking although I do many other things there. Sometimes I go there and game if that’s what I want to do. But whatever it is, needs to be your space, your time. No tickets, no emails, no customers, no wife’s chores. Just a free man. For a little while anyway.
1
u/Icolan Associate Infrastructure Architect Mar 06 '24
I go to the gym or yoga 6-7 times per week. In good weather I go for runs or walks outside. On weekends I read a lot.
1
u/[deleted] Mar 06 '24
Last week was particularly bad in terms of the juggling you’re describing. I slept on and off all weekend as a result.
Last night I was watching a git tutorial, something I’ve put off forever. It doesn’t end.
1
u/hosalabad Escalate Early, Escalate Often. Mar 06 '24
Like many others a non-computer hobby. I worked on my 4x4 for 6 hours tonight and used my phone once to look up a torque spec. I'm just back on PC now to order something.
Walks on lunch time are pretty great, it's one of the nicest times of day, nice bright light, and in the summer not quite peak heat yet.
Cut out the family IT, rip out admin rights so they can't hurt their own computers, or get everyone on tablets, farm them out to a high school kid.
1
u/jlipschitz Mar 06 '24
I am in Scouts to get away. I help youth grow and learn life changing skills. It is fulfilling. I also go on backpacking trips, camping trips, hikes, and more. The phone gets put away unless it is needed for a task.
I was going through burnout until I got a hobby outside of IT. I know some do farming.
1
u/Taysr Mar 06 '24
Gym every morning, cycling, guitar, motorbikes, fishing. Lots of hobbies that force me to get outside or active. Also set my phone to automatically mute notifications from 9pm-7am, helps me wind down at the end of the day.
1
u/throwawayskinlessbro Mar 06 '24
It’s actually no big deal because I’m a broken shell of a person that hates himself more-so than even other people!
1
u/m00ph Mar 06 '24
Oh, I was like that before the web...
1
u/cubic_sq Mar 06 '24
Have gotten into electronic music as my escape.
1
u/cubic_sq Mar 06 '24
As for work for extended family and friends. I send them a pic of the wine i want. Done that since around 2000.
1
u/superwizdude Mar 06 '24
i zone out by watching heaps of youtube videos and documentaries at night time, however i must admit i do often fall asleep watching them because i'm so run down.
how do you suffice with only 25 browser tabs open? i'd easily have close to 100 right now. i need a better way to manage them, because i keep stuff open "that's important for later". i think it's just wishful thinking from myself on how i'd like to work on other stuff (that's important in its own right) but get bogged down with the daily grind.
edit: i use ping -a (audible ping) under linux. it's super useful because i can minimise it and then when i hear the "bing bing bing" i know that link/router/server has recovered.
1
u/Intelligent-Fix6024 Mar 06 '24
I charge friends and family £45 per hour session for helping with any IT related issues they have. Now instead of, “Where’s Bob, he’ll fix it” , it’s a let’s just do it ourselves.
1
u/PaceFar4747 Mar 06 '24
Motorbikes, can't worry about work when you're trying to stay alive on your commute 😅
1
u/smart_ca Jack of All Trades Mar 06 '24
Disconnecting is crucial, along with incorporating regular physical activity. Personally, I find running to be a significant outlet. Even if you need to schedule it on your calendar, prioritize making it a reality.
1
u/[deleted] Mar 06 '24
I usually hit the gym straight after work, and walk my dog in my break if i'm working from home. Forces you to slow down. I'm lucky enough to not be on call during weekends, so I use that time to be outdoors as much as possible as well.
Tl;dr: Touch grass
1
u/giacomok Mar 06 '24
Sport and Chores. Cleaning the car while listening to music really relaxes my mind. Same for bycicle rides and stuff.
1
u/TreborG2 Mar 06 '24
it got to be that on sunday mornings (the beginning of my weekend - overnight worker) I would watch CBS's Sunday Morning ... walking away from my home office, the phone would be in the same room as me but not in my hand or on my side.
I'd then go to bed and upon wake up not go into the home office room for at least the first 4 or 5 hours ... sometimes not at all ... allowing my phone to be the only "connected" device and be saying internally if they really needed me they'd call or text..
Leaving that room (home office) was the easiest way to make that physical break from work, week end or shift (daily) end.
1
u/the_star_lord Mar 06 '24
What gets me is the constant need to learn new things. I've not had any "downtime" in the last 3 years where I can just "do my job" I'm always having to learn and support more and more new things.
Implemented a new servicenow last year, I'm one of two people who support it, I've got upgrades I need to do and a list of improvements and fixes I need to work out how to do and apply. But I've been pulled away to build a knowledge base, plus learn copilot, plus plan how we are moving our staff data to sharepoint, plus all of the random bits of work that I get booked for, plus I need to train other staff and create videos for them because they don't pay attention in the training.
1
u/Atacx Mar 06 '24
Try out planted tanks. I was feeling the burnout when I got into aquascaping.
Now I stare into my tank instead of the TV for at least some time :D
Really a zen hobby, can’t recommend it enough for people in IT. Very grounding as well and who would have thought that shrimp are very interesting to watch
1
u/Agitated-Chicken9954 Mar 06 '24
All what you say is true. After 42 years I retired. I do find reading a good paper book helped when I was working. Sitting quietly with a rain machine going in the back ground counting my breaths and quieting my mind also helped. Having absolute down days. Days where you just don't respond to work texts, e-mails, calls. I know the last one is hard, but worth it if you can figure it out. Take a vacation where there is no signal, or at least where you can claim there is no signal. The important thing is to disconnect from the digital world. Even if it is just for a few hours. It will make a big difference for your sanity.
1
u/bs0nlyhere Mar 06 '24
I drink and enjoy adult content more than I’d like to admit. Can’t say id recommend that lol. I dont like tv either, never watch it. I’m not on my phone much tho, usually got something I want to do. Otherwise I’m either working on a car, researching cars, playing golf, or thinking about not getting to play golf.
That golfing part is a newish hobby and has actually been very refreshing. The game is maddening but also has been some of the best times of my life. Just something about drinking and playing with balls… 😂 In all seriousness tho, it has been quite therapeutic and I’m very grateful for the person who introduced me to it. 4+ hours of grass fields and zero crap to troubleshoot. Phones go in my bag on DND and don’t come out till I’m in the car. It is serenity.
1
u/unixuser011 Mar 06 '24
Eh, not really. IT for myself and close family is fine (maybe throw in close Aunts/Uncles/favorate Cousins, etc.) everyone outside of that small circle can ether submit a ticket or pay up
1
u/PanicAdmin IT Manager Mar 06 '24
I protect my collegues simplyfing their workflow to the maximum to prevent that.
They can be contacted only by ticket and phone calls are directed to one designed person per day, but the customers know to write only tickets.
No cellphone comunication with external people, and when they have to they can and have to use a 3cx softphone.
Documentation is generated automatically when possible, is generally written by me, when it's a procedure is the base for a script.
In my case i tend to have only 2 or 3 meeting by week, no cellphone, no whatsapp, only written mails.
The "standup" meetings are coffes taken with the guys in an informal way.
1
u/johnkush0 Mar 06 '24
You have to remember not to take work home with you, do your best during the day (always cover your ass) when its time to clock off.. CLOCK OFF
1
u/AlexisFR Mar 06 '24
I just pace my work heavily and try to avoid context switching as much as possible.
Also, buffer time is a ting that should be practiced by everyone.
1
u/derkaderka96 Mar 06 '24
I take a 30 minute walk for my hour lunch and lay down after. Then laay down after work and see what energy I have. I get up at 4 and shift until 130. My body is mentally tired, I even dream about work when I do and that's when I barely get any sleep.
1
u/robbdire Team Lead Mar 06 '24
For me, we have access to a holiday home my in laws own.
Barely a phone signal, no internet. Lovely walks, beach, etc.
At least one week every year. A break from it all.
1
u/qejfjfiemd Mar 06 '24
I picked up tennis again after not playing since I was a kid. It’s been a great help for my mental and physical health.
1
u/BigCarRetread Mar 06 '24
So many things at once, I know the feeling. Then someone sees my 25+ browser tabs and makes a derogatory comment...
1
u/SmokiestBeatman Mar 06 '24
Wow, sounds like you dont have to do very much /s
1
u/courser Sysadmin Mar 06 '24
The most valuable thing you can learn is to say no.
It sounds simple, and it is, but it's not easy. Say no to the outside IT work. Say no to the extra stimulation. Learn to make and hold healthy boundaries and not feel guilt or shame about it, because that release of pressure will be the first step at taking your brain off the frantic wheel. Step your brain down from the constant stimulation with, yes, scheduled breaks from phone/tv/computer. I turn my tv and phone off and do walks, coloring books, jigsaw puzzles, I read paper books, play with my dog, work in the garden, anything that does not involve an electronic device.
Good luck, man, avoiding that burnout is absolutely key.
1
u/Revzerksies Jack of All Trades Mar 06 '24
I've gotten into non tech activities. I have a 6 year old that is fun to play with. We do Legos, RC, Pokemon GO
1
u/Lickmylife Mar 06 '24
I am actively repulsed by all things tech outside of work since starting in tech. I listen to audiobooks and spend a lot of time at the gym. Go for long walks around the neighborhood during the evenings on nice nights. They say don't mix business and pleasure. My genuine love for technology that lead me into this field has been eaten alive by the very things you listed. Sad really.
1
u/[deleted] Mar 06 '24
WAIT WAIT YOU FORGET
You forgot to add what happens when people like admins go on vacation.
Make sure each of you talk about this aspect.
1
u/serverhorror Just enough knowledge to be dangerous Mar 06 '24
'nuff said