Landed first Big-tech role out of college and it's destroying my health.
Posted by Expert-Percentage886@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 423 comments
Background: I've been working as a SaaS support engineer at a big tech company for the past few months and it's my first big role right out of college.
I got the dream combo: remote work, high pay, and great benefits.
But the workload, the level of knowledge required, and the amount of cases i'm constantly working on is overwhelming, to the point that I'm questioning if I'm even capable of doing this job at all.
I'm always sitting, hunched over, and stressed. Talking to clients that are upset about a solution they cannot have nor have the capabilities to do. I'm always learning but never feel as though I'm ACTUALLY learning because meeting SLAs is more important than quality responses.
I am violently confused all the time. Once I get the hang of a topic, I'm hit with a brand new topic that I'm expected to know at a deep level (I'm talking from Kubernetes, to Cisco Meraki, to AWS, etc) at a moment's notice.
Work and home separation is nonexistent, as I'm working in a small apartment next to my bed.
I go to sleep thinking about the cases and meetings I have to do tomorrow, I feel as though these problems are always lurking in my head.
It feels like engineering school all over again, but this time there's no graduation to end it.
Is this normal? Does it get easier? I know I have a wealth of knowledge that is incomparable to not even a few months ago, but it's never, ever enough.
Sensitive_Scar_1800@reddit
Lol you think the remote work, high pay, and great benefits came with a low stress work life balance?
Here’s the worst part, no one is gonna stop you from wrecking both your physical or mental health and when you finally do burnout and call it quits they’ll higher your replacement
Rich-Pic@reddit
Of course, the billionaires giving you breadcrumbs have the right to drive yo insane! What the fuck is this guy thinking
Ssakaa@reddit
So, there's reality and there's morality based ideology. You're living in morality based ideology, thinking what someone has a "right" to do, or should do, has any bearing on reality. The person you were replying to wasn't talking what's right, or what should be. They were simply talking what is. They weren't defending it, or justifying it, or promoting it. They simply pointed out to OP that all those idealogical high horses are on a carosel. They're pretty, and fun, but ultimately lead nowhere.
Rich-Pic@reddit
I mean, sure with that attitude. Once you resign yourself to be taken advantage of it’s very easy for me to do just that.
People don’t think they can so they don’t unionize and they don’t collectively bargain. That would solve this shit in 10 seconds.
Ssakaa@reddit
Unions were great, when they had teeth. They're meaningless when you can find replacements anywhere in the world for that role. When you're doing natural resource extraction, you're tied to a location. When you're doing manufacturing, you're tied down by the cost of a new factory and the cost of downtime to build it/move. IT has none of those costs for the company. Get all the US helpdesk folks to strike? Guatemala will happily take those outsourcing contracts.
SpecialSheepherder@reddit
Oh really? Unions don't have teeth anymore? Is that why all the big tech companies are trying to prevent their employees from unionizing? Just their best in mind, don't waste your generous salary on union dues, eh?
ExceptionEX@reddit
Name a single powerful union not attached to something that is geographically locked.
Unions need something that they can control, and when you can outsource labor globally to places that don't have unions, unions loose their teeth.
Even in places that unions use to have a lot of power, they have lost a lot of their power in the U.S. manufacture, auto assembly, airline assembly, all of there unions have lost a lot of ability to effectively negotiate.
Why do you think their are more cars built in Kentucky than Detroit now.
The dream that unions are going to some how magically make things better is a pipe dream. And in this administration, and chance they had is literally been wiped to zero.
SpecialSheepherder@reddit
Name me one union that actually lost it's teeth an doesn't achieve deals anymore? Auto workers just got a 33% raise in their last contract, Boeing 38%. You seem to be a corporate shill.
r00t3294@reddit
SpecialSheepherder learn how to read challenge
SpecialSheepherder@reddit
So is manufacturing geographically locked now or not? Only the unions?
ExceptionEX@reddit
Guess you missed that part? (both the examples you mentioned are geolocked to their facilities)
Also you may have missed that Boeing while giving their union workers raises, also moved the manufacturing of the 787 to their new non-union facility and are laying off at their union facilities.
Same with many of the UAW facilities, check their closure and lay off rates in the last several years. Its easy to give a union what they want, when you know you won't be bound to it.
UncommitedOtter@reddit
This is the exact same attitude that anti-union folks had during the unionization drives of the early turn of the century.
Ssakaa@reddit
Watching the tech-covering unions in the federal space come up all bark and no bite, while their members can't even legally consider a strike, hasn't helped much.
UncommitedOtter@reddit
That is an issue of politics primarily, less about union power.
ExceptionEX@reddit
If unions didn't use their lobbying power to prevent this, what did they have the lobbyist and power for?
Unions are meant to fight for the workers, and they lost the fight, it is hard to claim that they are meaningful, or effective in what they were designed to do.
Not sure how you can say that is less about union power, when it is an direct example of them failing to marshal the power they were designed to wield.
UncommitedOtter@reddit
Because they wrongly thought that supporting democrats unconditionally would deliver them wins.
ExceptionEX@reddit
So they made a mistake that cost those they represent everything, and yet some how they aren't to blame, and that people should support them, give them funds, and trust them to negotiate for their well being when they made such a blunder?
UncommitedOtter@reddit
Oh, sorry. You are lacking an understanding of politics and union politics.
ExceptionEX@reddit
yeah, I think that my be the other way around.
Also, for a better understanding of union politics, why don't you do a look up one the median salary of a union rep vs the cost of their homes in DC.
When you see that your union reps, aren't your union reps, the politics of this become pretty clear.
UncommitedOtter@reddit
Spare me the reactionary talking points
Ssakaa@reddit
... you. You think those two things are separate?
UncommitedOtter@reddit
Absolutely. It has been a bipartisan affair to gut unions all over, but there was a mistaken belief that Democrats would be better and so many unions hitched their wagon to a party that hated them in favor of the professional managerial class, and so didn't flex their power.
That is a political problem that can be resolved with union power, but the choice to wield it is an issue of politics. If unions across the board reckon with the damage that Democrats have done and split from backing them nearly unilaterally and instead use the power that labor has, then they will rediscovered the muscle memory.
notHooptieJ@reddit
the problem is that an IT union would include diametrically opposed forces, a solid portion of "IT" is considered white collar management, and makes 6+ figures.
Or thinks they will be after they get their next cert.
the majority is actually min-wage slaves or not much better, and they are directly opposed to the other side.
until you can get all the workers on the same side of the picket line Unions are worse than worthless, and are downright a threat to any power you have as an individual worker.
theomegachrist@reddit
You're not wrong, but you are just explaining Capitalism and the brainwashing that exists for anyone that thinks they are white collar. Unions seem crazy in IT now, but the goal of AI is to automate workers out of jobs eventually and we are in an awful economy. Perhaps all kinds of unions will suddenly become viable in the future. Long shot, but you never know
UncommitedOtter@reddit
Look up SPEEA, while that may be for a single company, there is nothing preventing sectoral bargaining if the need is there.
notHooptieJ@reddit
except the whole 'collective' part you cant make happen before that
I admire unions, i strongly support them; i'd even support role-specific unions, but the 6 figure devs care just as little about the helpdeskers making burger flipping money as management does.
even when they sit side by side for years, the guy making $250k just has no grasp of the issues the guy making 35k next to him has.
its like asking eskimos what life without ice is or telling blind people how much the sun hurts your eyes.
there's a breakdown there; they simply do no have the same goals or needs.
UncommitedOtter@reddit
If that were the case then unionization would be impossible. You probably aren't going to unionize the top level at the start, but thats why you can start with the lowest level and flex enough power to gradually add the next rung up.
vNerdNeck@reddit
and they weren't really wrong. How much manufacturing is done in the US today vs 1950-1970s.
hprather1@reddit
We're actually manufacturing more than ever but we're doing it with far fewer people.
vNerdNeck@reddit
in 1950 the US accounted for 60% of the worlds manufacturing
todays it's 16%
try again.
hprather1@reddit
Why would anybody expect the US share of manufacturing to remain so high? That's incredibly stupid. The developed world was rebuilding from something called WW2 while the rest of the world was still developing.
The fact is we're still manufacturing more than ever. Your point is irrelevant to anything anyone should care about.
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/USA/united-states/manufacturing-output
vNerdNeck@reddit
Lol.
That makes it even worse!!!
We had the entire world market because of WW2, nobody should have been able to take that much of the world market share from us, but they did. And they did it because unions eventually made it impossible to continue expanding manufacturing in the US.
Saying we are producing more than ever is just a straw man. No business in the world could get away with losing that kind of market dominance and still be looking at as being healthy, even if they were selling slightly more products that than before. Its faulty logic. All that shows is that the manufacturing global market kept on growing big lead and and we stayed stagnant.
For fuck sake, even in the link you posted shows the issues. In 1997 manufacturing accounted for 16% of GDP and in 2021 it's 10. If it wasn't for unions pushing jobs overseas and making the US an undesirable location for manufacturing, we could have kept growing our industrial base.
We went from producing everything we need in country, to importing it... remember COVID and all the shortages of needed goods that we couldn't get because they were all made in China?
Were "producing more than ever!" But damn near ran out of PPE for hospitals cause we weren't actually producing shit.
hprather1@reddit
What is this obsession with mfg as the be all end all of jobs and economics? What you're saying makes no sense. In my first comment you replied to I even said we mfe more than ever just with fewer people. That's GOOD. We shouldn't be employing people just for the sake of their employment if we can automate that job.
And what do you not understand? We are manufacturing more than ever but it's not the same shit from decades ago. This is mind boggling that I'm having to repeatedly explain this to you. That also doesn't mean that we mfr EVERYTHING. Offshoring jobs is an entirely different discussion than the claims of what and how much we mfr domestically.
CatProgrammer@reddit
Also what, do they think people just stopped getting jobs when manufacturing shifted to other countries? Did they not grow up seeing the US as a service economy?
erock279@reddit
The United States beating its own amount of production has nothing to do with the global percent of those goods increased.
An anti-unionist fudging the numbers, where have a seen that before …
ExceptionEX@reddit
right, so we are manufacturing more than other, and any statistics that don't agree with that were fudged by anti-unionist.
So prove what you are claiming, because otherwise you are sounding pretty solidly like a conspiracy nut.
erock279@reddit
No brother, you can’t pull a farcical statistic that’s unrelated to the point and expect it to make sense.
“Oh my god I’m farting so much today”
“Actually your farts only account for 5% of those in the office”
Like okay … I’M still farting a lot today. Do you see how the distribution of farts in the office doesn’t have any correlation to how much I’m farting?
Farts = manufacturing
Me = America
The office = the world
vNerdNeck@reddit
If unions were good and worked, we would still be the predominate manufacture in the world. We've gone from 60% overall (80% in some markets) market leader in manufacture to just 16%.
The reality is, Unions fixed some areas, but then got greedy and completely killed the industrial base of this country and drove it off shore. It helped the boomers and older generation-X have a good "middle class" life with the house and vacation, but long term completely killed that dream.
I get what you are trying to say, but that data doesn't really make it seem better.
Let's take car production - 1960 it was \~8.6 million. today it's \~10 million. So we've "grown" but the share of the market has dropped from 80% to about 12%.
If we had be able to capitalize and grow with the world we would be building over 50-60 million cars a year.
UncommitedOtter@reddit
They were absolutely wrong, since manufacturing rates have nothing to do with unionization.
Rich-Pic@reddit
As a business owner, I’m glad my workers like you have that defeat a attitude lol. If you all rose up at the same time, I’d be fucked. Luckily America has taught you to be good subservient little workers!
Lottabitch@reddit
There’s absolutely zero chance you run your own business with multiple staff speaking like this hahaha
Rich-Pic@reddit
Whatever you gotta tell yourself to sleep at night. Now get back to work.
Lottabitch@reddit
Hahahah. You must be 15ish. Terrible larp
Rich-Pic@reddit
One more warning, then your ass is fired buddy.
BoxerguyT89@reddit
You think Putin is the good guy in the invasion of Ukraine.
Why should we take anything you say seriously?
Rich-Pic@reddit
Who’s talking about Putin?
Lottabitch@reddit
Good one
ExceptionEX@reddit
This reads as... I cosplay as a business owner to make nonsensical bad guy statements on the internet
Rich-Pic@reddit
Hah, yep keep simping for folks like me. Back to work please. Remember you’re on call 24/7. No we can’t quite get you up to 40k this year sorry. So glad you understand!
Yupsec@reddit
That's not the point. It's one big game. You can sit there wishing you were playing by the rules of a different game, or demand to change the rules of the game, the result is the same. Nothing. You could instead learn the game, learn the rules, use them to your advantage, and suddenly you have power as a player.
You value time over money, good, everyone should. Well, one rule of the game in the U.S. states that over a certain salary (depending on State law) the company does not have to give you overtime. So is it weird that a lot of IT jobs are salaried over that and then demand on-call? Not really, they're playing by the rules. Why not ask for less money and more time? $150k/yr and accrue PTO at x rate? Why not $140k/yr and double the rate at which I accrue PTO? Why aren't people going to salary negotiations with that mindset? People always ask for a larger salary and never consider the rules of the game.
ExceptionEX@reddit
I mean the job is high pay, from home with benifis, you think its going to be easy, stress free, and not require continual learning?
It sounds like he is stressing out because he isn't managing himself well, I didn't hear anything about a manager or the job forcing unrealistic expectations.
How is he being taken advantage of, what collective bargaining is going to resolve his issues.
I swear its like some people are a broken record, and play the same tune regardless of the situation.
Rich-Pic@reddit
Yeah he should be managing to relax and earn as much money for as little work as possible. That’s how you make a good business man. That’s how I made it.
nobanpls__@reddit
you are so obnoxious and sound like a loser
Ssakaa@reddit
And, particularly in OP's context... is getting upset on idealogical grounds going to help them, or is understanding that "the reality is, they will take every bit of extra work you give, and give nothhing in return but more work" a better starting point for sorting out their own boundaries? How does what "should" be help them strike a better work life balance? Leave the job on idealogical grounds so someone else fills the gap (the company won't even blink over it), while OP moves to the next company that'll do the same?
Oli_Picard@reddit
I have worked remotely for 5 years in tech… my advice is get a hobby that forces you outdoors at the weekends. I took up photography, I plan each week a place I’m going to visit and then I go out as far away from a computer for at least 2 days. Each day after work I go for a walk or I go for a walk on my lunch break these are very small changes that can help improve mental and physical wellbeing.
FapNowPayLater@reddit
Fishing, Beach\pool with the kids.
You absolutely have to have some time where you are not looking at anything remotely resembling a digital display
unless its a concert.
Ron-Swanson-Mustache@reddit
I had the "opportunity" to work for SpaceX. I know people who worked at Tesla and that SpaceX is the same. It's good pay, but they will burn you out then change your husk out for fresh meat.
You gotta learn that work / life balance is as important as pay and job security. Or else you won't last.
Geodude532@reddit
I work with them and you are correct. Also, I've been told they don't even get a discount on Teslas so why do so many of them buy it???
_Moonlapse_@reddit
End up drinking the coolade I think
zero0n3@reddit
Yeah you don’t go to a tesla or SpaceX for work life balance.
You go there for your resume and the high pay.
And also to work around the brightest and best (depending on team of course).
Put your few years in SpaceX, sit on those RSUs, and retire at 55 instead of 70.
Mysteryman64@reddit
If you move out to Bumfuck, Kansas. You could do it at 40 or maybe even mid 30s.
ghostalker4742@reddit
Just to add to this:
None of your coworkers, managers, owners, whatever - will remember you working late, working overnight, working holidays, etc.
Your family and friends will though. They'll miss you being there with them.
broohaha@reddit
If it's any place like where I worked, everyone will remember if you didn't work crazy hours because everyone else was. I was part of a company that had sane work/life balance that was then acquired by a smaller company (in terms of headcount). At first, they told us there won't be any expectation for us to change our hours. But after they got rid of all our project managers and streamlined the workforce, I and my colleagues found ourselves working 12 hours/week day and another 12 hours through the weekend. Their culture was to pay each worker handsomely but have them do the job of two employees. And the pay was certainly nice, but I eventually left for a much saner workplace.
TheDarthSnarf@reddit
And pay them more.
ggarcia109@reddit
Preach! We're all replaceable.
todayifudgedup@reddit
Lol my first job out of college was full time office work, terrible pay, and even worse benefits. This was a big time bad idea, and even if it was for great pay and benefits, knowing what I know now, it's not worth it. Need to take care of yourself no matter what.
cz_24@reddit
It works if you're a manager. My manager just hired a bunch of tier 1 techs to take care of their work on Fridays so they can work remote and take a 3 day weekend.
jimbo21@reddit
Clearly you never have been in the manager role before.
Fragrant-Hamster-325@reddit
Everyone thinks this until they’re a manager. This shit sucks. Making decisions sucks. Dealing with employees sucks. Being in meetings sucks.
I would love to go back to the days when someone told me what to do, make zero hard decisions, immerse myself in the tech, ignore it at night and on the weekends… I wish I didn’t like money so much.
MorallyDeplorable@reddit
Work keeps trying to get me to be a team lead, I think in preparation of having me manage the sysadmin team. Nope. Been there, done that, already a technical product lead for one of our customer-facing products and managing many in-house products/utilities, I don't want or need more people asking me what to do.
Fragrant-Hamster-325@reddit
I know I cry about it but it’s not a bad path if you frame it right. Currently you can be one guy focusing one system. In management imagine employees like extensions of your brain and capabilities, if managed well, you can orchestrate several tasks at once. It’s pretty fascinating to watch it happen.
You don’t need to find all the solutions. Have someone research and bring you the answer. No longer do you need to spend hours looking at the wrong things until you find the answer. Solutions come to you. It’s like a superpower. But yeah… I do miss the research. I learned some much by doing it on my own.
Hate to make the comparison but employees are like agentic AI.
Ssakaa@reddit
Which's where "if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself" comes into it. If you're unlucky with who you end up with (and "team leads" rarely if ever get to pick their teams), you get someone that's actually like a modern LLM. A proprieter of confidently supplied bullshit.
Fragrant-Hamster-325@reddit
Good point. I think I’m lucky. They have their own personality traits but they’re all good dudes who try and mean well.
Ssakaa@reddit
You've got a good team, then. You don't need a bunch of the "top talent", even... just having people who actually try, and are honest when they hit an "I don't know" or they break something is huge.
danfirst@reddit
Coming up to the end of a really annoying and stressful week where I had to deal with a million problems and take punches for my own team for things they messed up... yeah i'm feeling this really hard right now.
Saritiel@reddit
Seriously, I've managed a couple of places and it blows ass. Being responsible for when the people under you mess up, having to deal with their problems and make sure that everyone is doing their fair share of the work while no one is getting overworked. Having to make decisions on "I have $X for raises for my whole team. Who gets what?" Having to deal with upset clients if your team is client facing, or upset internal users, managers, and C-Suite if your team isn't. Doing 1x1s with all your employees and trying to setup growth paths and opportunities for them. Having to deal with disciplining people when they don't respond to your coaching. Choosing when/if to fire people.
I yearned for the days that I could just put my head into a ticket queue and do my share of the work and then clock out.
xt0rt@reddit
Sounds like a nightmare to me. Been doing this for 25 years and have never wanted that responsibility. I am thankful for the few great managers I've had here and there, and more so my mentors, which at times were the same.
Fragrant-Hamster-325@reddit
I’m pretty good with people, I think. Despite wanting to be left alone to focus on tech.
I hate assembling data and metrics to show our worth and progress, I find that we thrive under lack of accountability.
Saritiel@reddit
Some of us definitely do, hahaha. I know I do. I get real upset when managers start nitpicking metrics and it basically burns me out trying to make sure I'm doing all the specific things that'll make me look good on metrics. When I'm not monitored like that I tend to get done whatever is most valuable rather than whatever is going to make me look best on the boss's metrics.
I'm also very good with people and, in my estimation, a very good manager. I do everything I can to shield my team from dumb corporate policies, argue for more benefits and pay, and make sure everyone feels valued. I just hate my own life while I'm doing it, I'm never more miserable than when I'm managing a team.
Fragrant-Hamster-325@reddit
I was borrowing a Michael Scott quote from the office but I agree. I think senior leadership gets too hyper focused on numbers. It generates tons of work with little value. Sometimes we just got to feel it out. Haha.
_PacificRimjob_@reddit
The problem here is you're probably a good manager. Many, many managers are not, and they push it all downhill, with cascades the higher up a bad manager is. Since they're the ones in the meetings reporting in, they get to control the narratives and change a "this goal was written like shit because a client doesn't understand 'lowered latency' means they need more ISP bandwidth which we don't control" to a "I've asked PacificRimjob to prioritize their goal. We understand the client's needs and are working on getting PacificRimjob realigned with the client's needs and what we can do to assist them. This has caused a slight delay but we can still achieve it". Yes, that's a true story, and I left and that manager is still there, commended for "doing the impossible" but somehow always having a seat or two open on their team because they "run a tight ship".
NaturalIdiocy@reddit
Imagine having to say Rimjob during a corp meeting, he is a good manager willing to do the hard jobs.
Fragrant-Hamster-325@reddit
Yeah fuck that guy. I imagine being the client in that situation isn’t good either. I’d want someone to tell me the truth. But who knows, your manager was probably dealing with another dickhead manager on the client side. Lol
admiralkit@reddit
Our NOC's management has convinced their management that they are masters of the network and have all kinds of charts to demonstrate how incredibly productive they all are. Having worked on that team previously, I know that they're told to TOUCH MORE TICKETS to make those bars on graphs go up and the number of times we blew the annual salary of one or more engineers by touching the ticket but not actually diagnosing the problem was astounding. I actually asked the manager if they realized we'd wasted $130,000 by repeatedly not fixing an issue, and that didn't even include all of the potential costs from downtime and they just went, "We understand, but you need to touch more tickets."
cz_24@reddit
Lol, as long as there's a director, you won't need to deal with that. He was last seen 4 hours ago on Teams.
False-Detective6268@reddit
This comment causes me physical pain. "You were super late this morning". Hey remember a couple weeks ago when absolutely no one at the company knew where you were or what you were doing for the ENTIRE week.
Saritiel@reddit
Your messages from yesterday still 'unread'.
Talk to the guy above him about how you can never get in touch with your director and he tells you "talk to your director."
Elusive_Entity420@reddit
I would love to fast forward to the days where I can build my own department how I want to and tell people how things are going to go.
MrApathy@reddit
That is if you are a good competent manager who actually does their job properly and helps the people the manage and not most managers who don't know how to manage anything and only are managers because they were promoted from below but are too incompetent to be promoted higher but know the right people so will never be fired.
Arudinne@reddit
Can Confirm.
Unkechaug@reddit
Hear, hear!
RunJumpJump@reddit
This guy manages.
assangeleakinglol@reddit
I have a colleague who regularly travels to his home country to work remote and puts his status as "out-of-office" for the week he's gone because he's not in the office. I admire that.
Pelatov@reddit
The thing to know here is that it does get easier as you progress in your career. The beginning does suck, because you don’t know as much. Both from tech standpoint and from a business and a workflow standpoint.
Your knowledge will never be enough, but your capability to learn and connect concepts will increase.
I do recommend getting out. If you have the expenditure, find a coworking place you can go a couple times a week. This will help.
scubajay2001@reddit
Yup - welcome to the real world. Your body adjusts to a degree. Ten tips:
Expert-Percentage886@reddit (OP)
This is actually incredible advice! I deal a lot with anxiety and these are legit methods of handling it while working from home. thank you!
scubajay2001@reddit
You're welcome. 🙂
I don't really suffer per se but only bc I know my limits for stupid and rude people lol
420GB@reddit
That's not how you do work from home dude. Have an actual home office room or go into the office, anything else is terrible.
Also, don't eat fistfuls of LSD out of the fridge.
JLVIT90@reddit
Sometimes the juice ain’t worth the squeeze. I would update resume/begin applying and make a plan to leave.
djdestruction@reddit
Just sit back and chill a bit. Accomplish the goals they give you and be honest about your experience and where you’re at. Ive been doing this for 15 years and I still don’t know everything. I GPT and google all things still.
Talesfromthesysadmin@reddit
It gets easier with time 😅
default_user_acct@reddit
You need a separate workspace. Psychologically its toxic to work right next to where you sleep.
i_am_fear_itself@reddit
1000%.
I've read nearly every single comment up to this point and no one is talking about this.
OP you can not even begin to compartmentalize the job and follow some of the fairly decent advice in this thread until you have a physical space where the job does not exist. It is impossible to overstate how critical this is for you right now. If your first step is not figuring out how to put real life, physical distance between you and the space where you do work, anything else you try from this thread will have semi limited effectiveness.
WFH is NOT a dream scenario for new IT people, it's a dream scenario for the experienced -- Here's why: None of us learned how to effectively turn off the "work switch" in our heads until we'd been at it for a solid 3-5 years or more. During the first few years of our careers, everything that got thrown at us was brand new and exciting. We were learning so, so much and loving every minute of it. We were sponges (like you). But... there was a hard stop and a physical boundary for us. We went to the office, worked (and learned) all day, then we went home. The experienced were conditioned over the years to flip the switch in our heads from work to Bourbon.
You haven't developed this muscle yet. The fact that you live and sleep where you work is compounding the problem. In the absence of an office you can go to, you truly have to manufacture a routine where you go somewhere else for the daily grind, then go home at the end of the day. Very little you try until you can physically separate these two environment is going to help. Again... this isn't a seniority or arrogant "I put my time in" thing. This is a learned human behavior that you can learn, but you need the distance or it will never take hold.
To answer the question. It does get better, but only when certain conditions have been met. Your environment is not meeting those conditions yet.
default_user_acct@reddit
I mean I WFH and I have a physically separate office on a different floor. It has no distractions and I can't relax in that room, so it doesn't double as a "man cave" or anything. I'm working towards getting an ADU so its not even the same building. If had an apartment I'd seriously look into a coworking space or small office I could rent.
QBull92@reddit
Your personal health is more important than your career.
Rich-Pic@reddit
Work 40. Go home. Let them fire you.
TheDeadSinger@reddit
Exactly. If you’re worried you aren’t cut out for the job, set boundaries and let them decide if you belong there. I started getting too stressed at work and started just dropping tasks. I didn’t worry about dropping those things. “well, shucks, I guess I’m not going to get that task done”
And it was fine. I was “slightly less of a star employee”.
Rich-Pic@reddit
I mean, nobody with the same mind is “cut out” for being taken advantage of.
Doing more work for no money. You’re not gonna get that raise. If you bust your ass leave your wife and kids sleep at work. The boss just looks at you and does, “what a great asset to my company! And then goes home to his family.
Lakers_0824@reddit
SOUNDS LIKE A SUPPORT ROLE… It can be brutal depending on the company
RemyRemjob@reddit
These jobs aren’t permanent. Take a breath. One of my first gigs was an MSP going through the wringer. Fresh out of college with no experience? This is a blessing in disguise. Learn, absorb as much as you can, and hop jobs in a year or two getting paid more with something more balanced.
Even the most stressful IT job shouldn’t be destroying your life. So take that as you will. This advice is the same for any field, it’s just a job, and shouldn’t follow you outside of work. Get some hobbies to distract yourself from stress, and set boundaries where you can. Stop and get lunch, walk outside, breathe.
Frosty_Protection_93@reddit
Welcome to IT. Get away from the computer regularly, exercise, respect yourself, and remember your job does not define you as a person.
This is a very stressful career. You might well be a talented person, but be ready for the fact that IT/Software Eng is utterly ruthless.
From day one you cost your company alot more money than Random Person from entry level otherwise.
Yes, this is normal. You adapt and evolve or you don't.
It is a gauntlet in the beginning.
InternationalMany6@reddit
Correction: it CAN be very stressful.
Op, Have a frank conversation with your boss, most of us have been there. Totally understandable and normal.
You’re at a big company so they can easily adjust your workload…it’s not like you’re the only person holding up the entire company!
Absolute worst case scenario is you quit and live off savings while finding a lower pressure job. There is always a demand for sharp people in IT and you certainly are in that category based on where you’ve gotten yourself so far. It’s not like you have crazy expenses or a lavish lifestyle where that’s not feasible. Hopefully you didn’t buy a cybertruck and lease a high end apartment or something right out of college 😂
IamHydrogenMike@reddit
I schedule breaks on my calendar during the day to just get up and walk for like 5 minutes or something simple. Simple stretches help a ton to keep the blood flowing and keeping your body from seizing up.
Frosty_Protection_93@reddit
Good! Desk lock will destroy your posture and vision. Work hard, now is the time to pay your dues.
To one of your original questions - Does it get better?
That is a matter of perspective that comes with experience.
It gets harder both technically, with people management (not necessarily being a manager), and personally. You will by necessity determine where your comfort level and balance exists.
It's alot up front. When you log out, do ANYTHING other than work. Have a run, play some tunes, work on that thing in the garage, read something, watch a movie, anything else.
Dont lose sleep over someone else making money from your work.
Hang on for the ride, it is worth it. Challenging for sure. If you love puzzles and not just the logic ones, you will do great things
IamHydrogenMike@reddit
When you do log out, get away from a computer or any electronic device…take a break! It’s the only way to stay sane!
KylAnde01@reddit
I love bouldering as my main form of exercise and do it 3 or 4 times throughout the week at a gym. But honestly, even as I get older I'm a gamer at heart and love sitting down at my PC when I have time. It's the second place outside of climbing where my brain can chill.
Obscure_Marlin@reddit
This is advice I’m still having trouble taking I been working since 2015
machstem@reddit
My only exception to this rule is audiobooks
I love having them at the ready for any break time otherwise yes
IamHydrogenMike@reddit
Yes, I'll give you that...listening to an audio book instead of staring at your screen is a valid way to chill.
sounknownyet@reddit
There's no evidence eye vision is destroyed by staring at screen once you're an adult. They get tired and might cause a temporary myopia but that's it. Look it up.
Frosty_Protection_93@reddit
Thanks for that, did not know it has been studied prior.
leob0505@reddit
Agree, and whenever possible, I NEVER accept back-to-back meetings ( I.e. meeting from 13 to 14, 14 to 15 and so on). At least 15 minutes break.
0o0o0o0o0o0z@reddit
NGL, my last management job was for an industrial startup. I'd go walk the pipe yard for about 10 minutes every 1-2 hours. The owner reprimanded me for it and told me if I was bored, I should sweep the shop or do something useful for the company (keep in mind I am the manager of their infrastructure with a six-figure salary). That's when I started to silently quit.
BrokenByEpicor@reddit
bUt tHaT'S TiMe tHeFt
IamHydrogenMike@reddit
ya, fuck that guy...maybe he should do something useful and not bother you when you are walking.
0o0o0o0o0o0z@reddit
Ya was wild, the guy was super busy but had cameras all over the yard. Ran a sniffer (because they wouldn't give me access to the camera system) and saw he got alerted on any motion, so I just guess he saw me walking outside 2-4 times a day and thought I was being lazy 🤷♂️ No longer work there, but yea.. man... last few years in IT have really made me despise it.
VexingRaven@reddit
Gonna buck the trend here and say that it's not normal to be asked to cover such a broad range of tech and I am really not sure which "big tech" company OP works for it but I doubt they're as big as he thinks if they don't have, at the very least, a team for Meraki and a team for Kubernetes.
It sounds like what OP actually did was apply at a meatgrinder MSP with extremely poor internal resource management that just grabs random people to do random stuff for clients because their schedule looks empty.
ImMalteserMan@reddit
Disagree here. I think a lot of the time the stress is completely self inflicted. Been doing this for 20 years and I haven't felt stressed in probably 16-17 years.
Most people do it to themselves and they forget basic things like it's ok to not know everything, if something is broken or doesn't work, being stressed does not solve it, you are replaceable and given a moments notice the company will replace you, it's just a job and your work will probably get minimal recognition. Also sometimes if you have too much work it's because you have a poor manager or maybe not enough resources.
The people I work with who are stressed all the time waste mental energy on worrying about things that are outside their control, they come to work early, they leave late, the work out of hours, they work through lunch breaks, the work from home and often work way more than the hours they are paid and voluntarily take on way more work than is necessary, they are afraid to palm off their work to more appropriate teams etc.
Like any job, tech is only stressful if you let it becomes so.
Sounds like OP probably wasn't well equipped for what a full time gig in tech is like, sounds like they get minimal social connection and spend all day inside one room of their apartment and when they get to the end of their life they will look back and realise it wasn't nearly as important as they made it out to be.
HappierShibe@reddit
This really depends on where you are working.
There are a lot of high pressure systems administration position, particularly in senior or highly specialized roles.
knightress_oxhide@reddit
guy has some cushy do nothing job and judges people as getting stressed because they are flawed
Maro1947@reddit
Stress management is self owned though. Not all stress is bad, but stress management techniques can be
knightress_oxhide@reddit
if you haven't been stressed that is great, but not typical
The_Career_Oracle@reddit
Kind of sounds like you’re the lifer that’s always laissez-faire in the office. Never letting anything get you down, nonchalant about everything saying “you’ll learn as you go” while all your colleagues are taking up your slack and suffering the burnout working hard to get things done while you’re counting how many circus animals you can spot in the clouds.
ValeoAnt@reddit
You're projecting very hard here The post above you is absolutely spot on
The_Career_Oracle@reddit
Nah, stop lurking Reddit’s to tell people their observations are incorrect… keep that corporate shill shit where it belongs .
ValeoAnt@reddit
You literally just did the same thing?
The_Career_Oracle@reddit
It can’t be a statement and a question at the same time. Who hurt you and why do you hate people so much to take it out on people.
ValeoAnt@reddit
You may need genuine help and I'm sorry if you're going through something right now
The_Career_Oracle@reddit
Omg I guess I’ll get a Reddit cares message soon. Just fuck the fuck off man! You and people like you is why mediocrity reigns. Get a life and go do a good job for once
StPaulDad@reddit
Well yes and no. Yes, you need to develop stress management routines, you learn ways to keep work from being all over you all the time, and you do get better at your job so it sucks less. But no, a lot of front line support is very metrics-driven, way more than what most 20 year professionals would experience. It's worse than it used to be, they've really ramped up a multitude of ways to monitor employees at home.
0o0o0o0o0o0z@reddit
Ya, I used to love Tech and computers... being in IT for 20+ years made me hate it. Worst choice for a career, at least for me... god damn. Thinking of all those hours working later/weekends, I will never get back; if I were a car mechanic, at least I could fix something, I dunno, it would be more tangible and be worth something come the zombie apocalypse.
i8noodles@reddit
they can not fire you for doing your job to the letter. at least where i am.
so leave on time, and seperate phone closed when u are finished. helps alot
CertifiableX@reddit
Hold my scotch… I’ve learned that alcohol does not, long term, help. A few burnouts taught me this. That said, how are your reviews? Are you succeeding? learning what’s thrown at you? If so, you are learning how to learn, pivot, and tackle challenges. If you can learn to cope, you’ll go far. But is it worth it for your life? If not, you’ve still learned these skills, maybe to a lesser extent, which will be very valuable to a comfy nonprofit, government, or corporate environment. Might be lower paying, maybe on prem, but might be a better fit. Still not a bad career.
After_Nerve_8401@reddit
When I was working remotely, I set up an exercise bike in my “office.” It was out of view of the camera. I would use it for about 10 minutes throughout the day. It really helped.
Zerafiall@reddit
Yep.
I setup a Pomodoro timer on my desk. Force myself to walk around the house for a couple minutes when it goes off. Shake the body up and kinda let my thoughts steep like tea while I wander.
kingraoul3@reddit
I agree with this, the only thing I’ll add is you can pulse career advancement with recovery, for example after three years at $BIG_ CO, get a new job in fintech where the requirements are different / less high volume. Lick your wounds until you get the itch again, then bitch in for another stint in the cyclotron.
It’s worked for me so far (20 years sysadmin / devops / SRE / platform engineer / whatever they call what we do).
Remindmewhen1234@reddit
"This is a very stressful career"
It's only as stressful as you let it. Do your job well, when you are done, be done. Don't think about what you did after logging off.
Your suggestions are spot on. Get away, exercise, etc...
oyarasaX@reddit
yah, stress is how you make it ... and if you're good at making it, it will hamper any career ... or anything you do at all, really.
oyarasaX@reddit
This. "WELCOME TO THE PARTY, PAL!!"
ohno-mojo@reddit
People will always ask for more. Define healthy boundaries and defend them on pain of leaving
ErikTheEngineer@reddit
That's unfortunately the techbro culture. I experience this to some degree where I work now, and it's a huge contrast to places I was at where people were actively trying to protect their free time. I'm older now and have a life outside of work (family, children, responsible adult stuff.) When you're in your mid to late 20s, living in an apartment and generally not burdened with anything beyond work and student loan payments, overachievers in the techbro space love to come in and one-up each other. It's almost like they're competing to see how much of their free time they can spend on "passion projects" learning the latest things Google or Netflix dumped out on GitHub. It's an unsustainable pace, and you have to find management who's willing to allow innovation to happen but not at the cost of burning out their team.
All I can say is (1) no one knows everything, (2) trying to learn everything to keep up with these overachievers is not healthy long-term, and (3) some companies lean way too far over to celebrating overachievers and workaholics. Almost every Big Tech place is like that. Amazon/AWS is ruthless; someone I know is a manager at AWS and has to PIP/fire the lowest performing team member every six months, even if everyone is doing great. Imagine working in an environment where you don't know if you'll be on the chopping block if you call in sick one day, or your coworker sabotages you. Microsoft has transformed from almost an academic institution where they hired smart people and moved them around to different areas of the company to just mass-firing thousands at a time when a division missed their numbers. But, there's a few Small Tech places where the work conditions aren't utiopia but they're at least not meat-grinder level bad...maybe focus on those?
weirdest-timeline@reddit
As others have said, you can change your mindset and make things easier for you. Remember, work is a never ending process, don't despair when you close one thing and two others problems show up. Take breaks during work hours, try to disconnect outside of them. Also, it will get easier with experience and time. Working is support is also usually hardcore and i don't recommend it in the long run. Other jobs like sysadmin ir project work are much less stressful, especially if you dod support before. Just hang in there and take care of your health, it will get easier, but it also depends on you learning to set limits and proper expectations.
UBNC@reddit
Most jobs have started this way for me, within a year it starts getting easy and end up getting promoted and repeating the cycle
voodooenglishman@reddit
I know it's a hot take in here but remote work wasn't for me and killed me off.
There was no separation between work and normal life. My living space became my working space. I left my job when they sold the office and I knew we wasn't going back to one. I will never go back to remote working and they couldn't pay me double to make me do it.
Calm_Run93@reddit
It pays well for a reason, yeah.
stromm@reddit
Yep, welcome to the world of Enterprise IT higher levels.
I wish I could say it’ll will get better, but it won’t. I’ve done this for 38 years and if anything it’s gotten worse over that time.
School got you paperwork to get the job. It did not expose you to the environment so you could determine if you “are built for it”. I’ve lost count of the number of people who just aren’t made for this. Sadly, most refuse to accept that and stick it out ruining it for themselves and those around them.
Some like you see what’s wrong and that they may not be a fit and ask others what to do. Those who still stay end up like the first group.
Then there’s those who just aren’t self-aware or self-accountable enough to even think that it might be they aren’t compatible with the roles. So they blame everyone else and make everyone’s life miserable.
My suggestion, plan your escape and work towards that. Console yourself knowing you’re getting out.
jcpham@reddit
My therapist and I agree that I was predisposed to thrive in chaos. Others might run away from chaos but I have a tendency to run towards the burning building. Sysadmins probably would make good firemen/policemen or other emergency services personnel.
jcpham@reddit
Touch grass, not computers. It’s placating condescension but accurate enough. Walk away from the job when you can. Work life balance is extremely important if you choose this career.
ThePerfectLine@reddit
You have to learn to balance your life and your time. A bazillion guides and online ideas of how to do this.
I’ve been at it a long time. And I didn’t super easy now.
ThePerfectLine@reddit
I just take breaks. Lay on my couch. Eat food whenever I want. Sometimes I know I can rock a B+ meeting instead of shootijg for an A+ and it will be fine.
nirach@reddit
Sounds like you need to learn how to separate work from life.
Plenty of us live and breathe IT in one way or another, and what we learn privately might translate to work, but personally nothing I do privately is done with the intention of it applying to work. Anything done with the intention of applying to work directly is done during work hours.
It's also entirely possible that you've discovered that this particular aspect of IT work isn't for you. No shame in that, there's so many facets to IT that not all of them apply equally.
If I were in your shoes, first and foremost there needs to be some self reflection. Why can't you draw hard lines, is it you personally or is it the employer and colleagues? I'd be looking at drawing hard lines between work and life, doing your contracted hours, availing yourself of anything 'free' that your employer offers you that might be of use.
Insert the traditional advice of looking for another job - Maybe the same job, but a different company, slower paced if you can find it?
Top-Two-8929@reddit
One of us! One of us!
Tymanthius@reddit
You're kind of doing this to yourself.
You WFH. Schedule 'blank' meetings for you to get up and move around. It's ok to ahve 'unscheduled' time where you just walk to the kitchen and back.
And when you leave for the day, leave Go outside. Walk, bicycle, or drive around the block. Let your brain and nervous system settle. And ignore work until tomorrow.
fizzlefist@reddit
If its an option with the living situation, keep your work stuff physically separate from your personal stuff. Even if that means getting a cheap ikea desk or something on FB market, just having a dedicated workspace lets you mentally separate the rest of your home from the WORK area.
Tymanthius@reddit
I'm not one that needs that, but I do unplug my work laptop from my dock and plug my home laptop in. :) Or I just stay out of the office the rest of the day.
Ssakaa@reddit
Yeah, I can share space fine, but the work laptop is distinctly separate from all personal stuff. When I don't have a good reason for after hours work, it gets closed and put aside, and real life resumes.
Daphoid@reddit
Thirded. My work laptop is on separate monitor inputs and the other half of a dual home USB hub. Once I flip to personal, it's all personal. I don't flip back to work until the morning.
IamHydrogenMike@reddit
I think people are sometimes afraid to schedule a break on their calendar or think they don't need to. If that section if open on my calendar, it'll get filled up by someone and I would rather that someone be me.
Daphoid@reddit
You have to be stubborn about it in a friendly way. I started booking lunch every day as a recurring meeting. If you book over, I will move my lunch but I will not remove it. And I take the full hour. I also stop working at the end of the day and don't start again until the next day. I may think about things but not in a stressful way.
A president early in my career told us work/life balance is up to us. There will always be work, demands, pressures, take on what you can - put in quality work, and you'll be fine. Might not work at some places, but those places aren't worth working at anyways.
ErikTheEngineer@reddit
Fully remote people are definitely getting worried. I'm hybrid now, but some members of our team are fully remote and I can tell there's immense pressure on them to show they're working. Before COVID, I worked at a place that had a few remote developers. This was the pre-COVID WFH business case...those people had a skill set the company needed but weren't in the right city or had social anxierty
Phar0sa@reddit
It also sound like this is his first job in his chosen field and he is trying to look good. It can be rough.
evantom34@reddit
This tends to happen with overachievers, and the reality I've faced is people don't care. If I have a block of 20-30 minutes booked on my calendar, people won't question it. For all they know it's another meeting.
Phar0sa@reddit
Yep, as long as you APPEAR busy. Hope he learns to take the time he needs to stay same and healthy. And that, unless he gets really lucky with managers, only he cares about him. Seen way too many burn outs in IT.
evantom34@reddit
100%
I'm younger and was just like that. I realized there's really no incentive to work 110% all the time. I've got a long working career ahead of me- I don't need to burn myself at both ends to accomplish as much as I can all the time. I go 10-20% above what's expected from me and my leadership is happy with it.
pop_goes_the_kernel@reddit
I’m the same way. I worked all through college and worked various levels of support at Apple towards the end of college and into my career. Even in a non-customer facing role I developed some horrible work/personal habits that I’m still working to break many years later. Bullshit expectations mostly.
I work in ed tech now and it’s a lot slower paced and a lot healthier of a balance, I work a 9-5, Mon-Friday at an office instead of at home, which has completely altered my perception of my home office. It’s now used for hobbies!
auron_py@reddit
You don't get to do that when you're getting assigned tickets non-stop and they inevitably start to pile up and your SLA starts going bust, especially when you're doing support as OP.
Tymanthius@reddit
yes, yes you do. The world not explode if someone has to wait while you go take a 5 minute walk and come back.
In fact, you may save 5 minutes or more in troubleshooting time BECAUSE you took that walk.
auron_py@reddit
Of course, no one can stop you, but you'll get called out for not looking at a ticket for 5 minutes, especially if it was something simple.
That's my experience in high pressure environments. The world might not explode but you'll get scolded or reprimanded for taking too long or having too many tickets on queue.
It sucks but it is what it is, I know exactly what OP is going through.
Tymanthius@reddit
And yet I've never had that issue. Maybe I'm just lucky.
auron_py@reddit
It totally depends on where you're working.
I can totally relate to OP, it was the same situation at my previous job, now it is the total opposite.
Tymanthius@reddit
In my experience it has been what you allow to happen. But I also understand being young and unsure of how to stand up for yourself.
HotTakes4HotCakes@reddit
Way too many people want full WFH without appreciating there are certain subtle benefits for your mental health that comes from simply getting dressed and leaving the home every day, even if it's going to office. They don't appreciate this, so they don't anticipate how it's going to affect them when they stop, and don't plan to compensate for it.
Some people can stay indoors, at their desk, all day, and not be any worse for the wear. But some people cannot, and you'll find out pretty quickly which one of those camps you fall into.
Tymanthius@reddit
When covid hit I was NOT happy w/ WFH. I was largely reactionary, and my workload dropped WAY down b/c I generated a lot of work by walking the building. So I'd be looking outside at all the cool tractor projects I could be doing instead of waiting for an email . . .
Ssakaa@reddit
You can still communicate across teams and find the pain points being experienced by them without drive-by interruptions to their day or yours. And when you find them, you can actually focus on building a solution instead of getting interrupted by further drive-bys. A lack of self motivation to start those conversations isn't the fault of not being stuck in an office.
Tymanthius@reddit
Sure, if the culture of the workplace supports that.
But I didn't typically interrupt anyone. I would literally walk the floor and they would flag me down. State gov't office. Odd culture to deal with.
Ssakaa@reddit
So, they just don't communicate issues. Thinking "it's better to make everyone commute and spend their day in this building" is better than training people to actually communicate effectively will never make sense to me. While training people to be adults isn't exactly IT's job, that can be a great opportunity for it. Provide methods for them to raise questions, bring up pain points, and ask for "not urgent" help with things. Get them in a conversation talking about workflows, how they can be improved, what they don't like, etc. Extra points if they can take part in that without having their manager breathing over their shoulder to get all offended when, more often than not, the root of the issues is the manager clinging to an inefficient approach because "we've always done it this way".
Tymanthius@reddit
I don't disagree w/ you, but then and there I didn't have the ability to affect things at that level. So instead, I made myself useful and sought after by people who could affect my job. :)
Ssakaa@reddit
I'll trade having to self manage time and separation of personal and work life, and having to actually put forth effort to communicate, for commuting (on my own time, at that), not stopping to walk into a real kitchen and make a real lunch, from real ingredients instead of whatever microwaves fast enough to squeeze into the break (or eating out every day), getting sick because half the building have kids and the office is a cesspool of crap those kids bring home from school, cubicles, people that won't shut up long enough for someone to actually focus on their work elsewhere in cubicle hell, lighting that seems designed to cause migranes, being cooped up inside a building instead of being able to sit out on the porch with a glass of tea and a laptop on a nice day...
You can still communicate across teams and find the pain points being experienced by them without drive-by interruptions to their day or yours. And when you find them, you can actually focus on building a solution instead of getting interrupted by further drive-bys.
lilelliot@reddit
100% support the "blank" meetings (as both a manager and an employee). It's also pretty normal to schedule blocks of "focus time" as a way to reduce distractions from others. Starting with covid, I started taking 1:1 meetings while walking unless there was some content that needed to be reviewed. I encouraged the same from others, or to take time for the gym, or whatever. Employees are more productive when they're trusted, and when they have balance.
Ssakaa@reddit
And, if people have issues with "blank" meetings, actually just tag the meeting with whatever project/work you're spending that time on. If you do any sort of time tracking for separate projects/clients/etc, building out those blocks of time can save a ton in trying to keep tabs on where your time went.
fizicks@reddit
This is the only thing I miss about my commute, but now I make sure to "commute" to the gym in the morning before work. And then I "commute" on the treadmill for a few minutes to wind down for the day. Our paleolithic lizard brains need this physical stimulus to process transitions in our daily lives.
rajrdajr@reddit
Great self diagnosis! Now go use some of that money to buy some work/life separation. For instance rent a coworking space 2-3 days per week. They have popped up everywhere and are likely more affordable than you think. Another option: find a local coffee shop and work there; half of the other people there are doing the same thing. Third option: when work is quiet and doesn’t require being on a call, local libraries are a great place to work.
If at all possible, move your workspace out of your bedroom.
scootscoot@reddit
Most of us started in the field because we love working on tech. Now most of us are building saving so we can switch careers, often farming.
CRTsdidnothingwrong@reddit
The best admin I ever knew told me the three most important words in this business are "I don't know" and don't be afraid to use them.
nerdforest@reddit
My senior engineers were the ones that thought me “I don’t know,” are answers that can be accepted. I used to be OP. Stressed about not knowing everything. When in reality the skill is to be able to learn on the go and accept when things go wrong, or we don’t know the exact answer, we take the time to understand and research it. That’s where the skill is.
_Moonlapse_@reddit
Exactly, set their expectations. "I don't know why this is happening, but I'll find out for you as soon as I can and get back to you asap"
And lean on senior techs and managers when you're starting.
Pravobzen@reddit
This is 100% applicable for any job, but especially for anything customer-facing.
packetssniffer@reddit
This is the better answer. Don't leave it at 'i Don't know'.
SpleenMerchant11@reddit
"Let me know if it happens again", is also a valid answer.
InternalCultural447@reddit
Haha ya, don't stare blankly and be clueless. It's your job to figure it out. But it depends on your rapport. I've been at the same place for a long time and am pretty friendly with everybody. There's a few times where something weird happens and I'll just say "huh...well that's weird. No idea why I did that. Let me go check some stuff, I'll be right back"
_Moonlapse_@reddit
Exactly, and you put the customer at ease. Most are happy when they know you are looking at it, and curious to find out a solution. The radio silence and the blankness is what pisses people off.
machstem@reddit
I was really only into the whole, "I don't.", but I agree, that one seems better.
Expert-Percentage886@reddit (OP)
I think I need to exercise this tool in my toolbox: leaning on managers and senior techs. Since this is my first big role and it's WFH, it's hard to tell if me reaching out is a sign of ignorance or incompetency at times. Usually it's not, but it feels that way.
Ssakaa@reddit
So, one great thing about reaching out... if you do it well, it'll demonstrate clearly to your superiors where you actually are, knowledge and skill-wise. You can't, won't, and never will know everything, but if you consistently come in with "Hey, ran into this problem, they get when they try to generate reports in . I found these things in the logs for , and it looks kinda like may be the source of it. Does it look like I'm on the right track? And is there a history of this with I should be worried about?" instead of "Hey, uhhh. is getting an error when they ."... without even verifying that they're getting an error, what the error is, or that they're actually doing that thing... you'll be golden. It shows effort, awareness of the technical side, that you've worked with the client to narrow it down, and that you're wanting to learn any related institutional knowledge.
zero0n3@reddit
This.
Only caveat is it also matters the type of manager you have.
I’d also say if you’re in a slightly dysfunctional team or org, don’t get TOO worried about asking the same question a few times, unless their response is a doc or wiki, at which point you should be saving.
Basically - show that you know how to fish and where the good fishing spots are. If you have to ask a few times about how to unhook a specific fish, so be it.
_Moonlapse_@reddit
Ignorance and incompetencey is what every new person has in spades. Starting a new job sucks cause you don't know anything. It will take you a few months to become autonomous and be properly effective in completing complex cases by yourself.
If a manager is expecting you to be an expert in how the company works and how they want you to handle support calls within a week or two, they aren't a great manager. However in the same breath, they are reliant on you putting your hand up for help to be able to help you.
If you're going to a senior tech for help, in my role I expect the new / junior person to try a couple of things to at least attempt to get to the solution. Even if you're way off just have an attempt, quickly you'll get 70% of the way through things and a senior tech will help out the last bit and be more then happy to help out at any time.
If you don't get the above help, try find a company where you do 🤙🏻
_Moonlapse_@reddit
And to add to this, get a repository of all of your notes and solutions going. Absolutely STUFF one note with references, cases where things worked, commands, snippets, screenshots. You'll have this for years. Nobody can remember everything.
InternalCultural447@reddit
Seriously, I used to think the exact way as OP and always felt insecure about not knowing every permutation and hated myself for not knowing everything and KNEW I'd get sussed out....the imposter syndrome I guess you could say. Until one day I was on a call with our senior engineer to learn how to do something with some new product in our prod environment and he said he was going to try something (I don't remember exactly what) but I just asked "what will that do? Will it not break it?" And he just laughed and said "maybe, I don't know. We are about to find out." And shortly after I lost a lot of insecurity. We aren't paid to be vaults of knowledge (certainly helps) but I realized our strength comes from being clever and knowing how to fix things when shit DOES break. Because you WILL break prod, you will have to say "I don't know what that is or how it works". It will happen. Otherwise you're not pushing yourself hard enough. Now, when people say "oh so you're good with computers" when they find out what I do, I just say "well I know how to reboot them pretty well".
Ssakaa@reddit
My answer for well over a decade for "what do you do" is "I break computers, and I do it really, really, effectively." If they question it further (because that's invariably a much more fun answer than "I manage servers", but also fends off the "can you fix my nephew's computer?" a bit), I get to clarify a little more about what realm of things I manage, and that when you get deeper into IT, most of figuring out how to fix things is having seen them break, and the best way to see something break is to poke it repeatedly and see what happens.
InternalCultural447@reddit
Hahaha I love ot. We used to have a poster on our wall that said "strategically breaking our environment so you don't have to"
Ssakaa@reddit
I really enjoyed when I switched from that to "Huh. Well that's weird. This'll be a fun one to figure out." ... but everyone pretty well knew if I was in front of a problem, and not magically rattling off an answer (I did not like being walking-talking-google most days, as amusing as it was at times), it was a weird one and everyone else had run out of guesses, so it didn't ruffle too many feathers. One of the few benefits of working in academia (in a subset with a lot of research and technical fields)... faculty and researchers know they present weird scenarios, and understand that tackling problems noone there's seen before takes some time, at least.
Wide-Friendship-2287@reddit
You learn faster here than almost anywhere else in tech. Sink-or-swim builds real technical grit. This job is a springboard , not a life sentence. Survive. Learn. Get out smarter and stronger.
SkywardSyntax@reddit
Currently dealing with the same issue - working remotely, about 12 hours a day. But the only thing is that I'm fairly certain my company is replacing people in my position with an MSP.
rajrdajr@reddit
Health before wealth - always. Let your boss know that you’re feeling overwhelmed and see what offers of help they provide.
anikansk@reddit
I did this for 20 years and crashed. My existence is now challenged. Be careful, look after yourself.
Nerds are the new jocks - stress / pressure / overtime and look at me Im a hero is the new bench press in the gym.
Look after yourself, you only have one life - I wasted mine trying to be a hero at work.
LonelyPatsFanInVT@reddit
Haha ahh this brings back good memories of my formative early IT career days....
The key to IT knowledge is:
1.) Only learn as much as you need to know
2.) Be prepared to learn something new at a moments notice
3.) Get comfortable with not knowing anything and having to learn it
If you can manage those things, it will get you far. This industry is relentless when it comes to change. It's almost not worth investing too much knowledge in one product (especially software) because it will be out of date or acquired by another company in a matter of months. Being flexible and able to adapt are key.
As for WFH - I hear you. I worked remote for a large tech company for almost 6 years. By the time I got laid off, I was ecstatic to go back to an office in a Hybrid role. Make sure you are putting extra effort into your social life. Be sure to spend most of your weekends outside of the home. Take a lot of breaks and get good exercise/sleep. If you have the budget for it, coworking might alleviate some of the home/life separation problems.
Ssakaa@reddit
Aside from some foundational knowledge things... networking basics, some very general cpu/ram/disk principles for how applications operate, etc. You don't, usually, have to know how to read/write C, but knowing how to spot the behavior of an application with a memory leak (vs the behavior of a database that just helpfully pre-allocates all your ram for performance reasons) can save you a ton of gray hair.
LonelyPatsFanInVT@reddit
Yes, that kind of experiential knowledge definitely comes with time. But that's not something you really need to force into your brain, it just comes with experience.
shiggy__diggy@reddit
Get a hobby that isn't a screen. Not videogames (especially PC gaming having to do IT on your own damn rig).
Bike riding. Restore a classic carbureted car/motorcycle (again no computers). Books. Carpentry. Birdwatching. Working out. Gardening/botany. Get some chickens idk.
Just something that doesn't deal with a computer. I've literally had a meltdown having to do IT on a shit ass new car I rented's infotainment system once. I took the restore a classic car hobby path, and it ended up my daily to avoid even having a computer around me anywhere outside of work. I fucking hate technology with a passion now.
Chipware@reddit
Ok so there's a silver lining to this.
All those skills you're learning will pay huge dividends on your next job, because you will get to negotiate better pay and more time off.
The more of a knowledge worker you become, the better is gets for you as far as negotiation.
This is also a good opportunity to learn how to set boundaries and work/life balance strategies.
Hang in there!
Pravobzen@reddit
I find hitting the gym on a regular basis helps a ton with everything you just mentioned, even if it means going early in the morning. It's easy to lose your mental grounding when your work space is next to where you sleep, so you need to find something beneficial for your overall health that gets you out of your apartment, even if it's a 30 minute walk outside.
OuttaAmmo2@reddit
Somebody sold the solution, why don't you involve them
ten-oh-four@reddit
Sorry. I hate to say this, but welcome to tech. We’re in the era of layoffs to drive stock value so all us worker bees have to do more with less.
meh_ninjaplease@reddit
Exercise, do yoga, stretches, take regular breaks. Time management includes yourself too
ez12a@reddit
It sounds like your team has a problem with scope and possibly management. I also work in big tech, and right off the bat you learn what services your team provides, and ramp up. In my team the expectation is to take at least a month to get a handle on things.
How big is your team? If it's a large team with a lot of scope that everyone shares, it might be time to do some siloing and have designated SMEs for each service, with a few folks supporting each service. It's too much for someone just starting their career to get a handle on.
Based on the services you listed, those should be separate teams. Kubernetes/Containers one team, Cisco Meraki should belong to a NetOps team, and AWS would be with a Cloud team. The fact that you mention all 3 of these technologies in a single team tells me there's too much scope.
Talk to your manager and give them this feedback. You're overloaded. You should focus on scoping out services you will ramp up on and be an SME on before trying to spread yourself too thin.
master_reboot@reddit
I'm not quite sure if this sub is the best place for your post. 1. Your describing a help desk role, something completely different than a systems administrator role 2. If your having this much trouble early on, then you might not be cut out for a tech role 3. You gotta view your health as more important than your job. If you can't take care of yourself, how so you expect to take care of others, especially if they're not able to help themselves. No offense.
knightress_oxhide@reddit
yeah this happens. you are young and you will actually survive this to be able to use this experience to get better jobs
laughingbovine@reddit
Do you have an option to not work remote? Maybe for a few months. I can't imagine having to learn all that stuff from scratch without being able to tap someone on the shoulder when I have a question or commiserate about workload while eating lunch. It's just not the same when remote (imo).
dev_all_the_ops@reddit
I'm sorry you are going through this. That chapter of life is rough. As someone who has been there myself, here is what I would suggest.
Lastly, don't overstress this single job. Work at a sustainable pace and don't worry about getting everything perfect.
rm-minus-r@reddit
Being violently confused is very normal right out of college. It will get better.
You need to take a break during the day to go on a walk. You need to go do social stuff after work, otherwise WFH will destroy your sanity.
jagaang@reddit
This is one of things I actually enjoy about it...never a dull moment, and it's like a Grad school that never ends.
Treat yourself right, and enjoy the chaos. This is how you end up with top tier skills in the long run.
corp-mm@reddit
You're getting experience on your resume under great conditions other than the stress. You'll improve, and your skin will thicken. The grass likely isn't greener anywhere else. Stay the course imo. If you're miserable in another year, then it might be time for a change to either improve your situation or gain perspective.
bombatomba69@reddit
I'm going to tell you it gets any better, but maybe you'll learn to cope better, probably by developing routines and learning to separate your work life and actual life. I like to develop and change up a routine every six months, right around password changing time. Because you are at home I suggest stepping outside. I had a friend who would sit at his back porch at a table and read on his iPad. Oh, and don't take naps.
The switch hit with the tasks is just an IT thing. It's normal.
Wise_Guitar2059@reddit
Why are you touching Meraki and Kubernetes? Those are usually handled by different people. Is this a startup and one man show ?
Expert-Percentage886@reddit (OP)
Im not gonna doxx myself, but the clients range from MSPs to multi-billionare dollar companies that manage data centers. So when IT directors have an outage with their cisco or aruba stacked switches or developers need a way to use the SaaS with their K8 pods, they come to support. I've got to speak their language.
Wise_Guitar2059@reddit
You can’t be expert in everything. Recipe for burnout.
No_Needleworker_2199@reddit
It's so hard when you're learning not to troubleshoot server-side issues, but failings of your company's software. They're more intricate, the fixes implausibly stupid and not Google-able. I feel you... Ride it out a bit and get a two bedroom so you can have an office. I hated rolling out of bed and into my computer chair - no separation of space and relaxation/pleasure.
ExoticAsparagus333@reddit
Idk why but this feels like Oracle or AWS.
Tech right now is a bit of a shit show, salaries and hiring jumped up so much from 2010 to covid that they are now aggressively pushing employees, doing stack ranking, doing layoffs. They are trying to lower salaries and headcount.
What you can do for remote work:
Take a walk or somerthing before work and after work. Go walk to the cafe for a coffee and bagel and hit on the barista. Go for a bike ride. Grab a drink. Make a mental break between work and not work. Getting a roommate or live in girlfriend helps a lot too, makes it less lonely.
For stress you have to learn to say “I need to look into that and get back to you” and manage the timelines. You might be saying yes too much.
ukulele87@reddit
Everything is relative and you having no experience doesnt help to understand where you are actually standing.
It could be that what you are experiencing whats basically the reality of working in IT or you could be in a shit place to work, its really hard to tell.
There really is no way to accelerate what you will eventually learn:
-We cant know it all, the universe of technology expands faster than a human can gain understanding.
-Linked to previous point, if you dont know something dont be afraid to communicate it, say you need to research X topic or consult with an expert or whatever. Do not self impose the belief that just because a subject passed near you, you are supposed to know all about it.
-Your job its not who you are, and business problems are not your problems, at the end of the day YOU set the pace. Once you make a concession you wont be able to ever take it back, every meter lost its lost forever until you change jobs or role.
So.. good luck, take your foot of the gas pedal and see how it goes, everything is harder when you start, everything gets easier with time. If the company is just trash or the pace is too fast for you just look for another job.
bulldg4life@reddit
Every support and ops guy I know feels similar to how you do. They are always front lines with broken stuff trying to deliver as fast as possible.
Rich-Pic@reddit
So he should just keep working until he goes insane.
poipoipoi_2016@reddit
Yes, I got dragged into the psych ward by cops twice but made twice as much as I do now 10 years ago.
And I'm still overworked and not sleeping, I just can't push myself to that particular breaking point anymore.
So at this point, I'm working on getting back into Big Tech.
Rich-Pic@reddit
I mean all that extra money isn’t gonna be worth shit when you die 20 years too soon. Work your 40 and get fired and collect unemployment. You have to be a good business person when your only asset is your labor.
poipoipoi_2016@reddit
Well, if you work at Big Tech, you have savings and can take gap years.
ErikTheEngineer@reddit
Unless you were a senior distinguished 10x ninja rockstar engineer at Google, good luck getting back into the race after a gap year. Especially now, where recruiters are looking for anything that will disqualify you, a gap in your resume is a killer.
I would LOVE to just take a detour and do something crazy for a while. not just take the next job because it's the next step up the ladder. Life is unfortunately wired like that...the people hiring think you're not "passionate" enough unless it's constantly grinding, more stress, more responsibility, etc. I'm going to be 50 this year, so I'm going to have to work 10x as hard to keep my job or find a new one, forget about taking a sabbatical doing something else. People would be a lot more sane if they could just step off the treadmill for a break once in a while, but that's never going to happen. That AI bot your employer hired isn't going to usher in a new Star Trek universe of plenty where people can do whatever they want...it's going to put billions of people out of work or force them into menial service jobs.
poipoipoi_2016@reddit
Yup.
If you don't want to work 100 hours a week, there's 300 Million Indians with the same age and impeccable (fraudulent) credentials as you.
Though only about 70 Million Chinese. One Child was fierce.
Grrl_geek@reddit
It's South America (Peru) and Alpacas! But I see what you did there, Tom Clancy fan.
poipoipoi_2016@reddit
Montana has better skiing though.
DJMattyMatt@reddit
The trick is to disconnect when you are done working.
prog-no-sys@reddit
That's not the implications here lol, quite the opposite
Rich-Pic@reddit
Exactly no job no matter the pay is worth your sanity
bulldg4life@reddit
I mean, I don’t believe I said that.
zero0n3@reddit
That’s a company problem or a you problem
“Deliver as fast as possible “ is a decision you are making.
Deliver CORRECT is better approach. And if you do a good job of documentation, project and work tracking, it’ll go a long way to show you are not “slow” or inefficient, but “consistent” and “always right”.
Also always update your resume with the big project stuff you work on, as it’s also useful for performance reviews when you can list a dozen things you helped solve for the bigger org by doing it “right” and not “fast”
bulldg4life@reddit
I’d say it is the industry. Big tech companies are riddled with sre/ops/support people that are crushed for metrics and performance supporting products that are held together with duct tape and the CEO’s BS.
chandleya@reddit
Except most of those folks work in an office under a dictatorship. Op doesn’t realize what they have, even if it’s tough.
Conscious_Pound5522@reddit
Dude, you're burning yourself out. I burned out 3 times before 30 (framing then military). Take a breath. You don't have to ingest all the knowledge for every tool. You'll kill yourself trying or hit your burnout point.
Move your workstation away from your bedroom. Take breaks, clock out at 5, and go on call. Get a hobby.
Burnout sucks. It takes months to years to overcome and get back in the swing of things. It's not worth it.
I've been remote since 2013. At this point, i start away from my workstation unless i know i have to be present for a thing. You need to do the same.
nut-sack@reddit
As you do this over and over, with each pass, take the time and learn about the functionality of everything in the area that you had to fix. After a few years, its going to all start to rhyme. So, it does get better, but your ability to manage it mentally has to also level up.
FakeitTillYou_Makeit@reddit
I liked the “violently confused” part.
I hear ya man. Fresh out of college is tough. Also people expect more nowadays. Maybe too much too soon?
You must of done a number on them in that interview.
Drop your interview prep routine for the rest of us lol.
Expert-Percentage886@reddit (OP)
Thanks, it was a 6-round interview and 2 technical exam process and I guess they liked my vibe and problem solving flow.
Interview wise, I used the STAR method and gave technical answers to technical problems but emphasized the importance being the communicative bridge between different teams while doing so. I also wrote a shitload of notes to prepare for each interview and took notes from the exams to use in said interviews.
It was a job on its own lol. Some whiskey and a background check later and here we are.
Maro1947@reddit
Simple fixes like the calendar entries are the way
Also consider a sit/stand desk for moving around during the day
Hunching will only get worse
tkrego@reddit
Are you working for one company, or servicing multiple companies like a MSP? It doesn’t beget any easier. I’ve bee in IT for 30+ years and tech like M365, Azure, AWA just keeps pushing out new stuff quarterly or monthly. A lot of Microsoft is half-baked and their support ignores tickets for broken stuff.
Expert-Percentage886@reddit (OP)
it's a large software company who's product is an SaaS that MSPs (MSPs are only one type of client) use to get their work done. Our clients are mainly technical IT engineers and administrators and I am the bridge between them and our software developers. That's an oversimplification of what I do.
I've worked at an MSP before, but that job was less than 10% of the knowledge I need now as it was mostly windows server, endpoint, and cisco administration. Makes it easier to work with MSP clients, though. They're usually the most stressed out and are the snarkiest when I'm incorrect about their expertise.
dregan@reddit
You have a degree in engineering? Why not put that into use and get into control systems engineering, automation, or something. Manufacturing or even scada systems engineer. Power companies are fairly well paying and low stress with zero job insecurity. I've done support in my career but never full time. It is rough.
fireandbass@reddit
Never perform at 100%, because then they will always expect 100%. Make 60-70% your new baseline.
TheDarthSnarf@reddit
Took me a few years to figure out how to not get stressed by it, learn to shrug and not care about it after hours. Then things became more manageable. But you get paid decent for a reason.
HappierShibe@reddit
I know all of the above probably sounds silly to you right now, but what you are describing is a failure to separate work from the rest of your life, and that isn't sustainable. It will OBLITERATE you if you let it.
egoomega@reddit
Depends how many hours/days you put in in my opinion … 40-50 over 5 days? Eh not too bad… 50+ minimum and 5+ days? You gonna burn out.
Make sure to take time off and suck it up for the experience for a year if you can. Then drop the job if u hate it still. But having a resume builder in important
nope_nic_tesla@reddit
Get out of support ASAP.
Boap69@reddit
Welcome to IT. You never stop learning and what you learned in depth becomes obsolete in 5 to 15 years. But the good part is that it is a good framework once you have the basics down pat.
wookiee42@reddit
Pay the extra money to have a healthy meal ready to heat up for dinner. Like from a meal delivery service.
Also, libraries usually have private rooms for free.
davy_crockett_slayer@reddit
This is normal, and it gets easier. After a year, it will come second nature to you. The nice thing about these SaaS Support Engineering jobs, is you eventually to go Tier 2. Once you go to Tier 2, you can code a bit more. From there, you go to a Software Engineering role. That's how people at my first company who were self-taught, went to bootcamps, or with CompSci diplomas (not bachelor's degrees) did it. Just grind it out, ask for help when you're unsure, and after a couple of years, you will be in a compsci role.
MarkPellicle@reddit
It never gets easier, expectations don’t ever become more relaxed, compensation never quite is good enough. Work is a drug that has made addicts out of all of us. What does get better is you. You will find your place in work and make a name for yourself, likely move on from your current job, and proceed to repeat the same cycle for the generations after you. The workload will change, but there will always be something or someone crawling up your ass to meet a deadline or cover a client because of corporate mismanagement. It will always be your problem but don’t take it personally. The corporate elites do it out of spite to everyone; they don’t want us peons having enough free time to organize and change things.
Tl;dr- I took a breath at work and the CFO took it personally. Now I hold my breath all day and no one seems to notice.
Metalcastr@reddit
There's plenty of lower-stress sysadmin jobs out there where you can both learn and solve problems at a normal pace. They pay just fine, too.
pee_shudder@reddit
Yes and no. It DOES get easier because while the landscape is vast, over time you HAVE to WORK with all of these technologies so you do get much better at being a generalized IT SME.
As far as the drudgery and thanklessness goes: no that stays about the same and so it gets harder the longer you do it. After 15 years max you’ll be toast unless you find the right company. Look at your issues, for now, as issues with your employer not with your field.
AdministrativeFile78@reddit
Give yourself an end date. Maybe in December. So you only got 8 months of this left. Give yourself light at end of tunnel and by then you might just have been able to adapt or you quit
ViperThunder@reddit
It will all come to you over time.
Since your deliverables have unrealistic SLAs for a junior such as yourself, you should simply use chatgpt / DeepSeek as crutches, and don't sweat it.
krypticus@reddit
Not always achievable, but ask for a co-working desk/office in your town. Helps with keeping that separation
McGondy@reddit
You're young and eager! Companies love to put graduates through the ringer! Learning to set boundaries, separating work / life and take care of yourself. This is a life skill you will develop throughout your career.
I'd suggest chatting with a counsellor/ therapist now to help build those skills before you reach burnout.
In the meantime, keep your thoughts in a notebook during the workday and then try to recognise when you're thinking about work and, out loud to yourself (this part is important), state that "I'm thinking about work outside work hours. My time is important. I'll save this for when I'm at work."
Practise meditation, listen to guided breathing exercises while in bed. It feels weird at the start but soon you'll come to know the power of mindful thinking.
rrmcco04@reddit
The knowledge will never be enough. You have to accept that first. The fact that you are getting dragged deep into new topic after new topic suggests that you are getting thrown newer and harder cases which is good from the trust you are building up with folk, but it means that your workload will keep increasing in complexity. Talk to your supervisor about making sure it works for everyone and that if you get a new topic or leaning, that you have time to do that on the clock (meaning if you have to learn a bunch, you shouldn't be thrown new cases at the same rate)
You need to make sure you realize that you can't know it all and find the happy balance. When you start, being an great in everything seems like a good way to advance, but becoming a master of a domain is much more valuable in the long run and it does help get out of the hamster wheel.
Always remember, you are working to live, not living to work.
woemoejack@reddit
"SaaS support engineer", Meraki, Kubernetes, AWS. Is this an MSP??
anon-stocks@reddit
Sounds like you'll gain a lot of skill quickly so you can move to another company. Perfect place for a newb. This is the experience you need to get to a higher position. It's paying your dues.
StringStrangStrung@reddit
I am a sys admin for a school so I go to you guys for help all the time. This is exactly why I try to be as cordial and nice as possible. I know you guys see the best and the worst of people. Hope things get better for you!
Nacke@reddit
Remember to take breaks. I have a very flexible job where I can work from home and at the office as I please, and I have noticed how I at home get really stressed out trying to constantly work in a way I am not at the office. In the office I take time off, grabing my nerf gun, shooting colleagues, hanging at the coffee machine etc between work. At home, I get this feeling as I need to prove that I am working, so I have a really hard time taking breaks which is quite stupid when you think about it.
Be kind to yourself!
dedjedi@reddit
Yeah that's what they do.
Public_Warthog3098@reddit
If this aint for you. Take a lower role. No it's not normal to constantly be stressed. I work in IT and I work like 3 hours a day.
Weeooweeooweee@reddit
It's all about finding the right employer and manager that values work life balance for their team and also you learning how not to be hero i.t. and taking it upon yourself to fix everything and not say no/set boundaries when your workload is too high. It's not your fault if they haven't hired enough people for the workload, and they will squeeze every ounce of work out of one person that they can until you learn to set healthy boundaries. And if they fire you for that, then it's not someplace worth working for.
I previously worked for a company that didn't value work life balance which wrecked me and burnt me out so bad that I had considered getting out if i.t. altogether. I left once I had enough of them trying to kill me and found an employer that actually values a work life balance and life has been great since.
pabskamai@reddit
Unpopular opinion, I like being in the office, not only creates a mental barrier but also a well needed physical one, don’t get me wrong, I work from home, have a really nice and equipped home office, always connected da da da, it just feels good “to me” to have a place to consider work! Having the flexibility of working from home when needed or wanted is great, being at home all the time would drive me nuts.
First-District9726@reddit
OP already mentions living in a small apartment, probably the reason to get a WFH is because he can't afford to live near the CBD. It's why young people are so pro-WFH, rent prices are absolutely bonkers.
ImMalteserMan@reddit
Why can't you just commute? Why do you have to be close to the CBD?
First-District9726@reddit
You're literally asking, why don't people just want to waste 2-3 hours a day on nothing??? Maybe people prefer to spend time with friends or family, instead of smelling farts on a tram??
Ssakaa@reddit
Their personal time, at that. "Why don't you want to spend 10-12 hours on work+commute while getting paid for 8, and having to pay for all the costs of your method of transit to do that commute?"
pabskamai@reddit
While rent is a valid reason, there’s also a strong wfh movement, and is not always about rent but rather being at home and being easier da da da, always tending to ignore the other issues it creates, such as having a barrier as well as millions of years of conditioning to hunt, work the fields and gather in groups.
First-District9726@reddit
In my experience, it's overwhelmingly about affordability, at least in my country, the Netherlands. If you actually have to live close to an office in the CBD, you'll probably end up having to flatshare with a colleague on an average sysadmin salary, because monthly rent is nearly = a monthly sysadmin salary.
kamahaoma@reddit
In the US people mainly talk about saving time on the commute, but this is really the same thing. The commute is long because you can't afford to live close.
You sacrifice money (in rent), time (in commute), or you sacrifice the work/life separation by working from home.
First-District9726@reddit
The time saving on the commute is just another excellent bonus on top of not having to spend as much on rent. Who actually prefers sitting in a car/metro 2-3 hours a day vs spending time with their friends and family?
Ssakaa@reddit
And their real friends and family, not the people their employer happened to also choose to employ, who may or may not actually be friends... but constite a huge chunk of the "social" interactions of people that spend all their time in an office for work.
pabskamai@reddit
:( makes sense
Ssakaa@reddit
The social part irks me as an excuse. In everything else, people preach the benefits of separating work and personal life, and then utterly fail to maintain the social side of their personal life, because it seems like, for them, work is a "family" that provides them their social circle.
ImMalteserMan@reddit
I agree. My work is pretty flexible and I could work from home 3-4 days without raising too many eyebrows but I choose to go in to the office most days.
The separation between work and home is underrated.
I like that at a certain time of day I physically have to stop working and leave the office so I can get the train home and then on the train I'll do something like watch something on YouTube, read, scroll socials etc and it's a great unwind between work life and home life.
Meanwhile many who work from home think 'well I have no travel time so now I can work more'.
evantom34@reddit
same.
I don't have the luxury to have a big house- I prefer working in office based on the socialization and separation. It's TOO easy to mix work and personal when I'm working 8h in my bedroom.
Zuxicovp@reddit
Most of the advice here covers the important topics, so I’ll just leave this small comment as someone who works in ops and previously had full wfh for 4 years;
Schedule breaks for yourself, get exercise, and if possible create a dedicated workspace that is exclusively for work. Maybe that’s an apt with a second room, maybe it’s just that you only use your desk at home for work. Regardless, creating a dedicated space makes a big difference. Also get some nice fidgets for stressful situations. I like the NeeDoh squish cube
Brave_Rough_6713@reddit
It will be enough eventually. Stick in there, bro.
Far-Mechanic-1356@reddit
That’s how I feel working as a sys admin it’s non stop learning and issues keeps coming while you’re still trying resolve another 😭
ultimatebob@reddit
You know... just because you're getting the workload of 2 or 3 people doesn't mean that you should actually try to DO it. Let your manager know that you're overloaded, and let them choose which projects are the highest priority.
cmack@reddit
Just be prepared to have a shit manager who will use this to pass you over for promotions and future projects cause you can't handle it.
ultimatebob@reddit
If it's like most managers I've had in the past, they'll keep piling on additional work until I say it's too much. Most managers don't really do a good job of tracking your workload. As long as the work magically gets done on time, they'll keep throwing the tickets and e-mails your way. It's really up to YOU to avoid getting burnt out.
Ssakaa@reddit
And, if the work's getting done, if they're NOT micro-managing, they genuinely don't know whether you're overloaded or not. In practice, you're effectively "not" overloaded, if you're shouldering that load, grinning, and bearing it. They can't read your mind to know you're spiraling, they can only see results, and you're delivering those for them.
It's like making a burrito. There's always far more ingredients than will fit, but if you can keep shoveling it in and it doesn't spill out everywhere, it looks fine... until you try to pick it up and the whole thing comes apart in your hand...
tantricengineer@reddit
You're not maintaining a good boundary around work and personal time. Sit down with yourself, figure out the schedule you need to thrive. Make sure you have an 8ish hour workday in there.
Then sit down with your boss and explain how you have to change your schedule so you can focus on health. No threats, no "I can't do this", just "this is what I need to thrive".
If he pushes back and insists on extra hours outside of a 40 hour workweek, just say no.
chrisnlbc@reddit
Welcome Aboard! 25 years veteran of IT here, my cardiac CT scan is next week. Connect the dots. 😂
brokenmcnugget@reddit
welcome to the club.
jeffrey_f@reddit
Changeup your scenery, investigate a coworking location.
iRasgru@reddit
I dream of work. Not fighting etc, just working, typing email responses, re searching for something etc. I think all has to do with you (and me) and putting boundaries.
Think of it this way.. what if you fail? Won’t you get another job if the fire you?
Smoking-Posing@reddit
Yep, sounds like a Wednesday.
farva_06@reddit
I recently picked up a new hobby that has nothing to do with electricity whatsoever. Started playing the banjo. Granted, I do use Youtube for lessons, but it's still something I can do without any electricity at all if I want to. It's helped a ton in taking mind of work related things, and gets me away from the computer for a while.
Hellstinky@reddit
I fought working on site for so long. I was a manager of a team of 20. I quit because it was messing with me mentally physically and I was logging of work at home angry. Got an on-site job non management and higher pay I feel worlds better. Except only downside is driving home is irritating as all get with traffic but. The separation from work and home was something career changing in a good way.
nutbuckers@reddit
First job out of college I don't think anyone is expecting you to be a rockstar other than... you? Work the median length of time your peers do, after you poll them and maybe your line manager for what their situations are. Throttle your commitments and manage expectations. It's normal to get into a burnout spiral due to impostor syndrome. Calibrate yourself against the aggregate performance of the team or department and take care of yourself first. You got this; it does get better!
thedrizztman@reddit
Unfortunately, yes
That really depends on you and what you deem 'easier'. Does the workload ever let up? Not usually. Do you eventually get more comfortable with all these crazy technologies and being pulled in a million different directions? Sorta.
In my experience (8 years-ish. Started SysAdmin, transitioned to security), learning to manage yourself is the only thing that really gets easier. If you want to have a career in IT, you need to create separation from your life and your job. You have to realize that your job doesn't define you, and you aren't saving lives here. The problems you have today will most likely still be there tomorrow, and the problem you solve today will inevitably be replaced by a new one. It never ends. That's the job. It's a lot to learn up front, and everyone has to go through it. But eventually your acclimate to the intensity and learn to approach and manage the stress in more productive ways.
FakeitTillYou_Makeit@reddit
It sounds you care a lot.. and that’s what you need to thrive in this field. Keep pushing. No one knows it all but some of us really want to and try really hard to learn as much as we can and never stop. You are going up that mountain right now.. after some years you will see the top and everything will be a bit easier.
nmonsey@reddit
After the first ten or twenty years, you should get used to working in IT.
At least you get to sleep, instead of working through the night . . .
FakeitTillYou_Makeit@reddit
Lmao, this guy gets it.
SpakysAlt@reddit
It does get easier.
It’s significantly more difficult than engineering school, and you’re learning significantly more. The beginning of most IT jobs is a shitstorm of different things you have to learn quickly, and then they get easier.
captain_black_beard@reddit
Welcome. I've developed chronic gastric issues. My word of advice? Learn to not give a fuck one day of the week.
RemCogito@reddit
Things get easier after a couple years. the job that you took as your first tech job is a very demanding one, because you're the product. You're ability to figure things out on the fly is a significant part of what your customers are paying your company for. Each of the new things you're learning, is like learning a new language. The more languages you know, the easier it is to pick up a new one because there are similarities to the things you did before.
I was lucky and got an easy job straight out of school, so I learned how to interact with customers and other techs before I ended up taking a job similarly difficult as yours. Even still the first year was very difficult, and the following 2 were stressful, but less difficult. by the end of the third year, I had climbed tothe top of the technical ladder in the place that I was working, and moved on to a new job where over the course of two years I have tripled my income for way less stress.
The job you found is one where you need to learn to drink from the firehose. This is great for developing your skills and knowledge, but its really not a long term job for most people because it isn't something where you can reasonably balance your life.
Don't forget to keep updating your resume at least once per month with the new things you're working on. This isn't like engineering school where you work super hard with a specific end date in mind. This is a job where you work super hard to level up until you want to move on for more money and easier work/life balance in exchange for slower skill growth.
Since you're young, Think about this job like playing an ARPG on a higher difficulty because you want to get a bonus to EXP gain. Its more difficult and you need to be more careful about your HP pool, but it gets you baseline skills so much faster.
pmandryk@reddit
I'm stealing "violently confused".
mrrichiet@reddit
OP went up in my estimations when he made that statement. Subtle.
Jasilee@reddit
It gets easier as you become more comfortable with what you can do and lose effs for what is outside of your control. But it’s always drinking from a fire hose.
mrrichiet@reddit
Dude, it might be hurting now but you're learning so much that is going to stand you in good stead in future. It takes a few years at a company to get comfortable but as long as you have a job and you're being paid to learn it's all good. If the workload gets too much, move on, you won't have lost a thing (and you'd have gained much).
gonzo_the_____@reddit
Yeah, IT can be a real sink or swim environment. You are eating the shit right now, it sucks, but this is a great way to fast track your applied experience.
Now as far as normal, no, most people do not start at your level, so I imagine the shit you’re eating is especially tough. I’ve been in a position similar to yours for the last 6 years, and had 12 years experience when I started, so you’re accelerating your learning curve.
If you are able to stick it out for 1-2-3 years, whatever, until you can flip that experience into a job somewhere else. Do not be afraid to swap companies throughout your career unless there’s something uniquely special about where you work.
This period your in right now is called “imposter syndrome”, I have had it at every job I ever had in the beginning. Once you learn the institutional knowledge of your org, that’s one less thing you have to figure out, then it’s just the knowledge piece, which comes with time and practice.
You will also start to see correlations within issues that you wouldn’t have noticed before and all of a sudden you are no longer an imposter but now the subject matter expert.
I personally would recommend in person work, IT can be a mental meat grinder, I went back into the office full-time 3 years ago and it was the best decision I made, but I’m an extrovert. If you put in the time, it will get easier.
kop324324rdsuf9023u@reddit
We all are, brother.
TikiTDO@reddit
It gets easier in the sense that there's only so many systems that you're likely to encounter, and most of them are actually fairly similar once you get past the different dialects. There's only so many different frameworks, paradigms, and specialisations that you're likely to encounter, and once you understand enough of them well enough you'll be to do in seconds what used to take you days, simply by virtue of knowing how to solve problems due to having seen them time and time again. As long as you pay attention to all the other people telling you to learn how to step away, there will come a time when you're far more productive, but also have significantly more time.
Unfortunately, yhe first few years are really rough as you're tossed in with the sharks, and are expected to fight them off with one of your arms tied behind your back. Eventually you manage to free your arm, you learn how to train the sharks to do your bidding, and you ride around terrifying the high seas with your personal sharknado as newly minted juniors stare at your scars in awe. Then you quit and start a farm. As is tradition.
slick8086@reddit
You need to learn to say, "no." You need to learn to manage your time. If that means you can't do this job then that's what it means.
Do not burn down your life for a job, ever.
jmnugent@reddit
I'm in my early 50s and what you describe is pretty much what my IT career has been like since the mid 90's.
I hesitate a little to describe it as "normal" (because it's definitely not "normal" (as in "healthy") .. but I would probably describe it as "typical", yes.
What's really fun is it gets even worse as you gain more decades in IT,. because as you get better at things,.. people just expect you to keep getting better at things,. which really isn't a reasonable expectation for a flesh and blood human (we dont' improve exponentially)
I still like the field,. as it's fun and I get to play with a lot of new toys and I feel like I'm sort of on the "front edge" of technology and inventions.. so all of that is pretty cool.
it's hard though, yeah.
Pyrostasis@reddit
Yeah I've been a gamer my whole life and after I got promoted to IT Manager last year I am strongly reconsidering that choice. Working from home all day at my desk, then folding up my work laptop and getting out my gaming laptop in my apartment is rather soul crushing.
Job is also rough as unlike some of my colleagues as a sysadmin / it manager if something blows up at 10pm, 2am, or noon its me fixing it. Things like security, compromised accounts, testing patches, update schedules for EOL shit, as well as projects literally never ends.
I get up at night to hit the bathroom and Im sitting there doing my business and thinking about the things I gotta do in the AM.
Its tough but you gotta learn to let it go at 5 and find a way to separate it that is hopefully positive. Working out and getting away from your desk is good. Drinking and eating a whole large pizza while staring at your monitor... thats not working out so well at least for me.
Best of luck my man.
AnAnxiousCyclist@reddit
I moved into an architect-level role in big tech after about 8 years of experience at companies from 20 people up to 10k people. The big tech job paid way more than I ever thought I’d make but I hated it. No one on the team worked together, I talked to my boss maybe once a month, getting information was extremely challenging at a company that huge, and metrics were all anyone cared about. Despite having good reviews and customers being happy with my work, I had terrible depression/anxiety and eventually quit after 6ish months. I thought giving that up was crazy, especially the stock and bonus benefits I left on the table.
Honestly though, it was the best decision. A couple years later I’ve worked into a leadership position at my current company and I make about the same money I made in big tech. The benefits aren’t as good but frankly I didn’t really utilize the benefits anyway. I’m way happier and have grown way more as a person, employee, and leader than I would have in big tech.
My advice is to try and make this work but don’t be afraid to get another job if necessary. You’ve done the big tech thing. It’s on your resume. Try something else if you want. I’ve learned I like mid sizes companies that are big enough to spend money on tech and have interesting problems but not so big that 90% of project time is just getting through red tape.
phoenix823@reddit
Maybe an unpopular view here, but how are you trying to keep up with it exactly? Have you considered leveraging any of the publicly available language models to ask questions and to accelerate your learning? They are absolutely not perfect and need to be checked. But the perfect is the enemy of the good. Do the best job that you can, and don't let things overwhelm you. It sounds like you have the right attitude and work drive, and you're picking up lots of skills as you go along. You are going to be a very valuable candidate in the future. I can absolutely guarantee you that keep that in the back of your head.
One of the things I found very helpful when it came to my own anxiety was learning to perform breathing exercises. Google them, but breathing in for four seconds through your nose and out for eight seconds through your mouth, very slow slowly and paying attention to your breath is really helpful when you do it for three times a day for three minutes each. I
Ok-Car-2916@reddit
I work in big tech and we have a lot of valuable IP and would absolutely get fired for feeding anything to an unsanctioned AI model not owned and operated by us. Presumably, OP is in a similar situation and doesn't have access because if they did, they would know. Big companies are not nearly as pro AI as Reddit and HackerNews like to imagine. It's maybe 50% of companies where it's outright banned, and roughly another 25% at least where it is partially banned and you have to get approvals and only use a specific sanctioned model hosted in your own private cloud.
phoenix823@reddit
I think there is a very fine line and that's what we're talking about here. General information about how Kubernetes, Merkari, and the basics of how AWS works are not core information to how Nvidia works. I would very much expect, not being a member of the company, that all of the real intellectual property lies in other locations. I also don't think that asking for help with AWS, as a generality rather than something specific for your organization, would be sensitive either.
But hey, I have a great respect for what Nvidia has done and I've been in a number of organizations where the types of information that go into language models was the important variable because the most important pieces were private.
DasaniFresh@reddit
Everyone going into college sees IT for the pay and forgets it’s sometimes a 24/7 role. Like others have said, schedule yourself breaks throughout the day, get a standing desk, use that good money to travel on weekends.
jamalstevens@reddit
Here’s the deal, you’re the only one who can create a work life balance. You have to set your own boundaries and stick to them. After work is done, work is done. Get out of the house and do something. Only work when getting paid to do so.
If that’s not ok with your bosses etc, explaining the workload during work hours is too much. Then it’s on them to lessen the load or fire you.
It can take a lot to separate work and home life, but only you can do it. Maybe try to work some days out of your home at a coffee shop or library or something. See if there’s office space anywhere from your company you could go to occasionally.
wooferjuice@reddit
I pretty much did this and got tired of my bosses sitting around not helping, and then had some coworkers who were not so nice or AFK half the time as well. I was fully remote, great pay, shitty bosses. I left when the opportunity arose but I had to take a pay-cut and work hybrid.
I am much happier, have less workload, don’t have to take customer calls constantly. I feel a little bit more sane not being cooped up in the house. Even my family notices a difference in me.
Lots of good advice here to just drop work from your brain after the 40 hrs. Stick to it the work will get easier. If it doesn’t improve in a few years, start applying for other jobs. Money is great but, not always worth your mental.
FrankiesRuckSack@reddit
Yeah, it gets easier. It's not like you run out of stuff to learn but you get way better at learning, finding information, and you get a sense for how certain things probably work, and where you should look. And you learn a LOT.
Posture is an infinite battle with me. I have to consciously fix it all the time.
aditya__5300@reddit
Yes it js normal in IT but you should make a schedule and try to follow that and don't worry just take a deep breath you will get used to it. But most importantly Focus on your health.do some meditation or gym or home workout it will definitely help you!
boli99@reddit
big business is a numbers game. they dont care about pleasing 100% of the users with 100% service
much better to keep 95% of the users happy (cos then you get 95% of the money), and their questions are super simple and can be answered by a chatbot that reads the FAQ to them - yay - cheap!
then pay juuuuust enough attention to the other 5% of the users to stay within SLA, because they have tricky questions, and answering them properly would be time-consuming and would require some fairly expensive costly staff to do the supporting - so just keep feeding them dumb questions that have already been asked a hundred times before - wait for them to get bored and go away
...and then close the ticket with 'no response from customer'
ta-daaa.
eventually just outsource the last bit to a call center in another country.
its the ciiiircle of liiiiife.
RikiWardOG@reddit
This is why I don't do client facing work like this. The pressure from both sides is always fucking stupid. The stress isn't worth it to me. I make good money working internal at a small firm doing jack of all trades stuff. Respect your time as nobody else will. You need to stand up for yourself.
IJustWannaBeKing@reddit
Growth isn't comfortable. Remember that and you will appreciate your situation a lot more.
soopersalad@reddit
Build a reputation of having great work ethic. Once you have that, set boundaries. Myself, I can push back and even get away with getting into arguments with the owner and luckily not getting fired. I guess, what you do in life echoes in eternity...lol
Ok-Car-2916@reddit
It sounds like maybe you would prefer to get out of support or operations type roles (ones where you are being dragged in multiple directions at the same time and respond to a lot of tickets). Maybe you should try to find a job that is a little more development or product or infrastructure oriented...less responding to random tickets and more working on long term projects.
I've always liked the development style roles a lot better because I am like you and am bad at focusing on multiple things and being interrupted all the time. I will end up doing exactly what you are doing and start ruminating and not be able to put things down to the day cause I get so used to being dragged into action at the drop of a hat.
Sorry for not having better advice. It's always shitty when you go and ask for advice and the first thing people recommend is to find a different job. But sometimes it do be like that.
notHooptieJ@reddit
Welcome to technology.
where if you read even the most basic instruction manual - you're 3 steps ahead of the people the use the stupid thing all day.
You're basically describing 'fast paced' and 'dynamic' workplaces in tech.
at least they arent treating you like family too.
they could be making you be in close physical proximity to your work daddy, eating with the fam, working hard and playing hard together.
Smiles_OBrien@reddit
This was teacher-life for me. Except the high pay and remote work part. I learned a whole hell of a lot about the profession, and about myself and what I needed. Most crucially that I needed to get the hell out of teaching. I got the experience I needed and then bounced.
Then, this was MSP-life for me. Except the high pay and great benefits and remote work. I learned a whole hell of a lot about the profession, and about myself and what I needed. Must crucially that I needed to be back in the education field, and needed to learn to set my boundaries. I got the experience I needed and then bounced.
So now I'm still in IT, but work K-12, work hourly, strictly take my lunch, clock out when the work is done, and try to read a good book afterwards.
This shit is hectic as hell at every strata of the profession, and if you don't set time for yourself, someone else will set it for you. Eat, Hydrate, Disconnect, Sleep. Do not forget any of those. At a certain level it does get easier because you learn to take care of yourself, and a lot of the things you learn now will remain relevant throughout your career.
Or you may just learn, like I did after 5 years and a degree in Music Education, that what you thought you wanted isn't what you wanted. Don't jump at the first sign of danger, but keep collecting data points, and don't be afraid to come to the conclusion that your money-making endeavors lay elsewhere.
JPU6400@reddit
I feel like I could have written this myself a couple of years ago.
I got a DevOps job at a trading firm during the pandemic. On paper, I was at the peak of my life. Early 20s, making more money than all of my family combined and 3X the salary of my previous job, WFH but an office in a high rise building, finally felt like my future was my own. It took about a month for me to start vomiting before every single morning standup meeting because I was so nervous I would fuck it all up. Eventually, after taking a few medical leaves and being unable to get treatment for some severe health issues that arose due tot the job-induced anxiety & depression, I got too sick to be able to work and have been out of the IT field since. Got a job working customer service at a front desk of an art school to make ends meet about 8 months, but it took about 2 years of job hunting just to be able to find that. It was the only interview I did that didn't ask me why I had a gap on my resume and didn't ask what I had been doing between jobs to keep up with my skills.
I went into that DevOps job really not understanding the amount of pressure that was going to be instantly and constantly laid upon me, and in retrospect I was woefully unequipped with tools to manage the anxiety and depression it caused. You can take this as a cautionary tale, but really I say this to mean that you are not alone in your experience and the suffering you are enduring (though I'm sure some less than charitable folks would scoff at the idea that having a job like this could be called suffering).
It's not impossible to stay in that job and eventually figure out how to make it work for you, but it certainly won't be easy. It involves a lot of self-relection, confidence to set boundaries, support from loved ones, and an understanding company. Ultimately, it will be up to you to decide what support you need, how you're going to get it, and what you will do if you can't. Something will have to give.
If you need any additional support, I'd recommend trying to reach out to HR to see what resources they offer, though HR is certainly not your friend and I could understand being uncomfortable with that. In any case, seeing your doctor or a therapist is a great first step. There's online resources for discussion of stuff like this, a personal favorite being HealthyGamerGG. If talking to a random dude on Reddit appeals to you, you can reach out to me in a DM.
For what it's worth, I'm making minimum wage now and living in a studio apartment with my dog. I've never felt more at peace.
duranfan@reddit
Controlling your workload and the pace of the environment, if you want to stay there, can be hard, because you need understanding management to deal with that. To get them to understand, you have to talk to them and let them know what's going on.
There is a factor which you can control, that's this right here--
You need to fix that, fast. I had a very similar home "office" setup, at a similarly fast-paced, heavy-workload job about 20 years ago. I ended up feeling like you are now, when I got a workaholic boss who basically expected his entire team to be doing 16-hour days like he did. I very nearly went insane--skipped lunches, stopped showering, napped instead of eating, slept in my living room to get away from that fucking computer, even started doing a little liquid-lunching now and again, heh. Then I met someone who made me stop all that. I hope you have a good support system--family, significant other, friends, fellow hobbyists, something, at the very least.
SenorBango@reddit
Just be honest man, tell them when you feel like you can’t handle a task or a project is too much for you. It’s my first year out of college at an MSP and it’s rough some days for sure. I find just being straight up with what I know is the best way to do things.
Ok-Car-2916@reddit
Take a chill pill and put up some boundaries between your work and your life. You sound like you are going to break down. Not much you can do about it being a difficult job, all the good paying ones are difficult in their own ways. You just need to eventually become good enough to be able to get what you need done and call it quits in roughly 40 hours a week. And if it's not an on call situation with a current outage, you need to put up barriers to prevent yourself from working really any more than 50 or so hours a week. Once you go past 50 there have been studies that show that total productivity (not just productivity per unit) decreases. If you continue to grind excessive hours to stay afloat you are counterintuitively going to develop bad habits that make you slower at your job.
Regen89@reddit
Yeah not even remotely an entry level position lmao.
Unfortunately you don't have the mental benefit of having everything you are doing on top of a 1 hour per way commute into an office with a completely random level of bullshit including white noise, potentially uncomfortable chair/desk/monitor setup, dress code, annoying co-workers/employees that will bother you in person constantly, co-workers/employees that are too loud or on the phone constantly within earshot, having to potentially pay for parking, relatively expensive food if you don't have time to prep, etc etc the list goes on for just about everything you can imagine.
When you are to just remove all of the above from your life the resulting difference in stress is catastrophicly awesome. Really is a shame that is lost on you because are starting from remote.
Only things I can really say are yes, feeling like you are living work and constantly thinking about work problems outside of work hours is normalish for people that have good work ethic --- yes it can be worrisome and not ideal for work life balance but that should fade over time as you become more experienced and more confident in your work until you are able to have better work/mental boundaries.
Plan breaks (5+ minutes every hour at least) where you get up and walk around, grab a drink/snack/whatever. If you can't get away for multiple hours at a time then take a longer break when you can and maybe go touch some grass.
Everyone has different thresholds for burnout but I believe pretty much everyone here will tell you that EVERYONE has a limit. Explore what that means for you and do your best to manage it. It sounds like you have a really strong starting opportunity that most people would be extremely envious of fresh out of school, recognize that and do your best to create balance so you don't fuck it up.
machstem@reddit
burnout is real, it doesn't matter how old you are or how long you have worked somewhere
don't let someone try and tell you it'll get better
work now at a proper 70-30% life/work balance
if you can't do 70/30, consider making excuses or reasons to take longer in-between breaks; you're better off walking away 15mins every hour than you are to take a longer 2hr break in the day
get a hobby; I love photography and taking drives. What do you enjoy? What did you enjoy before your work life?
One day at a time and never give your employer any, since they won't loyally keep paying you if you don't or can't work anymore.
There is no such thing as overtime; that's just more of your time in their hands
Crunch time == poor business continuity and you shouldn't be at blame for management unable to manage the workloads for their staff
Take care of yourself because you're the only one who'll know how to do that best.
DM if you need better advice
WhatsFairIsFair@reddit
Sure, it's normal if you make it become normal for you. But you are on track to burn out. Work-life balance is important because life and work are marathons, not sprints, and generally, when you have it, you do better at both.
From now on, make sure you're eating properly. Try to cultivate more nonchalance about your work. Right now, what you're doing isn't healthyand you're stressing too much.
Stress in a job is good. It's a sign that you actually give a shit. But too much stress and pressure is not healthy. It's important to remind yourself that work is not your life. It's your work. You need to do what's best for you, not what's best for your company. If your company is pushing too hard or wants you to do something illegal, your should refuse. Work at a sustainable pace even when or especially when under a lot of pressure or in emergency situations.
What working in these environments will give you is a desensitivity to high pressure situations and you will be able to function as normal instead of this panic mode you are in right now. This is likely because you're still new and haven't adapted to the work environment or given yourself adequate time for on-boarding.
Or maybe the work environment is to hard for you, that's perfectly OK as well. Remember we're prioritizing work life balance here, not chasing pure income. Just like many employees don't work out for a company, the reverse is also true and to be honest there are many many companies out there that are not worth working for
WarpGremlin@reddit
No job is worth your mental and physical health.
No amount of money is worth your mental and physical health.
No amount of money from any job is worth your mental and physical health.
It sounds like you're working for a Managed Services Provider or Consulting Company. "Master of all" is the expectation, but that's unrealistic.
Here's what you gotta do:
Immediately: Stand the fuck Up. Every 45-60 minutes stand up and do 12 squats, reach down and touch your toes, then put your hands together behind your back and pull up and back. Stretch. You can do all that in under a minute. Are you stuck on a call with talking heads-not-yours? Stand the fuck Up and do your stretches.
Short Term: Block off time on your calendar to eat twice a day. Turn off your camera unless its a "special occasion". Log off at the end of the day. Turn. Your Work Laptop OFF! Don't log in until the next day.
Buy a motorized standing desk and get a wireless headset (I like the bone-conducting OpenComm, its lightweight). Move your setup as far away from your bed as practical. Find a co-working space if you have to.
Get out of your apartment. Walk, pick up a hobby.. anything that gets you out of your head.
Long Term: Out of all the tech stacks you get to touch on a daily basis, find one you like/want to know more about, like K8s, and build a homelab around it. Play with it. Conflate that homelab knowledge with your job XP and build your resume around it.
Don't aim to be a "5-star worker", just aim for the middle.
19610taw3@reddit
I could never do big tech.
I am just a generalized sysadmin. I do work a lot, but I'm also not pressured to do too much. Some days I come in at 10. Some days I leave at 3. Some times I'm working until 12 or 1 in the morning ...
But the 24/7 on lifestyle that FAANG types need.
whitoreo@reddit
Welcome to I.T. !!
MiataCory@reddit
Set a whistle. Starts the day, ends the day. Box your work into a little corner of your life, and leave it there when the whistle blows.
Shut the laptop. Only use that one for work. Don't have a fancy setup. Make it disappear when you're not working.
A wall between work and life. Keep work in a box.
hbg2601@reddit
The question you need to ask yourself is "Are remote work, high pay, and great benefits worth being constantly exhausted and stressed out?" If the answer is yes, then keep going the way you are. If the answer is no, then you have two choices, 1) take the advice that others have offered and make the changes necessary to keep your job, your sanity, and your health, or 2) take the experience you've gained and move on.
Bottom line is that no job and no company are worth making yourself physically ill. The company will always choose itself first, so you need to do the same.
blandman91@reddit
Welcome to the club
cdawwgg43@reddit
Manager here.
Make sure you're talking to your manager about your concerns regarding your performance. Right now you only see what 's in front of you, you have no other viewpoint. I really hate seeing my team members struggle and it's worse when they struggle in silence. You could be doing fine and this is all just your mind playing tricks on you or there are other seniors etc that they could assign to you to help get it down. On the flip side, no one has dragged you into the office to tell you you're a screw-up so take that as a big thumbs up.
You're getting it. You're learning. Be patient. Take it easy on yourself. You are actually learning you just don't know it yet. Anyone in this community will tell you many of us have impostor syndrome. Relax, do the work. Build the experience and expertise. If working out didn't take reps, sweat, and effort, we'd all be bodybuilders at this point. But it's hard work. You're experiencing what I explain to my recent grad hires as "reality hitting". You don't have assignments you have customers. You don't have bad grades you have SLAs with real consequences. This is a big adjustment and it's absolutely never talked about enough in Uni/college.
For remote workers what I recommend you do is the second you get off work shut your whole computer down and throw a sheet over it or walk out and shut the door. Loudly say internally or externally whatever "all done with work" then go take a walk and get something to eat. Get fresh air. It isn't going to fix working next to your bed but it's a little social engineering for yourself to help create that hard line between work and home. I do the same thing as you sort of when i work from home and you need to make separation. It's not about the separation being real but socially engineering your brain to create that barrier or wedge between the two so when it's time to switch off your mind is ready for the switch. It's the same principle as sleep hygiene but WFH hygiene.
And finally you need to take care of your body. This job is basically cancer because of how much we sit and don't move. Make sure you're walking. MAKE TIME TO WORK OUT! Make sure you're getting around 10K steps in if you're ambulatory. If you're in a chair make sure you're hitting your PT appointments and ask your medical team to put together a program for you. Talking to a therapist can absolutely help wonders. NO ONE FUCKING EVER talked to us about it in College. Ever. It was just statistics this an ancient mesopotamia I didn't know there were tools to deal with the stress and anger until I was having panic attacks and puking after meetings over (looking back at it ) what were small problems. Having an impartial sounding board that legally can't spill your secrets is a nice tool to have in your belt. They may have great suggestions for stress and behavioral management that can really help you down the road so long as you deal with it early. The tech sector for the most part can be quite the meat grinder. If you know you're prone to stress or rather negative emotions stemming from the stress, an hour or two a month of getting tools, working with a professional, and keeping your center helps get you better prepared to deal with it. IMO it will help you. Take care of yourself.
dinadur@reddit
I was in that meat grinder for nearly a decade and honestly it was worth it for the level of knowledge gained. It gets easier over time.
Try to pivot into technical sales or solutions architect for an easier and more lucrative role once you have enough knowledge and experience.
jbourne71@reddit
Work at a coffee shop, or a park. Go to a coworking space sometimes. You need to create separation.
Get an ergonomic setup. Easy to Google. See if your doctor would support a reasonable accommodation for employer-furnished ergonomics equipment.
Take breaks. Like others said, schedule BS meetings. Stand up. Walk. Touch grass. Make two back to back and set DND to do deep work.
Use your EAP. Get a counselor/therapist. This is a stressful adjustment. It helps to talk to someone.
And bitch about everything on Reddit. Light it up. Make it cathartic.
You’ll be alright.
RB-44@reddit
Just let it to brother....
9-5 is all you're paid for 9-5 is all you need to give.
Is it really great pay if you work 14 hours a day and you fucking dream about your job? Odds are your hourly rate comes out actually really shitty for how much you're working
tapplz@reddit
This sounds like my 2.5 years working for an MSP. Pros: -I learned SOO much. Not everything about everything, but I touched every topcis enough to get a foundation. Cons: -It turned my life into hell. They had all the wrong priorities.
I don't regret a second of it becuase I was able to get an amazing job right after due to the laundry list of competencies it gave me.
Ride it out for at least a year or two, then get the hell out of there. Your future will be bettter for it, assuming the stress doesn't kill you before then.
Jazzlike-Vacation230@reddit
Start small - physically separate where you work from where you "play" in your apartment. It makes a big difference.
When off the clock, immediately leave the apartment and take a walk
read books for leisure to clear your mind
Try to work out in the am before work or set a schedule to do it after work during the week
If you can delegate in anyway at the job, do so
Talk to your mgmt chain not on "it's getting difficult" but frame it like you are trying to learn management/delegation skills
Worse comes to worse weigh your options and make a change. Don't forget to consider pets/family in your decisions and how things ultimately affect them.
benuntu@reddit
I've worked two startups, then at a large company that acquired one of them, and your post gave me some bad flashbacks. All nighters hunched over my desk (in my bedroom) busting out code all to make someone a lot of money while I made (relatively) little. Ultimately it led to great experience, but I was a wreck physically and mentally after 3-4 years.
Here's what helped me: 1. Set an "end date" that's not too far off. I always try to stay at any job unless it's a dead end, for 2 years. Looks better on a resume and gives you great experience. If you set this end date, there's a light at the end of the tunnel.
Set up "focus time" where you can't be interrupted. Nothing like being knee-deep in some project you're trying to wrap your brain around and constantly getting interrupted by the next "emergency".
Have a hard stop at some point in the afternoon/evening that gives you time to get outside, talk to friends, go for a walk, etc. I can't stress enough how important this was to me.
AZmindlessZombie@reddit
Welcome to IT ...
MrPooter1337@reddit
Hey man, I feel like I have a very different take on this than the other commenters, so I might get some hate for this. But, I think it’s just this job specifically. Not all roles are as demanding and stressful. I feel like many customer service/support roles would be like this. I started at an MSP and now do in house IT and my jobs have been nothing like you described. There are some stressful days of course, but mostly it’s pretty chill.
I guess you gotta ask yourself if the pros are worth the stress, but I really do not think all IT jobs are like that. At least, thankfully, that’s been my experience.
BlueHatBrit@reddit
Don't waste your youth getting stressed out over a job for a company who don't care about you.
Take a better job that pays less. Preferably one where they expect less of you as an entry level graduate, and have some good people for you to learn from.
Going into an office at your stage of life isn't a bad idea either. It's easier to learn in person, it's how we've evolved, and it checks some boxes around socialising. This is doubly the case if you live in a small apartment where there's no clear separation between work and life.
It's your responsibility to figure out how to take care of yourself and what boundaries make sense for you. You've only got one life, and not very long being young either, don't piss it away working this job.
NothingToAddHere123@reddit
You should have started as a level 1 and worked yourself up instead of jumping too high right of of college.
ndheathen@reddit
You are working for a bad company, and you should updated your resume. There's no crime in taking a pay cut for your mental health, but you might not have to. Also, now that you have presumably a year of experience, you know that questions to ask the company interviewing you. Back when I worked for a shit company, I started interviewing and a "perk" of a company I interviewed with was that we got free dinner every night. My immediate follow up question was "why am I still at the office at dinner time?". I knew to ask this because my then company got us dinner every night. Some "perks" are really problems.
osurico@reddit
You’ll acclimate. It’s always hard putting what you learned to actual use in an environment. Your understanding will come with time and how to deal with frustrated users will become easier
SignAfterAgreement@reddit
What salary are you at?
Lopoetve@reddit
Yup. Sounds about right. Started my career at a big company now owned by Hock Tan, working support, although we were in office... And yeah, the first 6 months you spent SWEARING that they'd made a horrible mistake and any moment now they were going to fire your ass. You spent the next 6 thinking you might survive, but no way you'd do well on review. And the third 6 months teaching all the folks in their first 6 months.
gruntbuggly@reddit
What you are going through is 100% normal. And it can get easier. But you have to work at it.
Don’t kill yourself for a job. That company, nor anyone from it, will ever shed a tear at your grave.
Instead, recognize that no matter how much work you do today, a full workload will be there tomorrow. If you work 8 hours today, and take appropriate breaks, a full workload awaits you tomorrow. If you work 20 hours today, with no breaks, a full workload awaits you tomorrow.
Focus on setting up good work hygiene habits.
Set a start time, and do not work before that start time.
Set a finish time, and do not work after that finish time.
* Establish your lunch break time, and take an actual lunch break, where you get outside and go for a walk. My advice would be to also get outside for little walks before and after work, too, kind of like a pseudo-commute, to help you mentally transition into an out of work-mentality.
Your company does not care about you, your feelings of being overwhelmed or burnt out. So YOU need to be the one to care.
If your company is not having all the work completed in a timely manner that they need to have completed, that is a them problem that additional staffing can help with. Not a you problem that working more will fix.
With good work hygiene habits, working from home can be very rewarding.
Grrl_geek@reddit
In my experience, that's SOP. LOL. NOW - try to do those things while your body betrays you and goes through menopause! Foggy brain and everything! I almost cried at my Dr's office when I said, I needed *something* because my job is my brain.
UnkemptGoose339@reddit
You also need to learn to control the conversation and have the client be in your frame when speaking. Of course the client expects you to resolve the issue in 5 minutes and that you have super in depth knowledge of every issue that comes up. But I very much doubt your seniors expect you to have any of that knowledge given that you're a tier 1 engineer with no prior experience. Unless you've somehow landed a higher tier role? It sounds as if the clients are getting to you.
Give it your best shot troubleshooting wise, be polite but firm in your conversations/chats/emails. Ignore sassy/belligerent conversation from them and bring them back to talking about resolving the issue. Document in your ticket notes every step you've taken, and escalate if necessary.
Be sure you're communicating frequently and well with higher tier support staff, try and be friendly with them as well. People in tech often suck at communicating so this could be a challenge.
You should get better as you go and it should be less stressful.
Tsiox@reddit
Exercise whenever you can, take Vitamin D, get outside with the laptop... But, no one is going to cry for you. Those of us who are past the burnout phase don't envy you but at the same time, I'd love to be able to do it again. I'd manage it a lot better now. But, there's no way I'd be able to do that job anymore.
BisonST@reddit
Keep working at your current gig. Take your own health seriously, but there's no need to make drastic changes. If your company lets you go because you stopped giving it 200%, don't worry you're young. You've got plenty of time to recover from any setbacks.
afwaller@reddit
Start running. Try to run every day. Get a treadmill desk. Walk during the day.
PappaFrost@reddit
Employers and non-tech-savvy people sometimes have extremely unrealistic expectations about what a single human is capable of. No one can know ALL of technology. You just described three different disciplines : Kubernetes (container orchestration), Cisco Meraki (networking), AWS (cloud). Do they also expect a cardiologist to know everything about podiatry? Does a tax lawyer know everything about intellectual property law?
What I would do in this situation is use it to your advantage to learn by drinking from the 'firehose' but make yourself completely unavailable after 40 hrs/week. Enforce work-life balance even if you have co-workers who aren't. They will make you crunch if you let them. Insist on eating right, exercise and relaxation instead.
VirtualDenzel@reddit
Welcome to the club. Its normal and will only get worse once they find out you knoe the stuff.
It is a burnout machine. It pays well but the workload is high.
UnkemptGoose339@reddit
Lol, welcome to tech support. This sounds very similar to when I started back in 2016. Constant calls and cases, clients that were dissatisfied. I acclimated to it after about 6 months or so.
I eventually just wasn't stressed when a client would call in and be pissed, you need to learn to not have it trigger your fight/flight and raise your cortisol/stress levels. Take frequent breaks, go to the gym/workout/do something physical after work. I was in the military so that probably helped me adapt to the stress better.
Remind yourself that many people are making much less for much more physically demanding and stressing jobs. Be sure to unwind and destress completely on days off and weekends.
One thing about remote work is that you don't really make good friends as well as in office with other co workers nearby. See if you can make friends with people via teams, that used to be something I would look forward to during work.
Are you working 8 hours with a lunch in between? Or are you salaried and your work is pushing you to work 10-12 hour days? 8 hour days with a lunch and no commute at all shouldn't be that terrible, even if you are constantly working. Legally you should be allowed 2 10-15 min breaks if you're in the US I believe.
AirCaptainDanforth@reddit
Welcome to sysadmin.
Alternative-Print646@reddit
Welcome to the first 10-15 years of your IT life. It does get easier but Yiu are at the point now where you need to learn. I honestly took home a different manual almost every night for my first 10 or so years.
But if it helps any, I'm closing in on 30 years now and no longer kill trees like I used too.
Beautiful_Duty_9854@reddit
Welcome to the party man.
A lot of this is normal. Take a step back and give yourself some grace, no one knows a company's systems/customers/solutions in a few months. It'll take 10 months to a year to really settle in, and even then a another year to feel super confident. Give it some time and the workload will be something you can likely handle.
Set expectations with your management and yourself. Be honest when you don't know something and ask for help.
You have to take care of yourself. Workout, sleep, and get you're eating right. Take breaks to look away from the screen. I ended up with migraines caused by dry eyes from not blinking enough like a god damn lizard from staring at screens too much. If cases are already piling up, taking some time for yourself each day wont hurt. If shits on fire now, it'll still be on fire tomorrow so try to focus on other things outside of work. Like there will always be cases right? That's why the job exists, no reason to fret about it. They aren't paying you after hours. Work on posture.
If you're indeed making the big bucks, its time to upgrade that work from home setup. Spend money on a high end office chair. You can sometimes catch some of the best ones on sale/used. Herman Miller Aeron/emby, Branch Ergo, Steelcase, and so on. Worth their weight in gold. Standing desks offer good variation. Up the monitor setup if you're only working on 1 or two monitors.
When you can separate your work from home space from where you sleep/relax, do so. I only work from home here and there, but for the people I know who are 100% remote, their lives improved vastly when they aren't rolling out of bed onto the computer next to it.
Take every opportunity to learn, and take care of yourself, and you'll get there.
vNerdNeck@reddit
Very normal. You have a couple of things working against you.
1) This is your first job. You literal don't know shit and have to drink from the fire hose (normal).
2) This is a big company, and that come with it's own ball of bullshit as it's gonna take you 6-8 months to even figure out who is who in the zoo.
Honestly, this is all very normal (IMO). It's going to take you 12-18months to just get your feet underneath you at a big company, much less if you have no experience and are at a big company.
the first few years on the job is gonna require you to learn ALOT that they didn't teach you in school. If you want to stay on the curve or even get ahead you will be burning the candle at both ends for a while, but the exp you'll gain is going to be worth it.
As for the W/L situation, that is something you gonna have to work on. Don't turn to drugs or alcohol. You need to step work hour bands
9-12 | Working
12-1| Lunch (turn of your fucking phone and go for a walk and grab food).
1-\~5ish | working
6-X?| Get away from the home office. Go for a work, go work out. I don't want to hear about how tired you are, suck it the fuck up and move your ass for a while. Also, turn your phone off.. leave it at home.
X-Y?| Finish up anything that needs to get done that night, prep for the next day or self study on a technology area you are dealing with.
rinse repeat.
--
Lastly | Don't apologize for not answering a call, or being immediately available.. You are not a slave, don't fucking act like one. If someone calls on your lunch break don't say "Sorry I was eating lunch" when you call them back. Just say "Hey, saw that you called and am giving you a ring back, what's up?" Same goes if you are working out / after hours /etc. 0
robetybob@reddit
Congrats on landing a big-tech role straight outta college. That’s no small feat. I totally get what you’re feeling. It’s actually super common. You're not broken or behind or weak. These roles can be brutal, especially early on. The pressure to always know more, to keep up, to be the smartest one in the room is exhausting. That feeling of not enough doesn’t magically go away. But you do get better at handling it. However, if it’s wrecking your health, that’s a red flag. A big one. No job, no matter how shiny, is worth your peace of mind or your sleep or your gut lining.
Disposable-Acumen@reddit
You might be placing more burden on yourself than is expected. How much of your time is scheduled for training?
To help create a sense of separation, try to get lights you can change the color temperature of, then having the lights be different between work and home. Get a sheet or blanket and throw it over your work equipment so that it isn't staring at you while you are off the clock. Make sure to take breaks to get up and walk/stretch. Don't forget to drink plenty of water.
First-District9726@reddit
This is normal, don't quit your job. It'll get easier. You're just feeling tired because everything is new. In a few months time, you'll notice a pattern to your problems, that things repeat themselves, you'll find shortcuts, automations, etc. to make your life easier. Just bare with it, it'll be worth it. Especially in this job market.
painted-biird@reddit
Violently confused is a great way to put it lol.
evantom34@reddit
I can’t speak for Big Tech specifically, but my early experience in IT was pretty similar. Honestly, you're diving into some pretty advanced stuff right out of the gate—Kubernetes, Meraki, and AWS definitely aren’t beginner-level tools.
It’s really important to find a balance between learning and maintaining a healthy work-life balance. These companies will push you to the limit, and once you're burned out, they’ll just replace you without a second thought. So, don’t feel guilty for putting yourself and your mental health first. If that means walking away from this role, that’s completely valid.
Helpjuice@reddit
This is the cost of the high pay, remote work, and other perks if you are hired fas a butt in the seat. They are not paying you this much due to your unique skills and capabilities, they are paying you this much to keep you in the seat and just do your job. There are nice well-balanced and extremely high paying jobs in tech, but you are more than likely not in one of them.
The best path forward is to leave or change teams and find something less stressful, your current management does not care about you and you can see and feel this with the overload of work you are currently doing.
You can either take care of the problem now or neglect your health and wellbeing and wait for your body to do it for you. Though, be warned when your body does it for you it will be when you least expect it and you may not recover in a timely manner.
You can try saying no, or redistributed the workload but I am guessing if you attempt to do this you will eventually get poor ratings, and PIP'd out of there.
token40k@reddit
I’m hybrid now but was remote and yes jobs like that exist as you describe. But they are paying me for my certs and unique skills with good work life balance and I’m able to choose what to work on, but I’m 35 with 18 years in career across 3 different countries. Youngster will learn to give less fucks and multitask, and if he doesn’t he gonna be on a street. So it goes
token40k@reddit
Welcome to employment. Have you considered starting your own goat farm? Lunch gym class helps me. You will need to prioritise wellbeing. Out of college not sure what you expect tho. You gotta work and skill up
Snoo_1464@reddit
I don't mean to sound disgruntled but I'm already dealing with this kinda stress and get paid like shit and have to commute every day and travel to remote sites all the time, you've got most people's dream job lol
dontdoitwich@reddit
The best advice you'll get here. Be smart about money, save and invest and spend as little as humanly possible. Your goal is to set yourself up to retire at 40. You do this, you'll have a good life for the second half and can get out early. ;-)
phoenix823@reddit
I cannot emphasize this enough. I'm 41 and got laid off at the beginning of April. Thankfully, I put away enough money in brokerage and 401(k) that I can decide to do whatever the hell I want with the second half of my life. If you invest wisely, it really isn't that difficult. 20 years of compounding interest and reinvesting dividends goes an awful long way. OP, live below your means for a while, and you will not believe the kind of peace of mind it's going to give you when you're older.
General-Speed988@reddit
It's a swim or sink situation right there buddy, you either ride out the storm, or get swept away. Whilst I empathize with your situation it is equally important to point out that there a few things you could do to help yourself before you crash land.
Get yourself a mentor ASAP if you can, they wouldn't solve your everyday challenges and problems for you, but they'd be there to counsel and guide you.
Find someone senior in your department/team you can shadow. People who have walked your shoes would better understand you than your poodle.
It's really not ideal sleeping next to your workspace, there's no mental/physical boundary at present and that's dangerous. Please do something about that ASAP
Wish you all the best of luck!
kerrwashere@reddit
Sounds like you havent adjusted to the workload. You will get it down eventually so stick it out
Doors_and_C0rners@reddit
Savage
Tall_Alps8040@reddit
Hi welcome to having a job in IT. Whoever told you it would be a cakewalk was lying to you. If having to know about basic technology from well known vendors stresses you out you might be in the wrong line of work.
Jswazy@reddit
I work in tech also in support engineering (manager). This sounds like a normal job to me don't expect it to change. You just get better at it so it's easier.
Roland_Bodel_the_2nd@reddit
One baby step you can focus on is to improve your ergonomics. At least have different sitting/standing positions throughout the day; have a timer to stand up and stretch your arms every 15mins or something.
I didn't really feel the impact for the first 10 years of sitting at a desk but I played sports almost every day.
Site-Staff@reddit
At the rate you are going you will probably be an expert at 1yr in and with all of that knowledge be uber employable for a long time.
I say stick with it.
CPAtech@reddit
Sounds like you accepted a remote job without having a real remote setup. As you’re finding out the lines are being blurred between your home life and remote work life because you’re working out of your bedroom.
This won’t get better if you can’t provide some type of separation there. At the very least when you are done working for the day you should disconnect from everything and log out of your laptop. Otherwise you’re just sleeping in your office.
_Marine@reddit
When you hit your 40, you're done. The biggest struggle a new professional will have is learning to balance yourself, balance your work, balance your time, and properly value themselves.
cjcox4@reddit
One of the biggest problems in "modern tech" is proliferation of "stuff".
Sadly, this is why many are just throwing in the towel and going to the "big monopolies" (from cloud to MSPs, etc.) for everything.
Everyone (little people) are looking for big money, so, there's just too many "new and better things" out there wanting your attention. Old school ftw btw. Those that don't throw in the towel (which, strangely, can be almost as bad as "little people overload"), but adhere to tried and true "keep it simple stupid" principles, they will do better and live longer. IMHO.
With that said, yes, I've jammed my head with tons of (soon to be worthless) tech info. "Tool of the day.".... and the day is short lived at best. We don't make choices based on "expert evaluation" anymore, but by what we're told to do. Leading to tech overload and worthless knowledge.
Ssakaa@reddit
The joys of "IT is a cost center" and "IT says no too much" meeting. The sales guy always says yes, so we'll trust him! Neverminfd the fact that only one of those two potentially shares a common goal of the company existing in 6 months.
dare978devil@reddit
I spent 26 years at IBM successfully navigating countless layoffs . IBM spent much of the last 2 decades moving 200K jobs to India, layoffs were a regular thing. The trick is to always be in the upper middle of the pack in every metric that matters. Don’t gun for top spot, you’ll burn out. Answer the tickets you can, cherry pick from the list. Most companies are only interested in stats, not results. Keep an eye on the closure stats and keep yourself in the top 40%.
You’ll discover you’ll have more time, take less time per closure, and keep your stats in the safe zone. You cannot do everything, no one can. Put in your 40 and enjoy your weekend, only doing more if you dip in the list. You’ll establish a pattern, and start a better work-life balance. Good luck!
Happy_Kale888@reddit
I got the dream combo: remote work, high pay, and great benefits.
Does not sound like the dream combo does it?
I'm always sitting, hunched over, and stressed.
Because you are new and lack confidence so you are worried about the next call. You will learn and become more confident and comfortable. It takes time to learn and build confidence. Just always be learning....
I feel as though these problems are always lurking in my head.
They are only in your head because you allow them in your head. Having no separation of personal and work life does not help this. You can't leave your stuff at the office because you have the dream combo. So you need to do that in your head and get out of work mode. So you need to work it out in your head instead of physical se
The issues will be there tomorrow whether you worry about them or not. So letting them live rent free in your head is only hurting you. When you get done with work and you are off then be done...
peteybombay@reddit
Will it get better? Almost certainly. Even just your specific job will probably get easier as you get the hang of the shifting nature of it. Not all jobs are like that, but the stress and pressure usually are but it's also sometimes just part of someone's personality. I know I also push myself pretty hard like you but like others have said, you/we are also able to work out of it or find outlets for personal time, even though it's hard.
Just try to pace your self and keep learning, an IT career is a journey. Almost no one is still in their first job outside of college, so get as much experience as you can for your next, better step on your career!
100GbNET@reddit
On the physical side, consider a sit/stand desk with a treadmill under it. You can stand up and walk your day away.
mcshanksshanks@reddit
Every 30 minutes, look away from the screen and look at something 30 feet away for 30 seconds.
Your eyes will thank you later in life.
Outrageous_Tank_1990@reddit
Was this a mid or senior level job you got? If you got it straight out of college, then it would take some time for you to settle in. How long has it been since you got the job?
Terriblyboard@reddit
welcome to the shit show
PsilocybinSaves@reddit
Don’t be a people pleaser and learn how to say ‘no’. If you don’t, people will take advantage of you and all the stuff you do will be taken for granted.
djgizmo@reddit
it’s ok to not know everything and even admit as such. slow down. control client expectations and control how you react.
DGex@reddit
I was on call for 25 years. I was the IT director for 5 star resorts. Nobody can check in? Credit cards not working? It’s was all on me if my people couldn’t figure it out. Report the cause to corp the next day. Huge amounts of stress. I walked at least 5 miles a day. It helped my mind process the days. I’m retired now. I’ll say it again. Exercise
poonedjanoob@reddit
You got to build in some breaks. Utilize the system of being remote and take some time. Dont get so so invested to where you cant separate yourself from it being a job.