
The hidden dangers of working in IT - Debugreality
http://debugreality.blogspot.com/2010/03/hidden-dangers-of-working-in-it.html
======
nazgulnarsil
lots of professions face this kind of stress. it's a big part of why the pay
is high. for whatever reason the majority of people almost always choose more
work and more money over other options (there are several studies backing
this). the general rule is that people say they would be happy if they made
50% more money than they do now, regardless of how much they make now.

my advice: recognize the marginal utility of money and plan accordingly.
recognize your frivolous "needs" for what they are. I realize this is a lot
harder for people with, say, a family living in san francisco with very high
living expenses and you are the primary bread winner. my advice for that
is....don't be the primary breadwinner with a family in a high cost of living
area? sorry but you made choices without realizing what you were getting
yourself into.

~~~
daydream
Life is not always as straightforward as your advice implies.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
no plan survives first contact with the enemy :)

------
patio11
Can someone from a country which has vacation time clarify this for me: how
exactly does four weeks of vacation work? Assume that I'm from a planet of
weird space-aliens where by default you're expected to work every day the
company is open. Do you have to take vacation time consecutively? Do you have
to take it at a particular time of the year? Is it subject to some sort of
approval process?

~~~
daveungerer
In South Africa you are legally entitled to 3 weeks a year of paid vacation
(annual leave), which translates to 15 working days if you work 5 days a week.
Your employer may legally reject any requests for paid vacation time and tell
you when you're allowed to take your vacation (or even force you to take it at
a certain time), although exercising that right may not always be wise.

If your employer keeps rejecting your requests for taking leave for a certain
period (not going into the details, let's pretend it's a simple rule of 6
months), you are entitled to take the leave without their permission.

The vacation time doesn't have to be taken consecutively - 3 weeks is just a
general way of saying 15 working days. If your normal working week is 6 days,
you'd have 18 working days of annual leave.

Now's your turn to treat us like space aliens. How does it work in Japan?

~~~
patio11
Slacker Americans who insist on actually using the time the contract gives
them might receive, say, 14 days off in an April to April fiscal year, in
addition to public holidays (which are roughly as numerous as they are in the
US, but not on the same days -- people work on Christmas and get off on the
emperor's birthday, for example). While it is very much _not_ the normal
practice, I have special permission from my bosses to be allowed to take the
majority of my days off at Christmas so that I can travel home and see my
family.

The contract also allows for sick days, bereavement days (1 day for a
child/sibling/spouse, 2 days for a parent -- I'm just reporting), and days off
for weddings and childbirth. These are, ahem, not utilized to their fullest
extent. In practice, the only sick leave I have ever seen taken at my company
involved a) a nervous breakdown and b) chemotherapy for metastatizing bone
cancer. (He got better... and came back to work!) Our best engineer came in
the day after his mother died (although my boss tried to send him home).

Unused leave of the first kind accumulates, which results in older employees
in my company having literally months of it sitting around. They will likely
never use it, and they'll lose it when they separate from the company.
Japanese law specifically forbids you from paying people for unused leave
because the government thought companies would force people to work until they
dropped, then take the payout.

We're _very slowly_ getting better about this. There is at least one twenty-
something male at my company other than me who actually takes all his vacation
days every year. (He also left at 5:30 for much of my first year at the
company... and stopped after he was informed that, quote, he was less Japanese
than Patrick is.)

------
arethuza
Sorry, compared to some jobs IT isn't that stressful. Think about the jobs
that literally face life and death issues: medics, armed forces, police,
lawyers, social workers etc.

I've known people in all of these areas and it really helps me put any issues
I have into perspective.

~~~
yummyfajitas
According to an EMT I know, the job is intense but not stressful. There is
excitement when you race off to the scene; the minute the patient enters the
ER it's not your problem anymore.

He says he could never deal with a job like IT, where you actually think about
work when you go home.

~~~
arethuza
I guess it depends on the person - I used to know a doctor who got extremely
stressed when he had to break it someone that they had an incurable condition
and that basically they were going to die.

Not something I could do.

~~~
yummyfajitas
I suppose stress levels depend as much on your personality as the job itself.

Doing a pointless and futile job (i.e. teaching) stresses me [1]. Uncertainty
and not knowing how to solve a problem don't. I know people who can handle
pointless grunt work, but can't handle uncertainty. I could imagine enjoying
an EMT or surgical job (bandage the bleed, pass them on) but not necessarily
primary care (treating people for diseases they could easily have prevented by
putting down the potato chips).

The trick, I suppose, is to figure out what stresses you and do something
else.

[1] Teaching people who want a grade is pointless. Teaching people willing to
think is not. In my experience, most teaching falls into the former category.
5 weeks left!

------
froo
If you were to believe a lot of the job postings, Ninjas might also be a
workplace hazard in the IT industry.

Below an example from 37signals

<http://www.google.com/search?q=site:37signals.com+ninja>

~~~
coolnewtoy
"The Ninjas are deadly and silent

They're also unspeakably violent

They speak Japanese, they do whatever they please

And sometimes they vacation in Ireland"

-Bare Naked Ladies

[http://www.metrolyrics.com/the-ninjas-lyrics-barenaked-
ladie...](http://www.metrolyrics.com/the-ninjas-lyrics-barenaked-ladies.html)

------
bmj
I can't help but think these sorts of issues aren't limited to the IT world.
Programmers and sysadmins are not the first, nor the last, groups to be asked
to work long hours (or work them voluntarily), nor are they the only groups to
sit at a terminal for most of the work day.

Now, excuse me, I have to start packing for my family's month long road
trip....

~~~
alttab
This is definitely more a post about complaining about their job. Long hours,
stress, and health issues can be applied to any job.

I'm going to resist the urge to plug my company's IT management to make his
job easier. (Although I kind of just did).

------
chuhnk
Burning out sucks. Sorry I couldn't think of a more articulate way of putting
it. I've been through that experience and am just trying to find some level of
normalcy in IT where I can be a high achiever yet still live my life. It
doesn't help when you have personal issues but then everyone's got their
demons.

Some have quit, walked away and moved on to less stressful careers. Tasks that
are less demanding on the mind. I would love to do that, but then would I
really ever be happy like that? Alot of us thrive at being great at something,
not just good but trying to be the best we possibly can. I know I'm constantly
pushing my boundaries, yea its stressful but I also reap the rewards of higher
knowledge. A part of life is learning and by giving up on that you are only
hurting yourself.

The key is finding a balance, to know how to improve without losing yourself.

------
ra
Lots of truth in this.

I've been "in IT" for 15+ years post uni, and nodded all the way through
reading this (It's true that these things creep up on you).

Very recently our startup got funded (a modest Angel round), and now I can
honestly say that I'm much less stressed than I have been in a very long
time... I have more time for "me".

Sure, I work 80+ hours a week - but I do it on my schedule, so I can go
bushwalking, fishing - have the odd random day off, and spend a few hours each
evening with my family.

I think the dangers of IT can be "managed", if you have the flexibility (or
discipline) to do so.

------
wenbert
Thank you for this. A few months ago, I quit my job (developer) to pursue
something else that is totally new to me. I am on training right now and I
have never been so relaxed in my working life. The job also allows me to
travel a lot (I do not have a family yet, so I guess this is plus points).

Right now, I do a little programming at night to work on my pet projects.
Within a few months programming became a lobby and I am starting to love it
again.

~~~
buddycasino
May I ask what you new career is?

~~~
wenbert
Seabed surveying (sonar, etc) - Hopefully, I will be able to travel a lot with
the projects.

------
motters
These dangers don't appear to be unique to IT, and apply to most jobs.

------
hackermom
In 1999, when I was 19 years old, I started working at a "web buraeu", as we
called them in my country back then. I did html, asp, php, graphics, design.
All that. A jack of all trades, sort of, as I've always been talented with
pretty much anything technical, and as it was a small company that needed its
employees to "pitch in" where they could. I worked with this company for 1.5
years, until march 2001, when me and two others had to leave because of
shortage of work. At this point I had developed a sociophobia and various,
severe stress disorders, among them panic attacks. I took a position with
another "web bureau" 2 months later to try maintain an income. 9 months later,
in march 2002, just having had my 22nd birthday, I was broken down to the
point that I often needed help with grocery shopping and most other daily
errands related to the outside of my home. In late 2003, the side-effects hit
their climax; on average I left my apartment 3-4 times per month - just to
take the trash out. Today, march 2010, I have still not fully recovered my
ability to work in the capacity normally implied by a "9 to 5". My normal
hours in the two jobs that broke me down ranged between 10 to 14 hours per
day, and I worked most saturdays and sundays as well.

~~~
_debug_
I'm really sorry to hear this. No one deserves to have burnt out at 22. I hope
you are able to exercise your body and relax your mind and get back to good
health. Please try jogging / other exercise. They say it works really well in
terms of building up an energy reserve. I need to do it, too!

~~~
marvin
I got burned out at 18. Took me three years to recover. I think it's a good
experience to have early..it makes you realize what is _really_ important to
you.

~~~
doron
I had somewhat the same experience, I punched through the .COM boom,and i was
well paid, but i didn't have much of a life, basically working my ass off for
almost a decade.

At some point I decided I could not do this anymore, and quit my job,
following that I have spent then about a year playing music and basically
doing nothing. it took me a year to recharge my batteries, and it wasn't easy,
I had to struggle with depression. But all in all, I learned allot, I pace
myself much better now, and spend much more time on things I value, mainly my
friends and loved ones.

sometimes you need a break to gain perspective, and rediscover the things you
love to do.

------
clistctrl
I want a vacation desperately... not just to use vacation time, I want to go
somewhere and completely forget I have a job. The last 3 times I've tried
taking vacation time I've been called to fix an issue.

~~~
minsight
The only way that you can be called in to fix an issue is if you let them. If
you want a vacation desperately, then take one. And don't make yourself
available to work, because when you do, it stops being a vacation...

~~~
blhack
The unfortunate reality is that this is a great way to make it onto your
boss's shit list.

This might not be a big deal for some rock-star, well known developers around
here who have head-hunters beating their door down offering them truckloads
full of money and a job in San Francisco, but for those of us who are the
norm, we actually need to try and stay employed.

I'm in the same exact boat. Every single time I've ever taken vacation, I have
a blackberry tethered to my laptop and am helping people over the VPN. I am
the sole tech for a company that has three offices spread across two states,
and about 100 office workers...I also do all the ad design for any marketing
things we do...what this means is that I'm the sys admin, the in-house
developer, the desktop support guy, the creative director, and the graphic
designer. Despite this, I get the feeling that my company is just itching to
replace with me a recently unemployed best-buy geek squad employee who will
work for half of my salary. Grr..sorry, now I'm getting a bit rambly, but
sometimes I get the feeling that nobody at my office really even knows what I
do here. Everything works, and there are rarely ever any problems that take
more than a few minutes to fix.

My point is that I hear this sort of advice all the time "Bah! Just leave your
work at the door! They'll get the message!" Really? Cause the last time I was
on vacation somebody let some people into my machine room who weren't supposed
to be there...do you know what they did? They unplugged my mailserver...just
unplugged it! (To their defense, they needed to charge their ipod, and the
sign on the door that says "If you're name isn't Ryan you are definitely not
supposed to be in here" obviously didn't mean them) Awesome! So what do I say?
"Sorry, folks, looks like nobody is going to have any email for the next two
weeks until I get back! Bah I'm on vacation, figure it out yourselves!" Do you
think my job would still be there when I got back if I had done that?

(This isn't as much of a problem now because I bought a serial terminal with a
modem in it for when things go horribly wrong).

During the same vacation, the phone system "went down"...verizon was doing
some work up the street, and our voice T1 died...should I have just ignored my
cell phone and told them to figure it out themselves? ("Uhh...what's a circuit
ID? Errr...dmarc?")

To be clear, I'm not complaining about my job...I love it and I love the
freedom that it has given me to learn a lot of new technologies that I had
never even seen before. My point is that your advice of "don't make yourself
available" is absolutely horrible.

------
smutticus
Too bad the author is such a poor writer. He probably has some interesting
things to say. But I tuned out once I encountered multiple syntax errors in
the first paragraph.

~~~
mcantor
Way to miss the forrist for the teres.

