Life advice wanted from you more experienced guys (rycamor, etc)

Excuse me for whining. But I really want some advice here.

Well, I'm 27 now so have been in the IT game for about 5 years now. But I feel like an old man and have been getting really tired of the whole business. Life should be more than just work. But in IT, that hasn't been the case. Life IS the work. And I'm sick of it. Tired of the pagers. The 12 hour days. Wanting to do something when I get home but either being too tired or not having time to do it. Wanting to get some exercise in to live a healthy lifestyle, but having no energy left in the tanks to do it with. (Not living healthy especially is a core foundation of my life and I haven't been able to consistently do it while working).

American workers now work more hours than any other country in the entire world. And now IT workers work more than the average workers.

I don't need much. A roof over my head and food in my stomach will do it. I'd work for a lot less salary if I could just leave at 5 every night. But even that seems like too much to ask. Government jobs let you leave at 5 but in times like this, even those are impossible to get.

I can't imagine how you guys with a wife and kids do it. My hat is off to you. How do you cope with this? How do you live your life so that work doesn't possess it?

For the most part, things could be far worse. There would be people that would love to have these problems.

I'm considering putting in a couple more years and then getting out of the business altogether. But I'm not sure where to go. I have a business degree so have been thinking about the analyst positions, but am not sure how to sell myself into one without networking my way there.

Any advice is appreciated. Thanks. Striker.

Lol Ted, I'm actually close to you in age, so I can't say that I'm necessarily more experienced than you, but I've been I've recently changed my work environment to make it work for me. Yup 9 - 5, five days a week, 4 weeks holiday a year

All I can offer you is what happened to me, so here it is:

Some years ago now I can out of university after 5 years. I was well qualified in two fields: business/finance and computers. I decided I give business ago and worked for a corporate for around 15 months. Once they worked out I could program, that is what I did all the time. I worked 60+ hours a week for them, I wore the suit, I accepted the way the treated people and their employees. They brought out a 25 page document on IT policy (these guys were accountants), for our 20 staff members, with a key point that changed my life:



Being someone who can't work without music this was a killer, not only that but it was stupid. Working corporate was the absolute worst time in my entire life. The way they treat people disgusts me, yelling at people in the office, being openly sexist (and offensive), demanding people work late, cancelling social events when they had a sulk, these guys were complete pricks

Then after working a 100+ hour week, and pulling two all nighters to get reports done for a client that I later found out were on leave, on Xmas eve, I was declined the raise I had been promised and I got crapped on in my performance appraisal. This is the corporate mentality: control, confirm, be real conservative It got two the point that I was impossible to life with, and my Hine should have left me. But instead she made me choose. So good-bye corporate world, and we saw the world (well Canada, and the States and even them crazies down in Flordia ll ).

After this I worked as a web developer for a university for a while, and then had an opportunity to work on a large project independently. This was when I'm formed with a friend a small company, and we developed the database for this client, who happened to be my old manager. Lol He hated the partners as much as I did, and while we is still a corporate I took the opportunity. It worked out good in one respect that we earned lots and set up our own company, but in another respect I worked harder (with the day job and all as well) than I have ever worked before in my life. Even when I finally got rid of the other day job, I found that I was still working late

On holiday in beautiful NZ, tramping in the bush making our way around one of the most scenic lakes here, I realised about month ago that you don't get any time back All the time I have spent working I will never get back, not a second. In my memory all those months of work are mush, and that one weekend walking around the lake is much clearer.

So now we have fun as we work, and I stick to a 40-hour week, with 4-weeks holiday. Hell we could earn more but I don't care, our time is so short we have to enjoy it. We're trying to move into Learning, and get away from corporates, but for the meantime they pay the bills and I have to bite my morals.

Being independent is difficult, but it is a better option for me. I think doing it on your own, lends itself to very hard work, so if you have some good friends, think about it. There will be some hard work, but in the end you have your own freedom. That's if you want to stay in IT, there are many other things you could do (but beware dude business analyst work is a lot worse than IT, I promise !!!) But whatever you do, aim for balance in your life, between work and play. Play an instrument, hang out with friends, play sport, write, be with your family: whatever you enjoy always make time for it. I don't have kids at the moment, but I do have one on the way, and there is no way I'm trading time with my family for extra hours in the office.

So Ted, I wish you the best of luck and I hope these thoughts have been of a little use to you. I know how tough it is, but keep your spirits up, make a plan and stick to it.

Well back to work for me, but I think I'll turn up Bob



Peace, Love and Harmony. Z.

Zitan,

Thanks for sharing your story, I'm glad things are working out for you.

Your corporate experience sounds similar to mine.

I remember my first job out of school, I came home one night at 4 in the freaking morning! I said, "I can't live like this," and luckily found work somewhere else, but it was still atrocious hours (though relatively alot better). Yeah they paid well. But who cares? Another time I felt the oddest experience of my life when my heart was sore. It felt like a muscle does after a workout with weights. That scared the crap out of me.

I remember in the movie Heat, Jon Voight warned Robert Deniro's character to back off because Al Pacino's character was a "heart attack guy." Pacino's guy was so possessed with breaking cases that every marriage he was in failed and that's all he ever did was chase around bad guys. But Pacino had more of a choice. It seems like in IT that you're expected to live that way.

I have no problem with working hard, but I'm sorry my Puritan work ethic pretty refuses to go that far anymore. Sometimes it takes saying "no" to things, but you can only do that so much without pushing your luck. It does get easier to do that the longer you stay at the job and have made your mark, though.

France has 35 work weeks, and in Netherlands they work 4 days a week right? But don't they also have chronic high unemployment? Any Frenchmen or Dutch on here want to share their experiences?


About going independent, I think that you are right on that count. I've pretty much decided that if I want to live a certain way that I'm going to have to carve it out for myself. I'm an administrator at heart but working lately with some of the web dev tools has been alot easier and fun than expected. I figure if you want to freelance that it pretty much has to be development, there isn't much market for roaming, on-call sysadmins (unless you work for IBM or HP). I think Open Source has opened up alot of opportunity for people, my inspiration is the JBoss Group, those guys have created an opportunity for themselves and alot of them work at home.

You need real well defined boundarys when you work for somebody. When you do I contract as an independent company you write a long specification document to ensure your scope. The scope is your boundary in writing. When you work for somebody you've got to express it another way. The word "no" is an important word, if you are a skilled IT person you will be able to find other work, so don't be afraid to say no.



Actually we contract to one I used to do systems admin, and did enjoy it, but I just run out of time. He's been doing it for a while and mostly does linux, and recently freebsd thanks to us. Traditionally we are told, work our the market and then fit in where you can. I reckon the other way round is better. Work out what you want to do first, and then go for it. You'll always do better at something if your heart is in it.

Thanks for the tips, about the boundries, definitley, getting it in writing works out best for both parties.

I'd have to agree with you on the fitting in, I think first you need to get a foothold, and then can strut your stuff and provide unique solutions and create opportunity for yourself. That's the best way I've seen to do it when you're working for someone else. I've seen people create jobs for themselves.


Anybody work in technical documentation?

A couple of years ago a headhunter told me not to go into it, because, "they don't make alot of money," but heck I could care less, I'd take alot less money for better hours.

btw, http://www.extremeprogramming.org/rules/overtime.html

Extreme Programming is a methodology for agile development, that means develop fast and flexible applications. Working later does not translate to better faster apps, and that is why XP advocate, wait for it, no overtime.

Finding work is about making connections, but definately keep an open mind about where to look, corporates are a major opportunity but there are others.

Teddy Bear, don't you think you're giving up to easily? You're 27 and already sound like you're tired of living. You said you've been in IT for 5 years, so you joined right about time everyone and his dog were making money off the 'net. Now tell me that wasn't why you went with computers over biz at the first place.

Racymor is one of the 'older and more experienced' senior members here (surprise surprise), along with noxcuz and may be rod k. But that's it. Or at least I can't think of anyone else. Most of us guys here are just like you - roughly same age and same problems (hell, ask smooth - he's getting married in a month, I bet he got something on his mind).

You say you're tired and want something better, right? The only advice I can give is this - move somewhere. Go places. Nothing gets you back to life like traveling. I know because I lived in 3 countries and a dozen of cities. I'm sure rycamor will agree because he's been around too, however that's not the point. 'Older' people lived in different time with different problems, and in most cases you can't relate to them. 'Experienced' people have seen many things during their lives and can compare them, and you can't see anything by staying on one spot.

Mob Gangster,

Trust me, I am the last person that gives up when it comes to ANYTHING. However, working harder and not giving up isn't always the best solution if what you are doing isn't making you happy. I am not tired of living, I am tired of not being able to live!



Oh hell no, the reason I got into IT was because I have been using and loving computers all my life. It just made a nice fit. It wasn't until later that I learned that it was a "hot," occupation, and was just a coincidence that I was in it at the same time. My business degree is Management Information Systems, so the whole focus is on IT and also my minor was in computer science.

I've been using computers since pc's first hit the mainstream, all the way back to 1981, when we had 300 baud modems, BBSes, IBM PC Jr., Commodore 64, Vic 20, Ti 86. So I've been using them for many many years. I remember when King's Quest was the greatest game in the history of the world, and you had to plug in a "cartridge" into the IBM to use the Basic editor.

The work itself I very much enjoy doing. But it's the sacrifice you have to make to be in this line of work. The problem here is that the IT lifestyle involves crazy hours and it isn't very friendly towards doing much else.

Trust me when I say if you had worked the way I did the past 5 years, you would be reevaluating where you stand also.

About the older guys, I think that they have been down this road and have gone past it, and I believe they have more insight to offer than any of us younger people could.

Zitan,

That's a really cool link you provided. I believe the team that programs all of the systems on the Space Shuttle don't work any over time, many of them are women, they aren't the traditional, "stay up all night and drink coke to finish the personal masterpiece of code," traditional type of group. Yet they produce kick *** code that cannot ever fail.

SAS is another tech company where the people work 35 hour weeks.

http://www.sas.com/

Totally The most important thing is that your system works, and is well designed. If you design a system well, the maintenance is a breeze, making changes are easy because it is all flexible, awesome. If not, then your in for a night mare. So time is relative I think, and working longer on something doesn't mean your getting more done.

My experience of large development companies is that they don't have their frameworks sorted out properly. They just work and work, all night, whatever to get the job done. There is no time to sit back and say, hold on a jiff, I just did this last week.

Btw, don't you'all have unions in the USA? Lol

I wasn't actually going to post in this thread because I didn't think I could add anything but, damn man.... that's been happening to ME lately... I never thought of it until now but it's developed a flutter as well, and about 2 months ago I was told I couldn't give blood because my pulse was 8 beats too high..... ****... now I'm scared...

Personally Ted, I feel the same way - nothing is more important than the people around you. I don't care what sort of car I drive, nor do I care about my house, etc. If you want to live healthier I guarantee that the feeling and energy boost you get for the decision will majorly offset any pay cuts you may take. I used to be poor and healthy, now I'm a little richer (not rich mind you) and out of shape and there's no way the trade-off was anywhere near appealing.

>>Oh hell no, the reason I got into IT was because I have been using and loving computers all my life.
Getting payed for doing what you like to do, isn't that the whole point of career? Or do you just don't want to spend *that* much time with computers? Ask your company for some position which involves somethign besides coding/administrating

>>I've been using computers since pc's first hit the mainstream, all the way back to 1981
Congratulations - I didn't get to use pc 'till I was 12, but I still think computers didn't go mainstream up untill 6 years ago

>>The problem here is that the IT lifestyle involves crazy hours and it isn't very friendly
>>towards doing much else.
First part I agree on, many people (*cough*geeks*cough*) seem to think 20 hour working day is industry standard. Second part - bull****. Besides obvious downsides like spending a lot of time starting on monitor, and occasional over time it is just like any other job in the world. And I tried a few.

>>Trust me when I say if you had worked the way I did the past 5 years, you would be reevaluating where you stand also.
I take it as a compliment - I must have done darn well to get what I have and not working at the same time.

>> About the older guys, I think that they have been down this road and have gone past it, and I
>>believe they have more insight to offer than any of us younger people could.
That's what I hear. And I always try to come up with "age!=wisdom", but it never works. Mostly because I tell it to older people...

That was a big emphasis for the shuttle group, they go out of their way to design things, everything is extremely well documented and they also put a heavy amount of emphasis on their bug tracking group. (They have to, one bug can mean somebody dies).



One of the guys in the Shuttle Group left them to go work in the private sector, and he ran into this exact same thing, was unhappy about it, and came back to the Shuttle Group.



We do, but I don't think there are any for IT people. There is the IEEE but it's for electrical engineer types, and it's more of a workers guild rathar than a union. I personally know ALOT of IT people who are screaming for a union.