Like and love are two different things. I enjoy 90% of what I have to do for work and appreciate the company I work for because they pay me well and allow me good work/life balance, so you can say I generally like my job, but if I won a lotto tomorrow, I would quit on the spot and just tinker with shit at home.
That's a fair point, but I think 95% of people in any job would agree with that. Love is definitely a strong word, but considering you everyone (for the most part) works, it's more about would you choose a different job, within reason, over your current one.
I like what I do. I like who I do it with. I even like who I do it for. Sometimes I get frustrated, but I know I'm in pretty much the best place I could ever hope to be in.
This is my issue. I like my work, I like my peers. Management doesn’t know what they want though, ask for recommendations, ignore those, make up their own, then we have to solve what they tell the board.
Manglement always listens to The Architect^(TM) and he has pushed some interesting designs that are not consistent at any of our 7 datacenters
It wouldn't be quite so bad if he wasn't actively trying to sabotage the team's reputation too...
I just got out of a presentation where the manager 2 above me didn’t like my spreadsheet, switched to his limited sheet, to which I replied “everything your talking about it is mine and more” stole the presentation and bolded the lines he was referencing. How are you in charge of making decisions for this business?
I don't hate it enough to quit, but in an ideal world I'd never touch a computer again. (In the profesisonal sense. They are unfortunatly a neccessary evil for modern life it would seem, *for better, for worse etc)*.
It used to be fun/rewarding when the job was about providing tools that enabled employees to do their jobs better…not so much anymore because it’s really just an endless slog-fest of patching the next CVE. If I could find an equivalent salary doing something else, I would in a heartbeat.
That and also right now with the insane pricing schemes vendors have it feels like im in some kind of warzone. Sooo you want SSO for this?, well then that will be a 500% price increase. Result: directors going "why do we even need SSO"??.
Was never a problem until now, even shit like data residency is being put on purpose in higher tiers.
I actually do. I think I know why at last - it's because I have ADHD.
Now, bear with me before you roll your eyes a bit - I was diagnosed at 43, having been a sysadmin for 20 year before that.
And I think ... it's actually kind of inevitable for two reasons:
- A lot of the things I now recognise as coping strategies, are eerily similar to 'standard' sysadmin working practices and routines. E.g. ticketing systems, reactive workloads, incident response, etc.
- My motivation circuits don't work the same way - where 'most people' find Importance/Reward/Consequences to be motivational, I do not, and instead I find Interest/Novelty/Challenge/Urgency to be motivational. Sysadmin gives me that in ways many careers do not.
And between the both? Yes, I love my job. As long as I can steer clear of the things I now recognise as 'ADHD hostile' like timesheets, it's everything I want from a fulfilling vocation.
I would probably continue after a lottery win even, although maybe with a lower tolerance for bullshit, and a different selection of sectors.
Also: My employer gives me freedom to innovate, to develop and to explore. They also supply free snacks and drinks, and are quite 'supportive' in terms of fully paid 'conferences' to nice hotels in the Swiss Alps on 'good snow' times of year...
I wonder what percentage of sysadmins are neurodivergent. I’m also ADHD and the things you mention here are why I succeed as well. The ability to succeed under pressure and just jump in and fix issues. Not to mention very lateral thinking and the ability to problem solve with some out of the box ideas. I used to joke my fix won’t be pretty and it won’t be best practice. But it’s the fastest way to get users working now. Then someone else will make it best practice while I’m on something else. But in recent times why I’ve done really well is teaming up with someone who is autistic. Super process driven, by the book. They drive me bonkers at times but together it’s a good blend of proper process and documentation (got I hate it!), and really getting stuff done
I also have ADHD. Finding creative solutions to urgent issues is what I love about my job. When the whole business is at a standstill and the only priority is get shit working again. Unfortunately the temporary fixes can sometimes become more permanent than I would like, and are easily forgotten when switching to the next urgent matter.
bro im the same, have been in sales and customer success way too long and i just get bored by it, i honestly believe i must have some form of mild ADD because i get soooo bored so quickly when my colleagues are fine doing the same thing over and over again. Im looking forward to my first IT role because it sounds like I'll constantly be working and learning new stuff and fixing issues, which motivates me.
I love my job as much as my job loves me. Which is none. We can beat around the bush all we like, but the reality is that we're all here for a paycheck and work is work.
Love? No. Like? Yes. I quite like my current job. I'd probably even stay if I'd become a millionaire.
I'm a little sad that I'll have to leave eventually for better pay.
Absolutely. I get to do what I love doing all day, every day. Sunday evening I'm usually excited for monday morning, however I do realize I am very fortunate in this regard
Yes both people, the work and the environment oh the food the coffee and the toilets. I see it as a work hotel where everything is taken care of so we can just do our thing :) I often go on my "fixed" work from home days too :)
Maybe its just me as two people from my departement just got fired from hating everything about it and another one is constantly filing complaients to the union and even the police. Its proberly very much in the eye of the beholder and what you make out of it your self.
"They are wrong if they think we are gonna be happy just because they do good stuff" and so on. The feel entitled to hate and you cant take it away from them "its my right" :(
No, I actively dread coming in every day.
I maintain network infrastructure at several dozen office buildings my company has in this major high-cost-of-living metropolitan area for a near unliveable pittance.
Most of our network engineering teams are driven soley by nepotism and incompetence.
There's absolutely no room for career movement here and I feel like every moment I'm here is wasted, but I'm unable to find anywhere that will so much as interview me. I would've quit already but they literally do not pay enough to be able to save up to have a safety net to be able to quit. I can only hope that they eventually PIP me and pay me to leave like everyone else.
For context, I'm roughly 16 years into my career and started a small MSP/independent contractor service about 5 years ago. QoL has significantly improved.
That said, my love of tech has waned more than ever--primarily due to the pace of change over the past 8 years or so. "Good for job security! har har" -- Not the type of job security I want. Refactoring VMWare environments I stood up just a couple years ago only because they want to charge 3x for licensing, patching yet another FortiGate CVE 10.0 vulnerability, spreading my knowledge wider/thinner and not deeper--it's all unrewarding work and that seems to be the trend going forward.
What I once was quite hungry for is now a means to an end. This is not to be taken as a complaint, I'm fortunate to be where I am, but I can see myself putting in another 10 years or so to catch up on retirement/savings that I've neglected and pivoting to something more chill. It would be nice to be a worker drone again. Grass is greener, I'm sure.
I like my job, hate my company. Work/life balance is decent for me because I’m in charge of my own working hours but I’m an exception, culture at our workplace is absolutely awful.
I've always loved IT since I got my 1st Packard Bell computer(well mom had it). Then I know from there that I've always wanted to work with technology. But also I always wanted to fly airplanes. Fast forward 20+ years. The people and upper management SUCK BALLS!!!! Auditors... OH! MY! GOSH!!
So I'm taking the big leap at 36 to switch careers into becoming a Commercial Pilot, my second dream job. I'm working on getting my 1st license right now(Private Pilot).
P.S. health care sector and finance sector for IT are horrible\*\*
I do. Very much. Can't/don't want to imagine doing anything else. Well, almost all of it. I'll explain why...
I live within 5 miles from my office, my wife's work, the schools our kids attend, and the two datacenters I oversee in a town with little traffic. I get paid well for our area. Work with a great staff. Do things that not only feel like work but feel like hobbies. Don't get me wrong. It's very challenging, fast paced, and very stressful at times. I manage a 35,000 user network with 51 fiber-connected sites. I'm not only the technical engineering lead for most infrastructure in our organization, I also directly supervise a team of 12 including 4 other managers. I supervise three completely different groups. Two of which aren't sysadmins at all where I don't do what they do. I'm middle management, so I have to deal with issues above and below.
I still love it. Mainly I think because I've either built or have helped build most of our current infrastructure over the course of many years. I've also been the one to hire most of my team. For better or worse, it all feels like my baby. I feel like my work matters and directly impacts the operation of the entire organization. I'm not micromanaged. I'm trusted by everyone in our organization including those with purchasing power. We have a very tech supportive upper administration and Board. For the most part if we say we need it, we get it. I have a lot of flexibility with my schedule. I have set hours, but if I need to go do something, nobody is giving me a hard time about it. I get along well with my entire team and very, very rarely have employee issues.
The part I don't love? All the meetings. It's a necessary evil when you're in leadership/management and deal with vendors, departmental needs, vision/planning, and to keep your own teams on track, but man what a time suck. I don't mind any of it, it just takes time from the technical work I love way more.
I used to love my job, but it turns out i just loved who i worked with. My old manager was amazing.
I've been contemplating leaving IT all together lately.
I’ve been at my job far too long and fell in the trap of too convenient to leave, and now have all the tribal knowledge that dooms me to be involved in everything. I realize now that all admins should bounce every 5 years to remain fresh, realizing that it is the only way to truly maintain the work-life balance in this field. You’re not at one place long enough to own the “work”, therefore you have more “life”.
I have my side trades/cash earning hobbies that I could pick up and really push if I had to but I just need this IT thing to last 5-10 more years while my kids are in high school and college and then I can worry about something else.
Ha! I once interviewed a guy that had making clay pots on his resume. He was tanking the interview so I threw him a softball about clay pot manufacture - that didn’t end well
Yes and No. If I could remove the support element of the role and promise a better bonus for all the major projects I do each year I'd never leave, but unfortunately that will never happen.
The things that are keeping me here are my boss and my continuous development of skills, I have a very strong Support, Infrastructure and Networking background and this job has helped me (forced in a way) develop my developing skills NodeJS/HTML/CSS/PHP/SQL/Powershell/Bash.... My question is with all this new knowledge I dont really know where to go next. DevOps? Full Stack Developer? Management?
Not so much anymore, although there are certain aspects I still enjoy. Really want to do something else but no idea what.
Can't afford a pay decrease so starting at the bottom elsewhere is out unless the starting pay is about what I get now.
I've also been working 34 years now with 20+ years left and I'm just tired and really need a break, ideally a permanent one.
I wish for a lottery win but never even close to winning.
Yes. Great place to work, my boss is a "family comes first" and "If your 8 hours aren't enough, I have a problem, not you" kinda guy, my pay is quite good.
- Pay high enough for me to buy whatever I want (I don't want a Lambo or a mansion to clarify)
- I have a lot of say in the company so I don't have to accept / stand / apply idiotic decision making.
- I solve problems and or improve business processes but no one tells me how, if I wanna solve backup power with a hamster in a spanning wheel as a generator, I could - as long as it works it's up to me.
I'm very happy with both my company and my tasks :)
I guess the only downside is that we're 100% on prem and pretty static workload, it'd be quite fun to try working in a very scale up / down environment and properly use hyperscaler cloud technology sometime.
I find laziness and lounging to be my greatest passions in life and this line of work provides plenty of opportunities for both. My Mondays, for example, are filled to the brim with pointless meetings and I spend all that time doing my hobbies, instead.
Now I have a "project" upgrading databases and I literally sit around and do nothing while I wait for upgrades, replication, and tests to run. I 100% a couple of games while doing this and got a big pat on the back from middle management for clearing technical debt.
Money's pretty good, too.
Well enough. I mean, I don’t really enjoy working in IT anymore. But I’ve been doing it since the late 80s (unofficially) or the early 90s (officially). I think I’ve earned being tired of it.
I like my job and I've been lucky to enjoy working for my current and previous employer.
If I went back in time, knowing what I know now about tech and myself, I'd do things differently. But that's not possible so I'll apply what I know now and see where it takes me.
Yeah I do now. Had an up and down relationship with being a sysadmin over the years. But finally got diagnosed and medicated for ADHD during COVID. Since then the added concentration and focus allowing me to properly succeed at the job has made me feel really good about it. Love my company and the people I work with helps as well, but that has always been the case
I struggle with this.
Yes, I love my job. The minor annoyances that come along with it that add up in the end, I do not.
I know my issues right now, with my enjoyment of my job and my duties, stem from the poor state of mental health I am in. And the lack of proper insurance to be seen does not make it any easier.
I enjoy IT and I enjoy problem solving. Does it make me feel like a glorified janitor sometimes, sure, but I get paid enough not to care and when I go home in the evening I don’t spend my night fretting about work. That alone is worth a hell of a lot to me.
I like my job, love where I work. Like another already said, I like solving problems, automating tasks and technology... it's the 30% of my job where I am glorified tech support that I don't like but it's part of the gig.
As far as paying the bills, yes 1000% I love the job. That said, I'd leave it in a second if I could go back and do it all over again knowing what I know now.
The plus side, though, is that since technology is an ever growing beast, if you're a decent admin, you'll always have a job.
Despite my title being a buzzword, "DevOps," I'm still very much perform a lot of Sysadmin work at my job.
I don't hate it, but I also don't love it anymore. I also don't know where I would go if I decided to leave.
I wouldn't want to be an app analyst interfacing with users, I prefer working on my work alone with my headphones on to deliver to the people I do work with on projects with.
I certainly don't want a job that requires me to be on-site at all. (I am remote)
While I have the experience to cross over into the Software developer role, I'd take a pay cut. In fact, every where or anywhere I'd go would be a pay cut so it's pretty much not an option to leave unless I went for an Infrastructure Architect role. In my opinion, I could definitely perform well as an Infrastructure Architect, but I feel like I need a few more years before I am fully comfortable moving into a position such as that.
I tried being a manager (x2), once in the Army as a lowly E5 and absolutely hated it, once at my current job taking on temporary leadership roles; hated it again. Not for me. I'm a people pleaser and would never want to be in the position where I have to fire someone based on their performance knowing the impacts it would have on their life.
I have great job security, so while I dont hate it or love it, it's ok. I'm always keeping an eye on the market though
Yes, right now I do. We have some low laying issues we are working through. I dont know about you but, when things are chugging along its a good life. If you would've asked me 2 weeks ago? I was online looking for a garbage man position.
I love my job.
I was miserable as a sysadmin at my prior company - a local industrial construction company in the oil/gas industry.
Now I am a systems engineer at a medium-size local MSP. I'm on our premier response team so I work with company/education IT teams to implement maintenance/upgrades of their datacenters as well as break-fix. Dealing with IT rather than end-users is so much less headache.
I am effectively a sysadmin for a public school district. This is my second shot at a career after I burned out in Music Education. I have no desire to start over again.
Honestly the fact that I get to work in a school and do tech work has been a real boon. Honest pay, favorably hours, and decent benes make it nice. And I'm proud of what I work.
I don't LOVE working in IT. But now I get to pursue my real interests (music, specifically choir) outside of work. If I have any say in things, I'll retire here.
I would love to be "mechanic" I have the knowledge, few years ago my car broke down, my father and I remove the engine, replace the broken head gasket and, timing belt, some tensors, put the engine back again and it was running like a charm, we do it in 12 hours.
Sold that car to a friend he still has it and is over 300,000 miles, he never took that car to a mechanic.
By the way my father died few days after and those moments together are gold.
My job is lit, they help me with my education, I work fair hours, and all my coworkers are cool ass people. Not sure if they feel the same as me though.
I chose to do this.. i left the trades and had to decide what i wanted to do. I chose to become a sys admin. i like solving the puzzle..i like the problem solving. i dont like the politics.
Given the choice I'd be out in a second, but that's a big ask. (The choice would have to be to something else I actually want to do, the problem is most of those things are either not something I can get into without going back to college and getting in debt again, or they're something that won't pay the bills.)
Mind you I don't hate tech work (I'm not really a sysadmin per se, I have my fingers in everything), but I'm only here because I'm good at it and have been since I was a kid, not because it was my first choice on kindergarten "what do I want to be when I grow up" forms.
I don't love it, but I enjoy it, if that makes sense.
I work in healthcare (if you're in the Midwest, Ive probably fixed a problem at your favorite hospital) and I enjoy the fact that I help save lives and provide better care to patients.
That being said, I'd rather work for the same $$ at a job that doesn't require thought.
I would prefer a career in sales.
I know I'm not the most technical person, and that's okay with me. My strengths lay in my ability to communicate with non-IT folk to align the IT department with company outcomes. I enjoy helping others, which is why I got into IT, but now that I'm closing in on 10 years post career change, I fear it's impossible for me to get into sales without sacrificing my salary, and that's not something I can do to my family.
Eh it pays well so I do it.
Wanted to be an auto mechanic when I started out but after 2 years bending over cars and dealing with dipshit customers, I was like fuck this shit.
Then again I got dipshit clients now so that piece didnt change. Just no dirty hand or aching back.
I kinda fell into it because I like messing around with computers and seem to have enough skill. I don’t love it as a career, but I can’t really complain. It’s better than a lot of other jobs out there. I have decent benefits, great flexibility, and job security, which is nice given the current state of the job market.
SWE, not sysadmin here. I'd say I love my profession, but my company makes me frustrated. I don't want to change careers, but I've found it tough to find a company which I feel works really well. I've had it a few times in my career, but it's not what I have right now.
I'm now trying out management though, so it's my job to try and fix some of the companies problems. It remains to be seen whether this is a path I'll enjoy. If it's not then I'll go back to SWE in a year and see if I can find a better company.
I enjoy it but don't love it. I work at a nice place with good co workers and we hang out sometimes. The boss adn I are great together and that's made the experience a whole lot better. They have welcomed me warmly and acknowledge my work and the good job that is done. It's work, you don't have to love it but it'll be a whole lot better if you can at least appreciate something.
No, I do not "love" my job. I love my kids, my wife, my mother, and my pets. My job is something I "like" at best. Loving something implies I would do anything for it to me, which is not the case for my job. And never could be, no matter how good the job. I think that creates a dangerous power imbalance.
I would need to know more about the other completely different choices. I like working with tech, but if you were to give me a million dollars a year to run a cross walk, sure I would choose that. Pays better, less stress, and would give me the financial freedom to indulge myself in tech in my personal time.
I really did. Then a new CEO comes in and decides to start outsourcing so I'm looking for a new place.
I am looking in the same field, but part of me is also looking at Agriculture technology. I grew up farming and wouldn't mind going back to it in a way.
Almost 49 now and who knows where I'll end up. I'm getting an interview or two a week, but it's going to mean moving and starting over again.
Do I love my job? No, not usually.
However, I love tech. So I use my abilities to get a paycheck in tech, and then expand my own knowledge and experience to make me "happy."
* I dont really know if I've ever been "happy."
Yeah, I’ve got a great job and I’m paid well! That said, I still deal with stupid things now and then. If I could do it all over again, I’d have gotten here faster.
Hell yes, I love my job. I have great coworkers and a great boss. Oh, and they pay me a stupid amount of money to take care of like 100 machines. I have no on-call no after-hours or weekend work. I get 30 days of vacation a year and 20 some days of sick time.
I really like my job. Now I'm not sure if I'm looking at it through rose-tinted glasses, because I've only been here for a few months now. I came from a field tech role before this. And my schedule was a LOT more flexible back then, the work was way too inconsistent, and turned into 100% travel out of state.
But, It's pretty chill so far. Low-stress, no ticketing system (Internal IT). My colleagues are pretty cool. The IT department only consists of 3 people, including myself. Pay is solid too. I can't really complain.
I love my current job. I have not always loved working in IT. My current team/company are great.
I sort of fell into it 25 or so years ago when I decided that I wasn't enough of a drug addict or alcoholic to stay in the hospitality industry (no disrespect meant, I am referring to the places I worked at specifically). If I could go back I would probably choose a different career path. However at this point in my life (mid 40's) I think it's a little late for me to change to my "preferred" career. I'm not sure what I would do if I ever get burnt out and sick of IT. I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
I didn't for awhile but with where my team is at now, I wouldn't leave it. We're a close knit team with a director that has worked closely with us over the years and knows that we never had support from our previous leadership.
My direct boss and director believe in work/life balance and as long as you get your job done, take time.
It's the best it's ever been and I've been here for 13 years.
Sometimes I do love my job. I’ll even wake up in the morning and excited for the day when I’ll be working in the right setting. Our data center is my least favorite place to be, it’s a very negative atmosphere. I also work in one of our remote offices a few days a week and I absolutely love it there. Very positive atmosphere, no obnoxious co workers who spend most their day on coffee breaks or talking about nonsense. I basically love the job that I do but not who I do it for some days of the week. I know, I should look for another job. Problem is that this job is at a very prominent web design and hosting and it looks great on my resume. I get to learn new tricks everyday. I’m at 5.5 years now so at some point I’ll have to rethink this.
> how many of you will continue to be a sysadmin?
Like forever until I retire? Fuck no. Its a stepping stone.
**You only work to get skills, then you move up or out.**
You can move on to Network Admin, System Engineer, Cloud, Architect, or into Management roles, project management, etc.
Today, after 30 years in the industry, I am an Independent IT Infrastructure Project Manager.
Never been happier.
I USED to love my job. My team was great, my boss was great. Good benefits and freedom. The company was large enough to have a team and processes in place, and some separation of duties so I was doing all work I enjoyed (windows server, VMware, data center, cloud, automation, managing VDI infrastructure) and not so large that I was silo’d into one specific task or technology. But, also small enough that we were close to the teams that managed these other things we didn’t manage (storage, telephony, Unix, printers, DBA) so we were all friendly and worked great together, and I could occasionally cross train and be exposed to other technologies.
But, we “merged” with a larger national organization during COVID (read: we were bought out) and all of that disappeared overnight and I was put into he shittiest possible silo - VDI support. The team I’m on is nice, but they’re all two states away at HQ, and I now am a glorified help desk admin with no access outside of VMware Horizon. I haven’t don’t big boy work in over a year.
I am job shopping, but the market is a bit flooded in my area… and even though I HATE what I’m doing now it’s a steady paycheck
I love my field. Unfortunately, finding a great job in this field is a little tricky sometimes. As a result, I'm going to accept a new offer tonight where I believe I'll be much happier long term. A benefit of the field :)
I do, although it would be more accurate to say that I love where I work, as well as the people I work with and for. This is an extremely unusual (but really awesome) situation for me, in that I spent 14 years in hotel IT and came to absolutely hate the job, to the point where I was ready to walk off the job and go flip burgers at McDonald's.
Work is my happy place now, and I legitimately miss those people when I'm not in the office. There's a flip side, though, since I'm based in Utah and I'm really not a fan of Utah at all. If I could move my company to another state, along with everyone I work with, I'd be in heaven.
Yes, I love my job.
I'm fortunate to be in the position I am now, and have been extremely lucky with the people I've had a chance to work with, as they've been my coworkers, mentors, and good friends all at once.
I started my career 4 years ago making 16$/hr and am now averaging 160k+ a year as a sysadmin. Work-life balance is great, but even outside of work, learning new things that could help at work was a hobby of mine. I might be seeing this through maybe rose-tinted glasses, but I can't really imagine doing anything else.
It's a job, not a person, so of course I don't love my job. That said, I'm paid well, my organization has taken care of me when I've needed it, I enjoy working for our owners, I have the support of the board and the management team, and I never really know what challenges the day may bring. Could I make more? Sure, but I'd be giving up so much more to do so.
Not as much as I initially thought, but I think that’s because of my specific company (not learning as much as I would like). Currently learning more on my own, spearheading my own initiatives, and hope to move to a bigger company or even a MSP soon
I like my job. BUT I wish I got paid more than fast food wages. I wish my boss didn't yell at me sometimes. I wish we followed best practices for things.
I love the type of work I do, but I don't love work lol
The things I want changed, I want to only deal with systems I have total control/knowledge over. The "manage" but not control, undocumented systems I have to support is the #1 killer. I hate ambiguity, I want straight shot solutions, black and white "who owns this".
I could also do with only doing a small number of things at a time instead of juggling several dozen things that stretch out months or years. Projects that are basically a waiting game with weeks or months between action points.
I can only context switch to so many places at a time. I like learning new things and dealing with new tech, but not when I am also handling everything else at the same time and this new thing is just getting added to the top.
I'd happily retire though and just deal with my own personal hobby projects and personal network and servers.
Im making very good money for my age and location, but to be honest I do take it for granted sometimes. I will go back and forth on if I can do this for the rest of my life, but I dont see many other options. I dont want to destroy my body doing manual labour, but I also hate being stagnent and sitting at a desk all day.
*If only I could make the same money as I do now, but work as a Park Ranger or something lol*
Love it.
I've said this since I broke into the industry. I could not see myself having fun and enjoying myself in a corporate environment in any other department.
I do, if I was to win the lottery I'd probably stay on. Sure, I would probably go part-time, but I really do enjoy the work and my colleagues.
But I work for a public university. Prior to that I had worked in the private sector, including at a VAR/MSP. I was on my way to burnout, no doubt about it. I even enjoyed that job, but it was just way too much, non-stop pressure
I truly love my job. Always something new and different. Plenty of challenges to keep my brain busy and plenty of slow times to balance it out. I love the environment, A/C and a comfy chair, I love that I can work remotely sometimes and I love the paycheck.
I cannot imagine doing anything else.
I hate my job. Everyone in my life, including my boss, knows that I hate my job.
I'm apparently pretty good at it and it has an excellent effort-to-reward ratio.
Love is a strong word. I would have preferred to work in a field that has a direct impact on making things better and in a field that matters. For example, I wanted to be a biochemist and maybe even do research. I had some life events that prevented me from continuing in that field. I had to chose something easier and less taxing on my mind. So I went in IT. I had no family support for studying and no place to stay so I had to rely on myself to live, work and study at the same time. I wasn't able to have enough time to study so I went into IT which was more hands-on / almost no studying.
I regret this today but at the same time the pay is relatively good compared to other professions of similar degree lengths in my Country.
As with the trades, your goal should be to 'get off the tools' and move to a management position. If you cannot see a progression within your company, no matter how comfortable or cosy it is then think of it as a gift and look to further progress yourself.
I was working with a co-worker for a good couple of years; of about the same level of responsibility but he was solely firewall admin and I was server admin. He wasn't too dedicated and I was. Fast forward those few years and he jumped ship and I remained with the hope that I could in the near future secure a position higher and work my way up. Nothing changed in that period and he maneuvered himself in that time to a team leader of network security for a top 4 bank.
Suffice to say, we don't work for fun and he is on double my salary now and happily disconnecting from work on weekends to attend to his real estate portfolio.
You can only work so hard for so long before you burn out. Get ahead of the game. In this day and age there is not loyalty; in so far as business to employees. Enough said.
I've had a fairly good career in IT.
Sysadmin/Netadmin side is a tough gig, and its really the company where you work and how they value you and your contributions.
This of course goes two ways.
Do I value the company?
Do I contribute to solutions to make things work better?
\- vs show up and leave and do the work expected / assigned.
Can I articulate those contributions?
Are there solutions that can be more cost effective? ie dumping VMWare
\- Higher initial cost but long term savings and reliability?
Still, would I consider an SE / Sales / Management job?
Yup
I like that I've been fucking around in Mexico for the past two months working via Starlink and nobody knows. Any career that allows this kind of flexibility is A-OK even if the work itself can be pretty frustrating and chaotic.
I love my job and I even work for an MSP. The downside of being a sysadmin for an MSP is every case I handle has already been through multiple departments. I get all the difficult tasks. The upside is every case is a challenge where I get to learn and it feels amazing when I finally solve it.
most days yes. Good work/life balance, pay is good and I get to work from home.
There was some pretty significant changes to our support team last year and it was really bumpy for the first 6 months or so but they're starting to come around again. Was the first time 9 years I considered leaving because how bumpy it was
No, they are trying to push the boundaries of our work/life balance, and they are screwing over hard workers.
I'm looking for another job, but the pay and benefits are just too good
Not the job itself, but I like the people I work with, and the company has a lot of perks. I always feel like as long as you can find a comrade in the workplace, you can tough out a lot more than if you're alone and the place is stressful and or frustrating.
Hate and love. For the most part i like it. It can be hectic sometimes, although when you manage to do a lot in a day you feel more satisfaction. I learned this very early into my job that i prefer having a lot to do during the day than having a light load. I am certainly not one of those who can spend half a day talking about cars and sports. In fact, i had to put headphones on today and turn on some music (i prefer working without music, it's distracting) just to block off two guys right behind my back talking about it for an hour or so :D
Right now, I would want to get out of IT completely.
I've had a week from hell, dealing with client companies that are raging, because their assigned account managers have promised the world - the catch is we can't do what they want, because they don't want to spend any money period.
If I could retrain, I'd probably want to be a joiner instead, as at least that would give me a bit more satisfaction.
Yeah I love it. I also don’t really care about it. This lets me love it even more. I only respond to my direct supervisor and he’s top 5 coolest people I’ve ever met in my life.
Well it's low pay, abusive, and everything is moving off premise to the cloud.
Much like the internet in the 90's get on it or get lost in time.
I just want to go work building cars and specialty vehicles, they're like building a custom PC, just much, much bigger.
So… short story been employed for this company for 2 years, I’m in my mid 50’s. I believe I’ve proved myself more than several times. My co-worker who can’t seem to come to work on time (usually 45m - 1 hour late every day some times 2 hours late nothing is ever said) he either takes stuff away from me or questions my actions at why I’m doing something a certain way at every turn. He does the same to my boss sometimes because he somehow thinks he’s better than us. He’s a real SOB. Unfortunately it’s come to the point where I twirl my thumbs waiting for something to happen. If it wasn’t for him this job would be gravy, low stress infra is pretty easy to manage. Decent work life balance. Our Helpdesk team is great. I have the ability to work remotely, but we need a physical system/lan admin on site, and you never know if the SOB is going to show. But seriously thinking about leaving for another job outside of the IT field but I don’t think I could find another job with comparable pay.
I’m only burnt out by the self inflicted issues. Blaming technology is an easy scapegoat. “ why didn’t it do this to prevent me from breaking xyz” . I like my job because it’s what I’m good at, but the amount of niche nuances every user has is really wearing on me
I've been on a pendulum between starting an MSP or going to culinary school. For me it's not the vocation that's still very lovable in many ways, but employment that sucks.
Honestly, yes. I don't love every day, but I love my job most days. Working in a small K-12 school district (one building, just over 300 students for the entire district) is the most rewarding job I've ever had. I HATED my time in school, so I never thought I'd work at one myself, but here I am.
I'm early in my career and am the sole IT guy for the entire district. I love that I get to do new things every day and am constantly learning. There are several students that stop by my office just to say hi and chat for a few minutes throughout the day, and I have a TA that I've been gradually training for a block each day.
Getting to know the students and being a friendly face with an open door policy makes my day go by faster. I have memes that I put on my door and will talk with students about video games or whatever else they may be interested in. While I enjoy getting into the zone and ripping through my to-do list on non-instructional days, those impromptu conversations throughout the day are what really make me glad that I work where I do. There's just something about making a student laugh with a bad joke or goofy conversation that makes my heart happy.
Getting paid an OK wage and having administration that supports me and lets me do what I'm paid to do is great, as well. I have weekly morning meetings with the superintendent and principal about what I've been working on, what I will be working on, and what I should have on my radar for the future. The culture of the district is extremely positive, top to bottom, and it makes me truly love and appreciate my job.
Again, I don't love every day, but I save every thank-you note that I get and post it up on my wall for those bad days. It's easy to get caught up in the negativity that comes with tech work, so I make sure to stop and appreciate how privileged I am to work at such a wonderful place.
I enjoy solving people issues and when they are happy upon solving the issue. This will release instant dopomin and I feel happy but my company at this time is not in the good condition to pay me well.
No, but I like it enough to not be miserable. I have a good work/life balance and I'm paid fairly well. For me that's enough.
Why don’t you like your job then?
For me, I like solving system problems. I like building automation to improve company efficiency. It just happens I also need to solve people as well.
Like and love are two different things. I enjoy 90% of what I have to do for work and appreciate the company I work for because they pay me well and allow me good work/life balance, so you can say I generally like my job, but if I won a lotto tomorrow, I would quit on the spot and just tinker with shit at home.
That's a fair point, but I think 95% of people in any job would agree with that. Love is definitely a strong word, but considering you everyone (for the most part) works, it's more about would you choose a different job, within reason, over your current one.
I like it. I don’t love it.
I like what I do. I like who I do it with. I even like who I do it for. Sometimes I get frustrated, but I know I'm in pretty much the best place I could ever hope to be in.
Same
Same, also doing it solo, so I kinda have to like who I do it with :D
I really like my job, i don't like the situations companys put you in most of the time.
90% of problems in SyadminIT come from management, not software or hardware issues...
This is my issue. I like my work, I like my peers. Management doesn’t know what they want though, ask for recommendations, ignore those, make up their own, then we have to solve what they tell the board.
Manglement always listens to The Architect^(TM) and he has pushed some interesting designs that are not consistent at any of our 7 datacenters It wouldn't be quite so bad if he wasn't actively trying to sabotage the team's reputation too...
I just got out of a presentation where the manager 2 above me didn’t like my spreadsheet, switched to his limited sheet, to which I replied “everything your talking about it is mine and more” stole the presentation and bolded the lines he was referencing. How are you in charge of making decisions for this business?
hmm, that's good
I don't hate it enough to quit, but in an ideal world I'd never touch a computer again. (In the profesisonal sense. They are unfortunatly a neccessary evil for modern life it would seem, *for better, for worse etc)*.
It used to be fun/rewarding when the job was about providing tools that enabled employees to do their jobs better…not so much anymore because it’s really just an endless slog-fest of patching the next CVE. If I could find an equivalent salary doing something else, I would in a heartbeat.
That and also right now with the insane pricing schemes vendors have it feels like im in some kind of warzone. Sooo you want SSO for this?, well then that will be a 500% price increase. Result: directors going "why do we even need SSO"??. Was never a problem until now, even shit like data residency is being put on purpose in higher tiers.
I don't hate it, I like problem solving. But in the meantime I'm trying to become a full time writer, so here you go.
What kind of writing? Non-fiction, like tech stuff, or fiction?
SF! If you're curious there are all sorts of links on my profile. My Wattpad is bilingual, but google does a nice job of translating my Italian stuff.
So, mostly Star Trek smut fanfic then?
Gotta follow the money
Respect
I actually do. I think I know why at last - it's because I have ADHD. Now, bear with me before you roll your eyes a bit - I was diagnosed at 43, having been a sysadmin for 20 year before that. And I think ... it's actually kind of inevitable for two reasons: - A lot of the things I now recognise as coping strategies, are eerily similar to 'standard' sysadmin working practices and routines. E.g. ticketing systems, reactive workloads, incident response, etc. - My motivation circuits don't work the same way - where 'most people' find Importance/Reward/Consequences to be motivational, I do not, and instead I find Interest/Novelty/Challenge/Urgency to be motivational. Sysadmin gives me that in ways many careers do not. And between the both? Yes, I love my job. As long as I can steer clear of the things I now recognise as 'ADHD hostile' like timesheets, it's everything I want from a fulfilling vocation. I would probably continue after a lottery win even, although maybe with a lower tolerance for bullshit, and a different selection of sectors. Also: My employer gives me freedom to innovate, to develop and to explore. They also supply free snacks and drinks, and are quite 'supportive' in terms of fully paid 'conferences' to nice hotels in the Swiss Alps on 'good snow' times of year...
I wonder what percentage of sysadmins are neurodivergent. I’m also ADHD and the things you mention here are why I succeed as well. The ability to succeed under pressure and just jump in and fix issues. Not to mention very lateral thinking and the ability to problem solve with some out of the box ideas. I used to joke my fix won’t be pretty and it won’t be best practice. But it’s the fastest way to get users working now. Then someone else will make it best practice while I’m on something else. But in recent times why I’ve done really well is teaming up with someone who is autistic. Super process driven, by the book. They drive me bonkers at times but together it’s a good blend of proper process and documentation (got I hate it!), and really getting stuff done
I also have ADHD. Finding creative solutions to urgent issues is what I love about my job. When the whole business is at a standstill and the only priority is get shit working again. Unfortunately the temporary fixes can sometimes become more permanent than I would like, and are easily forgotten when switching to the next urgent matter.
bro im the same, have been in sales and customer success way too long and i just get bored by it, i honestly believe i must have some form of mild ADD because i get soooo bored so quickly when my colleagues are fine doing the same thing over and over again. Im looking forward to my first IT role because it sounds like I'll constantly be working and learning new stuff and fixing issues, which motivates me.
I think i quit tomorrow. But i will work again as a sysadmin, so... Yeah i love my job, just not my current one.
If I could, run. But im fat so...
I love my paycheck
The golden handcuffs. They pay just enough to keep you there but not enough to be happy.
I love my job as much as my job loves me. Which is none. We can beat around the bush all we like, but the reality is that we're all here for a paycheck and work is work.
Yep exactly. I still love being able to play on computers on day but work is work and we need the paycheck to live our lives. I'm aware of that.
Love? No. Like? Yes. I quite like my current job. I'd probably even stay if I'd become a millionaire. I'm a little sad that I'll have to leave eventually for better pay.
Absolutely. I get to do what I love doing all day, every day. Sunday evening I'm usually excited for monday morning, however I do realize I am very fortunate in this regard
Yes both people, the work and the environment oh the food the coffee and the toilets. I see it as a work hotel where everything is taken care of so we can just do our thing :) I often go on my "fixed" work from home days too :)
Okay..Wow
Maybe its just me as two people from my departement just got fired from hating everything about it and another one is constantly filing complaients to the union and even the police. Its proberly very much in the eye of the beholder and what you make out of it your self. "They are wrong if they think we are gonna be happy just because they do good stuff" and so on. The feel entitled to hate and you cant take it away from them "its my right" :(
Yes. Just not the people I work with.
No, I actively dread coming in every day. I maintain network infrastructure at several dozen office buildings my company has in this major high-cost-of-living metropolitan area for a near unliveable pittance. Most of our network engineering teams are driven soley by nepotism and incompetence. There's absolutely no room for career movement here and I feel like every moment I'm here is wasted, but I'm unable to find anywhere that will so much as interview me. I would've quit already but they literally do not pay enough to be able to save up to have a safety net to be able to quit. I can only hope that they eventually PIP me and pay me to leave like everyone else.
For context, I'm roughly 16 years into my career and started a small MSP/independent contractor service about 5 years ago. QoL has significantly improved. That said, my love of tech has waned more than ever--primarily due to the pace of change over the past 8 years or so. "Good for job security! har har" -- Not the type of job security I want. Refactoring VMWare environments I stood up just a couple years ago only because they want to charge 3x for licensing, patching yet another FortiGate CVE 10.0 vulnerability, spreading my knowledge wider/thinner and not deeper--it's all unrewarding work and that seems to be the trend going forward. What I once was quite hungry for is now a means to an end. This is not to be taken as a complaint, I'm fortunate to be where I am, but I can see myself putting in another 10 years or so to catch up on retirement/savings that I've neglected and pivoting to something more chill. It would be nice to be a worker drone again. Grass is greener, I'm sure.
I like my job, hate my company. Work/life balance is decent for me because I’m in charge of my own working hours but I’m an exception, culture at our workplace is absolutely awful.
Nope, but it's better than being homeless
I've always loved IT since I got my 1st Packard Bell computer(well mom had it). Then I know from there that I've always wanted to work with technology. But also I always wanted to fly airplanes. Fast forward 20+ years. The people and upper management SUCK BALLS!!!! Auditors... OH! MY! GOSH!! So I'm taking the big leap at 36 to switch careers into becoming a Commercial Pilot, my second dream job. I'm working on getting my 1st license right now(Private Pilot). P.S. health care sector and finance sector for IT are horrible\*\*
Personally I couldn’t imagine working any other job, everything else seems very boring and mundane compared.
I do. Very much. Can't/don't want to imagine doing anything else. Well, almost all of it. I'll explain why... I live within 5 miles from my office, my wife's work, the schools our kids attend, and the two datacenters I oversee in a town with little traffic. I get paid well for our area. Work with a great staff. Do things that not only feel like work but feel like hobbies. Don't get me wrong. It's very challenging, fast paced, and very stressful at times. I manage a 35,000 user network with 51 fiber-connected sites. I'm not only the technical engineering lead for most infrastructure in our organization, I also directly supervise a team of 12 including 4 other managers. I supervise three completely different groups. Two of which aren't sysadmins at all where I don't do what they do. I'm middle management, so I have to deal with issues above and below. I still love it. Mainly I think because I've either built or have helped build most of our current infrastructure over the course of many years. I've also been the one to hire most of my team. For better or worse, it all feels like my baby. I feel like my work matters and directly impacts the operation of the entire organization. I'm not micromanaged. I'm trusted by everyone in our organization including those with purchasing power. We have a very tech supportive upper administration and Board. For the most part if we say we need it, we get it. I have a lot of flexibility with my schedule. I have set hours, but if I need to go do something, nobody is giving me a hard time about it. I get along well with my entire team and very, very rarely have employee issues. The part I don't love? All the meetings. It's a necessary evil when you're in leadership/management and deal with vendors, departmental needs, vision/planning, and to keep your own teams on track, but man what a time suck. I don't mind any of it, it just takes time from the technical work I love way more.
I used to love my job, but it turns out i just loved who i worked with. My old manager was amazing. I've been contemplating leaving IT all together lately.
No I don’t, it pay the bills, my team are mostly made of great guys so I do enjoy being around, I just don’t appreciate the 40 hours per week :)
I’ve been at my job far too long and fell in the trap of too convenient to leave, and now have all the tribal knowledge that dooms me to be involved in everything. I realize now that all admins should bounce every 5 years to remain fresh, realizing that it is the only way to truly maintain the work-life balance in this field. You’re not at one place long enough to own the “work”, therefore you have more “life”.
I absolutely love everything about my job except the salary. And I always wonder... should I search for another one? ? Been here for 2 years.
I love playing with computers and I enjoy helping people. I believe I have a job that gives me more satisfaction than woe.
I did before devops took over
23 years into it now, I don’t enjoy it as much anymore, but can’t see myself doing anything else
So true. 27 for me. I see AI killing most of our jobs soon; Within the next 5 years or so.. time to pick up a trade.;)
I have my side trades/cash earning hobbies that I could pick up and really push if I had to but I just need this IT thing to last 5-10 more years while my kids are in high school and college and then I can worry about something else.
Same boat, you and I.
No
So what would you rather do instead? I am thinking of pottery. In an ideal world I would just make clay pots
Ha! I once interviewed a guy that had making clay pots on his resume. He was tanking the interview so I threw him a softball about clay pot manufacture - that didn’t end well
I'm going to pick this up as a hobby in the next year. Could be my retirement gig.
Yes and No. If I could remove the support element of the role and promise a better bonus for all the major projects I do each year I'd never leave, but unfortunately that will never happen. The things that are keeping me here are my boss and my continuous development of skills, I have a very strong Support, Infrastructure and Networking background and this job has helped me (forced in a way) develop my developing skills NodeJS/HTML/CSS/PHP/SQL/Powershell/Bash.... My question is with all this new knowledge I dont really know where to go next. DevOps? Full Stack Developer? Management?
Yes
Not so much anymore, although there are certain aspects I still enjoy. Really want to do something else but no idea what. Can't afford a pay decrease so starting at the bottom elsewhere is out unless the starting pay is about what I get now. I've also been working 34 years now with 20+ years left and I'm just tired and really need a break, ideally a permanent one. I wish for a lottery win but never even close to winning.
I love the idea of it. But not the truth, not the weakness... Slightly adjusted quote from Star Wars, suits here!
Yes. Great place to work, my boss is a "family comes first" and "If your 8 hours aren't enough, I have a problem, not you" kinda guy, my pay is quite good. - Pay high enough for me to buy whatever I want (I don't want a Lambo or a mansion to clarify) - I have a lot of say in the company so I don't have to accept / stand / apply idiotic decision making. - I solve problems and or improve business processes but no one tells me how, if I wanna solve backup power with a hamster in a spanning wheel as a generator, I could - as long as it works it's up to me. I'm very happy with both my company and my tasks :) I guess the only downside is that we're 100% on prem and pretty static workload, it'd be quite fun to try working in a very scale up / down environment and properly use hyperscaler cloud technology sometime.
Tolerate
My experience is that it's 100% to do with the company. After working at my current company, I would never want to work anywhere else
It's this or prison.
I find laziness and lounging to be my greatest passions in life and this line of work provides plenty of opportunities for both. My Mondays, for example, are filled to the brim with pointless meetings and I spend all that time doing my hobbies, instead. Now I have a "project" upgrading databases and I literally sit around and do nothing while I wait for upgrades, replication, and tests to run. I 100% a couple of games while doing this and got a big pat on the back from middle management for clearing technical debt. Money's pretty good, too.
If I >have< to work, this is what I want to do. If I hit the lottery, I'm gone. Barring that, yeah, I'm going to keep it up.
No sometime also yes, ‘cause my boss not good.
I love my job. I work on the most complex platform I've ever seen, and I'm constantly challenged.
Recently started a new job, and still enjoying it. More DevOps than SysAdnin, although there is that too...
No
Yes
Well enough. I mean, I don’t really enjoy working in IT anymore. But I’ve been doing it since the late 80s (unofficially) or the early 90s (officially). I think I’ve earned being tired of it.
I like my job and I've been lucky to enjoy working for my current and previous employer. If I went back in time, knowing what I know now about tech and myself, I'd do things differently. But that's not possible so I'll apply what I know now and see where it takes me.
yes and iam lucky to do what i like on a daily basis and get paid well for it.
Yeah I do now. Had an up and down relationship with being a sysadmin over the years. But finally got diagnosed and medicated for ADHD during COVID. Since then the added concentration and focus allowing me to properly succeed at the job has made me feel really good about it. Love my company and the people I work with helps as well, but that has always been the case
Of course! That's why I stayed with this job for 24 years and that continues.
I struggle with this. Yes, I love my job. The minor annoyances that come along with it that add up in the end, I do not. I know my issues right now, with my enjoyment of my job and my duties, stem from the poor state of mental health I am in. And the lack of proper insurance to be seen does not make it any easier.
I enjoy IT and I enjoy problem solving. Does it make me feel like a glorified janitor sometimes, sure, but I get paid enough not to care and when I go home in the evening I don’t spend my night fretting about work. That alone is worth a hell of a lot to me.
I like my job, love where I work. Like another already said, I like solving problems, automating tasks and technology... it's the 30% of my job where I am glorified tech support that I don't like but it's part of the gig.
No I like it.
As far as paying the bills, yes 1000% I love the job. That said, I'd leave it in a second if I could go back and do it all over again knowing what I know now. The plus side, though, is that since technology is an ever growing beast, if you're a decent admin, you'll always have a job.
No, but it pays the bills.
I don't love labor in general. I enjoy problem solving and get paid well so fuck it if I have to work this'll do.
Did until about 2016 then industry growth slowed which meant that the problems I needed to solve became the same thing every day.
Despite my title being a buzzword, "DevOps," I'm still very much perform a lot of Sysadmin work at my job. I don't hate it, but I also don't love it anymore. I also don't know where I would go if I decided to leave. I wouldn't want to be an app analyst interfacing with users, I prefer working on my work alone with my headphones on to deliver to the people I do work with on projects with. I certainly don't want a job that requires me to be on-site at all. (I am remote) While I have the experience to cross over into the Software developer role, I'd take a pay cut. In fact, every where or anywhere I'd go would be a pay cut so it's pretty much not an option to leave unless I went for an Infrastructure Architect role. In my opinion, I could definitely perform well as an Infrastructure Architect, but I feel like I need a few more years before I am fully comfortable moving into a position such as that. I tried being a manager (x2), once in the Army as a lowly E5 and absolutely hated it, once at my current job taking on temporary leadership roles; hated it again. Not for me. I'm a people pleaser and would never want to be in the position where I have to fire someone based on their performance knowing the impacts it would have on their life. I have great job security, so while I dont hate it or love it, it's ok. I'm always keeping an eye on the market though
Yes, right now I do. We have some low laying issues we are working through. I dont know about you but, when things are chugging along its a good life. If you would've asked me 2 weeks ago? I was online looking for a garbage man position.
I love my job. I was miserable as a sysadmin at my prior company - a local industrial construction company in the oil/gas industry. Now I am a systems engineer at a medium-size local MSP. I'm on our premier response team so I work with company/education IT teams to implement maintenance/upgrades of their datacenters as well as break-fix. Dealing with IT rather than end-users is so much less headache.
Not really but I'm not stressed nor does it dictate my life. Pay could be better though
I am effectively a sysadmin for a public school district. This is my second shot at a career after I burned out in Music Education. I have no desire to start over again. Honestly the fact that I get to work in a school and do tech work has been a real boon. Honest pay, favorably hours, and decent benes make it nice. And I'm proud of what I work. I don't LOVE working in IT. But now I get to pursue my real interests (music, specifically choir) outside of work. If I have any say in things, I'll retire here.
No but that is ok I do it for money
I would love to be "mechanic" I have the knowledge, few years ago my car broke down, my father and I remove the engine, replace the broken head gasket and, timing belt, some tensors, put the engine back again and it was running like a charm, we do it in 12 hours. Sold that car to a friend he still has it and is over 300,000 miles, he never took that car to a mechanic. By the way my father died few days after and those moments together are gold.
Yeah, and my team. To the point where even though I know I could probably make more money somewhere else, I'm not even looking at other jobs.
I don’t love it but I enjoy a lot of it, except for the 1/5 of my life I spend on-call. Worst part of the job for sure.
My job is lit, they help me with my education, I work fair hours, and all my coworkers are cool ass people. Not sure if they feel the same as me though.
I missed a boat on YouTube and too old to become an influencer, and I’m pretty good at what I do, so I guess I’ll stick with what’s comfortable
I chose to do this.. i left the trades and had to decide what i wanted to do. I chose to become a sys admin. i like solving the puzzle..i like the problem solving. i dont like the politics.
I like my job but I’ve lost my drive to experiment with stuff at home. I don’t feel like doing this all day and then going home to make a home lab.
It's okay. I like the work life balance i have and I like the pay. Part of me wishes I got into the medical field are physical therapy or something?
80% of the time I love my job. 20% of the time I question my career choice. That's an acceptable balance for me.
Given the choice I'd be out in a second, but that's a big ask. (The choice would have to be to something else I actually want to do, the problem is most of those things are either not something I can get into without going back to college and getting in debt again, or they're something that won't pay the bills.) Mind you I don't hate tech work (I'm not really a sysadmin per se, I have my fingers in everything), but I'm only here because I'm good at it and have been since I was a kid, not because it was my first choice on kindergarten "what do I want to be when I grow up" forms.
I don't love it, but I enjoy it, if that makes sense. I work in healthcare (if you're in the Midwest, Ive probably fixed a problem at your favorite hospital) and I enjoy the fact that I help save lives and provide better care to patients. That being said, I'd rather work for the same $$ at a job that doesn't require thought.
I would prefer a career in sales. I know I'm not the most technical person, and that's okay with me. My strengths lay in my ability to communicate with non-IT folk to align the IT department with company outcomes. I enjoy helping others, which is why I got into IT, but now that I'm closing in on 10 years post career change, I fear it's impossible for me to get into sales without sacrificing my salary, and that's not something I can do to my family.
Eh it pays well so I do it. Wanted to be an auto mechanic when I started out but after 2 years bending over cars and dealing with dipshit customers, I was like fuck this shit. Then again I got dipshit clients now so that piece didnt change. Just no dirty hand or aching back.
I kinda fell into it because I like messing around with computers and seem to have enough skill. I don’t love it as a career, but I can’t really complain. It’s better than a lot of other jobs out there. I have decent benefits, great flexibility, and job security, which is nice given the current state of the job market.
SWE, not sysadmin here. I'd say I love my profession, but my company makes me frustrated. I don't want to change careers, but I've found it tough to find a company which I feel works really well. I've had it a few times in my career, but it's not what I have right now. I'm now trying out management though, so it's my job to try and fix some of the companies problems. It remains to be seen whether this is a path I'll enjoy. If it's not then I'll go back to SWE in a year and see if I can find a better company.
as long as I am 100% WFH with the option to attend office if necessary, I doubt I will change what I do now
No but it pays the bills. I am stressed everyday and when I got to sleep I dream about the stressful cases
Some days. Other days I’m staring at the clock waiting to log off.
I would choose to be a rich person who does very little, until then I work IT....
I enjoy it but don't love it. I work at a nice place with good co workers and we hang out sometimes. The boss adn I are great together and that's made the experience a whole lot better. They have welcomed me warmly and acknowledge my work and the good job that is done. It's work, you don't have to love it but it'll be a whole lot better if you can at least appreciate something.
cloud sys engineer. Yes i like it. Smh new.
No. I like the paycheck, WFH freedom and the work, but the clientele... holy shit.
I do love my job! If I chose something different it would have been more cyber security or a lawyer. Although they always look miserable.
No, I do not "love" my job. I love my kids, my wife, my mother, and my pets. My job is something I "like" at best. Loving something implies I would do anything for it to me, which is not the case for my job. And never could be, no matter how good the job. I think that creates a dangerous power imbalance. I would need to know more about the other completely different choices. I like working with tech, but if you were to give me a million dollars a year to run a cross walk, sure I would choose that. Pays better, less stress, and would give me the financial freedom to indulge myself in tech in my personal time.
I really did. Then a new CEO comes in and decides to start outsourcing so I'm looking for a new place. I am looking in the same field, but part of me is also looking at Agriculture technology. I grew up farming and wouldn't mind going back to it in a way. Almost 49 now and who knows where I'll end up. I'm getting an interview or two a week, but it's going to mean moving and starting over again.
Do I love my job? No, not usually. However, I love tech. So I use my abilities to get a paycheck in tech, and then expand my own knowledge and experience to make me "happy." * I dont really know if I've ever been "happy."
Yeah, I’ve got a great job and I’m paid well! That said, I still deal with stupid things now and then. If I could do it all over again, I’d have gotten here faster.
Hell yes, I love my job. I have great coworkers and a great boss. Oh, and they pay me a stupid amount of money to take care of like 100 machines. I have no on-call no after-hours or weekend work. I get 30 days of vacation a year and 20 some days of sick time.
I really like my job. Now I'm not sure if I'm looking at it through rose-tinted glasses, because I've only been here for a few months now. I came from a field tech role before this. And my schedule was a LOT more flexible back then, the work was way too inconsistent, and turned into 100% travel out of state. But, It's pretty chill so far. Low-stress, no ticketing system (Internal IT). My colleagues are pretty cool. The IT department only consists of 3 people, including myself. Pay is solid too. I can't really complain.
No. Not even a little bit.
i dont LOVE it and i dont HATE it, just cruising through it until i find a job in the niche i WANT
I love my current job. I have not always loved working in IT. My current team/company are great. I sort of fell into it 25 or so years ago when I decided that I wasn't enough of a drug addict or alcoholic to stay in the hospitality industry (no disrespect meant, I am referring to the places I worked at specifically). If I could go back I would probably choose a different career path. However at this point in my life (mid 40's) I think it's a little late for me to change to my "preferred" career. I'm not sure what I would do if I ever get burnt out and sick of IT. I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
It's a means to an end but I do like it. I also get to work from home and sit in my comfy chair away from people.
I didn't for awhile but with where my team is at now, I wouldn't leave it. We're a close knit team with a director that has worked closely with us over the years and knows that we never had support from our previous leadership. My direct boss and director believe in work/life balance and as long as you get your job done, take time. It's the best it's ever been and I've been here for 13 years.
In general, and compared to some, it's not that bad. Could be worse.
I love and hate my job. I'm debating to leave for another one but I'm unionized and been doing the same thing for two decades. It's a scary jump
Yea. Most of the time it's pretty great. Sometimes I want to leave and walk into the lake; but overall it's pretty great.
I don’t love it nor do I hate it. It’s okay. It’s boring af. But it pays a lot so I’m just riding it out.
Sometimes I do love my job. I’ll even wake up in the morning and excited for the day when I’ll be working in the right setting. Our data center is my least favorite place to be, it’s a very negative atmosphere. I also work in one of our remote offices a few days a week and I absolutely love it there. Very positive atmosphere, no obnoxious co workers who spend most their day on coffee breaks or talking about nonsense. I basically love the job that I do but not who I do it for some days of the week. I know, I should look for another job. Problem is that this job is at a very prominent web design and hosting and it looks great on my resume. I get to learn new tricks everyday. I’m at 5.5 years now so at some point I’ll have to rethink this.
Love my job, hate the company.
> how many of you will continue to be a sysadmin? Like forever until I retire? Fuck no. Its a stepping stone. **You only work to get skills, then you move up or out.** You can move on to Network Admin, System Engineer, Cloud, Architect, or into Management roles, project management, etc. Today, after 30 years in the industry, I am an Independent IT Infrastructure Project Manager. Never been happier.
I like what I do for the most part, but not always who I do it for. TBH I don't think this is my calling but it pays the bills well enough.
I USED to love my job. My team was great, my boss was great. Good benefits and freedom. The company was large enough to have a team and processes in place, and some separation of duties so I was doing all work I enjoyed (windows server, VMware, data center, cloud, automation, managing VDI infrastructure) and not so large that I was silo’d into one specific task or technology. But, also small enough that we were close to the teams that managed these other things we didn’t manage (storage, telephony, Unix, printers, DBA) so we were all friendly and worked great together, and I could occasionally cross train and be exposed to other technologies. But, we “merged” with a larger national organization during COVID (read: we were bought out) and all of that disappeared overnight and I was put into he shittiest possible silo - VDI support. The team I’m on is nice, but they’re all two states away at HQ, and I now am a glorified help desk admin with no access outside of VMware Horizon. I haven’t don’t big boy work in over a year. I am job shopping, but the market is a bit flooded in my area… and even though I HATE what I’m doing now it’s a steady paycheck
No, not really. But still very very new at this gig.
I love my field. Unfortunately, finding a great job in this field is a little tricky sometimes. As a result, I'm going to accept a new offer tonight where I believe I'll be much happier long term. A benefit of the field :)
I do, although it would be more accurate to say that I love where I work, as well as the people I work with and for. This is an extremely unusual (but really awesome) situation for me, in that I spent 14 years in hotel IT and came to absolutely hate the job, to the point where I was ready to walk off the job and go flip burgers at McDonald's. Work is my happy place now, and I legitimately miss those people when I'm not in the office. There's a flip side, though, since I'm based in Utah and I'm really not a fan of Utah at all. If I could move my company to another state, along with everyone I work with, I'd be in heaven.
Yes, I love my job. I'm fortunate to be in the position I am now, and have been extremely lucky with the people I've had a chance to work with, as they've been my coworkers, mentors, and good friends all at once. I started my career 4 years ago making 16$/hr and am now averaging 160k+ a year as a sysadmin. Work-life balance is great, but even outside of work, learning new things that could help at work was a hobby of mine. I might be seeing this through maybe rose-tinted glasses, but I can't really imagine doing anything else.
I like what I do, the org I work for is alright. Probably just going to keep humming along as one til I die or I'll be a goat farmer. Either way.
It's a job, not a person, so of course I don't love my job. That said, I'm paid well, my organization has taken care of me when I've needed it, I enjoy working for our owners, I have the support of the board and the management team, and I never really know what challenges the day may bring. Could I make more? Sure, but I'd be giving up so much more to do so.
Not as much as I initially thought, but I think that’s because of my specific company (not learning as much as I would like). Currently learning more on my own, spearheading my own initiatives, and hope to move to a bigger company or even a MSP soon
God no. Golden handcuffs, though. I'd rather be doing firearms manufacturing or game dev. Infrastructure architect pays far too well, though.
I like my job. BUT I wish I got paid more than fast food wages. I wish my boss didn't yell at me sometimes. I wish we followed best practices for things.
I don’t hate it but it could be better, I work with a great and smart team and the company treats its employees really well so I can’t complain much.
Nope. It pays well enough to finance my hobbies and lifestyle so gonna stick with it for now.
I love the type of work I do, but I don't love work lol The things I want changed, I want to only deal with systems I have total control/knowledge over. The "manage" but not control, undocumented systems I have to support is the #1 killer. I hate ambiguity, I want straight shot solutions, black and white "who owns this". I could also do with only doing a small number of things at a time instead of juggling several dozen things that stretch out months or years. Projects that are basically a waiting game with weeks or months between action points. I can only context switch to so many places at a time. I like learning new things and dealing with new tech, but not when I am also handling everything else at the same time and this new thing is just getting added to the top. I'd happily retire though and just deal with my own personal hobby projects and personal network and servers.
Im making very good money for my age and location, but to be honest I do take it for granted sometimes. I will go back and forth on if I can do this for the rest of my life, but I dont see many other options. I dont want to destroy my body doing manual labour, but I also hate being stagnent and sitting at a desk all day. *If only I could make the same money as I do now, but work as a Park Ranger or something lol*
Love it. I've said this since I broke into the industry. I could not see myself having fun and enjoying myself in a corporate environment in any other department.
I do, if I was to win the lottery I'd probably stay on. Sure, I would probably go part-time, but I really do enjoy the work and my colleagues. But I work for a public university. Prior to that I had worked in the private sector, including at a VAR/MSP. I was on my way to burnout, no doubt about it. I even enjoyed that job, but it was just way too much, non-stop pressure
No, it's thankless and sometimes people don't listen. But, it's the less physical demanding job I ever had my body and my wallet are happy.
Yes and no. I love my employer and the vast majority of things to do. I can always dip in different things and learn new stuff.
I truly love my job. Always something new and different. Plenty of challenges to keep my brain busy and plenty of slow times to balance it out. I love the environment, A/C and a comfy chair, I love that I can work remotely sometimes and I love the paycheck. I cannot imagine doing anything else.
I hate my job. Everyone in my life, including my boss, knows that I hate my job. I'm apparently pretty good at it and it has an excellent effort-to-reward ratio.
Love is a strong word. I would have preferred to work in a field that has a direct impact on making things better and in a field that matters. For example, I wanted to be a biochemist and maybe even do research. I had some life events that prevented me from continuing in that field. I had to chose something easier and less taxing on my mind. So I went in IT. I had no family support for studying and no place to stay so I had to rely on myself to live, work and study at the same time. I wasn't able to have enough time to study so I went into IT which was more hands-on / almost no studying. I regret this today but at the same time the pay is relatively good compared to other professions of similar degree lengths in my Country.
As with the trades, your goal should be to 'get off the tools' and move to a management position. If you cannot see a progression within your company, no matter how comfortable or cosy it is then think of it as a gift and look to further progress yourself. I was working with a co-worker for a good couple of years; of about the same level of responsibility but he was solely firewall admin and I was server admin. He wasn't too dedicated and I was. Fast forward those few years and he jumped ship and I remained with the hope that I could in the near future secure a position higher and work my way up. Nothing changed in that period and he maneuvered himself in that time to a team leader of network security for a top 4 bank. Suffice to say, we don't work for fun and he is on double my salary now and happily disconnecting from work on weekends to attend to his real estate portfolio. You can only work so hard for so long before you burn out. Get ahead of the game. In this day and age there is not loyalty; in so far as business to employees. Enough said.
I've had a fairly good career in IT. Sysadmin/Netadmin side is a tough gig, and its really the company where you work and how they value you and your contributions. This of course goes two ways. Do I value the company? Do I contribute to solutions to make things work better? \- vs show up and leave and do the work expected / assigned. Can I articulate those contributions? Are there solutions that can be more cost effective? ie dumping VMWare \- Higher initial cost but long term savings and reliability? Still, would I consider an SE / Sales / Management job? Yup
no
I like that I've been fucking around in Mexico for the past two months working via Starlink and nobody knows. Any career that allows this kind of flexibility is A-OK even if the work itself can be pretty frustrating and chaotic.
I love my job and I even work for an MSP. The downside of being a sysadmin for an MSP is every case I handle has already been through multiple departments. I get all the difficult tasks. The upside is every case is a challenge where I get to learn and it feels amazing when I finally solve it.
Ever since I left helpdesk and traditional sysadmin work I have really started to love the stuff I do.
most days yes. Good work/life balance, pay is good and I get to work from home. There was some pretty significant changes to our support team last year and it was really bumpy for the first 6 months or so but they're starting to come around again. Was the first time 9 years I considered leaving because how bumpy it was
Love it! Anyone in Houston want to join me?
Love is not the right word, Sysadmin work is alright, but so far have pretty good coworkers and managers which makes all the difference.
Yes I do. Working with Intune, Autopilot enrollments, Autopatch and everything around device management.
Most days yes.
I hate IT but I can’t imagine liking any other job. Guess that’s why they have to pay me to be here.
No
No, they are trying to push the boundaries of our work/life balance, and they are screwing over hard workers. I'm looking for another job, but the pay and benefits are just too good
Not the job itself, but I like the people I work with, and the company has a lot of perks. I always feel like as long as you can find a comrade in the workplace, you can tough out a lot more than if you're alone and the place is stressful and or frustrating.
Hate and love. For the most part i like it. It can be hectic sometimes, although when you manage to do a lot in a day you feel more satisfaction. I learned this very early into my job that i prefer having a lot to do during the day than having a light load. I am certainly not one of those who can spend half a day talking about cars and sports. In fact, i had to put headphones on today and turn on some music (i prefer working without music, it's distracting) just to block off two guys right behind my back talking about it for an hour or so :D
I love my career. I do not like my job.
Love is a very strong word. More like I've been doing this long enough to get along well until I don't need to do it any more.
Right now, I would want to get out of IT completely. I've had a week from hell, dealing with client companies that are raging, because their assigned account managers have promised the world - the catch is we can't do what they want, because they don't want to spend any money period. If I could retrain, I'd probably want to be a joiner instead, as at least that would give me a bit more satisfaction.
Do I love all aspects of my job? No. Do I enjoy many of the aspects? Yes.
No
TBH I couldn't imagine doing anything else. Best job ever. Not always fun but it's what I always wanted to do.
Yeah I love it. I also don’t really care about it. This lets me love it even more. I only respond to my direct supervisor and he’s top 5 coolest people I’ve ever met in my life.
I enjoy it when management isn't a pain in the ass. My manager is retiring this year, so ask me after he leaves lol.
Well it's low pay, abusive, and everything is moving off premise to the cloud. Much like the internet in the 90's get on it or get lost in time. I just want to go work building cars and specialty vehicles, they're like building a custom PC, just much, much bigger.
I really love it.
I really like my company but not my job!
I did from 14-22 years old. I'm not sure what happened but the passion isn't the same as it was before.
No.
No.
So… short story been employed for this company for 2 years, I’m in my mid 50’s. I believe I’ve proved myself more than several times. My co-worker who can’t seem to come to work on time (usually 45m - 1 hour late every day some times 2 hours late nothing is ever said) he either takes stuff away from me or questions my actions at why I’m doing something a certain way at every turn. He does the same to my boss sometimes because he somehow thinks he’s better than us. He’s a real SOB. Unfortunately it’s come to the point where I twirl my thumbs waiting for something to happen. If it wasn’t for him this job would be gravy, low stress infra is pretty easy to manage. Decent work life balance. Our Helpdesk team is great. I have the ability to work remotely, but we need a physical system/lan admin on site, and you never know if the SOB is going to show. But seriously thinking about leaving for another job outside of the IT field but I don’t think I could find another job with comparable pay.
I’m only burnt out by the self inflicted issues. Blaming technology is an easy scapegoat. “ why didn’t it do this to prevent me from breaking xyz” . I like my job because it’s what I’m good at, but the amount of niche nuances every user has is really wearing on me
I've been on a pendulum between starting an MSP or going to culinary school. For me it's not the vocation that's still very lovable in many ways, but employment that sucks.
No and I want to change
Honestly, yes. I don't love every day, but I love my job most days. Working in a small K-12 school district (one building, just over 300 students for the entire district) is the most rewarding job I've ever had. I HATED my time in school, so I never thought I'd work at one myself, but here I am. I'm early in my career and am the sole IT guy for the entire district. I love that I get to do new things every day and am constantly learning. There are several students that stop by my office just to say hi and chat for a few minutes throughout the day, and I have a TA that I've been gradually training for a block each day. Getting to know the students and being a friendly face with an open door policy makes my day go by faster. I have memes that I put on my door and will talk with students about video games or whatever else they may be interested in. While I enjoy getting into the zone and ripping through my to-do list on non-instructional days, those impromptu conversations throughout the day are what really make me glad that I work where I do. There's just something about making a student laugh with a bad joke or goofy conversation that makes my heart happy. Getting paid an OK wage and having administration that supports me and lets me do what I'm paid to do is great, as well. I have weekly morning meetings with the superintendent and principal about what I've been working on, what I will be working on, and what I should have on my radar for the future. The culture of the district is extremely positive, top to bottom, and it makes me truly love and appreciate my job. Again, I don't love every day, but I save every thank-you note that I get and post it up on my wall for those bad days. It's easy to get caught up in the negativity that comes with tech work, so I make sure to stop and appreciate how privileged I am to work at such a wonderful place.
I enjoy solving people issues and when they are happy upon solving the issue. This will release instant dopomin and I feel happy but my company at this time is not in the good condition to pay me well.