Work as a tech

You know, it hit me today how depressing my job can be. I get paid $xx,xxx a year to tell some high paid exec whose butt I have to kiss that the reason he doesn't have e-mail from yesterday and today is that he didn't plug in his docking station. Then watching the empty look he gives me when I ask him if he had noticed that he never got a login this morning. Or telling that same secretary every week how to change her e-mail profile, because someone sits there when she takes her one day a week off. Or having to work side by side with my witch, know it all, ignorant, never shuts up, can't finish the stinking job, glory hound, butt-kissing machine of a coworker.

But then again, someone could actually ask me to do real work too.

Speak on, brother Cleet.

There are days where'd I'd do anything to be working outside and away from the mundanity and blandness. Then I remember working outside shoveling and pushing a wheelbarrow for $7.50/hr and no benefits or 401k when it was 101 degrees with 90% humidity. After that, I shrug, smile, and get up to change the backup tape on the server.

It's much lighter than wheelbarrow full of gravel.

I used to work at a steakhouse as a waiter/bartender/manager for 7 years before I got a programming job. Now I have one of my cufflinks attached to my keychain to remind me how much I hated waiting tables. Believe me, it puts things into perspective.

My personal favorite thing is explaining to users what their user ID is for our network. It's uses their actual name, which some of them can't remember!

As bad as it seems sometimes....I love my job !

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Darkstar:
<strong>Speak on, brother Cleet.

There are days where'd I'd do anything to be working outside and away from the mundanity and blandness. Then I remember working outside shoveling and pushing a wheelbarrow for $7.50/hr and no benefits or 401k when it was 101 degrees with 90% humidity. After that, I shrug, smile, and get up to change the backup tape on the server.

It's much lighter than wheelbarrow full of gravel.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">HEY! thanks with all the workload I have since my coworker is in holiday, and that my boss does not seems to see that I have a L O T of work, I have almost forget to change my tape.
And I feel pretty much the same way. I don't see myself doing that for an other 2 years, my head gonna blow because of all the UI errors....

Tell me about it, I'mm sick of this industry, sick of staring at a screen for **** knows how many hours a day. I just want to do something else.

Still one year left of this degree, my previous work experience (there's quite a lot of it), will pretty much get me into any job, just liek the one I was doing before/during my degree.

I dunno, maybe I'll just go fibre installing or something for a couple of years when I graduate, to pay off my student debt, then just do something I really want to do... Dunno what though, might become a sparkie.

/whinge

try to do something in your off-time that is the complete opposite of your regular job. myself, i carve landscapes. getting the perfect edge on the chisel...the smell of the wood...about as no-tech as you can get. do something to prevent burn-out.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by geeksRus:
<strong>try to do something in your off-time that is the complete opposite of your regular job. myself, i carve landscapes. getting the perfect edge on the chisel...the smell of the wood...about as no-tech as you can get. do something to prevent burn-out.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">thanks for the tips.
well for now I do weight training at least 3 times a week. That help alot to decompress from work. It focus the mind on something else...

If you really want to imagine how bad working in IT can get, imagine all the frustrating crap you do, all the anal users you deal with, then imagine getting paid aproximately half as much to do it. Then, imagine your industry is belittled, as being un-important, un-appreciated, and basically not a real field.

Then imagine that you are not so much seen as a supportive member of a group, as an expensive annoyance, even after your budget has been slashed to the sh!thouse, and you get paid less than one of the executive secretaries. Work long hours, for-go your health and sleep for the job. Then at the end of a week, happily accept a kick in the 4ss from your unappreciative, moron boss.

Welcome to the Australian IT industry... Hell, welcome to my life.

Enjoy your stay.

It's times like those that you could just do with a Dark Templar, isn't it....?

This is why I never admit to being an IT head, just someone who knows 'puters. That way I can refuse to do whatever the hell I don't want to. Admittedly this means I don't get any additional pay - hell, I'm the only reasearch student in the entire school PAYING FOR HIS OWN course so I don't get any pay anyway, but that's beside the point. But there is that nice warm feeling of power associated with knowing you're the only guy in the office who can fix this or that... But you're busying typing up your thesis so it'll have to wait....

Muwhahahahaha

Set phasers to 'Reno'.

I'm really starting to feel it, esp over the past 6 months. The job sucks, its thankless, and the only people who want to talk to you about your job are the people who are pissed off because you can't take care of their problem an hour before they see you about it.

Granted, I'm not a PC tech, but I work with cel phones, and its just as bad, only I deal with all the drug dealing, wife beating, always drinking, dirty and smelly trash that New Jersey has to offer. :rolleyes:

I am currently seriously looking into a career change. My wife is going to school to be an OR tech, so when thats done I can take a step back, and look at my life. I'm realizing now that my ---- isn't together, I'm unhappy, and the most intelligent coworkers I have feel that is funny to wal kin to my tech room, lay out a huge fart, beltch, then think its funny. I tell them that I cannot print out this phonebook, so what do they do, they push me aside and try it themselves. Hey, guess what? It didn't work! they love to bring back phones they know I can't do anything with, but want me to check them out anyway (like its going to make a difference?).

I seriously need a new job. My company is cutting back, where is the first place they cut back? Support. Lets not care about the customers we have.

I look back to my grocerey store experience, deli department and running the seafood department. That was bliss. Out by noon every day, hell, I think I even got paid more then. :mad:

Maybe a career as an EMT isn't too bad...

[QUOTEMaybe a career as an EMT isn't too bad...[/QB][/QUOTE]

EMT can be just as stressful.
You have to deal with many things at once and sometimes the injured person you are trying to help may spaz out on you.

I work with a repair tech who used to be an EMT and nurse. And she'll take this job over nursing or EMT any day.
Good luck with your chosen path!!!

Why would anyone want to work as a tech? The customers don't understand you, they think you're trying to rip them off. Then you have to explain it to them like they were 5. And it doesn't matter, cause they'll break it or install aol or some other stupid SHat.

I don't know why i ever came back to retail bench work. I've been doing it for 5yrs+. I've seen it all I think, WTF?

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by jza734:
<strong>I don't know why i ever came back to retail bench work. I've been doing it for 5yrs+. I've seen it all I think, WTF?</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The minute you say I've seen it all something you've never seen pops up.

I haven't seen it all with cel phones, yet, but I've seen a lot, like people who rip open their phone, try to repair the issue themselves, then wonder why their warranty is void.