#StressfulIT #OvercomingITStress #ITSupportStruggles
Are you feeling overwhelmed by the stress of working in the I.T. industry? You’re not alone. Many individuals in the field face challenges that can make their job incredibly stressful. From demanding customers to technical issues that seem to never end, it’s easy to see why I.T. professionals often feel the pressure.
The Problem:
Is it more of the customers in Help Desk (for example) or something else that I haven’t even thought about or considered? I’m not sure if I should venture out into I.T. or do something else if the stress is supposedly overwhelming from nasty customers to something I haven’t thought about.
Customer Interactions:
Dealing with difficult customers can be one of the most stressful aspects of working in I.T. Whether they are frustrated with technical issues or simply have a bad attitude, handling these interactions can be emotionally draining.
Technical Challenges:
Technical problems can also contribute to the stress of working in I.T. From system crashes to network failures, I.T. professionals often face complex issues that require quick and effective solutions.
Solutions:
Effective Communication:
When dealing with difficult customers, communication is key. Empathize with their frustrations, listen actively, and maintain a calm and professional demeanor. This can help de-escalate tense situations and improve customer satisfaction.
Self-Care:
Taking care of yourself is crucial when working in a high-stress environment like I.T. Make sure to prioritize self-care activities such as exercise, meditation, or hobbies that help you unwind and relax outside of work.
Continuous Learning:
Stay updated on the latest technologies and trends in the I.T. industry. Continuous learning can help you stay ahead of the curve, improve your problem-solving skills, and feel more confident in your abilities.
In conclusion, working in the I.T. industry can be incredibly stressful, but there are practical solutions to help you overcome these challenges. By improving your communication skills, practicing self-care, and continuously learning, you can navigate the stress of working in I.T. and thrive in your career. Remember, you’re capable of handling whatever comes your way! 💪🖥️ #YouGotThis
Users and middle management, especially if they’re old.
Your headcount will be cut, ensuring that ticket SLA’s are always on a razors edge from failure.
In my experience it’s the high task count coupled with fairly constant interruptions throughout the day.
I typically have to juggle projects, that range from infrastructure build out/optimization, process creation/review, whatever new automation creation, general documentation stuff, etc.
Having the stream of “I’m locked out of my account”, “My laptop isn’t charging”, “I’m not receiving email”, “Issue not at all related to IT” while trying to keep focus on project items can be challenging for me (especially considering I have historical issues maintaining focus).
It’s the nature of the industry.
KPIs and SLAs will make you want to eat a bullet
When I was on a help desk it was the customer and the client restrictions of what we could tell people. I did help desk as an outsourced team for an online college. CS students and professors would fight us on doing something simple as clearing browser cache because it’s not on their end it’s our end (sometimes there were problems and we would escalate) or people would want to use Java applications on DoD computers that are locked down tight as could be. The client would take hours to tell us that we could tell callers the system is slow when we knew it was slow.
customer service is stressful in general
I do external support for a specific product where there is often potentially millions of dollars on the line if anything goes wrong, combine that with what others have said about users
Its one of the most thankless professions to be in. People only know who you are when something isnt working and somehow its always your fault. We are psychiatrists who happen to know how to fix computers.
Micromanagement. The same thing that made any other stressful job I had stressful. What’s so hard about setting expectations and leaving me alone so long as I am meeting expectations?
Change management. Ridiculous KPI’s. Getting called to a conference room in the middle of their quarterly meeting and having an impatient audience watch you fake it ’til you make it. C-suite go to guy…
Non tech people yelling at you for “not doing your job” when they don’t know anything
for me management 100%, kpi and all those other bs stats haven’t been too much of an issue but having a shitty manager makes the job hell which is why I quit my last job
Anything can be stressful, it all comes down to how you perceive and respond to the things you don’t agree with or want.
At first being poor was stressful so I got a better paying job. Then the workload was overwhelming so I skilled up, took a ton of risk and went consulting. Managing that was extremely stressful at first. Then when i got over that, it was being told what to do that really pissed me off .. so i fixed that by starting my own consultancy. Then managing partners and employees was stressful, but now that’s nailed down.. and I’m sure the next thing will come along. There will never be a time where something isn’t “stressful” – the idea is to become so resilient that dealing with the shit you don’t like or want doesn’t bother you as much.
Everything everywhere can have “nasty” people or overwhelming situations – its our job to learn to navigate those things effectively regardless of our career path.
Studying philosophy and psychology helped me. Learning CBT is the most powerful mind altering tool you can use in life I highly recommend spending time with that. The book “feeling great” by David D Burns is a great workbook for that skill.
Everything.
The constant shifting of needs/requirements if you’re not absolutely siloed.
For me, that’s the biggest stress of my day is firefighting stuff that comes up from other people fucking up which throws off my routine in the middle of something else that’s “critical” and then the constant shifting of gears.
Everything else? Users, management, etc – all of that to me is just part of IT and I knew that going into it.
I’ve had stressful jobs and chill jobs in IT, both exist, although the chill ones are harder to find…. The most chill was a job where I was super over qualified, and all my work was 100% project based, and not challenging for me (but it was challenging for most of my peers – like I said I was over qualified). That gig was awesome while it lasted (entire department/product was eventually shutdown and we were all laid off) . Also it took me over a decade in the industry to get to that point.
Always get the blame, never get the credit
You are seen as a cost until something breaks that stops the company from doing business. Then you are seen as a cost that hasn’t fixed it fast enough.
* Technology is constantly changing and evolving and the place you work is almost guaranteed to never keep up with that fast-paced evolution. (on top of this,. there can be times when you complete a certain solution and you think “Wow, I just did something really amazingly smart”.. and then a short 3 to 6 months later, conditions have changed that make the thing you did 6 months ago look dumb (even though it wasn’t at the time you did it).
* Leadership and other non-technical people often expect “easy miracle fixes” .. when lots of things are just not that simple or easy or fast to fix. (or they want you to automate things that are not easy to automate).
* It’s not always so much the technical challenges (if you’re alone in a room with a technical problem,. you can usually google it and fix it). It’s often the Human-factors (processes, policies, deficiencies in the way other people do things) that cause the most problems. YOU being “on top of your game” is not enough,.. all your coworkers and etc have to be operating at the top of their game too,. and that’s almost never universally true. If everyone was putting in 150%, that would help forward-traction,.. but these days (arguably legitimately) especially after the pandemic, lots of people are burned out or legitimately just “phoning it in” because they’ve been taken advantage of for to long and deciding to pull back some.
* Users often think “they are special” and should be the 1 person “exempt from the rules”. You want things to be centralized and unified and consistent with as few exceptions or edge cases as possible,.. and Users and Managers trying to throw their weight around are constantly pushing to “be the exception to the rule”.
* someone else mentioned KPA and SLA’s (and other types of metrics and measurements).. but most places that I work, these metrics are almost universally wrong and being interpreted the wrong way. (for example:…. “How many tickets you close per day” is a measure of QUANTITY,. not quality. Just because you “closed a lot of tickets” doesn’t guarantee you satisfied those people or did your job correctly. What we really should be focusing on is slowing down and doing higher quality work,. but “higher quality work” is often much more difficult to measure clearly. (What determines a “satisfied customer” ?.. especially when lots of different customers expect different levels of service )
* “What you did wrong” (or “Tickets you haven’t gotten to yet”).. are often far easier to notice than “things you did right”. I could work hard all day and successfully close 20 tickets,. but if that 21st customer I couldn’t get to emails my Boss at 430pm and complains “Why has no one called me yet?!?!”.. My boss is going to think I’m slacking or avoiding work (which isn’t true,. as I’ve already closed 20 tickets!). This creates a situation of feeling like you can “never really work hard enough” .. because no matter what you do, or how smart you try to work to prevent future problems,. there’s always going to be something you didn’t get to or someone some where feels like you didn’t do a good enough job. It’s kind of like running a marathon and collapsing at the finish line and instead of someone offering you water, they ask “Bro, couldn’t you have run faster?”.. and gives you a Performance Report of “NEEDS IMPROVEMENT”. ;
For me it depends on the company and your boss. If you have a good company that actually enforces rules and standards and a boss that fights for his team then the job is great but these are rare and are the exception. Most IT jobs will have meetings and tell you follow procedure only work with a ticket then the same person who said that will give you work without tickets and let users just swarm your desk asking for help rather than following any procedure.
Another issue i found is they tend to keep dumping new work on you until you can no longer do all of it in one day then they bitch that you arent meeting your quotas etc.
The main problem is IT doesnt make companies money and most users only care about themselves so just want you to help them now not understanding you have 60 tickets in the queue etc.
Basically it can be a thankless job and can suck unless you are lucky and get a good boss.
Lots of uber nerds freaking tf out all the time lmao “I have the net+…let me disconnect your ethernet cable and unplug the server from the PDU” -mass segment of users disconnected immediately, 5,000 support tickets roll in-
Finding a way not to insult ppls ego or intelligence if you talk down or see their eyes glaze over when you get too technical.
Or anything that requires user interaction, a task assigned and communicated to a user 10 times that gets ignored.
As some said SLA and KPI and being understaffed is a big issue. Have 1 IT and they wonder why it takes a while get help. I also was at a place where the IT admin deploy new update without testing break someone or multiple users computers and I’m rushing to figure out what happened. You got a line of people come to you and asking why this is not working. Security sometimes change something and causes a block that would have solved and issue so now you have to figure another way or work around.
People think IT is good but when they get in and after their first year they ready to bail. Its not a easy job.
When everything becomes a priority
Everything is urgent all of the time and the end users fit into one of two groups:
won’t read anything or try to do anything on their own, they won’t learn, they want spoon-feeding constantly
OR
they will do their own damage, delete stuff, try pushing a bunch of buttons, etc. anything BUT contact IT for help until they have made a very big mess and then want us to clean it up for them
And it is answering the same questions over and over again for 20-30 years.