IT Job Advice: Stress

 I would like to talk about something often joked about in the IT space but rarely articulated in a serious fashion. Having worked in IT, I've heard a lot of people switching from what they consider more stressful jobs and I truly believe a lot of people think working in IT is like in TV shows or movies where you can just sit at a desk and answer a question once in a while. The problem is, IT work is very rarely consistent day to day. Some people are easy to deal with, others are more difficult. Some problems take half a second to fix, others can haunt you for months. You may be bored and playing games on your phone on day, and then the next spending 9 hours of your 8 hour work day going non-stop with no end in sight. You will find names that make you recoil because you know what the name means for a ticket. It is a never ending roller coaster of work load ups and downs, people all across the spectrum of personalities and expertise, and a never ending uncertainty that a ticket seems too easy and will turn into months of project work.

The bottom line is, IT work is a never ending stressing uncertainty. If you think getting into IT is just easy sitting at a desk, then you won't make it past Service Desk. Regardless of where you are in IT, starting out or a long time veteran, I'd like to address how to handle stress on the job with a few techniques that work for me in hopes it might help others.

1. People that work in IT are a blend of over achievers and people that just want to get the job out of the way so they can chill. As a result, you may run into people who work outside of hours and basically volunteer hours to "advance" themselves in some way. I've been there, done it, never helped. Bottom line, get paid for every bit of time you're expected to work and if they want to have you work outside of the norm, leverage it by saying "I'll work late today and come in a bit late tomorrow so my hours balance out." If anyone has a problem with that, ask for overtime. Never give away your time for free.

2. What happens when you are running out of time for a ticket? Depends on the job. How should you deal with it? Communicate. Make sure everyone knows what you're struggling with and that the ticket is running out of time. Don't stress alone and be ready to accept whatever happens as just what happened.

3. When it comes to difficult people, there really isn't much of anything you can do with them. Understand that everyone around them probably feels the same as you do dealing with them. Bottom line, keep them at an arms length. Don't worry about making difficult people your friends because they don't want to be. Get in, get out.

4. When all else drives you into a wall, fall back to something simple. Speak with pure, honest, unbiased data, don't go above and beyond or feel guilted to do so, just give them emotionally dead responses to everything so they have nothing to leverage, and call it quits when your work day is up. Bottom line, can't get in trouble for "meets expectations."

5. Finally, how to deal with uncertainty. Accept the fact that every day could be a new adventure. Or it's the same thing you've done a thousand times over and just worded in a way you've never seen before. It's part of the job. Easiest way to succeed is make sure you have lots of documentation, ask every question you can, and be ready to check the internet even on things you think you know. It's an IT job, you're not expected to know everything, you're just expected to know how to find an answer.

It may seem like most of my answers boil down to "just don't stress it." I type this out while in a bit of a haze waiting to go into work for a late night maintenance after waking up early to fix a broken system. IT jobs are stressful. I have been in it long enough to not be afraid to complain, tell people no, or let things fail to avoid a potentially worse rush job. I've stressed myself to the point I considered just quitting and going to stock shelves at a grocery store while looking for another job. In the end, the stress was always self inflicted, failures just gave me more time, difficult people don't always need my help, extra hours never go away, and people always want something. To that end, I learned to just let things go.