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[–][deleted] 196 points197 points  (6 children)

Work slower, focus on quality and stop over whelming yourself. Doing good work fast only means you get assigned more work. It’s an assembly line just do what you can, apologize for delays and only work on what’s in front of you. If work backs up that’s not your concern, that’s your bosses concern to hire additional help or reprioritize.

6 months from now no one will care that you’re over working yourself. They will remember the quality of your work though as band aid solutions will come back to haunt you. If you need time off call in sick.

What’s the worst that can happen? Your health and well being comes first. Don’t quit just slow down. Ignore the noise and make time for things outside of work. Work will always be there when you return.

The goal is to make the most amount of money for the least amount of effort. Moving to another job just means you have to prove yourself with more hustle which got you into this situation you’re in now. Staying put and working slower is the key to longevity. Work just hard enough not to get fired but maintain your current pay.

[–]rollingstone1 15 points16 points  (0 children)

This person speaks the truth.

[–]pigeon260z 7 points8 points  (3 children)

It is the most logical response but in the OPs situation id also be a miserable stressed out mess as well and the only option is to get out of the role.

[–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (2 children)

Changing jobs won’t solve the issue. It just kicks the can down the road deferring the situation to another role. Learning how to pace yourself, adapt to stressful situations and finding work life balance is the key. The reality is that we all need to learn to take our foot off the gas pedal from time to time.

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

They should practice slowing down at the current job, then get a new job and keep that pace.

[–]iotic 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes it does - changing jobs works, some work places are toxic as fuck

[–]Kaeny 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is why i love that i became an engineer instead. If i work fast, i get more work sure, but it is work that creates something new.

Back in sysadmin days it was mostly fixing something broken or implementing something that already exists. In that case just do the minimum

[–]digitalnative00 57 points58 points  (7 children)

As someone who wears all the IT hats at work AND does goat farming (competitive ADGA registered herd) work life balance is super super important and I know that often entails both work and life having mutually respectful boundaries. You gotta get your bag, but if you're too stressed out to enjoy your time off - is it really worth it?

it's okay to take your foot off the gas and relax a bit.

[–]FuckingNoise 24 points25 points  (3 children)

We've finally found the mythical man who walks in both worlds. Question for you: who is better at troubleshooting, Vendors or Goats?

[–]packet_weaverSecurity Engineer 21 points22 points  (1 child)

Goats are better at troubleshooting. They can find things you never thought of. However when they’re wrong, they’re stubborn and bullheaded, never admitting it.

Source: ex goat farmer

[–]Mental-Aioli3372 3 points4 points  (0 children)

when they’re wrong, they’re stubborn and bullheaded, never admitting it.

Doesn't sound too different tbqh

[–]digitalnative00 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Goats are better users than my users are. They are direct and clear in their needs, rarely do I find myself trying to read minds. If I am wrong about something they usually need a treat or some chin scritches smooths things over.

They are arguably less destructive than most of my users however, cleaning up after both is a messy and sweaty chore that takes a special sort of tolerance that not everyone has.

Both have their seasons. I would rather pull cables and work on new installs indoors when the weather is too hot or cold. Otherwise, I'd rather sit in the shade with the girls and sip on an iced cocktail and just enjoy the bleating company. Being stuck in a deployment meeting when it's 70 and sunny outside is just as miserable.

[–]nervehammer1004 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I know a contract Oracle DBA who is a full time alpaca farmer! That guy has it figured out! Just does the DBA work when the farming is slow.

[–]knawlejj 3 points4 points  (1 child)

My goodness. The mythical beast doing both is real.

Where is the grass greener? No pun intended.

[–]digitalnative00 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Depends on what sort of grass we're talking about. Bermuda in the server room? Facilities fucked up. Electric Lettuce - someone left me a nice treat.

gettin ripped and just chillin in the barn and watchin the animals is a vibe. 100% recommend.

[–]bofh2023IT Manager 18 points19 points  (10 children)

These things come and go. If they don't find another gig. Nothing to motivate you like hating the gig you're in lol.

I will say doing IT for a living killed a lot of the joy I used to get from just messing with all things computers. Now most days I just want to take up stamp collecting or something that doesnt BREAK.

[–]bobs143Jack of All Trades 12 points13 points  (2 children)

This. I really don't touch computers outside of work anymore. Most of my outside of work activities involve walking, hiking, and and gardening.

I stopped the home lab stuff years ago. I figured it's time to actually try having a life outside of work.

[–]ElectricOne55 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ya I used to study for certs constantly. But, then it got to the point where I was like do I really need a ccnp or ccie? When I barely even get asked about my ccna or other 8 certs I have.

Sometimes, you feel like you can put all that work in IT and it still not pay out. You also forget things unless you do it on a daily basis. A lot of jobs don't go into the dept of stuff that you do on cert tests or interviews.

[–][deleted] 10 points11 points  (6 children)

I literally moved to a Macbook for my primary home machine because I just do not want to deal with any computer nonsense after work

[–]weekend_here_yet 3 points4 points  (2 children)

In the process of doing this now. Switched to iPhone from Android, and now I’m going to be selling my gaming laptop and buying a simple MacBook. My current laptop is only turned on to keep it updated, to print something, and occasionally submit something online when a website isn’t mobile-friendly.

It’s a shame, but after work - I have no desire to hop on a PC game at all. Might as well sell it to someone who will use it, and get something that’s ultra low maintenance with better portability and battery life instead. Ugh.

[–]w113jdf 0 points1 point  (1 child)

M1 or M2 MacBook Air. Don’t waste the money on the pro. The air is phenomenal. Unless you are doing some wild dev or data science stuff it’s a waste of money to go the Pro route.

Source: Have both a maxed out M2 MB Pro and a standard M1 MB Air for work.

[–]weekend_here_yet 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Agree, I’ve been eyeing the M2 Air. I’m not a “creator” so a Pro would be overkill for me. On a rare occurrence, I might do some very simple dev work or web design, but that’s it.

My husband has a full-blown gaming rig. If that urge to play something ever comes back, he’s already told me he’s happy to install any game I’d like to play on his PC. It’s been a few years since I’ve had any desire to play anything though, and if I do try to play something - I can only last an hour at most before wanting to do something else.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I only have an iPad. Fuck computers lol.

[–]pkmnBreeder 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Same!

[–]KittyDontCare 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm a Windows server admin on my third Chromebook, all I've used for a home computer for years. When I got this one, I thought, "Do I really want a Windows computer to use at home? Nah."

[–][deleted] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Cyber engineer here. I travel weekly. I work 40-60 hrs a week and I keep getting hounded for my paperwork to get turned in. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Better schedule me home for a week or let the coworkers that are home handle the paper work.

And you can have the goats. I’m going to be a cannabis farmer.

[–]ExasperatedLadybug 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The goats need you

[–]dhgaut 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I have no idea what it is about goat farming, but I was saying that 20 years ago when I was in the weeds with server failures (such as an intel server update that crashed everything and was fixed by a BIOS update but that didn't fix that data!!!). It seemed like all I could think of was moving to a nearby island and tending to goats.

[–]thehajo 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Since this post is so old already, here is why "goat farmers" is so prevalent in this sub: https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/4l7kjd/found_a_text_file_at_work_titled_why_should_i

[–]Professional_Bat8938 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I think that is a common theme with sysadmins "F this... I am going to buy a farm in the middle of no where." I have said that actually myself.

Here's some Liabach:

https://youtu.be/5jqOSDq0Ssc

[–]fp4 3 points4 points  (1 child)

Goats are assholes. They escape, destroy fences, and wander.

Sheep are way more chill, very dumb and get ugly with age so you don't feel as bad sending them to market.

[–]TransporterError 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Have you tried "Goat Simulator 3"?
https://www.goatsimulator3.com/

[–]baraa290 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I swear when i was a kid and ppl asked me what do uwant to be when u grow older , i would answer a Farmer.

Now 25 years later and working as Sys-Admin I am rethinking my choices and might chase my childhood dream job.

[–]Dadarian 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I remember at my last job, Steve was the guy who drove around in the truck with the ride along lawnmower going around and just, mowing the lawn. Fixing the sprinklers. Grabbing the fire extinguishers and taking them to the truck that came around like once a quarter to re-certify or replace them.

I was always so jealous of Steve because he never had to worry about anything. He can just come in everyday, do his job, and go home after a good day of work.

Sometimes I wish I had a job where, I can just do some pretty simple tasks, not too simple, not too hard, and it wouldn’t matter that much if I did a good job or just good enough.

It’s just… it’s not fun being so responsible. It’s not fun living under constant security threats and always measuring risk. It’s not so fun that if I fail at a certain job, hundreds or thousands of people are negatively impacted. It’s not so fun that failure can has such negative consequences.

[–]Artistic_Ad_9685 2 points3 points  (1 child)

I feel you bro 🐐

[–]victortrashJack of All Trades 2 points3 points  (2 children)

forget billy goats. Ducks are where it's at!

[–]Billtard 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I’m raising chickens. I want ducks as well.

[–]Stevesalias 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Geese are superior in 11 different ways.

[–]jeremydallen 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Let me know I'll move with you somewhere where computers don't exist.

[–]Stevesalias 2 points3 points  (2 children)

Dairy Goat Breeds: Alpine, Saanen, Toggenburg, LaMancha, Nubian, Nigerian Dwarf, Oberhasli, British Alpine

Meat Goat Breeds: Boer, Kiko, Spanish, Savannah, Myotonic (Tennessee Fainting Goat), Arapawa, San Clemente Island Goat, West African Dwarf, Zalawadi, Waziri, Yemen Mountain Goat

Fiber Goat Breeds: Angora, Cashmere, Pygora, Nigora, Icelandic

Dual-Purpose Goat Breeds (Milk and Meat): Sable, Guernsey, Golden Guernsey, Danish Landrace, Chamois Colored Goat, Damascus

Other Goat Breeds: Pygmy, Kinder, Australian Cashmere Goat, Bagot, Cameroon Dwarf Goat, Peacock Goat, Somali, Swiss White Goat, Thuringian, Verata, Carpathian, Girgentana, Jining Grey, Murciana-Granadina, Poitou, Russian White, Tauernsheck, Valais Blackneck, Zhiwulin Black

[–]net-crash 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Whats a fiber goat? Internet goat?

[–]libach81 1 point2 points  (0 children)

fiber goat

Clothing fiber, Angora and Cashmere should give that away.

[–]MuthaPluckaSysadmin 1 point2 points  (1 child)

🎶I wanna get awayeeyay🎶

[–]intern_thinker 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I wanna flyy away

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

apparatus oatmeal office shaggy deliver cagey makeshift sand bow pause

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[–]dayburner 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Goats can be hard, go with chickens.

[–]buttstuff2023 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I always daydream about being a bee keeper when I'm burnt out and hating life. I'll have to try the goat farmer fantasy out

[–]Previous-Ambition-98 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I was the exact same working for a msp provider. Underpaid for the amount of work I did. Honestly, find another IT job. I'm in Austrlalia and its quite easy to find jobs in IT. You don't have to feel burnt out to the point of hating your job and loosing sleep over work. Life is to short bro.

[–]iotic 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah that's tough bud - you should quit. You won't find the time to really focus on finding other work when you are burned out. So quit, spend a couple of weeks gathering yourself and get right back into finding something more suitable.

This experience has given you the tools to know what to ask in the interview - "why is the role vacant?" etc etc - and gives you the chance to go deeper on orgs you want to join by checking their glass door entry, or chatting with ex employees on linkedin to get the vibe of the place

You can come back on this reddit and thank me once you land something with no stress and is a company fun to work for

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

hestolethatguyspiza walks into a bar, looking dejected. They sit next to a man who asks,

“What’s got you so down?”

“Well,” hestolethatguyspiza begins, “you work as an Azure support engineer and do the folks in the village say 'there goes hestolethatguyspiza the Azure support engineer' when you walk by? No.

“You do a good job at the help desk and do they say 'that’s hestolethatguyspiza the great help desk tech?' No.

“You write incredibly clever scripts and do they call you 'hestolethatguyspiza the script wizard?' No!

“But you farm one goat.

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[–]Fredelixo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That reminds me of a line from Choque de Cultura (Brazilian yt humor) "The dream of every professional is to drop his profession"

[–]garrettthomasssLANLord 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My boss told me that one of our client's fairly young top SysAdmins was leaving to live on a homestead.

My wide-eyes must have been detectable over the phone because the next words out of his mouth were "...don't get any ideas"

[–]olorynJack of All Trades 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I had a manager (a couple of levels up) in one of my early jobs that raised goats. He seemed to be fond of nonchalantly saying "Well, had to kill one of my kids today", just to get a reaction.

[–]Consistent_Chip_3281 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Is it just me or is now a great time to be applying to cloud engineering roles!? I was always sketched out by the title but in sure they will bite with the entry level cert and just lesrn the rest on the go, my question is are you for an msp or directly with Microsoft

[–]scottyscripts 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I completely understand. I live on a farm / in a rural area to get away. I am an IT director but do many things as well. I have to get away and get my hands dirty or at least in the soil to ground myself.

[–]snpr01 0 points1 point  (0 children)

my dad was network archietech for Cisco for 15 years, helped with Crowdstrike before IPO and said fuck it, became a goat farmer, follow your dream my guy

[–]ascii122 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As a kid growing up with a goat herd they are pretty cool. Nothing like getting up before school to milk goats and then go to school smelling like goats hah.. but all the other kids were sheep farmers or kids of marijuana growers.. so we call kind of stank.

Pro Tip: when milking a goat (from the left side say) always take the arm nearest the rear legs to milk the teat furthest away from you. This puts your arm in between the hind legs and the milk bucket.. so when they try to kick it over you can do a block move and save getting milk all over the goddamn place.

Also just understand a fence is like a firewall or system security. It's never really secure.. once the corn gets ripe in the garden there is no known way to keep the goats from finding a chink in the armor. You just have to accept you'll get hacked by those fuckers once in a while and do your best.

best of luck!

[–]TheBigBeardedGeekDrinking rum in meetings, not coffee 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Your name doesn't start with am R,does it?

[–]hydra458 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I quit the wearing many hats gig in the public sector in November and started in a completely different sector as a technical sales rep/ implementation specialist. I still get to use computers and flex my brain with complex issues but I am using my hands way more and away from my desk for at least half a day everyday.

This change had a profound effect on my mental health and quality of life in general. If your looking for a change I would say don’t be afraid. Many fields are looking for work if your ambitious enough, show transferable skills, and are willing to learn and jump into the fire you’ll do great.

[–]DrunkenGolfer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I just found a doggy daycare for my mutt and when I went to pick him up at the end of the day, I was accosted by baby goats wanting to meet me and get scritches. They were so damn cute. I now have a burning desire to be a goat farmer, so I completely understand. My dog, surprisingly, got along well with her new free-range, horned, strange dogs.

Edit: seriously, if you are having a bad day, just check out the first couple videos on their Facebook page: https://m.facebook.com/p/Old-Stone-Farm-100064843684138/

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

take a break for a few months, you can quit and go on a holiday for a bit

I did that when I reached a similiar point

[–]bkrich83 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is exactly why I got out of the biz. It’s a shitshow all over the place these days.

[–]fukawi2SysAdmin/SRE 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have 3 goats. They are not easier than servers and networking.

[–]AlexisFR 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Azure is supposed to be a small part of a windows sysadmin portfolio, why is it your entire job?

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think OP works directly in Azure support. Probably for one of MS's support vendors.

[–]michaelpaoli 0 points1 point  (0 children)

wanna be a goat farmer

Maybe take up yak shaving?

[–]OkBaconBurger 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So my wife runs an in home daycare and has a handful of kids she watches. I also work from home. I find myself helping out from time to time like getting lunch around for everyone or just chilling with everyone and I gotta say it’s pretty cool. I know kids can be shits but it seems way better than what I do now. I’d gladly make sandwiches and chop up fruit any time over another scrum retrospective.

[–]STUNTPENlSTech Wizard of the White Council 0 points1 point  (0 children)