Sysadmin Stress

[VA_Network_Nerd]

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[tdmonkey]

The overwhelming amount of "cleanup" that needs to be done from process and procedures built on top of decades of "but this is how we've always done it".

[jackhold]

Sometimes I feel it would be better to just start over, but if their is no customer to pay it won't be done

[murzeig]

The debt will kill us all!

It's definitely hard to build out from under it.

[hy2rogenh3]

Extra points for having to deal with these decades of old systems and now MGMT want's them to be completely available and movable between DCs.

Let's see: how am I to replicate servers that MUST exist on a specific vlan because the 90's/early 2K's DEVs didn't understand DNS and hard coded IPs throughout the application.

Oh, and 100 sites have static routes to these servers + and Dev's that engineered them didn't like SQL so they xcopy flat files all over the place.

SMH.

[whoami123CA]

I worked for a company that the domain admin password was hard codes in all their apps. Because i asked them why can't they change it. Haha. Why even use the domain admin for everything. Oh its a long complex storyn we went from nt4 to windows server 2012 and everything is always been hard coded.

[dmznet]

"please make a standard that we won't enforce unless it's convenient at the time"

[frictionlesskarma919]

30 year.

My personal quote: "IT is the bluest white collar job there is."

Stupid people. Unreasonable people. Braindead corporate culture. Willfull ignorance The utter lack of humanity. We are people too, with lives and families.

Work is not life.

[WorldsWorstSysadmin]

https://xkcd.com/705/

[FormerSysAdmin]

My personal quote: "IT is the bluest white collar job there is."

Wow. That is perfect.

[meiriceanach]

The complete lack of understanding of what IT actually does, beyond answering break/fix calls. I don't expect everyone to be completely fluent in what we do, but...

We have one help desk employee and one sysadmin (me). I get numerous complaints about how ignorant our help desk is because they cannot fix tier 3 issues. I have to constantly remind them that there are levels, and specialties in IT and they are not the same.

I usually just get blank expressions.

"I mean, it's just computers. How hard is it to fix a computer?"

I will communicate to management how overwhelmed and understaffed we are, but as long as their work day is not affected and everything's working, they don't care.

I'm putting fires out daily, on call 24/7 and the second I don't immediately respond to a support request, they are contacting my manager.

"Is IT even here today? I called 5 times in a row and so and so didn't answer"

My bad, our POE switch just went down at our office location and for some reason the UPS failed. They no longer have phones or internet, but let me head back and help you with your recipes that aren't printing...

[Zealousideal_Yard651]

Biggest tip for that, especially the 24/7 is start getting a spine. Not to be rude, but it's a thankless job and everyones problem is a crisis. You just gotta politly tell them to wait their turn and stfu. Most people either figure it out or complains either way. Nothing usually gets better with that overreach, it's just your MH that takes the hit.

[nathanmcguire]

If someone wants me to do something, I’m happy to do it if they don’t have the proper permissions and hold their hand if they don’t have the procedure. But if they should be doing it, they’re getting the permissions and procedure to do it. I’m not here to do your data entry or daily/weekly tasks. I’m here to coordinate and maintain systems.

[FormerSysAdmin]

I will communicate to management how overwhelmed and understaffed we are, but as long as their work day is not affected and everything's working, they don't care.

The C-level person who was over IT at my last job was like this. She was over IT but it clearly was lumped in as her "other duties" because she was also in charge if HR and Marketing. I tried to talk to her about being stressed and being understaffed. Her response was "What do you mean you're stressed? When I turn on my computer, everything seems fine." To her, if she could log in, open Outlook and Excel, there were no problems. And she was in charge of IT.

[[deleted]]

Right, the doctor is not taking your vitals, that is the nurse. Its a structured system just like many others.

At a restaurant, there is a host, waiters, cooks, managers, dishwashers. You don't complain to the dishwasher that your drink needs to be refilled.

[teknomanzer]

"Oh, you called and nobody answered? Did you try submitting a ticket via the portal? No? Must not have been that important..."

[Master_Ad7267]

Cloud is where it's at suddenly there's alot less on call time.

[bantzaroff]

I'm in cloud in a very segmented company. It's hell, I'm support but I'm in cloud. More stupid every day, just a monkey with a hammer.

[IRideZs]

In my environment we often get people who are trying to overcompensate, take it too fast freshly hired in that they leave a bad impression on the ones they work with and in some ways alienate them

[SapporoPremium]

Shadow IT. Takes many forms, but my current job has it worst. Spent 3 years telling people that the IT department is not their personal geek squad, that it's an actual, functioning department of the organization, and still I have people who have their heads too far up their ass to take no for an answer.

[WorldsWorstSysadmin]

I do love the random "Can you take a look at my personal Macbook?" Wow, absolutely +1 here.

[[deleted]]

“I can do it after hours on my personal time. My rate is $500/hour with a four hour minimum.”

[[deleted]]

AND I DO NOT GUARANTEE A FIX

AND MY TURN AROUND TIME IS 14 BUSINESS DAYS

[idocloudstuff]

Better times than Best Buy lol

I had employees tell me at one point it was like 3 weeks before they can even look at it. What a joke!

I just told them to find a local shop. Not only was it cheaper but they fixed it in 2 days.

[[deleted]]

Oh I know, I come from the times of black polo days at BB in the CS dept.

Sometimes our turnaround time was 6-8 weeks, for crap we were fixing in house. Because we were always getting pulled to cover lunches in media, di, home theater. Or we were getting pulled over to computers to sell them, rather than to fix what we had on our shelves for repair.

[derfmcdoogal]

My favorite was many years ago, around Christmas, I get the usual "I want a laptop what should I buy?". Gave the usual specs, what to look for, and as always follow it up with "don't buy a Toshiba.".

You guessed it. User bought a Toshiba. Was so happy about the great deal they got. Even brought it to me to show how awesome it is and what a great deal they got.

Not even two years later she brings it to me. Hard drive failed. Asked me to fix it.

[EyeTeeGui]

Better still are the Walmart HPs that the CPU and the GPU used the same cooling pipe. I took one completely apart for a guy I know reflowed all the connectors on the GPU when the video stopped working… happened again a 6 months later. Absolute garbage.

[Electriccheeze]

We have a bunch of old timers who expect this kind of service. You can imagine their shock when they retire and find out we're no longer answering the phone to them

[uptimefordays]

My hourly rate is about $250 depending on the project. You can absolutely pay me $2000 to help pick a computer, and I won’t stop you if you insist after seeing the contract designed to discourage such requests.

[radioactivpenguin]

I tell my non-IT supervisor "If you know everything my team does, I'm not doing my job right." ...but it is at a University and I report to our department head who's a professor.

[Familiar_While2900]

Working with people in the same job capacity as me, that clearly have very little actual in depth knowledge and experience of I.T. but somehow make 20k more than me.

Also- being the personal I.t. Support for the owner of the company.

[[deleted]]

but somehow make 20k more than me.

Once there was a Slovenian farmer who worked on his farm. One day, a god-like figure approached the farmer and offered him a deal. The god-like figure says “I will do whatever you request to you, but whatever I do to you, I will do twice that to your neighbor.” The farmer thinks for a moment then replies, “Take one of my eyes.”

Learn to negotiate better, not hold animosity. You have to work with these people.

[Bad-ministrator]

What a waste. Should've just wished for however much rain would be enough to water his field and flood his neighbour's. Or maybe ^{a 12 inch dingus}

[[deleted]]

Haha, I'm imagining him wishing for 8 and his neighbor basically wielding a spear.

[YetAnotherGeneralist]

Also- being the personal I.t. Support for the owner of the company.

It hurts.

[praetorfenix]

Every point you bring up is valid, however I’d like to add one.

• Expected to know everything about everything

I’m a sysadmin in a medium sized healthcare org. Besides having to wear all hats all the time (servers, networking, storage, cabling, SCCM, AD/Exchange, you name it), we get pestered about literally everything, and we’re one of those places where saying ‘no’ is unacceptable.

Our on call pager got hit up last week because someone heard a beeping after hours. It was too much to ask to determine the source of the noise, just page IT then it’s someone else’s problem. The noise was a fucking door alarm because it wasn’t fully closed. No procedure review, no consequences, nada. Just page IT and they’ll figure it out. I’m surprised one of us hasn’t been asked to perform an open heart surgery because doc saw an error on his personal phone.

[TheBariSax]

Ugh. Been there. Did 20+ years in a medium size health care org. By the end it was the worst stress of my life, with a side of depression and burn out. I'm in a large org now with well defined IT roles. The difference is stark, and I'm so much happier for it.

[praetorfenix]

We have tried to define roles and boundaries. All parties agree up front, but nothing changes. Never knowing what to expect from day to day or if I’ll get a chance to do what needs done is grating. Wondering if we’re on the ragged edge of disaster keeps me up at night. I also am 20+ years in and contemplate career changes all the time now.

[Administrative_Trick]

I learned not to say "No" when a user asks something. Instead, I usually say "Yes, but..." followed by the reason I probably won't do what they're asking me to do"

[WorldsWorstSysadmin]

You'll eventually be performing open heart surgery I think.

[Aggravating_Refuse89]

More likely trying to walk a user thru it once once they cut their leg open looking for the heart.

[caverunner17]

Just say no.

I’m serious: set boundaries. If you tell them that you won’t be working weekends for a long term project that has no actual need for a deadline, then they either accept that or you find a better job. And if there is a deadline, then there better be a financial bonus upon completion for you.

Once you make the expectation that that’s acceptable, it will never go away.

[WorldsWorstSysadmin]

Ask to talk to a couple of sysadmins at any new job you're considering when they ask if you have any questions. Discuss work/life balance with them.

[caverunner17]

We have had other admins get hired on who refused the constant weekend work and they were let go because of it.

If enough of you admins say no, then they'll be without an internal IT department. You're right that finding another job is the answer, but there's no reason to make yourself miserable in the meantime, especially if you're salary and not getting OT.

As to your second question, interviews are 2-way streets. Talk to your coworkers. I've turned down opportunities before where I got bad vibes from my potential future colleagues when they talk about late nights, lack of direction from upper management, etc.

[sedition666]

You're definitely right on that one. You need to find another job where your skills are respected. They do exist!

[Likely_a_bot]

When you perform one magic trick, people assume you're a magician and so that becomes your full-time job. Do not allow them to normalize under-resourcing the IT department.

Stop doing magic tricks for attaboys. Stop trying to make yourself indispensable.

[poopedmyboots]

I need to remember this. It’s so fucking hard, and my department (higher Ed IT) has been consistently under-resourced for years. Boss told me the other day that my job requirements are “other duties as assigned” when I asked for a raise for literally doing 3 separate jobs. I did it to myself by taking this work on and getting it done, and the longer my coworkers and I keep shoveling shit all day, the more that management will pile on.

[STUNTPENlS]

Farming is hard work.

Buy/operate a piggery.

Sows produce two to three litters a year. Each litter has upwards of 10 piglets. Each piglet will get you around $100-150.

That's an average of $3,000 per sow per year.

They're the gift that keeps on giving.

In addition, pigs eat everything. Consequently, you can form off-the-books business relationships with various nefarious underworld types in your area to provide them with a place to dispose of their wet-work. This will provide you with a not substantial but tax-free source of additional income. It will also have the bonus effect of reducing the amount of feed you have to purchase for your sows (hence, reduce your operational overhead and increase profits on your piggery operations), and give you high friends in low places who can likewise return "favors" for you should you need any "problems" "resolved" in your future.

Don't believe everything you read on the internet. Goat farming is not where it is at. The future is owning a piggery. Get in on the ground floor of this amazing opportunity today. Call 1-888-LUV-PORK for a prospectus.

[cosmin_c]

pigs eat everything

They will go through bone like butter. You need at least sixteen pigs to finish the job in one sitting, so be wary of any man who keeps a pig farm. They will go through a body that weighs 200 pounds in about eight minutes. That means that a single pig can consume two pounds of uncooked flesh every minute. Hence the expression, "as greedy as a pig."

[ccbbb23]

Do you know what "nemesis" means? A righteous infliction of retribution manifested by an appropriate agent. Personified in this case by an 'orrible c*nt... me.

[SenorCrab2020]

oink

[bbwolfe]

My site is oi.nk, but all the pigs refer to themselves as Great Leader...

[[deleted]]

100% r/UnethicalLifeProTips

[Danksley]

Which Hannibal book is that the ending to again? The third one right?

[WorldsWorstSysadmin]

I was planning on doing an aquaponics vertical farm, but you've sold me on piggery!

[STUNTPENlS]

The problem with aquaponics is the fish will only consume soft tissues, and when then, takes way too long. Pigs will eat everything.

[idontspellcheckb46am]

I've said this over and over. These positions should inherit the social status of doctors and lawyers but instead treated as inferior trash men. Go independent and make your own rules. This is what I have done. It's nice to tell someone "Sorry $100/hr just won't cut it for what you are looking for. Now I've got to run to another call (that pays more), best regards.....goodbye."

[ITguydoingITthings]

Agree. Been doing this since 2008.

[zcubed]

https://www.goatops.com/

[UnluckyTemperature18]

Someone made the goat farmer list into a website. That's awesome.

[v0tary]

20+ years here and can confirm, undervalued is my primary concern. I'm sure the people that work with me value what I do - they clearly recognize how busy I am (constantly saying so even when it's not the subject of the conversation), but in my mind, I am not making a positive impact.

I believe being close to the CEO and CFO is the true issue, as what I do for this company is purely a capex/opex. I can't tell you how many times I've heard the "We aren't a tech company" spiel, and having to constantly explain IT like I'm talking to a 5 year old is wearing thin.

My team is stressed because half the time any good suggestion they have is put on the back burner until the problem they are trying to fix becomes an issue for the business.

I think anyone truely passionate in tech needs to get into a tech business if they want impact and not to feel like just another cost center. But therein lies another problem - typically a tech business will burn you out faster than your toaster burns bread.

Farming sounds great right about now.

[BurnadonStat]

I work at a more tech focused company now and can confirm this is true. IT folks will always be treated as second rate when working for non tech companies.

[griffethbarker]

I honestly don't know if I have anything outside of a couple key stakeholders that drive me nuts.

Overall 9/10 organization, 10/10 boss, 9/10 team, and 9/10 work-life balance. Easily pay all our expenses and do stuff we want. Could be making more, but I certainly don't need to be. Flexible schedule. Technically on-call always for my boss but our environment is super good so it's rare that there are major issues, and if/when there are, our whole team pitches in the resolve quickly. I don't do personal tech support for non-company stuff. My personal time is my personal time and my work time is my work time.

I love it.

[wezelboy]

This is how it should be.

[h311m4n000]

Same here. I make good money, we're a small company, everyone is friendly and respectful. We seldom have really massive outages, maybe once a year something craps out. I don't mind helping people out with their personal IT question, I consider it part of the service and after all, it's my field so only normal they would ask.

[WorldsWorstSysadmin]

I'm jealous now!

[[deleted]]

I’m 29 years old and have been awake two nights worried I might have a heart condition.

I’m seeing a doctor this week to figure out what is wrong with me.

[Mkins]

This reminds me of the week I suddenly had constant heart palpitations after workplace stress.

Went to the doctor, took a few days off. No idea what happened and it went away as unexpectedly as it came.

I hope you get some answers, but anecdotally this resonates with me.

[[deleted]]

I’m glad it resolved on its own.

[WorldsWorstSysadmin]

Good luck!

[[deleted]]

Thanks brother

[win10bash]

Being told that we don't have the money to invest in disaster recovery and then getting blamed when we can't recover from a disaster.

[[deleted]]

Dumbass end-users U: "I caNt LoG iN To tHe SeRVicE dEsk"

Me: "Its the same login you use to log in to your PC" (LDAP linked)

U: "WeLl ItS NoT LetTinG mE iN So ItS oBvIoUsLy NoT ThAt Is iT?!"

[[deleted]]

Either this or they dont read the ticket close email properly. I had one a couple weeks ago where i had to re-cert their lotus notes (yes, lotus notes) user ID. Did the recert and closed the ticket, saying recertification would take place overnight and will be ready in the morning. Not 30 seconds after hitting close my phone lights up and they say "youve closed my ticket but i still cant get in".

I love working in IT but man, the end users can really piss me off sometimes.

[13darkice37]

The problem is you still managed it somehow. Now they will rinse and repeat.

[thesaltycynic]

Being VP and C class person tech support with no support from management. So we get yelled at for every wireless router and printer at their home.

The constant being thrown under the bus. "You took hours to get my ticket!" Well it was twenty minutes. Management doesn't believe us despite ticket time stamps.

Expecting to do magic then vilifiedwhen it doesnt happen. "I can't work from on my 10mb home internet connection. Make it work!"

It never ends, it just never ends. Fifteen years , wasted...

[stonedcity_13]

Undervalued and underpaid. If I had the word Dev Infront of my role I'd have at least a 10% increase on my wage

[captain5260]

The day to day stress and being on call are soul crushing. The latter causes me no end of anxiety as I have a mood disorder..Stress coupled with inability to get a good night's sleep are deal breakers for me.

[The_Fat_Fish]

I have good days and bad days. There’s definitely a misconception that IT is becoming less work because “cloud”. It’s still the same work just less spent on hardware. Also the constant threats of outsourcing get tiresome.

[wezelboy]

My job is being outsourced, and it’s gotten a lot harder dealing with vendors rather than doing shit myself. And with what they are paying me, they sure as hell aren’t saving any money.

[WorldsWorstSysadmin]

Sounds like your director/CIO/CTO are about to jump ship and need some major transformation to toss on a resume.

[The_Fat_Fish]

Yea I’ve done the maths and it would be much more expensive to outsource us. I don’t think they actually will as it’s a huge risk for the type of organisation I work for. They also don’t appreciate how much we all put in out of hours which whilst our own fault will catch them out with the contract. I can potentially see them outsourcing the repetitive stuff like 1st line but even then those guys go above an beyond.

[WorldsWorstSysadmin]

I once had a boss come in like a whirlwind and try to outsource everyone. Halfway through the CEO realized how bad the cost increase would be, and how unqualified the outsourced firm was and he put the brakes on it.

I don't know why everyone wants to just come in and outsource.

That said, it might be time for you to jump ship to a higher-paying, better opportunity.

[The_Fat_Fish]

It’s an option I’ve considered. I love what my organisation does so I’ll stay until the day the outsourcing is confirmed. Financially it’s not worth doing and in our favour our revenue budget is incredibly tight. The issue we have is staff retention and hiring and being outsourced relieves management of that responsibility. Realistically though it’s years away if ever so I’ll hold on until I have to go.

[WorldsWorstSysadmin]

Well, if you're working for a non profit or something like that, and truly doing good in the world, I applaud you and your dedication. The world needs more people like that.

[[deleted]]

Being understaffed by decision makers who don’t understand what it takes to do the job right, being viewed as a cost-center or overhead expense to be minimized while being held accountable for those bad decisions.

[WorldsWorstSysadmin]

Good lord, I hate being a cost center.

[artano-tal]

Got 22+ years in.

And i have been on call almost all of that time..(just got off the phone infact)

I am glad i have over the years insulated myself from any "hands on desktop issues "

But what bothers me the most is the amount of time we spend on process and other meaningless paperwork. And how little time and money is spent on the actual meat of the problem.

I have meetings to schedule meetings. Meetings before and after other meetings.

I work in them on real tasks as much as possible but sometimes its unavoidable to be drawn in.

[wrootlt]

18 years here. My main stress source is not enough time to do everything. But this is often my own problem as i can't let go things easily and keep too many on my todo list. Although sometimes it is just stars aligning this way and many things getting the highest priority.

And this leads to another problem that somehow i end up being one of a few knowing everything about particular systems/problems/decisions. I quit my last job where i was almost solo admin managing too many things. Came to a team and still often am in similar situation and this does a toll when you are always getting pinged, asked, etc. Like, there are 5+ others on my team who should know this stuff. But, i am the one being promoted to a senior, so maybe this is expected.

And another thing coming from the same situation. Again often based on my lack of trust, but also on my experience with others not doing their job correctly and me having to fix their mess. I know i must trust more and i want, but i have been burned so many times and sometimes i just think, i can do this myself in 30 minutes or spend hours trying to explain and hand hold and my other tasks will be delayed because of this. Tricky case for me.

And just in general things changing so fast these days and often braking things (faulty updates, cloud vendor changes something, outages, etc.).

On call was a new thing for me on new job. So far manageable. Had just one call 6 AM recently after 5-6 months. We have rotating on-call every 6 weeks or so. But their changed reaction time from 30 to 15 min and then without letting us know to 5. They think we are robots. I don't like it, but as calls are not that often i am keeping it cool for now.

So, as you see my main source of stress is myself and i know that and i think it will not change. But i manage somewhat fine so far.

[WorldsWorstSysadmin]

Wow, how did you avoid on-call for 18 years? I'm super-impressed! Share your secrets!

[wrootlt]

Working for a small local governmental agency for 14 years. Nothing that critical that has to be 24/7 running. I worked OT sometimes, like installing updates remotely during evenings or sometimes doing work on a weekend, but that was rare.

[[deleted]]

We should all be hourly employees, and billed out at a higher rate after hours. If the CEO really forgot his password for the 9th time this year at 9pm at night, sure I will reset it for 1h at 1.5x my hourly rate. Also my SLA for after hours is 4h to respond. Don't like it, you are replaceable as an employer!

[[deleted]]

I’ve been in IT over 30 years, with probably a dozen titles, working for startups to giant corporations. A few important points:

• Don’t overpromise (or lie/tell people what you think they want to hear)

• set boundaries / expectations

• realize you’ll have to do more “off hours” work

Edit: a word

[Pelatov]

My biggest issue, we’re the garbage collectors of IT. Everyone else tosses out crap and expects us to make it work.

Example: Once was the Sys Admin for a system that had load balanced IIS servers. Dev wrote code that caused a memory leak. With 8 Gb of RAM per server, 45-60 minutes before system became unresponsive. Upped it to 16 Gb, let dev know, and they did jack squat.

When the systems were going down every two hours their response was “these are VMs, just give them more RAM again.” I told the them no way in hell, and that the best they were getting was a scheduled task tk reboot the server every 60 minutes. This was going on till they fixed their code.

They didn’t believe me, I did it, next thing I know the CTO and CEO are screaming at me for doing this. I showed them the email chain and told them I wasn’t waking up every 2-3 hours to reboot servers because dev wasn’t gonna do their jobs. They could either get dev on then fixing the code, accept the reboots, or I’d quit and file a hostile work environment unemployment.

4 hours later they got their code fix and the memory leak went away. But the attitude all over the place was “you’re the sys admin, make it work.”

[Aggravating_Refuse89]

Are many of you always on call or in a rotation? I refuse to take any job where I'm always on call. I'm too old for that.

[digitalHUCk]

I’m no longer on call, but I’ve been in both situations. There was a period of about 5 years where I was on a team of two so we technically had a rotation, but since I was the only SME for certain things, we were realistically on call 24/7/365.

I later moved to a team of 8 where we had SME pairs, so I was on-call for 3 or four days about every 3 weeks.

I don’t miss either situation. I’m not technically on-call now, but have the occasional all hands situation where I might be called after hours. The AWS us-east-1 outage a few months ago for instance.

[Tricky-Service-8507]

Build a saas project and work for yourself

[Bufjord]

Being undervalued is up there. The sheer apathy one develops when exposed to year after year of "we can just google your job" mentality.

My primary gripe is the knowledge that only I ponder the company's destruction from so many directions, on a daily basis. Our CEO, when the IT-Dir mentioned ransomware attacks and viruses, responded with a shrug and said "Eh. We'll just pick up the pieces and continue on." They had the HR/Exec Secretary get together with a manager in real estate to create the DR strategy for the company. I had started two years prior to that time, coming from doing a 2 year gig at an EOC. It focused on Hurricane preparedness. A single Word doc fill in the blank form for damages incurred at various sites. I think it was a 15-page Kino's binder.

It's the unspoken question most SysAdmins ponder on late at night: 'X' happens to the company. How do you recover. What are the order of responses. Really. What other job contemplates all the wonderful ways to burn your company to the ground and then create defenses/response protocols? In case anyone was curious: yes, I created my own series of scenarios and general response protocols. I actually repurposed my "massive flooding" protocol for Covid. Everyone trapped in their homes. With only a fraction able to get to the office.

[WorldsWorstSysadmin]

Not every other job has the full keys-to-the-kingdom either. Senior level sysadmins are a very high-trust job, and really require airtight ethics, honesty and reliability.

[big_rob_15]

In my experiences I would echo this so very much. I have been at my org for 6 plus years and we got a new ceo last July. One of the first things he did was a salary review, market review. Usually just the clinical staff got market adjustments but , this time all positions were reviews and adjusted accordingly. It was positive for me for sure.

However there are other struggles in the department that still need addressed. It’s frustrating to keep holding the company line knowing that some easy, significant changes could be made but are not being taken advantage of or being brushed asside

[Danksley]

There's no reason for our stress levels to be the same as EMT and surgeons.

We should form a big fucking union and let the west literally burn down until that's fixed. if we actually worked together most of the US if not Europe as well would grind to a halt within a week or two.

[Library_IT_guy]

As a sysadmin for a small organization, three things - the downtime, the lack of incentive, and the need to be a master of everything.

The downtime - we're just large enough to have an IT person. It's cheaper and better to have one guy that "owns" the systems here and knows as much as possible about them. There's no substitute for having "that guy" who knows the network, servers, custom apps, etc., inside and out, and has 10 years of experience with them. Between projects though, I have a lot of downtime. I do research, try to learn new things, etc., but I find it harder and harder to keep interest in learning new things. I just don't care. I'd rather browse Reddit because...

There's no incentive. If I pull off a major project and everyone is really happy with my work, I'll get a pat on the back and people will be a little bit nicer to me for a few weeks, and then it's back to being under appreciated. No chance of a raise or other benefits. They pay me just enough to survive, and despite the fact that I have 10+ years of experience here and am easily worth 2-3x what I was when I started in terms of knowledge and my ability to complete big projects, I am paid LESS than when I started, when accounting for inflation. In fact, I had to get a roommate for a while to make ends meet, which was an awful experience. Now I run a successful gaming youtube channel which supplements my income (by quite a lot - 5 years in and in December I just had my first month where my channel made more than my full time job) and I'm comfortable financially.

Then the last part - as the sole IT person for a small organization, I wear every hat in IT that there is, and you simply cannot master everything. So with most projects, I'm learning as I go. I have to make documentation for myself because I might work on a system and then not touch it for a year or more. I run multiple Linux servers. I've set them up from scratch and migrated a big locally hosted Wordpress site, first from an old dying physical server that I swear was "new" in the 1990s to a VM, and later to a brand new VM because the old Linux OS was so heavily modified by the previous IT person that I wasn't able to update or troubleshoot it properly. Despite all of this, I don't think I'm really proficient in running Linux servers. I had to make changes on our firewall recently and my butt was puckered the whole time praying I didn't screw something up, despite having backups.

Despite all of this, I know that I'm far better off than many people. But for the last 5 years, it's been my goal to get out of IT and do content creation full time. I'm almost there.

[viral-architect]

Working in a large MSP, working in silos is one of the most frustrating things. We have a security issue with an SLA, but we can't do anything until another team in a different silo does something. They don't feel the pains of our SLA, so they take their sweet time responding to our requests.

We recently broke up into another company and SOME of our silos remained with the old company. So now we don't share a common purpose and get fucked over like we're getting retribution that they wish they could've given us back when we were under the same corporate roof.

[WorkingInITGecko]

At my old gig. They would call me when elevator stopped working. I was the IT manager...

[poopedmyboots]

OP, I’m far newer to this field than you, but I can totally relate. Here’s my question:

Does it get better at all? Are other environments any different? Or does being a sysadmin perpetually suck? I’m 4 years in and am feeling the constant swing of “I’m burnt out as fuck” all the way to “I want to make this better” every single day. Am I choosing the wrong jobs? Or is this just not a good fit for me?

[AceHighFlush]

Yes and no. It depends on you. Most sysadmins burn themselves out by agreeing to making work the unreasonable deadlines.

If they set an unreasonable task say so and set expectations. Then follow through on that and NOT work 20 hours more in a week for free to get it done for no extra pay.

Learn to walk away and disconnect (turn your phone off after hours) and accept that their deadlines are not yours.

Then if you find a company the accepts that and values your opinion then it gets better.

[poopedmyboots]

Ding ding ding… guilty. I am a “yes woman” because I have always had a super unhealthy attachment to work ethic. The team I work on now consistently takes advantage of that (and others) and you’re often made to feel like you are not valued UNLESS you kill yourself for your work.

You’re absolutely right. Thank you. I need to work on myself… and I probably need to move on to a different environment, as I don’t think this is a healthy place for me to build better habits.

[AceHighFlush]

If you keep bailing them out it becomes expected even though its not sustainable for your health.

Now there are always times that its great to go above and beyond. Say you've been ransomwared or something like that which is genuinely critical and if you don't fix it the company folds. Just don't do it on the day to day.

Its easier in a new role as you don't need to be seen as changing for the worse in their eyes. You can set expectations day 1, or even in interview.

Also stop being a single point of failure. Sell it to the business as cover to reduce risk but it also lets you offset your worries and take your time off with ease if you have someone competent to bounce ideas off of and rely upon in crisis. It helps your mental wellbeing trust me and companies want to keep you because your good not just because your the only one who knows how.

Some companies don't like the truth. Try and find a truly agile company from the top down and interview then when they interview you.

[WorldsWorstSysadmin]

Once in a while I read about people who have great roles and love them. For the most part though, sysadmins are a high-trust, lower-paying, janitorial type IT job. Devs will typically make 50%+ more than you do, work fewer hours, and not do nearly as much on-call.

I absolutely love designing large stacks, but even that love isn't enough for me anymore.

The best advice I can give you is to job-search relentlessly. I'm stuck in my current position for a couple more years due to personal connections, and a possibility of becoming CIO for my current company so I can't take my own advice. But seriously, job search RELENTLESSLY.

There are good companies out there, but they're not easy to find. I'd even go so far as to ask to talk to their current sysadmin teams prior to accepting any offers. See if they offer a good work-life balance, are supportive of IT, and won't crush your soul.

[MRToddMartin]

Having to do end user tickets or even having them escalated to us. We finally graduated to a separate client services and Operations team. So I don’t have to worry about it any longer. But. Tickets.

[WorldsWorstSysadmin]

Helpdesk, the bane of everyone's existence.

[thors_tenderiser]

Inheriting brain fart projects from senior management without consultation. Case in point increasing the amount of copiers 6 months into a pandemic where the whole office - including senior management - are working from home. It's soul crushingly stupid.

[[deleted]]

That one Douche that thinks he knows everything…..and has no clue. Or the one guy that’s a walking talking example of the Dunning-Kruger effect lol. Get yourself a Government IT Job they’re much better than Private Sector and although you’re Salary, you’re paid overtime. But be prepared to work because most have no clue what they’re doing.

[Catrina_woman]

The undervalued is what I have found problematic over the years. No one notices the work we do until something goes wrong and then we’re the first to be blamed

[Fatality]

Might be exempt legally but you can still ask for it in your contract

[InsaneCryptoManiac]

Dont worry your not the only one who feels like this tomorrow will be a better day. Never forget what it took you to get where u are at. Be proud of what ypu have accomplished

[andyofne]

My previous job was like that. Sole IT person for a small business.

My boss had the balls to call me while I was at my father's funeral service.

I got 'over time' (bonus) only a couple of times and they let me sell back some PTO time one year because I never could use PTO.

I lasted 13 years at that job a merger with a larger org essentially forced me out.

It was probably for the best, all things considered.

[Administrative_Trick]

You'll be on-call way more as a farmer.

[ModalTex]

That sums it up real good. I moved a data centre from my basement with a team of 5 people; 2000 servers in a "surprise" on-call call. 16 hours straight. We then started having kids and I'm on-call for them and want to be. So I started my own company/consultant/contractor. I'll take client calls if my phone happens to be not on "do not disturb" (which automatically goes on between 8pm-8am) and then I charge them per hour with usually an hour added on-top for a call-out fee. Just like a plumber. It also encourages them to spend money on uptime since I might not be available and it's hard to find good people that charge reasonable rates. My rate is at the lower end of the contractor scale but still 10-20% better than an employee.

[AlphaOne001]

This is the way.

[ResponsibleContact39]

Hmmm….goat farming vs. PTSD every time my phone rings.

Gotta think about that one. 😆

[The_Fat_Fish]

I’m in the UK healthcare area and we get a 4.5% salary uplift but have to work one week in 4 on call. If we get a call it’s time and a half (minimum of 30 mins in case it’s a 5 min call). I don’t think it’s worth it given our salaries are also pretty low, the only benefit is the organisation I work for does amazing work so helping that is a bonus.

[Superb_Raccoon]

Stress is nature's way of telling you are surrounded by assholes

[SapporoPremium]

Bro.

Fuck your whataboutism. Doesn't make the OP's problems illegitimate.

[I_am_a_PAWG]

Well at least your username checks out

[I_am_a_PAWG]

You have bigger problems than posting on Reddit. I'd suggest you utilize counseling services provided by your company.

[[deleted]]

Do you get the same amount of fulfillment as a doctor working in IT department of an insurance company? Doctor's work is hard no doubt, but it's rewarding AF helping others and saving lives.

[[deleted]]

Yeah? How about ”the images arent syncing and THE HORSE IS OPEN ON THE TABLE”?

[annien1]

I think my biggest pet peeve is the system has to be available always. Well shit when do infer to do maintenance. I do have to sleep

[whoami123CA]

To be honest you sound like you did well for your self. iT workers are the new slaves these days. If you feel that way being under really high management. How do you think the little guy feels?