My problem is not boredom, but lack of motivation.
I can make this organization SO much more optimized and efficient.. but I’d be the only one caring about most of it or learning it and pushing it forward..
I sometimes feel like the only person who hasn’t quiet quit in my team.. and upper management loves our data teams and other IT related teams, but ignores infrastructure and gives us no real support/guidance.
If I could do things differently, I’d make sure infrastructure team is treated as important from an upper management perspective.
Hire an IT manager to track and delegate and take the overhead.
Stop treating IT as purely reactive and only beholden to other teams needs, treat us as stakeholders whose opinions matter.
Dude, my last manager said he wanted me to be more "innovative."
I asked him what he wanted me to work on.
"Anything and everything you see."
All I could think is how fucking lazy this guy was for not doing the bare minimum of management: Planning, organizing, controlling, leading.
Yeah, I totally get that sentiment. Current and previous company, new CIO comes in with big push to go agile and cloud. All the focus is on the developers; all of IT is re-organised around them. Infrastructure gets completely ignored to the point of them saying no new hardware no new investment in on-prem, yet over 90% of our services and infrastructure are still on-prem and will probably remain that way for several years. Even our group meetings are now developer focused.
It ends up feeling that way..
But it’s actually various silos leading up to one VP.
So business initiatives rule the roost, and infrastructure is just a roadblock to their initiatives progress.
In the end, infrastructure does nothing on its own, just responds to others needs.
Helpdesk>sr. Director>VP
sysadmin>sr. Director>VP
Network>non-corporate IT Manager>VP
Security>VP
Data/app teams>various managers>VP
One of my main issues is the: You have to keep your number up and above x%, close more tickets.
"Why aren't you closing more tickets?"
- I'm and L2 that gets a mix of L2 and L3 tickets. If you want me to close more tickets then give me tickets I can close that day.
These numbers do me no good, I am not management, I am not paid enough to care. I do my work and what's expected of me. I fix issue/problem and the client is happy.
>My problem is not boredom, but lack of motivation
Yep, same. I've brought SO many freaking ideas to the "table" about how to better manage things, and they've all gotten shot down, and a decent number were then later brought up by someone else only to be met with interest.
For instance, managing app deployments by AD group, instead of manually created groups (in SCCM, Intune, or Tanium, since yes, we use all three) for each deployment. For one thing, we wouldn't have to setup the deployments (the service desk could just add people to the AD groups), and for another it could be automated via Service Now with or without manager approval functionality built in. I brought it up a couple years ago during a few different meetings, and only now are people actually acting like it's a good idea.
Also, we're spending millions per year on all of these various modules in Tanium, yet we can't spend a guaranteed significantly smaller dollar amount on a SCCM CMG. which would let us actually USE the SCCM environment I was hired on to manage.
At least for me, it completely kills my motivation.
Coworker and I have written PS scripts and documentation on various annoying issues that happen and provided that to two people we were under the impression that were going to take over start to finish.
Hah the joke was on us. All they do is own is run the scripts and create the data for us but we are still the ones responsible for resolving the issues still.
In general, upper management no more cares about IT in terms of keeping the infrastructure functioning than it does the mechanic who keeps the trucks that deliver their product running.
IT is a cost center, not a profit center, in their minds.
At the very least, it’s just not accurate.
It might be how they think about it, but building efficient infrastructure can EASILY save you tens of thousands per year compared to just letting devs and random people dictate what’s built how etc
(at least I know it could in our environment)
wouldn’t security be a cost center also? Well they sure don’t mind THAT spend..
But building efficient infrastructure increases security from the get go, which is multiple savings on top.
So it can save even more money and assist in security and overall productivity.
I suffer from extreme boredom… being salary, I can work overtime and bust ass to get ahead but I don’t get anything extra. More work does not equal more pay, so why try. Waiting for the next job and another 20% pay increase
I've been lucky enough to bust ass and get a big pay increase, but I was underpaid when I first started.
But the first time I don't get a pay raise above inflation it's time to head out.
To OPs post, start getting certs and learning new skills if you're bored. Need a 5 year plan as to what you want to do so that when your bored you have something to work towards.
I started my own IT consulting company focused on unfucking MSP messes, IT strategy, and avoiding shitty MSP’s. So far it’s working, enough work to keep the lights on and more companies are interested in our services.
I got sick of working for other people. When it’s your company you’re accountable for the work you perform. I am learning how to build a business from scratch. It’s a lot of new challenges. It’s far from boring.
After about two decades in IT, I’m pretty done.
I don’t care about this shit anymore. I busted my ass for many, many years. I gained over 15 Microsoft, Red Hat, and ISC^2 certifications. I moved from the Help Desk all the way up through a top-level engineering position.
But in the course of the last eight years, I have attained for myself a net total salary improvement of about +8% thanks to inflation.
It’s extremely demotivating.
I try not to focus on that sort of thing too heavily, but it’s quite the kick to the face to watch my savings stagnate because, despite the ridiculous amount of work I’ve done, the economy at large and my local conditions have conspired to prevent me from enjoying much in the way of fruits of that labor.
While it’s not an IT-specific thing, it may be adversely impacting us all more than we recognize. Check out [an inflation calculator online](https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=100000&year1=201601&year2=202405). In the US, the past eight years have seen about 32% cumulative inflation.
So if you had a $100,000 per year job in 2016 and you don’t presently have a $132,000 or more job, you’ve lost buying power.
How shitty is that?
So I’m basically on a new life plan wherein I intend to do the absolute minimum until retirement.
Sucks, but I just don’t have it in me to keep caring so much for so little in return. Once upon a time, I was excited to develop my own skills and knowledge. I think I had pretended to myself that I would benefit personally from those developments in my own intellectual pursuits, but two decades later, I’ve watched my career (and other life obligations) consume every last drop of energy I have, and I just frankly don’t have time to enjoy those developments.
Time to stop giving work so much. It’s very difficult to get over a sort of dishonest feeling in dialing it back, and there’s massive anxiety in not handling everything immediately and working overtime if necessary to do so, but I gotta do it.
>So if you had a $100,000 per year job in 2016 and you don’t presently have a $132,000 or more job, you’ve lost buying power.
Finally someone who thinks beyond the hours and the obvious.
In my country (UK), IT - and particularly ops/sysadmin work - is very inconsistently salaried. Initial pay is good once you first break away from the Helpdesk and get a few certs under your belt, but I've started to notice a giant brick wall that you can only scale by taking on infinitely more work and responsibility for very small incremental salary increases, almost to the point where it's not really worth the stress for the extra pay, as inflation eats away at any gains anyway.
Without going into specifics, in my organisation, the helpdesk is entry-level and barely above minimum wage. Senior technicians get perhaps a 20% - 25% bump over the Helpdesk. 3rd line and sysadmin/project engineers will get another 15% on top of that that. In real terms, you're only talking a difference of around £12,000 ($15,000~) between entry level first line and experienced, qualified and certified third line/sysadmin.
From that point, if you want to increase your salary, you either need to pivot to full stack or data engineering, or wait for a management opportunity. That's it.
So my point is that I'm starting to get tired of the upskill treadmill, when it means more stress, more effort and more sleepless nights, for marginally more pay than someone that switches off their laptop at 5pm and has very little responsibility to take home with them. Though I love IT, I do sometimes look on enviously at other departments that don't have such huge pressures to upskill, retrain and recertify just to tread water.
Same boat, lack of motivation. I've been in the industry 28+yrs I have a boatful of certs. I can change jobs all I want and get hired anywhere immediately. The increase in pay is never more than 5%.
Right now I work a job that I probably work 10 real hrs a week, only put out the big fires and do meetings. Kinda dismal sitting at your desk reading reddit all day. Sounds great but it sucks.
I've been so happy working through SOC 2 Type 2 for multiple companies because it gives me something to do.
My wife says they dont pay me to work but its more like a lawyer on retainer when the crap hits the fan.
lol “sounds like a skill issue…”
Nah, I don’t feel like putting effort into making a good impression with a bunch of new people, learning a new environment, and all the risks entailed by such a move. As I said, I’m pretty done with exerting a whole lot more effort for a paltry raise. I’d rather stay the course and retire at 50 with a full pension.
Maybe if I were as cool as you are, I would job hop my way into that horizon, engineerin’ some projects, but my family likes it where we are and I’m pretty much at the highest local salary I’ll get without going into management, so no, thanks.
About another decade and I’m done. It’ll be sweet.
lol wtf!? I just read your comment history, expecting you’re at least pretending to be some Silicon Valley FAANG Bro making $300k, but it’s way worse than that; you’re a mid-20s nobody making $80k.
…
Go play with the other children. I make more than double what you make. I have a family and an actual grown up life to tend to, as well. If you actually think life’s as easy as “getting out of your comfort zone,” well, that’s probably because you haven’t actually had to do anything difficult yet.
Oh, Internet. Jebus.
This is pretty easily done early on. I started in IT in 2015 making 30k and now make 115k base. But I'm reaching the upper limits of easy income growth now. I can job hop and hope to swing maybe 125-130, but the risk and requirements of such jobs make it less appealing. The risk/reward ratio no longer provides an easy answer.
If you're making more than me and still increasing your pay by 20% a year, you're doing exceptionally well. I suspect your pay is lower, though.
I feel bored at times, but I realized I would rather be bored and have an easy job with decent pay, than be challenged and stressed out all the time.
Small increases in pay weren’t worth it for me. I guess that means I am fulfilled lol.
I was definitely bored at my last job, so I left. There was no more progress to be made and that's a lesson I learned far too late in my life. There are several jobs I've had where I should have left far sooner than I did and my career development suffered because of it. I'm doing very well for myself but I could have been here years ago if I'd pushed a little harder earlier on.
I won't say never but I can't imagine a realistic scenario in which I'd be willing to accept just drawing a paycheck over giving some kind of a fuck about what I do. I got 168 hours in a week, I can't imagine spending almost a quarter of that doing something that's wholly uninteresting.
Every job I have had, after about three years I would get completely demotivated and do as little as possible, or just start researching stuff and doing my own private projects/certification study.
Stagnant environments, micro-management, lack of any advancement opportunities, and overall there-is-only-so-much-you-can-do have all attributed to this. Internal IT almost makes such a trap inevitable as you are often looked at as pure cost-centric overhead. The best lesson I learned is not to try and change anything, but to just move on. Pursuing new challenges not only refreshes your mind, it keeps your skills up to date and provides new challenges.
I left IT for Software Development because of the pay. Today my annual gross is thirty percent higher but I hate my job. If I could go back for anything close to what I make now I would.
I have a degree in software development but have always worked doing sysadmin or systems engineering work, throughout may career I might develop a webapp here or there, managers would encourage me to pursue software development. I never did, I like coding and only do it when inspiration strikes. The money eventually came, but now I get frustrated because no one cares about infrastructure.
I’ve certainly considered it. I’m not jumping at the gills to leave my company. If I did leave it would need to be for a remote position as I have strong ties in my region.
I don’t give a shit at all. I’m here to get paid so I can go home and do what I want. If the org burns down tomorrow, I’ll find another job and not think twice about it. Being unemployed will suck but whatever.
In my professional life, work is work and work sucks no matter what my job title is. I am not bored at all in my personal life and the job is just a means to an end and will never be tied to my happiness.
Yes, I am very stagnant. I was extremely hungry to better myself with learning in my 20s, and I managed to get myself to a great spot now, but I haven't been able to maintain that drive due to health issues dragging me down.
On top of that, I've realized that the IT world has become less and less about being good at tech, and more about being good at office politics and paperwork. It isn't the world thing in the world, but it has definitely taken the luster out of the field for me. I'm sure there are jobs out there where tech nerds can really thrive, but I'm not in a position to move into those roles right now.
man, that's true. if they like you, it's way easier. My current company i work for, i feel i'm like he's here, but there's no progression, no talk of promotion , etc but I guess, i got to bring it up and be a bit of a spin doctor. My colleagues who do, who does the work and also presents it in a way to the upper management, goes up. I've never been an ass kisser and it does become demotivating. I don't even feel i'm that smart in IT or at least, i feel less motivated to learn as much as i did prior. I'm trying to regain that back though
I've seen my job go from junior Linux sysadmin to Linux sysadmin to senior Linux sysadmin to SRE, to senior SRE, to software engineer, to a specific SME for a platform.
Right now, just honing my skills on the SRE tier, and even though my job description doesn't state it, working with people on workflows and CI/CD stuff, while making sure all compliance stuff is taken care of, and auditors are happy.
Since the market is absolute crap, arguably worse than 2000, I'm just honing my skills right now and making sure I can automate anything and everything that comes my way. Thankfully, I have a port to weather this storm for an indefinite time.
If I could design my dream job, I'd be more in an architectural/SRE role, because I've been in enough rodeos, I can deal with the pain points. At a previous job, I made restores so painless that any user could either `cd` into a snapshot directory, or fire a script which would automatically restore files for them after it was approved by IT, and have the files in a "restored" share that they could copy off. Nobody really cared if a document was lost, as they could go back and fetch it from a snapshot, or a backup. To boot, stuff that was needing to be archived indefinitely was stored on a file server that used stubs, where the archived data was stored on tape and would automatically be loaded in if needed. For development, having everything in GitHub Enterprise made life easy.
SRE roles are underestimated, but important, just because someone has to shepherd all the development stuff. Stuff like running too many Kubernetes containers on the wrong hardware can create bottlenecks nobody has thought about.
In IT for about 15 yrs — I feel much more fulfilled since focusing more on the systems engineering and project management side of IT. Getting away from companies that rely on Microsoft based environments help a lot too.
Nothing is ever perfect. I miss the less problematic and simple environments. Lots of time to research and test. A whole day or half day doesn’t just disappear due to a complex issue. I could space out on Reddit for an hour and contribute.
Stagnation is a personal problem, or a lack of funds and a cooperative mgmt imo. Even with no money, just poking my head into systems yielded good changes and learning
I'm still very motivated. I work solo in a 110 users company slowly growing. We're planning to hire soon another IT and it's full of interesting projects and my day to day job has a lot of variety. Plus, I have a good relationship with the owners and my only boss is the CFO and we get along very well.
Honestly if you are bored, grow. Learn new skills, branch out. Get scared and try new things, move into roles that force you be uncomfortable. This will add to your salary, your confidence, and helps build you up as a great engineer long term.
For example, if you're a network engineer, well learn some Python, learn some PowerShell, heck learn some Cloud and Servers. If you're a Cloud Engineer, get into some data stuff, etc. etc.
There is a TON to learn in this field and it has unlimited potential, if none of this excites you anymore look into taking a break. Find hobbies away from the computer, work on a project. Or hell, just take a vacation and zone out.
>Get scared and try new things, move into roles that force you be uncomfortable.
Is it really that easy to move into roles you're unqualified for once you've put some years in?
How many organizations will truly let you make mistakes when you are new at something? I quit IT for many reasons. But one was that I felt like I had to bat 1000 all of the time or I’d get a poor review or worse. So I felt like I just stuck with the 50MPH pitching machine my whole career.
All of the organizations I’ve been at? The whole point of that is to CYA. Learn how to roll back changes, learn about backups, have contingencies. This is all apart of being a good engineer.
I’ve never let an annual review dictate what I do or not do, I’m the typical 1-2 year career fellow since I left my first senior position 4-5 years ago.
I feel like there is no fucking point to IT and that learning more only gets me more stress and no closer to any goals.
Sometimes I get recruiters knocking on my door for large increases in pay but I don't bite because it will probably just be more of the same. Maybe even worse.
I would not say I got into IT for excitement but I do feel extremely detached from my job. There’s a lack of motivation specially now because with my last promotion, I got promoted to a room with no windows and no one else in it. Which is even more demotivating now that some days I don’t even see another person at my job. So now it’s about putting in the time before I feel good about leaving to get another job.
An unhealthy mix of boredom, frustration, and key person dependancy (aka colleagues that can’t do their own stuff). Much like England making the quarters I somehow ended up in IT, and not sure how. At first I can only blame procrastination for not moving on, currently, the work is hellish but I’ve got a salary that’s okay and would take a nosedive switching to something else, plus some sense of not being able to do other jobs because all I do now is firefight old tech and people.
I passed my DP-600 couple of weeks ago, no chance of getting Fabric at work, just a colleague dragged me along and I wanted to see if this old dog could learn new tricks. Thanks for bring about my cathartic rant op.
Very energized right now. My role has moved where I am more security-focused and I am enjoying this very much. I have a number of very exciting and interesting projects that should further my career in a very dhnamic way.
I'm feeling all these comments, especially now that I've been passed over once again for a promotion which sends me spiraling every 6 months but they keep dangling that carrot and I keep chasing it instead of working on getting out.
I am beyond bored, zero advancement opportunities for desktop support/EUC, paid well below what I think (aren't we all?) for my age and experience, and my level of 'give a shit' is at an all time low. I'm doing the bare minimum and dont feel bad about it one bit.
My biggest problem (besides my disdain for management) is that I do really like where I work and the people work with. It pays lower than most companies in the industry but the work life balance is really nice and I do what I want (within reason). HOWEVER - I'm watching snot nosed kids around me shoot up the corporate ladder and advancing their careers FAR faster than my glacial creep.
Other than that, its fine lol
" my level of 'give a shit' is at an all time low. I'm doing the bare minimum and dont feel bad about it one bit. [...] I'm watching snot nosed kids around me shoot up the corporate ladder and advancing their careers FAR faster than my glacial creep. "
1+1=2
Right now it’s quiet at work and sometimes I get relatively bored because I don’t always want to “find” something to do. But it’s summer time here and most customers will not start projects.
I have just decided to train my scripting skills and all around tech knowledge when I have downtime and I’m trying to pick up work where possible.
Tired or keep up and constantly trying to learn to stay relevant and stopped.
If/when I leave where I am now I'll probably take a huge pay cut as I'll be so far out of the loop that I'd seem like I'm a fresh level 1 tech.
I work in IT for around 6 years now and been in the same company since.
We are an MSP and while it is truly stressful I wouldn’t want to change my job right now.
The team I work in consists only of great people with tons of drive to advance and expand our tech stack.
Worked my way up to one of the more senior staff members and it doesn’t seem to stop yet.
Being stagnant with my knowledge or having nothing to do are my biggest dealbreakers in jobs. As long as my company supplies both things I am happy. Would take that over a greater salary with a boring work environment every day.
Looking at these comments I feel like I'm lucky.
I thoroughly enjoy my job. Sure I have plenty of downtime but I'll take that any day over the nonsense that used to plague my everyday life when I worked MSP. I get to learn new tech as we implement it, I get to go to conferences all over the country and work with a great group of people.
Definitely boredom.
I make a way above average salary but haven't been really given the chance to utilize my full skill set.
Given IT salaries in Canada are absolutely abysmal and the job market is saturated I don't think I'll be moving for a year or two
I wouldn’t say I feel fulfilled, but I’m happy. I’m a worker. I love to work as long as it’s meeting my big 3 which are money left after bills, family happy, and I can buy motorcycles. Just bought a 2025 Indian Sport Scout so no complaints from me. Boredom is natural. Learn to love your work, you don’t need to be passionate, but just like what you do.
Not sure if it's burnout or boredom. What's the difference?
Job wise. I run the gamut from designing hosting infrastructure, configuring Nexus switches and VSAN clusters to resetting passwords. Been at it for 30 years, in a small hosting and consulting company.
Other than the pay (spending power), that peaked in àbout 2000 it's the end users that wear me down. One client has been around for 25 years and we still do everything for them.
I'd like to grow the revenue enough to make it more attractive to the aggregators, but then I'd have to hire and manage sales people.
I dig mundane job :) Learned this about myself many years ago. I am fine doing basic, repetitive, boring work and even get a kick out of it. Maybe because i am pedantic and always try to structure what i am doing with quantifiable, visual lists, stats. Although i also get a big endorphin rush completing complex project, it is good to splice such work with simple tasks to let your brain chill, like after hours of making progress on a project go and do a few simple tickets, update software package, reply to some emails.
After reading comments here i think for me my 20 years career was pretty steady in the sense of both excitement and boring tasks. Maybe in the last few years i feel a tad less engaged, but i did a few almost year long projects practically myself. And my manager fixes my "meeting expectations" self valuation to "exceeding", so maybe i am doing alright. Lately doing a lot of couching, training and bringing our juniors up to speed. My pay is modest, but i don't care that much, don't spend a lot and make savings anyway.
Well I’m as busy as anything and bored at the same time. Bad decisions.. lack of staff and investment in infrastructure.. people all burnt out.. with no hope of an end in sight… I just get through my days now.. do my best and switch off. I’ve worked out you can kill yourself and get some token appreciation or you can do an ok job , go home enjoy your family …. And still get token appreciation…
purpose is just an illusion. if the job pays you well enough to allow you to do the things you want, then that's enough.
There are no epiphanies to be found here...well unless you find a way to upload your consciousness into "the cloud".
Been in IT since 2009 and currently a systems engineer and just kinda over it at this point. I feel like I just go through the motions on a daily basis and new projects give me zero excitement anymore. Debating making a field change but not sure what would get me anywhere close to what I’m at now. I pretty much just stick around as an engineer for my family now.
I have a business applied management degree for this exact reason along with my management information systems degree. I realized when I was doing I.T. stuff early in my career with just my associates degree that there would be a day I just get frustrated with I.T. stuff and just say I'm done and go do business orientated jobs like a business system analyst. The problem is most companies don't understand the value that my experience in tech brings to the business side of things.
At this current job I'm making sure that my day to day jobs are 50/50 split between technology and business aspects and making sure I get training on business software so I am more valuable as a business resource. So instead of having I.T. managers as my references I have Controllers as references.
im getting bored. BUT i am at the start of my career and havent got the chance to improve my skills in a live environment, theory is all good but i learn alot better if i know there are stakes involved. i suspect ill get my motivation once i get the opportunity to improve my skills
I thank you guys so much for your comments, it means a lot, God bless you all. You all motivated me and helped me to really think and evaluate. Being an IT Guy in Jamaica has been a very ruff fight/journey to the top, especially in the Government of Jamaica/public sector- Nasty politics runs the show, not hard work, qualification or IT skill set. I appreciate you guys. Keep the comments coming.
I love learning new things but at the same time more and more gets increasingly offloaded to IT to figure out. If you do a good job it doesn’t seem like the recognition is there. It seems like your just expected to above and beyond.
I wouldn't say I'm fulfilled but I am very happy with how my career developed and where I ended up, after 30 years in IT, I want my current job to be the one I retire from. I only have about 15-18 years left. I can definitely see myself being there for that time. We have a lot of employees who have worked there for 20-30+ years.
10 year sysadmin, can only do some much as one person..no one cares about open SMTP relays, outdated exchange server,unconstrained delegation on the database account,no priveleges access solution , client thirdly party app not patched..... Why do I care so much?
I moved to taking oscp course to use my skills against vulnerable boxes , actually improving the organisation...too difficult, why would I risk. My paycheck by corrupting a database with a SQL server update?
I was bored the first 13 years but it was caused by chosing easy jobs and not setting higher goals. I was ready to leave but the pay was too good. Then focused on making a career and got jobs that where challenging and also taking certifications. It became more fun. I'm now in my dream job and next step would be managing if possible.
The constantly changing environments and that never ending study/exam/cert cycle is just too much.. I feel the industry is moving too fast and that a lot of stuff is going to legacy too quickly.
Honestly, the IT industry feels like we're stuck in the early 2000s HP era where it was cheaper to buy a new printer than it was to replace ink in the old one, and the entire industry is now built off that model.
I'm fulfilled, at Linux sysadmin-with-devops-and-anything-else-that-crops-up level at a small company. I work under an excellent system architect and more than half of the C suite are technical and get stuck in to the work with us.
They take care of the meetings and compliance and I get a lot of time actually working with systems, from day to day maintenance to playing with blue sky projects. I can work from home whenever I want to. Work life balance is perfect and I get to spend a lot of time with my kids as they grow up.
I have no desire to move up any higher or have any more responsibility. I live in a low CoL area and the money more than meets my needs.
I left my IT job at a small company and now work for the county Public Defenders office helping the attorneys view evidence properly. More money, less work.
Happier life. 👍🏻
Do i think i reached my full potential in IT no, but that's my fault. However i just kinda fell into IT because at the time it was still kinda newish and you could make a ton of money. I did an apprentice plumber thing for 3 years before i just couldn't do that job. My dad was blue collar and an electrician. So he wanted me to go into the trades too. He said we need a plumber in the family and since i was the only boy guess who got into plumbing... I HATE PLUMBING. Would have rather of been an electrician if anything else.
I've been Bored AF for the last 2-3 years... Knew that I really needed to make a change but I was comfortable. I recently found out that our contract was ending and it was the kick I needed to make a change. Moving to a new role where I will get to work on new things like Cloud and Automation. Lots of new challenges and I'm excited for the first time in a while.
The C-suite is sinking all their attention and money into new AI stuff - just chant "**ÄI! ÄI! Gartner fhtagn!**" until the dollars flow. Making me a bit worried about the rest of the company which isn't AI related getting sidelined. I have no great interest in AI so that's not fulfilling.
I am realizing the effort I put toward my job is not something that would benefit society as much as something related to body/mind or liberation of others.
I feel scammed and my efforts are only to understand a set of abstract systems that are related to a capitalistic framework, not "for the good of all mankind".
Idk, this whole crazy thing we call modern society works because of each one of us doing our small part. A billion tiny hands moving the wheel.Easy to feel like we aren’t making a difference though or seeing results of our work, especially with specialized and often esoteric work
I assume so.... everything that is part of the world (even the worst/gross jobs), are what makes the world run, and in some way, they are all necessary.
I guess what I am saying is that I could work for a jail, and perhaps work for the encapsulation of immates, or I could work for the peace corps. I'd say one has a greater value into society as a whole. For my job, it just feels like I will do *this* for the next 30 years. I want to feel invigorated and motivated by doing something that matters, and seeing it benefit others.
But you are also right, I have a lot of motivation to just want to fix things (the world), then I realize some buddhist concepts that we can't really change anyone except out selves (we cannot change the world, but only work from within our tiny realm). When I am on my death bed, I want to know that the pain and suffering i dealt with in the 1st 1/2 of my life was transmuted for the greater good. Not just like 'wrote some scripts and bought some books and games.'
But hey - gotta love that mid-life crisis!
If you feel bored, try to advance in your career. You should start looking in that direction and take some time to study and learn new abilities if you aren't already. This is the best way to combat boredom in this field.
I'm at what I like to call, "Cruising Altitude." I'm the old data center guy. Business is mostly cloud now, but no one else has any of those skills. Pay is good. Learning Devops is a fun distraction, but I'll never be a SME. Less than 5 years until retirement and I'm happy to coast.
I've been feeling very unmotivated recently. I've reached a salary level where I don't have any more "easy wins" - I used to jump jobs annually and get 20%+ increases in pay. Now I'll be lucky to swing 10-20% maybe one or two more times, and the requirements and expectations for those roles are through the roof.
I'm in a weird spot where I have a mixed system/network/automation background and need to pick a lane. I can't decide whether to stay with net eng, or move fully into cloud ops or devops (I love writing apps and tools in Python now), or do something else entirely.
Without a future goal in mind, it is hard to motivate myself at all. I've never been stuck like this, but I'll hopefully sort it out.
repeating tasks just kill me - the same thing every single day. not sure if it's boredom, lack of motivation, or i'm actually drowning in the daily work life. even the money do not motivate me anymore. - me, an it consultant
For me, it's battling the monotony of it all. It's just nonstop work, and no matter how much I get done there will always be more, and none of it is easy. I bust my butt to learn one thing and as soon as I'm done I have to learn the next. I make great money and everything but sometimes it feels exhausting.
My problem is not boredom, but lack of motivation. I can make this organization SO much more optimized and efficient.. but I’d be the only one caring about most of it or learning it and pushing it forward.. I sometimes feel like the only person who hasn’t quiet quit in my team.. and upper management loves our data teams and other IT related teams, but ignores infrastructure and gives us no real support/guidance. If I could do things differently, I’d make sure infrastructure team is treated as important from an upper management perspective. Hire an IT manager to track and delegate and take the overhead. Stop treating IT as purely reactive and only beholden to other teams needs, treat us as stakeholders whose opinions matter.
> upper management loves our data teams and other IT related teams, but ignores infrastructure and gives us no real support/guidance. Felt that
Dude, my last manager said he wanted me to be more "innovative." I asked him what he wanted me to work on. "Anything and everything you see." All I could think is how fucking lazy this guy was for not doing the bare minimum of management: Planning, organizing, controlling, leading.
Me 💀
which part,,, o\_o
Legit!
This hits so close to home
Yeah, I totally get that sentiment. Current and previous company, new CIO comes in with big push to go agile and cloud. All the focus is on the developers; all of IT is re-organised around them. Infrastructure gets completely ignored to the point of them saying no new hardware no new investment in on-prem, yet over 90% of our services and infrastructure are still on-prem and will probably remain that way for several years. Even our group meetings are now developer focused.
Start looking for a job, or reskill for Devops. The writing is on the wall.
See it as a blessing in disguise. Devops/cloudops is the future
You must have eight different bosses.
It ends up feeling that way.. But it’s actually various silos leading up to one VP. So business initiatives rule the roost, and infrastructure is just a roadblock to their initiatives progress. In the end, infrastructure does nothing on its own, just responds to others needs. Helpdesk>sr. Director>VP sysadmin>sr. Director>VP Network>non-corporate IT Manager>VP Security>VP Data/app teams>various managers>VP
Do you work for my employer? Absolute same but just a nonstop glut of implementations that won't increase stability
Yup. I look at and see “am i in the wrong profession value per hour?” It’s more yes than no the last 5 years
One of my main issues is the: You have to keep your number up and above x%, close more tickets. "Why aren't you closing more tickets?" - I'm and L2 that gets a mix of L2 and L3 tickets. If you want me to close more tickets then give me tickets I can close that day. These numbers do me no good, I am not management, I am not paid enough to care. I do my work and what's expected of me. I fix issue/problem and the client is happy.
>My problem is not boredom, but lack of motivation Yep, same. I've brought SO many freaking ideas to the "table" about how to better manage things, and they've all gotten shot down, and a decent number were then later brought up by someone else only to be met with interest. For instance, managing app deployments by AD group, instead of manually created groups (in SCCM, Intune, or Tanium, since yes, we use all three) for each deployment. For one thing, we wouldn't have to setup the deployments (the service desk could just add people to the AD groups), and for another it could be automated via Service Now with or without manager approval functionality built in. I brought it up a couple years ago during a few different meetings, and only now are people actually acting like it's a good idea. Also, we're spending millions per year on all of these various modules in Tanium, yet we can't spend a guaranteed significantly smaller dollar amount on a SCCM CMG. which would let us actually USE the SCCM environment I was hired on to manage. At least for me, it completely kills my motivation.
Coworker and I have written PS scripts and documentation on various annoying issues that happen and provided that to two people we were under the impression that were going to take over start to finish. Hah the joke was on us. All they do is own is run the scripts and create the data for us but we are still the ones responsible for resolving the issues still.
In general, upper management no more cares about IT in terms of keeping the infrastructure functioning than it does the mechanic who keeps the trucks that deliver their product running. IT is a cost center, not a profit center, in their minds.
In my experience this isn't true for large enterprise environments.
At the very least, it’s just not accurate. It might be how they think about it, but building efficient infrastructure can EASILY save you tens of thousands per year compared to just letting devs and random people dictate what’s built how etc (at least I know it could in our environment) wouldn’t security be a cost center also? Well they sure don’t mind THAT spend.. But building efficient infrastructure increases security from the get go, which is multiple savings on top. So it can save even more money and assist in security and overall productivity.
I suffer from extreme boredom… being salary, I can work overtime and bust ass to get ahead but I don’t get anything extra. More work does not equal more pay, so why try. Waiting for the next job and another 20% pay increase
I've been lucky enough to bust ass and get a big pay increase, but I was underpaid when I first started. But the first time I don't get a pay raise above inflation it's time to head out. To OPs post, start getting certs and learning new skills if you're bored. Need a 5 year plan as to what you want to do so that when your bored you have something to work towards.
[That really sucks, Peter.](https://i.makeagif.com/media/6-03-2023/mBMYe7.gif)
I started my own IT consulting company focused on unfucking MSP messes, IT strategy, and avoiding shitty MSP’s. So far it’s working, enough work to keep the lights on and more companies are interested in our services. I got sick of working for other people. When it’s your company you’re accountable for the work you perform. I am learning how to build a business from scratch. It’s a lot of new challenges. It’s far from boring.
After about two decades in IT, I’m pretty done. I don’t care about this shit anymore. I busted my ass for many, many years. I gained over 15 Microsoft, Red Hat, and ISC^2 certifications. I moved from the Help Desk all the way up through a top-level engineering position. But in the course of the last eight years, I have attained for myself a net total salary improvement of about +8% thanks to inflation. It’s extremely demotivating. I try not to focus on that sort of thing too heavily, but it’s quite the kick to the face to watch my savings stagnate because, despite the ridiculous amount of work I’ve done, the economy at large and my local conditions have conspired to prevent me from enjoying much in the way of fruits of that labor. While it’s not an IT-specific thing, it may be adversely impacting us all more than we recognize. Check out [an inflation calculator online](https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=100000&year1=201601&year2=202405). In the US, the past eight years have seen about 32% cumulative inflation. So if you had a $100,000 per year job in 2016 and you don’t presently have a $132,000 or more job, you’ve lost buying power. How shitty is that? So I’m basically on a new life plan wherein I intend to do the absolute minimum until retirement. Sucks, but I just don’t have it in me to keep caring so much for so little in return. Once upon a time, I was excited to develop my own skills and knowledge. I think I had pretended to myself that I would benefit personally from those developments in my own intellectual pursuits, but two decades later, I’ve watched my career (and other life obligations) consume every last drop of energy I have, and I just frankly don’t have time to enjoy those developments. Time to stop giving work so much. It’s very difficult to get over a sort of dishonest feeling in dialing it back, and there’s massive anxiety in not handling everything immediately and working overtime if necessary to do so, but I gotta do it.
>So if you had a $100,000 per year job in 2016 and you don’t presently have a $132,000 or more job, you’ve lost buying power. Finally someone who thinks beyond the hours and the obvious.
This is how I feel. I am looking for a new job with a higher salary, but it's hard to have any motivation to bust my ass all year for a 1% raise.
Right there with you
In my country (UK), IT - and particularly ops/sysadmin work - is very inconsistently salaried. Initial pay is good once you first break away from the Helpdesk and get a few certs under your belt, but I've started to notice a giant brick wall that you can only scale by taking on infinitely more work and responsibility for very small incremental salary increases, almost to the point where it's not really worth the stress for the extra pay, as inflation eats away at any gains anyway. Without going into specifics, in my organisation, the helpdesk is entry-level and barely above minimum wage. Senior technicians get perhaps a 20% - 25% bump over the Helpdesk. 3rd line and sysadmin/project engineers will get another 15% on top of that that. In real terms, you're only talking a difference of around £12,000 ($15,000~) between entry level first line and experienced, qualified and certified third line/sysadmin. From that point, if you want to increase your salary, you either need to pivot to full stack or data engineering, or wait for a management opportunity. That's it. So my point is that I'm starting to get tired of the upskill treadmill, when it means more stress, more effort and more sleepless nights, for marginally more pay than someone that switches off their laptop at 5pm and has very little responsibility to take home with them. Though I love IT, I do sometimes look on enviously at other departments that don't have such huge pressures to upskill, retrain and recertify just to tread water.
now THIS IS DEEP, very insightful yow.
Top comment right here!
Same boat, lack of motivation. I've been in the industry 28+yrs I have a boatful of certs. I can change jobs all I want and get hired anywhere immediately. The increase in pay is never more than 5%. Right now I work a job that I probably work 10 real hrs a week, only put out the big fires and do meetings. Kinda dismal sitting at your desk reading reddit all day. Sounds great but it sucks. I've been so happy working through SOC 2 Type 2 for multiple companies because it gives me something to do. My wife says they dont pay me to work but its more like a lawyer on retainer when the crap hits the fan.
> do the absolute minimum until retirement. see also 'act your wage'
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lol “sounds like a skill issue…” Nah, I don’t feel like putting effort into making a good impression with a bunch of new people, learning a new environment, and all the risks entailed by such a move. As I said, I’m pretty done with exerting a whole lot more effort for a paltry raise. I’d rather stay the course and retire at 50 with a full pension. Maybe if I were as cool as you are, I would job hop my way into that horizon, engineerin’ some projects, but my family likes it where we are and I’m pretty much at the highest local salary I’ll get without going into management, so no, thanks. About another decade and I’m done. It’ll be sweet.
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Ohhhh! Just get out of that comfort zone! Why didn’t I ever think of that? It’s so simple! I can see why you’re so highly paid!
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lol wtf!? I just read your comment history, expecting you’re at least pretending to be some Silicon Valley FAANG Bro making $300k, but it’s way worse than that; you’re a mid-20s nobody making $80k. … Go play with the other children. I make more than double what you make. I have a family and an actual grown up life to tend to, as well. If you actually think life’s as easy as “getting out of your comfort zone,” well, that’s probably because you haven’t actually had to do anything difficult yet. Oh, Internet. Jebus.
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[lol](https://www.reddit.com/r/UKJobs/s/kFQqOI1zmn)
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This is pretty easily done early on. I started in IT in 2015 making 30k and now make 115k base. But I'm reaching the upper limits of easy income growth now. I can job hop and hope to swing maybe 125-130, but the risk and requirements of such jobs make it less appealing. The risk/reward ratio no longer provides an easy answer. If you're making more than me and still increasing your pay by 20% a year, you're doing exceptionally well. I suspect your pay is lower, though.
I feel bored at times, but I realized I would rather be bored and have an easy job with decent pay, than be challenged and stressed out all the time. Small increases in pay weren’t worth it for me. I guess that means I am fulfilled lol.
I was definitely bored at my last job, so I left. There was no more progress to be made and that's a lesson I learned far too late in my life. There are several jobs I've had where I should have left far sooner than I did and my career development suffered because of it. I'm doing very well for myself but I could have been here years ago if I'd pushed a little harder earlier on. I won't say never but I can't imagine a realistic scenario in which I'd be willing to accept just drawing a paycheck over giving some kind of a fuck about what I do. I got 168 hours in a week, I can't imagine spending almost a quarter of that doing something that's wholly uninteresting.
Me too, I felt like I was there to be a warm body that died a seat as opposed to being an asset.
Every job I have had, after about three years I would get completely demotivated and do as little as possible, or just start researching stuff and doing my own private projects/certification study. Stagnant environments, micro-management, lack of any advancement opportunities, and overall there-is-only-so-much-you-can-do have all attributed to this. Internal IT almost makes such a trap inevitable as you are often looked at as pure cost-centric overhead. The best lesson I learned is not to try and change anything, but to just move on. Pursuing new challenges not only refreshes your mind, it keeps your skills up to date and provides new challenges.
I left IT for Software Development because of the pay. Today my annual gross is thirty percent higher but I hate my job. If I could go back for anything close to what I make now I would.
I have a degree in software development but have always worked doing sysadmin or systems engineering work, throughout may career I might develop a webapp here or there, managers would encourage me to pursue software development. I never did, I like coding and only do it when inspiration strikes. The money eventually came, but now I get frustrated because no one cares about infrastructure.
Are you not now superbly positioned for a move to devops? Admin and development experience sounds like it should be ideal.
I’ve certainly considered it. I’m not jumping at the gills to leave my company. If I did leave it would need to be for a remote position as I have strong ties in my region.
I don’t give a shit at all. I’m here to get paid so I can go home and do what I want. If the org burns down tomorrow, I’ll find another job and not think twice about it. Being unemployed will suck but whatever. In my professional life, work is work and work sucks no matter what my job title is. I am not bored at all in my personal life and the job is just a means to an end and will never be tied to my happiness.
Yes, I am very stagnant. I was extremely hungry to better myself with learning in my 20s, and I managed to get myself to a great spot now, but I haven't been able to maintain that drive due to health issues dragging me down. On top of that, I've realized that the IT world has become less and less about being good at tech, and more about being good at office politics and paperwork. It isn't the world thing in the world, but it has definitely taken the luster out of the field for me. I'm sure there are jobs out there where tech nerds can really thrive, but I'm not in a position to move into those roles right now.
wise words
man, that's true. if they like you, it's way easier. My current company i work for, i feel i'm like he's here, but there's no progression, no talk of promotion , etc but I guess, i got to bring it up and be a bit of a spin doctor. My colleagues who do, who does the work and also presents it in a way to the upper management, goes up. I've never been an ass kisser and it does become demotivating. I don't even feel i'm that smart in IT or at least, i feel less motivated to learn as much as i did prior. I'm trying to regain that back though
My org goes in cycles. It'll be boring for a week/month, then things will get crazy busy. Then slow down again, then go crazy again.
This is how mine is and we’re in a slow season at present.
I've seen my job go from junior Linux sysadmin to Linux sysadmin to senior Linux sysadmin to SRE, to senior SRE, to software engineer, to a specific SME for a platform. Right now, just honing my skills on the SRE tier, and even though my job description doesn't state it, working with people on workflows and CI/CD stuff, while making sure all compliance stuff is taken care of, and auditors are happy. Since the market is absolute crap, arguably worse than 2000, I'm just honing my skills right now and making sure I can automate anything and everything that comes my way. Thankfully, I have a port to weather this storm for an indefinite time. If I could design my dream job, I'd be more in an architectural/SRE role, because I've been in enough rodeos, I can deal with the pain points. At a previous job, I made restores so painless that any user could either `cd` into a snapshot directory, or fire a script which would automatically restore files for them after it was approved by IT, and have the files in a "restored" share that they could copy off. Nobody really cared if a document was lost, as they could go back and fetch it from a snapshot, or a backup. To boot, stuff that was needing to be archived indefinitely was stored on a file server that used stubs, where the archived data was stored on tape and would automatically be loaded in if needed. For development, having everything in GitHub Enterprise made life easy. SRE roles are underestimated, but important, just because someone has to shepherd all the development stuff. Stuff like running too many Kubernetes containers on the wrong hardware can create bottlenecks nobody has thought about.
cool stuff
In IT for about 15 yrs — I feel much more fulfilled since focusing more on the systems engineering and project management side of IT. Getting away from companies that rely on Microsoft based environments help a lot too.
Nothing is ever perfect. I miss the less problematic and simple environments. Lots of time to research and test. A whole day or half day doesn’t just disappear due to a complex issue. I could space out on Reddit for an hour and contribute. Stagnation is a personal problem, or a lack of funds and a cooperative mgmt imo. Even with no money, just poking my head into systems yielded good changes and learning
I got so bored I started my own business a decade ago.
I'm happy just to have a job.
I'm still very motivated. I work solo in a 110 users company slowly growing. We're planning to hire soon another IT and it's full of interesting projects and my day to day job has a lot of variety. Plus, I have a good relationship with the owners and my only boss is the CFO and we get along very well.
Honestly if you are bored, grow. Learn new skills, branch out. Get scared and try new things, move into roles that force you be uncomfortable. This will add to your salary, your confidence, and helps build you up as a great engineer long term. For example, if you're a network engineer, well learn some Python, learn some PowerShell, heck learn some Cloud and Servers. If you're a Cloud Engineer, get into some data stuff, etc. etc. There is a TON to learn in this field and it has unlimited potential, if none of this excites you anymore look into taking a break. Find hobbies away from the computer, work on a project. Or hell, just take a vacation and zone out.
i love this
I’m glad it helps!
>Get scared and try new things, move into roles that force you be uncomfortable. Is it really that easy to move into roles you're unqualified for once you've put some years in?
I mean it’s not easy but nothing in life worth doing is.
Suppose that's true. Did you mostly get those opportunities from networking?
Nope, all my opportunities have been blind LinkedIn jobs or Indeed Jobs in the past that I’ve applied for.
Well that's encouraging. Thanks. I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts/experience.
You’re most welcome! Good luck on your future endeavors, feel free to reach out if you have any other questions.
How many organizations will truly let you make mistakes when you are new at something? I quit IT for many reasons. But one was that I felt like I had to bat 1000 all of the time or I’d get a poor review or worse. So I felt like I just stuck with the 50MPH pitching machine my whole career.
All of the organizations I’ve been at? The whole point of that is to CYA. Learn how to roll back changes, learn about backups, have contingencies. This is all apart of being a good engineer. I’ve never let an annual review dictate what I do or not do, I’m the typical 1-2 year career fellow since I left my first senior position 4-5 years ago.
The good news is, we have backups. The bad news is, I’m new at setting those up too.
Well first you’re new, and then later you’re not. The point is to start.
I feel like there is no fucking point to IT and that learning more only gets me more stress and no closer to any goals. Sometimes I get recruiters knocking on my door for large increases in pay but I don't bite because it will probably just be more of the same. Maybe even worse.
I would not say I got into IT for excitement but I do feel extremely detached from my job. There’s a lack of motivation specially now because with my last promotion, I got promoted to a room with no windows and no one else in it. Which is even more demotivating now that some days I don’t even see another person at my job. So now it’s about putting in the time before I feel good about leaving to get another job.
An unhealthy mix of boredom, frustration, and key person dependancy (aka colleagues that can’t do their own stuff). Much like England making the quarters I somehow ended up in IT, and not sure how. At first I can only blame procrastination for not moving on, currently, the work is hellish but I’ve got a salary that’s okay and would take a nosedive switching to something else, plus some sense of not being able to do other jobs because all I do now is firefight old tech and people. I passed my DP-600 couple of weeks ago, no chance of getting Fabric at work, just a colleague dragged me along and I wanted to see if this old dog could learn new tricks. Thanks for bring about my cathartic rant op.
Very energized right now. My role has moved where I am more security-focused and I am enjoying this very much. I have a number of very exciting and interesting projects that should further my career in a very dhnamic way.
I'm feeling all these comments, especially now that I've been passed over once again for a promotion which sends me spiraling every 6 months but they keep dangling that carrot and I keep chasing it instead of working on getting out. I am beyond bored, zero advancement opportunities for desktop support/EUC, paid well below what I think (aren't we all?) for my age and experience, and my level of 'give a shit' is at an all time low. I'm doing the bare minimum and dont feel bad about it one bit. My biggest problem (besides my disdain for management) is that I do really like where I work and the people work with. It pays lower than most companies in the industry but the work life balance is really nice and I do what I want (within reason). HOWEVER - I'm watching snot nosed kids around me shoot up the corporate ladder and advancing their careers FAR faster than my glacial creep. Other than that, its fine lol
" my level of 'give a shit' is at an all time low. I'm doing the bare minimum and dont feel bad about it one bit. [...] I'm watching snot nosed kids around me shoot up the corporate ladder and advancing their careers FAR faster than my glacial creep. " 1+1=2
I’m tired of studying for certs the job is cool though
Do things outside of work. Present at a conference. Share things on a blog. Participate in a user group. Hit the horse. Ride a gym. W/e.
Fulfilled because I work for a company that treats me like a human and I never have to touch windows.
If this is a Linux > windows post I get it. If this is mac > windows you need to be in jail. *
*on the motherboard, please indicate where Windows hurt you*
LMAO :D
W
Lemme guess, you only work with Red Hat?
lol ok cool response
Right now it’s quiet at work and sometimes I get relatively bored because I don’t always want to “find” something to do. But it’s summer time here and most customers will not start projects. I have just decided to train my scripting skills and all around tech knowledge when I have downtime and I’m trying to pick up work where possible.
I should make my job easier But I get bored easily
Tired or keep up and constantly trying to learn to stay relevant and stopped. If/when I leave where I am now I'll probably take a huge pay cut as I'll be so far out of the loop that I'd seem like I'm a fresh level 1 tech.
Fulfilled when there is work, board and can't go home when there is not...
I work in IT for around 6 years now and been in the same company since. We are an MSP and while it is truly stressful I wouldn’t want to change my job right now. The team I work in consists only of great people with tons of drive to advance and expand our tech stack. Worked my way up to one of the more senior staff members and it doesn’t seem to stop yet. Being stagnant with my knowledge or having nothing to do are my biggest dealbreakers in jobs. As long as my company supplies both things I am happy. Would take that over a greater salary with a boring work environment every day.
I feel extremely fulfilled. Always hungry though. Trying to climb the ranks.
I rarely feel bored, someone comes up with new, exciting nonsense every time ;)
IT is my ikigai.
Looking at these comments I feel like I'm lucky. I thoroughly enjoy my job. Sure I have plenty of downtime but I'll take that any day over the nonsense that used to plague my everyday life when I worked MSP. I get to learn new tech as we implement it, I get to go to conferences all over the country and work with a great group of people.
Definitely boredom. I make a way above average salary but haven't been really given the chance to utilize my full skill set. Given IT salaries in Canada are absolutely abysmal and the job market is saturated I don't think I'll be moving for a year or two
I wouldn’t say I feel fulfilled, but I’m happy. I’m a worker. I love to work as long as it’s meeting my big 3 which are money left after bills, family happy, and I can buy motorcycles. Just bought a 2025 Indian Sport Scout so no complaints from me. Boredom is natural. Learn to love your work, you don’t need to be passionate, but just like what you do.
Not sure if it's burnout or boredom. What's the difference? Job wise. I run the gamut from designing hosting infrastructure, configuring Nexus switches and VSAN clusters to resetting passwords. Been at it for 30 years, in a small hosting and consulting company. Other than the pay (spending power), that peaked in àbout 2000 it's the end users that wear me down. One client has been around for 25 years and we still do everything for them. I'd like to grow the revenue enough to make it more attractive to the aggregators, but then I'd have to hire and manage sales people.
I dig mundane job :) Learned this about myself many years ago. I am fine doing basic, repetitive, boring work and even get a kick out of it. Maybe because i am pedantic and always try to structure what i am doing with quantifiable, visual lists, stats. Although i also get a big endorphin rush completing complex project, it is good to splice such work with simple tasks to let your brain chill, like after hours of making progress on a project go and do a few simple tickets, update software package, reply to some emails. After reading comments here i think for me my 20 years career was pretty steady in the sense of both excitement and boring tasks. Maybe in the last few years i feel a tad less engaged, but i did a few almost year long projects practically myself. And my manager fixes my "meeting expectations" self valuation to "exceeding", so maybe i am doing alright. Lately doing a lot of couching, training and bringing our juniors up to speed. My pay is modest, but i don't care that much, don't spend a lot and make savings anyway.
bored, looking to make the move to something different pretty soon
Well I’m as busy as anything and bored at the same time. Bad decisions.. lack of staff and investment in infrastructure.. people all burnt out.. with no hope of an end in sight… I just get through my days now.. do my best and switch off. I’ve worked out you can kill yourself and get some token appreciation or you can do an ok job , go home enjoy your family …. And still get token appreciation…
purpose is just an illusion. if the job pays you well enough to allow you to do the things you want, then that's enough. There are no epiphanies to be found here...well unless you find a way to upload your consciousness into "the cloud".
Been in IT since 2009 and currently a systems engineer and just kinda over it at this point. I feel like I just go through the motions on a daily basis and new projects give me zero excitement anymore. Debating making a field change but not sure what would get me anywhere close to what I’m at now. I pretty much just stick around as an engineer for my family now.
I have a business applied management degree for this exact reason along with my management information systems degree. I realized when I was doing I.T. stuff early in my career with just my associates degree that there would be a day I just get frustrated with I.T. stuff and just say I'm done and go do business orientated jobs like a business system analyst. The problem is most companies don't understand the value that my experience in tech brings to the business side of things. At this current job I'm making sure that my day to day jobs are 50/50 split between technology and business aspects and making sure I get training on business software so I am more valuable as a business resource. So instead of having I.T. managers as my references I have Controllers as references.
im getting bored. BUT i am at the start of my career and havent got the chance to improve my skills in a live environment, theory is all good but i learn alot better if i know there are stakes involved. i suspect ill get my motivation once i get the opportunity to improve my skills
I thank you guys so much for your comments, it means a lot, God bless you all. You all motivated me and helped me to really think and evaluate. Being an IT Guy in Jamaica has been a very ruff fight/journey to the top, especially in the Government of Jamaica/public sector- Nasty politics runs the show, not hard work, qualification or IT skill set. I appreciate you guys. Keep the comments coming.
I love learning new things but at the same time more and more gets increasingly offloaded to IT to figure out. If you do a good job it doesn’t seem like the recognition is there. It seems like your just expected to above and beyond.
I wouldn't say I'm fulfilled but I am very happy with how my career developed and where I ended up, after 30 years in IT, I want my current job to be the one I retire from. I only have about 15-18 years left. I can definitely see myself being there for that time. We have a lot of employees who have worked there for 20-30+ years.
10 year sysadmin, can only do some much as one person..no one cares about open SMTP relays, outdated exchange server,unconstrained delegation on the database account,no priveleges access solution , client thirdly party app not patched..... Why do I care so much? I moved to taking oscp course to use my skills against vulnerable boxes , actually improving the organisation...too difficult, why would I risk. My paycheck by corrupting a database with a SQL server update?
I was bored the first 13 years but it was caused by chosing easy jobs and not setting higher goals. I was ready to leave but the pay was too good. Then focused on making a career and got jobs that where challenging and also taking certifications. It became more fun. I'm now in my dream job and next step would be managing if possible.
Mines lack of advancement. No places around here have more than 2-3 people on staff and there is no movement. It’s very frustrating
The constantly changing environments and that never ending study/exam/cert cycle is just too much.. I feel the industry is moving too fast and that a lot of stuff is going to legacy too quickly. Honestly, the IT industry feels like we're stuck in the early 2000s HP era where it was cheaper to buy a new printer than it was to replace ink in the old one, and the entire industry is now built off that model.
I'm fulfilled, at Linux sysadmin-with-devops-and-anything-else-that-crops-up level at a small company. I work under an excellent system architect and more than half of the C suite are technical and get stuck in to the work with us. They take care of the meetings and compliance and I get a lot of time actually working with systems, from day to day maintenance to playing with blue sky projects. I can work from home whenever I want to. Work life balance is perfect and I get to spend a lot of time with my kids as they grow up. I have no desire to move up any higher or have any more responsibility. I live in a low CoL area and the money more than meets my needs.
I left my IT job at a small company and now work for the county Public Defenders office helping the attorneys view evidence properly. More money, less work. Happier life. 👍🏻
Do i think i reached my full potential in IT no, but that's my fault. However i just kinda fell into IT because at the time it was still kinda newish and you could make a ton of money. I did an apprentice plumber thing for 3 years before i just couldn't do that job. My dad was blue collar and an electrician. So he wanted me to go into the trades too. He said we need a plumber in the family and since i was the only boy guess who got into plumbing... I HATE PLUMBING. Would have rather of been an electrician if anything else.
I've been Bored AF for the last 2-3 years... Knew that I really needed to make a change but I was comfortable. I recently found out that our contract was ending and it was the kick I needed to make a change. Moving to a new role where I will get to work on new things like Cloud and Automation. Lots of new challenges and I'm excited for the first time in a while.
The wind I experience is generally in hurricane/tornado form so boredom is not my issue.
Not anymore…the tech is cool and fun but doesn’t really feel rewarding like it used to.
All of IT lives on the precipice of the next WannaCry now. The security burden of modern IT is excessive and sucks a lot of the fun out of the job.
The C-suite is sinking all their attention and money into new AI stuff - just chant "**ÄI! ÄI! Gartner fhtagn!**" until the dollars flow. Making me a bit worried about the rest of the company which isn't AI related getting sidelined. I have no great interest in AI so that's not fulfilling.
I am realizing the effort I put toward my job is not something that would benefit society as much as something related to body/mind or liberation of others. I feel scammed and my efforts are only to understand a set of abstract systems that are related to a capitalistic framework, not "for the good of all mankind".
Idk, this whole crazy thing we call modern society works because of each one of us doing our small part. A billion tiny hands moving the wheel.Easy to feel like we aren’t making a difference though or seeing results of our work, especially with specialized and often esoteric work
I assume so.... everything that is part of the world (even the worst/gross jobs), are what makes the world run, and in some way, they are all necessary. I guess what I am saying is that I could work for a jail, and perhaps work for the encapsulation of immates, or I could work for the peace corps. I'd say one has a greater value into society as a whole. For my job, it just feels like I will do *this* for the next 30 years. I want to feel invigorated and motivated by doing something that matters, and seeing it benefit others. But you are also right, I have a lot of motivation to just want to fix things (the world), then I realize some buddhist concepts that we can't really change anyone except out selves (we cannot change the world, but only work from within our tiny realm). When I am on my death bed, I want to know that the pain and suffering i dealt with in the 1st 1/2 of my life was transmuted for the greater good. Not just like 'wrote some scripts and bought some books and games.' But hey - gotta love that mid-life crisis!
If you feel bored, try to advance in your career. You should start looking in that direction and take some time to study and learn new abilities if you aren't already. This is the best way to combat boredom in this field.
I want off Mr Bones wild ride.
Equality in the workplace makes my job extremely boring 🥱 I nap a lot and my boss pats me on the back for it
I'm at what I like to call, "Cruising Altitude." I'm the old data center guy. Business is mostly cloud now, but no one else has any of those skills. Pay is good. Learning Devops is a fun distraction, but I'll never be a SME. Less than 5 years until retirement and I'm happy to coast.
Bored to a degree in the day to day but I’ve been taking it and throwing it into upskilling which has been fulfilling.
I've been feeling very unmotivated recently. I've reached a salary level where I don't have any more "easy wins" - I used to jump jobs annually and get 20%+ increases in pay. Now I'll be lucky to swing 10-20% maybe one or two more times, and the requirements and expectations for those roles are through the roof. I'm in a weird spot where I have a mixed system/network/automation background and need to pick a lane. I can't decide whether to stay with net eng, or move fully into cloud ops or devops (I love writing apps and tools in Python now), or do something else entirely. Without a future goal in mind, it is hard to motivate myself at all. I've never been stuck like this, but I'll hopefully sort it out.
repeating tasks just kill me - the same thing every single day. not sure if it's boredom, lack of motivation, or i'm actually drowning in the daily work life. even the money do not motivate me anymore. - me, an it consultant
For me, it's battling the monotony of it all. It's just nonstop work, and no matter how much I get done there will always be more, and none of it is easy. I bust my butt to learn one thing and as soon as I'm done I have to learn the next. I make great money and everything but sometimes it feels exhausting.
I’m bored just reading this post…
We are all but flakes of dandruff lingering on the nearly dead corpse of our civilization. Waiting to be devoured by mites.