Stress
-
StressWe all face it, today's headline article deals with it, as does this report from CIOs that acknowledges it. The levels of stress can be high in IT and while we may be proud of how hard we work, it isn't always the best way for us to be the most productive over time.
It's 2:30pm, sometime around 2002, and a new worm is hitting Outlook at my company. It was an attachment mistakenly opened, but all of a sudden our Exchange servers are being overloaded and we need to start working on the issues. The crisis team convenes and after a few hours of working with Symantec, we have an idea of the scope and solution, but it will be hours of work cleaning mailboxes and clearing queues.
At 5:30, one of the crisis team needs to leave. His kid has a baseball game and he's going, even if he's on the crisis team. He's a senior person and not directly responsible for Exchange. There's some grumbling, but the director lets him go. I stick around to see if I can help and end up scripting out some small cleanup tasks that automate the work and we're going home around 2am.
That's probably a familiar situation for many of you. Maybe it was Slammer, maybe a release needs some last minute bug fixes, maybe something else, but there are times when you need to go the extra mile and work harder. My buddy left because he knew the drill, knew that not everyone needed to stay there to work the issue, and he doesn't need the stress. There are times when he does need to work, but he's old enough to know that he also has to develop a balance.
I knew that as well, but I didn't have anything pressing at home, knew my wife would understand, and it was a chance for me to learn more about a new company and perhaps help.
We make mistakes when we're stressed. We're irritable, we don't think as clearly, and we aren't as much fun to be around. We're also missing out on our lives because we because too focused on one thing: work. It's no different if you're getting divorced, have a sick family member, or any number of other stressors outside of work, but work is a stress that we don't often consider.
In IT we live under stressful situations most of the time. We learn to deal with it, some better than others, and some not at all, but we tend to forget the pressure to get a report completed, a project finished, or some other part of our daily work is nothing compared the crisis situations where systems are down. And then we wonder why mistakes are made, things take longer, or we miss more deadlines over the next few weeks or months.
Do yourself a favor. Get away from work, think about something else at night, get a hobby, and learn to balance your life. Work hard, grow your career, but remember there are other things in your life.
And most of all, take your vacation. Don't sell it, bank it, or do anything other than enjoy using it.
Steve Jones
-
I am a developer (generally IT) ,
u really describes the life of people sticking 12 hours a day on screens try to think for the machines discarding thier sacial life
just want to add ( or insert in sql convension )
When we r at work , we should be totally at work
When we r not at work , we should completely forget everything about work
Thx again
-
...And most of all remember, your children are only young once and they need parents, not stressed out adults who are too over-worked to give them enjoyable quality time.
-
Absolutely.
There is your work, and there is your life, and although there may be a lot of overlap between the two, remember that they are not the same.
-----------------
C8H10N4O2
-
I am a working mother. In another word, I have two jobs. I am a SQL Server developer working in a company 10 hours a day (not including 1.5 hours driving time.) Of course there are all kind of stress dealing with deadline, company politics, co-workers conflict..... Before and after work, I am a maid (mother), cooking, cleaning, doing dishes.....at home. Over weekend, I have to do grocery shopping, cleaning, working the lawn, laundry, plus being my kid's driver. Talk about stress, I don't even know how to spell it because it already becomes part of my life.
-
Wow... this is a very timely subject for me. In the article, there's the list of "cumulative stress" symptoms - I'm hitting most of them. I figured I was stressed out, but didn't think it was quite that bad, but taking a minute to step back and look at things, I'm noticing that I need to work at managing stress better. Thanks for posting this today.
-
Thanks for reminding me (us) Steve. I am guilty of it right now. I am on vacation and for the second day in a row, I VPN'ed in to work to check e-mail. I know I am not the only person that does this, however it is a bad habbit.
Frank
-
Cowboy, you've made my day. Not that Im happy that you're stressed of course, but if we can help one person recognize stress and start to change their response, thats an article worth publishing!
-
Great article, great editorial.
I'll be sharing both with my work mates.
Must be time for that holiday (and I would NEVER take my technology with me).
Thanks Andy and Steve. This is very important in our industry, particularly for those who haven't been around that long and as 10 foot tall bullet proof youths, they just keep grinding through instead of recognising where they are at.
-
Great article, great editorial.
I'll be sharing both with my work mates.
Must be time for that holiday (and I would NEVER take my technology with me).
Thanks Andy and Steve. This is very important in our industry, particularly for those who haven't been around that long and as 10 foot tall bullet proof youths, they just keep grinding through instead of recognising where they are at.
-
Cool article dude, but it seems I have become addicted to stress and I like it though it’s destroying my personal life and I can’t seem to let it go.
any advice.
-
Nice article,
Completely Agree with you too.
Here at the university there was a professor who was in charge of creating a new Student Management System (enrolment / attendance / test records etc)
The project was a huge task and was made almightily harder by several wrong decisions.
The project was so large and had such issues it was basically given a blank cheque to get it up and running (And ultimately ended up costing the university in excess of 30 million to implement / re-implement (we're still fine tuning it some 6 years later)
Anyway, the professor went on his first holiday for ages, had a stroke and died. It was rumored at the time he couldn't handle the stress of being away from work. He was a work-a-holic.
It certainly helped me to re-prioritise.
Sure, at times I still put work before my family and myself... but it certainly isn;t at the frequency or vigor that it was prior to the professor's death.
Gavin Baumanis
Smith and Wesson. The original point and click device.
-
Excellent article, things that definitely needed saying. After spending 6 years at work, I cannot agree more, take your vacation, enjoy it, and try to forget about work.
Apparently it would seem (at times) that in IT you are on duty 24/7/365, and you are not an employee, but owned!
I have fallen foul of letting this happen before now, and can only stress how important it is not to let work encroach on your personal life. Follow the advice given....get a hobby....
-
Loner - I'm a divorced mum too! But I've realised that I'm far happier and less stressed taking a local, lower paid civil service job with flexi time than commuting to earn double the salary with longer days and stressful drive or train journeys leaving no time for home life.
Maybe I'll have to work a few years longer to pay off the mortgage but I will have enjoyed my hobbies (sailing) and time with the children now that won't be possible in a few years.
-
Addiction to stress? I think Im out of my depth, but I'll try anyway! I think my first question is, are you really addicted to stress? Or do you like living life at break neck pace? Or maybe you enjoy being in the middle of every critical project, striving to make a difference? If you're willing to work that hard and feel that much stress, arent you entitled to relax and play just as hard?
Changing established patterns about anything is damned hard. Whether its giving up smoking, taking less money for more freedom, it's not always easy to do it even when you KNOW what the right thing is. Ultimately it's up to each of us to make the change, or decide that making the change appears to be more painful than staying in our current situation.
StressViewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 15 total)
You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply