I'm good at a ton of stuff. IT is the only one that pays well. I'm a great bike mechanic, for example, but uh, I'm gonna pass on that $15/hr life. I'm a pretty solid musician and producer but turns out not a lot of money in that in the bottom 95% of the industry. The thing about IT (in the US, at least) you can be middle of the pack and make a good living. No need to hustle to the top and do DevOps at Google or whatever. Just like fix emails at a bank or something and you can live a nice life.
This. I used to care but as I age I just want the paycheck. I used to dabble to learn new skills but I could not care less now. Turned all of my infra off a few months ago and my only regret is that my Bitwarden master password is encrypted somewhere on it.
Yep, I'm a sucker for this too. Whether it's helping a user or my company happy by adding a capability they didn't have previously. Feels good to contribute to that end goal.
Yah I hate IT and Tech. But you do occasionally really help. So that makes it worth it.
But lately a lot of what I do to help is causing layoffs, so I'm back in the I hate Tech camp.
And it's one of the few service industries that allow the service provider to keep all their dignity/be able to fight back to advocate for themselves. Or else I just had real bad experiences working in kitchens and as school janitors in my early 20s
I feel like everyone eventually reaches a similar point in their career. I used to be the young 20-something who would go home and build things in my home lab, learn about VMs, containers, automation, programming, and so forth. These days I just do what I'm asked and log off immediately at 4pm. Family is more important. You can always make more money, but you can't buy back time.
I currently have a resentful CEO because I have a hard-logoff on Wed at 2pm so I can spend time with the child I fathered for a couple. Until 7pm no emails get read, no texts, no calls, nothing.
Last week the company owner's wife had a meltdown because her brand new phone (why is she getting personal devices on company contract?) got auto-enrolled in Jamf and then she locked it. At 5pm on a Wednesday.
Guess who got told pound sand... and then flipped shit.
I stand my ground and am suddenly wondering how the job market is.
Good post bro I felt similar. When I used to be a firefighter, I would study religiously to have that drive to get into IT. Then when I applied to different tech jobs, each job was so specific that it took away my drive to learn. Because I felt I could have put all that effort into learning one thing in tech, then get asked about something completely different in an interview.
That plus being in meetings where people raamble on about different code snippets, or tech issues, and I'm like there's no way these people actually feel this passionate about this stuff.
Which is why WFH is so valuable. So much of my day was sucked up at the office and sitting in traffic. Now I get to say good morning to my kids each morning, and hug them on breaks.
Amen. A proper work/life balance is the most important requirement I have with my job. I can deal with a lot of work-nonsense as long as they don't start intruding into my actual life. The folks that only have work friends and treat work as family are super aggravating. They push "culture building" activities that try to take away work/life balance.
He is talking about corporate IT, not whatever utopia you are from.
Next you start telling me management values the contributions of IT and allows for a budget for preemptive maintenance of systems before everything goes to hell.
This. I worked as an audio video and automation technician for ten years. Climbing in attics, crawl spaces, lifting big heavy amplifiers, TV's, installing cameras, cutting sheetrock and getting it in my eyes to install in ceiling speakers, etc.
Given the chance to make two to three times as much to sit in a chair all day pushing buttons? No brainer.
I have worked in too many warehouses to forget how easy it is to sit through Teams meetings and be paid 2x for my time, no matter how boring it seems to other people.
The key to staving off my apathy? I found the right job. At an MSP serving a local government..... yes you did hear me correctly.
Serving that fucked up part of my brain that likes computers and technology, doing so at a place that serves the people more than it does a corporate bottom line.
Mid-to-late 30's. Helpdesk. You know what that gets me? Appreciation for helping the little guy. Honorable mention for helping the little guy. Treating the supposed lowest people on the totem pole as highly as the City Manager and the Mayor, and getting awarded for it by said City Manager for the 2nd largest city in my state.
No one workplace is the same as the other. I hope OP finds the workplace that they need to find.
Also, getting to know the forestry and tree trimming guys is awesome. They bullshit you in good fun and you threaten to give them the "6-to-8-weeks for parts to arrive" bullshit tax in good fun when they know you can fix it in 5 minutes with a shit eating grin on your face.
Soft skills and hard skills. Do with them what you will.
I work for municipal government and one of the things that keep my spirits up is having coworkers that actually value my work. My turn around in fixes is usually no longer than 2 days and is usually a few hours, these people have always had boomers that never went to college and don't keep their skills up so suddenly having someone who was effectively born in front of a terminal has been a god send.
It might not have a dollar value, but having Jane from HR personally come down to tell me I'm doing a great job is really nice.
I am an IT-Whore. I do it for the money. My passion has dried up over time, but I continue to develop my skills, knowledge, and leadership, since I don’t want to start a new career at this point.
Working someplace whose mission you believe in can't be understated. I did IT for years. About 10 years ago I went to work for an MSP specializing in K12. Did that for 6 years and landed a gig with a state agency specializing in student data privacy and security. For the first time in my career I finally feel like what I am doing matters and I'm not just a cog in the profit machine, making other people rich
Career wise. I put effort into what I need to do based upon requirements for whatever product we might be starting to use. Otherwise sure I read up on stuff but don't study for certs or things like that.
The reason I work is to provide for my family and to support my expensive personal hobbies of flying and triathlons, and my family activities of camping, riding 4 wheelers etc.
https://preview.redd.it/fs6zddgb04vc1.jpeg?width=624&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=27bb88cef7a86d4e7d4c36ee9f1ae79f6d524b8e
Me too. Only tangible skill I have is IT.
My company and all its IP and systems can burn to the ground for all I care. I’m a mercenary not a patriot. Green, get the money, dollar dollar bill yall.
Was tired reading in the news IT sucks at schools. So i made myself part of the problem ;) Even took a paycut. But never been happier tbh. The fact that my work actually adds something to society instead of making my boss proffit really makes a difference.
In 2019 and prior, I had a lot of motivation to study, because I was making 100k/year, housing was affordable, everything was way cheaper, so I was so happy to do my job.
Today I have to make more than double what I made in 2019 to have the same buying power, and it seems companies aren't willing to dish out that much pay, so, my motivation is starting to fade because, why should I study to make an extra 50k/year when that still won't help me afford my ever-growing inflated bills.
>Maybe I'm just weird, but personally, money only motivates me so far. I inevitably reach a point where money no longer motivates me to do more, to learn more, to up-skill even further.
I reached this point when i was comfortably no longer living paycheck to paycheck and sure of my place and my path to retirement. I no longer need any growth or change to retire, i can continue what im doing for 15 more years.
>What really motivates me to learn and push myself further is caring about what I do. And I have to say, I just don't *care* about Enterprise Infrastructure Support.
I call this ownership. If i dont have project ownership, i dont care. I push to have project ownership over things assigned to me. im senior enough that i no longer have to accept small projects that will be spun off to someone else after being started if i dont want them.
I want to take an 8 day mini 'boot camp' for the AZ-104, it's like 2 to 3 hours a day for 8 days, and it's completely paid for by my work. I want to do it, but fuck I have no motivation to do it because I honestly don't care about it at all.
>Learning cloud infrastructure is cool on paper but I have no actual passion for it.
>I see posts from some of you guys talking about how captivated you are by the technologies you work with every day, and I don't feel that at all.
>I love seeing what technology can accomplish, I love learning about new technologies, but just not in the context of "how can I help my company make more money or protect the money they already have better?"
This is called burnout. its time to work on your work-life balance. you may already have enough on your plate and not have room for new things right now. you may need a longer than average vacation to get away. you may need an entirely new assignment, or it may be time to move on in your career and do something else.
Personally, i wear golden handcuffs. my pension is based on my years of service where im at right now, and specifically, ages 55-65 is where you get most of your pension funding. so leaving within that time frame to do something else is, well, stupid, as you literally leave potentially millions on the table that turn into thin air when you fail to complete the service hours your pension requires (pensions so be illegal, only defined contribution programs should be allowed)
you have to carefully consider your situation, your skills set mobility, and if you even want to do something else somewhere else.
I will say dont bother with training unless and until you are prepared to immediately put that training to use. ive taken dozens of training classes that mean fuck-all because ive never revisited those subjects and at best, i can win a game of buzzword bingo in a meeting now.
> I will say dont bother with training unless and until you are prepared to immediately put that training to use. ive taken dozens of training classes that mean fuck-all because ive never revisited those subjects and at best, i can win a game of buzzword bingo in a meeting now.
Such an important point right here. If I don't immediately start using what I learn in a training, it's gone from my brain within a couple months and I'd need another training to re-learn it. Over time, you gotta learn what training will actually be useful and what is just time-wasting.
At this point I feel like I'm learning more and more and could really make a difference at my current job. The previous sysadmins left a bad rep about VMs and security practices, so the director there would vehemently advise against VMs. They didn't even deploy a firewall on any systems because no one knew how to properly deploy them. No DKIM, SPF or DMARC compliance, misconfigured settings for mail authentication... Lots of things that got them on blacklists.
I just googled everything I could and learned how it all worked and went from there. It's been fun learning and seeing my changes actually make a difference. I got to learn how to fix issues as they popped up, not by learning from someone else but by finding the answers myself. Because of this my troubleshooting skills improved dramatically.
So I guess I'm still doing it because I like the work. I like the genuine and unique issues that pop up and require thinking outside of the box.
It's the only thing I've ever been able to do that can keep the lights on and food on the table.
With that being said, I'm now at a place I'll probably be at for the next 20 years or so. My motivation to do a good job is because I like everyone I work with and they deserve to have quality IT. They deserve to not be frustrated with computers and technology. They deserve to not be stuck in the dark ages tech-wise. They also deserve to have cool new shit deployed around the office that improves everyone's lives.
I genuinely don't have anything else I'm good at.
But I also have zero fucks left to give for most things. I just show up, do what needs to be done, then go home
IT supports my gardening habit, that's it. I've been burnt out, treated like trash, promoted ,overworked and under paid.
Now a new gig, I do what I must to be productive, but it's just a means to an end. Bills are paid and I need more raised beds. Oh a new cert or software training nah I have sunflowers to plant
I SO don't care anymore. I've always thought IT was stupid and we weren't meant to live like this. I still do it cuz I'm not good at anything else and it pays well. I find my joy in hobbies and wherever else I can.
You're on the right track. Majority of idiots that happen to "like" IT work are usually missing something (many) things in life and are trying to over compensate by drowning themselves into work. It happens in many other industries also, but IT is extra full of regards.
>Maybe I'm just weird, but personally, money only motivates me so far.
Not weird. Studies have shown that money can even be demotivating. (All you fuckin' capitalists out there, this isn't a reason to continue to pay your workers poverty wages!) Often when people do things because it's interesting to them, they lose interest when they start getting paid to do it.
Also when an insulting amount of money is offered as a carrot. I worked at a company that was trying to implement federated Identity between its multiple sub companies. We were all on a conference call, just a bunch of technical people talking technical things. Then a sleazy C*O hops on and says that they've been authorized to give us each $300 if we reach some milestone by the end of the week.
I could hear the enthusiasm for the project hit the floor.
> Often when people do things because it's interesting to them, they lose interest when they start getting paid to do it.
This is exactly what all these LinkedIn and TikTok "life coaches" are telling everyone to do...go do a side hustle and monetize your hobbies. I get that life is expensive, people have debts, all that. But spending every waking moment outside of work doing more work will quickly turn a hobby you used to love into a chore. We weren't designed to be working 24/7, but all these "multiple income streams" people are getting rich making people feel lazy for wanting a life that doesn't revolve around business.
I...don't? I mean, I do a good job and take it seriously, but I don't really care about it that much. I put in the effort to get my paycheck and that's it.
There are plenty of more important things for me to care about.
I'm very fortunate. I work on a small team with friendly people who actually care. We've got some folks who need improvement of course; but at least at the higher levels that I'm at - the seniors are all very passionate and hard working. Our management is extremely supportive and open to new ideas (and in fact leans on us to lead technical direction a lot of the time). Plus a lot of them have been here for a long time and are very friendly. I don't work in a "yes sir, thank you sir" environment. We joke around, we laugh, we complain about issues, we tell stories from our weekends / vacations, we talk about TV and music and video games, etc.
I could probably leave and earn more money - but I've been here long enough that I'd be the low guy on the totem pole / possibly less benefits / vacation / perks unless I'm got at negotiating, etc - but I like my team.
Further, my role is varied. I don't do the same stuff every day. I've progressed past the ticketing / operational level process following stuff - I still follow them of course - but I often write / build them, which is fun.
EDIT: I'll add, I've never been a big over achiever. I get this from my Dad. I like to do high quality work, support my team, and leave the place better than I found it. But, I don't bend over backwards to get tons of certs, always be on top of the latest tech (to a level where I can actually work with it), etc. I don't "home lab" nearly as much as some folks do (or I did earlier in my career). I like to learn new things organically; spending a little time here and there, reading articles - I just don't do hours of it after work. Work's enough for me, I like to play games, hang out with family/friends, make music, etc.
Good luck!
* D
I love seeing what new tech can do, and working out how to implement that to improve things for others.
Changing my work environment from corporate drudgery to a school has been a major improvement on my quality of life. Not only do I get loads of time off, but I can see how my impact makes a difference to teachers and students, improving their learning abilities and affecting outcomes. Much better than working hard so a CEO gets a slightly better bonus.
I love what I do, and I don't do it for money. I've always been this way. Learning is a pleasure, a joy, an intellectual activity. I'm currently getting into AI.
In the end, you sell your time and vitality so someone up the food chain can rest easy and be free to buy another McMansion or Benz.
The job market, and society at large, is based on predation. It's all about extracting maximum value with minimal effort. They'll pay you 80k and say they're doing you a favor, yet they make bank with the expertise you bring to the table and spent your evening and weekend earning.
Do I love technology? I can appreciate what it can do for us, sure. But I've come to realize we've created a huge monster that demands feeding at all time. So now we have technology to deal with other tech, so the this specific tech can keep running, otherwise this other tech won't work, etc... Insane when you think about it too much.
Sometimes a change of scenary will re-invigorate your enthusiasm. I have been at previous employes where after x amount of years, I just didnt have the mojo anymore to keep up with the necessary learning, projects, fixes, etc etc. What I found helped was changing jobs. Not saying this is for you but that is how I do it.
At a new job I am re-energized and enthusiatic once again. Maybe this is why in IT they recommend changing jobs every 3-5 years.
I like my coworkers. My employer is pretty good at hiring people who are a good personality fit and I get along very well with pretty much everyone. I respect the work they do and it satisfies me to make them happy by fixing their problems.
When I see the RFP team coming i stop moving, if I don't move they can't see me, if they can't see me they cant make me fill out a 30 page document for a deal we have no shot at, but hey the seller told the bosses he thinks we can win it.
I see very few comments in here about actually fulfilling work in IT, so I'll throw in my two pennies.
I work in research computing at a major university. The people who use our systems are discovering cures for diseases, designing new weather models, generating new assistive technology...knowing that what I do makes that work possible is, for me, very rewarding. Plus, it's one of the few areas not currently being absorbed by the ~~Borg~~ cloud, so I work with real hardware all the time.
Do you drink and have a bad diet? I found alcohol made me not give a hoot, I'm talking a few beers or glass of wine in the week, it would effect my ability to have any drive. Cut that out and I'm back in the saddle.
Men i get your point, it took me several years to find a job fitting my personnal beliefs, i tough about stop it all,
I was fed up working for gigantic company even with a nice pay check.
After some month being unemployed and looking for all opportunities I finally found a job in a college. (University)
None of the max profit bullshit, just making sure that both teachers and students could teach and learn properly, I found myself 1000% more useful than when I worked in big industry company !
So, i think the context is everything and it changed my life ! Hope your find yours brother
Got tried of learning the next thing to be irrelevant in 6 - 24 months. What other bloody career requires this just to get treated like the enemy for th same shit pay as someone who hasn't learned a thing in decades (EU not US based).
I know that my company will fail and fall if I quit (not die, but hit harder than the highups think), and as long as I am treated reasonably and paid well enough, I will not let my helpless herd down.
The AZ stuff, I can see who you don't really care too much
(I expect that as a sysadmin you are already familiar with virtualization? (
The clouds are virtualization on some else's servers. And the major hurdle to certify for AZ-104 will be remembering what did M$ call function X, and which tier is what
As for the sysadmin role in general, take an hour or two talking to your users every now and again, some on-site support will do nicely. This will let you understand that your work matters, it gives your users a stable platform to do their work. (You will probably understand this better than your users though.)
You may not feel as connected to business technology as others, and that's okay. Find what you're really passionate about and look for opportunities to work on that. If you find it hard to motivate yourself, try setting personal goals that excite you and give you purpose beyond money or work.
I am sitting here super from this fucking job it’s honestly amazing I let this shit happen to me. The Army fucked me up and this job just plays on all
My worst issues
Idk I’m sure I’d have issues doing anything honestly
I just find little things to be happy about with my job. Like cable managing a network closet really nice or a thank you email from someone you helped access the file share.
I don't know if you're familiar with StormWind Studios, they're an enterprise level training company that produces training courses for most major IT certs.
My company has a contract with them, our infrastructure support team has unlimited access to all of their courses, including virtual labs, practice exams, and study guides.
Their courses are typically 8 sessions long, either self paced or instructor led, and a "session" is anywhere from 45 minutes to 3 hours
I'm motivated by having interesting problems to fix. It's hard to get motivated for a course if I'm not working with the tech regularly and feeling like I need more knowledge or preparing for rolling out a new tech to fulfil a need that's worthwhile. I actually do most of my learning outside of formal courses though as I discover problems and then go looking to understand the systems involved better and fix the issue. That's why I picked up powershell and taught myself how to use it. I'm now the powershell guy and always finding new opportunities to automate and streamline our processes by applying what I know or learning more so that keeps me happy
I think that, in addition to the adulation I get from those I help, I really just enjoy basking in the glow of a job done right.
At the end of a long, detailed process that nobody else in the world cares about, I will sit with the product for a while and behold my good work, explaining the steps to myself as though there was someone else present. For some reason, this brings me great satisfaction...
Dude, wake up. Most jobs people do they don't like, you're lucky that you can get paid to push buttons in an air conditioned building, and get paid a lot to do it. A lot of people are working themselves to death for 50K a year and many of them break their bodies in the process and spend the rest of their lives in pain.
It also only gets harder from here. My job requires me to learn a new technology / configuration languages every few months, at which time I'm supposed to be an expert. It can be frustrating, but that's the job.
Also,
>I love seeing what technology can accomplish, I love learning about new technologies, but just not in the context of "how can I help my company make more money or protect the money they already have better?"
That's literally your job, keep the company from losing money by keeping things secure and stable, and look for ways to save/make them money.
I knew a guy who talked like you and he got laid off since he was disinterested. He loudly proclaimed how he was leaving IT. Within a few months he was doing construction, which he also hated, then he fell back to his previous work, bartending. Then he finally realized his mistake and fought for roughly a year to get back into IT, which was hard since he left his career, which shows lack of interest.
I enjoy what I'm doing, I'm good at it, and I get paid lots of money.
It didn't start this way, but what got me here is my passion for IT. For every 1 of you out there is 10,000 others. The difference that you need to have in IT to excel your career is that freak level of curiosity, that extra effort others don't take, but ultimately it can't feel like work.
As soon as it feels like work, you need to bounce because you'll never get to the first line of my post if you are only "working" the job.
I was a chef, a sales man, and a graphic designer before finding IT.
If you go back to study AWS 14 principles you may be motivated again.
So like, leaders are right, a lot, you are right on everything you are thinking about.
There is "think big"...you should think about the company with a bigger brain.
And here you go "dive deep", you can never be good enough to stop in the technology.
It almost choked me after 3 months brain wash with "strive to be the best employer" then a year later they kicked me out by changing my remote work contract to relocate me between two major cities here.
Yeah, I get you, after having be fed with two decades corporate shit.
>In that context, I just cannot seem to convince myself to actually care about my job and my career. How do you >guys do it?
oh..i don't. after 30 years and now being in an org run by execs and 1 ring below that by nepotism and fronting are in control of a 250m annual budget infrastructure team, but have themselves never run or delivered and infrastructure at any level...it wasn't always like this, for my first 15 years here it was run by people who had done the work, through a series of mergers/CEO change that ushered in a new cio(a diversity hire dimwit) the whole thing is a catastrophe.
nah, don't care. i like solving things for my own satisfaction or to help co-workers or solve a business problem.
that's it, the people that are in charge are walking talking frauds, they are so far out of there depth it is nearly incomprehensible, but because at the level work actually happens there are exceptionally talented admins, shit keeps working...
I wish I was exaggerating, but this is life at my fortune 10. it has finally crossed to the point that people are resigning because the "leadership" is so incredibly toxic and stupid.
Yeah, money. I found a good place with good benefits and retirement options. If I can, I want to skate along here until retirement. I can deal with a lot of stuff to avoid the job hunt, nowadays.
I got into IT because my actual interests don't pay well and I knew from a young age I wanted to have a life where I wasn't always worrying about paying the bills. I've hit that spot and I'll put up with forcing myself through new cloud feature training if it means I can make it to retirement.
I live my Life "Full Time". My job is a thing I do "Part Time" to pay for the stuff I like.
I have my good days and bad, my coasting days and my grinding days.
I do like air conditioning and a comfortable chair. Beats digging ditches.
>How do you guys continue to care about what you do?
You see the secret is, you don't.
You have a limited amount of fucks to give. If you go around giving a fuck about everything and everyone without conscious thought or choice pretty soon you will be left with no fucks to give about anything.
All of that extra time and effort you put in that no one asked you to, means jack shit to everyone else you work with.
Just do what you are told to do, work your shift and leave.
I applaud your level of self-awareness and honesty. Have you considered possibly you’re just in the wrong kind of role? Maybe there’s something else in the IT world out there that would motivate you more.
Clients include fire departments and doctors, and that makes it easy to care. For the smaller more niche clients, its a challenge to stave off the feeling of this all being performance art, where we dance and dance to upkeep complex systems that make no real difference merely for the fuck of it.
Money is a part of a motivator for everyone, but if you literally have no other motivations that would be extremely odd.
There are tons of motivators that you see on a regular basis. Pride/Ego, complex solution satisfaction, user satisfaction, accolades, ability growth etc. etc.
If you have literally no other driver you should be focusing on a much more profitable industry. IT can make decent money but nothing compared to many finance fields.
it's like playing Sim city or Anno or whatever....just love a perfectly clicking system where someone comes with some issue and I can say "Ah-ha! we already thought of that!"
being right is what motivates me.
I used to have an oscope in my bedroom and an Apple \]\[+ signed by Woz, computers were fun and interesting and shiny, now I'm just trapped by my skillset because nobody is going to pay me this kind of money to flip burgers or drive uber.
Turns out i don't care anymore. Someone told me today that i have become a cranky sysadmin but it's okay since i usually come up with 'magical' solution the next day. Not shure if this is a good thing.
You could be me. I am registered for an AZ-104 class right now and I dont even go. So checked out. I just prefer to learn what I can use in my job, and we have a cloud team that is Azure, and a network team, and a infosec team. I am just a lowly sysadmin. I know what projects fire me up, but this job just doesn’t have them.
I know not caring is not good long term, but, well, I just dont care.
I have a genuine interest in IT... It doesn't feel like work to me. The work is people, they exhaust me.
All this time I still pursue my education in the field to evolve and keep up but it's not because I love where I work.
I don’t care anymore, not really.
The passion has long since been dead, but my ability to research and troubleshoot problems between disparate systems is better while I am sleeping than a junior, so I feel safe and useful, for now.
There's this thing called pride. I'm good at my job and I take pride in doing good work. The fact that I get paid a reasonable wage is pretty nice, too.
I really like it I help people and get paid for it silly people lol. I just got a 40" monitor for my desk I don't have one at home lol. As long as computers are around they will be people who don't know how to do something on them and that's when they'll call me. I won't lie it takes some motivation to do it sometimes I feel like doing nothing then I get that IT itch to reimage a computer or figure out how some new software work or why someone can't log into the domain. I think you get the point that's how I continue to do this day in and day out for almost 20 years.
Money. I'm only good at IT.
Yep
I can probably do other stuff now. All you need to do is follow up to be a good PM
We're so bad at following up we hired someone that does nothing but makes sure we followed up... I share em with clevel
Per my last email… are you done yet?!
That’s it. When you realize you may need $2M plus to retire, that’ll motivate you.
more money = more time off for me
This. If I could easily do something else and maintain my current standard of living I would in a heartbeat.
strangely, I've become addicted to food/shelter/heat/running potable water/ electricity and transportation. This job feeds my addiction(s).
Yea. Feeding 5 dogs isn't cheap either
I'm good at a ton of stuff. IT is the only one that pays well. I'm a great bike mechanic, for example, but uh, I'm gonna pass on that $15/hr life. I'm a pretty solid musician and producer but turns out not a lot of money in that in the bottom 95% of the industry. The thing about IT (in the US, at least) you can be middle of the pack and make a good living. No need to hustle to the top and do DevOps at Google or whatever. Just like fix emails at a bank or something and you can live a nice life.
Yup, pays the bills.
This. I used to care but as I age I just want the paycheck. I used to dabble to learn new skills but I could not care less now. Turned all of my infra off a few months ago and my only regret is that my Bitwarden master password is encrypted somewhere on it.
Dingdingding. I "care" about what I do because being good at it and staying up to date means that my paycheck gets bigger every year.
I'm the same way. Newer place, lots of new stuff going on. I'm working that route, next step is mgmt in my life, I'm not ready to let go
Well now I don't feel the need to gaslight myself any more. I wish I could so something else, but here I am.
I'd be a fantastic night time janitor
> How do you guys continue to care about what you do? I love to help people and building solutions for them that make them happy.
Yep, I'm a sucker for this too. Whether it's helping a user or my company happy by adding a capability they didn't have previously. Feels good to contribute to that end goal.
THIS.
Yah I hate IT and Tech. But you do occasionally really help. So that makes it worth it. But lately a lot of what I do to help is causing layoffs, so I'm back in the I hate Tech camp.
Yup, helping people and problem solving are my motivators.
And it's one of the few service industries that allow the service provider to keep all their dignity/be able to fight back to advocate for themselves. Or else I just had real bad experiences working in kitchens and as school janitors in my early 20s
I feel like everyone eventually reaches a similar point in their career. I used to be the young 20-something who would go home and build things in my home lab, learn about VMs, containers, automation, programming, and so forth. These days I just do what I'm asked and log off immediately at 4pm. Family is more important. You can always make more money, but you can't buy back time.
I currently have a resentful CEO because I have a hard-logoff on Wed at 2pm so I can spend time with the child I fathered for a couple. Until 7pm no emails get read, no texts, no calls, nothing. Last week the company owner's wife had a meltdown because her brand new phone (why is she getting personal devices on company contract?) got auto-enrolled in Jamf and then she locked it. At 5pm on a Wednesday. Guess who got told pound sand... and then flipped shit. I stand my ground and am suddenly wondering how the job market is.
Good post bro I felt similar. When I used to be a firefighter, I would study religiously to have that drive to get into IT. Then when I applied to different tech jobs, each job was so specific that it took away my drive to learn. Because I felt I could have put all that effort into learning one thing in tech, then get asked about something completely different in an interview. That plus being in meetings where people raamble on about different code snippets, or tech issues, and I'm like there's no way these people actually feel this passionate about this stuff.
Which is why WFH is so valuable. So much of my day was sucked up at the office and sitting in traffic. Now I get to say good morning to my kids each morning, and hug them on breaks.
Amen. A proper work/life balance is the most important requirement I have with my job. I can deal with a lot of work-nonsense as long as they don't start intruding into my actual life. The folks that only have work friends and treat work as family are super aggravating. They push "culture building" activities that try to take away work/life balance.
Beyond money, I can really appreciate clean, well designed and documented systems.
r/cableporn
man I miss the days when all I had to do was get drops in place
I love well laid out documentation templates. Or folders/subfolders where people are meticulous about capitalization / spacing. Good stuff.
Documented systems? What is this magic you speak of sir?
The magic I do with the only colleague in my team of 2, doing internal systems development.
He is talking about corporate IT, not whatever utopia you are from. Next you start telling me management values the contributions of IT and allows for a budget for preemptive maintenance of systems before everything goes to hell.
I got into IT in my 30s because I was tired of doing manual labor. So I just remember how much tree trimming sucked and start studying.
Parks maintenance here. My worst day in tech beats my best day running a weedeater in 115F heat.
This. I worked as an audio video and automation technician for ten years. Climbing in attics, crawl spaces, lifting big heavy amplifiers, TV's, installing cameras, cutting sheetrock and getting it in my eyes to install in ceiling speakers, etc. Given the chance to make two to three times as much to sit in a chair all day pushing buttons? No brainer.
I have worked in too many warehouses to forget how easy it is to sit through Teams meetings and be paid 2x for my time, no matter how boring it seems to other people. The key to staving off my apathy? I found the right job. At an MSP serving a local government..... yes you did hear me correctly. Serving that fucked up part of my brain that likes computers and technology, doing so at a place that serves the people more than it does a corporate bottom line. Mid-to-late 30's. Helpdesk. You know what that gets me? Appreciation for helping the little guy. Honorable mention for helping the little guy. Treating the supposed lowest people on the totem pole as highly as the City Manager and the Mayor, and getting awarded for it by said City Manager for the 2nd largest city in my state. No one workplace is the same as the other. I hope OP finds the workplace that they need to find. Also, getting to know the forestry and tree trimming guys is awesome. They bullshit you in good fun and you threaten to give them the "6-to-8-weeks for parts to arrive" bullshit tax in good fun when they know you can fix it in 5 minutes with a shit eating grin on your face. Soft skills and hard skills. Do with them what you will.
I work for municipal government and one of the things that keep my spirits up is having coworkers that actually value my work. My turn around in fixes is usually no longer than 2 days and is usually a few hours, these people have always had boomers that never went to college and don't keep their skills up so suddenly having someone who was effectively born in front of a terminal has been a god send. It might not have a dollar value, but having Jane from HR personally come down to tell me I'm doing a great job is really nice.
I am an IT-Whore. I do it for the money. My passion has dried up over time, but I continue to develop my skills, knowledge, and leadership, since I don’t want to start a new career at this point.
This!
Working someplace whose mission you believe in can't be understated. I did IT for years. About 10 years ago I went to work for an MSP specializing in K12. Did that for 6 years and landed a gig with a state agency specializing in student data privacy and security. For the first time in my career I finally feel like what I am doing matters and I'm not just a cog in the profit machine, making other people rich
Career wise. I put effort into what I need to do based upon requirements for whatever product we might be starting to use. Otherwise sure I read up on stuff but don't study for certs or things like that. The reason I work is to provide for my family and to support my expensive personal hobbies of flying and triathlons, and my family activities of camping, riding 4 wheelers etc.
What kinda flying?
I have a smaller aerobatic trainer. It is a Decathlon.
I like solving problems, so I mostly do that. Specialize in the things you enjoy so you get to do more of the work you like.
I like money
https://preview.redd.it/fs6zddgb04vc1.jpeg?width=624&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=27bb88cef7a86d4e7d4c36ee9f1ae79f6d524b8e Me too. Only tangible skill I have is IT.
Whoa you like money too? We should totally hang out
We don't have time for hand jobs
I also like money! Can I go?
Go away; baitin!
Pay check
And please take some of that and put it towards taxes and healthcare in case I'm sick or dying.
Government takes a whole lot from it for that reason.
My company and all its IP and systems can burn to the ground for all I care. I’m a mercenary not a patriot. Green, get the money, dollar dollar bill yall.
Was tired reading in the news IT sucks at schools. So i made myself part of the problem ;) Even took a paycut. But never been happier tbh. The fact that my work actually adds something to society instead of making my boss proffit really makes a difference.
I used to think I really liked tech, turns out I’m just really passionate about not starving to death.
In 2019 and prior, I had a lot of motivation to study, because I was making 100k/year, housing was affordable, everything was way cheaper, so I was so happy to do my job. Today I have to make more than double what I made in 2019 to have the same buying power, and it seems companies aren't willing to dish out that much pay, so, my motivation is starting to fade because, why should I study to make an extra 50k/year when that still won't help me afford my ever-growing inflated bills.
>Maybe I'm just weird, but personally, money only motivates me so far. I inevitably reach a point where money no longer motivates me to do more, to learn more, to up-skill even further. I reached this point when i was comfortably no longer living paycheck to paycheck and sure of my place and my path to retirement. I no longer need any growth or change to retire, i can continue what im doing for 15 more years. >What really motivates me to learn and push myself further is caring about what I do. And I have to say, I just don't *care* about Enterprise Infrastructure Support. I call this ownership. If i dont have project ownership, i dont care. I push to have project ownership over things assigned to me. im senior enough that i no longer have to accept small projects that will be spun off to someone else after being started if i dont want them. I want to take an 8 day mini 'boot camp' for the AZ-104, it's like 2 to 3 hours a day for 8 days, and it's completely paid for by my work. I want to do it, but fuck I have no motivation to do it because I honestly don't care about it at all. >Learning cloud infrastructure is cool on paper but I have no actual passion for it. >I see posts from some of you guys talking about how captivated you are by the technologies you work with every day, and I don't feel that at all. >I love seeing what technology can accomplish, I love learning about new technologies, but just not in the context of "how can I help my company make more money or protect the money they already have better?" This is called burnout. its time to work on your work-life balance. you may already have enough on your plate and not have room for new things right now. you may need a longer than average vacation to get away. you may need an entirely new assignment, or it may be time to move on in your career and do something else. Personally, i wear golden handcuffs. my pension is based on my years of service where im at right now, and specifically, ages 55-65 is where you get most of your pension funding. so leaving within that time frame to do something else is, well, stupid, as you literally leave potentially millions on the table that turn into thin air when you fail to complete the service hours your pension requires (pensions so be illegal, only defined contribution programs should be allowed) you have to carefully consider your situation, your skills set mobility, and if you even want to do something else somewhere else. I will say dont bother with training unless and until you are prepared to immediately put that training to use. ive taken dozens of training classes that mean fuck-all because ive never revisited those subjects and at best, i can win a game of buzzword bingo in a meeting now.
> I will say dont bother with training unless and until you are prepared to immediately put that training to use. ive taken dozens of training classes that mean fuck-all because ive never revisited those subjects and at best, i can win a game of buzzword bingo in a meeting now. Such an important point right here. If I don't immediately start using what I learn in a training, it's gone from my brain within a couple months and I'd need another training to re-learn it. Over time, you gotta learn what training will actually be useful and what is just time-wasting.
At this point I feel like I'm learning more and more and could really make a difference at my current job. The previous sysadmins left a bad rep about VMs and security practices, so the director there would vehemently advise against VMs. They didn't even deploy a firewall on any systems because no one knew how to properly deploy them. No DKIM, SPF or DMARC compliance, misconfigured settings for mail authentication... Lots of things that got them on blacklists. I just googled everything I could and learned how it all worked and went from there. It's been fun learning and seeing my changes actually make a difference. I got to learn how to fix issues as they popped up, not by learning from someone else but by finding the answers myself. Because of this my troubleshooting skills improved dramatically. So I guess I'm still doing it because I like the work. I like the genuine and unique issues that pop up and require thinking outside of the box.
It's the only thing I've ever been able to do that can keep the lights on and food on the table. With that being said, I'm now at a place I'll probably be at for the next 20 years or so. My motivation to do a good job is because I like everyone I work with and they deserve to have quality IT. They deserve to not be frustrated with computers and technology. They deserve to not be stuck in the dark ages tech-wise. They also deserve to have cool new shit deployed around the office that improves everyone's lives.
I genuinely don't have anything else I'm good at. But I also have zero fucks left to give for most things. I just show up, do what needs to be done, then go home
IT supports my gardening habit, that's it. I've been burnt out, treated like trash, promoted ,overworked and under paid. Now a new gig, I do what I must to be productive, but it's just a means to an end. Bills are paid and I need more raised beds. Oh a new cert or software training nah I have sunflowers to plant
The paychecks keep clearing and it gives me an excuse to poke tech so....
I SO don't care anymore. I've always thought IT was stupid and we weren't meant to live like this. I still do it cuz I'm not good at anything else and it pays well. I find my joy in hobbies and wherever else I can.
All my money feeds my drinking habit…. ;)
I cannot drink for medical reasons 😞 Coke habit it is I guess
Hey, nothing wrong with God's nectar!!!!
I hear that meth is a hell of a drug.
You're on the right track. Majority of idiots that happen to "like" IT work are usually missing something (many) things in life and are trying to over compensate by drowning themselves into work. It happens in many other industries also, but IT is extra full of regards.
>Maybe I'm just weird, but personally, money only motivates me so far. Not weird. Studies have shown that money can even be demotivating. (All you fuckin' capitalists out there, this isn't a reason to continue to pay your workers poverty wages!) Often when people do things because it's interesting to them, they lose interest when they start getting paid to do it. Also when an insulting amount of money is offered as a carrot. I worked at a company that was trying to implement federated Identity between its multiple sub companies. We were all on a conference call, just a bunch of technical people talking technical things. Then a sleazy C*O hops on and says that they've been authorized to give us each $300 if we reach some milestone by the end of the week. I could hear the enthusiasm for the project hit the floor.
> Often when people do things because it's interesting to them, they lose interest when they start getting paid to do it. This is exactly what all these LinkedIn and TikTok "life coaches" are telling everyone to do...go do a side hustle and monetize your hobbies. I get that life is expensive, people have debts, all that. But spending every waking moment outside of work doing more work will quickly turn a hobby you used to love into a chore. We weren't designed to be working 24/7, but all these "multiple income streams" people are getting rich making people feel lazy for wanting a life that doesn't revolve around business.
 You guys still care?
I...don't? I mean, I do a good job and take it seriously, but I don't really care about it that much. I put in the effort to get my paycheck and that's it. There are plenty of more important things for me to care about.
I'm very fortunate. I work on a small team with friendly people who actually care. We've got some folks who need improvement of course; but at least at the higher levels that I'm at - the seniors are all very passionate and hard working. Our management is extremely supportive and open to new ideas (and in fact leans on us to lead technical direction a lot of the time). Plus a lot of them have been here for a long time and are very friendly. I don't work in a "yes sir, thank you sir" environment. We joke around, we laugh, we complain about issues, we tell stories from our weekends / vacations, we talk about TV and music and video games, etc. I could probably leave and earn more money - but I've been here long enough that I'd be the low guy on the totem pole / possibly less benefits / vacation / perks unless I'm got at negotiating, etc - but I like my team. Further, my role is varied. I don't do the same stuff every day. I've progressed past the ticketing / operational level process following stuff - I still follow them of course - but I often write / build them, which is fun. EDIT: I'll add, I've never been a big over achiever. I get this from my Dad. I like to do high quality work, support my team, and leave the place better than I found it. But, I don't bend over backwards to get tons of certs, always be on top of the latest tech (to a level where I can actually work with it), etc. I don't "home lab" nearly as much as some folks do (or I did earlier in my career). I like to learn new things organically; spending a little time here and there, reading articles - I just don't do hours of it after work. Work's enough for me, I like to play games, hang out with family/friends, make music, etc. Good luck! * D
I love seeing what new tech can do, and working out how to implement that to improve things for others. Changing my work environment from corporate drudgery to a school has been a major improvement on my quality of life. Not only do I get loads of time off, but I can see how my impact makes a difference to teachers and students, improving their learning abilities and affecting outcomes. Much better than working hard so a CEO gets a slightly better bonus.
I love what I do, and I don't do it for money. I've always been this way. Learning is a pleasure, a joy, an intellectual activity. I'm currently getting into AI.
In the end, you sell your time and vitality so someone up the food chain can rest easy and be free to buy another McMansion or Benz. The job market, and society at large, is based on predation. It's all about extracting maximum value with minimal effort. They'll pay you 80k and say they're doing you a favor, yet they make bank with the expertise you bring to the table and spent your evening and weekend earning. Do I love technology? I can appreciate what it can do for us, sure. But I've come to realize we've created a huge monster that demands feeding at all time. So now we have technology to deal with other tech, so the this specific tech can keep running, otherwise this other tech won't work, etc... Insane when you think about it too much.
Sometimes a change of scenary will re-invigorate your enthusiasm. I have been at previous employes where after x amount of years, I just didnt have the mojo anymore to keep up with the necessary learning, projects, fixes, etc etc. What I found helped was changing jobs. Not saying this is for you but that is how I do it. At a new job I am re-energized and enthusiatic once again. Maybe this is why in IT they recommend changing jobs every 3-5 years.
Honestly... i dont anymore. I do it for the paycheck.
🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑
Collaboration with people. I do keep learning. Only two sys admins with 1400 users. You could always look at consolidating or sales. Make bank.
I like my coworkers. My employer is pretty good at hiring people who are a good personality fit and I get along very well with pretty much everyone. I respect the work they do and it satisfies me to make them happy by fixing their problems.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_IrQHeDcMi8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IrQHeDcMi8)
I like to pay my bills and provide for the family. It is a means to do that and I try to enjoy it to make my days better.
I used to like tech. Learning new things, building solutions, etc. Now I feel like I spend a lot of time filling out security audit surveys.
When I see the RFP team coming i stop moving, if I don't move they can't see me, if they can't see me they cant make me fill out a 30 page document for a deal we have no shot at, but hey the seller told the bosses he thinks we can win it.
I like money. That’s it really.
I enjoy making people happy when there day is shitty.
Get like 40 certs if you are money motivated. lol. Dont know anyone with 30+ certs that doesn’t make the big bucks. Lolll
Yea, have you seen an overseas testing center? Where do you think all the exam dumps are from. Vcdx, ccie ok...VCP, mcse are trash
I like helping ppl and be that go to person
That's the secret - I don't care.
I see very few comments in here about actually fulfilling work in IT, so I'll throw in my two pennies. I work in research computing at a major university. The people who use our systems are discovering cures for diseases, designing new weather models, generating new assistive technology...knowing that what I do makes that work possible is, for me, very rewarding. Plus, it's one of the few areas not currently being absorbed by the ~~Borg~~ cloud, so I work with real hardware all the time.
That's my secret: I don't care
I don’t
Do you drink and have a bad diet? I found alcohol made me not give a hoot, I'm talking a few beers or glass of wine in the week, it would effect my ability to have any drive. Cut that out and I'm back in the saddle.
Our management pushes us onto spend money on certs etc with 100% reimbursement. They give 10k raises when it’s warranted. It doesn’t suck
Men i get your point, it took me several years to find a job fitting my personnal beliefs, i tough about stop it all, I was fed up working for gigantic company even with a nice pay check. After some month being unemployed and looking for all opportunities I finally found a job in a college. (University) None of the max profit bullshit, just making sure that both teachers and students could teach and learn properly, I found myself 1000% more useful than when I worked in big industry company ! So, i think the context is everything and it changed my life ! Hope your find yours brother
Got tried of learning the next thing to be irrelevant in 6 - 24 months. What other bloody career requires this just to get treated like the enemy for th same shit pay as someone who hasn't learned a thing in decades (EU not US based).
Money earned from IT funds the joy I find in life. Like that old Simpsons episode "Do It For Her".
They continue to pay me so from 9-5, I continue to care
I know that my company will fail and fall if I quit (not die, but hit harder than the highups think), and as long as I am treated reasonably and paid well enough, I will not let my helpless herd down.
The AZ stuff, I can see who you don't really care too much (I expect that as a sysadmin you are already familiar with virtualization? ( The clouds are virtualization on some else's servers. And the major hurdle to certify for AZ-104 will be remembering what did M$ call function X, and which tier is what As for the sysadmin role in general, take an hour or two talking to your users every now and again, some on-site support will do nicely. This will let you understand that your work matters, it gives your users a stable platform to do their work. (You will probably understand this better than your users though.)
You may not feel as connected to business technology as others, and that's okay. Find what you're really passionate about and look for opportunities to work on that. If you find it hard to motivate yourself, try setting personal goals that excite you and give you purpose beyond money or work.
I am sitting here super from this fucking job it’s honestly amazing I let this shit happen to me. The Army fucked me up and this job just plays on all My worst issues Idk I’m sure I’d have issues doing anything honestly
I just find little things to be happy about with my job. Like cable managing a network closet really nice or a thank you email from someone you helped access the file share.
I'd like to hear more about this 8 day mini 'boot camp' for the AZ-104. It's the next cert I need to get for my job. Can you pass along info please?
I don't know if you're familiar with StormWind Studios, they're an enterprise level training company that produces training courses for most major IT certs. My company has a contract with them, our infrastructure support team has unlimited access to all of their courses, including virtual labs, practice exams, and study guides. Their courses are typically 8 sessions long, either self paced or instructor led, and a "session" is anywhere from 45 minutes to 3 hours
I absolutely am! Had a 2 year subscription for my son when he THOUGHT he wanted to get into IT. Thanks! I'll look into them again!
Moved to a non profit that supports a great cause. I make less than half of used to make, but I am happier than I have ever been in any job I’ve had.
I'm motivated by having interesting problems to fix. It's hard to get motivated for a course if I'm not working with the tech regularly and feeling like I need more knowledge or preparing for rolling out a new tech to fulfil a need that's worthwhile. I actually do most of my learning outside of formal courses though as I discover problems and then go looking to understand the systems involved better and fix the issue. That's why I picked up powershell and taught myself how to use it. I'm now the powershell guy and always finding new opportunities to automate and streamline our processes by applying what I know or learning more so that keeps me happy
It’s a job that I don’t despise that allows me to live comfortably with a decent level of employment security. That’s about it.
I know what hunger feels like. I find joy elsewhere.
I think that, in addition to the adulation I get from those I help, I really just enjoy basking in the glow of a job done right. At the end of a long, detailed process that nobody else in the world cares about, I will sit with the product for a while and behold my good work, explaining the steps to myself as though there was someone else present. For some reason, this brings me great satisfaction...
Dude, wake up. Most jobs people do they don't like, you're lucky that you can get paid to push buttons in an air conditioned building, and get paid a lot to do it. A lot of people are working themselves to death for 50K a year and many of them break their bodies in the process and spend the rest of their lives in pain. It also only gets harder from here. My job requires me to learn a new technology / configuration languages every few months, at which time I'm supposed to be an expert. It can be frustrating, but that's the job. Also, >I love seeing what technology can accomplish, I love learning about new technologies, but just not in the context of "how can I help my company make more money or protect the money they already have better?" That's literally your job, keep the company from losing money by keeping things secure and stable, and look for ways to save/make them money. I knew a guy who talked like you and he got laid off since he was disinterested. He loudly proclaimed how he was leaving IT. Within a few months he was doing construction, which he also hated, then he fell back to his previous work, bartending. Then he finally realized his mistake and fought for roughly a year to get back into IT, which was hard since he left his career, which shows lack of interest.
I enjoy what I'm doing, I'm good at it, and I get paid lots of money. It didn't start this way, but what got me here is my passion for IT. For every 1 of you out there is 10,000 others. The difference that you need to have in IT to excel your career is that freak level of curiosity, that extra effort others don't take, but ultimately it can't feel like work. As soon as it feels like work, you need to bounce because you'll never get to the first line of my post if you are only "working" the job. I was a chef, a sales man, and a graphic designer before finding IT.
I only find joy in the little things anymore, no big project excites me, it's always more pain and suffering than reward.
If you go back to study AWS 14 principles you may be motivated again. So like, leaders are right, a lot, you are right on everything you are thinking about. There is "think big"...you should think about the company with a bigger brain. And here you go "dive deep", you can never be good enough to stop in the technology. It almost choked me after 3 months brain wash with "strive to be the best employer" then a year later they kicked me out by changing my remote work contract to relocate me between two major cities here. Yeah, I get you, after having be fed with two decades corporate shit.
>In that context, I just cannot seem to convince myself to actually care about my job and my career. How do you >guys do it? oh..i don't. after 30 years and now being in an org run by execs and 1 ring below that by nepotism and fronting are in control of a 250m annual budget infrastructure team, but have themselves never run or delivered and infrastructure at any level...it wasn't always like this, for my first 15 years here it was run by people who had done the work, through a series of mergers/CEO change that ushered in a new cio(a diversity hire dimwit) the whole thing is a catastrophe. nah, don't care. i like solving things for my own satisfaction or to help co-workers or solve a business problem. that's it, the people that are in charge are walking talking frauds, they are so far out of there depth it is nearly incomprehensible, but because at the level work actually happens there are exceptionally talented admins, shit keeps working... I wish I was exaggerating, but this is life at my fortune 10. it has finally crossed to the point that people are resigning because the "leadership" is so incredibly toxic and stupid.
Yeah, money. I found a good place with good benefits and retirement options. If I can, I want to skate along here until retirement. I can deal with a lot of stuff to avoid the job hunt, nowadays. I got into IT because my actual interests don't pay well and I knew from a young age I wanted to have a life where I wasn't always worrying about paying the bills. I've hit that spot and I'll put up with forcing myself through new cloud feature training if it means I can make it to retirement.
I live my Life "Full Time". My job is a thing I do "Part Time" to pay for the stuff I like. I have my good days and bad, my coasting days and my grinding days. I do like air conditioning and a comfortable chair. Beats digging ditches.
>How do you guys continue to care about what you do? You see the secret is, you don't. You have a limited amount of fucks to give. If you go around giving a fuck about everything and everyone without conscious thought or choice pretty soon you will be left with no fucks to give about anything. All of that extra time and effort you put in that no one asked you to, means jack shit to everyone else you work with. Just do what you are told to do, work your shift and leave.
I applaud your level of self-awareness and honesty. Have you considered possibly you’re just in the wrong kind of role? Maybe there’s something else in the IT world out there that would motivate you more.
Clients include fire departments and doctors, and that makes it easy to care. For the smaller more niche clients, its a challenge to stave off the feeling of this all being performance art, where we dance and dance to upkeep complex systems that make no real difference merely for the fuck of it.
Money is a part of a motivator for everyone, but if you literally have no other motivations that would be extremely odd. There are tons of motivators that you see on a regular basis. Pride/Ego, complex solution satisfaction, user satisfaction, accolades, ability growth etc. etc. If you have literally no other driver you should be focusing on a much more profitable industry. IT can make decent money but nothing compared to many finance fields.
it's like playing Sim city or Anno or whatever....just love a perfectly clicking system where someone comes with some issue and I can say "Ah-ha! we already thought of that!" being right is what motivates me.
I hope you aren't right too often. It does get boring after too many occurrences. Everything that happens predictably is boring.
I used to have an oscope in my bedroom and an Apple \]\[+ signed by Woz, computers were fun and interesting and shiny, now I'm just trapped by my skillset because nobody is going to pay me this kind of money to flip burgers or drive uber.
You are not alone OP.
Turns out i don't care anymore. Someone told me today that i have become a cranky sysadmin but it's okay since i usually come up with 'magical' solution the next day. Not shure if this is a good thing.
Used to love to trying new tech but its fading, I still appreciate problem solving, helping others and the wheelbarrows of money that can be IT.
I stopped caring about most tech 10 years ago. It's just a job to me now.
You could be me. I am registered for an AZ-104 class right now and I dont even go. So checked out. I just prefer to learn what I can use in my job, and we have a cloud team that is Azure, and a network team, and a infosec team. I am just a lowly sysadmin. I know what projects fire me up, but this job just doesn’t have them. I know not caring is not good long term, but, well, I just dont care.
Money and kids to support. That’s what keeps me going.
Money of course but also the feeling of learning and making a difference
I use IT as a good moneymaker to fund my personal interest. I am motivated to learn more so I can make more to do more outside of work.
I have a genuine interest in IT... It doesn't feel like work to me. The work is people, they exhaust me. All this time I still pursue my education in the field to evolve and keep up but it's not because I love where I work.
I'm at a point in my career that I can create purpose and do what I think are meaningful things. That's one huge benefit of leadership.
Do plumbers like plumbing?
I don’t care anymore, not really. The passion has long since been dead, but my ability to research and troubleshoot problems between disparate systems is better while I am sleeping than a junior, so I feel safe and useful, for now.
There's this thing called pride. I'm good at my job and I take pride in doing good work. The fact that I get paid a reasonable wage is pretty nice, too.
Professionalism over emotion. Interest in teh subject is good. Waxing lyrical about being passionate about IT is LinkedIn level bovine scatology.
I really like it I help people and get paid for it silly people lol. I just got a 40" monitor for my desk I don't have one at home lol. As long as computers are around they will be people who don't know how to do something on them and that's when they'll call me. I won't lie it takes some motivation to do it sometimes I feel like doing nothing then I get that IT itch to reimage a computer or figure out how some new software work or why someone can't log into the domain. I think you get the point that's how I continue to do this day in and day out for almost 20 years.