01/12/2002 Archived Entry: "Jobs"

I've been thinking a lot lately about job stability and what IT employees--specifically, support guys--expect out of a company versus what other kinds of employees expect. I'm on my third IT job now. My first was a summer internship and lasted three months. My second was the George Job and lasted twenty months, give or take a couple of weeks. After just over eighteen months at the George Job, I was feeling seriously burnt-out, headachy, and tired of being there, which leads me to question whether we as IT people--knowledge workers, as I was told in college--are forced into a different mindset by all being placed under similar circumstances.

When I was a regular poster on alt.tech-support.recovery it was a much-bandied about factoid that the average support worker reaches "burnout"--that state where you can no longer draw breath without experiencing withering hatred for all things job-related--was eighteen months. Contrast eighteen months to the average length of employment in other fields: there are guys at my current company that have been there for twenty years, and some for even longer than that. I cannot imagine holding an IT job for that long, though I desire job stability as much as anyone else.

It is a loyalty issue? I don't think that I'm a disloyal employee, but the last place I worked made it perfectly clear to me on many occasions that job functions were only worthwhile when they translated directly into increasing profitability or company visibility, and that my position enhanced neither. For all the high talk about moving into the Internet future and technology in the workplace, there are still companies that view IT as a line-item expense instead of a core function. At my last job, I didn't view myself as contributing to the growth of the company, mainly because of the attitude that was passed down to me by my manager and my manager's manager: us against them. IT against the users.

The problem, from my point of view on the bottom of the pyramid, is that companies frequently do not place as much value on IT--their infrastructure--as they do on direct, revenue-generating departments. On the other side of the fence, IT workers frequently will think that all users are idiots, all companies are Dilbertian and stupid, and that they will rule over their network and users with an iron fist. This means poor service on both ends, and eighteen-month cycles of burnout and job-hunting.

I like my current job. I feel like it's a place where I can spend the rest of my career, and I'd like to do so, if they'll have me. A large part of that is because I think my current employer gets it, and treats employees properly and well.

I think I'm going to eat lunch, then see my girlfriend. Time to focus on the tangible, important things.

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