IT Workers Face Dangerous Stress 136
feminazi writes "William Cross, CIO and Ph.D., told the IBM Share conference this week that IT workers often face dangerous levels of stress. In a Q&A with Computerworld.com, he described some of the manifestions: "They tend to be less emotionally stable. They tend to react strongly to small things that they might not react to under other circumstances. A change in schedule may be a crisis if somebody is really stressed." What to do? "Easy things. Exercise ... learn to relax, learn meditation, learn breathing exercises, participate in your religion — all of those things are very effective stress managers.""
This story selected and edited by LinuxWorld editor for the day Saied Pinto.
That's us, oversensitive (Score:5, Insightful)
"The hardware you wanted won't be available until two days after launch. Is that going to be a problem?"
"Why the hysterics, the manufacturer said they'll have Linux drivers weeks before our new launch date."
"How long after the launch date do you think it will be before you NEED the backup server?"
The little things I get stress over the day before a large scale deployment:
"We just decided we liked your idea. Can we make the database access clustered?"
"For our launch announcement, how long can we claim it will take to have this ported to Windows Mobile too?"
"The RAM you requested didn't arrive because we didn't order it. How many simultaneous users can we support with half the RAM?"
"We can just add the extra disk space to the servers with USB drives right?"
IT guys are sooo damned touchy!
Stress... (Score:5, Insightful)
I used to believe in stress, but now I've come to realize what I was experiencing was actually exasperation at poor decisions made by people who are paid far more than I. It's not really an illness or disease, as much as a realisation that the criteria applied to who gets the top jobs is utterly useless. Less concentration on shiny suits and bullshit - more on ability to deliver results.
Specially IT workers... (Score:1, Insightful)
"Everything's working fine, so what did you do today, Oh, nothing?"
"It doesn't work, fix it!"
Cause and effect (Score:5, Insightful)
But is that because they are in IT, or are they in IT because of that?
Are you ready for a revolutionary concept? (Score:5, Insightful)
I find it disheartening that a manager figuring that out would be worthy of an article. I mean, this shouldn't be rocket science. The general idea I've gotten from various managers is that you can get more productivity out of people with a certain amount of overtime for a short period of time, but frequent overtime or extreme "crunch time" will in the end just destroy your work force and with it your work.
IT Team can help filter stress (Score:2, Insightful)
On top of that, I think that a lot of the stress that common IT jobs have is from the repetitiveness of what happens all the time. Explaining the same thing not only to customers, but to your boss or to management several times is much more annoying that one would think. Sometimes I get pretty ecstatic when someone comes in with an extremely difficult problem as opposed to an easy one, simply because I get to actually think about what I'm doing instead of just regurgitating the same stuff over and over again. The stress doesn't necessarily have to come from the work load; sometimes it's just a lack of job satisfaction.
Re:This is old news. (Score:4, Insightful)
I used to go to the gym 3-5 times a week on my way home from work until a manager complained I was only spending 8-9 hours a day working.
So you updated your resume and found a job working for sane people, right?
Re:It's reports like the above.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Fun company-sponsored outings. What a waste. Just because I work with you, does not mean I'd like to spend my spare time at a picnic with you. In fact, after working hours, I want to get as far away from you all as possible.
Unfortunately, these "fun outings" turn into a political nightmare. Unless you volunteer your own time to help set-up, clean-up, or cook, you are seen as someone who hates the company. Unless you show up and play softball or voleyball, you are seen as having no loyalty. You have to sit with people who fired your best friend or smartest worker and smile and drink beer and talk about their fucking kids and listen to them struggle to remember my fucking kids.
And God help you if you or your wife doesn't bring a good side dish.
Rec rooms are okay, but you are looked down upon if you spend too much time there. There are days when my workload is really light. But, I'm still chained to my desk looking busy. Why? Because I've already used my 15 minutes playing ping-pong.
We don't have enforced breaks, but we do have subsidized education and certification. If you take a class over lunch or at the end of the day, bosses are very understanding and ensure you get there on time. Although, you may have to come back after class and burn the midnight oil.
We also have free memberships for a local gym. Almost no one goes. It really is sad to see how people put their work and family before their own personal health. Never quite understanding that, if you are dead at 40, you do your family no good.
We also do casual fridays every now and again. You usually have to drop $5 in a bucket to participate. The money goes towards the next stupid fucking picnic. If you don't participate (my casual *is* buisness casual), everyone thinks you were too poor to afford the $5.
I hate the term "IT"! (Score:2, Insightful)
I do not want to be lumped into "IT". I am a programmer, not IT.
Programmers do real work. IT is, more often than not, the adversary.
IT: We are taking away administrator rights.
Programmer: What?
IT: If you download and install any software from the Internet, you will be fired.
Programmer: What?
IT: If you need anything installed, we will install it for you.
Programmer: I need X, Y, and Z installed.
IT: That software is not on the approved list
Programmer: What software is on the approved list?
IT: This list is empty.
Programmer: Can I at least have an editor?
IT: Windows comes with Notepad.exe. Use that.
The above is a true story.