Many people these days are complaining about how tough their jobs have become and how it is quickly becoming 3 jobs in 1 due to restructuring. It is certainly a tough world out there. But no one knows how tough it is better than IT professionals. IT is ranked as one of the most stressful careers and many IT pros ask them selves these days if they are really cut out for the career that demands a lot and give back little. The question you need to ask, is IT the best career for you? There are certain signs to look for. If you have a few of them then perhaps IT is not the ideal field for you.
5) I hate studying
IT is an ever-evolving world. Look how far IT changed just in the last 5 years! Without the desire to constantly learn something new, you will fall behind and lose your marketability. curve. Education is the name of the game if you want to get ahead and now even survive!
4) I lack patience
As they saying goes, patience is a virtue and that is so true in IT. When things breakdown in IT, usually time is a needed commodity to fix the problem. It might mean spending hgours and hours if not days going over with a comb trying to identify the problem. If you are one of those without patience, you’ll drive yourself crazy. Of course, testing your patience is not just problems, often it is the end user. For those who work in help desk, I am sure you have many experiences with end users that tested your patience and sanity!
3) I am a M-F 9-5 kinda guy/gal
Network disruptions, e-mail outages, hard disk failures, database corruption, and other breakdowns have a tendency to go down when you are in the middle of your sleep or having a great BBQ on a sunny Sunday afternoon! Yes, the business does not care about your personal life or lack of it, all it cares about is to be up and running ASAP! Remember, the reason IT exists, is to support the business and its end users.
2) One thing at a time
Unlime most jobs, in IT you will very likely be doing a few tasks/projects at any given time. Fix server, build network, raise support ticket with vendor, take calls from end users, etc. Multitasking is the word in IT!
1) Allergic to change
I have met a few people in IT, believe or not, who hate change. They like things to remain the same and hate change. The thing is in IT the one sure thing is change is coming, be it on server side, virtualisation, network security or even procedures. IT is supposed to be very agile. If you don’t like change, then change in career is something you might need.
If you have a few of the traits above, then perhaps you were not made for IT. Nothing wrong with that, you might save yourself a bit of stress.
Just my 2 cents.
Thanks for reading.
Nick
