IT is not a healthy profession
Surely there are some IT jobs that are rewarding and not continually stressful. But a lot of us suffer the stress of a thankless job daily and anything that takes the edge off life, even for a while, is pretty hard to resist. Also, when people are unappreciated, it's a lot easier for self-destructive behavior to take hold. If no one seems to care, it can sometimes be hard to care about yourself.
Some of the things that bother us:
-Constant stress/long hours/on call/not enough rest or peace.
-All blame and little recognition or rewards/chance for advancement.
-Unskilled/self-serving management that only have their jobs from failing upwards, yet couldn't walk a mile in the shoes of those they lead without tripping and falling on their face.
-Companies starting more projects without coming close to finishing the ones currently running. (see above comment)
IT is one of the foundations of any company in these times, yet management is nearly always trying to build their house without caring that the foundation is overburdened to the point of crumbling. Because many of us work behind the scenes to put out fires and fix problems that management never even realizes exist before they become catastrophes, our contributions are often not even known. And most of us have a love of technology, problem solving, and helping others, and not of office politics. So we don't play "the game" as well as perhaps we need to. And those of us that do seem to be the lesser-skilled and seem to end up as sycophantic "yes men" (and women) that no one likes, dividing everyone and destroying integrity and unity. Again, people fail up. A lot of us also worry about layoffs or worsening work environments when the poor decisions of people higher up the food chain come to their rotten fruition.
I work for a large company, and in the last 3 years, 3 good people where I work have died literally on the job from strokes and other sudden illnesses, and a few more have had cancers or other conditions that while you can't specifically pin them on work, IMHO stress and the unhealthy behaviors resulting from it are contributing factors in their disease.
Now I've depressed even myself and will finish my pint so I can try to get some sleep and do it all over again tomorrow.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
