Antiwork

If your miserable in whatever situation you're in. Leave.

What was your exit strategy if you where unable to work?

Been there, thankfully for only four years (if I remember right) I unfortunately hit burnout right after I signed a contract for a house, so I was stuck. Internal IT support. Due to turnover and company acquisitions I went from the second newest member of my team to the third most senior in two months. The userbase we supported quadrupled while we shrunk to 1/4 of the department size when I was initially hired. Then we had over a year where no new hires lasted longer than 6 months. They didn't add new slots for additional headcount until after I left.

Things that helped (but to be abundantly clear they did not solve the problems):

• Most companies have something somewhere in their employee handbook or company cult-ure stuff about being honest. So start being more honest than they want you to be. Don't name names, don't be an ass, but set expectations. "I understand your frustration, but we are severely understaffed. We have not had an increase in headcount for the last five years. I will handle this as soon as possible, but it will take at least [amount of time]." "I apologize for the delay. We only have three people on the team who have been here more than a month. We handle all internal IT support calls, routing tickets in the ticketing system, and manually handle almost every access change request for the company. If you are unsatisfied with the speed of our service, please contact [manager or hiring person].” If you make them have to listen to all the shit you're responsible for, some people will stop treating you like the only thing on your plate is their problem.

• Never ever ever go above and beyond. If your shift is over you are out. If that means something doesn't get done "on time", you make that shit the responsibility of the next person up your management chain and let them know. "What is more important, taking calls, properly logging the ones I took, or setting up accounts and access for new hires?" that sort of shit. That means being very outspoken about the amount of time things take, and proactively warning management as soon as it is obvious that you can't accomplish everything. Remember the magic phrase "How do you want me to prioritize this?" if they give you some wishwashy "it all has to be done" bullshit? "I appreciate your trust in my abilities to prioritize my workload. As previously stated, there are not enough man hours to meet every deadline. I will let you know what deadlines will need to be adjusted."

• Lack of staff to meet business needs is never the fault of the staff trying to meet the needs. It is always the fault of the people not properly staffing. Chances of change are slim, but change will never happen unless you allow the people responsible for the mess to feel the pain of their poor decisions.

• Heroic efforts to get something done never go unpunished.

• Get everything in writing. If they won't put it in text, then you do it. "To confirm our verbal discussion: [shit they said out loud that they know would make legal's head spin, like telling you to stop logging the overtime hours]"

Beyond all that, like others have said, do the bare minimum and start planning your exit. Do not take any of the stress home with you. You've already said they do everything to avoid paying severance, so turn it into a game of chicken so you can keep your pay while you apply elsewhere. With ten years experience, you have them by the balls.

Extra points if you can align things to put yourself on some project where you have an excuse to stay off answering the hotline. That was the biggest contribution to my bad mental state: taking calls from people who are always mad and see you as a safe outlet.

None of the anger of the users you support is your fault. If they have complaints, it's management's fault for not properly hiring enough manpower, and not setting proper priorities for the team. Just keep track of what you're doing and when so they can't claim you weren't working.

I checked out of my IT job of 15 years. I was throughly depressed with it all. I had a fair amount of website experience and got a few clients who pay regularly for their website and support. I sold all my crap, bought a great laptop and I travel full time now and sometimes I use trustedhousesitters in between just traveling. I've never looked back and I've been doing this for over 6.5 years... I'm 51 now.

Perhaps what I'm saying is it's never too late to follow your dream, mine was travel, yours might be something else. Just go for it.

checked out a decade ago and still not fired?

Check out even harder

This sounds like me a few years ago.

I loved IT work when I started but the job, the positions, the customers, and my bosses sucked it out of me. I couldn't see myself staying in the job. As each day passed I got more and more depressed and miserable. The only plus side was I was earning a bit of money.

I was also at the age (late 40s) where it was probably too late to change careers. Even if I did, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do.

I decided to take a risk and open my own business - a pinball arcade. Huge risk, but if it worked it would probably be fun.

I spent 3 years collecting machines and learning how to repair them. I worked to reduce my personal overhead so I could get by earning less (which is freeing on it's own). I was still working the horrible IT jobs, but since I had a new direction it didn't seem to bother me as much. There was a light at the end of the tunnel.

3 years ago we opened the arcade and luckily it's been working out. I love coming to work now. I love 99% of my customers. Some days I spend half the day playing games with people in the arcade. I'm earning a living and our sales keep going up as we add more things to the arcade.

My only advice is to find something that will make you happy and work towards it. You don't have to stay in a job you hate.

It's usually possible to walk away. There are exceptions, like if your sainted mother is disabled and needs your income for her supply of oxygen tank, but I walked away and usually recommend walking away.

Hey, what's up. I usually just lurk because I can't keep myself from getting into stupid discussions and wasting all of my time getting angry, but I feel like you do when it comes to work and I thought I'd share. I'll be deleting my credentials after responding, because of a lack of discipline on my end, FYI.

So I'm in a type of system administration. Not your run-of-the-mill IT shop, it's sort of in the direction of devops and provisioning classic on prem environments. There's also other stuff, some of it challenging because of technical complexity, some of it challenging due to brain dead QA procedures and corporate inflexibility.

I also feel like I 'did my time in the trenches' in the past when I worked IT help desk, but having seen the other side, advancing your career into more technical roles will not offer any salvation. It's the same bland, corporate controlled, big tech dominated horse shit patch and pray dance. You learn a new thing only for it to be superseded or abandoned, or worse, rolled over from a permanently licensed product to a subscription. In this field there is no such thing as perennial knowledge. The only place experience has any hope of sticking are the soft skills. It's building on quick sand.

That's why life feels like a treadmill. Even a bigger pay check won't offer much in the way of contentment. It's fun for a while but you get used to it. If you can make due with what you've got now, more money won't offer a way out.

If you ask me, which you kind of did by way of this post, modern life fades into meaninglessness easily. There is not much connection between the actions you take and the results unless you perform manual labor or better yet, a craft. That's why a lot of people in the IT field have hobbies like woodworking. Personally I like motorcycle riding and maintenance. At least when I'm done reassembling a carburetor the result is a running engine.

I guess what I'm saying is, if you have a job that pays the bills, you should be fine not giving a flying fuck about your job, your employer or the efficiency of your coworkers. Do the bare minimum you need to do in order not to get fired. Your job is just a means to an end; you are employed in the service of yourself and your loved ones. If the CEO of your company could generate a quarter point on the NYSE by stabbing your grandma to death, then they will. If you're anything like me, you define work as anything you do solely for the economic incentive. Treat it as such. Behave like the Homo Economicus every institution expects you to; take what you can, give nothing back. Let go of the idea that work should be fulfilling; our current economic system simply isn't built for anything but ruthless extraction of value. Anything you do consider fulfilling is almost by definition a cost. That's okay. Really.

Build the mental fortitude to accept your lot, which considering human history is not actually that bad. We have easy access to high quality food, shelter and leisure time. Slack as hard as you can get away with; read books on company time, work on personal projects, play games or just stare off into the clouds. When you clock out, slam that door behind you and pretend like your employer does not exist. Don't lose your job or give it up until you have a solid plan to switch into something else, but always remember that a job is by definition something nobody would have done unless there were economic rewards.

I recommend starting with some (e-)books about Stoicism (e-books are easy to hide in a window on your work display); there's ancient wisdom in there that makes it easier to stop giving a shit about the things that don't matter, in this case the meaninglessness of what you do for a living. It will help you focus on the things you can control; how you view the world being one of them.

I mean you're parents weren't wrong that archeology wasn't a realistic life path. Maybe start watching YT videos about archeology while you are on the clock?

IT sucks. Solving problems with technology is fun. Once it's your job capitalism sucks all the joy out of it.

What hobbies do you love? I like plants and being outside so I fantasize about getting a part time job at a nursery.

Anything you could pivot too? Pay will likely not be comparable but if it isn't soul sucking it might be an option.

No idea on experience. You may have to start at the bottom unless it's something that you can prove competence with, without a degree.

If you're in the same job for ten years you're over worked and under paid

Quit and find the same exact job and you'll still be happier.

You get severance and a pension?!

This reminds me of prior jobs. The work was good - but the management was bad and led to me hating my job. Maybe changing the team you're working for would help. Go on interviews and say that - you like problem solving but you're a one man army in current position and need to be part of a team and given leave to innovate. See if that leads anywhere. At your stage, id find a job you can retire from. You don't want to be 55 and looking for work. Look into govt it positions or other unionized positions.

a few options

travel Is my first one, seems to reinvigorate a lot of people. hostels are 120 to 300 a month, Private apartments are $300-400 a month in a lot of countries, so for a couple grand you can take 6 months off and figure out if there's something you would rather be doing. or just take time off.

If you hate your current job that much, then whatever you find when you feel like you want to start working again is going to be better than what you're doing now.

it looks like there are a few archeology and anthropology programs online that you could take, and then follow up with an in-person advanced degree after you start the core classes.

or you can just hang out.