The sign that you ought to look for a new career always comes up around the holidays when people get a minute to step back from the stress of their job. Stress — no doubt caused by the information overload, uncertainty about the future, dealing with difficult team members and customers, neverending disappointment over deadlines that were not met and projects that were not won and the customers that were not swayed enough to stay with you instead of switching to the competition…
Those are normal, those are natural and they are a reflection of more and more weight being placed on our shoulders as the IT profession evolves rapidly.
But when I see messages like “Will be out till Jan 2nd with no access to email or voicemail” aired by IT people on December 18th, I realize I am not dealing with a geek or even an IT person per-se. You see, IT people are the kind that are at all times about 6’ away from some communication device, dependant on the Internet for the news, entertainment and finance. There is the real world, and then there is a digital world. And if someone can take pride in not being in that digital world for weeks, and completely severed from it, they perhaps don’t deserve to work in it either.
I am not saying breaks are bad, or that you need a Blackberry/Cell glued to your wrist, but if you hate this business to the extent that the thing you enjoy the most is getting as far away from it as possible…. it may be a good time to look for a new career. If you’re not passionate about what you do, you’re not going to be any good at it and just might implode under the weight of your cynicism for it. Life is short, might as well be happy!
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