10 things you can do to keep your IT job from taking over your life
Date: September 17th, 2007
Author: Jody Gilbert

IT professionals don’t hold a monopoly on working excessively long hours or having job responsibilities cast a shadow over their personal lives. But for many reasons, it’s a field that invites long hours, persistent worries, and a reluctance — or inability — to mentally clock out when the workday should be over.

Some IT pros are all-but-indentured to a company that expects 24/7 availability. Some face a staggering gap between resources and work to be done. Others discover that effective time management is out of reach because of project volatility and constantly changing priorities.

For those trying to rein in their runaway professional lives, it doesn’t help that “You won’t be able to reach me” has lost its power. Cell phones, PDAs, and remote access tools have all but eliminated the refuge of inaccessibility. They might make your job easier, but they also make your job omnipresent.

All of these factors play into the phenomenon we call the pervasive workplace – when your job seems to permeate every corner of your life.

Discussion threads abound with horror stories of oppressive company regimes that keep IT pros stretched impossibly thin, pager-enslaved, and fearful of retribution (i.e., no more job) if they don’t live to fulfill the organization’s tech needs. If you’re stuck working for a company like that — and assuming that’s not your ideal state — it could be time to hit the job boards. On the other hand, you may be working for a great outfit that has enabled you to maintain perfect work-life balance. But if you’re somewhere in between, wishing you could scale back your work obligations to make a little more room for your personal life, here are a few ways to help keep the workplace at bay.

Read the “10 things you can do to keep your IT job from taking over your life” here: http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=230&tag=rbxccnbtr1

Even digging ditches or moving furniture it isn’t too hard to figure out who the slackers are. Been there and done that on both counts.

The best part about all those hours for those of us who put them in: They are rewarding on all counts!

And yes … being “The Man” is key!

Philip

And the crap about work smarter, not harder? That only applies if your moving furniture or digging ditches. In the smb there’s always 1 more cold call to make, 1 more ticket to close, or 1 more proposal to write. Failure to realize that probably means you’d be better off working for the man instead of trying to be the man.

Yeah, right. Name one.

People that work 20 hours a week and make a tremendous amount of money and power tend to operate on the edge of the law.

For example, that fraud that wrote the 4 hour workweek? That guy sells vitamins over the Internet. Apparently, the guy who sells fake Rolex watches only worked 3 hours a week and wasn’t around when the “Get rich quick by following my latest scheme network” called him so the 4 hours a week guy got it.

Give me a f’n break.

-Vlad

BTW, where do I send my money to get a copy of your white paper? Yes, I know you printed the whole thing for me, but I think it would be more effective if I actually paid for it?

On the same topic from Neil Boortz:

* Speaking of earning, the revered 40 hour workweek is for losers. Forty hours should be considered the minimum, not the maximum. You don’t see highly successful people clocking out of the office every afternoon at five. The losers are the ones caught up in that afternoon rush hour. The winners drive home in the dark.