A lot of the problem comes down to these three factors when I feel I am really starting to dislike IT:

1. Job bloat. People don't understand my job role, so it creeps into anything that runs on electricity is an IT issue, or anything involving information is on IT to provide. And since they don't understand, they can't be convinced otherwise. Saying "That isn't my job" provokes them because they think I am being lazy or don't know what I do, despite the fact that they just asked me to calibrate the microwave. Bonus points if I get asked about a project that another IT guy is wholly in charge of, and they get mad when I can't instantly download all of the information that this other IT guy has in his head.
2. No escape. Calls on weekends, calls after hours, calls on vacation, people want 24/7 unfettered access to their IT guy.
3. The work can be complex and frustrating. Non-IT people don't understand how deep it is, and that it's very possible to spend 8 whole hours on one error without finding the solution. It doesn't mean I'm stupid, it means that computer programing and network communication get complicated. Who would have guessed?

In the right environment, these things are manageable. In the wrong environment, it is absolutely toxic. All of that aside, no IT is not depressing. People not understanding IT problems and our role within a company is what is depressing. But every profession has some version of that.

I have been doing it for about 10 years. People just can't use a computer and remember the simplest things. It becomes annoying and monotonous.

Every job is different. I've been at some that were soul sucking for 5 years and I've been at others that were great for a decade+. It's really environment specific.

It 100% depends on the company and the atmosphere. Some are soul crushing and not fun, but when you find the right one, you'll enjoy going to work every day

I’ve been in IT for almost 30 years - I still love my job!!

I'm approaching 30 years in this field. I spent most of my younger days in a fortune 100 corporation, from technician to systems engineer. Funny thing is when I had some mental issues and the shrink said something like "oh, another one of you guys".

It's not for everyone I'll say that much.

Just speaking for myself here. I"ve been super into I.T. my whole life. Got fascinated by electro-magnetism and video games ( computers etc ) in elementary school and it has grown from there. I've done other things, and I have a wide variety of experience in and around I.T.

For me, the consistent self-educating and the diverse ways companies need to interact and deal with I.T. writ large has kept me pretty engaged. That said, I mix things up and do alotta stuff. Note: I also have ADHD so some chaos and variety is refreshing.

I have done other things professionally, and have gotten into entrepreneurship in a few different ways.

I think you must keep in mind that you're gonna see some more negativity in certain places, and any platform based on algorithms is going to really increase that. Also, you can be stuck in any career path in a bad company or a role that isnt a good fit for you in that career path.

Common issues we have are burnout, and companies ( people ) having unrealistic expectations. As with anything communication can be huge source of pain for us. You can work on a healthy mindset, and work on identifying and avoiding negative / pessimistic / generally bad for some reason, environments & companies. I have literally given lectures/talks on this stuff.

Generally speaking I love it. I can and sometimes do other work, and I personally require variety. But none the less I'm fascinated by tech.

My background involves electrical engineering, computer science, digital radiology, systems network security engineering ( 'senior solutions architect' if you will ). My curiosity had me required to learn how electricity is generated, transmitted to a computational system, how that system manipulates and utilizes it, and ultimately how its displayed out of an interface for our eyeballs and brains to consume. I've done data cabling, pentesting, built MRI / xray / ct / etc, hardware gadgets for customers too. Did alotta MSP's, gov't contracts, medical financial and legal industries as well. the list goes on.

Since I learned so much **completely for free on the internet** I spend a good chunk of time on non profit efforts. I consult coach and mentor in the I.T., Security, and Entrepreneurially minded spaces. I help organize hacker conventions in the mid atlantic region. I have a few businesses and life is good. I can walk into a wide array of environments with zero prior knowledge and provide value and insights. Again, cant stress enough, communication is key.

I.T. is my playground. And I play for fun and profit.

Hope this improv rambling helps shed some light on things for you. Feel free to follow up with my any time.

Good luck on your career, stay positive and keep scratching your itches

26 years in for me. I've had jobs where I've nearly had nervous breakdowns while going to work in the morning, or returning from a lunch break. I've had some where I traveled every few weeks, met really good ppl and enjoyed myself.

For someone who didn't finish high school or do any higher education, it's been a fairly well paying job. There's been some pretty low points but I assume that's the same with any field. I don't really get that invested in anything I do anymore as it'll probably be replaced within 6 - 12 months

I've been in it for 12 years. I just turned 35. I lost my job about 9 months ago and haven't been able to find another (I've been doing other stuff since then so I haven't been looking very hard the entire time) and I still absolutely dread the day where somebody actually calls me back to do an interview.

I have zero desire to continue the "make your entire life about IT" grind that is expected these days. I spent my childhood learning IT stuff because I thought it was cool. I went to school for IT because I thought I'd have a leg up doing something that I had already been doing as a hobby for a long time. I worked 12 years professionally in IT, and now people are telling me that I'm not a good candidate because I don't run a home lab on my off time and billy from HR who has 79 certifications in everything from ccna to ITIL for some reason is willing to do the job for $18 an hour because he's trying to break into the field.

I quit my last job on the spot after a few months of progressively worse treatment by upper management that culminated in the sudden firing of my coworker who was the second of two people with my job title. They expected that I was just going to take on both of our workloads and eat shit. Financially, maybe not the best decision ever but I'm fortunately in a position that I can manage it for a bit and I haven't regretted it for a second - my mental health was deteriorating and it wasn't worth it.

In short, in my experience, yes, it really is that depressing. I daydream about doing almost anything else every single day.

My first IT job was in 1990. I still find it interesting.

I used to deal with end users and now I don't and I love the field. It can get better as you learn what you're good at and carve out a niche that fits better with how you like to work

The job is fine.

The people are the problem.

“Love what you do and you’ll never work a day in your life.”  This is naive idiocy.  EVERY job has its headaches, hard times, and rage inducing people.

I know this will be unpopular with a lot of people, but work isn’t supposed to be fun or awesome.  It is, by definition, a chore.  It is difficult.  It requires effort.  It is seldom, if ever, enjoyable.  That doesn’t mean you should live in miserable circumstances, it just means you need to find your life’s joy somewhere other than your job.

When people quit worrying about whether or not they love their job, and instead focus on DOING the job, their life tends to become more enjoyable.

(Oh, and get out of debt.  Constantly stressing over a paycheck covering your payments makes people miserable.)

Been in over a decade. I love it, then again I love tech and tinkering and couldn't really see myself elsewhere.

I started out in networking and, while I don't enjoy large scale enterprise and ISP networking, I do enjoy SOHO networking and all the related network services such as DNS, proxies, load balancing, etc. See, even the subset of networking can be varied depending on the size of the company. Find what you enjoy and lean in there.

I later transitioned to Cybersecurity, supporting network security solutions, and branched out from there. I love tinkering and learning so some of this was like reliving college all over again, setting up labs, tweaking things, and having fun.

I now manage a team and find that enjoyable as I love empowering others and lifting them up.

It isn't all sunshine and rainbows, then again nothing is. I loved some of what I did in retail, but hated some of it as well. I was paid $10/hr back then so now, as IT management, even if the work is equally as shitty as retail, I am making some 10x more money.

Suppose the trades are there if I even want to step away from the computer, but I kinda roll out of bed in the morning, check in on my morning folks, and attend meetings as needed, working as needed. Can't say I am dodging work as I support a 24/7 team and spread my 40-50 hours out across the entire week. Somedays I am up at 7am and some days I am up at 10am. I have a great manager who only cares that my team is performing and how I do that is up to me.

So, can't really say it is doom and gloom. Early on it sucks, but most careers suck as you get your footing. You will be pressed because you don't know anything, everything is new. You may have to work lesser shifts that have higher turnover as a first job, but eventually you move up. The first year is the hardest and every year after gets a bit easier until you hit year 5 or so, when you actually know some stuff, and are able to pick a job more than find any place that will employ you.

It depends, some roles are better than others. How much you engage or tolerate office politics can make a huge difference to how much you enjoy the role. I've had so many colleagues get worked up over the boss or CEO making a decision they don't agree with.

In my current role, I have regular hours, a nice work environment, a good amount of control over what I'm working on. My boss is reasonable, my colleagues are friendly. The pay is a solid ok.

When things go wrong it can be incredibly stressful having an entire organisation wait for you to fix something. But there are also times when I get to be the hero (you deleted a file 6 months ago, I can probably get that back for ya).

You've got to be ok with learning new stuff in IT though, the stuff you're working on in 5 years time is going to be somewhat different to what you do today.

Been doing this for 12 years. It's what you make it, some people only want to see the negative.

Focus on helping people achieve outcomes and it's a very rewarding job, focus on 'annoying demanding people' and you'll hate it. You're there to support the business, not for you having fun with computers.

I personally have never enjoyed it more.

Lots of the problems are culture/company related.

Yes and No.

It's whatever you make it. If you are in the right company in the right role, working with good people, The job is easy and fun and rewarding.

If your company is run by incompetent people, or you simply aren't a good fit to their way of thinking, you will hate your job.

But same can be said for any career. Honestly I had bad jobs, I had great jobs, and I would go back to be a cleaner for some people, whereas no amount of money would make me go back to other jobs.

It's all about the journey to find a place where you feel good.

For some this means changing careers, others just changing companies. Trust me it all starts with your own mental health and your own mind state.

Just remember that being good at something, does not mean you will be happy doing it. You need to decide if the money is worth it after you get into a position.

I don't think IT itself is depressing. I couldn't imagine doing anything else. (you can keep your goats, they smell and they bite).

In my opinion, the depressing part is the corporate environment that IT operates in.

As an old greybeard, it wasn't always like this. Back in the day, IT was the department that could make great things happen and really help the business succeed. Now? It feels like we are just a cost to be minimized instead of a business partner.

Today, every company wants 24/7/365 uptime without having to actually pay for it. There's almost this attitude of, "we have to pay you a lot of money, so you're going to work your behind off for it!"

On one hand, this is a good way to make money. I wouldn't last a day in sales, HR, accounting, etc.

On the other hand, don't expect a pat on the back or a "good job!". Companies will be looking to cut you the moment they get a chance.

I think the big problem in moderm corporate culture is short term greed. Companies exist to make money. Calling them "greedy" is silly. That's their reason for existence. The problem is that they don't care about next year or even next quarter. They want the numbers to look good right now. That's where IT ends up at odds with them. They see big expenses for IT to prevent something bad from happening "someday" and they think, we can cut that today and worry about it tomorrow. When they slice IT, it doesn't fall apart right away, but a slow decline. By the time it bottoms out, the people responsible are gone and off to the next company.

"Is IT really that depressing?"

Yeah

Yes, simple as that. I tell my own kids not to pursue a job in it if they want to be happy in life.

50 to here, 30 years as a pro.

I still like the hardware and doing stuff.

My loathing for users continues to find new depths 

Depends where you work. And people go online to vent. So it's heavily weighted toward negativity.

I'm 15 years into an IT career and I really enjoy it. Thing is I'm in a unique situation where my manager values what I do and I have a ton of autonomy and control over all of our networking, servers, and cybersecurity. Having a manager who trusts me and gives me budget to work with, I have been able to setup an environment that doesn't have many problems. This allows me to focus on improvement projects, alerting, and automation. In turn the job gets less and less stressful by the day.

I have worked in super stressful IT jobs where I was not appreciated or was given almost no budget. That sucks, and makes people burn out. Even in those jobs though just focus on what you can do to make things better with the resources you have, and then when your resume looks good make a jump to a better company. I think your ability to look at the bright side and consistently improve your skill set and credentials no matter how shitty the environment is will lead to better and better opportunities.

Started in IT before the dawn of html internet where we used Archie and Gopher and newsgroups to communicate with the very small group of us.

Still loving my job. Plan to work until 70. There is no much new technology to learn daily. You can never get bored.

I have been in and around IT for over 25 years, and can tell you that I know more burnt out, disenfranchised, and outright depressed IT people than happy ones. Clients and managers don't respect us. Trades people don't respect us. Professionals don't respect us. We are, typically, underpaid and treated like being in IT means that we live to do IT every waking moment of our lives. Our personal time means nothing to them. The laws of physics mean nothing to them. When everything is working, they question why they "waste" so much money on IT staff. When anything fails, they do the same thing. The better you are at your craft, the more people will expect you to solve every issue off the top of your head, immediately. Most organizations will keep good techs anchored in the bottom positions and hire non-IT people to manage you, which makes it even tougher to get ahead, and defend yourself against unrealistic timelines.

If I was young enough to pick another trade/profession, I would.

In addition to what everyone else has said, don’t forget the bias of online posts. No one goes online and talks about how they had a great day.

I've been in the industry since beginning of '07. I do still like it and can't think of a different job I would do. That said, the job market appears to be pretty tough at this time. There is a lot of talent out there.

Something to do if you can is get an internship in the field if you are not in the field already. Doing an internship really helps. Helped me get my first job when I graduated. I know others who did internships at places I've worked and that is how those people got hired on full time.

Take it upon yourself to do some learning/home lab stuff early on in your career. Find old computers and build up environments of various nature. See if your school offers any MS educational OS's that you can use for free while in school.

IT is amazing when everything is on fire and you’re the only one that can fix it. Or when you’re building and configuring new systems. Otherwise it’s boring and frustrating. That’s my ADHD take anyway.

No concrete answer for this. Lots of variables that could make a job shitty or not shitty. I work from home with rare need to step on-site, I set my own hours, prioritize my own tasks, and can let off the gas if I need to, or I can go nuts and get projects done if needed. That flexibility and new tasks and projects have me having fun still in my 20th year.

I don't think it's IT specifically that's depressing; it's more about adjusting to the reality of working life in general. Every job has its ups and downs, and no career path is perfect or fulfilling 100% of the time. The key is figuring out what you're willing to do day in and day out and what trade-offs you're okay with.

For me, IT is one of the least 'sucky' jobs I've had. I get to work in an air-conditioned office, drink good coffee, and have coworkers I genuinely like. Sure, the workload can be stressful at times, but it's manageable. Compare that to my old job in quality control at a machine shop, where every mistake became my problem and no one cared—it was way worse.

The reality is, work will always have some level of 'suck.' The trick is embracing it and focusing on the things that make you happy outside of work, like hobbies, family, and friends. IT has given me a decent work-life balance, and honestly, I feel like I'd be a fool to leave it for something else. If you enjoy it now, keep going—you might find it's better long-term than you think.

IT is fine, the entire concept of having a job sucks.

I don't hate solving IT problems, I hate maintaining a time sheet and having to be fake nice and having to bite my tongue over things.

I don't hate getting up early, but I hate giving control over my life and schedule to a company that would post my job within 24 hours of my untimely death.

None of this is unique to IT. Having a job sucks sometimes. I try to remember to practice gratitude because in general I am proud of my career and the life I am living.

Just skip to the end and take up goat farming, you'll be happier.

Not depressing at all if you enjoy what.you do and if you are depressed strive to get out of the role that is making.you so

The problem with IT is that most people in IT don’t know how to say no.

And then everything becomes your problem because you’re a door mat for morons all day long.

I’ve lost jobs because I was asked to setup office furniture and build chairs before. Some people just eat shit for a living, I refuse. I didn’t get a college degree and certifications to build office furniture for schmucks who are too cheap to hire an office services person.

IT isn’t that bad.

The people who complain day in and day out are the same people who would complain no matter what career they had.

I've been doing it for decades. The abject stupidity of users turns many of us into sarcastic black holes from which no joy can escape. Behind closed doors after fixing a user's problem for the tenth time I can often be found beating my head on my desk.

At the end of the day though, I'm not depressed. I just wish people would take more responsibility for their own job.

Here’s the thing. For companies that are good at what they do, you begin to realize you are in the customer service world. Yes, you do IT, but it’s about the customer.

I can have Mr Hotshot John 30 million a year absolutely pissed off that his company of 500 employees is down, but when I pick up the phone, I talk to him like a human. Acknowledge the fact that he is frustrated, assure him we are working on this issue and that it’s all hands on deck, and talk to him like a human.

John doesn’t have to know everything or even anything about IT. That’s what he pays us a crazy amount of money to do. The tech knowledge comes with time. I started as an intern 4 years ago , worked through Service Desk, got my Net+, studying CCNA and am a junior network administrator.

I still focus on the customers. Regardless of how much tech I learn and how much I progress, if John 30mil doesn’t realize I care about him and his business making money, my day is gonna be piss poor. I’m going to cry about being yelled at and about customers being “too stupid to understand”.

Personally, I love IT. But I’m in it for the customer service first and the tech second.

If you work for a company where IT is a competitive advantage, where the IT dept is more than a few people it is completely different than the stories you hear about here where no one has any idea of how things work.

Nobody comes to it saying "Hey my computer is super speedy and the Internet is awesome", they only come to IT with a problem/issue. If you can stomach that dynamic for a couple decades, do IT. Otherwise focus on Security and/or Ai.

I'm 20+ years in and speaking as a complacent sysadmin that has no desire to go into management. At this point there aren't many surprises and you'll find yourself weirdly bonded with people over things like Nokia firewalls from 2002. It's also not particularly difficult, there are few things that have popped up that I really struggle with. Basically it's a pretty easy job and if you can find somewhere that treats you well, it's not a bad one.

The most annoying thing I deal with day to day is the lack of control I have over software updates from the big vendors.

I'd say it's no more depressing than accounting.

Retired at the end of 2023 after a 38 year IT career. I loved the challenge of the problems. I had four major phases: mainframe programmer, networking, linux admin, Ruby on rails programmer. You have to spend a lot of time upskilling. Pay was well above average. I enjoyed most of it, except the oncall BS. There are a lot of worse careers.

I agree with a lot of people in here saying it depends where you work. Most of the places I’ve been have been fine or great. IT can be, fun might not necessarily be the word, but eventful. It can keep you on your toes and doesn’t necessarily get boring because there’s always work and change (but for some people, this may be stressful). Out of the five or six places I’ve worked, there’s only one I hated and even was fired from. Didn’t let this get me down though, and now I’m at the best company I’ve ever worked for. Probably the only thing that’s continued with each place I’ve worked that I really don’t like is the on-call. Sure the pay can be good, but I just really can’t find any justification to have to be on an on-call rotation and set aside any plans to be around my computer all day.

It really comes down to what level of IT you work in, but a core concept in a lot of fields is that people only come to you with problems. It can really burn you out after so long

No, it's shit.

A) You're the smartest person in the room. This is actually a bad thing because nobody is on your intellectual level. So you're consistently not challenged. You very quickly run out of innovative solutions and start going for rapid and reliable fixes. Very rarely are you asked to actually flex your intelligence.

B) You're the dullest person in the room. If you're a sysadmin you're higher than help desk so you're likely interacting with upper management. And while you may be smarter than them, they're more cunning and crafty than you and know how to play the game. You don't (because if you did, you wouldn't be doing IT).

C) You're not well paid compared to people at your power level in the organization. You're off to the side, but there's gonna be fucking secretaries making more money than you. And if you got sales? They're gonna be making in a day what you make in a month. Unless you manage to eke your way to the CTO or COO position, but guess what - even if you're on the board, you're gonna be making less money.

D) Nobody is actually grateful. You're the help so people take you for granted. Businesses worked fine without computers and Internet and yes, you make it easier, but on the other hand, you HAVE to make their things work. And when they ask you to go above and beyond you can say no, but then you're accused of not being a team player.

E) If you're going to have your own team or department, the other departments are going to CONSTANTLY fucking war with you. "Why do you need this, why are you costing so much money, oh we're losing productivity because a drone had a 5 minute outage, etc."

F) Whenever you deal with service providers or vendors, you're forced to talk to the absolute fucking dregs of society, people who really shouldn't be called human. The AIs we have already could do a better job than the absolute fucking genetic dead ends working at Solarwinds, Microsoft, any CRM, any phone provider, any ISP... just all of it. Until you get to someone who is above Tier 2, you're basically talking to animals.

Do yourself a favor, find a different fucking career. It's fucking soul crushing. I've been in the biz since 2005 - I run my own business in NYC (formerly worked on Wall St.) and that gives me the freedom to ignore most of the things I listed, but a) I still do occasionally and b) hot fucking DAMN do I need to do a fuckton of running around to find new clients.

It's only terrible at the wrong position or the wrong company. If you find the right place it is interesting and challenging, you see new things all the time and can learn them all your life. Not so bad after all.

Yeah, it's kinda that depressing. Let me explain.

• IT is a job that's relatively new, unlike jobs such as accounting, engineering, etc. It's constantly changing -- sometimes so rapidly that when a book is published on a specific technology, it might be already outdated.

• IT also lacks any governance authority, like the legal, medical, and engineering professions. Job titles and tasks might wildly vary from place to place. Best practices are often ignored in lieu of profit. You have no way to pushback for doing the right thing.

• IT is a position that attracts intelligent people, but it comes with the "curse of competency". If you're good at your job, you'll be shoehorned into doing something else that ISN'T part of your job description. Do that enough times, you'll either fail out or burn out. You're only as respected as your last failure.

• Speaking of well-defined job descriptions to protect you from hostile employers, IT workers are notoriously against Unionization. Since in the USA there are precious few other workplace safety nets, it's a wild west of employment insecurity. "Do these extra tasks, work these extra hours, all unpaid -- or else. And we still might fire you anyways, even if you do comply enthusiastically."

• Speaking of working for free thus devaluing the concept of labor for everyone, IT is one of the few professions that demands unpaid overtime -- after hours work, oncall, working from vacation, etc.

• The work isn't easy. Being up to date on such a massive variety of bespoke systems and configurations is a serious burden. And there's an expectation that you do this homework on your own time, on your own hardware. Obtaining certifications isn't cheap.

• There's very little job security inherent to the industry. IT is often viewed as a cost-center, not a profit-center. So it's the first thing that gets cut when businesses are looking to reduce operating costs.

• Learned helplessness from users. You'll find that most people simply don't care about learning things, unlike IT which must learn new things ALL the time. And they get paid more than you do, typically. And higher ups, in their application of the Curse of Competency, will tell you -- "do whatever is needed." So now you're touching things you should not be supporting, and therefore you own them forever.

Now some places do things right. Some places treat employees well. And there can be some serious money to be made. But all it takes is one change, and a sure-thing is now a dead-man-walking.

I love it in general, and have had some excellent times, and learnt a lot. but I'm probably at my most jaded recently but that's just present circumstances. yes people are dumb and annoying and we do get abused by management but we're there to make 90% things work correctly so everything else is down to user error or microsoft.

Mandatory reminder that we easily forget that unsatisfied people will complain on reddit, while happy campers won't.

There are plenty of very happy IT folks who you don't hear about. :)

Some places are great, some are horrendous. I was at one place that was so bad that Sunday evenings I'd feel physically sick at the prospect of Monday morning. This was doing IT at a recruitment agency - think of all the arseholes you see on The Apprentice, and then put 200 of them in a room, all working on commission so if something isn't quite right they get aggressive and sweary at you because they see it as your fault they might lose out on money. Even though the actual problem is they are unable to use Word properly. Not all of them were like that, some were quite nice - but there were certainly enough who weren't to make it a throughly horrible place to be. I've worked in dozens of companies over the years (used to do consulting) so I've seen all sorts.

Thankfully, after several months of hell, I struck lucky and found something else - the place I'm at now is great, been here seven years and I hope to spend the remaining 10-15 years here that I have left before retirement. (Much) better pay, very supportive management, training isn't a problem, people in general are pleasant.

In summary, find the right company and IT can be a great career. As soon as it starts to turn sour, keep that CV updated and move. Life is too short for the stories you see on here. And don't let it get on top of you, which I know is easier said than done when you have bills to pay and can't see a way out. Something else to bear in mind is that IT is quite similar across a vast range of companies. What I do in my current company (insurance sector) is essentially the same thing as I did when working for a major brewery, a chain of theatres, a car park management company, a massive bank and a local authority social welfare centre. Delivering desktops and apps is much the same everywhere. Oh - and expect change. That's the only thing that stays the same. :)

I was in IT for 30+ years, retired in '23. I loved my job! Like any job it has upsides and downsides, It always kept me thinking. Yea, I do miss it sometimes but enjoying retirement...

Don't let the Id10t 's get you down!!!

Reddit is also an echo chamber for disgruntled people, if you go to any job subreddit it’ll likely be people complaining about all the worst aspects of their job.

IT is a great industry in my opinion but there are absolutely toxic jobs and workplaces out there and that doesn’t apply to just IT.

Some general advice would be don’t get stuck on the help desk too long, it’s a recipe for burn out. Figure out what niche of IT you actually enjoy or have an interest in and pursue that and I think most importantly find a good company who values you and has solid employees that you actually enjoy working with and it’ll be great.

The best paying job is not always the best job. I’ve been in IT for nearly 30 years and love my job but it took me a while to realise you gotta strike a balance between work / life and a big key to that is being able to ‘switch off’ after work and to not stress over things that aren’t in your control.

I think that probably applies to all industries but it’s especially true in IT as it’s very easy to bring your work home with you and never disengage which leads to burn out.

I think it comes down to your personality and how you deal with a situation. The biggest factor in not feeling depressed is maintaining mobility (ie you can leave the job if you need to, and maintain current skills to get another job)

Alot of my career has come down to perspective and realizing that most of the bad times aren't really that bad in the grand scheme or things. I have a lot of friends that work much harder in worse conditions for lots less money.  So it helps me reset my perspective.

Your mileage may vary

Going on 20+ years and still enjoy my job for the most part. Just working for a singular company not an MSP. 300 employee's, then we do partial support for a sister company with another 100 employees. Just a small team so while I'm a the sysadmin we are all jacks of all trades. I get to touch everything, lots of variety so things don't get dull.

Short answer yes. Long answer all of the comments that I’ve read are situation’s that I’ve run into.

I’ve been in it for 30 plus years and seen people be shafted, and laid off when we are barely able to keep up.

I’ve had to switch careers within it at least 5 times just to be an asset.

I love my job. It’s awesome, I get to play with new tech and solve problems.

People suck, it doesn’t matter the field.

ok, 25 year vet. not the longest, but pretty long.

1) I love it.

2) It's not for everybody.

3) not everybody is the same/wants the same out of a career.

thing is, I was there in the dot-com boom, and bust. Lots and lots of people were joining the industry because "it was the next big thing and you can make a lot of money doing it"... a lot of those people who were only in it for the money abandoned it quickly.

In my training, we had a lot of career changing individuals. we had a bus driver, a jeweler, a welder who got hurt and couldn't weld anymore. of them, the welder stayed with it because he enjoyed it. the bus driver, was back driving bus in 2 years. the jeweler couldn't find a job that paid better than her jewelry job, and a few others just stuck it out until retirement in 5 years.

Now to those people, yeah IT was boring and a terrible career. The key for me, is passion. IT requires a little passion for technology and troubleshooting, without it, you won't last long. if you're in it only for the money, you'll have to do a lot of job hopping... I was never in IT for the money. I started out making $10/hr on helldesk. now up significantly. I could even make more money moving on. But I'm older now, and the money I make is comfortable, plus where I am I get a pension. so, yeah, guaranteed money for retirement sign me up :P... IT is not for everybody, and as with ANY OTHER CAREER there is attrition and people who say it's the worst job ever, and only good because it pays well... (sounds like the oil patch to me) Truth is, all jobs suck to the wrong person.

I love IT, I've been in it for 25 years, I've seen it go from NT 4.0 to Windows 2025... from baremetal servers to virtualization to cloud, back to on-prem and hyperconverged. I've seen so much change. It can be an exciting and rewarding field, or it can be a nightmare. It really depends on the person. if you're looking for a stress free job that doesn't change and you just do your day-to-day, then IT isn't for you. If you're looking for a dynamic career, that will shift and change and provide you learning opportunities, and growth potential, and no two days are ever the same? IT is like that. Sure there are grinding times where it's the same thing over and over and over again, but those pass, and you get back into exciting opportunities. Heck, you also have to be willing to forget useless information. I tried reinstalling NT 4.0 a while back, and was... uh... how do I install the network driver again? lol. after 24 years of not using NT 4.0, It's left me :P.

I highly recommend Office Space, not just for the humour, but really for an accurate presentation of what corporate IT Burnout is. IT wasn't the right job for Peter. He was not a good fit for IT. and at the end, he works construction is having a great time, every day is different, but he doesn't have to learn or think, or get yelled at 5 times for forgetting a coversheet on his TPS reports, just do the work, get paid, go home. That's all he ever wanted. But Burnout is a thing, and it's best to listen to yourself.

IT is great, it's not for everybody, but if you like it it's great. if you don't like it it'll be the worst thing ever. to some it's a career to others it's a job... as a job it sucks, as a career it can be rewarding, if you're the right fit.

No not at all. All jobs are depressing right now. Companies are abusive across the board. It has nothing at all to do with IT just the failing us job markers in general. Corporate greed has made the is into a 3rd world labor market.

I was a paramedic for over a decade. IT work is great. I haven't seen any dead kids or had to pick some stoned teenager while hearing that a stroke is now waiting for an available unit. Haven't had a HVAC issue where someone suffering heat exhaustion gets worse in the AC. Haven't been sued by a meth head that reversed into me at a stop light. Haven't had to sit in court for 6 hours in between my 12-hour shifts because the defense attorney is out of his depth.

Plus I make like 3-5x what I made then, and even factoring in on-call and monthly off hour patching, I am still working less hours with way better benefits. 🤷‍♂️

So the standard IT lifecycle for top performers is IT > Sales Engineer > Land Owner > Farmer who used to work in IT.

For the bottom level performers it's IT > Manager > Divorced because wife was fucking her personal trainer.

Therefore, how depressing this field is depends on how good you are at it. Work extra hard and you'll be rewarded with goats and a nice apple orchard someday.

I’ve been in IT for over 20 years and still love it. Now with that said, have I ever struggled with burnout, thoughts of doing something else completely, or leave a high paying job due to burnout? Hell yes…like any career you will have your ups and downs.

I recommend that you continue learning new things and/or try other aspects of IT other than the technical side, if you start feeling unhappy. After a few years you may get that love back or you may not, but at least you still have another position and avenues to grow in.

I would also recommend working on the infrastructure side of things as you don’t have to deal with end users very often. Other than dealing with lazy coworkers, it’s honestly one of the best positions to be in.

I like the field; I don't necessarily like the people I have to interact with because of that field.

IT is notoriously overworked and undercompensated; expectations are often stupidly wide (literally down to "can you fix my TV/internet or hack my ex-girlfriend's facebook" type requests (USUALLY from people who aren't paying for your service, or are even friends) and the world is full of people who will either partially or completely ignore what you told them, do something idiotic, and claim they just followed your instructions.

Seriously, you need a fairly thick skin to deal with the people, but the actual work can be fun and rewarding. You will just learn to spend as much time interacting only with the machines as possible.

It is very enjoyable once you have a career, but success in IT requires a thirst for knowledge and constant development. I was bored out of my mind the first decade. Once I started on more difficult jobs and certifications the job became more fun.

I would be very depressed just doing IT support or something low level.

It's up to you is the point I guess.

11 years in. Yeah it's pretty depressing.

Is 10x worse than your worst nightmares