Lost in Technology

[lordcochise]

Another day, another several hours lost in technology at work. I think I'm getting stir crazy even on these weeks where I'm in the office at Audiosears for a few days (used to happen only in the longer weeks). I want the hobo life of extreme commuting to end, but for now I can stand it for a few more weeks / months

Comments

Yeah..

[lordcochise]

Well, the asst. Chief told me the union was in negotiations that were likely to end soon, so it could be more than it was previously. I'd probably take it if it was above a certain threshold, but we'll just have to see..

[wavemaster]

HAHAHA FT IT job that is less than 50 hrs / week... LOL Erik you crack me up. It may be a FT job, and it may say 40 hrs / week on your time card, but I promise you it is 60 hrs / week if you want to keep the job.

[lynnini]

That doesn't even have to be an IT job to be true.

Absolutely

[lordcochise]

Yeah - admittedly, IT jobs tend to be notorious for this sort of thing, but the same is true for Nurses / Doctors (or any kind of caregiver, really), Emergency Services personnel, anyone in the military, etc. The industry is never in any way significantly preclusive compared to the demands of the individual location and the occasional overbrearing boss.

The hours themselves mean less to me than the QUALITY of those hours and certainly there are better hours than others. My beef lately is never feeling like I can run at anything under top speed and everyone requesting work is always in crisis mode.

Unfortunately widely so

[lordcochise]

well, I'd be happy to do more hours for the right $$ too, but not all tech jobs I have had have been crushing. Even Audiosears doesn't outright demand overtime from its management, and I already got the best review in the company even for averaging about 45-50 a week last year.

[aperturius]

You could always come back to O-town as a fireman and start setting up your own little IT business here. Not everybody likes to go to Edison Computers, you know. And maybe if you started letting your friends PAY you for fixing their computers...lord knows I'd rather give you the money than Geek Squad.

Excellent

[lordcochise]

I'll take that as a compliment - I always had a pipe dream of setting up a shop like that, though never had anywhere near the investment capital. I think if someone better financially-minded took care of that side of the operation I'd rather stick to the technology end.

Actually, working for OFD would lend well to that sort of thing as there would be sufficient time away from the firehouse to do it, as long as either (a) it was a big enough operation that people could staff the office while I wasn't there or (B) it would be small enough that I'd just do it by appointment. The problem would be if it grew from B to A.

Re: Excellent

[aperturius]

Oh and hey, if you decide to do the O-town thing and need a place to crash for a while, Sarah and I have a farmhouse. With an extra bedroom. And a dog. And cats. And goats. And a horse. And about 25 chicks (26 if you count Sarah). And...well you get the picture.

Seriously though, need a place to stay? We'll set you up.

Re: Excellent

[lordcochise]

Might just take you up on that, at least for a visit sometime...If I did the FD thing I'd need to live in the city limits, but I'll try to make it up sometime - still very curious to actually see the house!

[siberakh1]

Well, since livejournal ate my comment *grumblemutter*, in short, yes, you can find IT work for 50K or more a year and not have to work egads amounts of overtime. This is true of many industries. It just depends on the job, location, company, etc. My sister-in-law makes well above 50K and other than the occasional on call weekend (no more than once a month and generally no more than an hour or two, if that when she is called), she works a regular 8-4 M-F (telecommuting too, so no commute!). Many people where I work don't work over that either, unless they are on call. Even then, overtime isn't paid. We get compensated with days and time off for the time lost putting in extra hours (the company would rather people not burn themselves out and recharge). Of course someone may have to work many late hours if, say, a major critical server or data farm goes down, or if a site loses power, but those don't happen all the time and, as stated before, we're compensated time for it. I worked a few crap IT jobs before, one with 60-70 hours

[lordcochise]

Well, admittedly I need to find a company other than Audiosears - that alone would clear up a lot of hostility and other problems. Not enough time to to that kind of storytime.