Exhausted. I don't work in IT, but I suspect my job has a lot of parallels. I make my living running live sound for bands and small music venues, while also doing corporate AV for a large AV contractor. Despite what outsiders may think, working in the music industry is murder on your social life. Sure, you get to go to neat concerts and meet awesome artists, but it also means you're working most weekends and many evenings. During the day, there's a good chance you're sleeping. I often don't get home until 3 or 4 in the morning. The lows are low. I'm often so nervous before a show that I almost vomit. The highs are great though, I often go home after a good show in a state of ecstasy. It's amazingly satisfying on the rare occasion when I'm able to enter a flow state while mixing.
The corporate side is probably about what you'd expect. The hours are long, the pay is low, and most of the work is boring and/or ethically challenging. While some of the events are interesting, (I had a blast working with the guys from Earth Science Information Partners) I've also worked back to back 4 hour Amway pitches and helped set up mics and projectors for boiler-room style real estate schemes. It's the kind of job where your coworkers are really important. I really enjoy working with my normal team, but one day with a bad team can really undermine my self confidence for days afterwords. There's a lot of really crappy political stuff that I'm trying to navigate.
Personal life? I'm financially stable, I have a few friends, no romantic relationships nor prospects. The latter is sad to me, but I'm a tough sell. I really enjoy being alone and highly value my privacy, probably to a fault. My schedule is so variable and full that the very idea of coordinating that with another person makes my brain hurt. My dad died recently, which was rough. At first I was a bit numb to it, and really threw myself into work and keeping busy. Now, I feel like it's all catching up to me. The flood of feelings and nostalgia are beginning to creep over the spillway of my hastily constructed dam. The overwork is beginning to take a toll physically and mentally. I've had to dial back on a lot of the live music stuff.
I sympathize with those who want to move to a cabin in the woods. I'd take that life, provided I had a well stocked library and some musical instruments with the means to record them. My fantasy is to just disappear. Quietly and carefully I'd made the arrangements in advance, and then one day I and all my stuff would be on the road to some distant city, without so much as a note. I don't know why that idea appeals to me, but it may come from the same part of the brain that nags you to delete your entire source tree and start from scratch.
PS protect your hearing folks. You can get earplugs with a relatively flat frequency response for about $20.
PPS no, you can't charge your phone
The corporate side is probably about what you'd expect. The hours are long, the pay is low, and most of the work is boring and/or ethically challenging. While some of the events are interesting, (I had a blast working with the guys from Earth Science Information Partners) I've also worked back to back 4 hour Amway pitches and helped set up mics and projectors for boiler-room style real estate schemes. It's the kind of job where your coworkers are really important. I really enjoy working with my normal team, but one day with a bad team can really undermine my self confidence for days afterwords. There's a lot of really crappy political stuff that I'm trying to navigate.
Personal life? I'm financially stable, I have a few friends, no romantic relationships nor prospects. The latter is sad to me, but I'm a tough sell. I really enjoy being alone and highly value my privacy, probably to a fault. My schedule is so variable and full that the very idea of coordinating that with another person makes my brain hurt. My dad died recently, which was rough. At first I was a bit numb to it, and really threw myself into work and keeping busy. Now, I feel like it's all catching up to me. The flood of feelings and nostalgia are beginning to creep over the spillway of my hastily constructed dam. The overwork is beginning to take a toll physically and mentally. I've had to dial back on a lot of the live music stuff.
I sympathize with those who want to move to a cabin in the woods. I'd take that life, provided I had a well stocked library and some musical instruments with the means to record them. My fantasy is to just disappear. Quietly and carefully I'd made the arrangements in advance, and then one day I and all my stuff would be on the road to some distant city, without so much as a note. I don't know why that idea appeals to me, but it may come from the same part of the brain that nags you to delete your entire source tree and start from scratch.
PS protect your hearing folks. You can get earplugs with a relatively flat frequency response for about $20. PPS no, you can't charge your phone