Flashback: Burnout and the toll it takes
March 5, 2010
You are probably a human. At least, the statistical odds are in your favor. As a human, you experience stress, and how you react to it plays a large part in determining how happy you are. System administrators deal with stress particularly poorly, in general. We assume the role of hero and that’s that. Do what it takes, bask in whatever glory accompanies the successful completion of our task.
There is no downtime in that equation. Immediately following those emergencies, most of us drink depressants to bring ourselves down. On normal days, we require morning stimulants to bring ourselves up. I highly suspect that some of us are so called “adrenaline junkies” from the relative high that we get when there’s an immediate problem that no one can solve but ourselves.
This is unhealthy.
What we really need is to be able to step back and look at the pattern in our lives and say I don’t want to live with this stress.
When it first hit me that stress is probably the biggest single microproblem for admins, I wrote the following. I hope you find it relevant.
Jack Hughes, over at the Tech Teapot, mentions a very appropriate subject for too many systems administrators: burnout.
As sysadmins, we’re nearly always the go-to person for whatever happens. After a while, we start to get used to it, and lots of times, we can develop a hero complex, carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders, at least in our minds. This isn’t healthy for a lot of reasons, the most important of which is your health.
Here’s an example of what taking your job too seriously can do to you:
Not to ruin the ending, but the most disgusting part is that, while the guy was taking medical leave, his company fired him. To be completely honest, he’s much better off without a company like that, and if your company would do the same thing, then so are you.
To quote Peter Gibbons, “We don’t have a lot of time on this earth. We weren’t meant to spend it this way. Human beings were not meant to sit in little cubicles staring at computer screens all day…”
Even one of the most preeminent Systems Administrators around, Tom Limoncelli advocates leaving the pressure at work when you head home. For those of us on call 24/7/365, that can be a little hard, but it’s important to try.
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March 5th, 2010 at 7:24 am
I was in the hospital last week for 5 days, and recived an email from my boss on day 3 asking me to help him fix the esx boxes. Lets just say the wife was a lot less than impressed.
Turns out if your THE system admin, and you can get stuff done, developing the hero position is not good. If you get it done no matter the people round you will ignore the posibility of learning how to do it themselves and just leave it to you.
Being the digital janitor gives you the odd position of being the god of the stuff that keeps the company running, whilst at the same time often being treated like droid trapped in a jawa sand crawler.
March 5th, 2010 at 9:05 am
Had a lovely morning today. Phone rings after I’ve been asleep for three hours – two and a half hours of dial-in support later and the problem is fixed, I call in to say it’s all good and hear the ominous words “Actually, something else just broke…”. Something I need to be in the room for, so I have to drive in anyway. I’m going home soon for 2 hours intensive rest before I’m on call for the rest of the weekend!
I’m not sure about a hero complex but it DOES give a genuinely good reason for a decent moan!
That double time night pay is nice too…
March 5th, 2010 at 10:08 am
System administrators deal with stress particularly poorly, in general.
I’d have to disagree with that – I think most of us deal with it well at the time or we wouldn’t be any good.
The real problem is (as you point out) we keep coming back for more – either through poor priorities or outright addiction to it.
Knowing when enough is enough…
March 5th, 2010 at 10:19 am
@furicle
I don’t think we actually deal with the stress, though. We deal very well with the situation at hand, and put no thought into recovering from it, aside from grabbing a beer or reading news feeds. There’s no built-in recuperation. Out of the frying pan, into the bigger frying pan, into the fire.
March 5th, 2010 at 10:22 am
@furicle: I agree – or rather – I don’t agree with the generalization. I’m sure there are plenty of SA’s that don’t deal with stress well – in fact I know and work with some.
I also agree that if a SA doesn’t deal with stress well they aren’t very good – thinking back to those same people.
Once of the most frequent comments I get from Managers, CEO’s and other people who were freaking out around me while things were falling apart, is how calm and relaxed I was and how it helped them deal with the situation and feel confident that it would be resolved quickly.
I don’t enjoy it when things break, and I don’t enjoy getting woken up every 1-2 hours all night long (nor does the rest of the family) but when it does happen you deal with it, and then put plans in place to fix the situation so it doesn’t happen again, and try to plan for other similar eventualities to prevent them as well.
I look on it as a challenge – a problem/puzzle to be solved. Which is why I got into this field in the first place – I enjoy solving problems.
March 5th, 2010 at 10:44 am
@Anthony and @furicle
I know what you guys are saying, and there’s a lot of truth to that. The definition of a good sysadmin should include the idea that the person is capable of dealing well with their stress.
Honestly, most of us aren’t “good” system administrators, particularly when you include nontechnical skills. So many of us neglect what we consider “soft skills”, much to our detriment.
What I’m trying to do is to appeal to those of us who haven’t taken the time to re-examine their lives away from the terminal. I’m hoping that by making people aware of the problem, they take a moment to examine what they’re doing to themselves (and most likely, the people around them).
All you have to do is read @chewyfruitloop’s comment. When his boss called him in bed after 3 days in the hospital, he didn’t say he was upset, or his doctors were upset. He said that his wife was upset. Of course she was. Mine would be livid, too.
Our position and the roles we play are demanding, mentally and physically. Typically, unless someone has a health-related incident like I did, they don’t stop to look around, and they don’t realize how bad things have gotten. I figure if I bring this stuff to their attention on an otherwise technical blog, it’ll get attention that it might not have otherwise.
March 5th, 2010 at 1:37 pm
Matt
First let me say thank you for re-posting this. It means a lot knowing I’m not the only SysAdmin going through this. I had a stress related heart attack a couple of years ago due to the pressure employer put on me. Every year I’m forced to keep things running with less of an operating budget than the year before. There are days that I want to just walk away from it all but I can’t because I have a family who depends on me. I’m afraid to look for a new job because of how bad the economy is.
March 5th, 2010 at 2:10 pm
Sam – It’s time to start letting stuff break.
You must know what the most and least important pieces you look after are. I suggest you clearly write that down if you don’t. Then, start planning your work week – and put it on the top half of the list. Leave 10% say for unforeseen. Then when 40 is up, walk away. Seriously….
Yes, something is going to break. If you planned it right, what breaks isn’t going to bankrupt the company. If you’ve been honest with your employeer that what he’s asking isn’t realisitic, then when it happens you can _politely_ say I don’t have the time or budget to keep that up 100%. If that’s the priority, what can I drop from this list?
As long as you keep juggling, they’ll keep expecting it. Better off to drop something that won’t kill the company or get you fired at that moment, then keep going the way you are.
If you family depends on you, they need you around… not at work 80 hours a week, not in the hospital or worse. You are irreplaceable to them – your income isn’t. Really.
March 5th, 2010 at 3:38 pm
Great lead in to the article, and great article. really moving post.
March 5th, 2010 at 3:38 pm
I haven’t had any stress related leave or illness yet – I am only 26. But…
But I can feel it growing. I start to feel tired even before starting work, I find myself feeling exhausted whenever the phone rings, before I pick it up, and I’ve began to cringe when answering my emails.
It started in December, just after Christmas. Monday AM, got 13 phone calls and over 140 emails before 8 AM. Like most other SysAdmins, I am the “only” guy. I miss the days when I could escape for 2 weeks and not have anyone contact me.
People will call me at all hours of the day and night, demanding something be fixed. Truth is, I get paid to work 8 AM – 5:30 PM. After those hours, I have no responsibility to fix things until the next day at 8 AM. But again, like most other SysAdmins, I’ll field the call and fix it anyway – afterall, it’ll only be waiting tomorrow morning, so why not fix it now.
I’ve cornered myself into the situation where everyone knows I will answer and start fixing almost anything within minutes. My bosses love it, and I’ve been rewarded well (very good pay), but I’m starting to realize it is getting out of hand. The company is growing, we are adding more users, more computers, more servers, more locations, more points of failure, more complexity.
There will be a tipping point where I will need to hire an assistant – that hasn’t happened yet, but I do hope I don’t break before I reach that point.
I’ll be honest, one of the saving graces of my career is my office with windows, a stereo and a lockable door…good for 15 minutes of peace and quiet before someone comes to break it down.
What does everyone else do to unwind?
March 5th, 2010 at 4:21 pm
with regards to stress…..
recently i’ve gone into work and been overcome with a wave of anger as i walked through the door that i could not explain. I’ve also found myself ranting like a crazed hobo for the smallest annoyance at work. My wife puts that down to stress, and I suppose she’s right.
I think its a lot harder to diagnose stress build up in yourself than it is for other people to see it in you.
I suppose once you know you’ve gotten into a horrible situation you can start to do something about it. I do however recognise the corner sysadmins tend to be in…if its broken theres nobody else to fix it, if you don’t fix it everybody is on your back like a 500 pound gorilla wanting it done yesterday.
I used to come home from my old job and play goldeneye just to head shot every russian to unwind…guess I’ll have to start doing something similar again, quakelive.com is now my bag
March 5th, 2010 at 4:33 pm
@chewy
Way back when I did tech support for huge outsourcing firm (hundreds of people in tiny cramped rows talking on phones for 8 hours a day), there was a dedicated gaming room where you could take your breaks, lunch, or after work and play Quake 2, Half Life, or a number of other games, just to unwind.
Every once in a while, the supervisors would get on and play, and it was amazingly therapeutic to frag your manager after 8 hours of complaints about call times.