Why Are People Keen To Get Out Of IT?

[AtW]

Any programming task should take a few days at least to write test deploy and then document

[SueEllen]

Well spotted.

The only time a programming task takes that long is when you need to bill the customer in hours or days.

[MarillionFan]

Cos it is Tulip.....

I only got into IT (many eons ago) because it paid more than not....
I can do IT (generically).... but I don't really enjoy it
I find IT easy (generically).... ditto
It pays me pretty well (mostly).... which is good

but the stuff I really enjoy is "people"....

When I say "I don't enjoy it" I don't mean that I don't enjoy any of it cos:
I do enjoy technical challenges....
I do enjoy problem solving....
I do enjoy teaching stuff....
I do enjoy learning stuff.....
but once I have done that.... its all down hill...

Contracting is "better" cos at least I get to move on... meet new people... learn new stuff... solve new stuff.... teach new stuff.... but after a while its still more of the same....
I have tried a few Plan Bs which have worked after a fashion... but in the past I have always come back to "selling old rope" cos it pays so much without too much hard work.....

I have never agreed with a post more than this in my old life. If not for the bloody ZX81 I got as a kid I'd probably be a bloody millionaire by now as opposed to always falling back into the comfort zone of IT Contracting!

[BenchMaster]

I can think of 122 reasons.

[SantaClaus]

How about becoming a GP?

Pay is over 100K, and all you have do to is dish out valium/antibiotics/corn plasters. You dont even have to draw blood, that's what nurses are for

I could swear that today's doctors are googling your symptoms when they are tapping away at their computers.

[zippy.mini]

Cos it is Tulip.....

I only got into IT (many eons ago) because it paid more than not....
I can do IT (generically).... but I don't really enjoy it
I find IT easy (generically).... ditto
It pays me pretty well (mostly).... which is good

but the stuff I really enjoy is "people"....

When I say "I don't enjoy it" I don't mean that I don't enjoy any of it cos:
I do enjoy technical challenges....
I do enjoy problem solving....
I do enjoy teaching stuff....
I do enjoy learning stuff.....
but once I have done that.... its all down hill...

Contracting is "better" cos at least I get to move on... meet new people... learn new stuff... solve new stuff.... teach new stuff.... but after a while its still more of the same....
I have tried a few Plan Bs which have worked after a fashion... but in the past I have always come back to "selling old rope" cos it pays so much without too much hard work.....

I have never agreed with a post more than this in my old life. If not for the bloody ZX81 I got as a kid I'd probably be a bloody millionaire by now as opposed to always falling back into the comfort zone of IT Contracting!

Yep, I couldn't agree more. Describes exactly how I feel about IT, especially the bit about contracting.

[NickFitz]

It strikes me that this question is predicated on the assumption that one chooses to work in a given field because one hopes to establish a career therein.

I do stuff I enjoy doing, and find people who will pay me for it. This is one of the reasons going permy isn't an option for me - eventually I'd have to do something that doesn't interest me but would still have to do it because "it's my job" and then I'd just leave.

I have never had a career, and I hope never to have one. I have had an enormous amount of fun doing work that I enjoy and making a living at it

[NotAllThere]

What can you possbly do in four hours - That is just bulltulip - Any programming task should take a few days at least to write test deploy and then document

Well, you've obviously worked in a wide range of industries on a wide range of technologies with a wide range of project methodologies...

But for the benefit of those who've only ever had one job in one small cubicle...

I received this morning a bug report for one of our products. I diagnosed the fault, explained to the client what they need to do to get the application working again (it's their environment that has the problem, not the app), applied an enhancement that means if the problem happens again, they'll get a helpful message from the app, and shipped the patch. All within an hour. Oh yes, I tested it as well.

At the same time I'm developing another product, with a complex UI, and complex data structures that I've been working on for 18 months now, and consider that it will be a month or so before I've got the prototype ready, and probably another year before version 1.0 is up and running.

Such is the range encompassed by the phrase "programming task".

( I've never understood why there is so much fuss about documentation... most program documentation is write once, read never. Anyway, good code should be self-documented. But I do a lot of work in a validated environment, so that will never change... ).

[Doggy Styles]

You can become a house builder or plumber...

To a business, IT is like the plumbing or the electrics, in that, rather than water or electricity, you are piping information.

I've used computers in my work for 30 years. I've even programmed them to help do my job. But I don't consider myself to be "in IT", I just use it.

[moorfield]

I'm seriously thinking about retraining to become a provincial accountant for the rest of my days.

Anything has to be more interesting than my current gig.