After more than 20 years of doing things in and around IT, I am finally leaving to do something different and challenging. I'll stick around TechRepublic -- I like this place. However, I think I have had enough of IT as a career.

I'll admit that the initial choice to leave wasn't really mine. I got laid off from a very senior management position. The lay off, though, has given me time to reflect on what I really like doing and why. As I reflected on my career, I came to realize that I had gotten into a rut. I was no longer looking forward to going to work. In fact, I think I was beginning to dread it. I would occasionally get an interesting assignment, but the routine and mundane parts of the job seemed to become a bigger portion of the job.

This seemed to become more and more true as more layoffs created an environment of less flexibility in what could be done. The routine stuff has to be done, the creative parts are optional. With fewer staff, the creative parts of IT was what suffered the most from each layoff (from the perspective of one who was left behind).

It took a few months for me to realize what the real source of my frustration was and then to figure out what type of job I needed to go for. What I discovered is that there are a lot of jobs outside of IT that benefit greatly from IT type skills. However, they don't expect and won't let you do the routine IT work.

On top of that, because they require a fairly technically savvy person, they pay nearly as well as IT.

Essentially, the fun parts of IT have been out-sourced to other departments.

Have I hit on something here?