Once upon an IT Director
Been there, done that... recession came and I fell a few rungs down the ladder. While I miss the office, putting my brain to work, all the perks and the title, I don't miss the stress and burn-out. These days I'm a PBX field tech paid by the hour with all the overtime I want, making a lot more money than I ever did in IT management with a take-home company car (100% paid by the company), fewer hours, 1% of the headaches, drama, and back-stabbing office politics.
Some days I'm home by lunchtime and done for the day and paid til 5. My workload is such that I plan out my day and tell my service dispatcher what I'm doing and not the other way around.
Plus my line of work, there aren't thousands of unemployed people with worthless MCSE's lining up for a $40,000/year job with with few benefits for that one ad on Monster.com - in fact finding qualified people is a challenge for us. Which is fine by me - more overtime as far as I'm concerned.
Sure, where I am now isn't where I imagined where I would be as I was nearing the top of my career ladder, but the stress and Bravo Sierra wasn't worth putting my career ahead of my family. These days, I just keep my eye on that piece of paper that comes every Friday - it's family first as I laugh to the bank while my former IT management colleagues burn themselves out at work while their spouses file for divorce.
