I have seen a variety of people leave the profession due to the hours. I have had a pager(earlier days) or a Cell since I have been in this career. It is par for the course. Some careers are certainly more demanding and IT is one of them. I always tell my students or others looking to get into IT to be realistic. If you want certain types of jobs (Admin, Engineer) than expect to be on call. The bigger the salary, the higher the expectations. There are certainly areas in IT that circumvents this; Programming, Web Design, PM, etc. Sure, you will work long hours but you are rarely On Call. Constantly updating your skills, this goes without saying. Update or become obsolete.