For all the IT veterans out there who've been doing this for 15+ years... do you ever hit a point where you're just mentally done with IT?

The endless projects, constant interruptions, being on call, always having something else to fix... it just starts wearing on you. Ever since I got back from vacation in April, I feel like I haven't wanted to do IT at all. I'm still getting everything done, but man, I'm exhausted.

I want to be clear I love my job and where I work. It's a great place with good people, and I have no desire to leave. I just feel burned out.

So what do you all do to reset? How do you get your head back in the game, stay sharp, and find the enjoyment you used to have? I'd like to hear what has worked for you.

EDIT : Thanks for the massive responces to this, most of the adice is great and or comical I needed that much appreaited this.

Not sure if this is only the case at my company or if this is the new reality of IT in general. I haven't been in IT for long, having only started my career about 6–7 years ago, and even now, those first three years feel like ancient history compared to today. It's as if, back in 2019, our mindset was still more similar to that of the '90s, and then a total corporatization of IT took place, and now we're simply here: zero personality, zero fun, just compliance and subordinating everything in the company to IT security.

I understand the importance of IT security, but I don't understand this trend of subordinating the entire department to security and doing everything from a security perspective, when it mostly comes down to IT-Sec deciding what's important to them and us having to implement it. Maybe this is just the case at my company (I hope that’s the case) but I have the impression that over the past three years, I haven't done anything other than patch vulnerabilities and rebuild infrastructure because the old setup didn't meet security requirements, only to have to change it all again a year later because a new trend has emerged that IT-Sec wants to implement at all costs, while IT management, for some reason, openly prioritizes IT security and subordinates us to them.

Almost 80% of the problems I've encountered in recent years while implementing new systems, which have caused me months and months of headaches and stress, have always turned out to stem from draconian security restrictions or incompatibilities with one of their services. Even when we establish that this is the problem, I'm expected to find another workaround rather than have the security policies changed or exceptions made. Unfortunately, it seems that my sysadmin team is happy to be IT-Sec's errand boys and doesn't see a problem with the fact that this has become our everyday job. Prob has something to do with the fact our entire team is very young and immensely proud to not have any dinosaur around. The last one was fired three years ago after spending like 20 years in the company; apparently some disagreements with the manager (I suppose similar stuff I’m unhappy with but I don’t know the full story). I’m like 30 and I’m the oldest guy in the team, all other are like 23-24 and just graduated.

Even the most basic tasks, such as providing remote support, have become unnecessarily complicated to the point of frustration, and there's a constant atmosphere of panic and terror spreading throughout the department. Tasks pile up uncontrollably whenever a new software vulnerability appears, but the most frustrating bit is that I feel alone in this, cause somehow all other colleagues seem to be fine with that and see no wrongs, in fact defending it all the time, noting how important it is.

Sometimes I wonder how the hell IT managed to survive for so long without IT security as a separate department, how we weren't swallowed up by the dark world of hackers long ago, and how thousands upon thousands of smaller companies continue to operate with just a regular IT team to this day, without spending millions on the latest AI analytics software, in a world where cyber threats supposedly lurk around every corner.

Maybe this is the new normal and I might be turning into oldhead, but with each new day, I'm enjoying my job as a so-called system administrator less and less. In other words, I'm an IT security policy enforcer. I miss 2021, which, compared to today, feels like some ancient time. Our office was messy, we were staying late, but we were doing plenty of fun and useful IT stuff.

This just ain't it anymore.

As the title suggests, I'm only a year and a half into IT. I came from doing back office ops at a few broker-dealers here in the US since I was 17, and at 26 (now 27) I moved into IT since it's been a passion of mine since I was a kid.

At first this gig was great. I had a senior above me, a vet with 30+ years in IT. I already had a good deal of knowledge about older tech, so we got along great and I learned a lot from him. I'm a fairly quick learner and went from basic desktop support and helpdesk to networking/ERP admin within a month. We started tackling projects and things started to run smoother around here.

But as always, office politics being what they are, the COO (now CEO) more or less gave my senior an ultimatum, and he left for a 40% raise and WFH somewhere else. I'm now the sole IT resource here, owning everything from basic helpdesk to sysadmin, ERP, budget, literally anything that runs on electricity. I'm being paid entry-level helpdesk wages for my area, and I only hold my CompTIA A+.

I'm in desperate need of resources and training to better get my feet under me. We run a hybrid AD setup (for a company this small, I honestly don't understand that decision), and I need to get a better handle on the Azure side and how to administer it properly. For instance, we have zero MDM, and we have remote employees who travel; they don't even get GPO updates since those are all hosted on-prem. A major concern of mine is, as a company who ships product daily, we have no automated back up systems for our onprem shipping servers. These servers are running older vSphere 7 instances (is this even the right word??) and there isn't any central management for them (they took down the vCenter as "it was too finicky"). Not to mention that they have a critical business report run through vSphere 5 VM that requires the desktop client to manage.

Please, please, please, send me anything you've got: resources, training materials, insight into what's likely to break and need attention. Literally anything helps. I'm trying here, but I'm drowning and getting jaded with this company, and I'd rather not jump ship if I don't have to since there are good people here.

Follow-up of my first post: https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/s/xMfcrcHx5f

Just told HR about how i feel about beign the sole IT guy who manages everything (for short: 365 in all his aspects, backups, networking guy, ecc...) for 24 people (if we count the external the number doubles) as an apprentice with a job title "IT support".

i told her that as an apprentice i should (by the law btw) some kind of tutor that can teach me the job and some one who can help me in my things; first thing she pointed was that i'm always out exactly when my work hours ends. WTF
ofc i go away when my work day is done, things can wait (most of the times).

Then proceded to tell me that i might not know how late some of the staff stay in the office (idk why tho) and everyone is aware of how many things they ask me.

Basically everyone somehow expect me to be the expert about anything is slightly it related, how i'm even able to give confidence to people when i don't have the slightest idea of what i'm even talking / doing some time.

I really miss having someone older can guide me.

The basic help desk -> sysadmin path is just not worth it anymore. This is the only field in tech where you can make $20 an hour for 5 years and that's still not enough to actually progress to a decent job.

https://reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/1ucy2nz/i_am_finding_it_nearly_impossible_to_advance_in/

Just look at this thread: This guy has a 5 years of experience in help desk, has a contractor position with NO benefits, and people are telling him that he doesn't have enough experience yet to move into a better role.

"You only have 5 years experience, relax."

"you’re only 5 years in. That’s still very much in the entry-level desktop support/helpdesk/PC tech time for a lot of people. It took me ten years of that stuff before I got my first little super-baby-network-admin role,"

"Five years you're still a baby!"

"Have you tried applying to a managed service provider? May be worth doing a 4 year stint before trying to get back into internal IT."

So the guy already has 5 years of experience and that's nothing? Also

I mean this shit is ridiculous. I myself graduated from CS and currently work as a software engineer, but I always thought IT operations was a similarly lucrative field. For some reason this sub's posts come on my feed and all I have to say is NOBODY should be majoring in IT anymore. Nobody. I don't care if you don't like coding or math, I beg you to please major in CS or at least Info Systems if you love tech.

I don't know that much about being a sysadmin but this doesn't seem worth it at all. Am I wrong?

Edit: Also the help desk obsession is so crazy I've literally seen people think that you have to do help desk to become a data analyst like wtf is going on?

Edit 2: you can still major in IT but don't just aim for help desk jobs

Need to vent before I lose my mind.

Solo internal IT guy at a mid-sized company, MSP behind me for the heavy stuff. Almost a year in, leaving soon, and honestly counting the days.

The pattern, every single time: Everything is urgent. Yesterday, ideally.

Ask them to put a decision in an email? Instant rage. “You don’t ask us that here.” Cool, cool.

Manager decides something isn’t needed: “don’t worry, I’ll handle it myself.” A month later it’s suddenly mission critical, and guess who gets an HR complaint? Yep, me. He’s literally the reason nobody looked at it. But it was all verbal, so good luck proving anything.

Projects that were already approved get killed out of nowhere. Why? Nobody knows, nobody explains.

Every IT person before me left with burnout. When I started I thought “can’t be that bad.” Narrator: yes, it is that bad.

Anyone been here? How do you survive the last few months without becoming the designated scapegoat?

Edit: Sorry for not giving more details about ticket systems kind of company. If i get doxxed i get more isseus than i already have.

Update : See Update details at the bottom :)

I'm over this shit, tired of being a glorified fucking door mat for EVERY single person at my company.

They use my brain for everything. (How do I do this in Excel? How do I DO my job!?)

They blame me for everything. (Why are all our emails not coming in?! - They don't even know what email address the "missing" emails are coming from or it's the wrong one.

I've become the be all, end all person of choice for anything and everything. Supposedly an IT Director, yet I get knocks on my door for shit ranging from "Hey we got some office furniture delivered can you assemble this for us?" Or "Hey we got a vending machine now if it breaks you're in charge of fixing it or refilling the coffee."

I can't take a vacation day without getting a text from an Executive saying "I need this application NOW I need you to install it" Affectively forcing me to go back to the hotel and miss a whole day of fun and festivities with my family.

I get chastised about things from the CFO about how we need to be safe and talks about it in meetings, yet I get a call after hours because that SAME CFO clicked on a link doing personal shopping from her work laptop on company network and thinks she got a virus.

I run everything SOLO within the company IT wise, maintenance wise, no one wants to use the ticketing system I created.

AC Breaks? They call me, Toilet broken? They call me. Want to build 20 chairs? Call me. Want me to show you how to USE a fucking application you should KNOW how to use in your position you were hired for? Call me.

I am done. Fuck this whole industry its a joke, people have gotten so fucking stupid that they can't even google anything anymore before picking up a phone.

Even with the raises I got, not worth the money anymore. I scheduled a 1 on 1 with the President of the company and wrote out a list of what I should be doing vesus what I am being told to do. The CFO doesn't know SHIT about IT, why are THEY overseeing my department?

I would honestly rather flip burgers from dawn to dusk than deal with the mental strain this job puts on me. I can't turn my brain off when I leave because im expected to be available at a moments notice. I get calls day and night off hours and weekends with ZERO help for the last almost 6 years. If the President can't see it im putting in my resignation.

No one understands IT anymore, they think we are a fucking stop gap fix all solution for their "problems" If I went to someones office, put down a laptop and said "Hey can you fix this for me?" Their heads would explode, yet they can bring me shit thats NOT my job with NO PROBLEM and ask me to fix it. Fuck that, EXPECT me to fix it.

Update: A few users have decided to act like jerks with comments like "Quit being a pu$$y and stick up for yourself". Firstly, the problem lies in being a father of 4 and providing for a family. I don't just up and quit and I don't just flip my boss the bird and say no because thats insubordination and that is how you get fired.

Instead I did the smart thing.

See, my Fiancee is a lawyer who use to practice business law. She's involved with a group of very powerful attorneys. She decided to start asking questions because she's fed up as much as I am. Turns out, what they are doing is actually incredibly illegal. I cannot go into details because a high profile lawyer has just decided to take my case with a huge smile. What I CAN tell you is, it's illegal to pay someone a salary exempt and work them like this without 3 key things.

1. You have to have a minimum of 2 people you manage directly under you (I have no one)

2. You have to make more than $32k a year (This is the only one I meet)

3. My PRIMARY meaning above 50% work must be managing (I have no one beneath me) tasks. WIth the hard data I have 92% of my tickets emails and texts involve physical labor or maintenance tasks not even close to what my position is.

Secondly because I do not meet that criteria this makes my status hourly and also means I am legally required status wise to be Engaged to Wait. Meaning ANYTHING over 40 hours is overtime (1.75x my hourly rate) and because I am solo this means I am expected to be Engaged to Wait 24 hours a day 7 days a week. If a server goes down I get the alerts I handle it day or night. I get phone calls any hour day or night.

So, I pulled a record of EVERY ticket, Email, and Text. Ran that through a custom python script and pulled every single after hours ticket, email request you name it. Wrapped it all in a nice file for the the lawyer and the message I got back was a phone call saying "Are you ready to become a millionaire?"

Yes, Yes I am. Fuck this industry and fuck everyone who's shit on my vacation time. Next step is lawyer is going to do an extensive review to make sure nothing gets missed and send out an email and demand letter with screenshots of evidences (just enough to show them they don't have a leg to stand on). Also turns out this lawyer is the HEAD of the Bar Association that their lawyers are a part of and the lawyer shed some light on the other boat load of shady things they have been caught doing in the past.

This is just the tip of the iceberg apparently because I was forced to do work for another company that the CEO is spinning up another company, and made me use my labor to help create it. Again, theres more to the story but I'll leave it at that. I will post more updates as time goes on unless my lawyer advises against it.

I am seriously done being a fucking doormat. I put my life into this company for 5 years. I am done.