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Originally published at Internet.comI saw an IT manager lose it once.
It took place over the course of a week. I recall him walking around muttering to himself for several days, a glazed look in his eyes. By midweek he had stopped shaving and was wearing the same clothes. I'm pretty sure that by then he wasn't even going home to sleep. Worse, my polite request that someone fix the sticking right-click button on my mouse was met with callous indifference.
The next Monday, the IT manager wasn't there. He hadn't officially quit; he just stopped showing up. Soon I learned there had been a database meltdown that jeopardized years of valuable subscriber information, and that the IT manager, after days (and nights) of grappling with the crisis, just snapped and walked away. (Which was a relief to me, since I was worried the thing with the mouse had pushed him over the edge.)
Most IT managers undoubtedly can relate to that kind of intense job-related stress. When the system crashes, a whole bunch of bad things can happen - data becomes unretrievable, communication is interrupted, ecommerce ceases. And you have to keep it all going - or else.
Strategic Challenges
Truth is, the pressure of keeping an enterprise running in the digital age is a huge responsibility that can trigger acute anxiety among IT professionals. So much so that most network managers suffer physical effects.
According to a survey of more than 200 IT pros by transaction processing software vendor OpTier and TechWeb Network Research, two-thirds of the responding IT managers say their concerns about application performance keep them awake at night. And one out of four respondents reports some kind of stress-related physical problem such as nausea, ulcers, headaches, migraines, weight gain, nightmares, muscular twitches and heart arrhythmia.
But operational issues are just one cause of stress for IT managers. Perhaps even more angst-inducing are the strategic challenges, which often are made more difficult due to poor communication and mismanagement. For example:
* 43 percent of the survey's respondents say their organizations' business priorities have not been explicitly aligned with IT (In this day and age! Perhaps a trip to bITa Planet would help.)
* 39 percent have problems collaborating with other departments
* 35 percent say service level requirements are unclear
* 32 percent cite lack of visibility into IT transactions
* 21 percent listed all of the above as workplace issues
Dr. Terry A. Beehr, professor of psychology at Central Michigan University, says IT managers are in "a classic high-stress job, with low levels of control but high expectations from the organization."
Beehr pinpoints three types of stress generators for IT professionals.
* "No. 1, they're overloaded and at times have to work 24/7."
And even when IT managers don't have to work 24/7, they're usually worrying 24/7. Hence the sleepless nights and other physical problems.
And that's an understatement. Entire books have been written about the culture divide between the IT staff and everyone else in an organization. One published last year, The Geek Gap: Why Business And Technology Professionals Don't Understand Each Other And Why They Need Each Other To Survive, sums it up this way: "[G]eeks and suits each see what they do in a different light. They have different priorities, different agendas, different criteria for defining success, and different views of how the world works. And most of the time, they don't trust each other to have each other's best interests at heart." Sound familiar? Thought so. Back to Dr. Beehr and his final reason why many IT managers are freaking out.
* "No. 3, they have a lot of responsibility for people and for things. If they don't get their work done, then other people can't get their work done."
As readers know, that's a heavy burden, and it's the reason why IT pros routinely have their personal lives disrupted. Respondents to the OpTier survey reported that job-related emergencies have intruded upon anniversaries, birthdays, holiday celebrations, movies, church services, funerals, classes, kids' sports games, exercise, family illness and surgery. (That last one is a mind-blower: "Get off that operating table! PayPal isn't working!")
So are there any ways for IT managers to reduce their often debilitating levels of stress on the job and off? Surely the technological problems and challenges won't go away, nor will the responsibility of keeping the enterprise going and ensuring continued productivity.
But much of the anxiety, as noted in the survey, stems from communications issues - indistinct or non-existent business/IT alignment goals, unclear SLAs, collaboration problems with other departments. And those things can be fixed.
Before that, however, a more pressing matter: Does anyone know how to fix a sticking mouse button?
Author: Chris Nerney
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