Anxiety and IT? 347
An anonymous reader writes "During these long breaks from work, it's refreshing to not have to worry about your job. Unless you work in IT, in which case you're salaried and constantly on the clock. To all the server room monkeys and desktop admins, do you suffer from anxiety? How do you deal with it? Does the crushing worry of a businesses IT infrastructure (and the rest of the business) coming to a screeching halt make IT occupations prone to anxiety?"
I'd better not post here (Score:2, Funny)
My boss might be reading this.
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Why is that a problem? What specific problems are you talking about?
Chill out... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Chill out... (Score:5, Insightful)
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That's pretty much the answer: physical activity relieves stress.
I disagree. I regard myself as a low stress person and I ride a bike to work, That may be a correlation but I don't think its causative. Some people wind them selves up on stress. Panic and stress feeding on each other until there is nothing else. Telling them to go for a swim or something won't help. They have to look outside the job they are working on.
Re:Chill out... (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree. I regard myself as a low stress person and I ride a bike to work, That may be a correlation but I don't think its causative. Some people wind them selves up on stress. Panic and stress feeding on each other until there is nothing else. Telling them to go for a swim or something won't help. They have to look outside the job they are working on.
To be fair, I don't know anyone who relaxes on the trip to work. ;) As for looking outside the job you're working on that's why you need regularly scheduled activity, so it forces you to step away for a while.
I think the problem with IT, or any knowledge-based jobs, is that you don't produce anything tangible so no matter how much you work it rarely feels like there's something to show for it. That's why I recommend physical activity.
Relax.. Take a deep breath.. (Score:5, Interesting)
You are spot on. You cannot "think" yourself out of stress. Often, it has the opposite effect. But exerting yourself into some physical activity, can be a tremendous stress-reliever.
I've also discovered breathing techniques and yoga to be very helpful to relieve both stress and delusions about one's place in this universe, also on how important one really is ;-) Where mere physical activity can relieve your stress there and then, yoga and its knowledge, can relieve you of all kinds of fears and tensions, or help accept whatever comes, which is more important often than trying to "get rid of the bad feelings" - they tend only to get more stuck that way!
Some people become wise after a long life, but there are ways to speed up the process, if you're smart, and lucky ;)
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You cannot "think" yourself out of stress
It's true you can't "think" yourself out of stress but you can meditate on your stress, its effect on your body and your thinking, and come to terms with it in that way. Meditation does not involve thinking i.e., internal dialog, but it does involve taking the time to sit quietly for a half hour or more and just focusing on what exactly the"stress" is. That's the only way to achieve real understanding of it, to come to terms with it, to live with it, and to mitigate its negative effects. It's the same fo
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Chill out... (Score:4, Insightful)
that may be borne of the fact that the average person in the western world does not get enough exercise or fruit/veg/vitamins
Re:Chill out... (Score:4, Funny)
and they don't get enough sleep. dude, you should have caught that. sure you're getting enough exercise?
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He's probably not getting enough sleep.
And don't forget to drink lots and lots of water every day! How could you forget? ;-)
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Re:Chill out... (Score:5, Funny)
That's people's answer to everything these days.
Me: "I'm constantly tired and irritable. What should I do to help?"
Society: "Get more exercise, eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, and sleep eight hours a night."
Me: "I constantly have the urge to stab my girlfriend in the face, and I see clowns in the toilet whenever I pee. What should I do?"
Society: "Get more exercise, eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, and sleep eight hours a night." /me solves all problems evar
Meant to mark Insightful. Accidentally marked troll.
That's an odd mistake to make. You sure you're getting enough sleep?
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Who says you have to go outside? There's always a lonely secretary in the building and your desk is the perfect support for standing doggy style.
Re:Chill out... (Score:4, Insightful)
It depends on your personality. Some people (my wife is one, a guy I work with is another) just seem to let the stress take over. My wife has this client who was pushing her to deliver work on an impossible schedule so she is up to 3 AM working on CAD drawings and wrecking herself in the process. I keep saying its not worth killing yourself over it. Life will go on without that client. But she keeps trying to deliver.
Other people know when to let the breaker trip, and go home to sleep.
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Have you let her know that she can't possibly be doing a good job at 3AM? If it's important
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All good suggestions however they presuppose the ability to have a rational conversation. Unfortunately...
Re:Chill out... (Score:5, Interesting)
Explain to them what an "enabler" is. Sociopaths are always going to take advantage of everyone, and people like your friend and your wife are just fodder for them. Better no client than a bad client.
I think there is a certain thrill in getting stressed. You get an endorphin rush from it. In a sense it could be quite addictive. Its hard to talk a person out of something like that.
If it wasn't for the last minute (Score:2)
I'd never get anything done
Mod parent way up! (Score:2)
Have you ever worked with/for someone who just sat on projects until they went critical?
That's an adrenaline junkie.
If there's not a crisis, they cannot function. They procrastinate and waffle and keep delaying until it's an emergency.
Then they get the rush they want AND they cannot be blamed for the decisions they made during the crisis.
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^This. I have been in IT for 12 years as a Sys Admin and I have turned to everything from heavy drinking to online gaming to reading to exercise. The "most" effective way, at least for me, to avoiding stress is just get out and exercise. It helps to calm the body AND mind in a way that no other can.
Re:Chill out... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Chill out... (Score:5, Informative)
My secret to avoid stress... Not Caring.
Re:Chill out... (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing is, Bob, it's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care.
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Re:Chill out... (Score:5, Informative)
Yes. He needs to chill, he sounds like a zoloft ad or something.
do you suffer from anxiety?
No, why would I? It's just like any job. Sure, I could get called at any moment, but the biggest reliever of anxiety is knowing how to say No, and not get jerked around. Me and my boss have a system - I may be 20 or 30 minutes late for work sometimes. I may stay late to make up for it, or come in early. I might need an afternoon off. He does not harp me to be here at 8:00 AM because he knows if he did, I would be out of here at 5:00pm on the dot and not bother coming in when the phone rings. I don't have to deal with the anxiety most other jobs do because I know the policies are a bit more lax, because if they want me in an emergency, they need some perk to keep you around.
And the only way you get around that is knowing your stuff. You don't want to be replaced by some other monkey who WILL take that abuse, so make sure you read up on new stuff you don't know, and make yourself valuable. I know a lot about computers and I know the ins and outs of fixing them, and I have a certificate in Programming. However, I don't have my A+, I don't have my Network+, I'm not a Microsoft Certified Desktop Technician - all things I know I have to work towards.
How do you deal with it?
Personally, when I'm stressed, I like to go Stargazing. Makes me feel small, which makes everything else seem smaller, which makes me worry less - about everything, including my job.
Does the crushing worry of a businesses IT infrastructure (and the rest of the business) coming to a screeching halt make IT occupations prone to anxiety?
It shouldn't. Lets face it, if the server goes down - the server does down. You don't have to worry about watching it - someone will let you know when it goes down. And then you can deal with it when it goes down. Take your time off like its your time.
Get a good On-call schedule going, and make sure there's at least 1 other person who knows the basics of your job. That way, if you go on vacation, get hit by a bus, or decide to run away to mexico, you don't have to worry about the IT world - because someone else will be there to pick up your slack. Crosstraining all your employees is never a bad idea.
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I've taken a different approach to my career. I specialized. Heavily.
As a result, I'm in a position where my specialization takes me out of the day to day IT borefests. Yes, I'm responsible for the DR/Continuity stuff too, but really, that shit is easy, especially in small/mid business.
But the specialization is heavy enough that there are very few of
control! (Score:2)
The stressful thing about system admin work is the constant worrying. Will a hard drive crash today? Or a power supply catch on fire and wipe out an entire rack? Will the developers introduce a bug that takes down the web site, or wipes the database, or pegs all the CPUs on all the computers so that no other services can function? Can you upgrade to new hardware without major disruptions, and hordes of angry people hammering on you to get everything working again, ASAP? If a problem with some proprieta
Re:Chill out... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are on call 24/7 I hope you charge them 168 hours per week. Seriously. If not, find a reasonable schedule. Being on call a day a week is ok, but being on 24/7 is only acceptable if you are on the C-level and get paid accordingly - and then you need to be able to fully control your own working hours.
Otherwise, remember, it's not your company. If the server is down, its down. If it cannot be fixed quickly, the company is losing money. Too bad. They should have bought a better server solution and paid an additional IT guy. The people in charge need to live with their decisions. It's not your responsibility unless you are in charge.
Not in today's market (Score:2)
In today's job market, most people really can't afford to quit. You do that, and you'll be unemployed for a LONG time. Then the bills will pile up and you'll find that even the worst job is better than starving and living on the street.
Re:Not in today's market (Score:5, Interesting)
The market is bad, yes, but paradoxically not bad for the already employed. I switched jobs in August.
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sounds illegal. you should sue your workplace hard.
honestly, if one person is that important to an enterprise, then it is doomed to fail miserably.
if your employer has all it's eggs in one basket, then they deserve to lose that basket in a yellow, gooey stomp-fest led by you.
fear of sleeping will give you a healthy dose of PTSD, and jeopardise your ability to do any other job.
i had a job where i was the vital cog at several points, my boss was a psychopath bitch who mismanaged and blamed anyone but herself
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You think the shareholders saw a dime of your charity? You were doing it for your bosses bonuses, plain and simple. The modern American executive now has the wonderful pos
Hell yes!!! (Score:3, Funny)
Frequently relieved by Beer.
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... yeah, until you start to fear the beer, because you realize that all that beer is slowly destroying you. Some people quit before that point, some do it at that point, and some do never quit. Which group do you belong to?
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And some kill that realisation with more beer.
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I have a good friend who is also in computers, and once or twice a week we hit the pub have a beer or two with a meal and bitch about our employers. It usually turns into a game of who's employer is more fucked. He always wins.
But with out those stress relieving pub nights many of my users would have simply disappeared. Perhaps I can convince my employer to pay for my pub nights.
Not sure.. (Score:5, Interesting)
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So, what you're saying is -- you should have a life? That has possibilities.
Hmm.... I already have two level 80 raiders, one a Kingslayer. I suppose I could roll another one...
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The diving isn't just giving you nitrogen. The seawater has many essential minerals that are lacking in the modern diet, foremost among them magnesium. Having the pressure at 30' might help oush them in, but just being in seawater helps.
Weed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Luckily, it hasn't affected me, though the disk arrays keep looking at me - with their constant blinking... blinkity, blink, blink - QUIT LOOKIN' AT ME!
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That doesn't sound like the effects of Pot.
You didn't recently introduce acid into your diet, did you?
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They're not looking (Score:2)
But there's a pattern in their blinking..maybe
Morse Code? Just need to stare a little bit longer to make it out.
*stares*
"I..
"ICAN..
"ICANCU"
Oh, maybe you were right.
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I've always thought Moss (from I.T. Crowd) smoked hella pot. At least irl maybe.
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Yet it seems that, at least in "popular" I.T. culture (Thinkgeek?) caffeine is sort of the staple drug. I guess everyone has their vices.
Now pot *and* caffeine together, that might just be what produces a black hole in spacetime.
"Arrowed!" --teen girl squad (not sure why I even just thought of that right now)
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Is this a USA thing?
If there was any evidence at all of drug usage in our job or probably just about any other I know of in the UK, it'd be instant dismissal?
Re:Weed (Score:5, Insightful)
And we wonder why software fails so often... You get the munchies, forget what you were doing, assume it must have been good because it seems to work!
no, we have crappy software because management doesn't smoke weed. they want software done yesterday with all the ideas they will tell you about tomorrow.
Become the IT manager (Score:3, Funny)
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Nope. Upper management will fire you instead. The engineer needs a warning and 3 write-ups and an improvement plan and all that nonsense before you can fire him. If the VP of sales can't get his email out he can convince HR to not go through these procedures to go after you though.
Also you are responsible for what someone does without your knowledge. If he makes a mistake on your day off your job is on the line. You hired him right? Management makes more for a reason.
Stress (Score:2)
Different Source of "Anxiety"... (Score:2)
To all the server room monkeys and desktop admins...
If my job could be described this way, my anxiety would probably come more from the fear that I was ripe for "outsourceing" or "rightsizing" or whatever the HR thugs are calling it when they ship jobs to the slave labor camps overseas... Not from the possibility of being called in on Turkey day (when I might well be in a black-out drunken stupor)...
The difference between managers and workers (Score:4, Insightful)
The workers care about the stuff that they do, and get anxiety about it. Managers don't give a rat's ass, and have no anxiety.
The hallmark of a good executive, is that he can turn his problems, into yours.
Re:The difference between managers and workers (Score:4, Insightful)
Spoken like someone new to the workforce.
It's not that simple, actually. As a lower-level worker, you definitely want time to unplug and get time away from the front lines. And there's always the stress of trying to patch something under fire, or deal with rickety systems that have gone completely sideways at the worst possible moment. It's completely stressful and can be a total nightmare.
As a manager, especially those of us who have manage departments of former co-workers, or departments that we would have previously worked in, that is never far from mind. The last thing I like to do (truly) is call at an inopportune moment on a weekend, a holiday, or after a long day. Those calls come after exhausting every other option -- is this really a 10:30 PM/Saturday/company holiday problem? Can it wait until the next morning? Is there a patch coming? Is there a workaround in the meantime? Do we have someone on hand who can patch it that ISN'T on a weekend or a vacation?
Unfortunately, sometimes that call has to be made. And in those cases, there are actually dollars on the line. I have the impression that you've probably heard "dollars on the line" and think it's a lie - there are always dollars on the line, right? Well, yes. And "dollars on the line" - or "account on the line" or whatever variation thereof means, "loss we cannot realistically sustain at this point". Subtext: "We are all in a really bad position if we don't do this."
When I can run interference or manage expectations, I can. But I know that the last thing you and I want is for me to jump in on systems that I'm, at best, a couple years foggy on (or only algorithmically familiar with) -- you really don't want me jumping in where I'm totally unfamiliar with the nuances. (Nor does QA). So in those situations, I can only hang around and answer priority questions, scope reduction questions on the problem at hand, etc. If we're in the office, I'll gladly buy you a drink, dinner, whatever.
But for the love of god, don't think I don't have anxiety. I have just as much as you - it's just a different type.
The best thing for all of us to do is to try and unplug as much as possible when we're out of work. Don't let the time off be tainted by "I could get an email" or "I could get a text", etc... yes, you can, but time off spent worrying about that is not truly downtime. If the call or email or text comes, the call or email or text will come, and worrying about it will not have made that moment any less stressful. I wrestled with that for ages and you really just have to do whatever you can to make it like a switch - off at the end of the day, and if an emergency crops up, on again. It's exceedingly difficult and sometimes you need to have the burnout moment where you realize the job just isn't worth it... some people have to go to therapy to be able to build that separation. Whatever it takes, it's critical to figure out, because it will eat you alive if you don't.
And remember... in most cases, I got a call before you, and I did everything possible to *not* have to call you.
But today - I'm not checking my work email. If the world blows up, Tokyo or London will deal with it to the best of their abilities. If they can't and NY or Chicago can't, then it will come to SF and LA. And we'll do what needs to be done. Even though it sucks. (Because the alternative in those cases sucks pretty badly for all of us.)
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Yeah but you got to let go (Score:3, Insightful)
Salaried or not, take your free time and get away from the computer and do something physical and fun. Eat better too. Junk food is nice sometimes but eating better will have an effect on how you feel and as always get a decent sleep.
My biggest problem was drinking coffee through out the day even minutes before bed while staying up late. I was getting very little sleep. That really drains you (or me at least).
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The opposition is only entropy. (Score:3, Insightful)
If the opposition is just entropy, it's not too bad. Active opposition is much more stressful. Lifeguards, firefighters, and EMTs tend not to be overly stressed. Cops and soldiers, though, routinely get stressed out.
27 years in IT and right on the nose (Score:2, Informative)
Of course (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course a crushing worry will introduce anxiety. In stressful times, people will be stressed. So I'm not sure what you're asking, other than idle chit-chat of anxiety anecdotes.
Anyway, it's certainly not specific to IT. Guess who else deal with standby time: doctors, police, flight attendants, engineers and service crews in other fields (transportation, organised events, most restaurants and bars). Each of which having to deal with systems far less redundant and scalable than what we can set up in IT.
Re:Of course (Score:4, Funny)
Each of which having to deal with systems far less redundant and scalable than what we can set up in IT.
Try dealing with my girlfriend, for god's sake. Very unreliable, and I haven't even tried the scalability. I've tried to set her up redundant but she wouldn't have any of it.
Requires Experience (Score:2, Insightful)
I have found that handling the anxiety comes with experience. For example, I no longer care if the rest of the business comes to a screeching halt.
Personally... (Score:4, Funny)
When I was in that position, I would wake up each morning, go to the washroom and throw up into the toilet.
Then things got worse and I landed in the cardiac care ward.
While out on disability, they fired me.
I'm now unemployed and the lack of stress is WONDERFUL!
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When I was in that position, I would wake up each morning, go to the washroom and throw up into the toilet.
Are you sure that had to do with job anxiety? Perhaps you should have hit a few AA meetings or something. Jägermeister for breakfast, lunch, and dinner takes its toll, dude.
The best way to avoid all that anxiety ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Does the crushing worry of a businesses IT infrastructure... coming to a screeching halt make IT occupations prone to anxiety?"
.. is to do it so things work.
Things don't come "to a screeching halt" on their own. It requires talent to make the sorts of mistakes that aren't blindingly obvious and that remain hidden during the pre-prod testing (you *do* test before putting something live?). Having a resilient configuration, that is monitored properly and gives plenty of warning of a problem helps, too.
So far, in 12 years looking after this current setup, I've never had an unscheduled call outside working hours. The problem with that is that it makes me look invisible. It's hard to convince "management" that the systems don't look after themselves and will throw novel and exotic problems if not looked after properly. But that's why we take vacations.
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if every business had an unlimited IT budget, (or hell, even a realistic IT budget!) things would be great.
but in the real world: I'd guess that 95%+ businesses budget for a salary for the IT people, and that's MORE than it. (as if they expect us to come with our own equipment or something!
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This (especially the bit about being too good - fake the occasional mail flow issue if you have to).
Make sure hardware is under warranty with a test your backups and have a DR plan with SLAs for each system and agree it with your business so that people can't turn around in an emergency and demand that you fix *their* system right now because they suddenly decided it was important.
If you're stressed about the bits of your job that are under your control then you're doing it wrong; if you're stressed about y
Re:The best way to avoid all that anxiety ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well that lost a paragraph somewhere...
This (especially the bit about being too good - fake the occasional mail flow issue if you have to).
Make sure hardware is under warranty and your 3rd party software is supported with good SLAs in place. Set up server and systems monitoring so that you know when things are going wrong, rather than finding out when they have gone wrong. Hire competent staff to work with and under you that you can trust to set things up properly and fix them when they break. Never agree to support systems that you don't have the knowledge to fix within your team (unless they have reliable 3rd party support, see above).
Above all, know your infrastructure inside out, take good backups, test your backups and have a DR plan with SLAs for each system and agree it with your business so that people can't turn around in an emergency and demand that you fix *their* system right now because they suddenly decided it was important.
If you're stressed about the bits of your job that are under your control then you're doing it wrong; if you're stressed about your job due to other factors outside your control, you've got a job.
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Well that lost a paragraph somewhere...
What an opportune time for that.
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.. is to do it so things work.
Unfortunately, there is always some "loose nut behind the keyboard." Nothing can be made foolproof, "because fools are so ingenious."
Customer: "My computer don't work no more!"
IT Guy: "Did you change anything?"
Customer: "No, not at all!"
IT Guy: "Well, it looks like someone bashed the display in with a hammer, poured Mountain Dew on the keyboard, poured gasoline on the motherboard, and lit it on fire."
Customer: "It seemed to be acting slow, so I thought it might have had a virus . . ."
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For the most part, things don't "come to a screeching halt" on their own, but it certainly happens in some cases. Cooling system breaks, and servers start to cook themselves. Power to the building does something wacky, and a spike makes it to the servers. A pipe bursts and floods the data center. Some of these things aren't directly monitorable in a way that will give you any warning. Sure, you can do a lot to make a robust infrastructure, (And it shocks me how little of that some people will accept!)
Easy (Score:2)
Don't be salaried. Salary is for suckers. I work, they pay me. They think twice about calling me in as it costs them more money. On salary, any hour you work over 37.5 devalues how much you are really worth. If you want the security of having salary make sure they compensate you for any overtime.
Work harder at work (Score:2)
Build redundant systems on work time, such that only common faults are those that are unpredictable and unpreventable e.g. building catching on fire. When your systems are resilient to common faults, you don't have any anxiety about leaving them to look after them selves, and you know that if a common failure occurs, recovering is easy because you're prepared for it.
"There's no excuse for predictable and preventable downtime (except laziness and incompetence)."
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And I should say, the approach to take is to be constantly eliminating the weakest link until the point where eliminating it is not feasible. You'll end up with the weakest link being very strong - availability is a weakest link type problem.
Toughie (Score:2)
This has been a really difficult post to formulate.
I haven't really put much thought into why I don't particularly have a great deal of stress today. (That was not always true) In past places of employment my stresses were due to inexperience and lack of proper support and escalation paths. In those cases I was both the end of a very short escalation path and in lots of scenarios the technology was very new. I also wasn't compensated very well for the troubles until I decided that I should probably find som
All the usuals + Meditation (Score:5, Insightful)
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I think everyone should practice it. They should teach it in schools.
Stressed about what? (Score:2)
My equipment can run for a few days without me being there to monitor every little transaction. In 5 years with my current company, I've been required to deal with IT stuff after hours twice. All other after-hours work has been scheduled and I shifted my time by coming in late or leaving early. That's averaging about once per year. So my stress levels are low.
Indifference (Score:2)
Obviously your going to feel the stress but the common factor for keeping your cool, at least to me, is indifference. Yes there is a pressing deadline, penalty clauses and blah blah blah but you can't do anything about those factors so you may as well do your best to view them as a distraction from the goal. If you are a tech, it's not your job to feel stress because ultimately that reduces your effectiveness.
Organising your work in certain ways gives you better control which reduces stress. No major chang
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
5-HTP works (Score:4, Interesting)
I work seven days a week, where I manage about 150+ desktops out in the field, over 150+ email accounts and several dozen mobile phones. I am also hosting high traffic websites. This may not sound like much to many people out there, but I am constantly under pressure and yes, anxiety does kick in.
Even though I work out 3 times a week (strength training) I am still under stress. My social life is a train wreck, where I rather stay in a veg out on the weekends. Mind you, I have friends and plenty of relationships with the opposite sex, but lately it's just too much for me to handle. I come home and the last thing I want to do is talk to another human being.
One thing that helps is 5-HTP. I pop 100mg in the morning and the rest of the day goes by with little worry. Sometimes, I combine it with a bit of melatonin to have a nice deep sleep (with very vivid dreams). I wake up feeling a bit more refreshed, leading to a better day.
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Try more magnesium, too. (mag citrate)
Set realistic expectations (Score:2)
Being able to be frank with, and set realistic expectations for, those you work with and for is crucial.
If your boss wants you to do something on an impossible timeline, tell them you can't. If you've got too much on your plate already, give your boss a list of your current projects, and ask him which one should be de-prioritized to push in the latest "emergency". He may suddenly find it's not so urgent after all, and if it's so important something else does need to be pushed back, it now wasn't your idea.
I
Suck it up, Princess (Score:2)
Prozac (Score:2)
n/t
More Magnesium (Score:3, Insightful)
If you suffer from anxiety (and even if you don't) I suggest you take a magnesium supplement, preferably magnesium citrate or magnesium ororate. Magnesium helps you relax.
Have kids (Score:2)
Your job related worries will pale into comparison. Stress will take on new meaning. Of course while they're infants you'll age 10 years in 2. And that's assuming you have a supportive partner.
Nope (Score:2)
Couldn't really give a fuck if the whole shebang crashes like the Hindenburg. I've done my bit to see that it doesn't as best as I am able and as well as I've been resourced, and if it crashes I'll go fix it. I'll be fucked if I'm going to spend even a minute *worrying* about it crashing. After all, it's not a matter of *if* so much as *when*, and that's what I like to refer to as job security.
Not anymore (Score:2)
I'm reasonably competent at my job and managed to persuade the managers at the company that they liked their infrastructure to be on. I used to get stressed when there was an electrical storm, the infrastructure I inherited couldn't cope with a power outage, blip or heat wave. Now we've put all the necessary in place I can sleep soundly and I can leave it unattended apart from backups for a couple of weeks, safe in the knowledge there's another guy an hour away who know's how to sort it out if someone drive
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> anything to get me away from an LCD screen
I agree. I use CRT monitors at home.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Really?
I have no stress in my job at all. I'm an Electrical Engineer. I work on billion-dollar pieces of life-critical equipment with tight deadlines, zero tolerance for error, and 20-30 year reliability requirements.
I just don't stress about it, I don't come in on overtime unless I'm paid for it, and I enjoy my work. Some people think that you have to be stressed out ("it's part of the field") but that's just a way to move into a small below-ground apartment ahead of schedule.