Quote:
Originally Posted by bomber317
I was thinking this along the same lines. Fulfillment and pride in your job is very important. Money can only buy you so much time if you hate your job or if you are not proud of your job.
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This is especially true for the technical side of IT. There is plenty of after hours work, and a lot of the work can be unglamorous - for an industry predicated on automation, there is tons of stuff that needs to be done carefully, attentively, and outside business hours to minimize disruption. Add in on-call, the need to fix stuff when it breaks ("take a look in the morning" is seldom a viable option), plus the latent stress that mistakes or failures can very quickly lead to significant data loss or financial impact, and it's not for everyone.
You have to enjoy the challenges and the satisfaction of doing a good job, solving the tricky problems, finding creative solutions, etc, or the impacts on work-life balance, the stress, and general lack of respect the position can engender in the workplace will make you bitter and burnt out quickly.
That being said, when stuff is humming along perfectly because you've perfectly deployed and tuned it, you're working with cutting edge stuff, and making your infrastructure dance on the head of a pin, it can be really, really fun.