My name is Andrew and I am a workaholic….

[AJWhite1970]

#NationalStressAwarenessDay2024

 

…as are most of the techs reading this I would guess. Some of you south of the M4 will know me, if nothing else for being one of the tallest ones here, I’ve been in this industry for 30 plus years and I’ve been fortunate to have met so many wonderful people in that time. Some in person day to day, some via EduGeek, ANME and RM events (RM do the best lunches if you’re wondering why I went to them…), some once a year in London at BETT and some I’ve never met in person but chat to on-line in forums like we’ve known each other since primary school and still have coffee and a catch-up in that little café when we both happen to be in town.

 

The education tech world is a close one and we all look after each other, if any one of us is ever stuck, others are more than happy to jump in and assist, share code, offer solutions or just say “yup, it does that for me as well” which is all the reassurance you sometimes need to know you haven’t just done something really stupid to hundreds of workstations simultaneously via a GPO or an intune policy. If a nearby school gets hit by a ransomware attack, you offer to help, you provide equipment if needed, you’re on the end of a phone for the tech team working all night trying to repair the damage etc. That’s what we do, that’s what makes our world so special.

 

Sometimes the community comes together under difficult circumstances, for those of us who knew him in person or on-line, the sudden loss of DJ-1701 hit hard, I saw him in person a couple of weeks before, he was there on the Friday helping me online with a powershell script, he was always there helping anyone who asked, he was an amazing coder and tech, and then on the Saturday night he was gone, taken in an instant in his sleep to the great AFK in the sky. His parents took great comfort in all the messages posted on-line, colleagues made sure they were all printed and given to them before the funeral which was also live streamed so we could all be there in spirt if not physically. Community defined right there.

 

I’m fortunate that many of you have been to my little school next to the 123m tall spire, either for south coast socials, one to ones, dropped in to borrow kit or the epic EDIT in 2019 when I heard myself say “yes of course we’ll host 200 people” and the enormous job that turned into!! As an IT Manager I’ve done OK for a career, I ran a massive FE institution for 15 years over 19 sites and now have spent 16 years in a single academy school where I’ve worked hard to be successful, turned a broken network into a stable 24/7 system that is the lifeblood of the school. I’ve worked long days, I’ve come home and answered emails, teams messages, WhatsApp’s, smoke signals etc, spent weekends working on stuff into the small hours just so that class on Monday runs that lesson without a hitch. In all my years you often get the snotagram message about a faulty PC ruining a teacher’s lesson, missing mouse etc, you never get one saying “thanks, that PowerPoint ran fine, the embedded video worked etc”. You just learn to accept that that’s how it is, it’s a thankless job but we still do it because we love our jobs.

 

And that was my life, working hard, going home, working just as hard at home and being that invisible cog in the wheel that you think will bring everything else down if that cog stops turning.

 

Early in 2024 I started to feel rubbish, not man flu rubbish but really struggling to get up in the morning rubbish, unable to lie down at night and breathe rubbish, every breath sounding under water rubbish. The diagnosis was pneumonia, the pills were strong, but at the time I was a one-man band at work, the deputy post had just been vacated (he moved to a fab new job, we are still friends) and had yet to be advertised, year 13 mocks were about to start and the workload was not one you could take a week off to recover. So I ploughed on, that vital cog still whirling away despite that cog sounding like a rusty barn hinge in the wind. I did go to the Friday at BETT, probably not my finest decision but I needed a change of scenery and see my friends. I struggled all day and slept on the train all the way home, thankfully woken up before my station by a tech from another school who looked after me that day. Fast forward to mid February and people were starting to tell me I looked seriously unwell, several used the term grey, death warmed up was used more than once and I remember saying to a member of staff I am close to that I had hit the wall and was looking forward to half term just to recharge.

 

That night was rough, another night in the lounge propped up in the big chair as that was the only position I could breathe in, another sleepless night. The following morning as fate would have it I had to go somewhere at 7am with my partner before going on to work, we drove in separate cars and when I arrived something wasn’t right. I could hardly breathe, all colour had gone from my skin and every breath was shallower than the previous one. My partner threw me in her car and drove the 10 miles to the nearest hospital ignoring the 40mph limits once or twice and literally wheeled me into A&E. I was met by a triage nurse who took an ecg, within two minutes I was in crash having a heart attack surrounded by medics and five minutes after that I was on the operating table in the cath lab having life saving cardiac surgery.

 

I had a completely blocked heart, medically known as a LV Dysfunction, also known in the trade as the “Widow Maker”. I had zero oxygen flow through the heart and was in complete shutdown. Another 5 to 10 mins and I would have been toast. But somehow I wasn’t. Fate had decided despite the odds that today wasn’t that day, the surgeons skilfully saved my life and I didn’t have to leave colleagues at work to deal with me dead in my work chair, for that’s invariably what would have happened if my daily routine had been followed.

It transpired a couple of days later that I was the first and only patient the surgeon had saved with my symptoms, no one walks through that door and goes home again with the severity of my condition. I spent two weeks in ITU and cardiac specialist wards as they battled blood pressure, oxygen flow, chest infections, a pressure sore you really don’t want to know about and a heart held together with duct tape and pills wired to a million monitors, each making a beeping noise that sent you into panic if that beeping changed even for a second. Nurses jokingly called me the miracle man, my notes even had a post-it on it saying the same. Everyone on duty wished me well the day I left hospital.

 

And that’s when you realise that no one is that critical a cog that you can’t be replaced just like that in an emergency. My networks were all Windows 2019 servers, Windows 11 PC’s and a complete Unifi infrastructure, nothing that someone else couldn’t pick up and take over after a few days of working out why the hell I did it that way or what the wire over there that says “don’t disconnect” is connected to. Within three days of being in hospital work had arranged for a tech from another school to come in to do consultancy (thankfully that tech was someone I’d known and trusted for 15 years so there was no impending MSP takeover to contend with) and the son of a member of staff came in as a temporary tech. A few staff knew I was missing and why but for most, school life went on despite the cog being missing.

 

All those extra hours and for what if I’d died? An IT room being renamed to The White Suite? An assembly where they announce the news to the staff and students? Family and friends left without a partner, dad, bestie, golf partner, someone to fix their laptop on a weekend? The infrastructure that I’d fought day and night to maintain is still going to carry on working, a PC is still going to boot in the morning accessing a file that will still be there (well until someone in PE deletes it by mistake) and the servers will carry on serving, rebooting occasionally overnight as they pick up critical updates without the need for a human touch.

 

I’ve been in countless of INSET wellbeing seminars in my professional life and the words just go in one ear and out the other but actually those words are right. We as techs spend our lives moving from one critical job to another, drink gallons of tea or coffee, fizz or energy drinks, eat those cakes and chocolate bars, scoffing down food as we work through our lunch breaks to keep everything ticking over. Maybe it’s time to put us first, take that lunch break, go for a walk round the block, put that laptop away when you get home and enjoy the life outside of work, maybe take more notice of feeling unwell, feeling under pressure, feeling like you can’t stop. Because actually you can, the trick as I discovered the hard way is to choose to stop before nature decides to do it for you.

And how am I now? I had a S-ICD fitted in May, basically a mini pc inserted under my ribcage that monitors my heart and once a week I stand next to a cat5 unit in my house that Bluetooth connects to the S-ICD and sends all my vitals to my surgeon who then looks at the stats, sends remote changes back to my device and changes dosage of my pills accordingly. Yes, I’m a cybernetic human. I’m taking 14 pills a day, I struggle as I’m permanently tired, my arms and legs constantly hurt and stairs are as difficult for me as they were for 1970’s Daleks before the BBC decided that was a bit stupid for a master race and introduced “Elevate” as a thing…

 

I got my driving licence back in June and I went back to work for 3 mornings a week on the last week of Summer term. I was deeply touched (but very embarrassed) when I snuck into the Head Masters retirement party and got a round of applause as my colleagues spotted me. I had a week in Spain in July after being cleared to fly a couple of weeks before we went and I have a limited edition medical exemption card that lets me bypass airport security. Work have been amazing, my care plan and phased return basically say take it slow, don’t rush back and look after yourself. I have a great deputy who was appointed while I was off who I can delegate jobs to and teach them how to do new to them things and close friends and work colleagues who look out for me both on the physical side and more importantly on the mental health side during the often darker days of recovery.

 

If this post helps even one person pull out of the spiral, then every word was worth it. Somehow I got through it, together my partner and guardian angel worked overtime that day trading in eight of my cat lives and I’m eternally grateful and determined to make full use of the bonus years ahead.

 

My name is Andrew and I’m eight months in remission from being a workaholic

[gszech]

#NationalStressAwarenessDay2024

 

…as are most of the techs reading this I would guess. Some of you south of the M4 will know me, if nothing else for being one of the tallest ones here, I’ve been in this industry for 30 plus years and I’ve been fortunate to have met so many wonderful people in that time. Some in person day to day, some via EduGeek, ANME and RM events (RM do the best lunches if you’re wondering why I went to them…), some once a year in London at BETT and some I’ve never met in person but chat to on-line in forums like we’ve known each other since primary school and still have coffee and a catch-up in that little café when we both happen to be in town.

 

The education tech world is a close one and we all look after each other, if any one of us is ever stuck, others are more than happy to jump in and assist, share code, offer solutions or just say “yup, it does that for me as well” which is all the reassurance you sometimes need to know you haven’t just done something really stupid to hundreds of workstations simultaneously via a GPO or an intune policy. If a nearby school gets hit by a ransomware attack, you offer to help, you provide equipment if needed, you’re on the end of a phone for the tech team working all night trying to repair the damage etc. That’s what we do, that’s what makes our world so special.

 

Sometimes the community comes together under difficult circumstances, for those of us who knew him in person or on-line, the sudden loss of DJ-1701 hit hard, I saw him in person a couple of weeks before, he was there on the Friday helping me online with a powershell script, he was always there helping anyone who asked, he was an amazing coder and tech, and then on the Saturday night he was gone, taken in an instant in his sleep to the great AFK in the sky. His parents took great comfort in all the messages posted on-line, colleagues made sure they were all printed and given to them before the funeral which was also live streamed so we could all be there in spirt if not physically. Community defined right there.

 

I’m fortunate that many of you have been to my little school next to the 123m tall spire, either for south coast socials, one to ones, dropped in to borrow kit or the epic EDIT in 2019 when I heard myself say “yes of course we’ll host 200 people” and the enormous job that turned into!! As an IT Manager I’ve done OK for a career, I ran a massive FE institution for 15 years over 19 sites and now have spent 16 years in a single academy school where I’ve worked hard to be successful, turned a broken network into a stable 24/7 system that is the lifeblood of the school. I’ve worked long days, I’ve come home and answered emails, teams messages, WhatsApp’s, smoke signals etc, spent weekends working on stuff into the small hours just so that class on Monday runs that lesson without a hitch. In all my years you often get the snotagram message about a faulty PC ruining a teacher’s lesson, missing mouse etc, you never get one saying “thanks, that PowerPoint ran fine, the embedded video worked etc”. You just learn to accept that that’s how it is, it’s a thankless job but we still do it because we love our jobs.

 

And that was my life, working hard, going home, working just as hard at home and being that invisible cog in the wheel that you think will bring everything else down if that cog stops turning.

 

Early in 2024 I started to feel rubbish, not man flu rubbish but really struggling to get up in the morning rubbish, unable to lie down at night and breathe rubbish, every breath sounding under water rubbish. The diagnosis was pneumonia, the pills were strong, but at the time I was a one-man band at work, the deputy post had just been vacated (he moved to a fab new job, we are still friends) and had yet to be advertised, year 13 mocks were about to start and the workload was not one you could take a week off to recover. So I ploughed on, that vital cog still whirling away despite that cog sounding like a rusty barn hinge in the wind. I did go to the Friday at BETT, probably not my finest decision but I needed a change of scenery and see my friends. I struggled all day and slept on the train all the way home, thankfully woken up before my station by a tech from another school who looked after me that day. Fast forward to mid February and people were starting to tell me I looked seriously unwell, several used the term grey, death warmed up was used more than once and I remember saying to a member of staff I am close to that I had hit the wall and was looking forward to half term just to recharge.

 

That night was rough, another night in the lounge propped up in the big chair as that was the only position I could breathe in, another sleepless night. The following morning as fate would have it I had to go somewhere at 7am with my partner before going on to work, we drove in separate cars and when I arrived something wasn’t right. I could hardly breathe, all colour had gone from my skin and every breath was shallower than the previous one. My partner threw me in her car and drove the 10 miles to the nearest hospital ignoring the 40mph limits once or twice and literally wheeled me into A&E. I was met by a triage nurse who took an ecg, within two minutes I was in crash having a heart attack surrounded by medics and five minutes after that I was on the operating table in the cath lab having life saving cardiac surgery.

 

I had a completely blocked heart, medically known as a LV Dysfunction, also known in the trade as the “Widow Maker”. I had zero oxygen flow through the heart and was in complete shutdown. Another 5 to 10 mins and I would have been toast. But somehow I wasn’t. Fate had decided despite the odds that today wasn’t that day, the surgeons skilfully saved my life and I didn’t have to leave colleagues at work to deal with me dead in my work chair, for that’s invariably what would have happened if my daily routine had been followed.

It transpired a couple of days later that I was the first and only patient the surgeon had saved with my symptoms, no one walks through that door and goes home again with the severity of my condition. I spent two weeks in ITU and cardiac specialist wards as they battled blood pressure, oxygen flow, chest infections, a pressure sore you really don’t want to know about and a heart held together with duct tape and pills wired to a million monitors, each making a beeping noise that sent you into panic if that beeping changed even for a second. Nurses jokingly called me the miracle man, my notes even had a post-it on it saying the same. Everyone on duty wished me well the day I left hospital.

 

And that’s when you realise that no one is that critical a cog that you can’t be replaced just like that in an emergency. My networks were all Windows 2019 servers, Windows 11 PC’s and a complete Unifi infrastructure, nothing that someone else couldn’t pick up and take over after a few days of working out why the hell I did it that way or what the wire over there that says “don’t disconnect” is connected to. Within three days of being in hospital work had arranged for a tech from another school to come in to do consultancy (thankfully that tech was someone I’d known and trusted for 15 years so there was no impending MSP takeover to contend with) and the son of a member of staff came in as a temporary tech. A few staff knew I was missing and why but for most, school life went on despite the cog being missing.

 

All those extra hours and for what if I’d died? An IT room being renamed to The White Suite? An assembly where they announce the news to the staff and students? Family and friends left without a partner, dad, bestie, golf partner, someone to fix their laptop on a weekend? The infrastructure that I’d fought day and night to maintain is still going to carry on working, a PC is still going to boot in the morning accessing a file that will still be there (well until someone in PE deletes it by mistake) and the servers will carry on serving, rebooting occasionally overnight as they pick up critical updates without the need for a human touch.

 

I’ve been in countless of INSET wellbeing seminars in my professional life and the words just go in one ear and out the other but actually those words are right. We as techs spend our lives moving from one critical job to another, drink gallons of tea or coffee, fizz or energy drinks, eat those cakes and chocolate bars, scoffing down food as we work through our lunch breaks to keep everything ticking over. Maybe it’s time to put us first, take that lunch break, go for a walk round the block, put that laptop away when you get home and enjoy the life outside of work, maybe take more notice of feeling unwell, feeling under pressure, feeling like you can’t stop. Because actually you can, the trick as I discovered the hard way is to choose to stop before nature decides to do it for you.

And how am I now? I had a S-ICD fitted in May, basically a mini pc inserted under my ribcage that monitors my heart and once a week I stand next to a cat5 unit in my house that Bluetooth connects to the S-ICD and sends all my vitals to my surgeon who then looks at the stats, sends remote changes back to my device and changes dosage of my pills accordingly. Yes, I’m a cybernetic human. I’m taking 14 pills a day, I struggle as I’m permanently tired, my arms and legs constantly hurt and stairs are as difficult for me as they were for 1970’s Daleks before the BBC decided that was a bit stupid for a master race and introduced “Elevate” as a thing…

 

I got my driving licence back in June and I went back to work for 3 mornings a week on the last week of Summer term. I was deeply touched (but very embarrassed) when I snuck into the Head Masters retirement party and got a round of applause as my colleagues spotted me. I had a week in Spain in July after being cleared to fly a couple of weeks before we went and I have a limited edition medical exemption card that lets me bypass airport security. Work have been amazing, my care plan and phased return basically say take it slow, don’t rush back and look after yourself. I have a great deputy who was appointed while I was off who I can delegate jobs to and teach them how to do new to them things and close friends and work colleagues who look out for me both on the physical side and more importantly on the mental health side during the often darker days of recovery.

 

If this post helps even one person pull out of the spiral, then every word was worth it. Somehow I got through it, together my partner and guardian angel worked overtime that day trading in eight of my cat lives and I’m eternally grateful and determined to make full use of the bonus years ahead.

 

My name is Andrew and I’m eight months in remission from being a workaholic

 

Hej Gemini summarise this message for me:

 

The email is a personal reflection by a long-time IT professional in the education sector. The author shares their experience of a near-fatal heart attack, highlighting the importance of work-life balance and self-care. They emphasize the interconnectedness of the education tech community and the need to support each other, even in difficult times. The email concludes with a message of hope and recovery, encouraging others to prioritize their well-being.

[Olliedawg]

Glad you are OK.

 

Maybe it’s time to put us first, take that lunch break, go for a walk round the block, put that laptop away when you get home and enjoy the life outside of work, maybe take more notice of feeling unwell, feeling under pressure, feeling like you can’t stop. Because actually you can, the trick as I discovered the hard way is to choose to stop before nature decides to do it for you.

 

 

This. NOTHING is more important than your health, especially not a job. I used to be the same, i'd open my laptop at 7PM at home, answering emails, doing remote work etc... when in reality, it can wait until morning 99% of the time.

 

I started having panic attack symptoms, usually at night. Had an ECG done at the doctors/bloods etc.. all fine - it's all stress/work related. So now, after 4PM I switch off notifications for work related apps & do not touch my laptop until 8AM following morning.

 

It's so important to look after yourself. Eat well, do a bit of excercise - even going for a walk in fresh air, just so you aren't sat all day - which is easily done.

[Primus]

Glad you're ok, I too have issues turning off and tend to be always connected/contactable but have recently begun to see how harmful it can be.

 

Being able to switch off is vital and perfectly reasonable.

[tg12]

Blimey Andrew, this all sounds rather eventful. Very glad you're recovering after all of that, add me to the list of people who's glad you're still here to tell the tale! I think it's very easy to fall into the trap of overworking, particularly in roles like ours, as the demands never seem to stop.

 

All the best

[Oaktech]

I've had 2 consecutive days off this half term doing something for myself. This has not happened outside of a weekend since before the pandemic.

 

Baby steps.

 

Hope your recovery continues.

[HarryMonkey]

Wow Andrew, that's some story. I am so glad you are on the road to recovery.

 

Therein lies a lesson to us all. Don't let Andrew's experiences be a waste. Learn from them and switch the damn thing off when you leave at the end of the day.

[Koldov]

A few things spring to mind here, most importantly well done for staying alive but also congratulations on finally realising that, yes, the world turns without us and the sun rises each morning regardless of whether we are there to see it or not. Unfortunately all the hours of hard work that you did previously on the network, got it into a position whereby it could still function perfectly well without needing full hands-on, so that's a bittersweet compliment I guess... like 'well done for working so hard that when you nearly die we can still continue with T&L'...

 

I still put a decent amount of effort in, do bits from home, work through lunch etc. I'm OK with that, it's occasional and a choice not a daily occurrence that I feel I 'have' to do... but not to the extent I used to, because a while ago it dawned on me that nothing in school is life or death (apart from maybe peanut allergies) and certainly not worth making myself ill for, so if you don't get that urgent and most important 'thing' they absolutely must have sorted before next lesson done (even though they haven't told you about it until 5 minutes before the lesson starts), they will just do something else, there will not really be any major impact on T&L no matter how much they moan, wail and gnash their teeth... a few times when I've spent a lunchtime/evening/weekend trying to sort something out, they will invariably have decided not to do it or changed what they want by the next day anyway...

 

Which brings me to the final point... due to a recent change in our school, a colleague of mine (non I.T. related) recently found themselves under a huge amount of stress, with the pressure of getting a vast amount of work completed with quite serious deadlines looming and a potential scenario of needing to do their job very well or face questions of 'employment suitability' under the new regime. Anyway, they worked all summer despite feeling quite ill (unfortunately we are a small school with hardly anyone else in over the holiday and I, for the first time, had taken the time off to get ready to move house, so nobody really saw their decline)... and long story short, they fell critically ill the week before we returned in September. Like you this resulted in a near-death experience, major surgery, months of recovery and a life changing disability. We have managed to pretty much get through the transition without them, so although we miss them being around and it would have been a hundred times smoother with them here and less stress/work for everyone else, we would all much rather have picked up a little slack and taken on some of the workload from them if they had needed the time off to get well before any of this happened... maybe that's our fault for not realising at the time that they were struggling.

[PotNoodleTech]

Some people on here confuse enforcing your own work life balance in a healthy way with somehow not being hard working or not professional.

 

I used to do all of the above back in the day (apart from the heart attack!) - but after many kerfuffles over when I could take the time back and just constant issues around the whole lieu thing - the kerfuffles have ended as I've put my foot down. My school has deemed my hours are 37 a week I am not allowed to be paid to be on call and overtime is not allowed. And woe betide me if i deviate from that. Therefore I don't deviate from it.

 

If something is that important that the school won't function without it they then can either pay me to be on call or pay me overtime. If they refuse to pay overtime or on call then it clearly isnt an important issue after all. And this is the key - when you put it like that to them all of a sudden nah we don't want to pay you an extra 100 quid don't worry about it - it wasn't that important to them after all. I think many of us in here need a good shake up - if something breaks somewhere else in the school they'll happily pay £10k to get some contractors in for a week but then they refuse £100 or £200 worth of overtime to get an IT issue fixed on a sunday and instead rely on trying to guilt us into working for free just "because professional".

 

Rubbish. Stand up for yourselves, be healthy, enforce a good work life balance, as no one else will!!!

Edited November 6, 2024 by PotNoodleTech

[Roberto]

This is incredible testimony. Thank you for sharing and I hope you continue to improve. I think there's a lesson here for us all and I feel like the biggest gift we can all collectively give to you right now is to listen and learn from it.

 

I've had a few rough years of my own - nothing like this but to share my own story about stress... my brother is a convicted child molester. He's a former teacher, scout leader and parent and before he was discovered and stopped he managed to violate the trust placed in him in all three of those areas.

 

I had to testify twice to have him put away. He's done two rounds of jail so far. I took it very hard. I felt very guilty that there I was, fully trained up on (heck supporting) safeguarding in my edu job, yet there was my brother abusing his children and all others he could get his hands on. I blamed myself though I had done nothing wrong, and this caused me a great deal of guilt and stress to the point where I started to self-harm and ended up being treated for depression.

 

Even after all that I have had years of unresolved anger and guilt to work through over the guilt (undeserved I know), the shame, the sadness at the impact on my nephew and niece. It took a lot to move past it but now I have.

 

So please if anything in my story of self-harm or anything in Andrew's story of overwork and the detriment to his health sings to you, take action before its too late.

[jthompson]

Thank you for sharing your story. It reminds me of a moment a few years ago when, about 2 hours after realising that we'd been the victom of a catastrophic ransomware attack, my LM came to see me in the server room, waved a hand at the stack of dead servers and told me in no uncertain terms that all of that could be replaced but that I should under no circumstances be killing myself to get things up and running again. In the darkest moment of my career, my employers were making sure that my wellbeing was not unduly compromised, which meant a great deal (I still felt dreadful and didn't sleep a wink that night, but it will have relieved a significant amount of pressure).

 

My personal circumstances (father of two) are now far less conducive to working a bit late each day or checking in from home of an evening, which I've been guilty of in the past. I find turning off easy now, because I have to.

 

In another sense, I'm working around the clock in the form of automations that I've written. We're lucky in that we can still perform aspects of our job without having to actually pay any attention

[supportman]

This is AMAZING! needed to hear this today after stressing over paxton issues all week

 

Whats your long term plan? Retirement?

Edited November 6, 2024 by supportman

[Dos_Box]

I'm glad to hear you are on the mend Andrew, and like many here, I think we have all, at some point, been worked far too hard without either realising it ourselves, or management knowing, but not caring, but it does affect us, often without our noticing. Mood changes, broken sleep and other symptoms that we don't notice because they creep up on us slowly, over time.

I think this is possibly my thread of the year, about a subject we often talk about, but possibly ignore, because we have work to do.

[smurfomatic]

Thanks Andrew for posting this. Hope you recover fully and we all learn that work is a long way down the priority list!

 

As some of you will know, my former boss died in 2021 from a brain tumour. While it was not directly work related, the stresses he was under masked the early symptoms (such as personality changes) that would normally have been an indicator of something wrong.

 

Since changing work enviroments two years ago, I've joined a brilliant team that does tell you to go home when you need to be told - even if my boss is the worst culprit for this! Anything that can't be sorted can wait, especially if you have something planned for that evening.

[dapaulio]

Your story rang many alarm bells as you experience resonates so close to home. Having worked in education ict for over 20years I think back to all the occasion I naively worked over and above with no remuneration or gratitude. Your story pulled on some heart strings as my realisation turned to my family. Although I knew deep down I was damaging my family for work I never properly acknowledged it until I read many people’s lifetime experience within ICT. So much so I walked up to my 2 kids bedroom and hugged them in their sleep.

 

In my earlier years we had three techs including myself and a network manager. I was the senior tech. With two years they made redundant my two colleagues and network manager. That was the point I unknowinglythen started working like my network. 24/7/365. Weekend holidays were absorbed with constant phone calls and emails. Year went by and the school sold me out to a msp. The tupe process broke me mentally but a look back now and it was the push I needed to recover. My new managers made me realign my priorities although it is to this day difficult to keep too. I still work within schools and manage a great team of individuals technicians who I share my experiences and look after their welfare so they don’t fall into the same trap I did.

 

I’m so glad you survived. Call it luck, call it fate, I’m not a believer in either but We are all good people that put others and sometime strangers first before ourself definitely and sometime our loved ones and I believe that counts for something. Give good rewards with good

 

This year has been an eye opener having minor health issues with massive weight gain caused due to stress, workload, and not having time for myself and my family and this I am working towards a better work life balance.

 

A note to our younger generation of it techs. Working in the industry we are in You can be left feeling lonely and isolated. By all means be flexible and hard working as it goes along way in your career but don’t let your school take the p155. Don’t suffer in silence and talk to someone

 

I too am a 25 year workaholic looking to restore that balance

Edited November 7, 2024 by dapaulio

[djm968]

At home reading this while recovering from another TIA, they called me a cat as I seem to have nine lives, and I've used 3 of them. Thanks for sharing Andrew, life is too short.... (posting on Edugeek isn't working is it?.... don't tell the wife!)

[mikes]

Honestly the last thing you want is your hair falling out, most of the time once it falls out, it doesn't come back! what could be worth that ?

[synaesthesia]

A great write up and explanation, Andrew - I hope you do recover soon, that sounds like a terrible ordeal but glad to see you're being helped through it. I've gone through similar and for the first time ever, had a couple of weeks off last month for stress/anxiety reasons, being very wary of past scares for heart attacks and extremely high blood pressures. The job is never worth it, however I had always convinced myself that I couldn't sit around and do nothing. Sometimes that's *exactly* what you need, even if you don't think it yourself. I'm forever on the lookout for the unicorn job but that's unlikely to come along any time soon, so the first baby steps in recognising when something is getting too much and a) talking to someone about it and b) doing something about it. No job is worth breaking yourself for, nor your family.

[Davit2005]

All the best to your recovery Andrew.

 

Similar boat myself. I worked like a maniac when I started in IT mainly to forget about issues I was going through at home. By my second job in an IT career I was already doing advanced work, completed both an MCP and CCNA off my own back as well as a 5 week intensive course learning the basics in the period of 4-5 years.

 

Hell my first job in IT I'd taken a 5k a year pay drop compared to my previous career to basically run round jus replacing parts other engineers had diagnosed faulty (then soon promoted to junior field engineer doing the troubleshooting myself)

 

My second job was in a secondary school which was a wake up call. Stayed there a year, worked many 7am to 7pm days before moving on to actually technically run a network in a pre-prep. No thanks for the hard work put in which was above and beyond my role. But I was not complaining I got involved with as much as possible and absorbed like a sponge and moved onto a job earning 10k a year more than I started the career at 5 years before hand.

 

After suffering a near fatal heart episode after countless tests and told on many occasions nothing was wrong I'm now at a stage where I do my best but there is a limit and I'm not afraid to speak up rather than bottle things away. I'm on Anti-depressants for anxiety, but thankfully the heart issue has 95% been cured and I'm not under any medication for my heart apart from the odd Blood Pressure monitor due to white coat syndrome. I've done a marathon, suffered and still suffer from Covid related issues since the heart op.

 

Everyone is different, life would be boring if we weren't :-)

 

Above all Wishing you all the best for the future

Edited November 7, 2024 by Davit2005

[elsiegee40]

Oh Andrew, I am so sorry to read of what’s happened and wish you a speedy recovery.

 

As you point out, nothing at work is worth putting your health at risk for. You know I walked away from what proved to be my last job as the ongoing toxicity of the organisation hit an all time low. It was the best thing I ever did for both me and my family.

 

I cannot stress enough to others that, no matter how great your relationship is with your employer and your colleagues, you are paid for only a certain number of hours.

 

The occasional emergency will crop up, but you are probably not paid to be working outside your contractual hours so if you’re negotiating a new job contract for goodness sake get it in writing up front how you will be compensated when necessity arises. And if you’re established take a long hard look at the hours you work and stop making excuses to yourself.

 

Andrew’s lesson is one we must all learn from. I am retired now. Old enough for my first pension to be paying out… not old enough for my state pension. I have been through six months of stress hell. I’m volunteering for a charity and realised a few weeks ago that I need to ease up don’t agree to do everything thrown my way. Just because I am not in paid employment doesn’t mean I am full time plus out of hours there instead.

 

Look after yourself everyone. Find a way to make your job part of your life rather than your job being your life.

 

Massive hugs xxx

[DalekSec]

(Being dyslexic ive had to scim read most of the novel! but got the headlines!)

 

Sorry to hear about everything thats happened and hope you get better soon, i've met you a few times in person and always come across as a passionate and knowledge chap. The bit about DJ got me, me and him were close and i still think about him every time i watch Doctor Who. (damn it im tearing up now). Take care and time to get yourself back to 100%, im here if you need anything as just down the road from the 123m spire (was there at the weekend and waved to your building when went past!)

 

To everyone else i say this, never put work before family/health. I never have for the following reasons;

 

My dad was a workaholic and now i hardly have a relationship with him and it makes me sad constantly, ive tried to and he always chooses work or a hobby over my young family (same goes for my brothers family)

On your death bed, you wont be thinking 'im glad i worked overtime to fix that UniFi issue' you will be thinking about your family (i hope)

Most workplaces see you as cattle and a number that can be cut in an instant when they get into money issues

Just because you dont go over the odds doesn't limit your career, i've hardly ever done out of hours work and it's not limited mine.

 

My current place i enjoy so i do do the bit of out of hours work, but they recently tried to get me to do on-call which i declined. I currently only see my son for about 30mins each day in the week as i have to work and its heart breaking. Im hoping when hes older and stays up later i'll see him more, as i dont want to turn into my Dad.

Edited November 8, 2024 by DalekSec