I’m Sorry ITCrowd…
I Screwed up my IT Career Big Time.
Whatever you do, don’t do what I did!
Here’s What Happened…
But before I tell you all that, I want to tell you a Secret…You have only 72 hours after reading this to join our Private Discord Community (a $997/Year Value) for FREE via the link at the end of this email. So make sure you get there. Ok? As I was saying…
Back in the 1980’s in the corner of a Preschool in California, sat me, typing away on a tiny Apple II Computer. I’d tell my Dad everyday as he was dropping me off at school if he would kindly let the Teacher know that all I wanted to do that day was “Play on the Computer”.
At a paltry 4 Years old, I knew that the future of my education would revolve around this Beige Box with a Glowing Green Text and a loud, clicky keyboard with symbols I didn’t entirely quite comprehend at the time.
I’ve have had a lot of interests in my lifetime, but my default modes were always:
Relaxing
Learning
Working
…On a Computer. Can you Relate? Does this Sound Familiar?
I eventually went to college and majored in Information Systems. I enjoyed College a lot socially, but the curriculum was rather boring. I knew more about Computing than most of my Professors. Boredom came quickly, and for people like us, Boredom feels just awful and such a waste of our potential.
So after 4 years, saddled with Thousands of Dollars in Student Loan Debt and having learned almost nothing new, I graduated with my Bachelor Degree and went in search of a Job in IT.
BOOM! Time Jump!
Fast Forward 5 different SysAdmin Jobs and 16 Years later. I entered a Mid-Life Crisis.
I was BURNT OUT. Full Stop. Not one Manager in my entire Career fully understood me and the potential I had. What they did realize was I was a great problem solver and I could be easily Overworked and Underpaid for as long as I would put up with it, sometimes for years even.
Having a Supporter Class Career, I found out that we are akin to Firefighters, except we don’t usually get the Hero type accolades from the public we save and we don’t get Hazard Pay. Fighting the Fires everyday: Server Failures, Network Failures and Database Failures, all are an emergency and all need to be fixed right now. The Fire Alarm is rung every time you receive an Email or Ticket marked urgent, whether it really is that urgent or not.
When everything is calm, you continue on preventing the next fire with maintenance updates, yet still we get ridiculed behind our backs about our lack of bedside manner and absent “service with a smile” attitude. They think a Ping Pong table and Free Soda makes up for severely underpaying us and severely overworking us.
“Keep doing what you're doing, if there’s a problem, FIX IT, get it back online as soon as possible, that’s what we pay you for. Keep those Web Servers running smoothly 24/7, don’t disrupt the business, you’ll need to come in at 2am to do that upgrade so we lose as minimal traffic as possible, but still be back at 8 am for regular work time.”
When we don’t recharge enough after putting out Fire after Fire, our Battery Capacity gets low real quick, especially every time our bosses need something else on top of the 5 hour server upgrade we did at 2am yesterday. Are we congratulated for our dedication and the 99.9% uptime on our systems? No, why would we be? The status quo continues, no one is congratulated for doing their job.
So having enough, I decided to quit. I always wanted my own business and to spend more time with my kids instead of just more time with fixing server hardware.
Fast Forward almost 4 Years to the day, I’ve achieved a Life Balance of sorts. Still, I feel the overwhelming need to provide some clarity and maybe even a little prevention addled advice to people like you who are struggling. With the loneliness, lack of Career Support and a lack of empathy from your Supervisors about your current situation, hence why I’m reviving this Newsletter.
So if you are Overworked, Underappreciated and are feeling a little like you're stuck in your Tech Career and have no one to talk to or understand you, this Community is the Place for YOU!
It’s time to revive the ITCrowd Community.
But we could definitely use a rebrand, so let’s call ourselves:
Club255
”If you don’t get the name, then most likely this Club isn’t for you…”
Think of it as a Country Club for the Technically Minded Elite where we’ll gripe about our dumb managers, talk about problems in the field and hopefully help avoid a mid-life Crisis for the rest of you. You are all Genius Problem Solvers and Thinkers, Resourceful and Highly Capable IT Engineers, it’s about time we let each other and the world know that.
It will be a Private Club.
The Community Newsletter will always be FREE.
But the Private Discord Chat/Forum Server WILL NOT BE FREE and will be capped at an undisclosed number of members for now, so join while you can.
There are plenty of gigantic/faceless IT Communities out there, but we want to keep the quantity of members small so the individual impact and engagement will be high. We’ll also summarize the best Communities posts so you won’t feel lost every time you check into one of those Mega Discord Servers that plague the internet.
For you Founding Members of ITCrowd on this list, if you join the Discord Server within the first 72 Hours of this email, you will have basic FREE LIFETIME ACCESS to it. You were some of the first ones to join our Slack Server so long ago and I think that should be rewarded. After the 72 Hours, the link will not work and if you want access you’ll need to Purchase Private Access ($997/Year), so join ASAP:
Discord Link: https://discord.gg/vtRnGFKK
If you are Happy with your IT Life and don’t see any value in a Community that cares for you personally and has been through exactly what you’re going through right now, by all means, go ahead and hit that unsubscribe link at the bottom of this email and you’ll never hear from me again…
but you don’t want that…Do you?
Either way, here’s to a Brighter Future for all of us. You Got This! I’m rooting for you and if you give me a chance, I’ll do everything in my power to make sure you have the Great and fulfilling Life you deserve!
-DrTechMD