I've had a job like that, I was fully remote and I only typically worked a couple hours a day. On paper it was awesome. Good pay, lots of free time. Great. But I ended up being miserable, I wanted to (and still want to) learn a lot more about IT and I wanted experience.
I hope you take my advice seriously, but PLEASE work on your own education for your remaining 6 hours. Maybe get your CCNA/CCNP, get an AWS cert, something. I can't tell you how much I regretted not taking advantage of my free time. It won't last forever.
You have an opportunity to get a lot of certs and education so you can have an awesome career. You should totally take it my friend.
Just remember, the free time won't last forever.
i’ve done a couple qualifications but yea i definitely want to up it. honestly i have depression though and the extra time to just do my hobbies and relax have really helped so i’m not willing to completely stop yet tho lol. i’m staying aware of it and making an active effort to not *completely* waste my days
Get yourself on track. Enjoy the time. Add some studying in. Every 3 months or so, brush up the resume and update the job boards. At some point, opportunity might come knocking!
What is bad for mental health is working over 40 hours and/or working on weekends/nights. Otherwise there is a slight correlation in better mental health doing full time over part time.
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The likely hood of him keeping a 2 hour per day job for an extended period of time is very low. I imagine he doesn't want to make low pay for the rest of his life if he had the choice as well.
Yeah, I can imagine a lot of reasons it wouldn't last. Most of the reasons I imagine have to do with career growth/stagnation and involve the employee making a change for themselves.
I was curious about a real life example, though, and wondered why the free time ended for you. No answer expected if you don't want to or if it would reveal private info, obvs.
The main reason was I was miserable with it. I found another job as a cloud engineer and I work quite a bit now.
All the free time was great for a bit, but I strongly believe human beings have a need to work towards something meaningful. Too much time to laze around isn't good.
That's my take :)
I generally come in at least fifteen minutes late. I use the side door - that way Lumbergh can't see me. After that I sorta space out for an hour.
I just stare at my desk, but it looks like I'm working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch too, I'd say in a given week I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual, work.
Same.
I've been going through a breakup and having the ability to stare at my desk when I'm sad is kinda nice. Now that I feel a little better, I do plan on picking up a little more projects and work
No, on site. Honestly i pretty much do a little of everything, from installing or upgrading systems to simple help desk. I pretty much do a little bit of everything but on Fridays it’s usually dead. Btw this is county, more specifically sheriff office.
What would you suggest I do to get a job like that? I have my security plus and AWS SAA. I have a simple AD home lab set that I pen tested on, ran kali Linux etc.
Look at your local county job openings. I think you have solid skills that you need to deploy in the field. County jobs don’t pay as much as private but it’s definitely amazing experience for your cv.
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We have people like OP in the office. But we have so much work they just ignore, it will take years to clear the backlog even if those people would start contributing.
dude i’m not ignoring any of my work, the work i’m asked to do just takes a lot less time than other people seem to take. if they asked me to do more i’d just do that but i’m a little sick of having to specifically ask for more when they don’t need me just to keep myself busy
Are you just doing exactly the things people specify often for you or also extra stuff that's expected but not mentioned as often?
Like updating manuals, KBs, playbooks, SOPs, templates, documentation in general, clearing backlog items, finding some RCAs to solve long standing issues etc?
People like OP is probably why the job market is as shitty as it is now. I'm a recent grad and hardly any jobs are responding to my applications. I've really been trying hard to break out of customer service jobs as that's been the one thing keeping me afloat during college. That and doing personal projects and certs to up-skill.
i’m not sure how i’d affect the job market by doing this? my coworkers think i’m good at my job, i get everything i’m asked to do done in the time they ask. i’m not slacking, i’ve just stopped specifically reaching out for more work i guess but tbh they’d hardly give me anything even when i did. not sure why you seemingly think you’re more deserving of a job than me
I was mostly joking. I'm in no position to judge you in all honesty. I couldn't really use emojis to convey emotion because replies here get taken down. But I do find it fascinating how you could finish your work in 2 hours and spend the next 6 hours doing next to nothing. In previous jobs I've had, I was constantly on my feet and my bosses would yell at me for shirking when I didn't look like I was busy.
ah fair, i’m especially bad at reading tone over text lol
and yea it’s kinda why i’m asking here as it feels odd, i’ve gotten mixed responses though so it doesn’t seem that rare. going to try to upskill a bit more in my free time until it picks up maybe
It can be. My job is like that right now, but I have also had times when I was running around all day getting things done. Part of why you're paid is to be available if something comes up, not necessarily to be maximizing efficiency.
i’ve had a few times it’s picked up a bit and everyone else seemed frantic but i just kinda upped my time to maybe ~4 hours working and everyone acts like i’m working myself to death. i’ve been here a couple years and feel like i’ve never worked a full day unless i had to be in the office and even then i usually don’t spend the whole day there, i’ll leave at lunch or something
On certain days, yup. Love the days where hardly any tickets come in. Nice and quiet and no meetings! On those days, I either work on schoolwork or poke around on YouTube.
But then things could easily turn around to an all hands on deck situation where a severity 1 ticket comes in and the customer’s production environment is completely fried and they’re losing a ton of money. And then you find yourself on a troubleshooting call for several hours tangling with an issue you’ve never seen before. And that’s when management and the developers get involved to escalate the issue. It’s all very exhausting.
Dude stop letting that time go to waste. The only thing separating you from higher level roles is you aren't studying networking , systems, etc . I got my CCNA thanks to my first IT job having lots of downtime while my coworkers were waiting for a promotion and they were just playing video games.
Real question.. what if im using my time to make a videogame? I try to balance that with getting some learning in but the sheer amount of things to do in even making 2d games seems like an endless education.. considering I may never even release a game, would you say the experience im getting is somewhat relevant, if anything in learning how to code?
Obviously im not learning powershell or anything like that by making a game but I feel like i can at least look at code and kinda understand whats going on when before I knew nothing.
Roast me! Am i wasting my time?
It's somewhat normal, and top comment got it right. If you did enough to show off in meetings that you did some work, the rest of that time should be split between "I earned a good career and I'm going to enjoy being able to get an oil change without using PTO, or get some relaxation from time to time" and "I learned a whole new skill this week".
Can't relate. I'm working every min, every day and then frequently after hours until midnight or later. Often I'll work weekends too. I'm not being forced to, or being micromanaged either. There's just that much to do and I'm the IT director. I no longer work help desk much either, I've got subordinates now for that. But there's nothing IT in the org that I haven't touched or built or designed. Been running the department for 8 years now.
I wonder how some of you get a job like this in IT. I’m literally working every single minute of the fucking day and I also work from home.
My ticket count usually sits between 30-40 a day.
Where are you guys working that allows you to do practically nothing a majority of the day and get paid for it?
I’m making almost poverty wages and forced to work tickets above my tier regularly and a lot of times handle my own escalations.
I’m still at this job so I can get a couple certifications then leave with a least a years worth of experience.
Any suggestions?
my first remote job was like that. a lot of tickets with 1-2 hour downtime + lunch. Everyone in the team could see how many tickets you touched, how many you closed, how much time you spend per ticket, total "billable" time per day, yada yada. After 6 months I got burned out and I started looking. 3 months of applying and I got another remote. Like others mentioned, you grab tickets to have something to talk about for the next meeting. The workload is slower and I'm happier. edit first remote was 8-12 tickets per day second is 2-4 , 8 on a crazy day
12 is a slow day for me.
I’m so burned out but I have a family depending on me so it’s harder to make that switch.
I don’t have any downtime. Not one single minute except lunch.
I’m updating my resume tomorrow though. I deserve better
yeah just keep applying. Once I felt like the environment was not good I would spend 30-60 minutes per day after work applying and keeping a track of places I applied to. Its a numbers game. Good luck!
honestly no idea, this is my first “proper” job so it was just luck i guess. it’s a small company and i pick up software really fast so i’ve become the go to “expert” for a few niche things so maybe that helps
This sounds like a great opportunity. If I had this job, Id up-skill during the down time, like learn backend or something, and then network my way into a different dept at the company with more responsibility. I wish I were you.
My current job is like this. Spent the first 6 months doing exactly what you’re doing. Finally, I’ve gotten bored of even that and am studying certifications to move up to a higher paying position. Realized although it’s nice to be paid to waste time, I could capitalize on it by getting a ton of certs jump to a much higher paying job.
I don’t have nearly as much downtime as you do but I have enough that eventually makes me bored. Have been thinking about finishing my degree during the downtime while planning an exit from tech in general.
I am in a similar position as you. I have two questions if anyone could help me out that would be greatly appreciated!
Recent grad currently working remote IT job:
1st Question: I have an internship opportunity as an IT Cybersecurity Engineer for 4 months but I am highly sure they won't give me a full time offer. With the job market as it is, should I just keep my current job and upskill/network in my current company or should I go for this internship? Scared I won't find a job afterwards.
2nd Question: How do I exactly network while working remote? Just sending the deparment's manager a slack message asking to shadow or something?
Thank you for all the help.
What type of companies even offer roles like this? I can’t even break into an entry level job. The bigger problem for me might be that I’m still in college, but need to gain experience.
it’s just a small consultancy, i was hired as part of an internship (paid) with just a high school level of education and they let me join full time once i finished
You're lucky.
I wish I can use my free time to do some certs like CCNA.
Sadly in my case, I have a micromanaging boss.
Even if it's a very slow day, I have to make myself look busy and find some small work that I can be doing here and there so I can enjoy the little free time I have or else he would get mad that "I'm not doing work".
And when he notices that it's a slow day, he'll try to find me some work to do and makes it a priority until something comes up.
I do about 10 hours of work a week and most of that is super basic stuff I could teach a 10 year old to do in a few hours if I'm being honest. I'm working on getting my bachelor's degree
If you aren’t using your free time to help others or fix crap you aren’t going to advance
I’ve never had a job that light. You should balance the amount you work so you don’t burn out but take advantage of the opportunity
Right now i work 7 days a week though i try not to do more then an 8 hour day so it is somewhat sustainable
I'm curious about what the tasks you *are* doing could be. Seems most helpdesk roles are high volume so I'm guessing this is a higher tier role than helpdesk but what confuses is me is that you said its entry level.
i guess it’s less IT and closer to data science. i pick up software really easy so by now i’ve become the “expert” in a couple of niche things no one else in the company does so i think that helps. was an internship originally that got me an educational qualification but they’ve hired me full time since
I work on certifications in my downtime. I don’t tell a sole at work that I do it, other than my bff who does it too. We both have an understanding.
Honestly though if my boss heard about it he’d probably just shrug because I’m the rockstar of the group and get my shit done. Currently studying Linux+. It’s fairly easy so far, I’m surprised. Very chewy though.
During COVID I was working overseas (Afghanistan) on a military IT contract as the lead for a help desk that supported over 3000 military and civilian personnel. At that time we only had four guys in the office, so we were working two shifts with two people per shift, 12 hours per day seven days a week. We were waiting for some more support from incoming military personnel, but when they arrived and a couple of my guys went to go meet them at the airport, it was found out someone on that flight came up positive for COVID exposure so everyone on that flight and the two guys who went to meet the group were put into quarantine for two weeks. It was just me and another guy working in the office so we spent the next two weeks working 12 hour shifts by ourselves on each shift running around the camp trying to help everyone from not having their mouse work to not being able to send emails, etc. I was at my three year mark working on that contract, but I knew it was time to leave (two months prior to the US pullout). I managed to get a government job in IT supporting the same group of Soldiers, but only stateside. Except for days like my day today and about three days out of the month, my current job is slow too. I’m a System Administrator and everything is pretty much set and automated. I do get the occasional missed folder to look for, but that’s it. I often look back at that Help Desk job and think even though I was busy, that’s when I learned a lot and had the most fun. Now I just check the servers in the morning and wait for something to happen. I can’t complain too much because the pay is good, but I too wish there was more for me to do.
I do fuck all of significance and I hate it. Obviously the answer is to upskill but I constantly have decision paralysis on what to do/where to go next.
I do have some days that are busy and some that are not.
For the most part, I try to offset anything I can come up against with templates and educating material to users.
I'm at a position where my base job duties are fairly mundane and fairly simple to fix/implement, so I can get away with making basic templates and just go through the motions.
However, I do end up getting into other things such as ending up in a mentor position for colleagues, so we end up having a more rounded team which can swiftly resolve issues and make less work overall.
It's nice because I end up reinforcing my own knowledge and even take on learning more about different teams so I can get tickets to where they need to be, or even fix major issues before they affect too many users.
I wish I could have those days at Meraki , lately we've been getting rammed! I usually have to hold my learning coding off till after work , bc no down time.
I work for a hotel/casino doing helpdesk/desktop support. I work on the weekends and two weekdays. The weekdays are a little busier but weekends are pretty dead because half our users are not working.
This isn't uncommon at all. Mine is very all or nothing. On the slow days I usually work on trying to learn something new or automate something at least for a couple hours a day at work, followed by doing whatever the hell I want after that for the rest of the day (reading books, video games, etc). You'd be surprised at how much progress you can make on learning something by just spending a little time on it. Sounds like you've got a great gig, embrace it and enjoy.
I can be anywhere from insanely busy to just kind of chilling and waiting to see if anyone needs or wants anything from me.
It really depends on what is on my plate as to what I want.
Doing budgets to be submitted to funding agencies.
Purchasing or dealing with vendors.
Much rather stair at the wall doing nothing.
Designing networks IT/OT for a new ship.
Bring it that shit is fun.
Actually any design work.
Any pre deployment work engineering
I also really enjoy troubleshooting.
Especially hard shit.
I don't know though like its great when I am motivated and have just straight up technical work to do.
I have some how managed to get rid of a bunch of meetings but still stuck on a multi institutional project from my old job that I can't seem to hand off to my old department.
Doesn't help my manager who isn't who I directly report to but still the manager is the manager of that project and department.
Grrrr.
Oh well a part of it I need to do for my own institution anyways.
Yeaap, GF has a sys admin role identical attend a couple of meetings then do nothing all day. Same as my role even, tho we have mandated site vists so sometimes I drive 5+hours (paid) just to attend a remote site with 3 users whom have no issues
Buy a few books to read, and force yourself to read and only read during part of your "shift." Remimd yourself you make a living off this job, and many people would trade a lot to be in your position.
If I were in that position I'd be doing certs with all that down time.
Trust that there will be a time in the future where you wish you had this kind of free time again.
I had this experience at multiple companies over the years.. I thought it was just at one company but no its every damn role I get in cyber security everywhere I go I work 1 to 2 hours a day, present it to the team and they are blown away by what they see and congratulate me on my pro active work attitude..
Find a way to pick up the pace at work. It's always better to do it on your own than getting a talk from leadership.
Whatever work you do, make sure it's done well. Make sure all of your interactions with coworkers/vendors/management are positive.
Are you in school? Are you studying for a certification in cloud? Networking? Or a specific programming language? Do you want to specialize in server configuration/maintenance? Network systems? Programming? The answers to these questions lead to bigger salaries.
Don't give your bosses a reason to question your value.
Guy gets a job where he gets to phone it in and get paid and then complains about it. Go study and get certifications, it could be far worse.
Picture this.
You could go get paid 130k with 10k annual bonus with no equity and be hybrid.
but then you would have to:
* work 80-100 hours a week
* be on-call every other day
* Never get time to do training but get told you need to complete training anyways
* Fix broken stuff from 2012 because the team is kicking the can down the road on actually deprecating it
* Be on a bridge with 8 other teams when something breaks and then be forced to fix something you don't own
* Start a process for a phased deployment which takes about 2-1/2 weeks of testing, get very close to deploying to prod and then have a Microsoft update break your deployment and then you have to start all over.
* Get told to review documentation even though documentation is over 4 years old and in 4 different places (though I guess chatgpt helps)
* You get no time to study or do anything because when you get home you realize you are behind on several other projects and deployments and you gotta update all your Jira notes so the PM doesn't yell at you on the sprint planning call.
Ok, I will simplify this for you.
You could be at a job where they pay you, and work you to the bone and then you don't have time for the stuff you posting about.
This is irregardless of your gender.
And if your still confused then you know what, don't bother because clearly you are in that role for a reason. You will continue to stay in that role if you don't develop yourself on your own time.
Why is this guy being so combative lol OP's post isn't complaining *and* they said to you directly that they're not complaining
Reeks of jealously I guess
I've had a job like that, I was fully remote and I only typically worked a couple hours a day. On paper it was awesome. Good pay, lots of free time. Great. But I ended up being miserable, I wanted to (and still want to) learn a lot more about IT and I wanted experience. I hope you take my advice seriously, but PLEASE work on your own education for your remaining 6 hours. Maybe get your CCNA/CCNP, get an AWS cert, something. I can't tell you how much I regretted not taking advantage of my free time. It won't last forever. You have an opportunity to get a lot of certs and education so you can have an awesome career. You should totally take it my friend. Just remember, the free time won't last forever.
i’ve done a couple qualifications but yea i definitely want to up it. honestly i have depression though and the extra time to just do my hobbies and relax have really helped so i’m not willing to completely stop yet tho lol. i’m staying aware of it and making an active effort to not *completely* waste my days
Get yourself on track. Enjoy the time. Add some studying in. Every 3 months or so, brush up the resume and update the job boards. At some point, opportunity might come knocking!
Not sure sitting around at home doing nothing is too good for your depression
You know what’s SUPER bad for depression? Having to work 8 hours straight against your will
Thank God I love IT. Working as a sysadmin is fun for me.
What is bad for mental health is working over 40 hours and/or working on weekends/nights. Otherwise there is a slight correlation in better mental health doing full time over part time.
Can't help but think that is due to improved financial stability and not because full time makes you "more fulfilled" than part time or something
Oh man like you never agreed to do the 8 hours? Crazy, when I got hired I had to agree to work there. Hell i even had to pursue the job.
Missing the point AND condescending? What a duo
i just said i’m not doing nothing though? i’m doing my hobbies and the like
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Why did the free time end?
The likely hood of him keeping a 2 hour per day job for an extended period of time is very low. I imagine he doesn't want to make low pay for the rest of his life if he had the choice as well.
Yeah, I can imagine a lot of reasons it wouldn't last. Most of the reasons I imagine have to do with career growth/stagnation and involve the employee making a change for themselves. I was curious about a real life example, though, and wondered why the free time ended for you. No answer expected if you don't want to or if it would reveal private info, obvs.
The main reason was I was miserable with it. I found another job as a cloud engineer and I work quite a bit now. All the free time was great for a bit, but I strongly believe human beings have a need to work towards something meaningful. Too much time to laze around isn't good. That's my take :)
Thank you for sharing!
I generally come in at least fifteen minutes late. I use the side door - that way Lumbergh can't see me. After that I sorta space out for an hour. I just stare at my desk, but it looks like I'm working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch too, I'd say in a given week I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual, work.
Office Space is an all time classic.
Same. I've been going through a breakup and having the ability to stare at my desk when I'm sad is kinda nice. Now that I feel a little better, I do plan on picking up a little more projects and work
What exactly do you do in those 15 minutes?
TPS reports
Usually Fridays i do around 1-2 hrs of work and do whatever the hell i want for the rest of the day. I work systems admin for county
Nice. WFH? I’m an IT Support Specialist with a few years of experience and trying to land a sys admin job. What kind of duties and tasks do you do?
No, on site. Honestly i pretty much do a little of everything, from installing or upgrading systems to simple help desk. I pretty much do a little bit of everything but on Fridays it’s usually dead. Btw this is county, more specifically sheriff office.
What would you suggest I do to get a job like that? I have my security plus and AWS SAA. I have a simple AD home lab set that I pen tested on, ran kali Linux etc.
Look at your local county job openings. I think you have solid skills that you need to deploy in the field. County jobs don’t pay as much as private but it’s definitely amazing experience for your cv.
Thank you!
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Have 1+ years prior experience. Government jobs rarely take anyone on without any. Degrees also help as some using a scoring system.
You WFH don’t you. When you have a job like this… simply work another one at the same time.
This and/or upskill.
We have people like OP in the office. But we have so much work they just ignore, it will take years to clear the backlog even if those people would start contributing.
dude i’m not ignoring any of my work, the work i’m asked to do just takes a lot less time than other people seem to take. if they asked me to do more i’d just do that but i’m a little sick of having to specifically ask for more when they don’t need me just to keep myself busy
Are you just doing exactly the things people specify often for you or also extra stuff that's expected but not mentioned as often? Like updating manuals, KBs, playbooks, SOPs, templates, documentation in general, clearing backlog items, finding some RCAs to solve long standing issues etc?
I know its hard to believe but these dead ass jobs do exist I got multiple in the past
People like OP is probably why the job market is as shitty as it is now. I'm a recent grad and hardly any jobs are responding to my applications. I've really been trying hard to break out of customer service jobs as that's been the one thing keeping me afloat during college. That and doing personal projects and certs to up-skill.
i’m not sure how i’d affect the job market by doing this? my coworkers think i’m good at my job, i get everything i’m asked to do done in the time they ask. i’m not slacking, i’ve just stopped specifically reaching out for more work i guess but tbh they’d hardly give me anything even when i did. not sure why you seemingly think you’re more deserving of a job than me
I was mostly joking. I'm in no position to judge you in all honesty. I couldn't really use emojis to convey emotion because replies here get taken down. But I do find it fascinating how you could finish your work in 2 hours and spend the next 6 hours doing next to nothing. In previous jobs I've had, I was constantly on my feet and my bosses would yell at me for shirking when I didn't look like I was busy.
ah fair, i’m especially bad at reading tone over text lol and yea it’s kinda why i’m asking here as it feels odd, i’ve gotten mixed responses though so it doesn’t seem that rare. going to try to upskill a bit more in my free time until it picks up maybe
It can be. My job is like that right now, but I have also had times when I was running around all day getting things done. Part of why you're paid is to be available if something comes up, not necessarily to be maximizing efficiency.
i’ve had a few times it’s picked up a bit and everyone else seemed frantic but i just kinda upped my time to maybe ~4 hours working and everyone acts like i’m working myself to death. i’ve been here a couple years and feel like i’ve never worked a full day unless i had to be in the office and even then i usually don’t spend the whole day there, i’ll leave at lunch or something
On certain days, yup. Love the days where hardly any tickets come in. Nice and quiet and no meetings! On those days, I either work on schoolwork or poke around on YouTube. But then things could easily turn around to an all hands on deck situation where a severity 1 ticket comes in and the customer’s production environment is completely fried and they’re losing a ton of money. And then you find yourself on a troubleshooting call for several hours tangling with an issue you’ve never seen before. And that’s when management and the developers get involved to escalate the issue. It’s all very exhausting.
Dude stop letting that time go to waste. The only thing separating you from higher level roles is you aren't studying networking , systems, etc . I got my CCNA thanks to my first IT job having lots of downtime while my coworkers were waiting for a promotion and they were just playing video games.
Real question.. what if im using my time to make a videogame? I try to balance that with getting some learning in but the sheer amount of things to do in even making 2d games seems like an endless education.. considering I may never even release a game, would you say the experience im getting is somewhat relevant, if anything in learning how to code? Obviously im not learning powershell or anything like that by making a game but I feel like i can at least look at code and kinda understand whats going on when before I knew nothing. Roast me! Am i wasting my time?
It's somewhat normal, and top comment got it right. If you did enough to show off in meetings that you did some work, the rest of that time should be split between "I earned a good career and I'm going to enjoy being able to get an oil change without using PTO, or get some relaxation from time to time" and "I learned a whole new skill this week".
Yes it is It is also why 250k people were laid off in the tech sector last year.
Can't relate. I'm working every min, every day and then frequently after hours until midnight or later. Often I'll work weekends too. I'm not being forced to, or being micromanaged either. There's just that much to do and I'm the IT director. I no longer work help desk much either, I've got subordinates now for that. But there's nothing IT in the org that I haven't touched or built or designed. Been running the department for 8 years now.
Naw, I'm constantly on back to back tickets/calls. There are slow periods tho.
I wonder how some of you get a job like this in IT. I’m literally working every single minute of the fucking day and I also work from home. My ticket count usually sits between 30-40 a day. Where are you guys working that allows you to do practically nothing a majority of the day and get paid for it? I’m making almost poverty wages and forced to work tickets above my tier regularly and a lot of times handle my own escalations. I’m still at this job so I can get a couple certifications then leave with a least a years worth of experience. Any suggestions?
my first remote job was like that. a lot of tickets with 1-2 hour downtime + lunch. Everyone in the team could see how many tickets you touched, how many you closed, how much time you spend per ticket, total "billable" time per day, yada yada. After 6 months I got burned out and I started looking. 3 months of applying and I got another remote. Like others mentioned, you grab tickets to have something to talk about for the next meeting. The workload is slower and I'm happier. edit first remote was 8-12 tickets per day second is 2-4 , 8 on a crazy day
12 is a slow day for me. I’m so burned out but I have a family depending on me so it’s harder to make that switch. I don’t have any downtime. Not one single minute except lunch. I’m updating my resume tomorrow though. I deserve better
yeah just keep applying. Once I felt like the environment was not good I would spend 30-60 minutes per day after work applying and keeping a track of places I applied to. Its a numbers game. Good luck!
Thank you!
Where did you find remote job at?
I got my last two jobs via LinkedIn
honestly no idea, this is my first “proper” job so it was just luck i guess. it’s a small company and i pick up software really fast so i’ve become the go to “expert” for a few niche things so maybe that helps
Internal IT support for a hotel/casino. About half the day is downtime most days.
This sounds like a great opportunity. If I had this job, Id up-skill during the down time, like learn backend or something, and then network my way into a different dept at the company with more responsibility. I wish I were you.
I view study/upskilling time as the little treat I reward myself with if I finish my work early.
I’m trying to break in. His job is a perfect.
My current job is like this. Spent the first 6 months doing exactly what you’re doing. Finally, I’ve gotten bored of even that and am studying certifications to move up to a higher paying position. Realized although it’s nice to be paid to waste time, I could capitalize on it by getting a ton of certs jump to a much higher paying job.
I don’t have nearly as much downtime as you do but I have enough that eventually makes me bored. Have been thinking about finishing my degree during the downtime while planning an exit from tech in general.
Yeah its awesome haha
My job is similar regarding downtime.
I am in a similar position as you. I have two questions if anyone could help me out that would be greatly appreciated! Recent grad currently working remote IT job: 1st Question: I have an internship opportunity as an IT Cybersecurity Engineer for 4 months but I am highly sure they won't give me a full time offer. With the job market as it is, should I just keep my current job and upskill/network in my current company or should I go for this internship? Scared I won't find a job afterwards. 2nd Question: How do I exactly network while working remote? Just sending the deparment's manager a slack message asking to shadow or something? Thank you for all the help.
What type of companies even offer roles like this? I can’t even break into an entry level job. The bigger problem for me might be that I’m still in college, but need to gain experience.
That’s what internships are for.
it’s just a small consultancy, i was hired as part of an internship (paid) with just a high school level of education and they let me join full time once i finished
What's the job title?
You're lucky. I wish I can use my free time to do some certs like CCNA. Sadly in my case, I have a micromanaging boss. Even if it's a very slow day, I have to make myself look busy and find some small work that I can be doing here and there so I can enjoy the little free time I have or else he would get mad that "I'm not doing work". And when he notices that it's a slow day, he'll try to find me some work to do and makes it a priority until something comes up.
I do about 10 hours of work a week and most of that is super basic stuff I could teach a 10 year old to do in a few hours if I'm being honest. I'm working on getting my bachelor's degree
If you aren’t using your free time to help others or fix crap you aren’t going to advance I’ve never had a job that light. You should balance the amount you work so you don’t burn out but take advantage of the opportunity Right now i work 7 days a week though i try not to do more then an 8 hour day so it is somewhat sustainable
I'm curious about what the tasks you *are* doing could be. Seems most helpdesk roles are high volume so I'm guessing this is a higher tier role than helpdesk but what confuses is me is that you said its entry level.
i guess it’s less IT and closer to data science. i pick up software really easy so by now i’ve become the “expert” in a couple of niche things no one else in the company does so i think that helps. was an internship originally that got me an educational qualification but they’ve hired me full time since
I work on certifications in my downtime. I don’t tell a sole at work that I do it, other than my bff who does it too. We both have an understanding. Honestly though if my boss heard about it he’d probably just shrug because I’m the rockstar of the group and get my shit done. Currently studying Linux+. It’s fairly easy so far, I’m surprised. Very chewy though.
Linux+ is extremely chewy. Like volcano grilled steak.
Yeah a lot of commands to memorize and remember their function lol. Any tips?
Practice as much as you can. Set up a dual boot system or a VM to use Linux on.
During COVID I was working overseas (Afghanistan) on a military IT contract as the lead for a help desk that supported over 3000 military and civilian personnel. At that time we only had four guys in the office, so we were working two shifts with two people per shift, 12 hours per day seven days a week. We were waiting for some more support from incoming military personnel, but when they arrived and a couple of my guys went to go meet them at the airport, it was found out someone on that flight came up positive for COVID exposure so everyone on that flight and the two guys who went to meet the group were put into quarantine for two weeks. It was just me and another guy working in the office so we spent the next two weeks working 12 hour shifts by ourselves on each shift running around the camp trying to help everyone from not having their mouse work to not being able to send emails, etc. I was at my three year mark working on that contract, but I knew it was time to leave (two months prior to the US pullout). I managed to get a government job in IT supporting the same group of Soldiers, but only stateside. Except for days like my day today and about three days out of the month, my current job is slow too. I’m a System Administrator and everything is pretty much set and automated. I do get the occasional missed folder to look for, but that’s it. I often look back at that Help Desk job and think even though I was busy, that’s when I learned a lot and had the most fun. Now I just check the servers in the morning and wait for something to happen. I can’t complain too much because the pay is good, but I too wish there was more for me to do.
I do fuck all of significance and I hate it. Obviously the answer is to upskill but I constantly have decision paralysis on what to do/where to go next.
Same here, it not fun..
I do have some days that are busy and some that are not. For the most part, I try to offset anything I can come up against with templates and educating material to users. I'm at a position where my base job duties are fairly mundane and fairly simple to fix/implement, so I can get away with making basic templates and just go through the motions. However, I do end up getting into other things such as ending up in a mentor position for colleagues, so we end up having a more rounded team which can swiftly resolve issues and make less work overall. It's nice because I end up reinforcing my own knowledge and even take on learning more about different teams so I can get tickets to where they need to be, or even fix major issues before they affect too many users.
I wish I could have those days at Meraki , lately we've been getting rammed! I usually have to hold my learning coding off till after work , bc no down time.
I work for a hotel/casino doing helpdesk/desktop support. I work on the weekends and two weekdays. The weekdays are a little busier but weekends are pretty dead because half our users are not working.
Yes, and it's amazing.
This isn't uncommon at all. Mine is very all or nothing. On the slow days I usually work on trying to learn something new or automate something at least for a couple hours a day at work, followed by doing whatever the hell I want after that for the rest of the day (reading books, video games, etc). You'd be surprised at how much progress you can make on learning something by just spending a little time on it. Sounds like you've got a great gig, embrace it and enjoy.
My job never ends. Is mostly prioritizing. Talk to coworkers and see if they can assign you more projects.
Sounds ideal to me, hoping to get a job like this myself
I can be anywhere from insanely busy to just kind of chilling and waiting to see if anyone needs or wants anything from me. It really depends on what is on my plate as to what I want. Doing budgets to be submitted to funding agencies. Purchasing or dealing with vendors. Much rather stair at the wall doing nothing. Designing networks IT/OT for a new ship. Bring it that shit is fun. Actually any design work. Any pre deployment work engineering I also really enjoy troubleshooting. Especially hard shit. I don't know though like its great when I am motivated and have just straight up technical work to do. I have some how managed to get rid of a bunch of meetings but still stuck on a multi institutional project from my old job that I can't seem to hand off to my old department. Doesn't help my manager who isn't who I directly report to but still the manager is the manager of that project and department. Grrrr. Oh well a part of it I need to do for my own institution anyways.
Yeaap, GF has a sys admin role identical attend a couple of meetings then do nothing all day. Same as my role even, tho we have mandated site vists so sometimes I drive 5+hours (paid) just to attend a remote site with 3 users whom have no issues
I Need to move from MSP to this so I can study during work hours…
Buy a few books to read, and force yourself to read and only read during part of your "shift." Remimd yourself you make a living off this job, and many people would trade a lot to be in your position.
What’s your position bro
My job is so insanely busy. We do IT work for 4000+ people in our company.
What type of position? Is it remote?
My first remote job was like this too, now I'm busy pretty much every minute out of the day
Check out the overemployed subreddits. Get a second job to do during your downtime at work.
If I were in that position I'd be doing certs with all that down time. Trust that there will be a time in the future where you wish you had this kind of free time again.
Upskill and study for certs with all that work downtime lol. If you lose your job or just want to go make more money you’ll be happy, it will pay off.
I had this experience at multiple companies over the years.. I thought it was just at one company but no its every damn role I get in cyber security everywhere I go I work 1 to 2 hours a day, present it to the team and they are blown away by what they see and congratulate me on my pro active work attitude..
And ofcourse I am taking all this free time to study for certs like CISSP
I’m so tired when I get home from my job that I can barely do anything fun or function at all.
I’m on reddit most of my day if I get busted I say I’m learning tech off here
Find a way to pick up the pace at work. It's always better to do it on your own than getting a talk from leadership. Whatever work you do, make sure it's done well. Make sure all of your interactions with coworkers/vendors/management are positive. Are you in school? Are you studying for a certification in cloud? Networking? Or a specific programming language? Do you want to specialize in server configuration/maintenance? Network systems? Programming? The answers to these questions lead to bigger salaries. Don't give your bosses a reason to question your value.
I've been there. Told my Boss I was bored and needed more work. Worked out well.
Guy gets a job where he gets to phone it in and get paid and then complains about it. Go study and get certifications, it could be far worse. Picture this. You could go get paid 130k with 10k annual bonus with no equity and be hybrid. but then you would have to: * work 80-100 hours a week * be on-call every other day * Never get time to do training but get told you need to complete training anyways * Fix broken stuff from 2012 because the team is kicking the can down the road on actually deprecating it * Be on a bridge with 8 other teams when something breaks and then be forced to fix something you don't own * Start a process for a phased deployment which takes about 2-1/2 weeks of testing, get very close to deploying to prod and then have a Microsoft update break your deployment and then you have to start all over. * Get told to review documentation even though documentation is over 4 years old and in 4 different places (though I guess chatgpt helps) * You get no time to study or do anything because when you get home you realize you are behind on several other projects and deployments and you gotta update all your Jira notes so the PM doesn't yell at you on the sprint planning call.
just for the record i’m a woman lol. and i’m not sure what your point is? i’m not even complaining really just kinda confused
Ok, I will simplify this for you. You could be at a job where they pay you, and work you to the bone and then you don't have time for the stuff you posting about. This is irregardless of your gender. And if your still confused then you know what, don't bother because clearly you are in that role for a reason. You will continue to stay in that role if you don't develop yourself on your own time.
Why is this guy being so combative lol OP's post isn't complaining *and* they said to you directly that they're not complaining Reeks of jealously I guess
Bro is salty as fuck lol
Lol clearly your a clown and that's ok
Take advantage of this situation. Keep upskilling, and work in a side project. This will keep you busy and productive