I've met very very few IT workers who are happy with their jobs

So when I started this job (working with large companies) helping out with a co-worker's task I started trying to solve a particular problem the skinflint way, ok we can repurpose this box here to serve a filesystem while the other box is down for the vendor to swap the firmware and then...

My co worker (rightly) pre-empted me and recommended $20,000 of SAN equipment to replace the problematic device.

Neither way is better in the absolute, it's a question of what variable you're optimizing for.

That won't get rid of everything that comes in your door, and you may find yourself reduced to sending the email yourself, for something your boss walked in and wanted you to do. And it won't stop the "OMG the network is down" freak-outs, either.

On the other hand, it will hopefully reduce your walk-in interruptions, and it will give you more of a record of the work you're doing. Bosses who don't understand anything beyond rebooting can see how many work requests you're handling in a day, to tell how busy you are. Ideally, you can have the 'tech@' alias CC your boss and other crucial managers, at least at the start, so they can see how much you're doing.

I hate it. I've been working in IT for most of my life in one capacity or another. I LOVE my job. I'm not saying it's easy. I'm the sole income provider for my family of soon to be four and I put in well over 60 hours a week most weeks (salary, and up until now, likely below market value).

I am intellectually stimulated in my job. I have learned how to work with complicated personalities and have learned how not to be a complicated person. I've also learned that a good 20% of my job involves motivating those around me into realizing that the things they are doing are important and fantastic.

I don't get the bad attitudes...My job involves solving problems and building things. I enjoy seeing the result of my work get traffic. I enjoy solving complicated problems. I even enjoy documenting the solution because I know that a small percentage of the folks who have to read it will appreciate what was done.

I see a sense of entitlement amongst some of the folks I work with. They are very smart individuals and expect people around them to just recognize that despite their inability to practically apply their genius into something productive. They're like a jet engine sitting at idle. Lots of potential, lack of motion. I don't know what causes that.

It helps that I work for some of the best people I have ever known. I've seen the "it is what it is" attitude and it drives me crazy. I see a lot of folks in IT that learned how to write software very young, were treated badly for being a nerd and haven't matured into men of action. Perhaps I'm naval gazing a little, as it took me a while to get past that.

But "we build, we create, we solve, we are the great minds that conquer." "It is what it is" is a disease. It is what we choose to do with it.

I imagine that attitude that makes IT folks hate their jobs is the same attitude that will make them hate any job.

I'm really not trying to condemn those who are in a rough spot with technical managers who have no business managing human beings.

I'm just pleased with menloparkbum's assessment. "I would rather not draw that crowd over here, or have their stories reposted, or even links to that forum. That sort of negativity is boring at best and POISONOUS at worst."