I am a Computer Operator. Have worked on AS/400's since '95, and mainframes before that (IBM 3090's & 4341's). I started my first job in a computer room 30 years ago this December. Most of that time I have had to work nights (evenings), and often on weekends. The times I worked the graveyard shift were so physically draining that now I refuse to work overnight. A lot of employers have their operators on rotating shifts, and I won't do that either... I have turned down good jobs because of it.

I started my current job, with a mortgage company, in October 2000. The company has grown a lot, and it appears they will continue to grow. For me, that is both good and bad. The problem now, and my reason for venting with this post, is that they are going to start having us operators working here 24 x 7 x 365 - including all holidays. This is NOT a hospital. This is NOT a fire department or a police department. IT'S A FREAKING MORTGAGE COMPANY. So why do they need to have somone in the computer room on Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc.? Nobody else will be in the building those days - not the Help Desk, not the I.T. people, not the mail room nor even the janitors - just us computer operators.

I haven't worked 30 years in this field to get WORSE hours... the idea is to work up and get BETTER hours, conditions, pay, etc. A year and a half ago, I finally got on day shift here. Great. My ship had finally come in. Well, whoop-de-dang-do... I must have been at the airport when it came! This is a pretty good job - very little manual labor, an air conditioned office, somewhat secluded from the cubicle farms, and typically not involved with office politics. But the downside has always been the hours. It's just that there is no advancement to something better. My coworkers consider me the "Lead" here, even if I don't have the title. But it doesn't matter, I will still have to work holidays.

So I'm going back on another job search. It's a scary thing, because technological advancements have eliminated some operations jobs, and most of the ones out there are on nights and rotating shifts. I want to learn something new, but I may have waited too long to do it. I'm 49 years old, and I don't know how employable I will be. I want to stay in the Houston area to be near relatives.

Geez. Working holidays. What a crock.

You ain't gonna get nothin better unless you look.
Good luck Chuck. One needs to always be in the search mode. A job you want may have just been filled (when you weren't looking) or become available after you quit looking. I know job hopping does not bode well for many people but it is a good way for advancement, whether in pay, hours, or location.
Think outside the box. Many of your experiences may be invaluable in other vocations.

[This message has been edited by cliffw (edited 10-29-2006).]

30 years, you should be moving into management. My current department head started out as a computer room operator. Back then he also had to do some mainframe programming but nothing heavy.
He now runs the IS department. Managers can still get crappy hours but they normally don’t. Are you salary? Don’t go there if you can help it. I work in IT and have to work weekends and holidays, I don’t get time off during the week if I do and I don’t get paid for it. I do get paid well so I don’t complain, its just a statement.
Have you talked to your boss? it’s a thankless job, most people don’t know what you do and wonder why you are even work there. You need to be seen, office politics may suck but sometimes you have to play the game. I make sure end users know my name, if you help someone follow up with an e-mail. The last guy in our department to get let go didn’t participate and no one knew what he did. He wasn’t very helpful when we had to call him and he wouldn’t show you what he did. He didn’t get along with the boss and wouldn’t compromise his time off. When the boss got the chance he phased out his job. We split up the work and used his office for storage.

Monster dot com is full of it jobs in the greater Houston area. Of course, many of these jobs are probably the same as yours, meaning you will have to work wonky hours. I'm sure you can find one (job) that suits you though. barring that, have you considered returning to college for a higher degree? mabye thats all you would need to get a better job with daytime hours? (just a thought)

S. Williams

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1988 Fiero Formula T-tops
CJB 143 of 1252 "factory T-top cars"

Some of us are just happy to be working. the IT field is pretty rough out there, and 'big box' people have it even tougher since the trend is to slowly replace them with inferior minis and PC servers. ( PC servers have their place, but its not 'heavy' data processing )

I happened to have grown up in the cobol world, but due to my VAX ( and micro ) experience i also took to the 'PC's when they became viable business tools ( both mac and dos ), so i was able to ride the wave down the road..

Myself, im old enough now to make it rough changing jobs.. ( and actually im considering changing fields, IT today is NOT not what i planned on for a carrer ).

Hmm where was i going with this post? Seems i was just rambling.. blah

You might try Geophysical service companies, oil and gas companies? Huge number crunchers, and somebody is always comming up with a new way of doing things, usualy meaning newer or diferent equipment. Bug plus is it's in your neck of the woods too.

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Ol' Paint, 88 Base coupe auto.
Turning white on top, like owner.
Leaks a little, like owner.
Doesn't smoke, unlike owner

Good luck, man!
I see working holidays as becoming more and more the "norm". I am lucky in that I usually only have to work one per year, but the other IT depts have to work EVERY one of them. Blech. no thanks.

I am much younger than most of the people on these boards, but I am old enough to remember when a "normal job" would have hours of 8-5, M-F, no weekends, no holidays, 40 hours per week, and no overtime unless you WANTED it.

Now, even the most "normal" working hours for a job include a lot of weekends, 50+ hours per week, at least a few holidays, etc.

I am quite upset with how we are becoming more and more of a 24/7/365 society. I come from a school of thought that the world should shut down on Sundays--not for religious purposes, but so that people have a chance to RELAX.

If people WANT to work 24/7/365, then great for them, but I get upset when it becomes a REQUIREMENT. The job I have now used to be 8-5 M-F, no weekends, no holidays, etc, and overtime strictly forbidden. Now it has changed to 7-3 with a working lunch (I love that part) but I have to work M-F regardless of holidays, etc. So, I get my weekends off, but I have to work virtualy EVERY HOLIDAY OF THE YEAR unless I can whine and beg enough to have someone fill in, which is pretty tough.

I definitely "work to live" and not "live to work," even if I love my job to pieces. My OPINION is that peope who WANT to work more than 40 hours per week have their priorities in the wrong order, or they are using their jobs to fill voids or to hide/escape from other issues.

quote Originally posted by SonataInFSharp: I definitely "work to live" and not "live to work," even if I love my job to pieces. My OPINION is that peope who WANT to work more than 40 hours per week have their priorities in the wrong order, or they are using their jobs to fill voids or to hide/escape from other issues.

I am not my job, I am not my job just keep saying it
Its hard in IT field, they want you there during the day incase something goes wrong, but the only time you can really work on any of the equipment is after hours.
Good luck to you, if your job sucks your not getting paid enough.

quote Originally posted by SonataInFSharp: I am much younger than most of the people on these boards, but I am old enough to remember when a "normal job" would have hours of 8-5, M-F, no weekends, no holidays, 40 hours per week, and no overtime unless you WANTED it. *snip*

A lot of IT type jobs have always been like this, to minimize the impact on users.. ( not all of course, but a lot of them )

Avoid the communications, utility, and medical industry too as they all do the same crap as your job is doing.

What happened to the IT world? Used to be a good place to work, now it really sucks. It's one of the main reasons I changed my major from Information Science to Computer Science. A lot of software engineers get to work from home

quote Originally posted by Spektrum-87GT: It's one of the main reasons I changed my major from Information Science to Computer Science. A lot of software engineers get to work from home

Oh yeah, and "home" looks like:



or

[This message has been edited by FieroRumor (edited 10-29-2006).]

you are only as locked in as you allow yourself to be.
computer operator USF PDP11, 1979
programmer FSU Apple2 BASIC
self-employed programmer 80-86
BS comp sci 1986
coop programmer, IBM 86-87 sys 360, CoBOL, JCL
programmer-analyst, Arthur Andersen 87-89 PC, DOS, Win3, Colorado BASIC, MS QBasic
sr. programmer-analyst, AT&T contractor 89-91 sys 370, CoBOL, JCL
programmer-analyst contractor, MCI and various banks and hospitals, 91-93 sys 370, CoBOL, JCL
programmer-analyst contractor, US Sprint 93-94 sys 380, CoBOL, JCL
self-employed programmer/trainer consultant PC, 95-96 DOS, win95, MS apps
VRU programmer-analyst, Georgia Univ system, 96-02 Unix, NT, EPOS

right about 92 things were noticeably going downhill. wannabes who couldnt code their way out of a paper bag, careerists using the klingon method of advancement, ridiculous hours, on call 24/7, scapegoating, etc, etc.
And now, for something completely different...
now i drive a truck to pay for college. computers are either a toy or tool now, not a career.
good luck to you, i felt your pain.

quote Originally posted by FieroRumor: Oh yeah, and "home" looks like: or

Thats funny.
I had to call tech support last week, we have 24/7 with 4 hour on site response. The person that was assigned the ticket was obviously not from the US but even with her accent she was pretty easy to understand. She also knew what she was doing, didn’t have to wait for the computer screen to update to answer my questions and we were able to solve the issue on the phone without dispatching a service tech. The call lasted an hour.

Two week before this call we had another issue with a different brand of server. I called and was routed to 3 different departments, the first department didn’t have a clue, the second department transferred me to a third department who did help resolve the hardware issue, they shipped me a new drive. The call took 2 hours to just get the server running again. Then a second call was needed to schedule shipping of the new drive.
The tech support people were very condescending. They acted like they were mad at me for calling. Out of the 5 people that I talked to only one of them left me feeling good about the call and he was head of the department.

The second support department was here in the US.
Not all support people are like this but sometimes we get comfortable and forget why we are here. If we don’t do our job they will get someone else. This is not a shot at anyone, I would love to work my 40 hours and go home, not be on call and not have to work weekends. But I also like having a house and 3 cars and still be able to eat and this is the first job that I have had that I can do that.

Cheever3000 the only way I see this going your way is to explain how much money they will loose and try to explain how much it will cost to train new staff. Put it on paper, graph it out they like that.
Good luck

Thanks for the replies. When I noted that I am scheduled to work both Thanksgiving day AND Christmas day, I was told that's the way it is and if I want off on a day I'm scheduled to work, that's what vacation time is for, but don't try taking off sick on Christmas day.

Looks like I won't be employed there much longer, one way or another. Maybe now the question is whether I should find another job and quit, or not show up on Christmas and get fired.

Hey Chuck,

You might suggest some shifted schedules like the one I worked before I retired. Management allowed us to staff around the clock so we got days off and they didn't have to pay overtime. I worked 3-13s for 7 years. On 3 and off 4 ain't bad.

Unless its on a saturday or sunday my wife has to work, part of the job. It sucks but thats the field she choose.
I feel for you, I would probably give notice and try my best to find something before I did.
Good luck
Jake

quote Originally posted by Spektrum-87GT: Avoid the communications, utility, and medical industry too as they all do the same crap as your job is doing.

Yeah. Try working telecommunications for the power company.
They use telecomm for everything.

I feel your pain, Chuck. We work rotating 12 hour shifts. It's the most convoluted work schedule you could imagine.
The only thing it has in common with a normal work schedule is that at the end of 5 weeks, I've worked 200 hours.