lets say you a part of a two person shop, the other guy being the manager.  Upon starting at this wonderful organization you realize this where people come to die.  Things are really backwards and no one really gives a shit.  

we have constant power issues, we have power strips piggy backed into other power strips four down the chain.  Most of the servers are blinking orange for various reasons.  The manager never stays late to work on projects or comes in early it's all on me.

If anything  breaks it's blamed on me, I tell them we need new equipment and never get it, but when something doesn't work it gets blamed on me.

Got about 10 new servers in and the project fell onto me to rack,mount,cable,power all of them after hours with no overtime just will cut my hours later.  So while my cohort is making 6 figures here i am stuck at around 32 k a year

what in the holy hell..

constant mood swings from management, can't ask any questions without getting attitude.

lets say you a part of a two person shop, the other guy being the manager. Upon starting at this wonderful organization you realize this where people come to die. Things are really backwards and no one really gives a shit.

we have constant power issues, we have power strips piggy backed into other power strips four down the chain. Most of the servers are blinking orange for various reasons. The manager never stays late to work on projects or comes in early it's all on me.

If anything breaks it's blamed on me, I tell them we need new equipment and never get it, but when something doesn't work it gets blamed on me.

Got about 10 new servers in and the project fell onto me to rack,mount,cable,power all of them after hours with no overtime just will cut my hours later. So while my cohort is making 6 figures here i am stuck at around 32 k a year

what in the holy hell..

constant mood swings from management, can't ask any questions without getting attitude.
-------

So what's the question?

Put your Rez out there and find a new job.

I'm a one man IT shop so it's all on me.

Depending on how bad shit gets fucked up it will fall on the boss.  More so if you're not there.

more of a rant

Would you take the job again with what you know now? if you can say no, then you should quit.

Bail my friend.. run away.  Pop smoke and run!

Leave.  If you are as good as you think you are, there are a lot of good IT jobs out there for you.

I left an IT job like that 14 years ago and never looked back.

Plenty of opportunity out there in the IT field.  

Sounds like it is time for you to consider making a change.  

Then you should change the thread title.

Sounds like your job sucks.

That's standard practice, except you get hours reimbursed, which is not usual. 32k a year is pretty low though.

1st world problems.

  IT is often feast or famine.

sad part is it's more like 28 k a year..i was just trying to avoid all embarrassment  

i'm A+, Network+, security +

working on server 2012

I'm guessing he is just starting in IT.  In that light 32k wouldn't be all that bad and lucky he's not working the help desk.  Slug it out till he gets enough experience to land a better job.

I'm guessing you're a young fellow too, it's IT, you don't get to use the good coffee cup yet dude.

i work the helpdesk and do the other duties, i do it all

Fuck all that.

tell them to give you a raise and provide a decent work space or you are gone.  Make sure you have floated your resume before you quit though....

you didn't ask a question but i'll answer it anyway - you quit.

are there actual, paying customers?

Then what you really have is a highly paid unemployment position.



Resume out. Network. You have creds...even w/out experience you should be able to make more than that.



I started at $35k right out of college...in '99. With just an MIS degree.



Things went sideways (as a country, not job...had a good job with a good company that I liked) and I joined the Army when things kicked off and did a stint there so no longer in IT...but still



 

i think they are bumping me up a little in January a little being around 33 k a year; this is all after four years here..with no raises aside from a small 4 percent cost of living raise once in three years

Not incredibly uncommon in small shops, sorry to say. What's your professional experience look like?

I work for a huge mondocorp that is a Fortune itty bitty number.

This morning I worked on a Sun Ultra 2 server running Solaris 10. The OS install was in 1998, and the last time it was patched was >10 years ago. It hasn't been rebooted in 4.5 years, and had 2GB hard drives and 128MB of RAM.

A director told me it was mission critical and we had to do whatever is needed to fix it.

It is messed up everywhere. As long as the paycheck clears, suck it up Nancy.

Work hard and learn whatever you can, and then move on. I started repairing computers during school for like $7. By the time, I was 27 I was making $100k in the Security field. 6 years later I am now making $150k+.

Just keep at it, add more certs and experience.

I don't know about Texan taxes and living expenses but in WI I make over 36K in IT starting, and I think it's still low for my workload (doesn't everyone ). I'm not certified in jack (I would be but the job sucks up all my time). Time for a new job buddy!

yep it's horrible here..but i'm stuck for the time being

Suck it up.  Learn everything you can.  Do everything you can.  Then in a year or two leave and make double.  Meanwhile start interviewing at other places and list a salary 25% higher than your ideal salary.  Opportunities can come at any time but you have to keep looking.

will do, thanks for the advice

 

actually yes

 

working my way up to those..

You know what must be done...




 

 










 

If you think that's bad, one of my customers has two display systems that are backed up on seven 5.25" FLOPPY DISCS!  And they look surprised when I tell them one day it's going to die and it's not coming back.  And OP, don't be miserable at your job, look for something better and it will come your way.  

 
 

A+/Net+ are bottom of the barrel but there's nothing wrong with Sec+. With some documented experience it should be plenty to get a foot in somewhere with room to grow.

 






 

 

Now that's funny.

I had a server like that but Finance wouldn't upgrade it. Shortly after I left, it crashed and the new guy had to fix it.

Change jobs.  Seriously, that's all I have.  There are a lot of places hiring for skilled IT right now.

$28k a year?  Even with CompTia certs you should be able to beat that.  A solution to your problem might be spending more time on your resume.

Did you try turning it off and back on again?

$32k for that bullshit?

Eject, bail, pop smoke, whatever you want to call it but just get the fuck out.

The only question is why OP is even bothering to post, instead of looking for something else.

Story 1:

    My first ever "computer" job, tech support.  After working there for a while, I realized that they were making completely unrealistic demands of me, paying me too little, and that the job and environment was a lot of stress.  Know what I did?  I quit, and found a better job.

Story 2:

    Long ago, I got hired to help an eyeglass manufacturer modernize, taking care of the networking aspect of their CNC equipment.  I got it done well in advance of the time frame, took care of the other tasks quickly.  Then I took care of a bunch of bugs in other areas that had bothered them for years.  Not much to do at that point, so, they asked me to see why their expensive, custom-built, custom-written server system (tying it all into their sales, inventory, and other systems) was so slow.  I poked around, and found that the developers used ancient server hardware, but still, it should have been performing better.  I poked around more, and found that they were writing the entire management system in BASIC - and furthermore, in a variant of BASIC which only had an interpreter available for SCO UNIX.    Now, during those months, they had two full-time employees that were supposed to be doing the tagging/data entry to get their entire range of eyeglass frames into their database.   However, they had done absolutely *zero*.  So, the management asked ME to do the data entry, since I finished everything up so quickly.

    Know what I did?  I found a better job.

Story 3:

    The next job I had, the old guy who was retiring sat around and did everything by hand for 40 hours per week.  I automated it all, and had literally NOTHING to do, so I went around and asked other departments what they had for me.  When my supervisor found out that I was helping with other projects, she got pissy about it.  I asked her what she would rather I do in my free time, and she told me to get rid of the automation and sit there hitting "retry... retry.... retry" all day long, like the old retired guy did.  

    Know what I did?  I found a better job.

Story 4:

    After leaving the job in story 3, I took a job as a "Eh, can't be too bad" option, and figured if I didn't like it, I'd leave it in a year or so.  Pay was on the low end of the scale, but hey, it was just short-time anyway.  It ended up being an absolutely AMAZING place to work, with AMAZING people running the place, and working for them.  I worked my way up, make MUCH more than I started at, and I've been happily working here now for fifteen years.  

Moral to the stories:   Don't screw around where you're not happy.

A good near term goal would be to get your CCNA cert.  A good two month grind and you can pass that test.

$40K entry level usually.  There are several Cisco guys here who can help out with questions.

I was blessed enough to have a family member who paid for my old MCSE NT 4.0 cert years ago.  So if you have to borrow a small amount of cash to get the CCNA books and optional lab equipment, do it.  It will be worth it in my opinion.

Finish the new project.  Then put on your resume that you rebuilt the entire IT infrastructure from the ground up on your own.  Float resume get new job and bail.  Let that shit hole burn.