Rage against the machine

28.08.2006
Every family has an eccentric relative that is excused for routinely engaging in odd behavior or obsessing about matters of little consequence.

Mine was Uncle Dennis who worked as an orderly in a psychiatric residential facility for more than 20 years.

Relatives blamed his job for his peculiar ways saying that, over time the staff become like the patients.

Uncle Dennis came to mind as I pondered the question of whether IT professionals go through a similar process - becoming like the machines they maintain.

Do they adopt some of the characteristics typical of the software they spend so many long hours managing? It would explain the high stress levels.

Uptime, mission-critical, reliability, high availability, I'm describing the systems here, not the people. But that's the environment in which IT professionals operate - from the pressure of zero downtime to the late night calls from the other side of the globe.