@raphjd:
I usually do hardware stuff, but I also do QC for software.
I DO NOT code. It makes my head hurt.
Anyway, the toughest job is always dealing with people and trying to convince them of something, if they have something else in their heads.
One example is when I was QCing a software package. The workflow was all crap, but the software looked nice. The devs refused to move the buttons and whatnot to make the workflow actually flow because they spent ages making it look all nice and shiny as it was. Anyway, the company put out the crap so it could come out right away, but did all the fixes I said over the next year.
I stopped doing IT because the pay is so low. Even with low prices, it was like pulling teeth trying to get people to pay.
As for the actual IT work, the hard work is trying to get old hardware to work. In fact, I think the biggest near disaster I almost had was at a doctor's office. They wanted their system upgraded - not replaced. Their system was using an OLD ESDI hard drive that contained all their software and data. The doctor was too cheap to pay for a new system. It was a nightmare to find parts that would work in that antique computer. Even after I performed a miracle for that doctor.. and made his system 7 times faster.. he stiffed me out of $1300. A few years later, that doctor was arrested and his medical license was taken away.. so… karma caught up with him. Often, commercial business use proprietary software that ONLY works with specific hardware - so they have to keep using ancient hardware to use with the software they paid $50,000 for. One place was using ancient 8" floppy disks that stored just 80K (not to be confused with 5.25" floppy disks). 3.5" floppy disks originally held 720,000K (720mb) and eventually were able to hold up to 2,880,000K (2.8 mb). 80K is roughly equivalent to a thousand paper punch cards! I typically use 8TB drives now.. which hold 8,000,000,000K. So, one of my current drives can store 100,000,000 8" floppy disks.. Anyway, their computer was so slow, it took 10 hours to run their payroll. Even at the time, their entire payroll on a state of the art computer would only take 10 seconds to process. On today's computers, it would be done in less than 1 second.
