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What can a senior desktop support tech do who is burned out? (lemmy.goblackcat.com)

submitted 1 year ago by ablackcatstail@lemmy.goblackcat.com to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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I am wondering what kind of career moves I have available to me because I am over the bullshit of desktop support. I have been brushing up on my Linux skills, learning docker, and doing a whole bunch of networking-related things. At this point, I am 46 years old. Would it benefit me to go back to school to learn a skill to help me advance beyond this role? I just don't know what to do. There are many options, none of them truly low cost and all of them involving a significant amount of risk.

I get that there is no avoiding risk when making a career change so late in life. I was looking at training for Java or Oracle and it isn't cheap. Maybe given my experience I could teach A+ or Network+? I don't know. I'll welcome any ideas right now.

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[–] The_HKP@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I was a SysAdmin/Tech Support for 15+ years and also super burned out. I moved into Analytics, specifically using visualization software (Tableau) with SQL, and I could not be happier with it. The stakes are so much lower, and therefore, so is the stress. I feel that it's just technical enough to scratch that itch, but not so much that I end up just doing tech support again. Nobody needs a pie chart at 3 fucking am like they needed with server reboots.

With your background in tech, any viz software should be relatively easy for you to pick up. I was able to get into a free program in my area that trained for Analytics, so I'm not sure what may or may be available to you in your area. But at the very least, there should be plenty of stuff online for learning Tableau and SQL for free if that interests you.

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[–] rolaulten@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The best advice I can give is to get away from a front line support role. If you stay in tech you could work your to engineering, sysadmin, data stuff, or project management. If you want to get away from tech go as far as you feel you can (because once people learn your good with computers...).

[–] ablackcatstail@lemmy.goblackcat.com 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I've been in a support role for 25 years. I can stomach it no longer.

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