I (21M) have been working since I graduated high school, my first job at a large cell phone carrier retail store. The pay was commission and I performed particularly well, so I was making anywhere from $2.5K-$4K a month depending on traffic and whatnot. Within a year of working this job the company took notice, checked out my resume and saw I had three years of IT experience from trade school. I get an internal email from HR asking if I want to work a remote IT position. I love working with computers, and I'm somewhat of a gaming nerd, so of course I took the job. The pay wasn't very great at first, comparable to an average month working in the phone store, but it was a remote position so I was open to the idea. I transfer departments, the company provides me with a work laptop and phone, and my new boss gives me my tasks: mainly responding to helpdesk tickets. Someone emails me with an issue, I remote into their computer and fix it. If a computer breaks, it's my job to perform diagnostics and get them what they need to work again. Same for their internet, if the issue involves our provided network equipment. Pretty simple stuff.
In the coming months though, I was asked to pick up more things here and there. I didn't mind because the tickets were few and far in between, so I was hardly working and kinda bored, so I took on more work. And continued to take on more work. Fast forward two and a half years later, and here I am, in charge of the entire IT department. I've been on salary since the beginning of this year; I make substantially more money than I did when I started, but now I'm constantly stressed out about everything. Everything. I get two days off a week, the weekend, and even then I'll still get people calling me on my off time, half the time they're legitimate emergencies. I actually stopped taking my work phone with me on weekends because of this.
Even now on weekends when I put my laptop and work phone away, I STILL find myself worrying about my team, or my ticket load, or how bad the workload's gonna be when I check everything again on Monday. I think the stress from this job is finally starting to catch up with me and I don't know what to do. I can't just stop taking on more responsibilities or else I won't keep getting raises, and I like the raises. It's literally a remote job where I get to sit on my ass at home, and I'm getting paid almost triple the median income in my city to do it. Why the hell am I not happy? I thought it was supposed to be the dream to work from home and be in upper management, but really it's just draining, I feel like I hardly have free time anymore, yet on paper I should have oodles of free time. It sucks the most because I really loved this job at first, but I'm just so burnt out now I hardly even want to touch my own computer. It's like this job sapped the love for IT right out of me. Idk what to do anymore. Just needed to vent ig, maybe some of you can relate