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In IT, it’s easy to feel like you’ve got to hold it all together — the cool-headed problem-solver, the go-to tech expert, the one who doesn’t blink when everything’s on fire. But behind the screens and the tickets, we’re still people. And having even one person you can be real with? That can make all the difference.

In a recent video clip, longtime Spiceworks Community favorite and former employee Jen Slaski shared this insight:

“If you do not have a single person you can be authentic with… that is a cue you are not working in a place of connection.”

Over the last half-decade, remote work and hybrid models have become much more common. While these changes offer flexibility, they can also add new layers of isolation or make authentic connections more challenging. That’s why it’s especially important to check in and see how we’re all doing when it comes to feeling connected at work.

I set up the anonymous poll below to get a better sense of how other IT pros may be feeling this way. Vote to let the Community know if you’ve ever felt isolated working in IT , and leave a reply with any tips on how you’ve built connections or managed through it.

Have you ever felt isolated in your job, working in IT?
  • No, never
  • Yes, rarely
  • Yes, sometimes
  • Yes, often
  • Yes, always
0 voters

Results

Related:

24 Spice ups
2

Fun story time. A few jobs ago, I was working in the afternoon, was pretty quiet, no calls or e-mails and someone walks into my office about 3:30 and says why are you still here?

What do you mean?

Management gave everyone the day off after noon. I just came back up to get something I forgot and saw your car here.

Nobody bothered to come down and tell me. My office was off in the corner of the building. It was a big office but no windows and I happened to have the door shut. It wasn’t malicious or anything, it was a case of people assuming someone else had told me.

I have also literally worked in a remote office by myself before. Another person that was outside sales also had an office there, but wasn’t in that often.

39 Spice ups
3

I’ve had this far more than once. Management like random half-days but don’t tell me, and on the rare occasions I find out in advance I’m told it applies to everyone but me. And I’ve had it where they sent everyone home because of severe weather but told me I need to stay on site until the end of my working hours.

25 Spice ups
4

We have to have at least two IT staff in head office every day. Despite the fact that on Mondays and Fridays the only other people there are the receptionists who are there so that we aren’t working alone…

17 Spice ups
5

No one understands what we do. And this is fine. But they also don’t care. They don’t care how many hours we spend to keep the company going. They only notice us when all the heavy lifting causes us to forget something, then it’s always the same old NOTHING WORKS AROUND HERE.

31 Spice ups
6

I voted “Yes, Sometimes” but only because 2 decades ago when I was early in my IT career journey, I was a “satellite” IT employee. What I mean by that I had two primary offices where all the IT staff resided except for me. One was in Oklahoma City and the other in Cleveland. My office was in a branch office in the Dallas area. There were Pros and Cons just like anything.

I guess in the end, it’s kind of one of those glass half empty or half full perspectives. I ended up getting promoted enough to where there was nowhere for me to go unless I wanted to move out of state, which I did not. I wasn’t that attached to the company and there were and still are plenty of tech jobs in the DFW area.

To me, working remote isn’t quite the same. I’m hybrid now. 2 days at my home office and 3 at my actual office. Its a good balance.

9 Spice ups
7

I voted “yes, rarely” because while there has been time over the years that I was not included in company communication, I was over multiple departments, so I cannot attribute that solely to IT isolation.

This year, I have been grateful for our CEO who has established a weekly meeting with me to fill me in on things that are happening and allowing me to communicate IT concerns, updates to tasks, and recommendations.

11 Spice ups
8

I answer yes, always, but that is by design and my preference. Can I go vent to my bosses? Yeah. Will it change anything or get any sympathy, no. But I’m a dev, so the rules are: leave me alone and let me work, pay me, give me a donut every now and then, and again for those in the back; leave me alone. Nobody who is not a dev will understand or could commiserate, anyways.

17 Spice ups
9

I’m a department of 1 and am very used to getting overlooked and “forgotten”, particularly when it comes to company events. I work onsite and occupy a reasonably prominent office in the front office, so it’s not even like I’m at home or hiding in the server room or basement corner somewhere. My previous boss was the VP of Production, and while he was not an IT guy, he was very tech-savvy, and I definitely felt like I could just crash through his door and vent or bounce ideas off him, and I truly looked to him as a mentor, and he made sure I felt included in things that were going on in the building. He left at the end of last year, and I now report to the Director of Finance, and I once again feel disconnected. In fact, my old boss had a going-away shindig and told the new VP of Production to just make sure everyone knew about it, and everyone did but me. Thankfully, I found out at the last minute from a former employee who had received the invite and wanted to make sure I was going to be in attendance, so I got to say “so long” to my mentor before he moved halfway across the country. I thank my lucky stars every day that I’ve found the Spiceworks community, as I can come here and discuss whatever it is that’s going on either personally or professionally and feel like I have found “my tribe”. Thanks, Spiceworks!!

20 Spice ups
10

The IT Admin Lament:

Nothing works around here, why did we hire you?
Everything is working smoothly, why did we hire you?

31 Spice ups
11

Puts me in mind of the height of the pandemic, when it was decreed that the IT staff needed to be in the building to ensure that everything was working correctly. Despite the fact that all other personnel were required to work remotely. Our theory was that the IT staff were considered of little value and therefore readily expendable and thus were canaries in a coal mine - if we didn’t get sick and die then it might be safe for “valuable” staff or even C-levels to approach the building.

11 Spice ups
12

A job I had 2 years+ ago there were times I felt isolated, but only from our French HQ. They were a PITA to work with and I am not even referring to the time difference.

Locally was tight knit

5 Spice ups
13

When most of your workforce is working from home, isolation is very common.
I used to have a few people I could be myself with before the Pandemic. Those people had to leave.

@ode2joy I feel the exact same way. I can be authentic to everyone here. I can’t be funny all the time at work. :frowning:

9 Spice ups
14

for the past 3 years I’ve worked alone in the office as IT support - everyone else worked remotely and in other regions. Coming back into an environment where I have another support engineer with me physically - it’s seriously helped a whole lot. It’s great to laugh and bounce ideas off in real time esp face to face - even a teams call hits different after a face to face connection

10 Spice ups
15

I think it’s in the nature of what we do. as @jameswalker20 stated, if we do our jobs right, they wonder why they hired us, when the poo hits the fan, they wonder why they hired us. The expectation is that we are in the office during the 8-5 to support the user base, then another 8 hours before and after to do all the patching/testing/upgrades/etc that should not interrupt Karen in Finance.. Putting in on average 50+ hours a week IT Staffing survey: Tech work hours analyzed + finding an ideal IT staff ratio - IT & Tech Careers - Spiceworks Community in this industry means we are normally there before everyone else, and long after they go home.

10 Spice ups
16

I answered Yes, rarely for similar reasons but, working from home, I have to buy my own doughnuts, at least the coffee is decent! Does it bother me? No, I can get on with things and I can ignore calls / emails until I’m ready to deal with them, nobody can ambush me at my desk!

11 Spice ups
17

As isolated as I feel in my current role, I’m so thankful I’ve never been made to feel this way. My company does make a point of letting me know how much they appreciate that things run relatively smoothly most of the time, and when things don’t, they tell me how happy they were to have someone like me there to work on it and get it resolved as quickly as possible. We’ve had a lot of turn-over in the 5 years I’ve been here (not unusual for Manufacturing), but there are still a few people around that remember back to the times before I joined as their inhouse IT person and the company relied solely upon an MSP. The way they treat me when they do actually remember I’m here definitely helps take the sting out of when they don’t! :rofl:

11 Spice ups
18

In the event of sever weather, them saying ‘you need to stay until the end of your working hours’ would have had me turning in my keys and saying my time here has just ended.

8 Spice ups
19

That’s happened to me a couple of times - the last time, I only found out the office had closed early at 4:00PM was because the receptionist called me at 4:15PM to ask when I was going to switch the phone system over to the auto-attendant so that she could leave. My office is off to the side, near a corner, but it is two doors down from the managers.

11 Spice ups
20

I’ve only been with my current company for 5 months or so, but I’ve got a supervisor who, while not the tech-savvy type that I’ve usually reported to, is at least compassionate and understanding when my kid has gotten kicked off the bus again and I need to be a bit later than usual to make sure he got to school on time…but it seems like the rest of the company only notices the IT group when there’s a need for our service or a system outage. That’s fine, we’re a two-man department right now and like I said, I’m pretty new here.

10 Spice ups