Where do you draw the line?

Anyone who works in a job that requires an on call status should have stoped and asked that question there at some point in their career. I have been asking it for the last few weeks myself.

There are a million list of x number of types of y people in the world and both of those are pretty arbatraty. I know www.cracked.com has plenty of those types of list and they can be very entertaining to read. But when it comes to work how many types of people are there really? From the bosses perspective there are only two, those that get the job done and those who don't. Over the years I have always worked to be in the first of those two, and never let myself be called the other.

But are those yours, mine, or anyone eleses only choices? Can I be the guy who bust my but at work, but still needs more time to finish a project? Or do I end up being the whiner who just makes excuses? Can I be the over worked Network Eng. who is doing the best he can filling the role of Server Admin? Or am I seen as the over paid guy who can't prioritize his task list?

I am a person who really hates to not get a job done. I know that at times it may not be perfect, it may not be 'right', but it will work and it will get the job done. I have an irrational need to figure things out, and I love new tech stuff to play with. I can't stand to spend money and then see new stuff sitting around not being used. I think it is this mental phobia that causes me to stay late at work and to work on my days off.

So when do you know it is time to say enough? When do you stop and say I am not going to work another 12 or 14 hour day? On decide I'm not coming in on my day off?

Now, I know that when a school is down I have to respond. I have to take care of our customers they are the reason I have a job and we have the budget to buy the stuff I want to play with. So I am not looking at those times as an issue or as times that should be limited.

I'm looking at the other issues like my new Wireless gear. Should I stay late to get everything configured and installed so that I can deploy the new APs. Well, it turns out there are a dozen other little changes that have to be made to make the new gear work. They are all little changes, and it really doesn't seem that they will take all that long. I think you know where this is going though. One change leads to another and that change ties into another project that if I plan it right can be taken care of with a single set of changes and a single outage window instead of two. The I am looking at building up so much more work that then seems to build on itself.

What about the other projects? SPAM filter, VMware, Active Directory, Web Filter, Business Plans, and I don't know how many other major projects! And as anyone knows, no matter what the vendor/sales weasle claims, the easy install/conversion is never easy, and it is never quick. Out of all the projects I have worked through I have never had one with out issues. If I ever do have a product that works 100% perfect with out any calls to tech support I may just have do it over just to make sure that it really was right.

Now, back to the problem at hand. When should I stop and put everything down and go home knowing that it doesn't have to be done tonight? I don't like leaving projects undone or partly done. I think it is mostly because the next day I spend way too much time getting back to where I was and what was done the night before.

The other problem is that when I look at the hours I put in and think about taking time off there is always a reason not too. There is always something that has to be done. How do you pick when to cut and run?

I know this is an odd post, and it rambles a bit, but it is something all IT folks need to consider.