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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This was on my FaceBook feed a couple of weeks ago:

“I think teaching is the only job in which you have to work before you get to work so you have work to do at work. Then you have no time to do work at work, so you have to work after work to catch up on all the work you didn’t do while at work.”

Sums it up quite well for me. [/quote]

It's not the only job where that is true.  I am a Fed at that is true.[/quote]

Fair enough.

Teacher here, and curious… 
What sort of work do you do at home? What “work before you get to work” does your job require? We know that in the context of teaching that is grading (so work can be returned/discussed) and planning lessons. That’s my Sunday-Thursday nights.

No snark intended at all. I’m just curious what this looks like for other professions.[/quote]

I'm a computer and network administrator for NASA.  I run and maintain a mid-size network supporting the flight control software for a mission due to launch in 3 years.  I help design, purchase the equipment, configure it, and maintain it so that my team of software programmers, hardware engineers, electronics engineers and integration and testing specialists can put together one of the major components of a multi-billion dollar satellite that will service satellites currently in orbit.

What do I do?  I often have to do installations, maintenance and updates on systems outside of regular business hours because if I do this work during regular business hours, it means that several dozen people are sitting around idle because the critical systems they need to do their work, is down.  During the business days, I am responsible for the IT security for over 80 systems.  I have to ensure that these systems are not susceptible to external threats, including ones that have already been identified are exploiting and compromising systems out on the Internet.  I also supervise several other system administrators in their work.  I am responsible for ensuring that our systems are backed up and recover files that are somehow lost in the regular course of business.  I also sit in on various meetings from our agency, our team and the rest of the flight mission to help coordinate our components of the mission with other teams and ensure that we are meeting government regulations.  As the team design and apply new updates, if they need any additional hardware, software, firmware for the systems, it is my job to figure out what h/w, s/w will meet their needs, price it, procure it through the terrible government procurement system, acquire it, install it physically, configure it on-line and get it up and running and help to integrate it in with the other software and systems that we use.  And I have to write security system documentation and the manuals for everything that we use so that other people can assist with maintaining all of this and to ensure that we comply with federal IT security regulations.  My job takes about 60 hours per week, and all of that is active work with computers, people and systems.  I have over 30 years of engineering, computer and network experience.  I make more than most other people in my role in federal government contracting, but I make significantly less than my peers who work in the private sector.

The average for people doing my job is in the $100K-$140K range.  I make $170K.  My peers in private sector make $150-400K.[/quote]

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