Question:
What are people doing out there to keep their
employees happy and reduce the stress of
techsupport? Particularly in shops where
the average call is either a bug or a problem?
Answer:
Beer. Lots and lots of beer.
Seriously, informal recreation is really important for a group's
morale. We go out for lunch every so often, and those of us who like
to go to the pub do so after work. (Probably more often than we
should...) We do enforce Rule #6: Quitting time is 5:00. In other
words, Thou Shalt Not Discuss Work When Thou Art Playing. This is
EXTREMELY IMPORTANT, because it's work that you're trying to escape,
and using your off-time to talk about it just makes it worse.
A few of us have set aside Wednesday nights as "Chess and Skating
Night", where we hang out at the pub, have some dinner and beers, and
kill time playing chess until the rink opens. (Nothing like a good
skate to help blow off steam.) A few of us have been playing roller
hockey in the parking lot after work on Fridays.
We did finally get a fairly substantial budget for "off-site
activities" this year (thanks, Francis!), but other than that, all of
our recreation is off the clock and out of our own pockets. It's part
of the nature of the job; technical support is very high-stress work,
and there's not much you can do about it while it's happening. It's
important to get out of the building and HAVE FUN.
We've started playing paintball recently.
Every Friday we descend upon a different, unsuspecting
micro-brewery.
We talk a lot of shop in our off hours. Not CUSTOMERS-- shop.
