No, this is the infuriating part that outsiders don't understand. It's not about the money, it's about the headache over something that you could have resolved in minutes rather than hours. Perhaps IT used to be more relaxed for most professionals where you could just say "fuck it, easy work". The reality today is that you start your day with a ticket queue of dumb stupid problems, most of which are resolved with a reboot. The hardest part is getting the users on the phone to sign off on a job done or to turn on their computer so you can fix the damn thing. I had a user run me around for a month over a printer issue. If their computer was on they were using it and too busy to let me work on it for 5 min. When they weren't "incredibly busy" they immediately turned the computer off. But would email me first thing each day asking if the problem has been resolved and emailing my boss to grill me about it. Then there's the likelihood that you're also working on bigger projects. A $80k server upgrade project that you're desperately trying to keep on schedule because the client seems hell bent on making changes constantly. You've got 4hrs to get the report out to everyone, but now a server you're working on won't reboot. You waste 4 hrs driving to push a power button and now on your drive back you're doing damage control on the project because you're late all because 4 adults couldn't be bothered to push a power button. Or you're doing a server migration, email and file server on 100+ people. You have one night to do it but just when you start at 10pm the server won't come back up. Now you have to drive for hours at 10pm to push a button, getting back to your desk after midnight, you now start the migration but come up short on time. Now if you're smart you're drafting emails and letters at 4am to send out at 7am to all employees and owners to not touch the computers because you'll need until 10am to complete your work. But people come in anyway and start hammering your systems mid migration, now you've got 100+ people calling and emailing you that things don't work... IT today is expected to do so much more than 40 years ago when it was, "I'm so lucky I get paid to drive for hours and push a button on a big important box." Because for the last 20 yrs of IT it's been "FUCK FUCK FUCK, why is this server not back up, fuck, this is going to nuke my stats. My boss is already chewing me out over my metrics. I don't know why I'm taking 20% longer this month to close out tickets but this ticket is not going to help me. If I have to drive out I'm going to be fucked on my next performance review." Do you know how to hide 2hrs of taking your own notes on everything each day? Performance reviews are monthly and they always expect you to perfectly recall everything that's happened from memory. They have statements and paperwork to refer too. You have your memory, so unless you want to be the scapegoat for everything that happens you better have a more detailed record to reference when questioned because it will happen.