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Interestingly, stress does not seem to hinder job satisfaction. Of the managers who described their jobs as being not very or not at all stressful, 83 percent said they are satisfied with their jobs. Of those who reported their jobs as very or moderately stressful, a slightly higher number, 85 percent, said they are satisfied. "I'm both satisfied and very stressed," says Gill, who has worked in th e networking profession for a dozen years. Among the most stressful aspects of his job, Gill says, is finding and keeping talented personnel. "We're not hiring enough people for jobs like programmers, network technicians and helpdesk reps. It's difficult to get people and to keep them here," he says.

Cummings of Owens Illinois says the level of stress greatly depends on managers' approach to their jobs. "It can be very stressful if you are a perfectionist, which most network professionals are," he explains. "It's also stressful when many people in the organization know a lot about different technologies and everyone has a different opinion on what should be done."

Despite the high level of job satisfaction among the managers as a whole, one-fourth of the respondents said they anticipate changing jobs in the next year. But that's down from 29 percent in the 1997 survey. Twenty-two percent in this year's survey said they were unsure if they would change jo bs.

Of those who expect to change jobs, 39 percent said it was to improve their compensation. Other reasons included finding better opportunity for advancement, 35 percent; working in a better company environment, 30 percent; doing more interesting work, 23 percent; having more responsibility, 11 percent; and working fewer hours, 3 percent.