I worked at Apple back when they had a sabbatical - 5 weeks after 5 years. I never took vacation. Took off during the Fall vaction+holidays+sabatical=3 months trip around the world. I was deathly afraid that when I returned I'd be so far behind. Guess what - everything was the same. Lesson learned: Take your time off.
It sometimes helps me to remember that resting can be a way of investing in future productivity. A good multi-hour activity, especially one without checking your devices, can have a really non-linear effect on my productivity especially if I have been feeling stuck on a problem. So sometimes the most productive thing to do is to rest :) Hopefully that helps
I will preface this with the caveat that the advice I am giving is easier said than done.
Take vacation. Even if it feels like it will hurt the team, the real thing hurting them (and you) is that there isn't a system of trust between everyone. Take a week off, when you come back, figure out what people were blocked on, what broke that only you could fix, etc. and then work on improving those single points of failure. Driving yourself towards burnout is not doing yourself or your team any favors.
> Just wish I had more time off. Got a lot of vacation days. But our team is so small that taking the time off makes me feel guilty.
Try to remember: If you take time off and the business/team/project suffers, it's not your fault, it's your company's fault for failing to build in a staffing safety margin and failing to plan for the 100% expected event of people using their vacation time.
Why do you think you have to be productive all the time? What a strange idea! Isn’t the point of working that you can then afford to kick back and do whatever you want outside of work?
> But a part of my brain says that I can't spare the 3+ hours that it takes to go to the theatre. That it would be unproductive.
This kind of thing invades my decision making daily. I "blame" the high-demand for excellence at the tech firms I've worked at, and a personal obsession with self-help. It's whittled down my capacity for fun.
The only thing I've found help is to invest in something else I value highly - a hobby, friendship, family time. At the end of the day TV and movies (while enjoyable) aren't all that important compared to the obligation you feel to co-workers.
Take slowly increasing amounts of time off - think of it as helping to build team resilience. In all seriousness it's a necessary part of team health, and a pre-planned, well-communicated few days is absolute "easy mode" that they can use to ladder up to the inevitable unknown-unknown they will someday have to face.
are you unproductive if you are making income and you are doing enough at work to not cost your job. if you are pursuing goals, at work or otherwise, like a promotion, then you feel unproductive doing other things. it will come down to prioritization of tasks. modern day requires a lot of admin work and we are bogged down not knowing how to delegate and manage.
I think overall things are better but definitely some areas of worry.
I took last week off and really just enjoyed a staycation of doing whatever I felt like. Practiced guitar, read some, played Magic like every day, and had the time & stress capacity to handle our fridge going out suddenly.
The main thing is I'm worried where things are going. For the first time, because of the market, I'm projected to make less this year than I did last, which is a first. I'm not on board with where my team's roadmap is going. The project I've been working on for two years has been on the chopping block the entire time...while I'm simultaneously told it's "super important." I get calls from my family in Texas as they're having to prepare for major power outages. My wife's super stressed from the school shooting (and we don't even have kids).
For the pay thing, I know I should be looking and applying, but just thinking about interviewing gives me dark thoughts. I just cannot believe that after 10+ years of doing this job and doing it well, I still have to explain to these dipshit recruiters that "no really, I'm a FULL-stack developer. I may not have direct experience with Your Thing but I've worked on a hundred things I didn't know because I can fucking Figure It OUT. I have the degrees, I have the experience. Oh and your little LeetCode problems are bullshit. NO ONE is out there finding the longest increasing subsequence of an integer array." Then I feel guilty for even applying because nearly no one will pay me more than what I currently make and still let me work the strict 9-5 I do. My work isn't stressful, it's just frustrating and pointless. But isn't all work? But how can I stand by a "promotion" that literally resulted in me earning less b/c of how much is in stock?
I guess I should count my blessings. Good health, decent wealth, and good free time. I've been enjoying my hobbies of playing Magic and guitar. The weather is getting to be nice enough for a cookout and I've got a 3day weekend in a few hours.
Took a new job this month, my first working on a product at any real scale. Maybe it's just the honeymoon phase, but I couldn't be happier. Sure it's a little awkward, but I'll take a remote kubernetes cluster over working in an airgapped network any day. Gladly take Jira over Gantt charts. Pay is excellent. Team is outstanding — and wow (!) is it diverse. It looks like the world.
I feel thankful that:
1. I got in when I did. I don't get the sense that our platform is directly impacted by the turmoil in the markets, but I do think it would've been a lot harder to negotiate my current salary, today.
2. I trusted my instincts over Glassdoor. At the end of the day, I had enough high-quality data points to look beyond the company's abysmal employee reviews there. Namely, all 4 engineers I met during the interview process were kind and patient with me during technicals, and incredibly sharp. Seemed like people I'd want to work with. Really glad that I chose to focus on the right signals, because the company that's described online seems like an entirely different place than where I work.
I teach on the second floor of a city school where budget issues mean we don't have metal doors to the classrooms (older building, first floor has them). Every room has a metal cabinet though, and so our barricade procedure for the room is to lock the door, slide the cabinet in front of it, then kick out the furniture sliders from underneath the cabinet. Today, us second floor teachers pooled our personal money (near end of the school year in the US, discretionary funds are low) to buy reams of printer paper to stack inside and fill the cabinet, so that it has stopping power for bullets. Office supply store was nice enough to give for cost when they found out what it was for.
I don't mean to set off an arms control debate here, especially since I have a particular viewpoint on this, but I've found among many tech workers there's a certain blindness to ground reality. If you have a teacher or educator in your life, please check in on them this week. If you're well-off, or even not as much, understand that your profession is (wrongly or rightly) valued more than ours, so if you organize and amplify the voices of other roles, it will help immensely.
I think it's extremely scary that in the world's richest country, writing stuff about schools like "we don't have metal doors", "our barricade procedure" and "stopping power for bullets" is considered perfectly normal.
I was reading your comment and I just WTF'ed 5 times in a row. As a European, it's hard to wrap my mind around how simultaneously awesome and terrible the US has become. I feel terrible for you, and I'm extremely happy my kids go to a school without guards, without metal doors, with multiple, unguarded entrances, and so on. I hope your countrymen get their shit together and that someday this stuff feels like scary shit from the past. All the best to you until then, this stuff isn't OK and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
> Today, us second floor teachers pooled our personal money..
> If you're well-off, or even not as much, understand that your profession is (wrongly or rightly) valued more than ours
It's some weird science fiction reality we live in where those responsible for raising the next generation of our race are compensated minimally and asked for so much. While a lot of us reel in 10x a teacher's salary to improve business processes which are mostly just selling non-essential goods.
I used to participate in reddit's teacher gift program. Are you on this?
It is so sad, and infuriating(!) that you have to do this. It seems that an immediate action the federal government could do is devote funding toward 'fortification' of schools. Others know better that I how best to do this but it seems like something realistic that could happen now (unlike almost any gun control measure, or even something foolhardy like arming teachers (IMO)).
I think the answer to education is to break up large schools and have schools that are no larger than 100-150 kids in total. 10x the number of schools and have individual attention to kids and teachers both. Fire the bad teachers quickly. Have larger communal facilities for things like sports and more outdoor activities like a form of scouts.
I do value the teaching profession, I wish the pay was better. Despite the current events, I do not think they need more protection. I am in favor of gun control and I am in no way saying there are not issues.
Have a high-paying job in IT (DevOps, Cloud), same company for 10 years, two kids and a loving wife that are luckily supportive of my situation.
February
Had my first depressive phase in January. 2 days where I could not get out of bed and don't remember what happened. The weeks after that were kind of blurry, almost like watching myself from the outside. I could not trust my own judgements and had to refrain from verbal communication due to being snappy and overly agressive. Started a diary, writing down my thoughts and feelings and in hindsight it is really difficult to believe that I wrote those lines. Many things stopped making sense. Material values became disgusting and I feel that the things I do at work do not have any impact. What worried me the most is not enough quality time with the kids. I simply do not have the energy after 8h of meaningless work to inspire and teach them the way I would like. How can I preach values and be a role model if I'm stuck at a job I don't like anymore?
April
Fast forward two months. I took the best decision I had in the last couple years. Took three weeks off from from work, family and the internet. Spent them in a different country with people whom life dealt way worse cards than me. Helps to put things into perspective. Those three weeks alone helped me to put priorites back into place and appreciate the thing I have. Stopped watching the news and don't give a flying f about work anymore. Will quit at the end of the year and hopefully find something more meaningful.
I did this back in the early `80s when living in Los Angles. Back then I'd get off work, grab some fast food on the way home, and then turn on the TV News and watch it. The station I'd watch was, at the time, a model for today's "FOX News" and is now a FOX station. They had 3, 1/2 hour news programs back to back. The first 1/2 hour was local LA/Californa news, the 2nd was US news, the 3rd was World News.
In each of those shows they focused on murders, robberies, car crashes, etc. By the end of the 3rd show I'd be so depressed I felt like shit. Finally, one day, I realized I couldn't consume every awful thing they broadcast because, and more importantly, most all of it didn't effect me personally.
So I quit watching the "News", and it didn't take long at all before I was enjoying life again.
Nowadays I "monitor" the news as opposed to "consuming" it. I don't watch any News at all on TV. I watch selected videos on YouTube to get the gist of a story and when the opining starts I move on.
Not great. Probably a better day than others given I had sex for the first time since I got divorced. Admittedly - it was not with someone I expected or had a strong desire for. I just seemed to follow through as to avoid an even longer dry spell and gather more data on what some women think about me. Not really surprising but women who will have sex with you tend to think highly of you. Fortunately - I also tend to be an underpromise and overdeliver personality… so expectations are usually never that high.
Since my divorce, things have been rough. They were rough before but at least I had a partner. I don’t have kids and am in my early 30’s but the separation and lack of support network has been really evident the last year. Desiring kids and seeing no hope for that happening has been quite difficult to live with.
I’ve decided to quit my job/hope I get fired (severance), live off a meager amount of savings (failed IPO has basically taken any savings I had built up and invested into stock options), and solo travel in Europe for 2-3 months or whatever I can withstand emotionally/financially. I’ll be going to events and meeting people that participate in a mutual hobby. It’s not going to be great timing because it will be insufferably hot but I have no choice here. I have to change things and keep iterating. I’m looking at leaving SV after being here for 7 years and moving to NYC - not because I like nyc or will enjoy it more but simply because dating as a straight man in SV is one of the hardest places in the world. There are 50% more single men than women in Santa Clara County between 25-34. The ratio isn’t much better in SF (especially when you consider many men commute into the city). It’s just too difficult and it’s hard to differentiate from the crowd - plus lots of women have trauma/stigma built into the persona that they’ll hammer onto me (even if I am wildly different).
So, yeah, shit sucks but I’m doing what I’ve always done - trying extremely hard, changing strategies, and pushing forward as always.
Being single in SV must be hell. The gender imbalance in tech is so bad - it's made me think a few times I need to get out if I just want to meet someone.
Not great. I got separated and have been struggling with depression the last couple years. I'm stuck in a foreign, expensive location paying spousal support so I barely have any money left over and no family and few friends. Rents keep going up and I don't see how I'm ever going to buy a place now or retire. My single friends who are junior to me are grinding leetcode and getting into big tech companies, making twice as much as me, which makes me feel left behind. I'm either in single dad mode or spending my free time catching up on household jobs, and preparing for interviews is really tough to fit in (but I started doing it anyways). I feel completely stuck and screwed, now throw the anxiety of interviews on top of that, and I can never relax. Just steeling myself now for failing my interviews due to lack of time to prepare.
compare yesterday's you vs today's you.
comparing yourself to others is a losing game, often detrimental.
I'd consider moving away from the current place of living and reorganize your thoughts.
Tend to swing between extremes but mostly just frustrated. There's a new crisis every five minutes following by politicians handling it extremely poorly with zero integrity. Why do we put the most greedy and foolish people into power?
For once, I just want to know things are getting better in the world. It's not doomscrolling that's done this to me. It's just being conscious of what's happening. There isn't much good news going around. I might be a nerd but I couldn't give a fuck about SpaceX launching a new rocket or something, that doesn't constitute "good" news in my eyes.
I'm working hard, doing what I do best, and earning good money. But I'm still being punished financially and it feels like my goals are moving further away, not getting closer. What's the point anymore?
I voted kind of okay. Feeling somewhat trapped in basic loop, which is particularly annoying considering how it's no longer winter and nice outside.
Job's doing pretty well, pays pretty well for my geographic region (nowhere close to SV wages though), main client is pretty good and the project should have high impact and I'm doing significant work on it, but it's not in a field that particularly interests me.
In my spare time I'm helping a non-profit as kind of a mentor for junior engineers as well as a little dev work here and there. Sometimes I feel guilty about not putting more time and effort into it than I do.
Also trying to work on my own video game projects in my spare time as well, but finding the energy and motivation for it has been pretty low lately.
But it really just feels like my life revolves around three C's: coding, cleaning, and cooking. And taking the dogs on walks a 3-4 times a week. Haven't done a whole lot social lately, most of my friends have kind of drifted a bit since the pandemic. Wanting to go out in nature more but it feels like I need most of that time to make any progress on projects.
And I want to go on trips but they've gotten so expensive and my wife has very limited PTO this year anyway, so we only have one significant trip planned much later in the year and even that is a compromise from what we originally planned (now only driving one state away for a week, instead of go halfway across the country to see a couple national parks for two weeks).
But hey, could be a lot worse. And financially we're a lot better off than most Americans, especially right now.
When student loan payments start kicking in again in September that's going to hurt, though. Not for me, mine are paid off, but my wife has some pretty large ones. She's been paying them down some during this time, but not with as large of payments as she'll need to when they start up again (it's a little over half a mortgage payment every month).
You know how they say the least 20% of a project takes 80% of the time. I'm at that phase of one. I've the strict feature-set and roadmap ready but I can't just can't seem to finish it.
I'm not burnt out. I just want to start another project, learn another thing, but I'm forcing (in a good way, I believe) to complete this project and release it to friends and in a couple online forums. And yes, start using it myself! :)
Thanks for asking. Thanks for reading. I wish every one well!
Oof I’m in exactly the same spot at work for a project I’m running. It seems so close but every step forward seems to be uncovering one more step before the finish line.
Not great tbh. Might just use this opportunity to rant a bit. Maybe it’ll be cathartic.
For years I’ve felt increasingly physically unwell. Started as dizziness when walking outside. Nowadays I also feel utterly exhausted, and short of breath, often. Kinda like how you feel coming down with the flu, but like most of the time. It’s ruining my life, frankly.
I’ve had many tests done to exclude cardiac or neurological issues, plus a variety of general blood tests etc. Every doctor I’ve seen thinks there is nothing wrong, and at this point I feel embarrassed and ashamed for wasting their time.
So I’m trying to believe them, and I’m trying to work on the assumption that I have some kind of somatic symptom disorder. Pretty sure I’m depressed too, but mostly as a result of this, and the general negative direction it seems to be heading in. Maybe I need to see a psychiatrist and get on medication. I’ve done counselling in the past, which helped to some extent, so perhaps I’ll try it again. I don’t know anybody else who has been through something like this, so I feel a bit isolated in that regard.
Thankfully, I’m able to work, and I have a supportive family/relationship. So it’s not all bad.
One interesting implication is that I don’t give a shit about trivial annoyances in life. To the point where I can barely understand people who complain about e.g someone stealing their parking space or petty office drama. This might sound like a good thing, but I’m not sure. I worry it makes me a bit disconnected from normal life in a way that is probably unhealthy.
I'm on a similar boat with general malaise, breathing issues, and insomnia. Has been going on for about 2 years and has destroyed my quality of life and ability to do any kind of physical activity. Doctors have no idea and have essentially just told me to live with it.
It seems like being caught in limbo - being just well enough to work and subsist but too ill to go out and really do things. I just keep hoping one day it will just got away.
I can relate that I feel a lot like this too and the strange part is, I can work and perform as if nothing is wrong. Once I leave work, I want to do nothing, go no where, just stay home and think as little as possible until I have to do it all again the next day. Further, I've started in the last month to have episodes where I lose my memory and I go a few minutes without reacting to verbal commands to even answering questions not being aware that I'm out of it. CT showed no issues, blood no issues, cardiac so far no issues. Next step is neuro.
Past few months were going really well, until Monday I would have answered “very good”. This week went downhill very quickly. So, currently quite bad and taking time off to take care of myself ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
A bit more than two years ago my wife went back home to Japan to give birth to our daughter. Then covid hit and her stay there was prolonged. At some point she decided she'd rather stay there permanently.
I accepted that she wasn't going to change her mind, so I started doing everything I can to prepare for a variety of possible futures:
- Learning web development to transition from my current career as a university lecturer in an unrelated subject, as this would give me the possibility to sooner or later work remote which might allow me to move to Japan, and/or earn more so that I don't end up struggling to make ends meet in case of a divorce.
- Learning Japanese to a level where I can read most things and hold a decent conversation, to make the option of moving to Japan viable.
I went to Japan for a month recently and realized that it's basically impossible for me as a foreigner to ever have a satisfying social life there, despite speaking the language to a decent level. I'm not sure I can live there without completely destroying what's left of my mental health.
Now that I feel just about ready to start applying to some React/Node jobs, the market crashes and from what I've read many companies here in Europe are implementing hiring freezes, especially on Junior roles. On top of that the market in Austria has never been anywhere near as good as some other places. Of course I only need one job, but it's very demotivating.
Most days I spend 14-16 hours between my current job, commute, programming, and language learning. I basically enjoy all three of those things, but the grind is wearing me out. I find that when I take time to meet family and friends I'm so exhausted mentally that I often barely participate in conversations, and feel guilty the whole time that I'm not being productive.
I've felt very much in limbo for a few years. I'm facing some one-way doors about where I want to spend the next chapter/decade of my life. My reaction is mostly of fear.
Move back to my home country where my friends and family are. I only really like the lifestyle of the downtown core of a single city there. I'd give up permanent residency to the U.S. Pay cut would be to 1/3rd my current salary with a similar cost of living - probably never afford to buy a home. But I'd be closer to people I care about. And maybe live a life of not striving for more.
Or stay in the US where I currently am. I'm quite lonely, but enjoy a very comfortable lifestyle and US cities are beautiful and culturally interesting to me. I'm well compensated in my field, and not even near the ceiling. Could retire 15 years earlier here than otherwise. But always feel like I chose to be away from the people I love.
Pretty demotivated, working only lightly but still on the verge of burnout. Currently upgrading and older Rails 5 project to Rails 7. The Ruby part is okay, but guess what, dealing with JS sucks in a new, different way. Again.
Really looking forward to the summer though, I got an inflatable kayak (my first boat ever) and so far it's been a blast.
I got our app up to Rails 7 and it's refreshing. I also did the hard work to replace webpacker with esbuild and dartsass. Build times went from 14 minutes to < 2m and I could shave some more of that off with a bit of effort.
I'm taking every opportunity to replace stimulus reflex with turbo and that's paying dividends, too.
Also, I've bought a 15' West Wight Potter and am doing a bunch of work on that (well, the trailer right now, but once the trailer is done I can start on the boat). Looking forward for this foundational work to start paying off when I go sailing around the islands over summer.
> The Ruby part is okay, but guess what, dealing with JS sucks in a new, different way. Again.
Struggling with this also. It's crazy how "dealing with assets" has been the weak spot for Rails so consistently all these years (even though the specifics behind it have changed entirely 3+ times or more now).
After years of hard work to get to a point where I've got a good, well-paying job, a great boss, and a great team, I've been disappointed to realize that my company absolutely cannot fix a serious infrastructure/process issue in my org. It's a shame but I'll probably have to leave over this -- there's another team that constantly screws up MY team's output, making us look bad, botching our deadlines, and preventing us from committing to future improvements we absolutely want to do.
And word comes down from on high that we can't just stop consuming from the screwup team -- in fact, they're giving them MORE resources because they're super important and they'll totally not screw it up this time. Hard pass from me, the people on that team have not operated in good faith in the past, I can't imagine they'll start now, especially when they realize that there are no repercussions for their behavior.
Add in the mess that is society today, the fact that I don't believe in our economic system enough to truly plan for long-term stuff like retirement, kids, house buying, etc. Honestly I'd rather just move to Europe than deal with the USA...
Kind of sucks when you do everything right but other people drop the ball. Feels like that at work, and in society in general now.
I've been at the same company (more-or-less, due to acquisitions) for nearly 25 years, and I'm burning out, edging closer to pulling the eject lever. It's a bit daunting, since I haven't been to a job interview since the 90s. And I strongly suspect the reasons I want to leave won't necessarily be any better elsewhere.
I'm doing insanely well. Figured out that I could travel abroad while working my day job and that has completely transformed how I look at "vacations". No more checking if I have enough PTO. Currently exploring Spain, get up every morning and explore town and do touristy things, then sit out on my balcony and work from after lunch till around dinner time (like 10PM here), go out with friends. Rinse and repeat.
It’s been a rough year for me. Was burnt out from working 70 hours a week at a small startup so I decided to start interviewing.
Hit my head and had severe concussion symptoms for about four months. It was extremely difficult to manage work and still try to prep for interviews. Kept putting them off til January. Those several months were really crappy and I missed out on a lot of nice things planned with friends and family.
I interviewed a bunch in January and got a bunch of offers!
But my grandma died. Not too bad because she lived a long and healthy life but still sad. Silver lining is that I flew home and got to see my whole extended family. Also nice to see my core family since COVID interrupted our holidays.
2 days after flying back and accepting a job offer, my dad died of a heart attack. No words to describe it really.
My mom was dependent upon him and I’m the oldest child so pretty much everything has fallen to me. It’s been stressful managing the finances which are a lot worse than I thought. Fortunately my dad ran a small consulting business but I’ve had to take it over and it’s all unfamiliar. I’ve finally gotten it to a mostly stable place and we’re hoping to renew our contracts later this year, but I’m afraid that process will be stressful too.
The job I accepted is at a certain well known company that’s been experiencing a bit of a circus in the media and my job security is now at risk.
I also just got COVID and had to miss my partner’s family reunion. My other grandma just died and I’m starting to get worried about what’s next.
Overall it gives perspective I guess but still sucks. I keep a journal and it’s sad how long it’s been since I’ve had a pleasant weekend. Hopefully things trend up from here
[+] [-] racl101|3 years ago|reply
Conversely, if I don't have at least 4 days off in a row I don't know how to just relax and not try to do work.
I don't enjoy watching movies or TV anymore cause all I can think about is the fact that I'm not being productive.
I haven't gone to the movies since 2019 (since COVID) and I've been wanting to go.
But a part of my brain says that I can't spare the 3+ hours that it takes to go to the theatre. That it would be unproductive.
I don't know how to force myself to relax.
But other than I'm mostly good. I'm relatively healthy and am happy to have work and income at a time when people are struggling to get by.
So I honestly have it better than a LLLOT of people. I try not to take my blessings for granted.
[+] [-] strangattractor|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MobiusHorizons|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] athorax|3 years ago|reply
Take vacation. Even if it feels like it will hurt the team, the real thing hurting them (and you) is that there isn't a system of trust between everyone. Take a week off, when you come back, figure out what people were blocked on, what broke that only you could fix, etc. and then work on improving those single points of failure. Driving yourself towards burnout is not doing yourself or your team any favors.
[+] [-] ryandrake|3 years ago|reply
Try to remember: If you take time off and the business/team/project suffers, it's not your fault, it's your company's fault for failing to build in a staffing safety margin and failing to plan for the 100% expected event of people using their vacation time.
[+] [-] mbrodersen|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qgin|3 years ago|reply
Why is it important to always be productive? What bad things would occur if you were less productive?
[+] [-] wnolens|3 years ago|reply
This kind of thing invades my decision making daily. I "blame" the high-demand for excellence at the tech firms I've worked at, and a personal obsession with self-help. It's whittled down my capacity for fun.
The only thing I've found help is to invest in something else I value highly - a hobby, friendship, family time. At the end of the day TV and movies (while enjoyable) aren't all that important compared to the obligation you feel to co-workers.
[+] [-] orzig|3 years ago|reply
If nothing else, you will someday retire!
[+] [-] d0mine|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] balaji1|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] umutisik|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] valbaca|3 years ago|reply
I took last week off and really just enjoyed a staycation of doing whatever I felt like. Practiced guitar, read some, played Magic like every day, and had the time & stress capacity to handle our fridge going out suddenly.
The main thing is I'm worried where things are going. For the first time, because of the market, I'm projected to make less this year than I did last, which is a first. I'm not on board with where my team's roadmap is going. The project I've been working on for two years has been on the chopping block the entire time...while I'm simultaneously told it's "super important." I get calls from my family in Texas as they're having to prepare for major power outages. My wife's super stressed from the school shooting (and we don't even have kids).
For the pay thing, I know I should be looking and applying, but just thinking about interviewing gives me dark thoughts. I just cannot believe that after 10+ years of doing this job and doing it well, I still have to explain to these dipshit recruiters that "no really, I'm a FULL-stack developer. I may not have direct experience with Your Thing but I've worked on a hundred things I didn't know because I can fucking Figure It OUT. I have the degrees, I have the experience. Oh and your little LeetCode problems are bullshit. NO ONE is out there finding the longest increasing subsequence of an integer array." Then I feel guilty for even applying because nearly no one will pay me more than what I currently make and still let me work the strict 9-5 I do. My work isn't stressful, it's just frustrating and pointless. But isn't all work? But how can I stand by a "promotion" that literally resulted in me earning less b/c of how much is in stock?
I guess I should count my blessings. Good health, decent wealth, and good free time. I've been enjoying my hobbies of playing Magic and guitar. The weather is getting to be nice enough for a cookout and I've got a 3day weekend in a few hours.
[+] [-] neoncontrails|3 years ago|reply
I feel thankful that:
1. I got in when I did. I don't get the sense that our platform is directly impacted by the turmoil in the markets, but I do think it would've been a lot harder to negotiate my current salary, today.
2. I trusted my instincts over Glassdoor. At the end of the day, I had enough high-quality data points to look beyond the company's abysmal employee reviews there. Namely, all 4 engineers I met during the interview process were kind and patient with me during technicals, and incredibly sharp. Seemed like people I'd want to work with. Really glad that I chose to focus on the right signals, because the company that's described online seems like an entirely different place than where I work.
[+] [-] nsriv|3 years ago|reply
I don't mean to set off an arms control debate here, especially since I have a particular viewpoint on this, but I've found among many tech workers there's a certain blindness to ground reality. If you have a teacher or educator in your life, please check in on them this week. If you're well-off, or even not as much, understand that your profession is (wrongly or rightly) valued more than ours, so if you organize and amplify the voices of other roles, it will help immensely.
[+] [-] skrebbel|3 years ago|reply
I was reading your comment and I just WTF'ed 5 times in a row. As a European, it's hard to wrap my mind around how simultaneously awesome and terrible the US has become. I feel terrible for you, and I'm extremely happy my kids go to a school without guards, without metal doors, with multiple, unguarded entrances, and so on. I hope your countrymen get their shit together and that someday this stuff feels like scary shit from the past. All the best to you until then, this stuff isn't OK and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
[+] [-] wnolens|3 years ago|reply
> If you're well-off, or even not as much, understand that your profession is (wrongly or rightly) valued more than ours
It's some weird science fiction reality we live in where those responsible for raising the next generation of our race are compensated minimally and asked for so much. While a lot of us reel in 10x a teacher's salary to improve business processes which are mostly just selling non-essential goods.
I used to participate in reddit's teacher gift program. Are you on this?
[+] [-] lnwlebjel|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] farmerstan|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SapporoChris|3 years ago|reply
If you look up professions with the highest death rates. Teacher's are fairly low on the list, if they show up at all. https://www.insidermonkey.com/blog/15-professions-with-the-h...
[+] [-] moitessier|3 years ago|reply
February Had my first depressive phase in January. 2 days where I could not get out of bed and don't remember what happened. The weeks after that were kind of blurry, almost like watching myself from the outside. I could not trust my own judgements and had to refrain from verbal communication due to being snappy and overly agressive. Started a diary, writing down my thoughts and feelings and in hindsight it is really difficult to believe that I wrote those lines. Many things stopped making sense. Material values became disgusting and I feel that the things I do at work do not have any impact. What worried me the most is not enough quality time with the kids. I simply do not have the energy after 8h of meaningless work to inspire and teach them the way I would like. How can I preach values and be a role model if I'm stuck at a job I don't like anymore?
April Fast forward two months. I took the best decision I had in the last couple years. Took three weeks off from from work, family and the internet. Spent them in a different country with people whom life dealt way worse cards than me. Helps to put things into perspective. Those three weeks alone helped me to put priorites back into place and appreciate the thing I have. Stopped watching the news and don't give a flying f about work anymore. Will quit at the end of the year and hopefully find something more meaningful.
[+] [-] oblib|3 years ago|reply
I did this back in the early `80s when living in Los Angles. Back then I'd get off work, grab some fast food on the way home, and then turn on the TV News and watch it. The station I'd watch was, at the time, a model for today's "FOX News" and is now a FOX station. They had 3, 1/2 hour news programs back to back. The first 1/2 hour was local LA/Californa news, the 2nd was US news, the 3rd was World News.
In each of those shows they focused on murders, robberies, car crashes, etc. By the end of the 3rd show I'd be so depressed I felt like shit. Finally, one day, I realized I couldn't consume every awful thing they broadcast because, and more importantly, most all of it didn't effect me personally.
So I quit watching the "News", and it didn't take long at all before I was enjoying life again.
Nowadays I "monitor" the news as opposed to "consuming" it. I don't watch any News at all on TV. I watch selected videos on YouTube to get the gist of a story and when the opining starts I move on.
[+] [-] prash_ant|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bradlys|3 years ago|reply
Since my divorce, things have been rough. They were rough before but at least I had a partner. I don’t have kids and am in my early 30’s but the separation and lack of support network has been really evident the last year. Desiring kids and seeing no hope for that happening has been quite difficult to live with.
I’ve decided to quit my job/hope I get fired (severance), live off a meager amount of savings (failed IPO has basically taken any savings I had built up and invested into stock options), and solo travel in Europe for 2-3 months or whatever I can withstand emotionally/financially. I’ll be going to events and meeting people that participate in a mutual hobby. It’s not going to be great timing because it will be insufferably hot but I have no choice here. I have to change things and keep iterating. I’m looking at leaving SV after being here for 7 years and moving to NYC - not because I like nyc or will enjoy it more but simply because dating as a straight man in SV is one of the hardest places in the world. There are 50% more single men than women in Santa Clara County between 25-34. The ratio isn’t much better in SF (especially when you consider many men commute into the city). It’s just too difficult and it’s hard to differentiate from the crowd - plus lots of women have trauma/stigma built into the persona that they’ll hammer onto me (even if I am wildly different).
So, yeah, shit sucks but I’m doing what I’ve always done - trying extremely hard, changing strategies, and pushing forward as always.
[+] [-] nvarsj|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwaway99923|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] taesu|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lifeplusplus|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] c7DJTLrn|3 years ago|reply
For once, I just want to know things are getting better in the world. It's not doomscrolling that's done this to me. It's just being conscious of what's happening. There isn't much good news going around. I might be a nerd but I couldn't give a fuck about SpaceX launching a new rocket or something, that doesn't constitute "good" news in my eyes.
I'm working hard, doing what I do best, and earning good money. But I'm still being punished financially and it feels like my goals are moving further away, not getting closer. What's the point anymore?
[+] [-] cableshaft|3 years ago|reply
Job's doing pretty well, pays pretty well for my geographic region (nowhere close to SV wages though), main client is pretty good and the project should have high impact and I'm doing significant work on it, but it's not in a field that particularly interests me.
In my spare time I'm helping a non-profit as kind of a mentor for junior engineers as well as a little dev work here and there. Sometimes I feel guilty about not putting more time and effort into it than I do.
Also trying to work on my own video game projects in my spare time as well, but finding the energy and motivation for it has been pretty low lately.
But it really just feels like my life revolves around three C's: coding, cleaning, and cooking. And taking the dogs on walks a 3-4 times a week. Haven't done a whole lot social lately, most of my friends have kind of drifted a bit since the pandemic. Wanting to go out in nature more but it feels like I need most of that time to make any progress on projects.
And I want to go on trips but they've gotten so expensive and my wife has very limited PTO this year anyway, so we only have one significant trip planned much later in the year and even that is a compromise from what we originally planned (now only driving one state away for a week, instead of go halfway across the country to see a couple national parks for two weeks).
But hey, could be a lot worse. And financially we're a lot better off than most Americans, especially right now.
When student loan payments start kicking in again in September that's going to hurt, though. Not for me, mine are paid off, but my wife has some pretty large ones. She's been paying them down some during this time, but not with as large of payments as she'll need to when they start up again (it's a little over half a mortgage payment every month).
[+] [-] kretaceous|3 years ago|reply
I'm not burnt out. I just want to start another project, learn another thing, but I'm forcing (in a good way, I believe) to complete this project and release it to friends and in a couple online forums. And yes, start using it myself! :)
Thanks for asking. Thanks for reading. I wish every one well!
[+] [-] cas8|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cfyijvrghbxert|3 years ago|reply
For years I’ve felt increasingly physically unwell. Started as dizziness when walking outside. Nowadays I also feel utterly exhausted, and short of breath, often. Kinda like how you feel coming down with the flu, but like most of the time. It’s ruining my life, frankly.
I’ve had many tests done to exclude cardiac or neurological issues, plus a variety of general blood tests etc. Every doctor I’ve seen thinks there is nothing wrong, and at this point I feel embarrassed and ashamed for wasting their time.
So I’m trying to believe them, and I’m trying to work on the assumption that I have some kind of somatic symptom disorder. Pretty sure I’m depressed too, but mostly as a result of this, and the general negative direction it seems to be heading in. Maybe I need to see a psychiatrist and get on medication. I’ve done counselling in the past, which helped to some extent, so perhaps I’ll try it again. I don’t know anybody else who has been through something like this, so I feel a bit isolated in that regard.
Thankfully, I’m able to work, and I have a supportive family/relationship. So it’s not all bad.
One interesting implication is that I don’t give a shit about trivial annoyances in life. To the point where I can barely understand people who complain about e.g someone stealing their parking space or petty office drama. This might sound like a good thing, but I’m not sure. I worry it makes me a bit disconnected from normal life in a way that is probably unhealthy.
[+] [-] blacksmithgu|3 years ago|reply
It seems like being caught in limbo - being just well enough to work and subsist but too ill to go out and really do things. I just keep hoping one day it will just got away.
[+] [-] AH4oFVbPT4f8|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dgellow|3 years ago|reply
Take care of your mental health folks!
[+] [-] cehrlich|3 years ago|reply
A bit more than two years ago my wife went back home to Japan to give birth to our daughter. Then covid hit and her stay there was prolonged. At some point she decided she'd rather stay there permanently.
I accepted that she wasn't going to change her mind, so I started doing everything I can to prepare for a variety of possible futures: - Learning web development to transition from my current career as a university lecturer in an unrelated subject, as this would give me the possibility to sooner or later work remote which might allow me to move to Japan, and/or earn more so that I don't end up struggling to make ends meet in case of a divorce. - Learning Japanese to a level where I can read most things and hold a decent conversation, to make the option of moving to Japan viable.
I went to Japan for a month recently and realized that it's basically impossible for me as a foreigner to ever have a satisfying social life there, despite speaking the language to a decent level. I'm not sure I can live there without completely destroying what's left of my mental health.
Now that I feel just about ready to start applying to some React/Node jobs, the market crashes and from what I've read many companies here in Europe are implementing hiring freezes, especially on Junior roles. On top of that the market in Austria has never been anywhere near as good as some other places. Of course I only need one job, but it's very demotivating.
Most days I spend 14-16 hours between my current job, commute, programming, and language learning. I basically enjoy all three of those things, but the grind is wearing me out. I find that when I take time to meet family and friends I'm so exhausted mentally that I often barely participate in conversations, and feel guilty the whole time that I'm not being productive.
[+] [-] wnolens|3 years ago|reply
Move back to my home country where my friends and family are. I only really like the lifestyle of the downtown core of a single city there. I'd give up permanent residency to the U.S. Pay cut would be to 1/3rd my current salary with a similar cost of living - probably never afford to buy a home. But I'd be closer to people I care about. And maybe live a life of not striving for more.
Or stay in the US where I currently am. I'm quite lonely, but enjoy a very comfortable lifestyle and US cities are beautiful and culturally interesting to me. I'm well compensated in my field, and not even near the ceiling. Could retire 15 years earlier here than otherwise. But always feel like I chose to be away from the people I love.
[+] [-] taesu|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Toutouxc|3 years ago|reply
Really looking forward to the summer though, I got an inflatable kayak (my first boat ever) and so far it's been a blast.
[+] [-] morgangrubb|3 years ago|reply
I'm taking every opportunity to replace stimulus reflex with turbo and that's paying dividends, too.
Also, I've bought a 15' West Wight Potter and am doing a bunch of work on that (well, the trailer right now, but once the trailer is done I can start on the boat). Looking forward for this foundational work to start paying off when I go sailing around the islands over summer.
[+] [-] maxsilver|3 years ago|reply
Struggling with this also. It's crazy how "dealing with assets" has been the weak spot for Rails so consistently all these years (even though the specifics behind it have changed entirely 3+ times or more now).
[+] [-] adamredwoods|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mmcgaha|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dont__panic|3 years ago|reply
And word comes down from on high that we can't just stop consuming from the screwup team -- in fact, they're giving them MORE resources because they're super important and they'll totally not screw it up this time. Hard pass from me, the people on that team have not operated in good faith in the past, I can't imagine they'll start now, especially when they realize that there are no repercussions for their behavior.
Add in the mess that is society today, the fact that I don't believe in our economic system enough to truly plan for long-term stuff like retirement, kids, house buying, etc. Honestly I'd rather just move to Europe than deal with the USA...
Kind of sucks when you do everything right but other people drop the ball. Feels like that at work, and in society in general now.
[+] [-] cbm-vic-20|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aaaaaaaaata|3 years ago|reply
So much variety in workplaces, especially now, and you being senior, you should have your pick.
What are you trying to avoid?
[+] [-] _fat_santa|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] turkeygizzard|3 years ago|reply
Hit my head and had severe concussion symptoms for about four months. It was extremely difficult to manage work and still try to prep for interviews. Kept putting them off til January. Those several months were really crappy and I missed out on a lot of nice things planned with friends and family.
I interviewed a bunch in January and got a bunch of offers!
But my grandma died. Not too bad because she lived a long and healthy life but still sad. Silver lining is that I flew home and got to see my whole extended family. Also nice to see my core family since COVID interrupted our holidays.
2 days after flying back and accepting a job offer, my dad died of a heart attack. No words to describe it really.
My mom was dependent upon him and I’m the oldest child so pretty much everything has fallen to me. It’s been stressful managing the finances which are a lot worse than I thought. Fortunately my dad ran a small consulting business but I’ve had to take it over and it’s all unfamiliar. I’ve finally gotten it to a mostly stable place and we’re hoping to renew our contracts later this year, but I’m afraid that process will be stressful too.
The job I accepted is at a certain well known company that’s been experiencing a bit of a circus in the media and my job security is now at risk.
I also just got COVID and had to miss my partner’s family reunion. My other grandma just died and I’m starting to get worried about what’s next.
Overall it gives perspective I guess but still sucks. I keep a journal and it’s sad how long it’s been since I’ve had a pleasant weekend. Hopefully things trend up from here
[+] [-] taesu|3 years ago|reply