[yibbix]

It’s been almost two years since I was layed off. Unlike him though, I have not been working on side projects. This time has actually made me realize that I do not enjoy software, even working on projects for myself and as a hobby.

I’ve slowly spent all my savings, moved back in with my folks, and still don’t have a job. It’s rough. I have no idea what I wanna do in life. So I decided to join the navy recently, to give me the next 4 years to figure it out.

[Muskyinhere]

You are on hn so let me ask you this: Are/were you a nerd? Did you play around with systems, use linux for fun etc.?

If yes, you just might be depressed or haven't realized that a job might be shit anyway.

If no, interesting though that you are aware of hn (i have to assume a certain interest because i know plenty of software people avg ones, not being aware of hn at all).

But hf at the navy.

[oooyay]

That's not really the qualifier you think it is. I've been coding and hacking stuff up since I was nine. Corporate programming is a great perversion of the kind of stuff I find fun to do in my spare time. In order to be successful you not only need to be a good programmer and curious person but you also need to know how to navigate corporate power structures (explicit and implicit), you need to be somewhat of a therapist helping people tap into their true problems, and above all else you need to be excellent at compartmentalization.

[hudon]

similar boat. Been doing software for 15 years and I used to love it. Learning new languages, side projects, contributing to open source, you name it. At every job I became less enthusiastic, like the technical problems all became the same. The actual problems became ones of people, management, customer, product, etc., and I had no interest in solving those. So this year I decided to not code... and I don't miss it at all. However I have no idea what I will work on next.

I was in the army before uni - it was grueling but awesome. You'll find your way fren