fvavsc's comments

Oculus Quest helped a bit but got boring after a while. I really need gym environment to push myself.

This is so amazing. This post and all the thread in it is very inspiring and a proof that one can make living from pretty much any type of development.

I am a web developer and always assumed that you need SaaS or mobile app to make money from programming. But I hate to be responsible for customer data or troubleshoot servers at night.

I might have to look into desktop development and even game development as that was the reason I studied computer science.

We love beach and water. We will scuba dive, surf, etc.

But the biggest appeal is change of scenery. We could take a trip to anywhere in the US but really want to see how it would be to live in another place for extended period of time. And with kids traveling too much won't be so easy.

Exactly, I asked my manager for raise to match market rate. I received meh in response. It was great motivator to start job search. I don't blame her though. It is just how it is, ignore employees while chasing birds in bush lol

Mental health issues are routinely recognized as serious health issues. I work for a major US company and employees are encouraged to take short-term or long-term disability leave, yes even for mental health issues. You are already paying for it. Check your benefits and talk to professionals to make sure it is properly handled.

After confirming your benefits and speaking with healthcare professional, talk to HR before your manager. Your manager may not know all the benefits available or try to hide them from you.

Take as long as you need to recover. You may not have hobbies but sometimes vegging out in front TV for a few days is all you need to recover.

Also forget about all the healthy stuff like exercise, meditation, etc. Just sleep as long as you can. Burning out means your body is under maximum stress. You don't want to add to your plate. Remove things from it.

Relaxing experiences maybe okay like massages, bathes, a slow walk.

Finally, ancedata, I know someone who was getting burned out. They didn't show up for work for a week. When they got back, their boss was furious but they said they were burned out. HR got involved. Boss got in trouble for creating unhealthy work environment. Person was told to take more time off and see a therapist. This was at a major US company.

Asked my manager for market adjustment, received lukewarm response. I don't really want to change jobs but my friends who have changed jobs in last year got huge pay bumps like 50-100%. It would be foolish for me to not switch jobs if i don't get decent raise at my current company.

I hate this.. this removes any opportunity for deep work instead you are constantly context switching. Your cognitive load is through the roof, and you feel like you can do nothing well.

My company did same, but they didn't hire any devops, they just started calling us devops and fired sysadmins, told us to figure out Kubernetes and CI/CD pipelines. Our velocity is less than 50% compared to before but I am sure on paper it looks like company saved tons of money.

PHP was my first love. It still is. Professionally I have moved on to other languages. But whenever I have an urge to create something for personal use, PHP is always the most productive way to get it done. With Laravel, I can even make it look polished and put it on the web.

PHP is such a joy that I am really thinking about switching back to it for my day job.