What I'm trying to say is: look out for yourself out there because no one else will, don't let yourself be exploited
I personally don't have the constraint that i need to give everything to my job and it needs to give back, so i agree with the GP and don't see it as dystopian, just one of the many ways of living.
Others legitimately do have this constraint and probably have to simplify elsewhere (not have kids is something I've seen a lot).
There are a lot of people which quit their "soulless" job and to chase their dream just to ultimately be forced to give up on them after loosing years of savings. I very much doubt that none of them regret leaving their jobs
Really? America must be a great place then. Don't know anyone like that where I live. My doctor friends would be closest but they certainly don't have a good quality of life and their lives are quite dystopian.
Seems like in order to have a deeply fulfilling life you need to have a job that you like and find it deeply meaningful. There is just no way around it, it is too much.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t do anything extra-curricular, but as a wage earning citizen you are already doing a good bit of your fair share just by earning money and handing it over as tax revenue.
(Where I am sure this falls down, for many people, is that their local and federal government is useless at moving the needle on any kind of issues for social good. Hands up if you live in a nation with both aircraft carriers and child poverty!)
There's a word for a trade where the benefit goes only one way - stealing.
He should not have treated his employer's asset (the product) as his child and sacrifice things for it.
A job is also a significant portion of your time. Its hard to make it be both, but its also near impossible to both follow your dreams and work full time separately. Seems like making a job be both is a worthy goal if you can make it work.
I would hesitate to use the word “never,” there.
It’s kind of amazing, when a job becomes a vocation and a calling.
These days, that kind of describes where I’m at. I don’t get paid a dime, and work harder (and more productively) than I ever have. I’m doing work I never dared to dream of.
I had to be forced into this position. Long, sad story. Get your hanky. TL;DR, no one wants to play with someone over 50, that used to be a manager.
But the last few years have convinced me that you couldn’t drag me back into the rat race with a locomotive. I’m almost deliriously happy.
I’m extremely fortunate, in having built up enough to get to this point, and also, in learning to live humbly enough to have my needs met.
I wish the OP well.
Happiness is something that has no price tag, and is often found serendipitously. For some of us, we are only truly happy, when we are working.
I think there is nothing irrational about this. Look up “purpose economy”. Grinding away your life in the interests of some company that basically just wants to achieve financial gains is not satisfying at all, we’re just normalizing it because it’s lucrative and we live in a world where bills need to be paid. The future isn’t build by greed and hustle, but by ambition and dreams. Don’t let people tell you off for this. Artists don’t do what they do because they seek any kind of validation for it, yet they shape the cultures that we identify with. All relevant progress, both individual and societal, comes from people who don’t care for the established worldly order. The future is build by dreamers and visionaries, not by people who confuse the treadmill for a life worth living. You do you.
it's not irrational. Unless you ignore the lower needs on the Maslow's hierarchy of needs and spend your efforts on the higher needs.
The lower needs are basic - sustenance and safety etc. If someone is wealthy enough to meet these needs with time and resources to spare, then it makes a lot of sense to spend the extra resources on the higher needs.
But it is irrational to try to fulfil a higher need, when you don't already have the lower needs fulfilled first.
> The future isn’t build by greed and hustle, but by ambition and dreams.
Those two are not distinct at all from each other.
BTW, dreamers don't accomplish anything unless it is accompanied by the other three.
I'm struggling to think of a significant example of where this has been true in the past. Large scale change that someone can attribute to their own effort only seems to happen when they monetize it.
Penicillin would also be one. It had to be forced on the industry because they couldn't monetize it, so you could argue that "more hustle would have helped".
“Perhaps I am not suited for working in a services company with rapid transitions“
I think you’re right. You read like you’re a people pleaser. I know it because I am too. You, like me, might have a difficult time with having a dynamic yet firm grasp on our purpose in, what is more often than not, textbook Kafkaesque situations; situations we put ourselves in, and we’re accountable for, too.
Good luck in your journey of discovery. And you read like you’re also young-middle aged, also like me. So, from one to another, just remember it’s quite the privilege to publish a statement declaring in a public space that you’re “taking a break” from work. I don’t think you’re a trust fund baby, but you know, not everyone who gets you would sympathize with that statement. Maybe here, perhaps.
Maybe I’m totally wrong about the author, or maybe I’m sort of over the tone deaf articles I read on here, like we aren’t all so fucking lucky to have these software engineer jobs, the ones that pay. Is it worth your mental health? Of course not. Find a new company, I had to. Best decision I ever made.
So if I’m wrong, it’s worth the risk because I hope it drives home the point this article reeks of privilege.
Why this anger towards the author for doing what he considers to be the best thing for himself?
Yes, being able to take a break from work is a privilege. But it isn't one that people should be publicly shamed for when needing to exercise it. Rather we should work towards having that option on the table for as many people on this planet as possible.
Worker's rights have been so completely eroded (or never even established) in so many places around the world, that it breeds this kind of sick attitude of turning against those who decide to put them selves or loved ones before the employer and work.
I say this as someone who is personally about to take a long sabbatical, with full pay, because of incredible burnout after having gone through a very traumatic period involving a partners cancer treatment.
This is only possible because of the incredible strong union that I am a part of.
Because most of us don't have the luxury to take a break from work.
Honestly, I feel jealousy towards people who can take a break from work. I've been feeling like I'm on a treadmill since my teen years.
I am not ashamed of it, though - jealousy is a human feeling and we can't wish it away, we can only control it and not let it interfere with our lives.
Unions? I'm all for them as a means to fix inequity, but not for me. That's my personal choice, and a privileged one at that. They certainly address the worker's rights aspect conversation that is worth talking about.
The article is an artifact of a personal experience, not necessarily an artifact of worker rights--or perhaps that's what I'm doing--trying to provide unambiguous insight to author that they a̶r̶e̶ ̶g̶o̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶o̶ could be called out and tragically misunderstood. The internet can be brutal, no good deed goes unpunished. Also, I wonder how the author feels about unions?
All that written, my comment was a crude attempt to showcase that their attempt to connect with this community was undermined by the stank of their privilege. There are more elegant ways to obviate the smell of privilege, and to reach the intended audience (which I assume is every one of us).
I love hearing about how people make deliberate choices about their life and their work, even if they are starting with something more than the average person.
Even in a lot of product based companies tbh. I had to push quite a bit to get people to stop referring to SWEs as "resources"..
Are you hearing that literally? Would you share an example sentence?
I contrasted the structure of several years of Apple engineering with the insanity of this business plan, which put roughly a dozen layers of non technical middle managers above our team of people with pretty hardcore technical degrees and who were dependable and capable, yet who were treated like fungible assets.
I became resolute to quit as soon as possible...but it DID take months to believe my perceptions of the stupidity were valid.
Life's too short to spend working for oligarchs.
They use the probationary period laws incorrectly to fire people they don't like for literally any reason, even if it might be discrimination, cause they can just claim "no reason, I just don't like you."
It's fucking amazing how much these motherfuckers will screw with people too. I've been kept on for jobs until the last day of my probation, or a week away, or a month away... and let go for 'no reason'.
I would love to know the reason. Perhaps I can do something about it. But nope... if you even insist on getting some truth from these people... they just start fighting you. Sometimes even physically.
I have no fucking clue what is wrong with them, or me if that's the case at this point.
Anyone looking to get into the 'normal' job market best avoid the kitchen industry. It's going nuclear, slowly.
I'm getting out of the industry as fast as possible. BUT... Until I have enough money saved aside to do just that, I have to keep working in it... and keep getting my record of employment tarnished more and more because of their dumb bullshit.
I wish I could just sue them all. Can't though. They are legal, even if evil.
Especially hackernews people who are overwhelmingly more likely to be privileged enough to be able to do it compared to most.
"...leisure is time away from work, not facilitating it.
By viewing work as something we do to support our leisure time, rather than our hobbies as something to lower our stress so we can get back to work, we can actually start enjoying our lives. (I know, wild idea.)"
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/10/smarter-living/the-case-f...
a) have a soul-crushing job and a nice flat or b) live happily, but in the Mid-West?
1. We are all struggling with mental health. Such is life. That's no shame.
2. Counselors recommend stability, thus jobs. No shock there.
3. Counselors don't recommend quitting your job with no plan. What's the real story there? I can't tell. You proceed boldly, though . . .
4. You don't have endless possibilities. In fact you just ended one of them yourself, quite publicly!
5. If pragmatic decisions are a burden, consider seeking help. Other people or institutions can make pragmatic decisions for you while preserving your future options.
6. You don't owe anyone an explanation of why you were taken in. It's normal. We all are, sometimes, I think.
7. Real software engineers understand that they don't solve perfect math problems that will be taught in universities in perpetuity. We make things that will be (in some way) destroyed. And we are proud to build destroyable things. Sorry nobody told you abuot that. Seriously. I wish we were clearer!
8. Again, engineers get reassigned. Same as above. Sorry nobody explained that. It is hard for some people to deal. Especially the first time it happens. Hope they have good mentors/managers!
9. It's not any judgement on you. It's seriously not about you. It's about the project(s). It's impersonal and with no kind of malice directed at you.
10. You grew corporate domain knowledge. Companies claim they care abuot that. They don't. They show they care with money. And they pay money for core skills. (Note also, these skills do not degrade over time and you can gain them over a long career.)
11. Talking about "irrational" things. Stop. That's tainted with bad faith. Even if it matters, stop and take a breath.
12. What's next? You don't know but you have some bridges to burn. That should help give you direction.
I only ask that if you stick with software, this is not a meditative profession so much as a highly collaborative one. We work together (and try to understand one another and talk with one another just like this) because we love being makers with other makers. There is nothing so delightful as creating a new thing with someone new, stranger!
> pragmatic: relating to matters of fact or practical affairs often to the exclusion of intellectual or artistic matters : practical as opposed to idealistic
I think the problem here is many people accept this definition of pragmatism and believe they should strive to be pragmatic in most aspects of your life.
This leads people to optimize their life for stability and income, and neglect their emotional and intellectual needs.
Sometimes what you want as an individual is out of alignment with pragmatism, and that's OK! You are allowed to be illogical, follow a whim, burn bridges, and fail.
That's because Working has a cost:
- living in an expensive area with high rents
- transportation to the company
- Eating out (No time to cook)
- Taxes!
- Health (Sitting around so much got me neck issues)
In the end you end up not making any significant money and just playing into the pockets of some greedy landlord or company.
the thing is, if you could already live off your own wealth and assets, then yea, this is great. But what of those who do not own enough assets to support themselves without a paying job?
[1] https://www.udemy.com/course/youtube-google-ads-marketing-an...
This applies to many things in life.
Lost here is the gentle pursuit of a modest competence, the doing of something just because you enjoy it, not because you are good at it... It steals from us one of life’s greatest rewards — the simple pleasure of doing something you merely, but truly, enjoy.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/29/opinion/sunday/in-praise-...
...leisure is time away from work, not facilitating it.
By viewing work as something we do to support our leisure time, rather than our hobbies as something to lower our stress so we can get back to work, we can actually start enjoying our lives. (I know, wild idea.)
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/10/smarter-living/the-case-f...
> Lost here is the gentle pursuit of a modest competence, the doing of something just because you enjoy it, not because you are good at it...
Isn't this the issue, though? If "you are what you do", because you link your identity to that, and what you do isn't "good", I can see how than can cause some issues.
To take your example, if you're taking up jogging, so you can run a marathon, so you can take some Instagram photos at the finish line, so you can get the likes, this is the end result. So of course, just cruising around the block won't attract the likes, so it doesn't really help the end goal, does it?
I think the issue is one of not stopping to smell the roses.
For example, I'm currently working on a low-latency durability solution for my SaaS (shameless plug: https://www.adama-platform.com/ ). Do I need to be working on this? No... I should be working on the consumer side. However, I'm currently getting decent results. Granted, I'm having to wade through a bunch of optimizations, but the potential is right there: 1 ms commit time.
Just need to figure out why it craps the bed every 30 seconds or so. It's super fun! And, I'm already got 8x the performance of RocksDB.
Where do you all find therapists? I see that its super trendy to have one now and admit it but at the byproduct of them being pretty booked! what do?
Other than that, finding the right person requires a little bit of luck. I responded really well to a therapist who was an LMFT and focused on boundaries, family systems.. I did a little CBT with them, changed my life fundamentally. You may not need all that. Regardless, avoid telehealth unless you have to.
> Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)
News to me
Okay, I'll avoid telehealth.
No idea what the conversation prompt would be, I just want to hop on the trend, and tell people, mostly women, that I hopped on the trend. People are like "more men should have therapy", okay sure can't wait to casually mention that. If there is some silver lining of actually having something "unpacked" or introspected, then ideally I'll be a beneficiary of that too.
Better hope it’s a good one. Yay social healthcare. At least it’s free.
Holly moly. I’ve been heavily burnt with the same mistake. The lesson I learned is : yes, SE don’t struggle to find work at good condition, but your project will probably be shitty and/or boring and/or deceptive and/or full of tech debt.
Now I prefer to focus on the people I work with more than being sold on a project I’ll never own completely anyway.
I guess the best way to work on a project you'll love is to be a founder. But as an employee, you'll need a looot of luck to work on an interesting project. I'm not saying that it doesn't exists, but rather that they are pretty rare, and you have very few opportunities to discover those from the outside.
https://tradecast.one Automated crypto trading. The main benefit here is obvious, making profits.
https://cxo.industries Business tools for startups. This is the project that lots of people were interested in, but not many tried. I don't think I sold the benefits that well, but will take another look at it in the future.
https://nexusdev.tools/ Dev tools I built in the process. This was a by-product of tools I wanted for myself. I want to get the first Open Source code drop out next month to validate if others want to build with this. Then perhaps build a commercial/Pro version.
However I am planning to implement features that are far more interesting and closer to what people have asked for. I launched to get a working web app out the door in the spirit of shipping early. So it's minimum but perhaps not viable.
I want to launch the MVP of TradeCast next month, which will be demo trading only. I'll soon know whether there is product/market fit. But then I was also scratching my own itch when I built it.
There has been some interest in Nexus Dev Tools, which is encouraging, despite the admittedly sparse information on the landing page. I plan to release some code next month and will take it from there.
ADHD might be better named as "novelty addiction". I myself have quit jobs many times when I would have done better to stay put, always hunting for something new.
If the author was successful as a freelancer and as an employee then he seems to have the ADHD under control well. That gives me hope that he will find his footing as he takes his next steps.
> precedence says I will fall into inaction and misery, and achieve nothing. Complete nothing
Exactly what I am afraid of; and this fear is keeping me from quitting my job. At my current job I worked hard to deliver on a "innovative" solution, which would have removed a lot of manual work, but the project got re-prioritized when the manager was fired.
I don't find any satisfaction in the current project; earlier I used to look forward to work, now it has become a chore. I have enough savings to last me 6-8 months. But I don't know if I'll be able to bounce back in case I end up wasting all those months.
If you live in a high-cost country, I bet your base minimum spending is around 2500 if you're single, and 5000 for a family of four.
You can easily cut their by half in other areas of the world with a good quality of life. Instantly doubles your runway.
I have no idea where to start. Dropping out of the work force sounds scary. I couldn't support my family for very long if I tried. I wish New Zealand paid as well as I hear the US does.
I have always had the attitude that work should be something you look forward to each day. If you aren't, leave. I have never worried about the consequences of those decisions because financially we are fine and with software engineering opportunities always available, I don't feel a sense of urgency to take the first thing that comes along. I know that not everyone is so privileged to live this way, but with careful financial planning, it's been enough for me.
We all need rest, we all need time away. Plan your life according to you or your family's needs, not clients and not companies. We only get one chance at life, why waste it being unhappy in the pursuit of some distant future that may never come.
I hope you get a chance to do that, at least for a while. I want that too.
I never had such problems because I joined the companies for money, not because I believed in whatever.
Now of course it may depend on the job market you are in. I admit that. But my experience over the past 17 years I have worked now (minus pandemic years I guess...) I have never seen anything as bad as what I am witnessing on a regular basis now for 3 full years now. This isn't even the Pandemic that gets to be the one to catch all the blame for this. These employers are so heinous they have been this way since before 2019.
But the pandemic has made it even worse. It's made it so that even employers who were once kinda decent are now even worse.
And the cherry on top of this shit sundae? I've found proof that helps prove my point in regards to some of my old jobs. One of them was never a good place to work at in the first place, but it looks kinda nice and seemed better than most. How wrong was I?
Well, so wrong that even though my reporting of them to the health board had them fail atrociously, they had already failed atrociously for multiple years now. Going back as far as 2010 if I remember correctly. And this seems to be a repeat occurrence the more I dig into the subject. Bad bosses have bad kitchens. (Yes, I'm food industry.) And bad kitchens tend to be run by bad bosses. There are exceptions to the rule it seems, but generally speaking... if you think you should report a place; you probably should have already done it before you stepped foot into the building.
That's how bad it is right now. In Alberta, Canada.
Again, there are a lot of good employers too, but I seem to keep missing them. Some I thought were bad though... turned out to be not half bad once they got their heads back on straight though. Hence my mentioning of that even the kinda decent ones earlier.
One such employer, might just hire me back on, cause he's having a hard time finding anyone wanting to work in the kitchen. Can't say I blame them, since it's a small kitchen and it can be easy to get annoyed with other people in a small kitchen. Very easy. But none the less, he basically offered me a job back after talking to him about my last paycheck I left there during Wave 3. (And yes, if he were to read this, he would know exactly who I am right now. heh...)
Anyways.
I'm sure this fellow has his reasons for getting out of freelancing; but to me the freedom of being answerable ultimately to only myself is kind of nice. I don't mind hustling for a decent gig if need be, just so long as they treat me like a freaking human being. And so far... I seem to get that treatment more so from people I am helping doing gig work on the side, than I get from people who should know better than to treat their fellow coworkers like crap. Or their employees. Etc.
As a final note: I highly suggest any Albertan's or anyone looking to come to Alberta for any reason at all, to avoid any restaurants that look even remotely dingy or seedy. If that kitchen doesn't sparkle, don't go into it. Yeah, it's that bad. Places that seem respectable on the outside will have some of the unholiest of kitchens on the inside. It's so bad, I'm considering moving back to Saskatchewan... the place I left to get away from BS back there. (Totally partially my fault.)
