Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What do I do if a job is causing me to be depressed and demotivated?

news.ycombinator.com

21–30 of 38 posts

Re: Ask HN: What do I do if a job is causing me to be depressed and demotivated?

#21
post #2

Your job is now to find a new job. Push as hard as you can on job searching. Dial down the effort you are putting into your current job. You absolutely should not stay where you are. You are also extremely unlikely to be able to make any positive changes there, the company product and needs “are what they are.”

I will try this. I unfortunately don’t really know how to dial down since it makes me feel guilty.

> since it makes me feel guilty

I know I often feel guilty if I feel I'm not giving my best, trying my hardest, and helping out as much as possible. That affects all aspects of my life, including but not limited to my job.

One thing that helps me with this guilt is when I have concrete evidence that the other party is not acting with the same worldview.

In this case, you're trying to do the right thing and help your employer, but your employer is not heeding your reasonable demands to be put on something else. Basically, they're not thinking about finding a "win win", they're only thinking about what's best for them. They reckon they can force you to stay on this project, which is best for them, therefore that's what they do.

Given that they're not making an effort to help you despite you asking them to, I think it's reasonable to not feel guilty about doing the same i.e. thinking about yourself first. I mean you're simply playing the game, where they have decided the rules, which is just doing whatever is best for the person taking the action. You did not force them to create these rules, they decided on that. And you're not imagining they have this mindset, they have demonstrated it through their actions.

And don't get distracted by words, look at the actions. They may well say "we're all team players, we help each other!" then keep you on this project. It might be tempting to believe the words they say, but their actions demonstrate their actual values.

That helps me when this sort of situation comes up, I hope that helps you a bit.

Re: Ask HN: What do I do if a job is causing me to be depressed and demotivated?

#22
Been there and still continue to be there. What could my advice be worth then? I work for my dad. It is a different world. But in a way, I am trying to make things work.

How do I put this? Your feelings are a result of your frustration. Frustration can lead you to either anger or sadness. In your case, it is sadness. Anger gets work done. Sadness gets you go to connect more with those around you. And that includes looking for help like you are doing.

Frustration, frustration, frustration ... from having certain *expectations*, and yet finding a world completely different from those expectations. We can call it culture shock for lack of a better term because it has the same symptoms.

Let's rewind the clock. Turn back your expectations. Turn down your expectations. And reassess. You are not working on the greatest tech in the world. You are not that great to begin with. A great person can go through mud and come out to the other side because a great person is humble and less frustrated and does not have a problem with the disgust and difficulty of mud.

You are working on old tech. You are having to solve a problem no one can solve normally. You have to work a really long time to get this problem solved. It is not hard. It just takes a long time. And makes you feel like you don't know much. It is just really hard work and you wished you already knew how to do it.

Plus, you have so many great ideas and no opportunities to implement them. And this piece of garbage tech is completely different from your ideas. And that is more frustrating. You can't even fix it. But when was fixing the tech into your great idea even a choice... or a thought? Why did you even think that you could do this? Because you saw some stupid hacker friend who generated a great idea and great attention? And you are never going to get attention so now you hate your job? GROW up. You are not living a fable. You are living a reality that never gets lauded or talked about. Shun the ideas. Discipline yourself. There is a task that needs to get done. And it does not need greatness. It just needs discipline. Give that discipline some time. Soon it will morph to creativity in the boundaries you will soon learn exist. Then ... you can have your ideas.

(This is a note to me. Sorry if I came across too hard on you.)

Re: Ask HN: What do I do if a job is causing me to be depressed and demotivated?

#23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depending on the application, this can be easier said than done. My company has a lot of legacy apps. To de-risk and modernize they decided to write a replacement for one of the bigger ones. I first heard about it probably 12 years ago, after it got its first client and had already been in the works for quite some time. From what I can tell, they are still working on it, but the strong push behind it has faded, and t…

> 9 times out of 10, when I hate something, it’s covering up for a lack of knowledge and fear around it. Good point, I've experienced that. Equally I've experienced great frustration at things I can't understand, not from stupidity or lack of trying, but because the information is guarded or lost. Interestingly we're getting back to the roots of why Stallman first set out on the Free Open Software mission. The OP men…

Definitely a factor. He is working on something he does not work on because it is impossible to look online for help and resource. This is frustration.

Re: Ask HN: What do I do if a job is causing me to be depressed and demotivated?

#24

Get onto some open source work or ask around to see if there’s any startups you can help for free from which you can learn more up to date tech. Only you can change this situation.

I’m curious - what is it about this that’s causing downvotes? It was meant to be helpful.

Re: Ask HN: What do I do if a job is causing me to be depressed and demotivated?

#25
The your job is to find a new job is the nice, rational answer but it's not what most people are able to do when feelings are in the way.

You are probably feeling so mant emotions, I'll dare one guess: feeling disrespected since you wrote how they are pushing this undesirable project on you.

It's not easy to look for a job when emotionally charged, so I would set aside a space with silence and focus on the feelings. Repeat for a few days. Processing the emotions will help.

Re: Ask HN: What do I do if a job is causing me to be depressed and demotivated?

#26
post #2

Your job is now to find a new job. Push as hard as you can on job searching. Dial down the effort you are putting into your current job. You absolutely should not stay where you are. You are also extremely unlikely to be able to make any positive changes there, the company product and needs “are what they are.”

I will try this. I unfortunately don’t really know how to dial down since it makes me feel guilty.

We can naively split the world into two types of people: givers and takers.

I'm guessing you are a giver and you are feeling resentful because too much is being taken from you. But it is actually your choice about how much to give that causes your resentment.

Watch for how others deal with giving and taking in work and romantic situations.

The ideal solution is to find a place to work that consists mostly of givers. It is not easy to find these places - look for somewhere that people never quit because they all like who they work with.

This comment feels ill-advised and poorly thought out, but it's a way of looking at life I'm still investigating for myself. Hopefully it helps, but I fear it could harm...

Re: Ask HN: What do I do if a job is causing me to be depressed and demotivated?

#27
> All of this has caused me to spiral into depression the last 1.5 years. Is it possible to get out of this situation?

Honestly, I'd doubt that working with legacy code simply causes you to feel depressed.

You might have an actual depression and changing jobs might just make things worse.

Go see some therapist, at least do some online screening for symptoms of depression.

I've had a very good time at my first job where my only task was to maintain a horrible legacy Java codebase because I wasn't depressed.

I've had some tough months in my current job at a startup, working with modern NodeJS, Python + ML, Docker stack because I was depressed.

Re: Ask HN: What do I do if a job is causing me to be depressed and demotivated?

#28

Get onto some open source work or ask around to see if there’s any startups you can help for free from which you can learn more up to date tech. Only you can change this situation.

I didn't downvote (I don't think I even have the reputation to do that), but it's probably because you're advocating something that takes more energy but doesn't make the situation any better.

Getting into open source work or working for a startup for free means doing more work for absolutely 0 compensation, some percentage of which will still be drudgery and annoying tech debt, while still wasting 40 hours a week doing something the OP hates. The chances are almost 0 that this helps the OP in any way.

Putting that same energy towards getting a new job or learning - which could involve some amount of open source work but isn't pointlessly pouring time down the drain for someone else's benefit - or therapy or exercise or almost anything else, is more likely to be beneficial.

Re: Ask HN: What do I do if a job is causing me to be depressed and demotivated?

#29
post #14

How to turn a pit of misery and doom into an exciting challenge that makes you want to jump out of bed each morning? Talk to your bosses. Explain the situation (as above is perfect - keep it short and sweet) Suggest that if you leave they won't find a better replacement because the problem is structural. And that if you stay you'll probably burn out soon and that won't help anyone. Ergo: the project is doomed every w…

That is irresponsible advice. What if it loses them their job and they struggle to get an equivalent job? What if they have any financial responsibilities? Great advice if you can change careers or easily slip into another position (which they've said they're worried they can't). Fine advice if you're a hippy hobo like me. Hopefully they can find some other motivating force apart from the tech. Read https://www.kalzu…

> That is irresponsible advice.

"Well, son, a funny thing about regret is That it's better to regret something you have done Than to regret something you haven't done." "And by the way, if you see your mom this weekend,,,"

Re: Ask HN: What do I do if a job is causing me to be depressed and demotivated?

#30
This might sound odd, but do you do much physical exercise?

There's nothing quite like hitting the gym and lifting weights (or whatever you like), to get things pumping and getting dopamine hits.

Personally I find it a great way to not think about work and may help. IANAT

Post reply on HN