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Ask HN: Are you ok?

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Re: Ask HN: Are you ok?

#271

Post by ruok_throwaway »

I'm not. I've been sick for 10 years now. Spent meaningful percentage of my 20ies in bed without having energy for anything. I've been away from work for a month now.

Every doctor that I speak to is in bucketing and hypothesis testing-mindset and none have been interested in the idiosyncrasies of my case. I have a pain in the right abdomen and back that is somewhat digestion related. I've been treated for H.Pylori before. I've done MRI, CT, ultrasound, colonoscopy and bloods and none are suggestive of anything specific.

I've exhausted all of my mental strength powering through this condition for years. I feel like I'm spent and every day is suffering.

Re: Ask HN: Are you ok?

#273

Post by [deleted] »

teppifk wrote: post #235
satokema wrote: post #162

Nth-ing no social life and the related whines. I hate the mild feeling of discomfort I get when I tell most people I'm a software engineer. I hate having eclectic or traditional "nerdy" interests and getting a similar reaction. I've been enjoying Classic, and I have a small online circle for the niche games/music/art I like. I hate that I like these things in spite of the detriment to my social benefit to liking them…

> I hate the mild feeling of discomfort I get when I tell most people I'm a software engineer. Most software engineers have a healthy circle of friends and social life. > I hate having eclectic or traditional "nerdy" interests and getting a similar reaction. It's not any different when an electrician, lawyer or a doctor wants to talk shop. Most people you will interact with don't have the same interests as you. > I h…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Are you ok?

#274

Post by vinaypai »

par wrote: post #205
klenwell wrote: post #11

As a team lead, one question I always ask in my 1-on-1's: On a scale of 1-5 (low good, high bad), what's your stress level since we last met? If my teammate says 4 or 5, I ask what we can do to bring it down to a 3. We also address this as part of the simple assessment we do in each sprint retrospective. My company struggles to define meaningful KPIs and OKRs. This is the one that's most important to me.

I understand your intentions, but you should try to be clear with your directs that the stress you are talking about is work related only, and even more specifically, work related stress not caused by you directly.

Non-work stress can certainly intrude on work life, and you can help out with that as long as you tread very carefully.

Years ago, I noticed one of my reports had been performing uncharacteristically poorly, often late to work, making sloppy mistakes etc. I dug into it a bit in one of our one-on-one meetings and turns out he had a lot of things going on in his personal life, his girlfriend had been laid off from her job, there was an illness in the family etc.

All we did as a company was give him two weeks off work so he could focus on dealing with things, and he was back to normal, and went on to have a long and successful tenure at the company.

This worked only because we were a very small company, and he and I had a pretty good personal relationship and hung out socially outside of work, so he felt comfortable enough to confide in me given the opportunity.

Re: Ask HN: Are you ok?

#275

Post by DoofusOfDeath »

hntemp190912 wrote: post #192
DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really sorry. I can relate a little about the work anxiety, but a lot about the existential dread. While I don't have any pat answers for you, I'd like to encourage you about the existential anxiety you feel. If my personal experience is anything to by, you have a few reasons for hope on that front. First, unless you've thoroughly explored a lot of world views, you can hold out hope that you'll find one that you…

I've already put the effort into developing friendships... I moved back to my childhood home where I'm close to family and many of my life-long best friends. I see them all the time now. It doesn't matter. None of it is making me think life is worth it at this point. So what, so I get to see family and friends? Then what? I go back to bed and want to die again. My world view is mostly rooted in Camus's writing on the…

I'm sorry. I hope you can take comfort in my experience that this unhappiness doesn't necessarily last.

Re: Ask HN: Are you ok?

#276

Post by apolymath »

bpchaps wrote: post #32
quantumwoke wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you say that? I think there's a lot of things that are really great about tech industry and there's some things that aren't so great. What's been your experience?

This field fucking sucks. I'm tired of being on call 24/7/365. I'm tired of having to explain why plaintext passwords are bad. I'm tired of being taken advantage of for being a generalist. I'm tired of ex-google asshole bosses with massive egos. I'm tired of carrying a laptop with me "just in case". I'm tired of the constantly shifting "popular" technologies. I'm tired of spending weekends indoors studying for work,…

Change jobs; you are not a wage slave. I come to work at 8 AM and leave at 4 PM on the dot every day no matter the situation. I can care less about the company I work for because it isn't my prerogative to care, but instead, I am paid to build what they tell me to build, and we exchange my abilities for currency. In no way am I willing to give up my dignity or health in any way in exchange for currency.

Re: Ask HN: Are you ok?

#277

Post by natalyarostova »

satokema wrote: post #162

Nth-ing no social life and the related whines. I hate the mild feeling of discomfort I get when I tell most people I'm a software engineer. I hate having eclectic or traditional "nerdy" interests and getting a similar reaction. I've been enjoying Classic, and I have a small online circle for the niche games/music/art I like. I hate that I like these things in spite of the detriment to my social benefit to liking them…

>I hate the mild feeling of discomfort I get when I tell most people I'm a software engineer.

Why do you feel discomfort? The only reason I do is because of a sense of guilt, because it implies I make far more money than the person I'm usually telling who is making small talk with me.

Re: Ask HN: Are you ok?

#278

Post by Miner49er »

hliyan wrote: post #187
dyadic wrote: post #49

Not really. My country is being ripped apart, everyone seems so hateful against the other, the government talks about record employment level and pay while people are using foodbanks and sleeping in the streets. My own life is great by the standards that people usually use to measure success. But it feels so empty. I'd rather check out and go and live in a cave on a hill, but all the land and caves have been parcelle…

I'm fairly certain we're from two different countries, but you pretty much described my feelings to a T. I wonder if this is a normal pattern, or whether the world is going through some sort of slow breakdown with no recent historical precedent?

Maybe a recent historical precedent that sort of matches is the late 1930's? That of course led to WWII. I wouldn't say it's as bad, but there's similarities.

Re: Ask HN: Are you ok?

#279

Post by bick_nyers »

Kind of. I'm feeling a lot of pressure to perform, but I don't have much urgency (which usually helps me and my procrastinating self). I am in my last year as a Math Undergrad, studying for GRE/Putnam, am running a Game Development startup (only programmer of 4 people), and I do Computer Architecture research (I haven't spoken with my advisor for 3 weeks because I fell behind and felt embarrassed, I'm writing a paper, have all of the relevant data, but hitting a wall in the analysis since I have never formally learned Comp. Arch. in the first place. I have very little context and only surface level understanding). I know I can pass my classes, GRE, etc. by letting things fall by the wayside so that I have more time for other things, but I want to perform well at everything which feeds into an anxiety-driven analysis/planning/shifting gears/paralysis cycle. I've since realized that I only like doing 1 or 2 main things at once in my life, but since I'm not established/behind the curve yet, I feel a need to have a good GPA, good test scores, publications, etc., and I don't have forever to do it when it would best work for my happiness levels. I've been in better places, but also worse ones too.

Re: Ask HN: Are you ok?

#280

Post by kraftman »

alkonaut wrote: post #123

Still good in September. October still coping. November wondering how on earth I’ll manage 3 more months of total darkness. December to February a blur of slugging through the dark. March to September again great. That’s a year with SAD above 60 degrees north.

Can you move south?
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