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Ask HN: I have nothing to do at work and it's killing me

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Re: Ask HN: I have nothing to do at work and it's killing me

#61

Post by anotheryou »

TurkishPoptart wrote: post #57
anotheryou wrote: post #48

Use the time to learn to code, you can totally get in to the industry starting that way. Also once you got the basics try to think of a simple project. I'd even help you find one, just comment below. (depends a lot on what you want to learn). A project is really the best way to learn things beyond the very basics, learning without a clear goal is quickly demotivating. As a bonus you have something to show afterwards.…

Yes! I certainly am trying! And it's true, I have a number of project ideas floating in the back of my head, but I rarely realize them, which is a problem. Here's what I want to make: recipe-based website/app, in which user can choose one of four seasons, with perhaps a slider for {Vegetarian} or {Instant Pot} (or something), and it spits out some recipes. The ingredients will default to serving for 1, but user can c…

That sounds like a great first project. I recommend to break it down in to sub-steps where it's your choice if you want to start front to back (paste a recipe, make it pretty, than add calculations, than put a DB behind it etc) or the other way around.

I have a slight preference for starting from the front so the UI does not get skewed in the direction the technology leads you. Going front to back in ideally also leaves you with presentable stuff before everything is done: A pretty website with your fav recipe, A pretty website with your fav recipe and an ingredient calculator, ...

About CSS: I guess it makes sense to learn it a bit, but as you want to dive in to the back-end anyways, maybe also check out frameworks like bootstrap with a nice material design theme¹. I'm not sure if it teaches you some bad practices though, so take it with a grain of salt. For my taste the html becomes to ugly, I prefer to keep most of the design part in my CSS.

Oh and if you need help the guys on the freenode IRC are very friendly. Just make it as easy as possible to help them: isolate and reproduce your problem, for front-end stuff make a "fiddle" at jsfiddle.net.

¹ e.g. https://ayroui.com/ Also helps building "mobile first". Today consumer stuff will mostly be consumed on smartphones.

Re: Ask HN: I have nothing to do at work and it's killing me

#62

Post by anotheryou »

anotheryou wrote: post #61
TurkishPoptart wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! I certainly am trying! And it's true, I have a number of project ideas floating in the back of my head, but I rarely realize them, which is a problem. Here's what I want to make: recipe-based website/app, in which user can choose one of four seasons, with perhaps a slider for {Vegetarian} or {Instant Pot} (or something), and it spits out some recipes. The ingredients will default to serving for 1, but user can c…

That sounds like a great first project. I recommend to break it down in to sub-steps where it's your choice if you want to start front to back (paste a recipe, make it pretty, than add calculations, than put a DB behind it etc) or the other way around. I have a slight preference for starting from the front so the UI does not get skewed in the direction the technology leads you. Going front to back in ideally also lea…

Maybe you wan even find a design student who wants to do the front-end. If you show that level of collaboration and have something even prettier to show that's a win win :)

Re: Ask HN: I have nothing to do at work and it's killing me

#63

Post by Jemaclus »

Other people have given advice along the lines of what I'm going to say, but just to reiterate: take this opportunity to get on-the-job training. It's free, and you have an opportunity to advance your career in a lot of ways.

I had a job like this, where my boss said "We need to add a button to this form. That should keep you busy for the rest of the week, right?" and I said ".... Yes. Yes, it would." Then finished it in 2 hours, and spent the rest of the week leveling up my skills.

Learn a little programming. Learn Python or Javascript or Go (my preferred lang) or any other programming language that catches your fancy. Learn some HTML and CSS. Build a website for yourself. Put whatever you want on it. Then make it better. Then make it better. Then make it better.

Find some small projects that you can build. The best things to do for learning are to build things where you only really have to think about the code and not the business logic. For example, you know how a To Do list app works, because you've used them forever. You add a new item and you mark it complete. Maybe you can edit or delete. That's the easy part. Now pick a language and make it! You'll spend a lot less time wondering "what does this app need to do?" And more time on "how do I make the code do this?"

Keep doing the tasks you're assigned, but if you aren't assigned anything, you're free and clear to do what you can.

One controversial idea is to automate all the things you do at work. The downside is that you might be morally/ethically obligated to report that to your employer. They might get pissed off if you automated the work and sat there doing nothing instead. But on the other hand... more free time.

Personally, I'd do the work assigned and then spend my free time learning. It's "professional development", which only makes you more valuable to the company. Over time, you can level up your skills enough to leap to another full-time job elsewhere making more than $25/hr.

Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: I have nothing to do at work and it's killing me

#64

Post by godot »

TurkishPoptart wrote: post #30
el_dev_hell wrote: post #13

I have so much empathy for your situation because I was there about 3 years ago. I had a job with a fortune 500 company and would have everything finished by 9AM everyday (with one task at 4PM that was laughable). I wasted most of my time and regret it. It's not that easy to sit there and learn something with the stress of having a manager walk over and "catch" you doing nothing. In the last 6 months on the job I sto…

Thanks for your comment. Yeah, my manager "caught" me tinkering with an AWS thing and some tutorial open, but probably assumed it was important. It's even weirder because my old manager person went away on parental leave, so my new person doesn't really know what I'm supposed to be doing, but I have some freedom and I'm going to try to use it productively.

This sounds similar to a part time job I had while in college (15+ years ago). Caveat: I was already a programmer (studied computer science in college). I was hired as a part time student programmer at this place. The hiring manager that gave me the offer either transferred to another department or was on leave (can't remember which now), either way, I basically hadn't seen him during the entire 7 months or so I worked there. His subordinate was the only person who had any idea I was even there and could give me any work. He would give me some simple task of writing up some documentation or code some simple demos using some libraries, every once in a while. Everything I did over those 7 months amount to about 1 week of work for me. Every time he gave me a task, I would finish within a few hours, and there wouldn't be anything else for me to do for the next couple of weeks. I was a student at the time so I was able to spend most of my work hours doing homework or programming assignments for classes. If it was a full time job I would definitely do what you do, tinker with AWS, code up projects, etc.

Re: Ask HN: I have nothing to do at work and it's killing me

#65

Post by TurkishPoptart »

Jemaclus wrote: post #63

Other people have given advice along the lines of what I'm going to say, but just to reiterate: take this opportunity to get on-the-job training. It's free, and you have an opportunity to advance your career in a lot of ways. I had a job like this, where my boss said "We need to add a button to this form. That should keep you busy for the rest of the week, right?" and I said ".... Yes. Yes, it would." Then finished i…

That's a great example, and you're absolutely right.

I will keep learning on my own (as well as taking a 201 course next Jan, it looks like) and try to dig myself out of this. I appreciate your response.

Re: Ask HN: I have nothing to do at work and it's killing me

#66

Post by wolco »

TurkishPoptart wrote: post #8
saluki wrote: post #4

Well sounds like a great opportunity to do some on the job training at work until you get tasks assigned or things pick up. I would sign up for an online training course Rails is a good choices or Laravel (Laracasts.com) or Wes Boss's javascript courses. Both of those have some free courses. Get learning and enjoy a laid back position while you can. Learn and look busy, enjoy the holidays, good luck.

Is there any hope that trying to learn this stuff on my own will help me get real work to do / a real job? Granted, I have a ton of academic accolades that I've never been able to get a potential employer to even glance at, so maybe the skills will help. I just doubt I'll learn anything well enough on my own...the best devs learn in pairs it seems. I wish I had a mentor here or something.

Yes if you get good and can pass programming tests and/or have a portfolio.
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