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Ask HN: Novelty addiction is ruining my life and career. What should I do?

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Re: Ask HN: Novelty addiction is ruining my life and career. What should I do?

#21

Post by ribs »

atemerev wrote: post #3
adrtessier wrote: post #2

It sounds like you may be best off seeing a psychotherapist that may be able to help you better understand and control your novelty-seeking. Your pattern sounds self-destructive and it is obviously causing you distress. Also: have you considered contract or consulting work? If you have the freedom to travel around for work, it can be more dynamic and rewarding than your current pattern.

I own a one-man consulting company, through which I am doing some contract work (mostly in algo trading / finance, and yes, I do realize that poor financial software engineer sounds like a joke, which I am). But finding new customers and _especially_ managing the administrative side of this business is getting increasingly harder for me. I do see therapist occasionally, but it is quite expensive (especially given my…

I've been diagnosed with AD/HD. Eventually I moved into sales engineering. It's been great. You leverage technical skills but get to talk to new people all the time and see what kind of problems they're trying to solve. Stick to pre-sales and you don't have to get involved with any one account for too long.

Re: Ask HN: Novelty addiction is ruining my life and career. What should I do?

#23

Post by rifung »

I don't know if it will help but the way I tried to stop job hopping was to realize that I work to make a living, and if I want to learn stuff and play with new toys, I can do that on my own time. After all, they don't pay me to learn, they pay me to get stuff they need finished.

It sounds like you need to see a therapist. However I imagine that's difficult if you're in debt, so you probably need to first try to get a job and pay that off.

Honestly there's going to be parts of any job that you don't like. Unless you are filthy rich or have someone paying for you, you're going to have to do things even if they bore you sometimes. The best you can do is try to do them efficiently so you can spend more time learning.

Re: Ask HN: Novelty addiction is ruining my life and career. What should I do?

#24

Post by clockwerx »

atemerev wrote: post #8
theWold wrote: post #6

I would second a therapist/counselor/etc. Did that during college (thanks to the couseling services my Uni provided), and it helped me just not feel too crazy. I spent a long while, and still do, thinking about what am I heading towards. I know a lot of people don't know this and there is no way I will ever know all the details to make a decision, but I prefer the 'fail to plan, plan to fail' montra. Thus I plan, but…

I can write good code in Java, Scala, Python, Perl, MATLAB, Javascript, and now learning Go. I can configure Apache, nginx, Ansible, Docker... I worked with nearly every favor of Linux, OpenSolaris/OmniOS, CoreOS, etc. I learned how to do things in big data, business intelligence, algorithmic trading. Learning new things is not a problem, this is what I enjoy. Most of them are marketable. What's killing me is inabili…

How deep do you feel your learning is? Are you comfortable with SOLID concepts for example? I find a lot of intermediate developers who aren't, or the implications of it despite a lot of different toolsets being conquered.

I would suggest you set up with a consulting firm - Thoughtworks for example tend to try out a lot of new things across the entire company. This means that getting from 0 to somewhere, quickly, is something they can really sell. The downside is the poor bastards like me who have to deal with no one wanting to throw out the 'prototype' version of the solution.

Re: Ask HN: Novelty addiction is ruining my life and career. What should I do?

#25

Post by [deleted] »

atemerev wrote: post #8
theWold wrote: post #6

I would second a therapist/counselor/etc. Did that during college (thanks to the couseling services my Uni provided), and it helped me just not feel too crazy. I spent a long while, and still do, thinking about what am I heading towards. I know a lot of people don't know this and there is no way I will ever know all the details to make a decision, but I prefer the 'fail to plan, plan to fail' montra. Thus I plan, but…

I can write good code in Java, Scala, Python, Perl, MATLAB, Javascript, and now learning Go. I can configure Apache, nginx, Ansible, Docker... I worked with nearly every favor of Linux, OpenSolaris/OmniOS, CoreOS, etc. I learned how to do things in big data, business intelligence, algorithmic trading. Learning new things is not a problem, this is what I enjoy. Most of them are marketable. What's killing me is inabili…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Novelty addiction is ruining my life and career. What should I do?

#26

Post by clockwerx »

Oh and: want to market yourself as a tutor? I'd pay a reasonable rate for 1:1 tutoring on the math side of things for an hour or two a week. Get a few recurring people at the right rate, you get the novelty of a stream of problems others are trying to solve and an in depth way to see how others think.

Re: Ask HN: Novelty addiction is ruining my life and career. What should I do?

#28

Post by anaolykarpov »

Define for yourself a different set of objectives: find the novelty in staying 2, 3 years at a company, in having a life without debt, in having money set aside. Work for a company that has a big and complex project. There are projects where it's virtually impossible to get to know all the parts of the code. Lower a little bit your definition of novelty when you're at work: consider as new having to work on bugs/features that you don't have any idea where are situated in the codebase when you first hear about them. Remember, there are jobs where you have to work only 8 hours.

Take one of those jobs and spend your afternoons working on your own projects which can be implemented using whatever technology you want and can be as concrete as you want.

Look at your job as a necessary hell, but try to find the fun in it while at work and always remember that you have your fun projects back at home

Re: Ask HN: Novelty addiction is ruining my life and career. What should I do?

#29

Post by jwatte »

What kind of job requires novelty? How about reviewer/writer of new technology? How about testing of new products? May not pay as much as software engineering, but you seem to not actually be successful at doing that anyway.

Also, if you haven't yet talked about this with a mental health professional, you probably should. It may take trying a few before you find someone who understands your particular problem.

Re: Ask HN: Novelty addiction is ruining my life and career. What should I do?

#30

Post by lovelearning »

atemerev wrote: post #8
theWold wrote: post #6

I would second a therapist/counselor/etc. Did that during college (thanks to the couseling services my Uni provided), and it helped me just not feel too crazy. I spent a long while, and still do, thinking about what am I heading towards. I know a lot of people don't know this and there is no way I will ever know all the details to make a decision, but I prefer the 'fail to plan, plan to fail' montra. Thus I plan, but…

I can write good code in Java, Scala, Python, Perl, MATLAB, Javascript, and now learning Go. I can configure Apache, nginx, Ansible, Docker... I worked with nearly every favor of Linux, OpenSolaris/OmniOS, CoreOS, etc. I learned how to do things in big data, business intelligence, algorithmic trading. Learning new things is not a problem, this is what I enjoy. Most of them are marketable. What's killing me is inabili…

I agree with some of the other comments that advise you to look into jobs which involve novelty, instead of swimming against the current.

With your generalist skills, you may make a great developer evangelist who can give overviews and demos of new technologies at developer talks, internal corporate trainings, or online trainings. They get paid well and I have come across some right here on HN.

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