21–30 of 165 posts
lol
Got sued by my previous company for a line of code that they asked me to change. Luckily I had proof that they asked me to modify that line of code. If I didn't, well, I'd owe them millions of dollars and have my wages garnished for the rest of my life. Writing software is a bit ridiculous, your employer can blame you for anything and you'll have to waste years of your life and tens of thousands of dollars in the leg…
Your wages wouldn't have been garnished for life. You could just declare bankruptcy and it would be erased. As well, being sued for work that you do as an employee can't get you sued, at least in North America. That's like a restaurant owner charging a waiter for dropping plates, that's illegal.
I'm proof that you can be sued for work that you do as an employee. Whether the Plaintiff will win or not is another story, but you can be dragged through years of the legal system.
About a month before my dissertation defense, I had already accepted a postdoc offer across the country, put in notice on my apartment, signed a new lease and arranged my cross-country move, but I had an absolutely impossible amount of work left on the list of things my dissertation committee claimed I needed to do before I could graduate, and my experiments just weren't working. It was clear that the work was imposs…
But even though the circumstances were different, it led me to the same place eventually. After months of the same kind of lifestyle, I decided I just didn't care anymore, was ready to go be a farmer or something if they failed me, and would just submit what I had. Obviously it worked out fine (so far). But it will be some time before I recover from that level of stress. I developed fairly severe alcoholism that I am just now starting to step down from. As happens with burnout, my efficiency was terrible during this period, which made everything worse.
I hear this kind of experience is pretty common for a dissertation -- everyone goes through some twisted version of the stages of grief before submission.
Then when burnout struck me hard, I realized that I just don't want to open my laptop anymore. Also, even side project started to feel like a burden to me.
Then I decided, enough is enough and I need to do some changes to my life.
- I did join a gym near my house.
- I stopped coding in evenings. I would wake up early and code for 2-3 hours in morning and be content with whatever I achieve during that time.
- Evening hours after office would be only for gym, relaxing, having dinner and watching TV.
Believe me, it was the best decision I did for myself. My health both mental and physical improved drastically and I started loving coding again.
I think these are really important stories to share and openly discuss but the way this question is asked is just ridiculously insensitive.
About a month before my dissertation defense, I had already accepted a postdoc offer across the country, put in notice on my apartment, signed a new lease and arranged my cross-country move, but I had an absolutely impossible amount of work left on the list of things my dissertation committee claimed I needed to do before I could graduate, and my experiments just weren't working. It was clear that the work was imposs…
I joined a famous lab in Europe to do a PhD. My second supervisor was and still is a really highly cited. He interviewed me and I got an offer next day.
The odd thing was I got an email a few days after the offer stating a different person I had only briefly met during my interview would be my first supervisor. This made me very suspicious. I did in fact reject the offer initially due to concerns over this, but they did convince me to accept it. Big mistake.
Things started going south after half a year. The group dynamics was very strange. My first supervisor, a young PI, was trying to block all project opportunities I had with my second supervisor. The latter was a very good guy, with some anxiety problems, and did not know how to play this kind of corridor politics games.
After two and a half years, things were in such a bad shape, I started applying to other programs. It's an interesting experience to apply to some places without recommendation letters. I got many weird looks during interviews. Fortunately, my CV is good and I got offers from half a dozen top 10 universities.
When I announced I would leave, shortly before the time I should start writing, everyone panicked. They guaranteed me I would pass, but I couldn't cope with the idea of handing in a rubbish dissertation. Maybe it was the wrong choice. It was a really exhausting situation, and I am still coping with some long-term burnout.
A year after I left, the lab melted down as they exhausted all funding. PIs were living a luxurious lifestyle. We would even have group retreats abroad in 5* hotels. Ridiculous and sad, because it was a lovely place.
Agreed that this questions is asked in a stupid way but I'll throw mine out there. Last July I ran a migration (SaaS CRM company) that should have taken 3-4 weeks with 1 week of downtime, but the client insisted on 1 week with 4 days of downtime. It was the first major migration moving this platform out of beta and I loved that product (and that client) more than anything, so I said fine. I made it super clear to my…
Why would you suffer through that if not?
I was burned out, not only from the work, but from spending my entire life following orders - from school to the workplace. So I quit my job after 5 months despite the fact that that's considered sacrilege, with maybe $13k in my bank account.
I spent the next 3 months pursuing nothing but my hobby at the time (music production). The first month was possibly the best month of my entire life. It was the first time I truly felt free - no homework, no stress of finding a job, no having to be in an office from 9:30-5:30 M-F.
Then I ran out of money, so I had to start applying for jobs again. Ended up getting a much better job (both pay-wise and quality-wise), so it worked out.
Now I'm burned out again and completely sick of working in this industry. The day-to-day work is boring as hell, and I couldn't care less about Javascript frameworks. I hate having to spend the bulk of my waking hours in the prison of an office.
But I continue working because I'm saving a lot of money every month. Currently have almost $100k in the bank. After this job, I'm going to take at least a good year off to do what I want to do, not what the labor markets force me to. I have a lot of passion in certain areas that I'm not able to devote full attention to due to work. I want to have a much greater positive impact on the world than being some menial code monkey working on proprietary software or a corporate Kool-Aid drinking cock sucker.
I've realized that I will never be happy in a traditional job. Being subservient and following orders is not in my nature.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wha? Can you elaborate? Did they say you introduced a critical bug or something? Is there such thing a programmer malpractice?
They claimed it was an attempt to sabotage their company, yet they were the ones that asked me to make the change, jesus, FML. Definitely learned my lesson on how important it is to get the initial contract correct, clarifying legal liabilities, responsibilities, etc. All your hard work and savings can go down the drain in a second if your employer wants to screw you over.
lol