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Am I Happy At Work? Analyzing my entire career

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Re: Am I Happy At Work? Analyzing my entire career

#51

Post by brokenmachine »

erobbins wrote: post #45
plankers wrote: post #36

In my (relatively short) life, I've always been far more happy in my periods of unemployment than when I was "gainfully employed." Don't expect a single person on HN to share this view, but there it is.

I'm the same way. I took a year off once, and it was awesome. I regret not being a lucky trust fund kid.

I did the exact same thing. It was great.

I don't understand these people who can't find things to keep them occupied outside work. I don't have enough hours in the day to do all the things I want to do. Work is just 8 hours per day that I can't do those things.

Re: Am I Happy At Work? Analyzing my entire career

#52

Post by scarface74 »

I was very unhappy with my job for the first 12 years between two jobs. Except for one brief period of a year.

I had been a hobbyist hacker for 10 years, since 6th grade, including four years in college. I then got my first job that I was greatly over qualified for as a computer operator. But that was my best opportunity to get to a big city because I had been an intern at the company the prior year.

I changed jobs 3 years later, got a nice 20K bump and another 10K bump over the next year, learned a lot and I thought I was doing well. That year and the next year was great.

Over the next 7 years, no growth in skills and only making $7K more over that time with measly raises and bonuses being cut, I hated my job but I felt so unqualified that I didn’t make a move and I was just miserable.

I finally woke up and changed companies and started back gaining new skills and seeing a salary increase.

Over the next 10 years, I can honestly say I never hated my job for more than a month. Once I started hating my job and I learned all I could, I had the skill set and the optionally to jump ship. Even if I didn’t leave immediately, I never felt “stuck”.

I guess that’s just a long winded way of saying that I only hate my job when I don’t feel like I’m growing and/or have any optionality.

I also realized that I work next in small companies with little red tape.

Re: Am I Happy At Work? Analyzing my entire career

#53

Post by scarface74 »

fukuwata wrote: post #26
patejam wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about OP's environment, but the larger the codebase, the less feasible running every test locally as you go becomes. You run relevant tests locally as you go, but depending on the change it might take a long while to run ALL tests that could possibly be impacted.

I'm still surprised that there'd be an element of uncertainty. Wouldn't you want to be sure that your code would pass before pushing it out for others to see? What if you pushed and the CI gave you a red X, wouldn't you then feel bad when your coworkers see that and think you are a poor coder? Seems to me it'd be best to be absolutely sure everything would pass before letting anyone else read the code...

All kinds of strange things happen that cause a build to Work On My Machine and not work on the server. The most common cause I’ve found for things to build on my machine and not the build server are external dependencies that were mis referenced.

Re: Am I Happy At Work? Analyzing my entire career

#54

Post by projektir »

scarface74 wrote: post #52

I was very unhappy with my job for the first 12 years between two jobs. Except for one brief period of a year. I had been a hobbyist hacker for 10 years, since 6th grade, including four years in college. I then got my first job that I was greatly over qualified for as a computer operator. But that was my best opportunity to get to a big city because I had been an intern at the company the prior year. I changed jobs 3…

> Over the next 10 years, I can honestly say I never hated my job for more than a month. Once I started hating my job and I learned all I could, I had the skill set and the optionally to jump ship. Even if I didn’t leave immediately, I never felt “stuck”.

How often did this happen? Did you have problems with being perceived as a job hopper?

Re: Am I Happy At Work? Analyzing my entire career

#55

Post by scarface74 »

projektir wrote: post #54
scarface74 wrote: post #52

I was very unhappy with my job for the first 12 years between two jobs. Except for one brief period of a year. I had been a hobbyist hacker for 10 years, since 6th grade, including four years in college. I then got my first job that I was greatly over qualified for as a computer operator. But that was my best opportunity to get to a big city because I had been an intern at the company the prior year. I changed jobs 3…

> Over the next 10 years, I can honestly say I never hated my job for more than a month. Once I started hating my job and I learned all I could, I had the skill set and the optionally to jump ship. Even if I didn’t leave immediately, I never felt “stuck”. How often did this happen? Did you have problems with being perceived as a job hopper?

Four.

It’s about having a story to tell and yes you do have to be able to have a good explanation without sounding negative. It also helps that I have the CTO of the first company as a reference and the hiring manager of the third company as a reference who had the same issues I had.

1. The company went out of business - that was an easy one.

2. Large company hired fast to develop a new .net project but two years in all of the business was on their legacy PHP product, no one wanted to do PHP. There is no money in saying “I developed a PHP app”

3. Cant go into details without doxing myself but it was highly political and we working in a remote office away from the seats of power.

4. It was a contract to perm and when they gave me a permanent offer they told me up front that they didn’t want to be a software development shop but they wanted me to lead two initiatives. I saw the writing on the wall.

There were other reasons for leaving the 2-4 one but that’s the story I tell which are all true.

Re: Am I Happy At Work? Analyzing my entire career

#56

Post by projektir »

nomel wrote: post #38
plankers wrote: post #36

In my (relatively short) life, I've always been far more happy in my periods of unemployment than when I was "gainfully employed." Don't expect a single person on HN to share this view, but there it is.

With unemployment, happiness is very directly related to your your bank account balance, or the willingness for others to provide for you. With employment, there's usually a lower limit since there's a reasonable change you're able to eat and stay out of the rain.

Which shows that happiness is not contingent on employment, but on bank account balance, which is not the philosophy a lot of people push when they say lack of work will ruin people.

Re: Am I Happy At Work? Analyzing my entire career

#57

Post by projektir »

scarface74 wrote: post #55
projektir wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Over the next 10 years, I can honestly say I never hated my job for more than a month. Once I started hating my job and I learned all I could, I had the skill set and the optionally to jump ship. Even if I didn’t leave immediately, I never felt “stuck”. How often did this happen? Did you have problems with being perceived as a job hopper?

Four. It’s about having a story to tell and yes you do have to be able to have a good explanation without sounding negative. It also helps that I have the CTO of the first company as a reference and the hiring manager of the third company as a reference who had the same issues I had. 1. The company went out of business - that was an easy one. 2. Large company hired fast to develop a new .net project but two years in…

Hmm, these definitely seem more exciting than my case, which is usually more "feeling uninspired and feel that others at work don't care about the product".

Re: Am I Happy At Work? Analyzing my entire career

#58

Post by plankers »

brokenmachine wrote: post #51
erobbins wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the same way. I took a year off once, and it was awesome. I regret not being a lucky trust fund kid.

I did the exact same thing. It was great. I don't understand these people who can't find things to keep them occupied outside work. I don't have enough hours in the day to do all the things I want to do. Work is just 8 hours per day that I can't do those things.

I'm kind of the opposite, I just love laying around all day doing nothing but reading. I spent most of my time at my last job doing this, but surrounded by people, noise, and fluorescent lighting.

Plus, being able to attend events spontaneously and stay out as late as you want is pretty great.

Re: Am I Happy At Work? Analyzing my entire career

#59

Post by scarface74 »

projektir wrote: post #57
scarface74 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Four. It’s about having a story to tell and yes you do have to be able to have a good explanation without sounding negative. It also helps that I have the CTO of the first company as a reference and the hiring manager of the third company as a reference who had the same issues I had. 1. The company went out of business - that was an easy one. 2. Large company hired fast to develop a new .net project but two years in…

Hmm, these definitely seem more exciting than my case, which is usually more "feeling uninspired and feel that others at work don't care about the product".

I’m much more cynical now. I don’t get my “inspiration” from my job. The only reason I went to work up until my current job was to get a paycheck and learn skills to get a larger paycheck. As long as that was happening, I was happy.

Now, things are different. I’ve come close to maxing our as an individual contributor in my local market, I have no desire to be a manager, and a dev lead position doesn’t pay enough more (about $10-$15K) to be worth the extra headache (been there done that).

I am continuously learning to keep my options open in case something changes, but I really like my job even though it can get crazy but its not because of the people.

As much as I say in theory that you should always leave a job if you feel like you’re stagnating, I’m not sure that I would have the discipline to leave a job a like just for that reason as long as I’m making enough to live the lifestyle I want and my compensation is not to out of whack with the market.

Re: Am I Happy At Work? Analyzing my entire career

#60

Post by plankers »

projektir wrote: post #56
nomel wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With unemployment, happiness is very directly related to your your bank account balance, or the willingness for others to provide for you. With employment, there's usually a lower limit since there's a reasonable change you're able to eat and stay out of the rain.

Which shows that happiness is not contingent on employment, but on bank account balance, which is not the philosophy a lot of people push when they say lack of work will ruin people.

Replace bank account balance with bitcoin wallet balance, but sure.
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