Ask HN: What’s your plan in 2019?

Finally start doing creative stuff: work on animated music videos, make music of my own, develop my drawing skills, play some guitar.

Also, get into the habit of volunteering.

this november i left my job. i have lots of stuff to do

1. work on a project. hope that will generate some money. 2. start YouTube for fun 3. working out again 4. enjoying my time off

Thanks for mentioning enjoying life. I've been making habit changes these last few months and things are stating to stick!

> - sing with my toddler more

I've got a 4 month old that babbles non stop. I find myself singing and being silly all the time. I feel you on this.

> - grok C++

25 years experience, e-mail in profile if you want to talk about anything c++.

2018 has been a lean year for me. Even though career-wise, I am doing alright, I am a little depressed about not being able to achieve certain things I thought I would by the time I am 30 [I'm 31]. I don't know why I am writing here as I am usually private about my feelings on this topic. Perhaps because none of my friends/colleagues in my social circle would come across this post. My greatest regret right now is being unable to give back to the society I come from in terms of improving the education system there. I have received so many gifts in life, but my desire to contribute back is getting lost in the travails of life.

This year I must concentrate harder than ever before.

Targets:

1. Get a tenure-track faculty position in a good institution

2. Develop an EdTech idea I have in mind

3. Say no to more things. More deep work on smaller number of things than ever before.

4. Upgrade my Python and HPC skills

5. Spend more time with my family

6. Stop postponing "life" like I did in 2018 in anticipation of career breakthroughs. Go see Europe or South America for a few weeks.

7. Washboard abs by summer? ;)

Hopefully find different employment (with hopefully better pay and room for advancement) but based on all the rejections this year (between a previous bankruptcy and no degree I'm effectively an undesirable) I don't hold much hope. Last year I had one company hire me, never once ask about my financial history, then terminate me while I was asleep the night of my first day of work after they discovered my bankruptcy (seriously, no document or paperwork even asked unlike every application I've ever filled out that specifically asks, nor did any of the people interviewing me or onboarding me) and this year I didn't get notification either way from a half dozen companies and rejected after interviews with several others, one of which had me do three video interviews which may be common for tech type jobs but here in the Midwest anything past 1 interview means "unless you're a wanted fugitive, we're hiring you", that was pretty defeating.

I just can't do this job much longer and my primary employer keeps doing annoying things:

- This is the first year they didn't give us a Christmas card and as a Christmas gift they informed us food trucks will no longer be allowed to come here as it violates the corporate solicitation policies... despite the fact they are food trucks we've been finding for years and inviting them to come out because we get tired of eating microwaved food and 30 minutes isn't enough time to drive anywhere, get food, drive back and eat it and eating at desks is forbidden.

- They told us they'd be bringing more jobs to our location... I went from having 1 manager and 1 team lead to having 1 manager, 3 team leads and what is basically a 'jr' team lead. All 3 of my team leads have been here half the time I have. They did this for every team and in every single case promoted people with considerably less time at the company/in the industry than a good chunk of the applicants.

- Banned most decorations for holidays

- Made our insurance worse yet again

- Gave us a Trump tax break 'bonus', except to our pensions, and gave us an out-of-cycle cost of living increase (which if you read the fine print, did away with our next merit based increase meaning instead of 6ish months away the next one would be 18 months away).

- Continues to highly discourage any talking or socialization by placing a team lead or the 'jr' team lead-like individual in every single row to watch every single employee.

- Etc