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Why I Quit Tech and Became a Therapist

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Re: Why I Quit Tech and Became a Therapist

#51

Post by selune »

Insanity wrote: post #13
selune wrote: post #10

Interesting. I quit psychology/counseling and work in tech now and the thought of my work being absolutely meaningless gives me a lot of anxiety, I hope I'll come to terms with it one day. Correction, I'm sure I'll come to terms with it but the transition is far from being smooth and takes longer than I expected.

If it's meaningless, maybe try a different industry? I develop healthcare software and consider that quite meaningful. Before that I've worked on OA repositories, another thing I find useful. I'm not sure if I'd feel the same if I was work for a bank or something though.

Yes, of course, there are lots of tech businesses that I would find myself content working for. I just don't really have the luxury of choice atm: started later in life, no solid CS background, immigrant, no real talent (to be honest) etc.

I'm sure it'll work out when I gain more experience. :)

I was a child psychologist (specializing in development and planned to go deeper into social work) and it was/is the biggest passion of my life, so switching to tech feels weird to put it mildly.

IT is fantastic, don't get me wrong, I would not go back.

Re: Why I Quit Tech and Became a Therapist

#52

Post by Jimpulse »

rlue wrote: post #3

And from the other side of the aisle, "Why I Quit Being a Therapist": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0Fi32LbXHA

Wow thanks for the opposing perspective. Seems like even as a therapist you're still fighting the system and still only able to treat the symptoms.

Re: Why I Quit Tech and Became a Therapist

#53

Post by ratling »

sleepysysadmin wrote: post #9

There is a severe workplace burnout problem in IT(especially MSPs); which when not addressed grows into bigger mental health issues and even literal sicknesses. There just isn't enough skilled IT people. The industry is immature and is bottom heavy. The top performers and seniors, are then overwhelmed with work and the business is unable to hire more senior people to reduce workload. Then the business keeps growing a…

It's bottom heavy because IT in 2019 is a joke. I left as soon as I could for operations and security. Better hours, fewer people, better pay, and I don't have to give a shit about your laptop. If you don't want to pay to keep your operations running properly I present to you the risks, mitigate as possible, and move on to the next item. If I think something is a time bomb I just leave for another company and get more money.

There are no seniors because the seniors leave. That's why you keep seeing groups like Infosys, TATA, or MSPs getting tapped for this service (I would be very leary of working for an MSP unless the package was very appealing). That's why I won't take a position where I have to screw with physical hardware, AWS everything.

Re: Why I Quit Tech and Became a Therapist

#54

Post by hobs »

segmondy wrote: post #20
sleepysysadmin wrote: post #9

There is a severe workplace burnout problem in IT(especially MSPs); which when not addressed grows into bigger mental health issues and even literal sicknesses. There just isn't enough skilled IT people. The industry is immature and is bottom heavy. The top performers and seniors, are then overwhelmed with work and the business is unable to hire more senior people to reduce workload. Then the business keeps growing a…

Perhaps there really is a severe workplace burnout problem in IT, but perhaps that's not the problem. There're ton of companies with burnout problems and worse turnover rates than IT. I personally believe that the issue we are seeing today is that most people don't know how to manager stress, emotion & energy. Most people are leading a very reactive life and constantly been pulled and pushed in all directions by "lif…

Sounds like moralizing claptrap to be honest.

I have worked at multiple companies with the churn'n'burn mindset, and while some handle the stress better than others, the only thing that handling the stress will get you is more work and stress.

Are there people out there who are taking the world too personally? Yeah, definitely.

When I see people weeping in a bathroom, not once, but so many times I dont even notice it anymore - that's not a personal failing of will, the business is using up people like gristle in the mill.

Re: Why I Quit Tech and Became a Therapist

#55

Post by fb03 »

short_sells_poo wrote: post #37
thraway-burnout wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please congratulate that person on my behalf. Even though it may be the result of an epiphany, self-restraint is still hard to achieve and a noble goal in itself :-)

I'd like to prefix this as _anecdotal_ as it is only some speculation I've done on the matter, but here is my take on it: The brain is in the end a neural network, and like all such devices, can get stuck in various local minima that are difficult to get out of. An old habit that has been reinforced through many years can take a considerable "shock" to dislodge. All the little cognitive and behavioral biases that one…

like i said, someone who isn't me was able finally watch how he ate.

Swim grabbed a big plate, sat in front of a mirror, and ate it all!

It was definitely not a good experience for swim, but as you said, it was a mind opening one, because swim was able to watch himself as a third party, free from all the defense mechanisms that did not let him see what he saw before and for all those years.

After that, swim knew for sure he had a problem and as swim is a perfectionist, he wanted to solve or at least work that problem. But before the experience, swim did not see the issue as a problem, but merely "who he was".

Swim realizes now that no one ever "is" something, they just "are being (something) right now". and if you gain that notion, you realize that everything in yourself that you want to change can be changed with hard work and enough time.

NINJA EDIT: and to close the thought of the last paragraph: No one needed drugs to read that last paragraph, it is a notion simple enough to grasp. But, sometimes your actions and thought patterns are so grooved into your head that you need something to untangle/undo/rewire some stuff up, even temporarily, letting you see past your already defined outputs.

Re: Why I Quit Tech and Became a Therapist

#56

Post by barkingcat »

ovi256 wrote: post #43
pennaMan wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I had places where I would go onsite to resolve an emergency. I never caused the outage, I was there to help. I would still get death threats from clients. "The accounting files are the server, if you lost them I'm going to go to your office and kill everyone." Isn't that a criminal offence?

Yeah, I can't see how a professional services company overlooks this casually, unless they're really hurting for new work. Can you imagine a client treating their tax lawyers or accountants like this ? But then, if the service company needs the new business that bad, that's hard to square with "there are not enough IT people".

"If you don't hide these piles of cash that I got from drug trades, then I'll send someone over and cut off your hand" not an uncommon thing in the tax business.

Re: Why I Quit Tech and Became a Therapist

#57

Post by ratling »

sesteel wrote: post #29
segmondy wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps there really is a severe workplace burnout problem in IT, but perhaps that's not the problem. There're ton of companies with burnout problems and worse turnover rates than IT. I personally believe that the issue we are seeing today is that most people don't know how to manager stress, emotion & energy. Most people are leading a very reactive life and constantly been pulled and pushed in all directions by "lif…

Detaching emotion from the outcome is key. I've heard it described as professional distance or professional objectivity and it is a key component of maturity. It is more prevalent in other industries, but tech has grown so fast that we have a serious mentoring problem. There isn't enough good mentors, people with decades of experience, to go around. I grew up in part of the industry where people had been working for…

"Remaining outcome agnostic." i.e. I'll be fine no matter what happens and no matter your emotional state. Also called "Keeping frame." Not letting other people's shit tests affect you.

Amusingly, these are red pill concepts. I don't follow that belief system (many of it's proponents range between pathetic to downright unhinged) but I did read about it. There were some corn kernels of truth worth picking out of the turd of a viewpoint.

Re: Why I Quit Tech and Became a Therapist

#58

Post by lm28469 »

short_sells_poo wrote: post #37
thraway-burnout wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please congratulate that person on my behalf. Even though it may be the result of an epiphany, self-restraint is still hard to achieve and a noble goal in itself :-)

I'd like to prefix this as _anecdotal_ as it is only some speculation I've done on the matter, but here is my take on it: The brain is in the end a neural network, and like all such devices, can get stuck in various local minima that are difficult to get out of. An old habit that has been reinforced through many years can take a considerable "shock" to dislodge. All the little cognitive and behavioral biases that one…

The problem is that we shouldn't feel the need to use drugs to make our lives bearable. Depression, burnout and other mental issues is amplified by our lifestyles and the system that allowed them.

Sure you can take psychedelics, anti depressant, alcohol, and other drugs to make it bearable, it won't fix the underlying issue(s).

I agree with most of what you say on psychedelics, I don't see it as a cure to what we're talking about here though.

Re: Why I Quit Tech and Became a Therapist

#59

Post by ratling »

pennaMan wrote: post #18
sleepysysadmin wrote: post #9

There is a severe workplace burnout problem in IT(especially MSPs); which when not addressed grows into bigger mental health issues and even literal sicknesses. There just isn't enough skilled IT people. The industry is immature and is bottom heavy. The top performers and seniors, are then overwhelmed with work and the business is unable to hire more senior people to reduce workload. Then the business keeps growing a…

>I had places where I would go onsite to resolve an emergency. I never caused the outage, I was there to help. I would still get death threats from clients. "The accounting files are the server, if you lost them I'm going to go to your office and kill everyone." Isn't that a criminal offence?

It's certainly an, "Okay, in that case I'm leaving," offense. If your manager gets pissed off about that leave.

IT can pay well but not that well.

Re: Why I Quit Tech and Became a Therapist

#60

Post by lm28469 »

nabnob wrote: post #36

I've been having the same existential crisis for a couple years now. I started working at a FAANG company right out of college, then after a bunch of personal health problems ended up taking a leave of absence that I didn't return from. I took a long break from software and started learning politics, philosophy, and history, and eventually came to the conclusion that most of the world's problems are social/political…

> most of the world's problems are social/political and won't be fixed by technology.

One might argue that technology not only won't fix our issues but, used as it is today, is the cause of a lot of them.

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