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Why I Quit Tech and Became a Therapist

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161–170 of 328 posts

Re: Why I Quit Tech and Became a Therapist

#161

Post by michaelbuckbee »

The worst burnout/depression I've had from software development has been putting in years of time and effort only to have the project I'd been sweating on fail/not be adopted/go under.

This is across the board, from a Fortune 100 company that decided to axe a division to a well-financed startup that cratered to some of my own side projects I couldn't quite get out the door.

It's just a gut punch to sit back and think: "If we'd done nothing we'd be in a better spot right now than this project that turned out to be a waste of time."

Re: Why I Quit Tech and Became a Therapist

#162

Post by shrimp_emoji »

danans wrote: post #157
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…

> But why is my own intellectual curiosity more important than whether someone else gets to eat? It's not, but unless you are working on something that is directly impoverishing someone to this point, then the economic or social system that allows people to go hungry and without basics is more to blame than your particular role. People don't go hungry anymore due to lack of societal resources. It's due to either a la…

And get downvoted when asking how it's ethical to allow a small fraction of people to own unlimited wealth when 25% of Americans don't have clean tap water. :3

Re: Why I Quit Tech and Became a Therapist

#163

Post by dsfyu404ed »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #141
sleepysysadmin wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I report it, they told me "She wasnt serious"

If it was me I'd report it to the police before management.

People get worked up and over-react over dumb shit. It happens. Making a big deal out of it does not do anything to improve the situation. I'm not wasting everyone's time by calling the cops unless the threat is at least remotely credible. I know that in this day and age of shunning responsibility being the person willing to define "remotely credible" is not going to be popular but whatever. Calling the cops when some stressed out person goes a little too far isn't smart and doesn't improve safety. It's just ass covering that lets you pat yourself on the back for "doing something". If you really want to address the situation your best bet is probably to chew out whoever did it later after they have cooled off.

As ethbro pointed out[1], criminal statutes have been interpreted such that a non-credible thread does not usually fall within them. Cops generally don't like it when you call them for non-criminal things. Honestly you're probably best off asking whoever got threatened what they want to do rather than optimizing for corporate ass covering.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19359233

Re: Why I Quit Tech and Became a Therapist

#164

Post by Izkata »

pjc50 wrote: post #143
sleepysysadmin wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly an interesting point. In r/sysadmin there's a tongue in cheek comment of 'quitting IT to become a goat farmer' I actually personally place it really at 1 place. https://www.ontario.ca/document/industries-and-jobs-exemptio... The Ontario government(where I live) passed laws before the Y2K hoax removing: The right not to be forced to work 20 hour days. The right not to be called back into work 2 hours after a…

Y2K was not a hoax! It was the rare case of all the rhetoric making people do the necessary planning work.

Plus, a problem was found anyway in NASA data (somewhere around 2006, I think) that was caused by Y2K; it just took a long time for someone to find it.

Re: Why I Quit Tech and Became a Therapist

#165

Post by gotocake »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #163
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it was me I'd report it to the police before management.

People get worked up and over-react over dumb shit. It happens. Making a big deal out of it does not do anything to improve the situation. I'm not wasting everyone's time by calling the cops unless the threat is at least remotely credible. I know that in this day and age of shunning responsibility being the person willing to define "remotely credible" is not going to be popular but whatever. Calling the cops when som…

Are you qualified to assess threats for credibility? It’s actually a fairly involved skillset, and unless you’re used to working with MOSAIC you might want to leave it to people who are qualified.

Re: Why I Quit Tech and Became a Therapist

#166

Post by dsfyu404ed »

gotocake wrote: post #165
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People get worked up and over-react over dumb shit. It happens. Making a big deal out of it does not do anything to improve the situation. I'm not wasting everyone's time by calling the cops unless the threat is at least remotely credible. I know that in this day and age of shunning responsibility being the person willing to define "remotely credible" is not going to be popular but whatever. Calling the cops when som…

Are you qualified to assess threats for credibility? It’s actually a fairly involved skillset, and unless you’re used to working with MOSAIC you might want to leave it to people who are qualified.

And the beat cop who was to take your statement is going to be more qualified? They know even less of the details of the situation.

The only thing calling the cops does is make the prosecution's job easier in the highly unlikely event that the threat does turn out to be credible. Calling the cops doesn't actually protect you from anything in a situation like this. I don't understand why people don't understand that. They take statements and leave. On the off chance the prosecutor is feeling bored and wants to pursue charges then yet more people's time is wasted and nothing happens, maybe someone gets a fine.

Re: Why I Quit Tech and Became a Therapist

#167

Post by srednalfden »

baselined wrote: post #48

I realized quickly in undergrad I could not program. This prompted the change to psych and eventually a MS in Counseling Psych. Today I am licensed with a small practice and work full-time in public education. Even though I have so much more to learn, moving towards a humanistic approach has had such a positive impact with clients and myself. Being able to sit back and be with a feeling, no matter how uncomfortable,…

When you say you could not program - can you expand on How that manifested for you personally?

Re: Why I Quit Tech and Became a Therapist

#168

Post by LrnByTeach »

barberousse wrote: post #131
ergothus wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The industry is immature and is bottom heavy. I'm not entirely sure what "bottom" you refer to here. From what I see, there's a misalignment: Lots of senior people lose time doing work that doesn't require senior people, because there aren't enough non-senior people available to do that work. The solution to this is seen as hiring more senior people, which fails, because while there are lots of junior people, no on…

>So the industry (in terms of people experience) is bottom-heavy in the work pool. Places that can afford it are top heavy in talent+experience, and everyone else is bottom-heavy in low experience, and neither type of place is doing anything to really address their problems long-term. When I came to my company I was a junior front-end engineer with no CS degree. A few months in or so in I'm apart of a post-work discu…

This captures the root cause of the problem.

> how the programming industry is getting flooded with low-skill juniors and how it's bad for the industry.

>(1) The ubiquity and availability of the browser meant there was going to be a continued need, so the problem isn't just going to go away;

> (2) This problem is one of software engineering pedagogy being woefully underprepared, which it is.

Re: Why I Quit Tech and Became a Therapist

#169

Post by jeofken »

For years I struggled to become financially independent (as Mr Money Mustache). Years upon years of watching the clock until it hit 17:30, hating the dumb coders who made a mess for me to clean up (because I know FP, and if we had types these bugs wouldn’t be here in the first place!).

A year ago, I pulled the plug, and retired. Finally, I could work on my dream project every day.

I did so for 6 months, and travelled, and had fun.

But the following six months were full of waking late, getting stoned (sometimes waking and baking), having a liter beer a day (Germany), being bored all day, and obviously falling into depression. Lounging around in long johns waiting for the evening so a friend would be off work and meet for dinner.

Then I answered a recruiter who contacted me about a job in a big boring government office. A place with endless dumb scrum bullshit processes (wasn’t it about having less process?), suits, good bye cakes, clueless managers, and all what I earlier resented.

But without that I was depressed. So now I go to my boring government job with a huge smile, and I honestly love the phony agile coach, coffee machine talk, and coding up things the stakeholder wants. Legacy code - what a joyous load to lift.

No one of my coworkers know I don’t have to be there, they just know me as the smiling guy.

I don’t know what to spend my salary on - I guess I can invest more maybe? I make sure to treat my friends to rounds at the bar, and concert tickets, and pay for dinner with this girl I asked out.

I learned that it is good to have something to aim your bow at, and a place to go every morning, and a heavy load to carry with your mates.

Re: Why I Quit Tech and Became a Therapist

#170

Post by rjn945 »

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…

(You have no contact info in your profile, so I'll just post this publicly.)

I've been thinking a lot of similar thoughts and have been wishing I had more people to discuss this with.

If it sounds good to you, reach out to me at the email in my profile. I'd be interested in hearing more about your diagnosis of how systems are malfunctioning, what systemic fixes might look like, and how it could be practical to work on that and still pay bills.

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