I'm kinda struggling right now. I'm a few months from graduating with a BS in CS, and I'm scared. Not scared about getting a job (I've had a few internships and have a solid handshake return offer from more than one of them) or “the next step” (kids? house?) independently, just the combination of all those things.
How do I find a job that's is within a same commute distance, but also affordable? How do I find a job that will help me afford those “next steps?” How on Earth do people afford a house (I mean, $300,000 is more than 3× my expected salary, and where I am, that barely gets you a townhome)? The uncertainty of the future has really knocked my level of “okay-ness” down to like a two for the past few weeks.
Ask HN: Are you ok?
41–50 of 898 posts
Re: Ask HN: Are you ok?
#42As a team lead, one question I always ask in my 1-on-1's: On a scale of 1-5 (low good, high bad), what's your stress level since we last met? If my teammate says 4 or 5, I ask what we can do to bring it down to a 3. We also address this as part of the simple assessment we do in each sprint retrospective. My company struggles to define meaningful KPIs and OKRs. This is the one that's most important to me.
I use a 1 to 5 scale and every time the respondent turns it into a 1 to 10. I always get 3.5 or 4.5. I dont get it, what is that 1 to 5 is not fine enough?
Re: Ask HN: Are you ok?
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you say that? I think there's a lot of things that are really great about tech industry and there's some things that aren't so great. What's been your experience?
This field fucking sucks. I'm tired of being on call 24/7/365. I'm tired of having to explain why plaintext passwords are bad. I'm tired of being taken advantage of for being a generalist. I'm tired of ex-google asshole bosses with massive egos. I'm tired of carrying a laptop with me "just in case". I'm tired of the constantly shifting "popular" technologies. I'm tired of spending weekends indoors studying for work,…
Would like to know where you work.
Re: Ask HN: Are you ok?
#44I've struggled a lot in the last few months in particular. I feel extremely isolated in my work. I don't feel like I have a good team environment right now. Everyone is segregated across campus which in and of itself is okay (I've done remote work stuff before, and been on teams where you didn't sit near each other) but nobody talks to each other, like ever.
And I feel like I'm missing expectations because of it, and attempts at fixing the situation just feel like it gets met with further isolation, which creates even more anxiety. I think it might just be a bad fit, but I also feel like I'm really struggling to keep up sometimes, because I want to do really good, well tested, solid work, but I feel like my deadlines aren't set with my input at all, they're simply dictated to me and I'm expected to just perform, on demand, no matter how much time it takes, and the workload doesn't feel right to me, or even similar to what other team members have to deal with. I sometimes get the feeling I'm the odd person out on the team, but its hard to say because there's little transparency. I even went as so far as to read past reviews from my previous job and they all remark about how well I am a team player, being open to feedback and new ideas I was, so I'm not sure why I'm failing so bad at this one.
It never feels like I'm satisfying my boss and my peers seemed to have iced me out.
Re: Ask HN: Are you ok?
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you say that? I think there's a lot of things that are really great about tech industry and there's some things that aren't so great. What's been your experience?
This field fucking sucks. I'm tired of being on call 24/7/365. I'm tired of having to explain why plaintext passwords are bad. I'm tired of being taken advantage of for being a generalist. I'm tired of ex-google asshole bosses with massive egos. I'm tired of carrying a laptop with me "just in case". I'm tired of the constantly shifting "popular" technologies. I'm tired of spending weekends indoors studying for work,…
Sounds like you just need to get out of the valley.
Re: Ask HN: Are you ok?
#46As a team lead, one question I always ask in my 1-on-1's: On a scale of 1-5 (low good, high bad), what's your stress level since we last met? If my teammate says 4 or 5, I ask what we can do to bring it down to a 3. We also address this as part of the simple assessment we do in each sprint retrospective. My company struggles to define meaningful KPIs and OKRs. This is the one that's most important to me.
I use a 1 to 5 scale and every time the respondent turns it into a 1 to 10. I always get 3.5 or 4.5. I dont get it, what is that 1 to 5 is not fine enough?
Are you trying to justify arguing that they're not actually at a high stress level? That doesn't seem very nice. 3.5 and 4.5 are perfectly within 1 to 5 so I'm not sure what you're getting at here.
Re: Ask HN: Are you ok?
#47I'm kinda struggling right now. I'm a few months from graduating with a BS in CS, and I'm scared. Not scared about getting a job (I've had a few internships and have a solid handshake return offer from more than one of them) or “the next step” (kids? house?) independently, just the combination of all those things. How do I find a job that's is within a same commute distance, but also affordable? How do I find a job t…
just as an fyi, most people take mortgages for anywhere between 2 and like, 5 times their annual salary. I think my mortgage right now is about 3x my salary. So dont worry about that too much. I used to stress out a lot about ANY debt, but i've learned to cope with it a bit better. You're super early in your career (even pre-career), so you've got plenty of time to work these things out. I'm confident you'll do just fine with all of those things. commute can be tricky, but if youre in an area where housing is that expensive, i'm sure the public transportation is decent quality. Buses and trains work great for morning/afternoon work commute.
Re: Ask HN: Are you ok?
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you say that? I think there's a lot of things that are really great about tech industry and there's some things that aren't so great. What's been your experience?
This field fucking sucks. I'm tired of being on call 24/7/365. I'm tired of having to explain why plaintext passwords are bad. I'm tired of being taken advantage of for being a generalist. I'm tired of ex-google asshole bosses with massive egos. I'm tired of carrying a laptop with me "just in case". I'm tired of the constantly shifting "popular" technologies. I'm tired of spending weekends indoors studying for work,…
> I'm tired of being on call 24/7/365.
You don't have to be on call. You can find a company where this is a choice (gives benefits / additional salary but not mandatory).
> I'm tired of spending weekends indoors studying for work, instead of work giving time to learn.
You shouldn't. Weekends are there for a reason, they are necessary to rest. You should try to change company if this is not the case.
I believe most of your points exist in all fields, in their own way. Good work-life balance is important to handle them.
Re: Ask HN: Are you ok?
#49Not really.
My country is being ripped apart, everyone seems so hateful against the other, the government talks about record employment level and pay while people are using foodbanks and sleeping in the streets.
My own life is great by the standards that people usually use to measure success. But it feels so empty. I'd rather check out and go and live in a cave on a hill, but all the land and caves have been parcelled off and sold before I was even born.
So here I am, I continue to live, step over people on my way to work, where I sit and help contribute to climate change, feel the guilt of all of it and wanting to change it but without knowing how.
Re: Ask HN: Are you ok?
#50As a team lead, one question I always ask in my 1-on-1's: On a scale of 1-5 (low good, high bad), what's your stress level since we last met? If my teammate says 4 or 5, I ask what we can do to bring it down to a 3. We also address this as part of the simple assessment we do in each sprint retrospective. My company struggles to define meaningful KPIs and OKRs. This is the one that's most important to me.
I use a 1 to 5 scale and every time the respondent turns it into a 1 to 10. I always get 3.5 or 4.5. I dont get it, what is that 1 to 5 is not fine enough?
Seems like an odd thing to complain about... I mean you are asking someone to boil down (often) and entire year into 1 of 5 numbers. I don't find it shocking that with such rough granularity people opt for smaller intervals than 1.