Ask HN: Why aren't you coding?

Reasoning:

If you're coding, that counts as working. But if you're working, that doesn't mean that you are coding.

Obviously yours works too though (You have to do some programming, but you also have to do other things).

But if you're still at the big picture level, code is a horrible way to express that. It inevitably takes you into the weeds.

I've been on sick leave for over half a year now. Luckily I am in a country where I am protected, but I'm receiving less salary as the law indicates. I'm trying to focus on the good things in life. In my downtime from work I've tried to start a few personal projects, but I just can't seem to stick with it and I end up just playing video games all day. I just wanna crawl into the fetal position and die sometimes. I've often contemplated suicide but I know it's not the way out and it'll hurt the people who love me more than it will help me. I haven't told anyone the last part yet, including my therapist. I know I'll never make that move, but it has been on my mind.

I'm working 2 half days a week now, and it's hard. Therapy helps, even if it's just someone I can talk to without judgement, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to stop soon because it's costing me too much. Unfortunately the waiting list for therapy covered by insurance is extremely long.

Covid was part of the problem. Because of it, we just got more work and longer hours and I was given some high stress projects and clients that were way beyond my capacity. Couple that with WFH and a bunch of other personal things that happened, I got a burn out. Without going into details, I feel my employer failed to protect me and our relationship has soured. I want to quit and find a new job, but because of my situation I can't just start a new job and work 40 hours again. OTOH continuing where I work now is just causing me more and more stress and anxiety I'm also underpaid for my level, and on top of that I'm only earning 70% because of my sick leave. Rock and a hard place and all that.

I'm lucky to have my partner, she tries to be understanding but she's also had a tough year.

Anyway, that's why I'm not coding.

I had the misfortune of assuming people want to communicate more in order to avoid miscommunication but it turned out that the team (~5 developers in a ~15 person company) actually wanted more walls around them, minimize communication and focus on silo'd development (one frontend, one backend, one ios, one android and one infrastructure with 0 sharing of tasks even if one was behind/in front) with as little communication between devs and others in the company as possible. Only the person dedicated for communication should do the communication.

I didn't agree with this so I no longer work there, but there was a few months of pain because I assumed everyone wanted to communicate but didn't have the experience/tools/processes to do so. I was wrong, which took time to discover as I assumed everyone wanted agile collaboration.

I rarely write any code myself these days (and when I do, I make sure I'm not doing that in any critical path of the company).

Barely just enough to stay sharp to remain an effective tiebreaker and stay respected by a highly capable team.

Mostly prototypes, tracer bullets, idea scribbles and PoCs.

Other than that, I focus mostly on distributing knowledge, connecting the dots and lay the tracks forward to make sure we as a team build something that creates value for the company and doesn't have to be thrown away.

Writing more code myself would be a dire waste of company resources.