Ask HN: Those who quit their jobs without anything planned. How did it go?

Don't feel bad, or ashamed, this is perfectly normal.

I find renting a desk in a co-working space has helped me stay a little more motivated and positive over the last several months (home office gets too monotone).

Just do your best and make a genuine effort, if you do and you still want to go back to a classic job, then do it. As long as you know you gave it a genuine effort, you have nothing to feel bad about.

I quit my job due to stress-related flame out a few years ago, abruptly and with no plan at all (mentioned here[0]). I am a single father with no support network. It was a ridiculously stupid move in retrospect, but at the time I really couldn't face another day due to stress coming from all directions in my life. I froze up.

Thankfully, the company I work(ed) for was unreasonably cool about it - they gave me a good 5-6 weeks off, kept in touch while making it clear I would be welcomed back, and finally, re-instated me and offered a significant promotion and raise if I could move to another office in another state.

That's what did the trick - I was unable to see clearly that it wasn't the job, it was the living conditions that were really the problem (shared a house with my brother as he descended into alcoholism). Accepting the new position and moving across country was reinvigorating, even though we got to the new city mere days before the lockdowns hit.

Anyway, turns out I got a massively lucky break here and doubt I'll ever pull such a stunt in the future. Despite the lockdowns _everything_ has improved and my child and I are flourishing.

Point is - if you are about to make such a stress induced, abrupt, massive decision with no backup plan... it's worth being clear about it to your employer, taking a leave and gaining some perspective. It really is the case that you may regret it!

This little episode messed up my credit, threatened the well being of my kid, put even _more_ stress on me to figure things out. Despite the good outcome I'd strongly recommend nobody ever do anything like this. I could very easily ended up in a hovel or out on the street or some sort of horrible crap like that.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20951444

If you can afford it, do it! The worst that can happen is you'll just get another job.

I quit a job about 15 years ago with no plans and enough money to last me a year or two. It taught me a lot about myself. I had planned on hiking and skiing and maybe starting my own company, but mostly I just sat around catching up on TV shows and movies because all my friends were working full-time. I also did some volunteer work to fill the time and keep up contact with other people.

After about a year of that, I was really bored, and it only took a month or two to line up another job, even in the 2008 recession. I took a pay cut relative to my previous job, but I met great new people, learned a lot of new stuff, and eventually got enough equity to more than make up the salary difference.

> There were no opportunities on the data science team since I didn't have an MSc

As an aside, this is total nonsense. For gods sake, if someone has the skills to do data science (and if you can code and do analysis then you definitely do) arbitrary gatekeeping on a credential makes no goddamn sense.

EDIT: > At the same time, I underestimated how little my experience as a data analyst meant to data science teams.

Not all data science teams, I've been doing this for a while and absolutely adore getting people with analytics experience, as it's critical to success in a lot of DS teams and is hard to train.

Question to those in that did this

What did you do about your health insurance?