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How did I get so unhappy working in tech?

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Re: How did I get so unhappy working in tech?

#171

Post by paulcole »

HWR_14 wrote: post #168
paulcole wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm just frightened of producing something that I pretend is profound and everyone else thinks is obvious. That's a totally different fear Yes and my point is that what you produce won't be profound and people will think it's obvious. Write it anyway. Or don't.

Thanks for the encouragement. In person people are far more likely to tell me not to bother, and I'm not going to pretend it doesn't affect me. I think everyone reacts to their real-life friends' expectations and assumptions.

I don’t know if you’re being sarcastic or not, but this really is meant to encourage you.

Most people will never write anything and even fewer people will write something good. Nobody who doesn’t write will ever write anything good. If you can get yourself into the group of people who have written something, that’s like buying a lottery ticket where the prize is writing something good. Maybe you’ll buy a bunch of tickets and shorten your odds a bit.

Maybe you’ll just have a bunch of losing tickets at the end of the day. But most people won’t even have those and those kinds of people really like to sneer at people who do play the lottery.

Maybe this is an awful analogy. But if you want to write, that’s your reason to write. I hope you have some fun and find some meaning in it.

Re: How did I get so unhappy working in tech?

#172

Post by paulcole »

itronitron wrote: post #73
HWR_14 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find myself wanting to write, but petrified that what I'm writing is banal and I only think it's profound and interesting. I suppose I could write some and show it to someone or mail a sample to a publisher.

You could just start off writing down your thoughts in order to better understand and explore them. I consider that very different from writing to communicate to other people though, and a lot of people unfortunately don't make the distinction.

This is a great suggestion. There’s a quote that’s something like “If you think without writing, then you just think you’re thinking.”

Re: How did I get so unhappy working in tech?

#173

Post by mrslave »

pragmatic wrote: post #157
malka wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you care ? If top monkey want to spend money on stupid shit, I'll happily indulge it. It is not my money that is badly spent anyway.

I envy you if you can go through your whole career like that.

But perhaps there is a middle way. Many of us care too much, and each subsequent difficult - or bad - decision drives us deeper into burnout. It's not healthy. In which case GP's attitude is the right one.

Re: How did I get so unhappy working in tech?

#174

Post by cloverich »

mrslave wrote: post #173
pragmatic wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I envy you if you can go through your whole career like that.

But perhaps there is a middle way. Many of us care too much, and each subsequent difficult - or bad - decision drives us deeper into burnout. It's not healthy. In which case GP's attitude is the right one.

To extend further perhaps it is only useful to care as far as your influence, motivation, and energy reach. And perhaps the happiest of us at all levels of the ladder are the ones who understand their capabilities and match their care accordingly.

Re: How did I get so unhappy working in tech?

#175

Post by creakingstairs »

goodpoint wrote: post #142
creakingstairs wrote: post #13

I _know_ I have it really good. But I still feel unhappy and unfulfilled. I'm planning to have a sabbatical next year to see how that pans out for me. I honestly don't know how my parents worked until retirement.

> I _know_ I have it really good. A big of the problem is the culture that measures everything in terms of money and perks. It's well proven that a big source of burnout is misalignment between personal goals and your job. Humans crave meaning. Being paid a ton of money to optimize some algorithm to manipulate people into buying something they don't need is the opposite of meaningful work.

I agree but how many people actually get alignment in their jobs?

I’ve been trying to figure out how some people can keep going without that alignment. Some say to just treat it as a job, but that doesn’t seem to be working for me. I guess I’m one of those people who must get an aligning job.

Re: How did I get so unhappy working in tech?

#176

Post by 5350-uiop-1130 »

cableshaft wrote: post #152
5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

same, i'm in a job where i can sort of coast, it's stressful, the people mostly, but the work is easy. i lost interest in dealing with all the bs and whenever i try to look at the job market i just feel too demoralised to go through all the hoops just to get another job where i will be dealing with the same or new kind of bs. i feel like this may be my last coding job after 15 years, maybe i can do another 2-3 more.

What do you think you might do after coding? Management or a different field entirely? I've considered management but I also don't really want to deal with people bullshit, and I'm having a harder and harder time listening to bullshit business meetings in general, and I imagine there'd be a lot more of those.

something different. also maybe get back into academia somehow. i would take a 70% paycut to do some low key work where i don't need to deal with an office, and office politics.

Re: How did I get so unhappy working in tech?

#177

Post by cableshaft »

5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #176
cableshaft wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think you might do after coding? Management or a different field entirely? I've considered management but I also don't really want to deal with people bullshit, and I'm having a harder and harder time listening to bullshit business meetings in general, and I imagine there'd be a lot more of those.

something different. also maybe get back into academia somehow. i would take a 70% paycut to do some low key work where i don't need to deal with an office, and office politics.

Wow. I don't think I could easily afford a 70% paycut. 20% maybe, but 70% is a pretty deep cut. Good on you for being in a situation where that's a viable option!

Re: How did I get so unhappy working in tech?

#178

Post by bennysomething »

mongol wrote: post #121
bennysomething wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea of deep work has a place too. I haven't read the book but I think it touch's Linus locking himself away at a critical point in Linux's development. Bill gates did something similar (not sure what he was working on at that time).

I think he did that when he created git?

Yeah maybe it was that not sure!

Re: How did I get so unhappy working in tech?

#179

Post by HWR_14 »

paulcole wrote: post #171
HWR_14 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the encouragement. In person people are far more likely to tell me not to bother, and I'm not going to pretend it doesn't affect me. I think everyone reacts to their real-life friends' expectations and assumptions.

I don’t know if you’re being sarcastic or not, but this really is meant to encourage you. Most people will never write anything and even fewer people will write something good. Nobody who doesn’t write will ever write anything good. If you can get yourself into the group of people who have written something, that’s like buying a lottery ticket where the prize is writing something good. Maybe you’ll buy a bunch of tic…

I wasn't being sarcastic.

It's been easy to be encouraged to write about things I am credentialed in, but I want to write about things I'm not. And I hadn't been getting much encouragement in real life that the writing without an appeal to authority would be taken seriously or stand on its own.

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