Ask HN: Burnt-out, directionless but want to turn it around • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Burnt-out, directionless but want to turn it around

#251

Post by futureshock » Tue, May 31, 2022, 9:20 AM UTC

I want to throw out there that HN is not going to have the average compassion and emotional intelligence to give you good advice. You need to hire yourself a life coach or work with a therapist (which in your case would serve the same purpose). It may not seem it to you, but you are very young still. You have more growing to do and everyone needs trusted advisors.

Also, the world is full of "lies" and most people believe them like facts. These un-truths or unhelpful-truths tend to not do you have favors. They are spread because they are attractive or convenient or benefit someone else's agenda.

Here some things you talked about that you should press x to doubt on:

A Rockstar programmer isn't a desirable professional to hire any more than actual rockstars. All stars are rare and have a big network of people around them enabling then. A lot of the work they get credit for comes from other people.

All performance is 80% situational. We are not islands. Great people in bad situations are failures. Failures in great situations are rockstars.

28 is not old. Teenagers can spend their time being children without affecting their future job prospects. People can spend their 20's partying and still run for office. Most of us get many chances in life.

Hard work does not pay off. (This one is starting to break through for you and is the main reason for your post). Luck pays off. Who you know pays off. Who you can convince pays off. Effort is not linearly correlated with reward and can often be uncorrelated. Lots of people who want to pay you a wage to do things they would rather not do would like you and everyone else to believe otherwise.

Lots of people would like to convince you that your self worth should come from them, from the money they give you, the title they give you and all of the things you can do for them. Do not listen to these people. You are the only person in the world who can properly value you. When it comes to your self-worth, you have the only opinion that matters.

Re: Ask HN: Burnt-out, directionless but want to turn it around

#252

Post by annyeonghada » Tue, May 31, 2022, 9:20 AM UTC

bigDinosaur wrote: post #229

michaelmior wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would agree for small gaps. But I think it's at least somewhat understandable why a significant gap would be a concern. With the pace technology moves at, if you have not been working for an extended period of time, it's reasonable that you might have fallen behind. Certainly this shouldn't be reason in itself to reject a candidate and it at least somewhat depends on what you were doing during that time, but I find…

It really should be put in the context of someone's life. Did they spend a year or two travelling? Did they spend it working on personally productive projects? Or did they do nothing but play video games or do drugs? These are all very different extended gaps. The first two should be fine - if someone's skills have atrophied than that's another issue (but nothing a good interview or probation period won't pick up on…

And even if someone spent their time video gaming and doing drugs why can't they turn their life around if they want and demonstrate to have the skill. Burnout, depression, horrible circumstances and families all exists and sometimes you have to hit a stable rock bottom to start climbing.

Re: Ask HN: Burnt-out, directionless but want to turn it around

#253

Post by Findecanor » Tue, May 31, 2022, 9:23 AM UTC

michaelmior wrote: post #205

feanaro wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No-one will care about a month or two gap on your resume. On a related note, this "gap in resume" thing needs to stop being a thing at all. I don't know when it became a thing, but it feels distinctively like forcing a wage slave class to keep their head down and continue wageslaving. Why would an employer care whether I took time off to pursue other things otherwise?

I would agree for small gaps. But I think it's at least somewhat understandable why a significant gap would be a concern. With the pace technology moves at, if you have not been working for an extended period of time, it's reasonable that you might have fallen behind. Certainly this shouldn't be reason in itself to reject a candidate and it at least somewhat depends on what you were doing during that time, but I find…

It's that attitude of recruiters' that keeps me unemployable.

The fact is that the IT world does not progress in a linear direction. It's like a puddle that grows into multiple directions. But it is still covering most of the same spots as before. Banks still use COBOL. High-performance code is still in C or C++ with assembler (but that "C" may run on a GPU), etc.

Re: Ask HN: Burnt-out, directionless but want to turn it around

#254

Post by t_mann » Tue, May 31, 2022, 9:23 AM UTC

Tenoke wrote: post #233

t_mann wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, this is a textbook example of trying to solve a deeply personal/emotional problem with logics and data instead of compassion. To anyone who activates their empathy sensors it's evidently clear that the OP is having a mild burnout crisis (not surprising after 70h weeks), and needs a bit of support first and foremost. What's really doing damage is your language, not a biased estimate of which percentile of a bell…

>What's really doing damage is your language, not a biased estimate of which percentile of a bell curve we're looking at here. I don't know, maybe setting unrealistic expectations and telling everyone they are worth more which implies they are doing something wrong to not get that worth out isn't doing them favours either in the long run.

Yes, apparently you don't know how language affects emotions, expectations and personal relationships, and what the long-term effects on mental health, productivity, longevity and quality-years-of-life are. Don't confuse your pseudo-empiricism with objectivity (we don't even have enough data here! how can you talk about unrealistic expectations without data?). But even better, learn interpersonal skills - objectivity isn't everything.

Re: Ask HN: Burnt-out, directionless but want to turn it around

#255

Post by heleninboodler » Tue, May 31, 2022, 9:23 AM UTC

automatic6131 wrote: post #245

finikytou wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

trust me they care. especially in a fast moving technology space like cloud, k8s, ML. if you are hired for COBOL yes sure a gap wont matter

>especially in a fast moving technology space like cloud, k8s, ML You are kidding yourself.

Indeed. Here's why we know this isn't true: everyone has areas they focus on, and they aren't defined as "everything fast-paced that exists." You can spend literal years working on problems in the security space, or on web front end crap, or in audio processing, or object storage, learning absolutely jack squat about cloud, ML or k8s, and you don't shrivel up and die. I basically completely switch disciplines every time I job hop, and nobody's ever questioned me about keeping up with whatever fast-paced stuff I was doing two jobs ago.

Re: Ask HN: Burnt-out, directionless but want to turn it around

#256

Post by michaelmior » Tue, May 31, 2022, 9:24 AM UTC

bigDinosaur wrote: post #229

michaelmior wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would agree for small gaps. But I think it's at least somewhat understandable why a significant gap would be a concern. With the pace technology moves at, if you have not been working for an extended period of time, it's reasonable that you might have fallen behind. Certainly this shouldn't be reason in itself to reject a candidate and it at least somewhat depends on what you were doing during that time, but I find…

It really should be put in the context of someone's life. Did they spend a year or two travelling? Did they spend it working on personally productive projects? Or did they do nothing but play video games or do drugs? These are all very different extended gaps. The first two should be fine - if someone's skills have atrophied than that's another issue (but nothing a good interview or probation period won't pick up on…

> It really should be put in the context of someone's life.

Absolutely agree.

Re: Ask HN: Burnt-out, directionless but want to turn it around

#257

Post by distances » Tue, May 31, 2022, 9:28 AM UTC

frenchman99 wrote: post #147

dfcowell wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP didn’t state where they are from, but there are plenty of places where it is extremely hard to fire, even if an employee is consistently underperforming. Not saying that this is the case in this circumstance (I don’t know OP,) but the “you must be good because you lasted 4 years” heuristic doesn’t work that well outside of the US, or similar markets with at-will employment.

Even in France which lots of people call "socialist", the company can fire you at any time and has to pay only about 3/6 months of salary for "wrongful termination". That's low enough to not keep constantly underperforming people.

I think in many other countries like Nordics and Germany the company can be forced to just basically undo the termination.

Re: Ask HN: Burnt-out, directionless but want to turn it around

#258

Post by mcv » Tue, May 31, 2022, 9:29 AM UTC

> I've always failed to come up with a solution from scratch of my own and provide any value. I've always wondered how other smart people are able to come up with libraries, services and various solutions from scratch.

Nobody does. Everybody builds on stuff that existed before. Even Tim Berners-Lee's idea for the Web was based on lots of previous ideas.

> I've already wasted my entire teens and 20s, current 28 years old

Wasted? Your life is barely starting. My life as a software engineer didn't take off until I was 28, because I wasted too much time at university. And it didn't really start to take off until I was 38 when I started freelancing. I'm 48 now and doing better than ever. And wasting your teens isn't wasting; that's what they're for.

Your only problem seems to be that your entire life seems to revolve only around work. You work too hard and you obsess too much about it. Let it go. Work 40 hours a week, and maybe only after you take a long and well-deserved holiday. Explore your other interests. Develop a hobby. Go sing, bike, travel, dance, paint, read, or build something with your hands instead of your brain.

You're young. Your career is already way better than most people your age. Let some other interests into your life, and you may notice that you'll also continue to grow in your career.

Re: Ask HN: Burnt-out, directionless but want to turn it around

#259

Post by throwaway2037 » Tue, May 31, 2022, 9:32 AM UTC

tayo42 wrote: post #40

balaji1 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree to all your points except partial "nit" on the first one - Traveling slightly feels like an escapism thing for me. Volunteering and hobbies are perfect, but people tend to do the traveling more often, I feel. I think people in OP's situation might benefit a sense of accomplishment/progress, and being recognized for that would help. But that's hard to get, especially external recognition. But a feeling of satisf…

I think for travel you need to make the most of it when you return. I've come back from trips feeling like I hit a refresh button, though if you don't make changes and run with the feeling you'll just fall back into old feelings and habits

I agree about feeling mentally refreshed, but I am normally knackered after travel because I don't stop moving when I travel (relaxing on a beach or beside a pool makes no sense to me). Most travel trips for me result in at least one minor epiphany about something I should be doing more or less of... Taking yourself out of a comfortable place to a new place can temporarily re-wire some neurons in your brain for more open thinking.

Re: Ask HN: Burnt-out, directionless but want to turn it around

#260

Post by mcv » Tue, May 31, 2022, 9:32 AM UTC

Findecanor wrote: post #253

michaelmior wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would agree for small gaps. But I think it's at least somewhat understandable why a significant gap would be a concern. With the pace technology moves at, if you have not been working for an extended period of time, it's reasonable that you might have fallen behind. Certainly this shouldn't be reason in itself to reject a candidate and it at least somewhat depends on what you were doing during that time, but I find…

It's that attitude of recruiters' that keeps me unemployable. The fact is that the IT world does not progress in a linear direction. It's like a puddle that grows into multiple directions. But it is still covering most of the same spots as before. Banks still use COBOL. High-performance code is still in C or C++ with assembler (but that "C" may run on a GPU), etc.

Just give the gap a name and it stops being a gap. Maybe you started your own company to unproductively mess around with stuff. Or call it a sabbatical. Those are popular.