321–330 of 370 posts
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When it comes to health and well being f*ck what's appropriate do whatever you can get away with ... just do not put life or well being of other people in harm ways
Live it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU0pZarehLY
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Obvious for me to say: there's a point in time when you're going to stop working and you're going to be draining away your safety net regardless, because you're retired. So with a sabbatical now, just think that you're making time now so that you can have a better retirement later because you'll be ready for an enjoyable retirement as opposed to needing to take two or three or five years of your retirement, just calm…
Understood, but to an extent retirement isn't a choice. At a certain age I will find it harder to get a job and harder to do most things. You also have the concept of compounding interest. A year of savings at age 30 is much more valuable than a year of savings when I'm 60.
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This is what I did. Took 2 1/2 years and didn't write a line of code for two of those years. I simply fucked off and traveled the world. Half the time I didn't even know what day of the week it was. It was glorious and it cured my burn out.
How much did you forget in that time span? Did you have to relearn a bunch, and did it come back faster the second time? I feel like I forget so much about programming on a daily basis that I would probably have to re-earn a CS degree if I took 3 months off lol.
Burnout also manifested itself in health problems with no explanation. I suffered epileptic-like episodes on a plane a week into my leave from work. I spent a year getting tests, unable to drive until cleared by a doctor, which were all inconclusive. The timing of this, and the fact I've not experienced this before or since, makes me think stress was the cause.
It took months of doing practically nothing at home, and a year or so in a new job, to understand a few things.
- There are external and internal stress factors that can influence burnout. You might have external workplace factors you can't influence, or you might also have unrealistic expectations, be a perfectionist, have an intense work ethic, or unbalanced work-life balance.
- After burnout, you can recognise these stress factors, and how to mitigate or avoid them. Some you can control, some you can't. If you need to leave somewhere, then leave. Before I suffered burnout, I saw a therapist and they said that leaving was the best option. They were totally right.
- Once you recognise stress factors that you can control, you take steps to mitigate or avoid them. You change your attitude towards work. You time box between work and life activities (if your work allows). You make meaningful boundaries, which can be physical, time-based, or mental.
- It's ok to feel defective for a time. For a year or two after my burnout, I felt like I was "damaged goods". Certain situations were triggering, I would not apply myself to work in the same way as before. I wondered whether I would "find my mojo" again. This is temporary, but it's a crucial time for reflection and learning.
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If you're a software engineer that has been working for 7+ years and don't have enough savings to survive 6 months off work or are so behind on retirement savings that this would seriously impact your future I think you should work seriously on getting your finances in order.
It's less that and more that you're not maximizing retirement savings at that point, which is something that stresses a lot of folks out. Also, even within software, I can't imagine trying to find a job with a 6-month gap on my resume. I'm not in the bay area, and even working remotely, competition is brutal. A gap on your resume is a great reason to get immediately rejected by wherever you're applying to. Not all of…
You shouldn't have gap in your resume. I took more than one year off to travel around New Zealand. I put this in my resume and I think it made it more interesting. After that I migrated from Hungary to the UK during COVID and didn't had any problem finding a job.
Long answer: after a long time in the technology sector with a single employer, I felt that I had grown to hate the entire tech industry. I left the sector for a couple of years, working various freelance / self-employment roles outside of tech. Finally, after the prolonged break, I decided to consider going back in, but with some very serious requirements: I had to have highly competitive pay and 100% remote work with a flexible schedule, or I wouldn't go back. After a long hunt I finally landed a role that fits, and I'm actually happy with it.
Why did I go back? The camaraderie. If you leave the tech sector, but you're still passionate about the field, you're going to find that there is a major part of your intellectual life that you don't get to share with other people. In other words, my main motivation to return was not the income, but to get that kind of cerebral interaction again. The high requirements are simply my minimum standard for dealing with all the horrible, soul-draining aspects of the industry (and I'm under no delusion that they've changed).
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Kind of this. I don't think it's "care less" but I think it's "care appropriately for 40 hours a week." The concept of "quiet quitting" is a shameful, panicky fraud perpetuated by the power holders in the industry that see their power slipping. "Quiet quitting" has been known as "work to rule" or "fulfilling a contract." My paystub says 40 hours. My original contract says nothing about overtime. I'm not quiet quittin…
> The concept of "quiet quitting" is a shameful, panicky fraud perpetuated by the power holders in the industry that see their power slipping Is it? I always took "Quiet Quitting" to mean, "Lets see how long I can do nothing until I get fired", not "Work to Rule" or "work your pay", or whatever. I've seen this "Work 5 hours a week sporadically answering slack and see how long till they notice I produce nothing" befor…
This advice is going to be hated by a lot of people but.. care less. You’re in an industry that values your skills and seems to always have demand. Whether or not that’s true in the future, it certainly is today , so the best thing you can do is put yourself first and worry less about work as a whole. Especially if it’s not your own company. Spend more time on you, on activities with friends and family, on hobbies. I…
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> The concept of "quiet quitting" is a shameful, panicky fraud perpetuated by the power holders in the industry that see their power slipping Is it? I always took "Quiet Quitting" to mean, "Lets see how long I can do nothing until I get fired", not "Work to Rule" or "work your pay", or whatever. I've seen this "Work 5 hours a week sporadically answering slack and see how long till they notice I produce nothing" befor…
Can you give some details on where you saw this "work 5 hours a week" thing? I have never seen anything like that in my career. I have seen incompetent colleagues who worked hard but produced less than 5 hours of useful work per week though.