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I have a soul-crushing job and I don't know what to do

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Re: I have a soul-crushing job and I don't know what to do

#51

Post by kotakota »

Some of the points you're making dont seem to make sense. For instance you say you dont have time to make interesting things but then say you only program 2hrs out of the day. What are you doing those other 6hrs? And what about side projects outside of work?

Another key point that lead to crud work is a lack of experience. If your fresh out of school most job offers you'll get will be fairly crud type work until you've shown your able to handle more.

Education can also play a role in this. If you have a bachelor's or no degree experience will be your best friend. If you have a master's or phd you can generally get into some more exciting positions out of the gate.

Where else are you looking for work besides hn hiring / freelance threads? Those aren't even close to the best resources for finding great jobs.

Re: I have a soul-crushing job and I don't know what to do

#52

Post by hipsterrific »

cognivore wrote: post #20

Our first world problems are such a drag. I think you can make most any coding job fun if you do it right. Are you interested in making things better? Adding CRUD? Bake in a better object layer to the data store. Front end developer a n00b? Just out do him with some nice Angular or jQuery on the next project. "Oh, I already added the UI stuff." If you can't learn something just for the purpose of learning (and why ar…

You make it sound so easy when it's clearly not. I've worked jobs where I was the only .net developer in a large enterprise and worked in a team where my teammate wasn't interested in growing.

It takes more than just gumsion to do what you're suggesting, what you're actually wanting to do is add more stress. Case in point, my coworker who wasn't interested in growing: I spent the better part of two months architecting out the service layers...only to have him f* it all up in a week. Refactor you say? Try refactoring code for someone elses work on top of your own.

He can try to outdo his coworkers to which he may easily become unpopular at work. Nothing adds more stress than pissing off coworkers and added more horridness to an already horrid team dynamics.

It's not easy to work in a crappy job. Your suggestions, in my opinion, sound more like wishful thinking.

Re: I have a soul-crushing job and I don't know what to do

#53

Post by bluesnowmonkey »

shubhamjain wrote: post #25
logfromblammo wrote: post #17

If your job is a soul-crushing vise, take your soul out of it and put it somewhere else. There are a lot of people out there that do something they hate to pay the bills. They get their enjoyment out of life by doing something else after clocking out. People at your work have no interest in doing things better because they already emotionally divested themselves from the job. Just pretend that instead of writing awfu…

You are misunderstanding my situation. The reason why people aren't interested in clever solutions is because they can't think of any. It may seem cynical but I have seen people out here working even longer than me re-creating something, not exploiting even basic tricks or automations. Lately, my co-worker spent 15 minutes indenting JS files without realizing that it would 10s to use a code beautifier.

I don't know your situation well, but the way you talk sounds like I used to. I spent too much of my career criticizing the people around me. Long story short, you get zero points for making other people look bad. It doesn't benefit your career, it doesn't make you feel good.

If there is an opportunity for your co-worker to be more effective, that's a great thing. You get to be the one to show him how. Just don't forget to do so with humility, because maybe there's a very good reason for doing it the way he does now. And if he's not interested in your advice, try not to take it personally.

It may be that you really are surrounded by idiots. Your co-workers are stupid, management is incompetent, they'd all be better off if they just listened to you, whatever. In this (unlikely) worst case, negativity still gets you nowhere. Acknowledge to yourself that you aren't satisfied with the situation, start looking for another job, and continue to show up every day doing your best and helping those around you. I've watched others take this approach and they're doing a lot better in their careers than I am, and they seem happier.

Re: I have a soul-crushing job and I don't know what to do

#54

Post by fivedogit »

> "I have never been good at learning new frameworks for just the purpose of learning"

Could not agree more with this statement. When I get into a software project really deeply, my work ethic is insane. Obsessive. As I need new technologies, I learn and assimilate them quickly because I'm so motivated to get to the end point. There's never been a tech I've given up on when plowing through a project -- well, maybe OpenCV.

Anyway, I've tried, as the OP has, to teach myself Rails or Django or whatever on the side as a "resume builder" and have lost interest each time. I just don't care enough to learn the not-totally-necessary tech to a degree that would actually do me any good in a job interview if I'm not doing it as part of a passion project where it is required.

From the other angle, when I get an idea and want to build it really fast, I don't have the patience to force myself to learn a new language or tech when, fuck it, I can just do it in Java or whatever.

Catch 22.

Re: I have a soul-crushing job and I don't know what to do

#56

Post by nesyt »

aurelius wrote: post #39

I was in a similar situation once. Here's the algorithm I came up with to get myself out: 1. Figure out what you want to do. This is the most important step. You currently have a job, so you have time to really think about this and figure out a solid answer. The answer doesn't have to be an emotional epiphany where you find your so-called "passion", but it has to be a concrete goal. For me, it was more of a recovery…

Why was taking the team lead position foolish? Were there no benefits to accompany the drawbacks?

Re: I have a soul-crushing job and I don't know what to do

#57

Post by atmosx »

patio11 wrote: post #23

Some times I think we are wired to believe we have to beg people's forgiveness for not being miserable. Medium term I'd suggest discarding this belief. Short term: on behalf of geeks everywhere, your local online watering hole hereby grants you permission to not be miserable. Quit. There exist much better jobs out there. The hiring market for people with your skillset is the best it has ever been. Level up. Portfolio…

I have the idea that AngularJS is requested more and more. I thought it was kind of a "must have" skill.

Re: I have a soul-crushing job and I don't know what to do

#58

Post by duckingtest »

Do you have any savings? Are you married or otherwise unable to move? There are many countries in the world where you can live comfortably for $1000/month (or even less).

That will give you a few years of time to do anything, web apps or something. Maybe one will turn out to be profitable. Or you could just try to do part-time remote work to cover living expenses.

Re: I have a soul-crushing job and I don't know what to do

#59

Post by maerF0x0 »

duckingtest wrote: post #58

Do you have any savings? Are you married or otherwise unable to move? There are many countries in the world where you can live comfortably for $1000/month (or even less). That will give you a few years of time to do anything, web apps or something. Maybe one will turn out to be profitable. Or you could just try to do part-time remote work to cover living expenses.

Which are said sub $1000 countries and link to proof would be nice.

Re: I have a soul-crushing job and I don't know what to do

#60

Post by maerF0x0 »

My advice is to make it interesting. If you're supposed to do _yet_another_GD_CRUD_page, then figure a way to do CRUD +1 .

Eg: add autosave per field, take a long form and turn it to a multipage w/ final submit, figure a way to validate in the browser before sending to the server, internationalize it (what does $1,000 and $1.000 mean?) etc etc.

I did this, plus basically ignoring my manager (whom only cared about the bare minimums and timelines, for his bonus) to level up my skills and move onto better pastures.

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