171–180 of 224 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Well son, the funny thing about regret is that it's better to regret something you have done than to regret something that you haven't done" -- Butthole Surfers
That's Orbital (from Satan), not Butthole Surfers
Thank you for sharing. I can relate. This is my first “real” full time job, and I’ve now been there 10 years with little to show for it, and not for lack of trying. Software engineer for a small company, report directly to the owners. Repeatedly, I pour my heart and soul into a project that I believe in, only for ownership to trash the project for superficial reasons. I’ll do small things and get overly patronizing p…
The act of planning will make you feel better. Once you start believing that you have options, the stress reduces tremendously. There’s a site called interviewing.io or something like that (I have no articulation, I stumbled on it a couple weeks ago), and you can pay $100 or something to have an hour and a half interview with some FAANG engineer on whatever topics you want. The point is that there are resources all o…
Just keep in mind that once you start planning you may be tempted to start burning the bridge before you actually get out. Resist that. Plan A is still your paycheck until you actually secure plan B.
Recently I’ve been experiencing the flip side of this. You don’t know how bad someone was until you get rid of them. There are people who I feel are annoying and toxic, but I don’t get rid of them because I am afraid of the reactions of those who are left. They are talking shit about the company to others and spreading discontent and it’s easy to feel like firing the person will somehow prove them right to everyone e…
Is this a manager issue? Non-believers have never interfered with my work, and are much preferred to the more common species “the manipulator”, also known as social climbers. Interfering is their MO, and toxic positivity their hallmark.
Thank you for sharing. I can relate. This is my first “real” full time job, and I’ve now been there 10 years with little to show for it, and not for lack of trying. Software engineer for a small company, report directly to the owners. Repeatedly, I pour my heart and soul into a project that I believe in, only for ownership to trash the project for superficial reasons. I’ll do small things and get overly patronizing p…
The act of planning will make you feel better. Once you start believing that you have options, the stress reduces tremendously. There’s a site called interviewing.io or something like that (I have no articulation, I stumbled on it a couple weeks ago), and you can pay $100 or something to have an hour and a half interview with some FAANG engineer on whatever topics you want. The point is that there are resources all o…
That sounds like exactly the kind of thing I need to gain some confidence.
I’m sorry for what you’ve been through as well. I can relate to much of it. The feelings of being trapped are a real thing.
I really appreciate the advice, hopefully you’re doing better. FWIW, what you’ve shared has already been a big help in my attitude.
In 2019 I've had burnout because of team members that didn't care about being in a team. They just messed up the team dynamic completely and I just couldn't handle it. I asked my supervisor to act upon this, but he didn't, so I went on sick leave (Netherlands). Nothing happened for about half a year when I was sidelined in another team.
In 2020 and 2021 I just had nothing to do. Or just stupid chores doing rework or refactoring, but it just didn't do it for me. I asked constantly for work, but there wasn't any. I had to, however, justify my hours, which was becoming impossible.
Whatever I did finish, often didn't make it in the final product. Or I got berated for spending too much time, without getting any time allotted prior. It destroyed my motivation for working.
In the mean time I was looking out for other jobs, but not finding anything that suited me. You see I'm visually impaired, so I hate commuting as it costs me quite a bit of energy, which I'd rather spent on something else.
In the end of 2021 I urged my supervisor to find a solution as it was becoming dire to me. He promised that he would, but as you can guess, he didn't. Going into 2022 I wrote him a letter saying the situation was unsustainable for me. I had quite a lot of panic attacks, especially before starting a new week. That didn't change anything. So in march of 2022 I went on sick leave.
During 2022 the situation only deteriorated. Everyone 'tried their best', but without any results. I got assigned a budget for 2500€ for external help. Which wouldn't be sufficient for any meaningful help. But inquiring on how I could use that budget left me with no answers. This finally resulted in conflicts with my supervisor, HR supervisor and the CEO. And still no help. No psychologist, nothing.
I also went to my GP in May of 2022, but the waiting list for mental help are extremely long. I just got my first appointment last week. In the mean time my mental complaints only increased. I'm now suffering from depression, anxiety, anger, suicidal thoughts and being unable to stay asleep. Because of inflation financially things are getting harder too. It's just stress upon stress upon stress.
I just want to leave. I want to get out of this situation. I don't want anything to do with these folks ever again. They fucked me up by sidelining and ignoring me. And finally they don't take any responsibility. I don't even enjoy my computing hobby anymore.
I just wanted to ventilate my story to a bunch of strangers on the internet, like you. Thanks again for posting this and I hope I can start over soon. Good luck!
Thank you for sharing. I can relate. This is my first “real” full time job, and I’ve now been there 10 years with little to show for it, and not for lack of trying. Software engineer for a small company, report directly to the owners. Repeatedly, I pour my heart and soul into a project that I believe in, only for ownership to trash the project for superficial reasons. I’ll do small things and get overly patronizing p…
> My self esteem is terrible and I haven’t left for fear that I won’t be able to “make it” anywhere else, paralyzed by the fear of ending up unemployed. > I’m angry that I have a 10 year career full of ambition that went absolutely nowhere, I want to leave, but it’s scary. > Your story gave me a great boost of encouragement to start seriously planning my exit. I worked for a shit software company in the midwest for a…
But what specifically was bad (project? the company's product/service? customers? market? internal stuff? development process? middle managers? team?), and was it only like this for you, or your coworkers? It's impossible to get an inkling from reading this. (Equivalently, if you could have changed three things about the company/dept, what would they have been?)
> I am however still resentful over the lost years.
I really don't see framing things like that is helpful. You chose to stay out of (extreme) fear; you could have left. Again, what did you learn about what you most wanted as changes in the company, or about yourself or your psychology? Unless you can articulate (/reframe) something positive, I don't see there's much other people or you yourself can extract from this account. (For example: when you see management hierarchies of bullies, incompetent, cronies and no accountability, you learn the signs to look for so you can detect them the next time, at interview or even before. What are those signs?)
A superb book is Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning" (1946/1959). TLDR: no experience is inherently negative or positive, you can always reframe it to extract something positive. This determines your outlook. People here cite it often: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=+%22Man%27s+Search+for+Meaning%22
Between stimulus and response, we have a choice in how we react. If you think the problem is out there, stop yourself. If we use our own conscience, self-awareness, imagination and free will we can choose a response every time that we won't regret. It's nice to be nice and it's cool to be cool. No one wants problems and we all have them. But in every problem exists an opportunity - to solve that problem. The only way…
There are managers who actively look to destroy people. It happens, for various reasons, including favoritism, nepotism or whatever. It isn't mine to know why. It is mine to know that it happens. And I've seen it plenty.
When negativity is in charge.... negativity wins. When zero and negative sum is the only game to be played... those of us who play a positive game suffer.
I'm glad you've never seen these dynamics, and been able to dodge them. But trust me. I've seen it, and I've seen it destroy great teams.
The way he can change his state is exactly how he did: Leave. Sometimes it really is that bad. May it never get there for you.