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What I wish I knew before I quit my job

michaeldrogalis.substack.com

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Re: What I wish I knew before I quit my job

#21

Post by Outpox »

yakkomajuri wrote: post #5

I quit a hell of a job (in the good sense!) kinda out of nowhere at a point in my career where I was in a great upward trajectory to go on an "indefinite sabbatical" (turned out to be 7 months). I did not quit to start a company, but the sense of multiple plunges does resonate. From my perspective: - It's very hard to detach yourself from stable (and growing) personal finances - The comparison aspect is always there,…

"Kind of the same" here. I'm being laid off for economic reasons and I'm lucky that my country helps me. My salary is maintained at ~70% tax free for a year while I'm searching for a new job or following trainings.

This means that I have a "sabbatical" year ahead of me if I want to. I'm planning on 2 months before working again and in the meantime I'm learning Rust (coming from Typescript), although I don't think I'll land a job for it.

What's the most frightening are:

- the personal finances (I've got a house to pay!)

- I'll need to calm down on my hobbies

- the comparisons with other developers

- will I find a job? I may be lurking /r/recruitinghell to much...

I've been working for 10 years in the industry already but there's always doubt. Should I continue programming? TBH I don't see myself doing something else and I'd miss WFH too much.

Ahhhh...

Re: What I wish I knew before I quit my job

#22

Post by ty6853 »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #19
ty6853 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why spouses sometimes divorce anyone leaving a high pay industry to rest. They have to act quickly to lock in high alimony/child support to maintain their standard of luxury at high imputed income so the spouse will go to jail if they don't continue their stressful job.

Man, this is a misanthropic take on things. Do you have any data for this?

If you want the mountain of data showing correlation of divorce with shutdown of plants, unemployment etc I will find it. But it's common knowledge. You only have a couple years to easily lock in imputed income at their high earnings.

Re: What I wish I knew before I quit my job

#24

Post by tessierashpool9 »

notjustanymike wrote: post #8

Quitting to quit working is a different feeling. You may spend time in the first month untangling your role and your ego. I had no idea how important the status was to me until I was just a guy, at home, that no one needed. It was a valuable lesson about self worth, and one that stayed around after I rejoined the work force.

your employer doesn't need you ... or did the company go broke after you left? your employer uses you. big difference. your parents, your friends, your siblings, your pets need you. think about it.

Re: What I wish I knew before I quit my job

#25

Post by thiago_fm »

I love your work Michael Drogalis, I remember when you made onyx (didn't it start with a different name?) in clojure! I still to this day suck at clojure and never managed to get a job to work with in and I'm stuck doing Ruby, how about that!

Have been following your journey and hope you are successful on it. At least in term of a software developer I'm sure you are best class :-)

Taking the plunge is very difficult, hope you at the end feel like it was really worth it. "Your friends making more than you" isn't a really big deal if you feel that despite this, you are still more satisfied than working in a day job.

I do work in a day job and don't even make that much, but also lack the courage to run my business, as you've seen, even being a great and outstanding software engineer like you still (and smart overall) will still have no assurance of success.

Given that life will eventually end no matter if you have money or not, what matters is living life to the fullest and scratching those itches & desires before we're too old, sick and tired to be able to those things. Just like you did.

Re: What I wish I knew before I quit my job

#26

Post by k8sToGo »

I always fantasize about leaving this job and creating my own business, even if it is "just" consulting or contracting rather than a project / product.

But it seems super scary and I struggle to find any information on how to even sell stuff. So at the end I just convince myself once more how great I have it with my stable income.

Re: What I wish I knew before I quit my job

#27

Post by jarsin »

notjustanymike wrote: post #8

Quitting to quit working is a different feeling. You may spend time in the first month untangling your role and your ego. I had no idea how important the status was to me until I was just a guy, at home, that no one needed. It was a valuable lesson about self worth, and one that stayed around after I rejoined the work force.

>I had no idea how important the status was to me until I was just a guy, at home, that no one needed.

Interesting, considering that every company goes to great lengths to let everyone know they are easily replaceable and not needed.

Re: What I wish I knew before I quit my job

#28

Post by ty6853 »

Outpox wrote: post #21
yakkomajuri wrote: post #5

I quit a hell of a job (in the good sense!) kinda out of nowhere at a point in my career where I was in a great upward trajectory to go on an "indefinite sabbatical" (turned out to be 7 months). I did not quit to start a company, but the sense of multiple plunges does resonate. From my perspective: - It's very hard to detach yourself from stable (and growing) personal finances - The comparison aspect is always there,…

"Kind of the same" here. I'm being laid off for economic reasons and I'm lucky that my country helps me. My salary is maintained at ~70% tax free for a year while I'm searching for a new job or following trainings. This means that I have a "sabbatical" year ahead of me if I want to. I'm planning on 2 months before working again and in the meantime I'm learning Rust (coming from Typescript), although I don't think I'l…

You can build a shack in a year. Take the pay and learn masonry, build a 10x20 block shack. At the end of the year you have a house and no mortgage. Its what I did.

Re: What I wish I knew before I quit my job

#29

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

ty6853 wrote: post #22
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man, this is a misanthropic take on things. Do you have any data for this?

If you want the mountain of data showing correlation of divorce with shutdown of plants, unemployment etc I will find it. But it's common knowledge. You only have a couple years to easily lock in imputed income at their high earnings.

Even if you provide that data that divorces spike due to shutdown of plants or unemployment that won't directly prove your case.

Looking around the internet, I see sources ranging from 20-60% of divorces being caused at least partly by financial issues, and that makes sense, to be poor is to be stressed, and to be unemployed is to be stressed, and to be stressed is to fight, but that doesn't provide strong evidence for a "they are locking them down to force them to work so I can live in luxury" narrative.

I really struggle with believing it as being a widespread phenomena.

Re: What I wish I knew before I quit my job

#30

Post by ty6853 »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #29
ty6853 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want the mountain of data showing correlation of divorce with shutdown of plants, unemployment etc I will find it. But it's common knowledge. You only have a couple years to easily lock in imputed income at their high earnings.

Even if you provide that data that divorces spike due to shutdown of plants or unemployment that won't directly prove your case. Looking around the internet, I see sources ranging from 20-60% of divorces being caused at least partly by financial issues, and that makes sense, to be poor is to be stressed, and to be unemployed is to be stressed, and to be stressed is to fight, but that doesn't provide strong evidence f…

You're not convinced, that's fine. You're open either possibility and asking for proof. To prove something happens at least sometimes I need at least say 2 anecdotes, which I could scrounge from some forum. But you have already decided it's misanthropic without proving that either, you are just rigging the game to play the fuck fuck game where you want it proven to some level of scientific rigor beyond what's quickly communicated on a tech bullshitting forum, while simultaneously claiming misanthropy without the level of rigor you demand for claiming so.

There are claims made by divorced people. Sometimes is not any exact percentage. The peer reviewed studies have conclusions like "the results [ of studying post earnings loss divorce ] are, however, consistent with role theories, in which the husband’s attractiveness declines if he fails to fulfill a traditional role as a breadwinner."

What would be hard to believe is that people _dont_ sometimes use the courts to lock into income streams they are loosing. That borders on extraordinarily improbable.

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