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Quitting my job has been the best thing I've done for my career

joshuahu.io

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Re: Quitting my job has been the best thing I've done for my career

#211

Post by Drdrdrq »

stephengillie wrote: post #71
txcwpalpha wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why did you work so hard when you hated the job and coworkers so much? I think you might have good intentions with this question, but it seem a bit silly. You could ask the same question to anyone about any job. Why do you think the millions of investment bankers or consultants or lawyers or medical residents work long hours? Why do people work long hours in shitty retail or food service jobs? Why do people work in…

> Why do you think the millions of investment bankers or consultants or lawyers or medical residents work long hours? I thought lawyers worked reasonable hours. The medical industry is it's own special situation. Those investment bankers must be bad at math - for overtime-exempt employees, each extra hour worked past 40 reduces your hourly pay rate by 2.5%. Retail, fast food, office, IT, software development - all jo…

> ...must be bad at math - for overtime-exempt employees, each extra hour worked past 40 reduces your hourly pay rate by 2.5%.

Not really. The first one does, then the effect is getting smaller with each hour.

Re: Quitting my job has been the best thing I've done for my career

#213

Post by 0n0n0m0uz »

bradneuberg wrote: post #83

I've been in the industry nearly 20 years and I always take breaks between jobs. I've worked for startups, Google, Dropbox, non-profits, etc. Between jobs I've pursued personal growth, traveled extensively, re-tooled my CS skill sets in new directions, gotten healthy, done extensive open source work, and more. I highly recommend it to others in the industry if you have the ability to do so; it's only helped my person…

Americans are chained in economic slavery and are so brainwashed and dependent on the wage that most are afraid to even take the measly 10 days they are given. The system is designed to keep you living paycheck to paycheck with nothing important except work and conspicuous consumption. Please, quit the job you hate, take as long as you need and don’t apologize. We need a culture change and that will come by more people just doing it. I love work and have no issues working 7 days a week 12 hours a day for about 6 months. At that point I need about 3 months off to live, have fun, get lost and find myself again. I guarantee you in those 6 months, I am more productive than 3 employees milking the clock thinking about their 5 day break in December. I know I need to be a freelancer and some kind of “supertemp” but It’s easier said than done. I believe the AI revolution will eventually force more flexibility into our work arrangements because the assembly line, Henry Ford, work, buy, die, treadmill just is not optimal for many.

Re: Quitting my job has been the best thing I've done for my career

#214

Post by ToFundorNot »

txcwpalpha wrote: post #101
adrianmonk wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About accomplishment, maybe the thing you wanted out of escaping the rat race was to take a break from feeling like you constantly did have to accomplish something. As long as there isn't something seriously wrong (such as depression that leads to inability to enjoy pursuits), maybe that is OK. It could be important to be able to accept that you don't always have to accomplish something, and that your life doesn't ha…

Thanks for making this comment. You did a good job of putting into words what I have struggled to express to myself. I resonate entirely with your comment, but unfortunately for me, my problem is that it's a lot harder to actually put these things into practice. >About accomplishment, maybe the thing you wanted out of escaping the rat race was to take a break from feeling like you constantly did have to accomplish so…

>I've gotten enough negative reactions in those 20 months, and enough rejected job applications and negative conversations with recruiters regarding my employment gap, that I really start to question (even if only subconsciously) the entire situation I put myself in by quitting.

That's a challenging position to be in. Essentially you're facing what most people with new ideas face. I could tell you that everything will be okay, and that you'll be better off in the future...

Those comments are hollow until this passes, and expecting people in general to empathize is impossible. What I can suggest is to keep at it and re-evaluate periodically. You'll find someone(s) who will understand.

Re: Quitting my job has been the best thing I've done for my career

#215

Post by 0n0n0m0uz »

newnewpdro wrote: post #10
jhu247 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Appreciate the feedback @acconrad. I understand that I'm extremely fortunate, and I try to point that out in the introduction of my article. Like @whack commented, I'm sharing my personal experience---both the good and the bad---and all the better if there's an element to it that a reader can relate to. As for your other point, does the best thing for a career have to make it _materially_ better? For me personally, t…

The jury's still out on if this was good for your career. The title is borderline clickbait due to this word choice. I don't doubt taking a sabbatical was good for you in various ways, but your career is probably not one of them as of now. I've taken numerous lengthy sabbaticals, and find them the only way to maintain anything resembling a fair work:life balance. But I am under no delusions of them being good for my…

I have a similar mindset and experience as you. American society is ridiculous in how rigid it is on this aspect. I essentially need to quit to get the balance I truly desire. I have no issues working for 6 months all day everyday totally dedicated and focused but then I need about 3 months to recharge. Trying to become sort of a “supertemp” but it’s not that easy. I am about to quit again, have been working for 8 months, 60 hr weeks, saved $25k and am going to do whatever I want for awhile. I am a top performer but I work in 6 month spurts of focus. I need that proverbial light at the end of the tunnel, focusing me and my efforts to the freedom that awaits.

Re: Quitting my job has been the best thing I've done for my career

#216

Post by rdiddly »

colanderman wrote: post #49
txcwpalpha wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did this, and unfortunately your fears became reality for me. Like you said, I only had a vague idea of what I wanted to do (including traveling, starting my own company, continuing education, side projects, etc). Almost 2 years into it I ended up just barely dabbling in each. I traveled for a few months, worked on some side projects, and learned some new things, but didn't really do anything "big" or traditionally…

> the other 90% hear that I'm unemployed and treat me like a pariah Are you sure it's that, or could it be because they find they have trouble relating to someone who is in such a privileged financial position to do nothing for two years, when they themselves may be financially insecure? People relate through shared struggle and experience. When you say, "I don't work and I don't need to", you've dashed any sense of…

Just to cover the whole gamut of human lameness here, let's also mention the opportunists. Someone looking to meet somebody at a desirable company, to advance their own prospects, would, upon hearing you don't work at any such place, conclude you're of no use to them.

txcwpalpha, some portion of those who "treat you like a pariah" are probably these people. The good news is that such people are of no use to YOU, and you just dodged a bullet.

I don't want to necessarily promote a cynical view of the entire world, because these people are still thankfully a small portion of the total. My bigger point is that a surprising number of people whom I experienced as rude, standoffish, nasty, etc. turned out later to also have been dishonest, hiding something, and/or actively engaged in wrongdoing (be it right there, or in some other part of their lives). Not sure whether the stress of being deceptive leads them to be shitty toward others, or if a shitty worldview leads to both... probably the latter... but in short, shittiness is rarely confined to just the one area of a person's life that concerns social interactions. And rarely does it have anything whatsoever to do with you. It has to do with them - in fact I would say it's a marker, a fog beacon calling out "BEEEEP - this person is shitty in this observable way and probably other currently-unobservable ways - BEEEEP." Just think about it like this: if talking to someone feels like you're talking to a gangster, or like you just went to prison, that's probably because that person belongs there. I highly recommend spending time around some scumbags just to get the flavor.

Re: Quitting my job has been the best thing I've done for my career

#217

Post by ioddly »

dorchadas wrote: post #203
biscottigelato wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any tips for companies to take your open sourced work as experience? I've mostly just been thrown the book at doing algorithm puzzles and such... Got rejected for not 'technically competent' despite polished complex app on both the App Store and on Github. It's insulting to the point I want to start cancelling processes with all Unicorns...

Same. I had a website that I was fairly proud of that involved DjangoREST and Angular and such, and was basically told "Anyone can do that" when I applied for a junior job. It was horribly demotivating, and I don't know if I've seriously applied for a coding job since, which is sad as I'd love to shift into programming and still do it on my own.

Interviews & job applications are not a fair evaluation of your skills, they're a giant and terrible filter.

Don't let it stop you from continuing to apply for jobs. If you have written a Django/Angular site from scratch you are more than qualified for a junior position.

Re: Quitting my job has been the best thing I've done for my career

#218

Post by thelasthuman »

paulcole wrote: post #30
dunkelheit wrote: post #17

Recently quite a few articles appeared on HN about escaping the rat race for a while and taking some time off. As someone who has a little savings and who is a bit burnt out I've been toying with the idea myself quite a bit. My biggest fear is that because I have only a vague idea of what I want to do with my time, I will fritter away my sabbatical, not accomplish much and end up pretty much at the same point (but wi…

> I have only a vague idea of what I want to do with my time, I will fritter away my sabbatical, not accomplish much and end up pretty much at the same point (but with less money). This is what I did for 2-3 years. I slept in everyday, went to the gym or for a run, rode my bike around, read books, went to movies, watched TV, shopped for groceries, cooked most of my meals, went on dates, and pretty much never left tow…

That sounds like a healthy life. To bad things aren't setup for the majority of people to have time to care for themselves.

Re: Quitting my job has been the best thing I've done for my career

#219

Post by thelasthuman »

barrkel wrote: post #197
humbleMouse wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

6 weeks isnt a sabbatical. Thats a normal vacation in europe.

6 weeks isn't a normal vacation. 20 to 30 days vacation allowance (excluding public holidays) is the norm in the private sector and while in theory you could use 30 days to take 6 weeks off, you'd have nothing for the rest of the year. 2 weeks is a normal big vacation, over summer, often in August. Overlap it with public holidays, and you can get 17 or 18 days off in a row for 10 vacation days - 10 weekdays, three we…

Normal in the sense that they get vacation time last, unlike in the USA (outside of the middle class+ bubble).

Re: Quitting my job has been the best thing I've done for my career

#220

Post by dorchadas »

ioddly wrote: post #217
dorchadas wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. I had a website that I was fairly proud of that involved DjangoREST and Angular and such, and was basically told "Anyone can do that" when I applied for a junior job. It was horribly demotivating, and I don't know if I've seriously applied for a coding job since, which is sad as I'd love to shift into programming and still do it on my own.

Interviews & job applications are not a fair evaluation of your skills, they're a giant and terrible filter. Don't let it stop you from continuing to apply for jobs. If you have written a Django/Angular site from scratch you are more than qualified for a junior position.

Thanks. I'm gonna keep working on some of my other projects, and get back to applying to what I find open involving those technologies and others I know. It was just a frustrating thing hearing that and, since I have a steady job (even if I don't particularly enjoy it), it was hard to make myself apply for programming ones after hearing it. Just need to move on and keep doing it.
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