Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I quit my job last March and it was a bad idea.

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 350 posts

Re: I quit my job last March and it was a bad idea.

#271

Post by ikarous »

pm wrote: post #83

1. Suicide. Everyone responded as they should. But if you meant it, this post wouldn't exist because you'd be hanging from a rafter right now. Just a thought. 2. Your job sucked. Quitting was right. 3. Admit failure at freelancing. Build character. 4. Survive. Go out and get any job you can find. It will give you focus and get you out of the house, away from the bullshit. 5. Get your head straight. Analyse what went…

"Suicide. Everyone responded as they should. But if you meant it, this post wouldn't exist because you'd be hanging from a rafter right now. Just a thought."

You obviously mean well, but this statement bespeaks ignorance about suicide prevention. Most but not all suicides are preceded by warning signs, and talking about it openly automatically places the speaker in the high risk category.

The intent to kill one's self begins with ideation and grows from there. At first, idle thoughts about killing yourself begin to drift through your mind at random. Driving down the freeway, out of fucking nowhere, you imagine yourself veering into oncoming traffic. Or maybe you're in the kitchen taking an Advil and the thought comes to your mind, unbidden, to just down the whole god damn bottle and chase it down with vodka.

These images are like demons, and they are not easy to exorcise. As the imagery and impulses grow more intense and vivid, some victims will say something to offer a clue to those around them or to ask for help. The problem is that this warning often doesn't seem serious because the victim is so torn between two conflicting desires: 1) the desire to end suffering, and 2) the desire to live.

You see, the crux is this: just because someone doesn't want to die doesn't mean that they won't kill themselves. If they're talking about it, then you should treat it as though they're asking for help. I missed the same warning sign because I thought just as you did, that those serious about suicide would be dead rather than talking about it. I was wrong. The only thing that saved her was luck. Luck and a responsive ER.

Take it seriously.

Re: I quit my job last March and it was a bad idea.

#273

Post by lsc »

oh man. yeah. Right in the depth of the dot-com bust, I was in a real bad place. Deep, deep layoffs, then many people quit. So yeah, it was really stressful, and my supervisor was, uh, kinda crazy, which was exacerbated by the stress of running a company on 1/10th the usual staff. I was just a kid and I couldn't take it. I quit.

I was so messed up that I thought I didn't want to work in IT any more. I tried to get jobs in other fields; retail, even. It's harder than it sounds. Eventually my money and my credit ran out.

I got pretty lucky; I come from an I.T. family and my dad (a mid level IT manager at the university) was able to get me an interview with a guy who used to be one of his student interns who now had a fairly successful company, so I ended up working through the dot-com dump in my chosen field.

So yeah. some advice:

1. use all your contacts to their fullest extent.

Seriously, I know it feels weird to do it, but ask your family and all your friends if they know people who have the ability to hire someone with your skillset. probably 80% of the full time jobs I've gotten (oddly, only maybe 10% of the contract gigs I've gotten) came through knowing someone.

2. if you want, sure, apply to lower-skilled jobs. But don't stop applying to jobs in your field.

Unemployment in the unskilled sectors, at least in America, is ridiculously high. This is much less true of the more skilled sectors. Also, working a unskilled job, while it can get you out of the parent's house, still counts as unemployment as far as getting your next skilled job, which brings me to 3, which may be my most important point:

3. build a resume excuse for the unemployment.

It's extremely difficult to get a skilled job after a long period of unexplained unemployment. Most of the time, resumes from people who are not currently working are simply round filed. Picking good people is /hard/ and picking bad people is /expensive/ so hr people tend to behave a bit like sheep and mutual fund managers; if nobody else wants you, the reasoning goes, there is probably something wrong with you.

This is where your side business comes in.

You now work full-time for your side business. Consulting, web design, what have you. Doesn't matter if you actually pay the bills working at the piggly wiggly, as far as your resume and your on-line identity is concerned, you are running your own company.

This works best if you actually do work on your personal company. I would advise giving your services away for free, but from experience, it's actually often easier to sell your services than to give them away (don't be ashamed to accept below market pay if you can't get market pay. Of course, try to get market pay, but there is a 'shadow IT' industry that pays little more than retail... don't be ashamed to work there if you need to; it might not pay much but it does count as IT on the resume.)

Re: I quit my job last March and it was a bad idea.

#274

Post by andy_shi »

I can see why you can't succeed: You are not tough enough. Come on, you are young, you have no family to feed. Why can't you fail a couple times? The majority of the entrepreneurs are very young, like you. Not because you are better than us older folks. No, not even physically. But because you got nothing to lose. And you can always start fresh.

But you got to suck it up. You got to be strong mentally. Dealing with VC or the market is 10x worse than your father or friends.

Re: I quit my job last March and it was a bad idea.

#276

Post by easilydoable »

Do this to make money while you figure something else out. The work is labor intensive and may require a truck so it's not for everyone but it may be for you.

If you've ever gotten new tires for your car, you know that the auto shop charges $3 to $4 to dispose each of your old tires. The auto shop charges you because it usually costs them the same amount to get the tires disposed.

The large auto shops usually have agreements with a tire recycling company for picking up the scrap tires on a scheduled basis. The small auto shops have to either take the tires to the recycling facility themselves or store them at their shop until they've gathered enough quantity to meet the pickup requirements of the tire hauling company.

The problem for the large and small auto shops is that most states have very strict rules on storing the tires. For example, the tires cannot be stored out in the open where rain can fall on them and possibly create a breeding ground for mosquitos. So naturally, to avoid hefty fines, the auto shops want to rid themselves of the scrap tires as soon as possible. Having a reliable 'company' come pick up the tires within a couple of hours of making a phone call would solve the problem, however, as most auto shops will tell you, finding reliable tire haulers is not easy.

That's where you come in. If you have access to a truck that can hold 100 scrap tires, you can make at least $200 per trip to the recycling facility. Most auto shops will be happy to pay you at least $3 per scrap tire. Many recycling facilities will charge you $1 to take each tire off your hands. This means you get $2 for each tire and for 100 tires, you get $200.

If you don't have a truck but do have a large enough place where you can store up to 100 tires and keep them dry, you can have the recycling company come pick them up.

In order for this business to be feasible, you need to have enough small auto shops in your area to regularly supply you with the tires or you'll need one large auto shop that is not satisfied with their current tire hauler. In either case, you'll need to be a registered business in order for the auto shops to legally supply you with the tires (otherwise any Joe can pickup the tires, collect the money and dump the tires somewhere).

You also need to have a tire recycling facility close by to keep your costs contained. Here's a list of scrap tire facilities in the Tri-state area along with the amount they charge to come pickup the tires from you. If you deliver the tires to them, the prices will be slightly lower.

http://www.state.nj.us/dep/dshw/recycling/stftf.htm

good luck -Samir

Re: I quit my job last March and it was a bad idea.

#277

Post by jonnathanson »

chops wrote: post #265
jonnathanson wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"So, if your friends are giving you a hard time, tell 'em to knock it the hell off. Or find new friends." This. OP: Sounds like your friends are a little insecure or uncomfortable around risk takers like yourself. They're not cut from the same cloth. Truth is, most people in our society aren't. They're play-it-safe types, and to them, stepping outside the lines is tantamount to insanity. Many of these folks will take…

Many of these folks will take corporate jobs, or law jobs, and lead lives of reasonably well-compensated misery. None of them will be paid nearly what his lost days and months and years are actually worth; this is felt intangibly, in the back of his mind, like a dull pain whose cause he can't quite pin down. Very poignant and well written. If you had a blog, I'd read it. OP: "Friends" who can't respect the stones it…

"If you had a blog, I'd read it."

Thank you! Blog possibly to come. Actually, a lot more writing to come. (Speaking of hare-brained leaps of faith to follow our callings, I'm actually working on a novel right now).

" OP: "Friends" who can't respect the stones it takes to quit your job and seek your true calling, and furthermore, who insult instead of supporting you emotionally when the shit hits the fan - well, they can go straight to hell. They aren't your friends, they're asshole leeches who don't have the stones to do it themselves and instead seek to bring you down because of it."

While I agree with you in spirit, I think there's a crucial point to be made: if you step out of the box to do your own thing, all of your friends are secretly going to think you're a little nuts. The trick is figuring out which ones think you're crazy like a fox, and which ones think you're just crazy. Relish the relationships with the former, and avoid getting dragged down by the latter. The good news is, your friends will make known pretty early, and vocally, which camp they sort themselves into.

Re: I quit my job last March and it was a bad idea.

#278

Post by easilydoable »

Do this to make money while you figure something else out. The work is labor intensive and may require a truck so it's not for everyone but it may be for you.

If you've ever gotten new tires for your car, you know that the auto shop charges $3 to $4 to dispose each of your old tires. The auto shop charges you because it usually costs them the same amount to get the tires disposed.

The large auto shops usually have agreements with a tire recycling company for picking up the scrap tires on a scheduled basis. The small auto shops have to either take the tires to the recycling facility themselves or store them at their shop until they've gathered enough quantity to meet the pickup requirements of the tire hauling company.

The problem for the large and small auto shops is that most states have very strict rules on storing the tires. For example, the tires cannot be stored out in the open where rain can fall on them and possibly create a breeding ground for mosquitos. So naturally, to avoid hefty fines, the auto shops want to rid themselves of the scrap tires as soon as possible. Having a reliable 'company' come pick up the tires within a couple of hours of making a phone call would solve the problem, however, as most auto shops will tell you, finding reliable tire haulers is not easy.

That's where you come in. If you have access to a truck that can hold 100 scrap tires, you can make at least $200 per trip to the recycling facility. Most auto shops will be happy to pay you at least $3 per scrap tire. Many recycling facilities will charge you $1 to take each tire off your hands. This means you get $2 for each tire and for 100 tires, you get $200.

If you don't have a truck but do have a large enough place where you can store up to 100 tires and keep them dry, you can have the recycling company come pick them up.

In order for this business to be feasible, you need to have enough small auto shops in your area to regularly supply you with the tires or you'll need one large auto shop that is not satisfied with their current tire hauler. In either case, you'll need to be a registered business in order for the auto shops to legally supply you with the tires (otherwise any Joe can pickup the tires, collect the money and dump the tires somewhere).

You also need to have a tire recycling facility close by to keep your costs contained. Here's a list of scrap tire facilities in the Tri-state area along with the amount they charge to come pickup the tires from you. If you deliver the tires to them, the prices will be slightly lower.

http://www.state.nj.us/dep/dshw/recycling/stftf.htm

good luck -Samir

Re: I quit my job last March and it was a bad idea.

#279

Post by dpark »

a3camero wrote: post #269
dpark wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot of difference between a therapist and a psychiatrist. There's even more difference between getting paid on commission and being wooed by lobbyists. Having doctors influenced by lobbyists is almost certainly a negative overall, but it's nowhere close to having doctors literally paid on commission for writing prescriptions.

"As part of that promotion, Allergan provided kickbacks to doctors in the form of cash, travel, and meals and held seminars instructing physicians on how to bill Medicare for off-label procedures. " http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2010/september/settlement-in...

If the FBI prosecutes for it, it doesn't really count. That's kind of like saying you can't eat at a restaurant because some chefs poison their customers. Sure, but it's illegal and not the typical state of affairs.

I don't believe that kickbacks are common (I'll change my stance if evidence shows that they are wide-spread), even for on-label uses. I'm pretty sure they're still considered a serious ethics violation and probably illegal.

Re: I quit my job last March and it was a bad idea.

#280

Post by madao »

Good luck, you are only twenty. You have your whole life ahead of you, your father has lived his, its time to live your own. Be the best you can be and do your own thing, dont let other people run your life for you. If your friends are bothering you because of the choices you made. Tell them to get fucked. Really they are not your friends. One thing I have learned in life is that friends come and go, they are nice to have and great to waste time with but at the end of the day rely on yourself.

Also remember a job is just that. A job, its a way to make money to spend on things you want. It is not there to run your life.

pick yourself up, pack a bag and go check out the world, head over to Asia and teach English, go work in a factory and pack boxes (its hard work but, it is very honest) make time for yourself and try to remember who you are.

Go to a bar and pick up a pretty girl. when you have finished your break pick yourself up and start being creative, make one thing. After you have done all of this you should then look for proper work.

you are your own person, the world is a big place, enjoy it.

Post reply on HN