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I just don’t want to be busy anymore

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Re: I just don’t want to be busy anymore

#431

Post by wirrbel »

breput wrote: post #116
gregd wrote: post #2

As a 54 year old Software Engineer, who has had a nice IT career for over 26 years, I'm spent. This is coming from someone who has always had a growth mindset and had a really hard time sitting still. I used to loathe naps and felt like I was missing out if I took one. Now, I take a one hour nap almost daily and I'm finding that after 1pm I'm basically fried (I start working around 7AM). I'm not sure what to do about…

I work with people in their 20s through 50s (I'm not quite as experienced as you, but I'm a solid Gen X, so getting there). I feel like this a common sentiment across all ages, which is honestly something new in the past two years. As an example - we had a very useful, functional internal developer tool written in Elm (the language, not the mail program). The original devs all quit and no one was interested in learni…

I, too, am not excited to take over maintenance of someone else's pet project, whose quality I am not capable assessing (and the "fun of starting" gone).

Coworker: We'll use Docker, Minikube dev setup,@#$%@.io and Unicorn-Lang, this will be awesomest! Me: Oh, have you considered boring tech? Coworker: ah, it's old, not how software is built today.

Also coworker: leaves 1.5 years later with with us having to pick up the pieces.

Re: I just don’t want to be busy anymore

#432

Post by 5350-uiop-1130 »

Kunix wrote: post #394
5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree. Don't be "pro-active" be "re-active" - is my way of putting it. Frankly, most orgs will not reward pro-activity, in fact you can even be punished for it, since if a problem is not yet known by stakeholders then why are you solving it. There have been times in my career where I spotted issues from other teams on preview or staging servers and helped to fix it. Then I later got blamed (or dragged into…

> Don't be "pro-active" be "re-active" - is my way of putting it. As much as I recognize this can be good advice, this comment makes me sad. It's like "start underperforming" is the answer given to bad management problems. Which I agree actually makes sense in a lot of companies (if pro-active efforts are not already being recognized, then it's hard to change the culture). I also think that a lot of comments here are…

i think it depends on your goals. If you're ambitious and driven and willing to take on extra responsibilities - perhaps with little immediate reward then go for it. For some, it's more about finding a balance to avoid getting too jaded or burnt out.

Some of the best devs I've worked with are those who just like to work. They are also up for any problem and rarely complain even if (imo) they have too much on their plate. It really just comes down to your personality and needs at that stage of your life.

For myself, I sort of came to the conclusion that I won't encounter meaningful financial success in my day job. I would have to work another 20-30 years to accomplish (financially) what I used to expect I would have done already in my late 20s. So, it's more about trying to maintain some kind enjoyment in my work and also to protect my mental/physical health.

Re: I just don’t want to be busy anymore

#433

Post by 5350-uiop-1130 »

ImaCake wrote: post #315
5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree. Don't be "pro-active" be "re-active" - is my way of putting it. Frankly, most orgs will not reward pro-activity, in fact you can even be punished for it, since if a problem is not yet known by stakeholders then why are you solving it. There have been times in my career where I spotted issues from other teams on preview or staging servers and helped to fix it. Then I later got blamed (or dragged into…

I like the sentiment of this comment, but I think it is a little too black and white. I am in science, so your mileage may vary. I have found a little bit of pro-activity on things you like to do anyway is a good way to turn your job into the job you actually want to do rather than the one you got hired for. I started my current job doing wetlab biology, but I currently do coding and grant writing. I like wetlab, but…

> a little bit of pro-activity on things you like to do anyway is a good way to turn your job into the job you actually want to do rather than the one you got hired for

I used to like (still do) building tools that help with my job. Little command line tools or browser extensions that just make things easier. As soon as management discovered these tools (because i shared them with other devs) it became a full time responsibility for me to maintain them - I had to port them from my personal Github onto the companies.

I also now get feature requests from global teams to add updates to these tools. Now, I don't have a problem with this - I enjoy working on these tools but the issue is they are added on top of my actual work (which is a lot). In hindsight i regretted sharing these tools and adding more responsibility to myself. Mostly because I didn't get a meaningful pay rise or promotion to reflect my additional contribution or lets say expanded job description.

But again, all depends on where you work and with whom.

Re: I just don’t want to be busy anymore

#434

Post by dredmorbius »

listless wrote: post #186
mmastrac wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider that COVID is part of it. I was enjoying myself at work until it hit and then my motivation and desire to learn new things plummeted. I decided to take a sabbatical to recharge and it took a few months before I could enjoy writing code again. I just didn't realize I was burnt out by the world in general.

I feel this so much. But I can’t take a sabbatical - I have to pay bills. I basically work everyday and tell myself “just one more hour and then I’ll take off the rest of the day”. I do that every hour until I get as close to 5 as possible. I’ve been like this for over a year. This is my life. I try not to think about it.

A sabbatical now may stave off not being able to work for months or years later. Possibly sooner than you think.

Another option is to dial back on committments and intensity, possibly with a reduction in income. It's no a full work cessation, but it is preserving sanity and intellectual capacity.

If your finances are stretched now, start cutting. Deep, hard, and fast.

If you've a partner, involve them in this discussion.

Re: I just don’t want to be busy anymore

#435

Post by freyr »

maccard wrote: post #345
emrah wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welcome to SV

If you think you can't live on 300k with a family in the bay area, then you need a serious reality check. On a $300k income, even with one earner, you can comfortably afford a $1m+ home (of which there are plenty of single family homes available in many parts of the bay area), and while yes the COL for things like groceries/eating out is higher than in Austin TX, it's not high enough to seriously claim that it's not…

Show me a 3-4 bedroom house for $1M, and I’ll tell you how many hours the commute would take.

I work on the Peninsula. 90% of 3+ bedroom houses currently on the market here cost over $1.75M. Those below that, in the bottom 10%, are what you’d expect to find in the bottom 10%. There are many great places to live where I wouldn’t be forced to choose between that or spending a couple hours a day in traffic. Less money and higher quality of life.

Re: I just don’t want to be busy anymore

#436

Post by [deleted] »

idontwantthis wrote: post #317
freyr wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not OP but my numbers are similar. I spent most of my twenties in college and grad school. Then worked in the Midwest in my early thirties making $100k-$130k. I moved to Silicon Valley and took a job for $150k. That was a downgrade considering the much higher cost of living, but it seemed like a good stepping stone at the time. I stayed at that company for way too long working towards a promotion that was dangled…

You're making $300k and not financially comfortable starting a family?

[deleted]

Re: I just don’t want to be busy anymore

#437

Post by piva00 »

dstick wrote: post #302
SquibblesRedux wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For any who have not seen: https://harpers.org/archive/1932/10/in-praise-of-idleness/ "In Praise of Idleness." Harper's Magazine. By Bertrand Russell

> This is the morality of the Slave State, applied in circumstances totally unlike those in which it arose. No wonder the result has been disastrous. Let us take an illustration. Suppose that at a given moment a certain number of people are engaged in the manufacture of pins. They make as many pins as the world needs, working (say) eight hours a day. Someone makes an invention by which the same number of men can make…

I will add that I recommend the whole "In Praise of Idleness" book from Russell, it's a collection of essays and lots of them are interesting 70-80 years later.

A personal favourite of mine is "The Ancestry of Fascism", delineating social movements in history through the perspective of a constant pendulum pushing/pulling from opposite directions for any kind of social movement (political, artistic, etc.).

Re: I just don’t want to be busy anymore

#438

Post by berdon »

snowwrestler wrote: post #392
berdon wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife is a nurse at a huge national hospital. You're very wrong. 12 hours shifts turn into 13-14 hour shifts. They're so short staffed right now they're offering double pay + cash lump sums that equate it to triple/quadruple pay. But they pay lower than clinics and other hospitals in the area. They don't turn away patients.

You’re not reading what I’m writing. The fact that you know how long your wife’s shift is supposed to be is my point. The fact that nurses are being paid extra money for extra time is my point. Engineers in Silicon Valley don’t clock in for a 12 hour shift. They are put on salary and any discussion of schedule is discouraged in favor of talking about “hustle” and “team players.”[1] My point is not “health care worker…

My wife's schedule is 12 hours: 7 to 7. Except nine out of ten times she's there until 8 or 9. It's "scheduled" but much closer to BAT times then sun revolution times. Any talk of schedule is discouraged and nurses are fired very quickly if they don't become "team players". Engineers in the valley have a lot more leeway because hiring is a lot harder. I can actively push back against my managers. My wife would be fired on the spot.

You're making numerous points and your later ones are good ones. But the working conditions for front line workers, including but not limited to their scheduling, hours, pay, etc, are all terrible.

Re: I just don’t want to be busy anymore

#439

Post by Valakas_ »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #117
mmaunder wrote: post #89

I think it’s pretty clear we have an epidemic of burnout on our hands. I think it’s a new phenomenon. And I think immersive online experiences are the underlying cause. I’ve lived much of my life for the past 30 years in virtual spaces of one form or another, from MUDs to IRC to MMORPGs to early and then fully evolved social media. As commercial virtual space showed up, I noticed the engagement hooks and potential fo…

> I think it’s pretty clear we have an epidemic of burnout on our hands I agree, but I also agree with your observation that a lot of the burnout is coming from the activities that people choose to fill their free time with. I see a lot of people in the tech communities boasting about quitting social media, but they then go on to spend countless hours every day on non-traditional social media like Reddit or HN. Or th…

Burnout is from people doing tasks that bring little fulfillment for most of their one life on Earth. If you have 1 free minute in 1 year, it's irrelevant what you do on that 1 free minute. This is an exaggeration, but it's to show my point. People want to be spending time doing things they like. 40 hours a week is way too much time spent doing the opposite, regardless of what you do outside of those 40 hours.

Re: I just don’t want to be busy anymore

#440

Post by throw_this_one »

fixingproblems wrote: post #102

I say this all the time - programming as a job is not a sustainable life. The fact is that sitting in front of a computer doing mental gymnastics is not in any way something humans are able to cope with over any period of time. People will say "it's just the managers", "it's because you aren't working on interesting things", etc, but it is none of those things. I have worked on interesting projects, been my own boss,…

100% agreed, and well put. Tbh on a very quantitative level, our jobs are fantastic. The lack of that visceral satisfaction is real though, and you turn into an automaton after awhile. Do the work, get the pay, etc. You want to quit and mix it up, but you won't make 1/3rd the same in other jobs.

I think the path is to "ruthlessly compartmentalize" your life. When you are getting the job done, do it well and efficiently, and have things like a standing desk and do stretches and look away from the computer etc. Then when you did enough work for the day, completely do a 180 and go out for a run, practice a language, etc. Make the most of your time.

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