51–60 of 197 posts
>>Eventually, those discussions stopped. Shots were called in private meetings and passed down. This is terrible, and would also make me want to quit. Because if you start as part of the decision making process, and over time stop being invited to those meetings, that means you are no longer trusted or important enough to have any say in those decisions. That would be insulting, to say the least.
If you're in a similar position and this resonates with you, do yourself a favor and just quit. Seriously. Stop waiting for things to get interesting. They won't. It's so easy to get stuck. If you're good at what you do, you'll find a job you love immediately (if that's what you're looking for). As developers, we're fortunate to be in extremely high demand. Life is too short to be bored. Work on interesting things.
"Just quit" doesn't always work out so well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5778653 If I've learned anything about working, it's that you never quit without another job lined up. Employment seems to be a prerequisite for finding employment.
I have seen that happen to myself. The motivation, the desire to pick yourself up and get to work drops.
The largest factor IMO is the people you work with ie Your boss, your teammates etc. This can make it or break it. Everything else comes and goes in time slices. I do not expect work to be interesting all the time but with great co-workers I at least expect an interesting hallway conversation or the spark to a new idea.
For me it was the Sr/Jr Engineer thing that killed my desire. I found that somehow my age/years of work experience came in the way by a highly regimented old world overlord. I figured it was an unhealthy environment that cared 2 hoots about what was happening in the world outside. Most of them had come from a school that thought sticking faster CPU more memory and larger disks was innovation while it was just evolution. Packed my bags and hopefully will never miss a thing :)
Good luck !
>> You haven't yet discovered that any business -- any real business that is-- is going to get to the point where you actually have to do work. Automate away everything you can, but there is still going to be work.
>> If you're bored doing work, and only interested in the exciting stuff, you're never going to be happy in any job beyond 6 months or so
There's a lot of truth in this. When I did network administration I would job-hop. The first 6-12 months at a place were always full of stuff to do, and the things you did made each department fall in love with you. Rebuild a server that's been flaking out for 2 years? Fix some application the other guy could never get to work? Roll-out a new system for X? Upgrade to the latest firewalls/switches/whiskerdoo?
But then after that, it's like time stands still. There's nothing left to innovate, nothing exciting to do. Sure, there's stuff to do but who wants to actually do it? Maintenance is no fun.
Later, doing QA at a my first software job, we had a developer with that mindset. He'd flesh out an app and use whatever the latest libraries and tools were. The first demo would amaze everyone. He'd come in late and leave early. By the time we started beta testing the product it turned into a huge mess. I took on the not-so-glamorous job of fixing the whole thing. And instead of quitting (like I wished he would), he'd stick around and the the boss would give him a new project to work on. Starting the cycle all over again...
I know this is _wrong_, but that's the point where I start writing side projects at work. If I'm finishing all my rote work within regular day, at previous jobs I've started working on stupid side projects. A physics engine in Lua, a maze generator in PyGame, and so on.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Just quit" doesn't always work out so well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5778653 If I've learned anything about working, it's that you never quit without another job lined up. Employment seems to be a prerequisite for finding employment.
Working at a single place for 10 years and having 0 connections to other companies is not going to put you in a good place to find a job. I imagine they would struggle to find a job regardless of whether or not they quit.
Unless you manages to get on the gravy train, in which case, congrats!
With your downtime, I'd highly advise reading michaelochurch's Gervais/McLeod series. His articles are too long and he uses weird analogies, but he's onto something in terms of modern startup culture.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Just quit" doesn't always work out so well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5778653 If I've learned anything about working, it's that you never quit without another job lined up. Employment seems to be a prerequisite for finding employment.
Working at a single place for 10 years and having 0 connections to other companies is not going to put you in a good place to find a job. I imagine they would struggle to find a job regardless of whether or not they quit.
Unless you manages to get on the gravy train, in which case, congrats!
I know this is _wrong_, but that's the point where I start writing side projects at work. If I'm finishing all my rote work within regular day, at previous jobs I've started working on stupid side projects. A physics engine in Lua, a maze generator in PyGame, and so on.
Careful, if things get ugly the company might end up owning anything you put work into while they were paying you.
>>Eventually, those discussions stopped. Shots were called in private meetings and passed down. This is terrible, and would also make me want to quit. Because if you start as part of the decision making process, and over time stop being invited to those meetings, that means you are no longer trusted or important enough to have any say in those decisions. That would be insulting, to say the least.