I do not use this term to refer to myself. I respect those who do and respect the meaning behind it but am just old enough that it feels alien to me 99% of the time.
But I am SO triggered by this piece. I had that intrusive feeling you sometimes get when driving where you think, "I could just close my eyes and see what happens", "Or that clif is so close and the guardrail doesn't really extend far enough"
Only for my career. Like I should just not show up on Monday. I should get in the car and drive far away and change my name and work at a nice retail joint in a mid-sized town.
I'm going to need to sit and stare into the distance for an hour and 3.
It's an almost exact copy of my last few months, right down to the 10am start.
Except that all our other senior engineers got laid off and there's nobody to pair with, I don't give two fucks about bullying because at this point the entire company knows I'll quit on the spot if they try, and our problems are mostly that the remaining team cannot understand the terrifying eldritch decision making process that led to fun little patterns like "wrap every API call in a try/catch and then ignore the errors".
I am seriously considering doing a TAFE course and becoming an electrician.
I wish the abominations software engineers create were as regulated and fixable as a bad wiring job. I would feel absolutely chuffed to work in an industry with licensed inspectors and standards bodies.
I am currently dealing with a system involving four separate serverless functions that call each other. There's no reason whatsoever why any of them need to be network calls. The fourth function just calls the first function again. One is in a different region for no discernible reason.
> There has been a point in my life where I ended every day in the dark, staring at a wall for an hour or two straight, trying to figure out why everything felt awful.
From his post about burnout and mental health. Also worth a read.
It took me about six months off to start feeling normal, and I think I got out much earlier than most people do. And if you read that post, I still clearly let it get pretty bad before I left.
i don't buy that any situation is so hopeless, you're powerless to improve it. at least in the context of this field and its line(s) of work.
sounds a lot more like learned hopelessness making it harder to respond to stress with radical change because of (normal and human) fears of the unknown.
at some point though responsibility for the circumstances, the feelings, the stress -- the good, bad, and ugly or easy, hard, and nearly impossible -- has to be taken.
there's only one life to live. we owe it to ourselves and others to do more than -- to try not to -- just "roll over and play dead", so to speak.
humans have survived a lot and have adapted to just as much if not more.
if i ever allowed myself to even stay at any of my former jobs coming up in my life when i was paycheck to paycheck because of not making rent or just being flatout broke and homeless, i would have not progressed my career, or life, in any meaningful way, and just fed the negative feedback loop influencing what feels like a miserable existence (even privileged as it were).
can't hold myself hostage. and also, i can't hold those around me hostage as consequence of my non-action, either.
> I had that intrusive feeling you sometimes get when driving where you think, "I could just close my eyes and see what happens", "Or that clif is so close and the guardrail doesn't really extend far enough"
Does the mention of such concepts or acknowledging it is real ... put some lisetners (if they are work certain professions) under an obligation to refer the person to a mental health assessment?
Seriously, quit then. It’s not worth it. You get one life. How many hours on this earth do you want to spend suicidally depressed? If you have a really high pain tolerance, maybe you can do that for years. How lucky would that be?
There’s a polish restaurant near where I live that makes amazing food. The owner is always out and about, chatting with customers and making sly jokes. Turns out he used to be an oracle sql consultant of some sort, and he turned it all in to run his restaurant. You can tell he’s thriving. I think he’s got the right idea.
I hear you. But also, ... if you're literally feeling suicidal because of work, in a sense it really is that simple. You aren't doing anyone any favours - not your coworkers, your family or yourself - by living like that.
But I am SO triggered by this piece. I had that intrusive feeling you sometimes get when driving where you think, "I could just close my eyes and see what happens", "Or that clif is so close and the guardrail doesn't really extend far enough"
Only for my career. Like I should just not show up on Monday. I should get in the car and drive far away and change my name and work at a nice retail joint in a mid-sized town.
I'm going to need to sit and stare into the distance for an hour and 3.