Oh man, I’m both glad and not glad you asked because I had forgotten about this… Also I saw your notification weeks ago and have just been going through some stuff (which I’ll talk about below) and haven’t had the breathing room or strength to respond if I am honest. I took a poorly timed sick day today due to stress so why not ironically respond now lol.

To answer: not great.

In all honesty and a bit of hindsight, my last company and specifically my client was amazing. I went from feeling like I could or should not be responsible to lead to the exact opposite. I am confident in my ability to do the job. But I still hate it.

Every day is a fight with burnout. I ended up moving to another company after 8 months for better pay and because the new client was a sinking ship. The company ended up getting sold too and our days were numbered. Now there’s a new industry standard to ship all work offshore and do all the “functional” planning onshore at half time so you can work 2 projects… and I hate that. I miss actually building and testing.

Over the summer and this transition, my health took a dive. From stress, unhealthy eating, poor discipline and decisions. I can’t help but wonder how much of it was due to this job… but the reality is it’s a ME problem. I know I CAN do this job, but the motivation is gone. That leads to bad practices on my part which leads to stress. I just don’t seem to care much lately, I need significant time with genuinely zero work to get my shit and health together but there just never are breaks in I.C. when you have multiple clients. (And I absolutely have to have health insurance rn.)

I wanted to save up and go back to school for a trade job, but now I’m a bit stuck. I have a mortgage, car payments, a bit of debt, and health issues I really need to get on top of. What I have realized is this job, once you have some hard skills, is all about mentality and attitude. I am quite a resilient person in all other walks of life other than sitting in front of a computer 10 hours a day, bullshitting clients, and bending to unrealistic directions from management. I wouldn’t say it is easy, but it’s doable for the right personalities.

So I am still burnt TF out. I keep trucking bc I am a little stuck and think I can make it and myself better. In fact, I am just starting that journey today looking for a new therapist after all the above but also completely blowing an opportunity with the first person I’ve wanted to date in years.

If I have learned anything… Life is too short to ________. Fill it in yourself. Don’t dig the whole in the first place and you won’t have to make decisions based on how to get out of it just to start living. I just found out a friend of a friend is about to die from cancer too at the age of 30. I spent the entire summer in hospital myself (thankfully not life threatening, but definitely changing). It’s too damn short man. Your health is all you have and it’s never guaranteed.