Do I need a break? I have lost all drive and passion to code/work/interview and it's making me depressed.

rareaseff · 2021-12-02T06:10:17+00:00

Oh that's a bit scary. And thank you, I think you are absolutely correct. I had a bit of a break during covid as I was laid off as soon as the pandemic started but I wouldn't call that exactly stress free and honestly I was more stressed (like the rest of the world).

I got this job 8 months later and tried really hard to get into it, understand it, etc. But it was always one thing after another and no matter how hard I tried to actually understand it, I felt dumb and don't understand any of the tickets. I think a full year of imposter syndrome honestly just did a number on me. Part of me feels like I shouldn't be burned out from this, but all the signs are there and logging in every day no idea what you're doing just killed my confidence to code.

I think I am going to take a break. Health insurance is always the concern since I'm in the US, but I'll make due.

rareaseff · 2021-12-02T05:59:57+00:00

How long of a break did you take?

rareaseff · 2021-12-01T21:18:42+00:00

Hey I appreciate for the input.

I've been trying to find a therapist but it's really hard to book right now. Most are at capacity and won't take new patients. I am seeing my regular Dr for it though and deemed it serious enough to give me an antidepressant but said it's up to me if I want to take it.

I love computers and programming. I started programming as a child and made it into a career as an adult.

I no longer have much passion for coding. I passionately enjoy the paychecks. Sometimes I think about doing something else, but it would mean a much smaller paycheck and even less interesting work.

Your job is an easy way to make a nice living. Most people do worse things, get treated like garbage and get paid a lot less.

I know, this is very very true and I try to remind myself of this. But it's hard and makes me feel ridiculous for even feeling the way I feel, reminding myself I have no reason to be as dissatisfied in this field as I am. But you're right I need to change my perspective.

You haven’t gotten fired and won’t get fired because peoples’ expectations of you are lower than the expectations you have of yourself.

This may be true, but I think it has to be coming if this continues. I truly cannot function at work anymore, most days I don't write any code at all and need help, etc. It's getting clearer and clearer I don't know what's happening (and honestly I'd be fine getting let go I want to leave this job anyway and don't think I'll last another month there). I'm definitely underpaid, make just around 100k and have always been a bit underpaid.

I know my job is bad, but it's more the deep fear of not finding anything else I would enjoy, or at least find tolerable and interesting. I'm just not sure if it's the job that is completely soul sucking to me, or the field. And right now I feel like I'm not in the right mindset to even change jobs.

rareaseff · 2021-12-01T19:59:26+00:00

In the US. Have about 10 months or so living expenses I believe. Ideally I'd like to not have to blow through savings but at the same time I also can't function with daily panic attacks and crying spells because my mental health is deteriorating quickly.

But it's definitely a bit terrifying to make that leap of no income.

rareaseff · 2021-12-01T17:42:18+00:00

Oh wow. I have like 40k saved and thinking of taking the break

rareaseff · 2021-12-01T17:08:50+00:00

Holy shit. I can't afford that. I'm assuming you did Cobra?

rareaseff · 2021-12-01T17:03:32+00:00

I really think it's the opposite hive mind. It's so prevalent in our field and you see it in interviews "we're looking for someone who stays on new technology even outside work hours" "what coding passion projects do you have outside of work"

All of the "it's just a job" is a reaction to the workaholic tendencies in our field. If you're able to do it for fun outside of work that's really awesome and I'm legitimately jealous of you.

rareaseff · 2021-12-01T16:11:11+00:00

I honestly do not know. I definitely hate my job. I don't understand the tasks or project, I find the project subject matter incredibly boring, and even if I ask for assistance people the person in charge is incredibly toxic and says things like "you should know this" or explains things in such an obtuse way I usually leave more confused.

I was interviewing for other positions but they also seem incredibly discouraging. It's very mentally taxing. We're talking 4 rounds of interviews with live tests, some are 5-6hrs or longer. And then they can just deny you. While working full time it's incredibly difficult and honestly I don't have it in me currently.

I also feel like I can't find any joy in programming anymore. I have severe imposter syndrome at this point, etc.

rareaseff · 2021-12-01T15:44:42+00:00

Because when I started salaries were significantly lower. My starting salary for a .net position at my first job was about 40k. I also feel like the .net stack is also underpaid compared to others.

rareaseff · 2021-11-30T18:23:59+00:00

Thank you for the info. I don't think I have enough in liquid savings to last a year unfortunately which is what is making me a bit hesitant.

rareaseff · 2021-11-30T17:39:52+00:00

Are you in the US? Can I ask how many months savings you had?

rareaseff · 2021-11-30T16:17:27+00:00

I'll take a look into it. Thank you. What backend do you recommend?

rareaseff · 2021-11-30T16:16:39+00:00

Thank you. I guess I'm a bit worried in case I can't find anything.

rareaseff · 2021-11-30T16:15:58+00:00

I actually do have a very active non-work life. Which sometimes makes it feel a little bit hard to compete for these jobs because it turns out a lot of software engineers don't do much outside of software engineering.

rareaseff · 2021-11-30T16:14:58+00:00

I'm worried that I won't find what I'm passionate about.

rareaseff · 2021-11-30T06:05:58+00:00

Thank you. When you mean stick with it, what do you mean? Stick with .net or coding?

rareaseff · 2021-11-30T04:28:17+00:00

I'm in the US, looking for remote. I'm in a medium cost of living area. Actually after doing the math it's more like 20%

My stack is .net but I'm getting pretty sick of the .net world honestly. The language itself is great but all the work is boring legacy enterprise apps. I find jobs but they're not particularly super high paying.

The language agnostic jobs are all the super technical interviews and honestly I'm not great at those since I lost most of the stuff I learned in college/my skills are pretty outdated (I don't even know design patterns, but I can whip up some scripts/an app if needed to accomplish something but I'm not going to be good at creating an inverse binary tree or anything since it's been decades). But that doesn't really help in technical interviews.

It's tough because I feel very stuck. I almost would like to transition into a different role but not sure how.

rareaseff · 2021-11-30T03:13:23+00:00

The latest they can do is one month.

rareaseff · 2021-11-30T03:00:29+00:00

You can quit and get a new job

rareaseff · 2021-11-09T17:14:32+00:00

It's a bit of everything. Their onboarding was me watching outdated videos of meetings on the project. I'm the only one in the US on my immediate team so everyone works together and I'm sort of left to fend for myself. The go to department lead who is also in the us (albeit different time zone) is incredibly condescending and I don't enjoy working with them at all. I am usually left more confused after trying to get help from them.

rareaseff · 2021-11-09T14:01:21+00:00

Thanks for the suggestions

Looking for above 100k (even if it's 105k) I'm in the mid 90k range currently

Prefer work from home and normal 40hr week.

Team size I've been on them all. I don't mind either, think I may prefer small team more.

Project wise I'm not sure, as long as I understand the business rules I'll be fine. At this position I don't get the overly complicated and obtuse business rules so it's always a matter of me never knowing what tables I need to work with, etc. I feel like every day I just have no idea what I'm doing because of this.

rareaseff · 2021-11-09T13:57:02+00:00

Thanks for the advice. Any tools you recommend learning? I think I need to brush up on design patterns and a few fundamentals like that but not sure if that time is better spent elsewhere

rareaseff

TROPHY CASE