I quit the tech industry

http://eev.ee/blog/2015/06/09/i-quit-the-tech-industry/

by jaimebuelta • 11 years ago

1017 548 11 years ago

Jimmy• 11 years ago

Having a traditional job is such a terrible experience. At the very least, it's terrible if you're not 100% in love with whatever company project you're working on.

I think there are some personality types that are suited to traditional jobs though, since most people don't share my concerns when I tell them how terrible it is to have a job. Because of this, I think more people like the author of this post should pursue non-traditional lines of work without feeling guilty. Perhaps our current economic set-up doesn't allow everyone to be happy, but more people could be happy than they currently are.

kayoone• 11 years ago

While i feel similar in that i don't think i could go back to a "normal" job, i also realize how incredibly lucky i am to have this choice. So many people have to do much more grueling work that is not even remotely their passion and earn much less doing so. It's not even a question of education really, imo it comes down to luck in where you were born and some choices that made you end up in an industry that allows all of this.

I also know that there are always people that aren't as lucky and privileged and that it shouldn't be the argument to end all arguments because otherwise no progress will ever be possible.

72deluxe4• 11 years ago

This is very true - we are fortunate and should not forget that. It could be worse (like it is for others).

morganvachon• 11 years ago

Exactly, this is why it's called "The Grind". My wife works 40 hours per week at a local government facility, and I work the same schedule at a private company. We have maybe three hours of time together each evening, and that time is taken by household chores, cooking (which I mostly do), eating dinner, then we usually each have something we wanted to do separately. By the time we're ready to spend time together, it's bedtime. It's been a drain on both of us mentally and emotionally, and if we weren't so amazingly compatible it would be an issue in our marriage. As it is, I'm planning on going back to government work myself on a rotating 12 hour shift so I have days off during the week, and can take care of those household chores that take away a lot of our free time together. It will also allow me to get back to my writing, which is difficult to do after a mentally exhausting nine-to-five day of fixing other people's issues.

mcdougle3• 11 years ago

I'd actually argue that 80% to 90%* of people are suited to traditional jobs, simply because the majority of people don't have the motivation, ambition, or discipline to do what it takes otherwise.

I don't mean that as a negative criticism to those people in any way, either. Most of my friends openly admit that this is the case for them -- they can't even work from home (when given the option) because they don't have the discipline to actually get their work done unless they have a boss telling them when to work and what to work on. It's just the way some people are wired, and it doesn't help that it's the way society and schools try to raise us to be.

I, personally, hate it, though. I don't know why anyone would feel guilty about that. I mean, maybe if all you wanted to do was sit around and do nothing all day -- but that's not me. I enjoy working, as long as it's meaningful and under my control (at least to an extent). There's nothing wrong with building up side streams of income (through things like real estate investments or online businesses) with the intention of ultimately going full time on them.

* Ok, 80% to 90% might be a bit high. I just threw out a big number. But I'm sure it's the overwhelming majority of people.

vehementi• 11 years ago

simply because the majority of people don't have the motivation, ambition, or discipline to do what it takes otherwise.

I'd argue that a huge fraction of them would develop those traits if they had to, i.e. if those comfy jobs didn't exist so readily

tmaly• 11 years ago

well written post!

nine_k• 11 years ago

I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to sit at this desk and I’m going to work on whatever the hell I feel like working on.
I don’t know how to turn this into dollars yet. Hopefully I’ll figure that out.

Well, good luck. I'm just afraid the reality will kick in soon. Tech industry is by far not the worst way to get some food for fifty picnics; many others are much more soul-crushing, with less chance to retire early.

harkyns_castle• 11 years ago

Very much agreed. It sounds like OP is a bit burnt out, and I had much the same thing - I said to myself I'll do my own thing, I've done the hard yards, I'll just sit down to think of something, got a few good ideas... time keeps ticking though, and unless you have endless cash, the bills will keep rolling in. Discipline and focus I guess is pretty important to doing the solo thing.

It's easy to forget the plethora of shit jobs out there once you've been doing software development/ops/IT for a while. Sure, its painful, and some companies more than others, but I agree with another poster that often it's more what you put on yourself versus what's forced on you (at least in my case I think that was often true). I guess it's vital to look for that work/life balance and a company that will offer that (not just lip service); or do your own thing, but that can be pretty hard work too - it's not just coding then, it's all the roles, even the ones you hate.

If there were an easy answer, we'd all be doing it.

[edit] added bit.

imaginenore• 11 years ago

I did that. I stopped working full time. I started working on my own projects, which I have like 10 of, all very different. 3 of the ones I launched are already making okay money, paying half of our rent.

The mental change is tremendous - I don't have a manager harassing me, I do everything on my own schedule. I can switch between whatever projects I want, whenever I want.

The only thing that I miss is working with the people who are smarter than me.

ExpiredLink• 11 years ago

IOW, you switched your dependencies.

cianchette• 11 years ago

After reading on HN about the miners in England yesterday, it's difficult to generate too much sympathy for your situation.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9677863

I hope that you translate your passion into using technology to truly help make the world a better place.

noir_lord• 11 years ago

The guy is clearly burnt out and your best response is "well at least you don't work in a coal mine".

You could argue "well at least those coal miners didn't live in Ethiopia or Rwanda"

There is exactly one person on this planet at any time who has it worse than everyone else, everything else is just relative.

adenot2• 11 years ago

I thought the same thing... first world problems in its essence.

ZenoArrow2• 11 years ago

So just because someone has it worse you have to enjoy your job? Doesn't work like that.

What the OP realised is that money is no good if chasing it wrecks your time. Is he lucky to be able to choose another way? Yes, but that doesn't make his decision any less valid.

heidar• 11 years ago

Also typical in the first world: ignoring and belittling mental problems like they are inferior to physical ones. Both suck but just in different ways.

aaronem• 11 years ago

using technology to truly help make the world a better place

This from someone whose accomplishments include mobile advertising and an app that recapitulates hotlinked YouTube annotations? If you're going to make the argument personal, you'll do well to ensure first that doing so won't undermine the moral high ground you're attempting to take.

eevee20• 11 years ago

Phew. I was worried for a moment that making the world a better place would be really hard, but it sounds like the GP has set a really low bar for me.

thomas9433• 11 years ago

I hope that you translate your passion into using technology to truly help make the world a better place.

I wouldn't hold out too much hope for that. It sounds like they quit because they would rather play with pokemons.

beachstartup• 11 years ago

i find it impressive he resisted using the word 'fuck' until about 2/3rds of the way through. he may have a future yet.

the irony of course, is that anger and humiliation and frustration drive you to start your own company, but if you succeed, you will basically deal with new instantiations of the same old problems, except this time it's all your fault and they still need to be fixed. now 'that guy' is you. congratulations! you've made it.

technical debt, constant stressful fire-drills, ludicrously overloaded schedules, demands on your time and patience, inane re-inventions of established technology, etc. plus a whole host of others ('unknown unknowns') that you can't even begin to fathom as someone who was paid handsomely to care only about the technical problems in an organization.

but, of course, you will be king shit sittin' pretty at the top of the whole shit-heap by then, and see the entire heap of shit from a new, exciting, gilded perspective. and this is, in and of itself, worth something. in fact, it can be worth a shitload.

they don't call it an exit strategy for nothing!

jnsaff2• 11 years ago

This sounds very much like the article I read yesterday: http://mashable.com/2015/06/09/post-hipster-yuccie/

mavdi2• 11 years ago

I couldn't believe what I was reading. I have the exact same feeling about current state of the tech industry.

No one pushes barriers anymore. Rarely anyone makes anyones life better by doing things radically different. We keep reinventing the same wheel again and again. I've been paid handsomely in the last 5 years by doing pretty much the exact same things, using different frameworks for different (and at times the same) companies.

72deluxe4• 11 years ago

Well done for being paid handsomely! I think we are deluding ourselves if we think anything really new is coming along. A lot of the development on microcomputers and mobiles is just rehashing the client/server model of the 70s, but with different technologies every 5 years. Web apps are just the database interfaces of the 90s, and layers over CRUD. They are just more accessible.

I think if we realise this and become comfortable with it, it'd be good for income (if perhaps not soul destroying creatively).

stevejones• 11 years ago

If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants. -- Isaac Newton

In computer science, we stand on each other's feet. -- Brian K. Reid

neverartful3• 11 years ago

This may sound harsh and insensitive, but it's not meant that way.

"No one pushes barriers anymore". No one that you may have seen. Look around, folks do it all the time. Examples abound.

"Rarely anyone makes anyones life better...". Become a teacher, a nurse, a social worker, a friend, a good neighbor, volunteer to work with the poor, etc. etc.

"...by doing things radically different". This is one of my biggest beefs with our tech culture. We're arrogant. We need to step back and realize that a great deal was invented and accomplished before we were born. Many billions of people have passed through life on Earth before us. Some did "radically different" things, but more likely, most did not. What makes you or I so special to think that it's something we're entitled to. Of course we should strive to do our very best and have high goals, but our expectations really should be tempered by reality (not our ego).

"I've been paid handsomely in the last 5 years by doing pretty much the exact same things...". How do you think these roles think about doing the exact same things? Painters, plumbers, carpenters, electricians, bus driver, accountant, sales executive, restaurant owner, sales clerk, etc.

2 parting thoughts: (1) count your blessings, not your problems, and (2) if you're as smart and talented as you think you are, you should be able to improve the situation for yourself and others.

yc101010• 11 years ago

I have been working for myself for last 8 years after completing my masters, in hindsight financially I did not do too badly (tho there was some great and ups and incredible downs!) and it is NICE working from home and watching your kid grow (tho there are quite a lot of distractions!!! says he who is procrastinating reading HN :D )

BUT if I was offered a job with guaranteed employment and steady wages and (gaaasp pension!) like being a teacher I would go for it. Having kids changes your perspective.

I would have been financially much better of if it wasn't for punitive taxes in Ireland, here you reach ~53% high tax rate with only about ~$35K in income. And then there are new property/water taxes they brought in now as well as 23% VAT :( All of these taxes really make you ask yourself "why bother work harder and longer" and really kill any incentive to work. And no we do not get free healthcare here still need to pay for medical insurance out of aftertax earnings. And as a business owner I do not qualify for the full welfare if things go to shit, despite paying high rate of social taxes.

edit: Now that I read my rant in second half of my past, no wonder no good startups come from here, the atmosphere is toxic to entrepreneurship.

rblstr• 11 years ago

Well, you've just convinced me never to return to Ireland until I retire, thanks!

yc101010• 11 years ago

Yeh me and my kids will be paying for a long time for the worlds biggest banking (per capita) debacle and the destruction of the economy in the 00s by various governments. With kids its sort of hard to leave :( Tho' it is a nice place to live despite all the carry on.

But hey look over there at the news yet another multinational setting up to launder/funnel money onto somewhere warmer and seems like a housing bubble is re-inflating again.

--------

edit: last year i arranged my salary to remain under the high tax rate band Gross: €32.6 K Net (after PAYE,PRSI,USC): €25 K

The accountant said that above this €32K line i would have lost about ~53 cents in taxes for each €1.00 earned by ending up in the highest tax band...

So I left the extra money in company (corporation tax 12.5%) and will spread out my wages over few years, tho is risky practice if the company gets sued and loses the money.

There is an option to pay into a pension but with the pension funds being so mismanaged and the government actively robbing all pensions and destroying the pension reserve that would be downright stupid.

psybermancer• 11 years ago

Thanks to the Internet numbing my moral compass, it's not often I'm shocked, but 53% is just horrifying :(. On the other foot, I live in Australia where most can't afford to buy a house in Sydney, even with what would be considered pretty good wages.

That's why I moved out of core tech and became a librarian (which is still pretty tech) in a more regional city. Lower wages but slightly more affordable houses mean I might still have a chance at giving my kids a mortgage one day..

nugget• 11 years ago

Between (hidden) payroll taxes and state and federal income taxes a developer making 120k in San Francisco isn't too far below 53%.

mattdeboard• 11 years ago

In addition to the other responses, remember that US federal income tax is a graduated tax rate, so even at ~40% on 120k, you're only paying 40% on your income over like 90k, lower tax rates for income in lower brackets.

jkot5• 11 years ago

Some source on Irish taxes? Last time I checked income tax in Ireland was one of lowest in Europe. Bellow €40K (+-) was 20%, everything over 40%. Same income in Germany is taxed way higher.

yc101010• 11 years ago

Try this calculator, in the last few years taxes have increased a lot. Also keep in mind if you are a director of a company (Startup etc) you lose a good chunk of your tax credits

Anyways to answer your question, play around with calculator http://download.pwc.com/ie/budget-2015/index.html

A single 30 year old (average age of HNers?) earning €100K will receive €58,869 after all the income taxes

From this money he/she will have to then pay water tax, local property tax (if renting the landlord will pass it on), VAT of 23% on almost everything and so on, and god help you if you buy a car!

---

41% is the highest tax band BUT there is also USC and PRSI tax which needs to be paid which brings up the highest rate to above 50%

basically there are a lot of hidden taxes and it is a very complex tax system which allows the government to make the figures appear palatable

teh_klev• 11 years ago

See here:

http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/it/leaflets/it1.html#section3

Under: "Tax Rates and Tax Bands"

VAT:

http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/vat/guide/vat-rates.html#sectio...

http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/vat/rates/current-historic-rate...

celticninja• 11 years ago

they look like the figures for the UK, Rep of Ireland is not the UK.

raziel2p• 11 years ago

$35K monthly or yearly?

rasur2• 11 years ago

He would be talking about yearly.

simonebrunozzi• 11 years ago

It is (was) great for Ireland, though. That's how they attracted tons of (large) tech companies to Ireland. It's the perfect match: low corporate tax, no incentive for people to go away and do their own startups, which means you can get paid less as there as less alternatives for you. Very smart play by Ireland.

Then, the EU went back to them and told them they couldn't keep doing this, and very soon (is it 2016?) they will rack up corporate tax and make a fortune. And if you're Google, you built a large office and hired thousands of people, you're not going to leave anytime soon.

hopeless• 11 years ago

There are no plans to change the corporate tax rate and the EU have no jurisdiction in these matters.

What is happening, rightly so, is the dismantling of some mechanisms which allowed large corporations to avoid paying the corporation tax at all. I think, though not sure, that this includes dismantling the double-irish arrangement where companies declared the majority of their income as expenses for licensing the product/brand etc from a parent company.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement

brianwawok2• 11 years ago

And if you're Google, you built a large office and hired thousands of people, you're not going to leave anytime soon.

You think? I don't think big business tends to fall into the sunk cost fallacy like we do. It may take a year to move out, but if they save no money in Ireland over the US, why stay?

pjc505• 11 years ago

And if you're Google, you built a large office and hired thousands of people, you're not going to leave anytime soon

Plenty of people have said that about other employers in the past and come into work one day to find the doors locked.

maccard4• 11 years ago

Between that and the cost of property in Dublin (rental prices are insane at the minute, and I haven't looked at buying but I figure it's the same) that's why everyone graduating in ireland is leaving

reitoei6• 11 years ago

Well they're idiots because there are plenty of really well-paying job in the tech industry.

pessimik• 11 years ago

Go to Poland - 19% flat income tax rate for companies - you can get flat by 400 euro / month in biggest cities and work remotely for foreign clients.

mootothemax10• 11 years ago

Go to Poland - 19% flat income tax rate for companies - you can get flat by 400 euro / month in biggest cities and work remotely for foreign clients.

To expand on this: one can operate as a sole trader company, and enjoy the 19% flat income tax rate. You can also register your company for VAT, and then claim back the VAT on company purchases.

The only other cost is ~$270 / ~240 EUR / ~180 GBP per month in social insurance taxes.

I've been here for the last five years, and the low cost of living (very low cost outside of Warsaw) combined with low taxes makes Poland a very forgiving place to be when your first few side businesses inevitably fail.

(for that matter, the startup community here in Warsaw, centred somewhat around Reaktor - http://reaktorwarsaw.com - is really picking up steam)

If you do what I do - remote consulting for clients in the UK and USA - and you have the talent to charge western rates, you can build a sizeable nest egg in next to no time.

zura2• 11 years ago

Go to Georgia (Europe) - tax haven (0%) for software companies

http://www.upsoni.com/blog/?preload=virtual_trade_zone.txt

dubcanada• 11 years ago

Really it's the no healthcare that is the issue. How can you tax your residents so much and not provide healthcare? My payroll tax rate in Canada is about 30% on ~$55K

yc101010• 11 years ago

There is "free" healthcare if you are unemployed and qualify for a medical card, tho if you open the newspapers any week you would hear all sorts of horror stories about our public hospitals. The public system is under immense stress after years of negligence and cuts so your experience of a public hospital might quite literally be your last.

If you are employed you have no choice but to pay for private insurance:

* Family with 2 kids ~ €2600 per year

* Singe person ~ €500-€1000 per year (dependant on age etc)

Tho the costs for health insurance are rising of course...

reitoei6• 11 years ago

I did exactly this. Was contracting for 8 years in Dublin, commuting almost 3 hours daily. I was making good (but not amazing) money. Then the kids came, and that 3 hour commute became 3 hours that I could spend helping my wife or spending time with my kids.

Got offered a full-time job in the tech industry with (gaaasp pension!) outside of Dublin, 5 minutes from my front door, with better salary, bonuses and healthcare. Things can work out well (and I really don't mean to sound patronizing here) with patience and a bit of luck.

Delmania2• 11 years ago

Got offered a full-time job in the tech industry with (gaaasp pension!) outside of Dublin, 5 minutes from my front door, with better salary, bonuses and healthcare. Things can work out well (and I really don't mean to sound patronizing here) with patience and a bit of luck.

While it seems to have become the trend to rail against traditional 40 hour/week jobs, the stability they can offer it extremely enticing to people with families. Eevee lives with 3 other grown adults and no children.

As someone looking to make the jump from a traditional job to financial independence (and self employment), I've noticed that people like Tim Ferris and Ramit Sethi all have one thing in common: no children. They are able to take the risks they can because when they fail, it's only on them.

With kids and a house, it's no longer the case. The people I follow who have successfully made the transition (Mr. Money Mustahce, Simple Programmer) have all used the traditional job as a means of support until they were ready to launch.

Also, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with just wanting to put in 40 hours and go home.

agentultra• 11 years ago

A pension? I've never heard of a pension in tech (though I am from a different country than you). I've never heard of companies taking part of their earnings to invest in the well being of their people. The most I have heard of are perks like ping-pong, a free beer once in a while, and conferences. They often even give you a computer to work on! And a chair to sit in!

(I kid you not, these are often listed as perks in tech job ads)

Obviously startups are not the place to look for a pension but I haven't even heard of established companies in tech offering them.

Seems like a dead-end career if you care about retiring and sending your kids to a decent school (if that's what they want). My grandfather-in-law was set for life when he retired as a mechanical engineer. I'm in my mid-30s and I don't see my career ever ending and my financial future seems like it will always be at risk no matter how I invest and manage my savings.

What kind of company, might I ask, offers such a rare thing?

themartorana• 11 years ago

Good lord, 53% tax plus 23% VAT plus utilities tax plus monthly healthcare premiums plus...?

I'm a bit of a socialist living in the U.S. - I believe in higher taxes on higher earnings and universal healthcare - but what in all that is holy do you get for your tax money??

mootothemax10• 11 years ago

Good lord, 53% tax plus 23% VAT plus utilities tax plus monthly healthcare premiums plus...?

The OP's overstating their case a bit, see the tax calculator here: http://services.deloitte.ie/tc/ (you'll get close to 60k in your pocket from 100k.)

The wikipedia article's pretty comprehensive: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_the_Republic_of_Ire...

pjc505• 11 years ago

I was hoping for a nice pie chart on http://www.budget.gov.ie/Budgets/2015/2015.aspx , but no. Can't seem to find one on the internet. If Ireland is similar enough to the UK, then a large chunk of it will be on pensions.

s_kilk• 11 years ago

> but what in all that is holy do you get for your tax money??

Frankly, not much. I was born and raised in Ireland, and left a few years ago from Scotland. In comparison to Scotland (and the UK in general), the quality of public services in Ireland is a joke.

stephengillie• 11 years ago

All of these taxes really make you ask yourself "why bother work harder and longer" and really kill any incentive to work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve

esharte• 11 years ago

~53% high tax rate with only about ~$35K in income

I'm sorry but you cant just go on to HN and make stuff up.

You pay 20% on the first €33,800 income and only 40% on income over €33,800 if single.

You pay 20% on the first €42,800 income and only 40% on income over €42,800 if Married with one income.

You pay 20% on the first €67,600 income and only 40% on income over €67,600 if Married with two incomes.

You pay 20% on the first €37,800 income and only 40% on income over €37,800 if a single parent.

fragsworth• 11 years ago

Maybe including City / Local taxes?

yc101010• 11 years ago

Way to ignore USC (Universal Social Charge) and PRSI (Pay Related Social Insurance), these two alone + income taxes add up to over 50% rate on every euro earned above about 32-33K

thats without even going into property tax which could also be taken out of your income (and probably water tax soon)

The government has deliberately made the "income" taxes so complicated with 3 major different variables, and plenty of other minor nuances dependent on the persons circumstance

In my case for 2014:

----

Gross Pay €32,876.69

Income Tax €4,941.44

USC €1,620.17

PRSI €1,315.08

Net Pay €25,000

----

Thats for tax year 2014 (wasn't married yet, own company director), any euros earned above this I would have had to pay a rate of 50%+ tax (income+usc+prsi),

This year it is a little less (few hundred euro) due to getting married and budget 2015 being a tiny bit more forgiving.

You have ignored PRSI and USC and ignored that company directors lose a good chunk of their tax credits (and to add insult to injury no longer qualify for full welfare when things go bad!) for bothering to start a company, I suppose you work for someone else and do not comprehend how toxic the tax regime is towards small businesses. Revenue views all small business and sole traders with absolute disdain the EXPECT them all too be crooked and ASSUME you are guilty of tax fraud and place the onus on you to PROVE you are innocent of any tax misdoings (which costs time and accounting money)...

sjh• 11 years ago

ys1010 is (accurately) describing the marginal rate which effectively applies to all income above a threshold (although the different taxes/charges have different thresholds). It’s quite the thing when it kicks in.

shabinesh• 11 years ago

I am in a similar phase, just two more days left in my current job. After that I shall start working on my own projects and freelance and build MVPs for startups to keep me afloat, which I also enjoy for the fulfilling responsibility. But I am only experimenting it for next few months and if it doesn't work out I shall fall-back. Good luck for your next steps.

outsidetheparty• 11 years ago

Yep, job burnout is the pits.

probablyfiction3• 11 years ago

This is what burnout looks like. Unless Yelp has a toxic work culture, it's likely the author brought it on themselves by pushing too hard. After several months, the author will probably start thinking about work again, and begin the job search once more.

Not to say that the author's points are invalid; it's a terrible feeling to have to spend your most productive hours working on someone else's problems. He or she may find themselves drawn toward entrepreneurship. There's nothing quite like working on your own idea...especially if that idea is going to make you cash.

Office culture is draining. Some people aren't cut out for it. Additionally, programmers tend to push themselves too hard for too long out of a misplaced sense of loyalty to the company. They're being paid huge sums and sometimes feel that they need to work extremely hard to deserve what they're being paid. They don't see that the work they do is extremely valuable in and of itself. Employment is a business arrangement; a coder doesn't owe the company anything more than their agreed-upon hours of work.

If/when the author does return to work, it's likely they will be much more likely to put themselves first and the company second. They'll likely have a plan to escape working for someone else ever again.

aaggarwal5• 11 years ago

I am going to start working soon. This makes me think if full-time work is really worth it. Wouldn't multiple short-term contracts with regular breaks be able to cut it in today's world? Isn't there people with experience on working on short-term contracts and still living well-off?

probablyfiction3• 11 years ago

Full-time work can be worth it. Financial stability goes a long way towards contributing to happiness. You ultimately have to ask yourself what your goals are, and why you're working. A job should be a tool to help you get what you really want out of life.

72deluxe4• 11 years ago

The difficulty is guaranteeing a steady stream of short-term contracts. If you can get them and line them up I am sure it is great but I would not like the "unknown" factor of that.

I would do it once you have a steady foundation and some savings to fall back on should these contracts not materialise for a while.

Working fulltime is alright (it means you can be stable for a while) but not all of us are paid huge sums :-(

Retric• 11 years ago

A 40 hour a week job works out to ~1/3 of your time while awake which is fine. ~(40 * 48)/(16 * 365)

The problem is it's easy to get worse than that add a 1h each way commute and 10 hour days, and skip vacations that's half your waking life. ~(60 * 50)/(16 * 365) And of course you need a few hours a day just for prep time and meals etc so quickly you only get free time to relax on the weekends.

nickbauman• 11 years ago

I'm working as a contractor right now. I have a few different clients. I set my own pace and schedule. If I want to take a day off I do it. In 2013 I took an entire month off and still made a very decent amount of money. Contracting is great you get exposed to a lot and you can walk away without too much trouble. If you have a lot of debt and overhead, it's not so easy, though.

damoncali4• 11 years ago

I do this, but it's not all roses. Getting and keeping those contracts continually takes effort and time. It's stressful when you don't have much line of sight into the future. And even though you can charge a high hourly rate, it's difficult to work lots of billable hours. I need time for context switching, administrivia, marketing. And the one problem I don't see discussed much: on-demand motivation.

If you work a salary job and don't feel up to it for at the moment, you can coast for half a day and get your shit together. On your own, that's a half a day of lost money. My brain needs breaks, and I just can't do code 40 hours a week and not burn out. I've tried. It just hasn't worked. So that downtime is a requirement, and you lose money for it.

The best part is that a decent programmer can make a moderate income working relatively little. Or you can make a lot of money if you work very hard. It's your choice at any given moment. But don't underestimate the drain of having to work for one to three people at a time, managing your time, and making sure the pipeline doesn't run dry all at the same time. It's pretty annoying/stressful when two important clients have deadlines on the same day. It's not like you can just pull in more help. Or if you can, you then have two problems - you have to go out and find the help, manage it, etc.

I don't think I could bill more than 25 hours a week and keep my sanity. But I'm not exactly a workaholic, and 25 hours a week is a pretty good living.

Milage may vary.

exelius5• 11 years ago

Working lots of short-term contracts are fine when the economy is good. But when the economy goes bad, you'll see those contracts dry up very quickly. Then you're looking for a full time job along with everyone else who was doing short term contracts at a time when companies are scaling back hiring. Most of you are going to have a bad time.

A full-time job offers some protection from volatility. I'm not going to pretend that nobody has ever been laid off from a full-time job, but if you work contracts you have ZERO job security. And contractors are the first thing to go in cost cutting mode.

If you go the independent contractor route, make sure your emergency fund can cover 18-24 months of expenses. Also, recognize that while the pay may be higher, if you're in the US you also are on the hook for 8% payroll tax that your employer would normally pay on your behalf.

If you go this route, you need to adjust your definition of "well off". If you are looking to keep pace with your friends working at Google and making $150k, that's pretty unlikely. But you can probably pull $60k and still meet your savings goals, and $60k/yr is more than enough to live comfortably on. And that number won't be static; some years you might make $100k and some years you might make $20k. You need your savings to be able to survive the lean years.

All that said, based on your comment I assume you have no work experience. Why would you hire yourself for a short-term contract over someone else? Go work somewhere full-time for at least a few years until you have a good answer for that question. You almost certainly have a whole lot of tradecraft to learn as well. Once you've built up some experience (and some contacts) you can think about contracting.

mtbcoder2• 11 years ago

Isn't there people with experience on working on short-term contracts and still living well-off?

This is just my opinion and I can only speak from a US perspective, but yes and no. The ones who are able to do this have already gotten a 10+ year head start and have built up a deep network from which to source work from. The ones who are starting out today are more than likely having a very tough go at it. Competition for contracts is much more intense compared to 10, 15 years ago and you really need to bring more to the table than just "javascript developer" or "wordpress consultant".

I know there exists this love-affair on HN with running off to become independent contractor, live on a beach writing code and making your own hours. I'm not saying it's impossible, but the reality though is that in the end you are building a business (even if it's just you). All the energy, time, risk and money that it takes to run a regular businesses will be just the same with running your own consultancy. The downtime you think you will have to yourself in-between contracts will be eaten up by having to find the next contract. If you happen to unfortunately live in or near a city with a high cost of living, the pressure will be even more intense.

bowlich• 11 years ago

I wish there was more part-time employment gigs out there for programmers. I know I would jump on something like that, but I've never seen anyone advertise a position as part-time.

That leaves the contracting route. The issue there is you now end up a salesman. The people I know who are good contractors are businessmen first, software engineers second. They know how to close deals, attract clients,and have excellent "soft skills." They are mediocre developers. Not because they couldn't be excellent developers or were excellent developers before becoming contractors, but simply because their work day is no longer centred around engineering. This is fine if what you want is to run a business and be a businessman. Not so much if you're trying to escape the trappings of business to find more time to devote to focusing on just developing.

This is all anecdotal of course, I'm sure there are contractors who see a wide range of experiences that differ from mine.

johan_larson• 11 years ago

Generally speaking, if you have to pay people to do it, there is something nasty about the work. It's strenuous or dangerous or dirty or degrading or stressful or boring. If it were actually fun, people would be doing it for free.

(Exceptions, anyone?)

We programmers are quite lucky. At its worst our work is only frustrating. And we are well compensated, usually.

Don't get me wrong; programming itself can be lots of fun. But what you get paid for isn't the fun stuff. I doubt there is anyone who gets excited about upgrading and debugging aging Java applications.

Jare• 11 years ago

if you have to pay people to do it, there is something nasty about the work

a) Even if it's a job I would do for free, you need to pay me because I need money in order to live.

b) Even if it's a job I do because I love it, you need to pay me to ensure that I do it at the pace and with the guarantees you need.

I wouldn't call either of these "nasty", although the first is arguable at a global scale.

dagw• 11 years ago

Generally speaking, if you have to pay people to do it, there is something nasty about the work.

It's also a question of time management. I can only do N things in a week/month/year. If you want one of those things to be your thing, you're going to have to convince me to priorities it over other things. Money is a quick and convenient way to do that.

SixSigma• 11 years ago

Do you think tax returns and complying with other bureaucracy is fun?

There are myriad reasons why people form firms and a body of literature around it. Start with Coase's Nature of the firm :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nature_of_the_Firm

learnstats2• 11 years ago

Generally speaking, if you have to pay people to do it, there is something nasty about the work.

I don't believe this is true. Almost all people need to earn money to live a reasonable lifestyle, society as it is.

Considering the number of hours in the day: enjoyable, non-nasty tasks may be off the radar unless they are paid.

I feel like what you are saying is an excuse for employers to treat employees poorly. "We're paying you, so..."

It doesn't have to be this way.

bottled_poe2• 11 years ago

If it were actually fun, people would be doing it for free.

How much fun? Whatever you think is fun, I'm pretty sure I can think of something more fun. That's not me saying I know what is fun, just saying it is a subjective term. Also, what is fun today may not be in 2 weeks time.

borplk• 11 years ago

if you have to pay people to do it, there is something nasty about the work

Even if someone loves doing something they can still ask to be paid to do it for other people

chrisbennet• 11 years ago

I've been getting paid to do fun stuff my whole career. No sense in doing it for free if someone will pay you to do it though. :-)

madeofpalk• 11 years ago

Generally speaking, if you have to pay people to do it, there is something nasty about the work.

Unfortunately, I can't pay my rent with 'delightful work'.

martin-adams• 11 years ago

> Generally speaking, if you have to pay people to do it, there is something nasty about the work

I think this misses the point that a) you need people to do the fun awesome stuff at scale (you can't do everything), and b) you may not have the skills to do the fun awesome stuff yourself.

Practically speaking, I think you're right, but you don't have to accept that as the status quo.

> If it were actually fun, people would be doing it for free

The trick is combining fun with career. Doing fun things for free is not scalable as we do kinda need money to survive.

colund• 11 years ago

The work doesn't scale and do more things and handle more customers if you don't hire more people and develop better systems

Kurtz79• 11 years ago

Generally speaking, if you have to pay people to do it, there is something nasty about the work.

No, generally speaking, it just means that the work you do has some value for the people paying for it, since they need it done and they lack the skill, the time or the will to do it.

It says nothing about how fun or stressful or nasty the work is for you (it might be fun for you and boring for someone else).

iopq2• 11 years ago

I quit the tech industry over a year ago and I'm not itching back.

Maybe if I did something part time that could work, because I don't want to spend more than 20 hours a week working.

czechdeveloper2• 11 years ago

What industry are you now in, that you can work 20h/week? Just curious, you are living my dream.

seivan• 11 years ago

I went through this. Not sure what toxic culture entails, but fucked up deadlines burned me out. Why do all software companies rush so hard.

fsloth• 11 years ago

" all software companies rush so hard."

I suppose it depends on the business model the software is part of. If you want a pace that is compatible with proper engineering I would suggest looking into companies that deal with products whose lifetime is measured in decades such as CAD vendors or other highly technical software.

All freshmen to software engineering have this weird idea that a piece of code can ship once it builds and just shipping as much code as much as possible is the best road to maximize productivity.

Until they get hit in their faces time and again by recurring bugs and they start to understand that the way to manage long term software profitably is by making sure as few bugs as possible leave the software engineers desk, at which point best practices and long term planning starts to take hold.

That's at least my view, YMMV to a large extent, probably.

dexterdog• 11 years ago

Because to most project managers the problem always looks easier during the spec phase than it actually is. Very few people can groc the problem before doing it. Occasionally you over-estimate, but usually you are under. That's why a good manager of project managers usually just slaps a 25% increase on any estimate (adjusting for his knowledge of the particular PM's abilities).

rdtsc4• 11 years ago

There are 2 reasons:

1) Developers cannot reliably estimate software timelines. That often comes with experience and age, but many never learn that skill. It is a skill like programming itself. It comes with practice.

2) Break down in communication between management (product managers) and engineers who are writing code.

On the first part. Usually junior software developers simply have not had experience shipping software in a full software cycle. From initial requirements, to design, to deployment, to maintenance. They did projects perhaps in school and homework exercises. Later some eventually learn that they chronically underestimate the time, and just start adding a factor (2x) to what their initial estimate is. That is a step up. But many never learn. There is also a race to the bottom -- the ones that promise shorter timelines get promoted and seen as smarter, more aggressive, better team players. The ones that are realistic are seen as maybe "taking it easy", "not working hard enough". Then everyone sees who gets promoted and show doesn't and learn -- "Aha I need to be like cool cowboy coder Joe over there, he is now running his own department". And so it spreads. Notice how there is often no feedback loop to punish the cool cowboy coder after the project is not delivered on time.

On the second part -- even if there are engineers who know how to estimate the time, nobody asks them. Because the person who promised the feature already played golf with the customer and told them they'll get the new shiny toy in 6 months. That person might have never been a developer, they might have an MBA or where a football coach or something like that. And they usually have a higher position in the company. So they promise and then everyone is pushed to deliver on that deadline. If it fails the failure is usually attributed to the engineers doing the work because they haven't worked "hard enough".

benihana• 11 years ago

Not all software companies do. I work at a place that is very much "we'll ship it when it's ready" and some people here still feel burnout.

mpdehaan23• 11 years ago

While not burnout related,

I found out a while back, and this is somewhat paradoxical, that if I care TOO much, I'm less happy. What happens is I notice all the stuff I can't fix, or need to fix, and other people get stressed out making them fix it. The end result is that I stop caring quite as much (I still care), get happy, and then start caring too much again.

It's especially hard at times when you have a lot of energy and want to make something work and you have to fight others who don't want to make it work. 8 hours plus of your day is a lot, so you want it to count, to matter, and that makes you care, to define yourself by that work, and that makes it hurt more. The alternative though, is just collecting the paycheck, which is also bad!

The trick is finding a balance and making sure you also define yourself by other things. And this is a very hard thing for creative folks to do, because it feels like their art, and it's easy to always want to hit the next target/goal/feature, in a never ending wave. The catch is they don't stop. It's a continuum. One of my first jobs as a kid was in a grocery store, and I learned clearing out the line was impossible, and the beeping doesn't stop. It is madness to want the beeping to stop because people from other lanes just come over to yours, and it won't.

I'm not great at this, but you just have to enjoy the people and the things along the way - as there's not a destination.

jfe• 11 years ago

ditto.

zippy786• 11 years ago

This is what is fundamentally wrong with the industry. Often those who don't care or don't do much are the highest paid and get more reward that the ones who care the most and always try to do something. Obviously, the environment eventually turns those who care into someone not caring as much. Eventually not caring at all, thus a toxic environment is formed. Some may also feel that this is the norm in most companies and leave for freelancing etc.

neverartful3• 11 years ago

Having too much passion? IMO, passion is not sustainable. I believe that dispassionate works much better over the long term. Of course, ymmv.

kelvin0• 11 years ago

Wow, this sums up clearly my experiences and what I've taken away from them. Very well written, this fits me so perfectly it's scary ... Makes me realize there are many more devs struggling with the same things. Thanks for that post!

duopixel• 11 years ago

I have also stumbled upon this catch—care too much and carry the burden of stress and disappointment, or care too little and find no fulfilment in work.

The solution I have found is to practice losing myself in work (achieve flow) and yet not be attached to the result. If it were your checkout line I'd try to be completely focused on dispatching the clients with efficiency and courtesy without looking at the length of the line.

Focused and productive work is a reward in itself. You leave the office feeling energized and the day flies by. The paradox is that by not caring about the result you often produce your best work.

seansmccullough• 11 years ago

I totally agree. If I care too much about what I'm trying to do at work, I just get upset.

Dewie34• 11 years ago

I found out a while back, and this is somewhat paradoxical, that if I care TOO much, I'm less happy.

I have a feeling that this realization might be central to a part of Buddhist philosophy/mindset.

eevee20• 11 years ago

This resonates, definitely. I don't "care" about these problems in the sense that my heart can't really be in them, but they are still blinding obstacles for me and my coworkers that I would like to resolve, and it's easy to get... very invested in them.

Until the day I realize all the low-hanging fruit is fixed and everyone else is pretty much content to put up with what's left, making it much harder and much less rewarding to continue.

I have enough trouble with searching for a finish line in projects I start myself, so I guess I'm tired of doing it when it's not even my race.

AdeptusAquinas• 11 years ago

This is totally true. I find when I am most depressed and irritable about work is when I have become too engaged in it.

Pulling back and seeing it as just work, just time you are selling to someone else, clears my head and paradoxically makes me a better co-worker both in attitude and performance. Then I slowly get drawn back in and depressed again.

Its a cycle, but at least I can see it happening now rather than just getting burnt out.

lighthawk• 11 years ago

it's likely the author brought it on themselves by pushing too hard.

Don't fall into the trap of thinking this. It is the case some of the time, but not all of the time.

When I first started working in tech in the mid-90s, it was only a year or two before I was considering going back to school in music or to get an MBA. Since about 2004, I've known that I would like to abandon the tech industry. It is now 2015. I have dreams of opening a restaurant, retail store, starting any kind of business, becoming a professional writer, etc. But, this is where I am.

All that said, I read the tech and science news everyday. My relationship with tech is love/hate. I can't get enough of it and will obsess about it or coding something at home, but I know it makes me unhappy.

I feel I'd be better off just being a caretaker of some sort, or in some sort of service industry. I've talked to several developers over the years that dream of being a groundskeeper. This is reality for some of us out there.

I'm personally dealing with it by losing weight and working towards the goal of being independent from an employer.

Here are some ideas for those that feel burned out or hate their job:

* Get a hobby OR focus on your family/self and stop trying to be so much.

* Pretend you are going to quit and seriously look into how you could make your dream happen, even if it seems financially irresponsible.

* Keep a watch on cheap plane, train, etc. tickets to figure out how to escape your life, or think about where you would go to get away from it all.

* Find a place where you can go to just chill-out and think.

* If you have sleep apnea or feel tired a lot and don't dream at night, consider going to a doc to get CPAP or an oral device and dedicate yourself to losing weight.

* Talk to a psychiatrist and get some meds.

* Find a friend/person you can talk to about it.

* Do your best to stop thinking negatively for some period of each day, or all day, even if it is so normal to be negative that it seems fake not to be that way.

* Don't be afraid to cut back hours at work. If they fire you, so what. And if you think they would kill you if you stopped, run away. You will be ok.

perfTerm• 11 years ago

Man, I might be slightly depressed at the idea of going back to another job, but meds scare the fucking crap out of me.

I was trying to do a class a semester and work at the same time at a startup as a junior full stack engineer for something I truly couldn't care less about (advertising).

I think the key thing that's making me look forward to my next position is 1: I found a spot where I'll have an office thus eliminating much of the distractors that are present in these ridiculous open office layouts. Creative people are distracted very easily [0] and the open office layout was really destroying my love for being an engineer. It was very funny because when I'd come home I'd be exhausted, but if I sat and tried to do my homework I'd actually get more done when I was exhausted because there weren't 100 people walking around me.

2. The office has a window. I hated working in this cramped, open, shared space we had for a while. The closest window was probably 25 feet away in a small conference room. And there was nothing on the walls.

3. This new position that I haven't quite accepted yet gives me the opportunity to write one day a week to create entries for a technical blog and writing is something I'd like to do anyways so the opportunity to be able to contribute to the tech community in that manner is tremendous.

4. This is a recruiting firm so I'll actually hopefully get to see some people get hired because of the things I do! How neat to have a real world impact.

5. They do lots of charity events so I can always respect that. Lots of companies focus on the parties but parties are just a way to escape in a lot of ways, I think giving back will feel tremendous.

6. I'll be helping to work out what to do next with the CEO, this could potentially be stressful, but I really love the idea of having the opportunity to develop performance indicators, plan out entire systems, and build a team. This allows me to be more than just a cog in the machine or one man on a team, it allows me to feel like a real god damn fuckin engineer. A contributor. I have so many ideas all the time, why not be employed somewhere where I'm more than just feature X, maintenence Y, and feature Z ad nauseum?

That being said there are a few downsides such as not being able to have a close mentor. I am still relatively junior. This means I'll have to work a bit harder on my own in order to stay fresh and keep building my skills which means some homework time with Code Complete and other resources like that. I may ask for them to hire me a mentor every fortnight for half a day so that I may improve and to keep the quality of everything I do for them up to snuff.

So, while I'm a bit apprehensive about starting up again (thats a lot of weight on my shoulders!), I'm very excited to start at a place where I think I'll really be able to have an incredibly positive impact in the environment that I really feel will have the most positive impact on my performance and well being. If I'm easily distracted by people slurping sodas, why is it that most of the choices for offices for tech workers force me to accept that the only acceptable place for me to do incredibly complex engineering work is near people making jokes and slurping sodas?

I may have taken a small pay cut (although bonuses will hopefully make up and then some if I really shine) but for me to finally have the opportunity to do engineering work in an office, and to be a part of the decision making process, and to have duties beyond just feature A and feature B including nontechnical technical writing, that excites me.

So I guess my advice is, maybe instead of seeking meds (although therapy on its own I'm sure might be incredibly good (I've not been yet (although it wouldn't surprise me if I probably should have))), maybe do some introspection and figure out exactly what it is that is draining you day after day and then try to change those.

For me, I think, it was an inability to get into the zone at work, thus making me spend so much of my energy just on maintaining a decent level of focus. When I'm home, I don't need that and the time flies whenever I actually sit and do work. To get rid of that energy drain should be tremendous for me. Maybe you guys will see some tech articles by me in the future, I sure hope so ;-)

[0] http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/6831248

themckman• 11 years ago

  I've talked to several developers over the years that dream of being a groundskeeper.

A little about this. I worked plenty of my summers at a country club (my dad is a superintendent) and there is something to the work. There's some really shitty jobs (how about weed-eating the the creek banks in 90 degree temps and 90% humidity?), but mowing grass can be really enjoyable. When working at nicer clubs there is a certain amount of pressure to cut straight and even lines on greens/fairways/tees which is a nice little challenge and rewarding to look back on when you've done a good job (its art). Being out in the sun and working your body a little bit makes a man feel good and you're done around 3 (you start at 6).

It's funny how when we're young we'll look at a job like that with a sort of scorn as if we've got better things to do, but then as you get older you long a little for those nice summer days of cruising up and down the fairways, just you and your machine.

I don't think I'm ready to quit tech anytime soon as I do enjoy it and feel like I might eventually make some lasting impact somewhere, but thinking ahead towards "retirement", there's something appealing about the idea of heading down to the local country club, filling out an application and collecting my $10/hour to cut rough 3 days a week.

nomel• 11 years ago

* Talk to a psychiatrist and get some meds.

Do you have experience with this? I'm afraid if I'm on meds, I'll end up neglecting my life even more, rather than taking these strong hints from my mind and body that this isn't the way it should be.

I would absolutely love to hear any perspective on this from anyone.

brightball6• 11 years ago

He has actually done one of the best things that he can do in that situation: eliminate expenses.

When I tried bootstrapping my startup years ago with periodic contract work the albatross around my neck wasn't anything to do with the company, it was the mortgage and other home expenses that continually made it harder and harder to go without a steady income.

People always focus on income without looking at expenses as much, but the closer you can get those expenses to zero the wealthier you really are since you NEED so much less cash flow. It's a huge multiplier.

If I had the ability to pay off all my debt overnight, using my time the way I want to would be a whole lot easier. I absolutely sympathize with the author here. There are several things that I want to build but I have a full time job, a wife and 2 kids. At some point I had to decide that being a good father and husband is more important than pursuing those entrepreneurial dreams. There's only so much time in a day.

I'm lucky in that I have a great job with a company who's mission I fully support and ownership that treats their employees better than any company I've ever seen. It makes it significantly easier to put the company over personal ambitions.

Time and a place for everything.

jlongster• 11 years ago

I've always wanted to make $200,000 or so from a successful personal project on the side, just so that I could pay off my mortgage so I didn't have to worry about it anymore.

But when I think about really getting that money, I realize I wouldn't do that. If my mortage is $1200/month, I just bought myself 166 months, or ~14 years. If the idea is to quit your job and invest in a company, that's not the smartest move. You're better off stocking away $72,000 so you don't have to worry about your mortgage in 5 years, and investing the rest in the company (you will not be making money for a while, and on top of paying your own salary, you will need to buy advertising).

If the idea is to avoid the interest on your loan, and be completely emotionally free from that debt, than by all means do it. This would work well if you are just going to do consulting since the cash flow swing isn't as dangerous.

pjungwir2• 11 years ago

The "Dave Ramsey" approach of paying down debt rather than investing is appealing to me, and I think a lot of people ignore the extra risk of investing. If I can make 4.5% risk-free paying off a mortgage vs 6% in stocks, I'd pay off the mortgage. But here is another consideration I've never seen discussed before: mortgage interest is static, but investment returns are dynamic. My mortgage interest rate is fixed for 30 years, and that's a long time for the stock market to change. What I mean is, the day I close, my interest rate is probably only a little lower than stock market returns. But surely in 10 or 20 years the stock market will have times at 10% or 15% returns, and I'll still have that low-interest mortgage. It almost seems unfair to the bank! So even though my natural inclination is to pour retirement savings into my mortgage, I wonder if it would be better to keep the leverage of such a low-interest loan so I'll have cash for investing when the market has better returns or lower risk. 30 years is a long time. What do people think?

drzaiusapelord• 11 years ago

This isn't burnout:

" I stay up hours later than I mean to, not even doing anything, just trying to put off sleeping — because the next thing I experience will be waking up and going back to work."

This is straight up depression. We need to stop using office-cliches like "burnout" and start addressing the very real mental health issues in the tech industry. Maintaining my mental health is like staying in shape, eating right, etc. Only as an adult have I learned how much work it takes to stay mentally healthy and not fall into these traps. Things like pacing yourself, recognizing when you're stressed, being able to say 'no,' taking enough breaks, having a dialogue with your boss/clients on what your realistic expectations should be for this project, self identifying with your job too much, not having outside interests outside of tech, etc all matter.

Techies seem to love stress. We're competitive, asocial, difficult, etc. No wonder stuff like this is so common. How many high profile tech suicides have we had in the past few years? We're doing the opposite of staying mentally healthy. Turns out human beings are incredibly delicate creatures, but no one wants to admit it as to not look "weak."

johnward2• 11 years ago

I thought that feeling was just normal. I've experienced it basically since I started working in tech. I can't imagine most people want to actually wake up and go to work. It's not possible.

The funny part is I find myself dreaming of going back to stocking shelves at a grocery store like I did in high school. I'd never make enough money to support myself doing something like that though. I romanticize the Peter Gibbons move to go work in construction even though I know I probably wouldn't be happy doing anything. I long for stress free days. Especially when most of the stress I experience is just completely artificial or manufactured by my boss or company. Most of the problems I have at work shouldn't bother me after hours but they never leave.

pbz• 11 years ago

It's not depressions. Depression doesn't go away for the weekend or after work hours.

steve-howard4• 11 years ago

I wouldn't say burnout is just an office cliche, but your point appears to be supported by current research. Quoth the wiki:

The symptoms of burnout are similar to those of clinical depression; in a study that directly compared depressive symptoms in burned out workers and clinically depressed patients, no diagnostically significant differences were found between the two groups: burned out workers reported as many depressive symptoms as clinically depressed patients. Moreover, a study by Bianchi, Schonfeld, and Laurent (2014) showed that about 90% of burned out workers meet diagnostic criteria for depression, suggesting that burnout may be a depressive syndrome rather than a distinct entity. The view that burnout is a form of depression has found support in several recent studies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burnout_%28psychology%29

Arjuna2• 11 years ago

This is what burnout looks like.

I agree.

Boys and girls, as you likely know, burnout is real. But, you can manage it. I'll tell you what I do. Here's the secret:

Put yourself first.

Now, that sounds quite selfish on first-blush. What exactly does that mean?

For me, it means I take care of my health, first and foremost. Before the day is started, before the family is awake, I head off to the gym to be with The Iron. Henry Rollins wrote about it much more eloquently that I can, so I urge you to take a moment and read his words [1].

Once you've been with The Iron, nothing can stop you. Sure, you will still have rough days. But, I will tell you that, having been with The Iron, you will know that there is nothing that can bring you down. You will know that you have earned it for yourself on that morning. There is very little that can shake you when you know that. When all else fails around you, when software fails, when management fails, when fear, doubt, uncertainty and self-pity come rumbling toward you like a freight train, when friends forsake you... I am here to tell you that you will gently remind yourself in the midst of the storm:

"I rolled out of the rack to bring it. When most of the world around me was asleep, I paid the price [2], and that is what truly matters today."

And, over time, you will build that attitude, and you will find that you are unshakable. You will find that you will manage your time to make it happen. You will find that, even while you work hard at work, you will not let it control you. The work will always be there; the inbox will always be full, so put yourself first.

You will find that you will start eating right, because you realize that there is a price to be paid in order to stave off feelings that certain foods can cause. The roller-coaster of junk food and caffeine will fade from your life, because you will find that they have a net-negative impact regarding how you want to feel and perform. You may even find that you want to start meditating, to balance the mind.

I know it's old advice. I know that it sounds cliche. But I urge you to try it. Do it for yourself. If you can't do mornings, then do it when you can. Mornings just set the tone for me, but do what works for you.

Take time to put yourself first, every day.

[1] http://www.oldtimestrongman.com/strength-articles/iron-henry...

[2] I'm very fond of Vince Lombardi's words here:

Football is a great deal like life in that it teaches that work, sacrifice, perseverance, competitive drive, selflessness and respect for authority is the price that each and every one of us must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile.

To achieve success, whatever the job we have, we must pay a price.

Success is like anything worthwhile. It has a price. You have to pay the price to win and you have to pay the price to get to the point where success is possible. Most important, you must pay the price to stay there. Once you agree upon the price you and your family must pay for success, it enables you to ignore the minor hurts, the opponent's pressure, and the temporary failures.

I've never known a man worth his salt who, in the long run, deep down in his heart, didn't appreciate the grind, the discipline.

A man can be as great as he wants to be. If you believe in yourself and have the courage, the determination, the dedication, the competitive drive, and if you are willing to sacrifice the little things in life and pay the price for the things that are worthwhile, it can be done.

pinky14172• 11 years ago

Because I see you attend The Iron Temple, you must also be a worshipper of Brodin. Wheymen.

tjradcliffe• 11 years ago

To achieve success, whatever the job we have, we must pay a price.

Actually, to achieve success, we must do the job.

Some people find lifting heavy weights and whatnot helps them do that. I certainly have. Others find it's quiet contemplation under a tree. I've done that too, in another place, not here.

Time and chance happen to us all, and having a deep toolkit of techniques for dealing with the truly astonishing variety of slings and arrows the world can huck in our direction is at least as important as our dedication to any one of them. Because when we fail--and we will fail, if we truly strive to achieve anything interesting or important--having a different set of techniques to catch ourselves can come in handly.

For myself, the secrect of my success is being able to go on in the certainty of failure, because taking one more step forward is worthwhile, even when I know the destination is unreachable. And sometimes I'm wrong, and reach it anyway.

jgmmo• 11 years ago

Love Lombardi. I have the last paragraph of your quote here written down and stuffed in my wallet, for at least 10 years now.

larrys• 11 years ago

"it's likely the author brought it on themselves by pushing too hard."

Or being in a job or a situation that didn't fit them and they exceeded their capabilities or their ability to deal with stress.

Yelp, or for that matter any job, is not an elementary school that you are assigned to that you can't change because you are 6 years old. It's a job. People have all sorts of capabilities that allow them to work or not work at a particular career or company.

skynetv22• 11 years ago

I hear Netflix also has a very high pressure culture and if people cant cope up, they are given a generous severance and asked to leave. is this right? how long can a person survive in such environments?

steven777400• 11 years ago

Maybe long term survival isn't the point. I once interviewed with a team and was concerned that everyone seemed very young. I asked, "What's the turnover like?" They said, "Working on this team looks great on your resume and is excellent preparation for your next career step." I read that as: ride 'em hard and burn 'em out.

svachalek• 11 years ago

There's a lot more to being a professional than being good at the technical aspects of what you do. Communicating, coordinating, scheduling, etc. all play at least as much of a role in getting the job done. I think if you are handling those aspects of the job well, you shouldn't feel like your pants are on fire everyday, no matter where you work. [Edit: assuming it's not some kind of sweatshop. Don't waste years of your life at one of those.]

Also you probably have other priorities in life so remember those every day rather than look back two years later saying "how did I forget everything else in my life?" It can be done. Stand up for yourself, and what you want out of life.

[I've worked 20 years in Silicon Valley, currently at Netflix.]

marvel_boy• 11 years ago

That's not burnout. He's doing the correct thing, where your jobs sucks is time to try a different thing. Good luck !

downandout• 11 years ago

Unless Yelp has a toxic work culture

Yelp's business model is quasi-extortionate. Even if the work environment itself was OK, writing code all day for that purpose would certainly leave me feeling pretty crappy about my job. That kind of thing doesn't wash off very easily if you have a conscience.

eevee20• 11 years ago

Whispered rumors of Yelp's business model have been greatly exaggerated. In almost four years I have never seen anything within the company to substantiate them in any way whatsoever.

avn21092• 11 years ago

> "They're being paid huge sums..."

Everyone who works in finance just lol'd.

But seriously, relative to the value a good hacker adds to the business, "huge sums" is probably not an accurate characterization of engineer comp.

probablyfiction3• 11 years ago

Huge sums in relation to the average American worker. I'm being paid below average for a programmer of my caliber, but it still feels like a ton of money because I grew up in humble circumstances.

eevee20• 11 years ago

Be sure to check back in a couple months. :)

rifung3• 11 years ago

Is this really burnout? I feel like I've been burned out before but from what the author was saying, this doesn't seem like it. If anything it just seems like he has a lot of other things he wants to do and work prevents him pursuing them which made him unhappy.

Of course, he still tried to pursue them in his spare time but then he just didn't have enough time to do them as much or as well as he wanted.

Is this really burnout though? I ask because I relate to much of this situation, but I actually love my job, my company, and my coworkers. It's very interesting and I am very happy working. I just wish there were more time because there are still other things I would like to work on and I'm only getting older.

justizin• 11 years ago

I think this post makes a strong argument for the industry accepting more of us as external contributors, or with incredibly flexible work schedules.

I don't mind inheriting other people's problems, and I don't mind coming into the office - I find it's helpful to swim with the school, so to speak - but sometimes I can better solve a problem out on a good bike ride or will have an epiphany about team dynamics while playing basketball, and after that, the next hour of work is worth more than two weeks of sitting around.

It's difficult to quantify, it's difficult not to get lazy, and when you _fail_ to achieve your goals, people feel better if they watched you toil. I think it's human nature.

unclebucknasty• 11 years ago

He or she may find themselves drawn toward entrepreneurship.

The author may find the change refreshing, but I've never been as burned out as I have with my own company. It's like taking all of the other stuff, then adding an order of magnitude to the stress level. This comes from having responsiblity for everything, including the pressure of making it work overall (i.e. the dark side of the control and "freedom"). As well, you can frequently feel unappreciated by customers, staff, partners, etc. And, I've found myself far more sensitive to this than to the same from any manager or employer I've had.

copsarebastards2• 11 years ago

Unless Yelp has a toxic work culture, it's likely the author brought it on themselves by pushing too hard.

I think the reality is probably more complicated. Probably Yelp pushes to much work on its employees and the author allowed it to happen.

To be honest, I think more tech jobs are toxic than not; it's very hard to find a good tech job, and even when you do, a good tech job can turn toxic as quickly as a manager leaving. I've always been aware of this and tried to put myself first, but it's not always an easy or even possible thing to do.

foobarian• 11 years ago

It is also possible that this is just the way companies in our industry work today. I keep seeing junior developers who somehow think that their job is to write beautiful, elegant software with well designed architectures etc., while in reality the goal that matters is to get product out the door. When they get yelled at for going 2x over time because they ended up refactoring many times more code than necessary they get discouraged. I think it's just a matter of arriving at the right expectations, which sometimes takes time and experience.

There are certainly roles where software can be an end itself. Academic paths focused specifically on software, open source, perhaps some R&D shops (think Guava guys). But in most companies it's a means to an end.

This article makes some good related points on the topic of technical debt and what amount of it is optimal for enterprises.

http://bigeng.io/post/118399425343/why-the-way-we-look-at-te...

lohengramm2• 11 years ago

This post expresses exactly how I feel. I am currently under a 30 days vacation and it has been incredibly good. In only three weeks I have studied lots of things that were postponed for months or years, worked on a personal project, exercised my body, slept well, read books, disassembled every old electronic device that was lurking for years to clean and fix it, went to a medical doctor to fix health issues that were also postponed and now I still have an infinite list of things to learn, books to read and projects to do.

Now I am really thinking on leaving my full-time job, because the vacation is coming to an end. But how to make money? If I could have a stable but low income without wasting too much time, it would be great. Mainly if that income came from a source with which I care about.

It sucks. Life, I mean.

saiya-jin• 11 years ago

Posts like these make me a bit sad, how far some people get detached from reality of this world as a whole.

I would hate it since i am part of this industry, byt maybe we really need some dev crysis, meaning 50% of software engineers unemployed, salaries plunge say to construction engineers level. Those fortunate to keep the job would be glad to be creative with what they have and maybe, but just MAYBE these pathetic rants won't surface as much.

As for you, simple advice - sort out your life, you know better than anybody else what you want, and you're the only one who can do it. it's quite easy, just that some decisions require sturdy balls, not moaning on internet forums :)

lohengramm2• 11 years ago

I respect your point of view, but I don't want to believe that people should feel "awarded" to have a job. This might be how it always worked and how it still works for the majority, but it is, for me, a defect of the economic system, not a virtue. Maybe we (as humanity) actually never get to that utopic society where mundane tasks are all automated and people are completely educated and free from the burden of wage labor (instead of bow down and thank for the "opportunity to waste your life"), but we must set some goals in order to progress, and the "perfect" economic system seems like a praiseworthy one.

As for my salary, unfortunately, software workers here in Brazil are actually earning way less than some construction engineers. In fact, if I had had a degree in Civil Engineering I would be way better off than with my current Computer Science major.

Again, I see you have a point, but internet forums are here for that exactly: discussing -- with moanings included.

waspleg• 11 years ago

I'm not developer but I work in IT. Facebook, Google and others are racing to the bottom and pushing it at the highest levels - even the president is on board. The idea is to flood the market with "coders" and then everyone will make $12/hr. That's your crisis and it's definitely coming.

smcl• 11 years ago

Anyone know what's with the black "x" characters which appear through the article?

niels_bom• 11 years ago

I saw some emoticons interspersed, I guess your setup can't show them.

Macha• 11 years ago

Not happening here on Firefox for android. Maybe a web font issue of some sort?

mavroprovato• 11 years ago

I think it is this Unicode Character:

http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/1f4b8/index.htm

eevee20• 11 years ago

I used a couple emoji. Snag Symbola: http://users.teilar.gr/~g1951d/Symbola.zip

TheGunner• 11 years ago

Good for him, I'd be surprised if he didn't end up back in the tech industry at some point in the future but the guy obviously needs a break/change of scene. Hope it works out for him

jkot5• 11 years ago

Perhaps it is just working environment? Since I quit cubicle my productivity skyrocketed and I actually enjoy it.

Banging your head against a wall on unsolvable problem? Lets take kids for lunch, some swimming on beach. I will resume head banging at evening, but problem is usually cracked before that.

technomancy• 11 years ago

I agree with the sentiment, but I don't think it would help in this case as he says he was already working remotely.

stkni• 11 years ago

This is interesting mostly because it echoes my feelings of dissonance with the employers I've worked for.

My conclusion was that I needed to be more in tune with the/a business that I'm ultimately trying to serve, and therefore to be closer too it. Because until then it all seems like pointless bit shifting.

davidgerard• 11 years ago

Eevee's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/eevee

jahnu3• 11 years ago

"I had stock options, and I cashed them all in last week. I net enough to pay off the mortgage, so I’m doing that, which will leave the entire household debt-free and cut our expenses drastically."

I'm happy for you. Even a tiny bit jealous. But it does in the end make the whole post sound like a humblebrag to me.

Mahn• 11 years ago

But that's how all posts like these go, HN loves to upvote them for some reason but they all boil down to "I'm quitting because I have enough money to do it".

sosuke2• 11 years ago

Oh man, I can't believe I'm biting on this.

You're both right of course, and then some of them turn around and say "it isn't about money" or "don't make it about money". Sigh, it isn't unique to tech at all by the way.

serve_yay• 11 years ago

Boy oh boy, that really puts a different spin on this post, doesn't it. I wish I had the cash to throw this kind of tantrum.

rifung3• 11 years ago

I agree that the author of this post is a nice position to quit because he has enough money to do so.

I think the reason these posts get upvoted is more because the things that the author talked about are things many of us deal with. I've definitely had times when I stayed awake later than I should have just because I knew that if I went to sleep, the only thing waiting for me was work. I guess sometimes I feel like there just isn't enough time in the day and I don't even get to relax before it's over.

I like to believe that posts like these where the author isn't actually quitting would be upvoted as well. Of course, the issue is that those posts don't exist likely out of fear that the employers would find out.. So then we are left only with the people who have the luxury of leaving writing about these topics.

Dewie34• 11 years ago

Everyone quits because they have the opportunity to do it. If he didn't have enough cash to be unemployed on an indefinite basis, or the willingness to start his own tech gig, maybe he would have become a farm hand in Wyoming just to get away from it all. Then someone would have yelled Hipster!!! in the comments section. Or You don't know how easy you had it! You'll be back soon once you can't take the blisters and sore knees!.

xienze8• 11 years ago

Well, if it makes you feel better, he probably made a bad decision paying off the mortgage right away considering that he has no idea what he's going to do to earn money going forward. It would have been better to continue paying the mortgage for the time being (interest rates are absurdly low) and have a big cushion to fall back on if the whole "I don't wanna be part of the rat race, maaaan" thing doesn't work out.

mpdehaan23• 11 years ago

I think you can probably do better investing than in paying off a mortgage, depending on when you got in on the mortgage rate. Plus, yes, you have that money more liquidated when you need it. (Plus mortgage interest is tax deductible).

eevee20• 11 years ago

I crunched some numbers, and the difference came out to losing a couple grand a year over the course of a decade by paying it off now. I decided I'd rather have fewer bills and no debt looming overhead while I figure this out than the slight extra cash.

cko• 11 years ago

Doesn't seem that way to me, because I'd be terrified in his situation. And my current passive cash flow covers monthly expenses. Different perception of risk, I guess. I'm amazed by the courage of people who can risk so much. Guess I will never be billionaire rich.

eevee20• 11 years ago

I am absolutely terrified, which is why I didn't quit six months or a year ago.

eevee20• 11 years ago

I'm doing something with a huge financial impact, so I wanted to talk about how I was dealing with that.

I deliberately left out actual numbers, but I don't know how to be any more tactful than that. Sorry.

bbarn• 11 years ago

Actually, that little tiny bit about your mortgage, etc., was what made me read the post more seriously. I see a lot of "I'm so done with tech, I'm gonna go surf!" type articles out there, and believe me.. it's a constant thought on my mind (replace surfing with biking), but the having a sustainable income/expense ration in the mean time part is crucial to actually doing that.

hias2• 11 years ago

so he did not quit the tech industry at all but decided to create his own business :-)

chris_wot• 11 years ago

Worst. Plan. Evar.

CrLf3• 11 years ago

"I’ve worked remotely my whole career"

I wonder how much of a role does this play in (not) caring about your employer's problems...

As much as I can understand the benefits of working remotely on occasion, doing it all the time will cause a kind of disconnect all by itself. You see the problems as your employer's problems, instead of your team's problems. Your are fixing your employer instead of helping your teammates.

JoeAltmaier3• 11 years ago

That's a social problem we'll have to address as remote working becomes ubiquitous. It helps if the remote environment is more immersive, with the team aware of each others' presence and activity even when they're not directly communicating. Keeps your head in the space, so to speak.

CrLf3• 11 years ago

I think you just described somewhat of a dystopian future... :)

Most work is a group effort. Group efforts require the feeling of belonging to a group to be effective. You just cannot get that if you work remotely. Real human interaction cannot be faked or successfully replaced by electronic means.

Working remotely a couple of days a week is probably beneficial. It alleviates the pressure of constant interactions preventing some tasks from being accomplished. Especially for us technical folk, where the dominant personality is not one that draws energy from other people. We still need to interact though.

mgkimsal2• 11 years ago

Even if you're f2f, at some point, especially if you've worked a few places, you'll still see the same patterns of problems cropping up, and the same ennui will likely set it. Perhaps not as soon as for remote workers, but it will happen.

If you really bond with your teammates, but still see the same recurring problems, you'll almost certainly develop an 'us v them' mentality against 'management', justified or not (though, it likely will be justified if you're seeing jr-level mistakes constantly promoted as the next magic bullet).

CrLf3• 11 years ago

But it'ss much easier to avoid burnout. Even if your objective is based on an "us vs. them" mentality, you still have a purpose. If you feel like you're working alone (and sometimes this happens even with other people around) it's much easier to find out that your work means nothing in the grand scheme of things.

eevee20• 11 years ago

I grew up on the Internet. I've only ever worked on anything remotely — my job, miscellaneous FOSS, my own things that happened to attract a few collaborators. I met all my closest friends on IRC. I still manage to care about problems. Just not these ones.

billpaetzke• 11 years ago

I've worked remotely my entire career

Perhaps some of the angst stems from this bias. I wonder how well Yelp handles remote workers.

spiritplumber• 11 years ago

I either work remotely, or work in my home workshop (which is open to the public, if anyone needs to borrow a laser cutter for an hour).

Most of "the basics" in my life are automated; bills are on autopay, I send my stuff to the post office by drone truck, and so on.

It can be very alienating - there are days that I don't see a human being or speak a word with anyone.

The solution is to make sure you actually try to be around people on weekends.... and you MAKE yourself do it. It's way too easy to turtle up.

shalmanese2• 11 years ago

It's sad to me that the industry is pushing out so many great people because they feel so disenfranchised by it. I believe technology is one of the most potent forces of good in the world but for that to sustain, a culture has to develop around it with a deep desire to solve serious, large problems.

I attended my first (and last) Hackathon a couple of weeks ago because it was immigration themed and so I thought I could meet some smart, thoughtful people. The pitches were mostly terrible with a few more decent ones sprinkled through as you would expect from a Hackathon.

One of the pitches that was made though, was "Greendir", a Tinder for Green Card marriages. Now, I fully support the guy's desire to pitch whatever idea he chooses but it was depressing to me that Greendir turned out to be the most popular app on the pitch board and the one the most people indicated they wanted to work on. It just seemed to me to be the epitome of the "we're in it for ourselves", move fast and break things, easy X-meets-Y description, get rich quick schemes attitude that is increasingly gaining mindshare in the tech industry.

It really made me wonder, what did these people come to this weekend to do? Why were they giving up their precious time? Because they wanted to be entertained and have a laugh? Or because they believed their powers could be meaningfully leveraged to solve hard problems that have the potential to fundamentally alter people's lives? Furthermore, what impression does it give to the newly entering workers in the tech field who use events like hackathons to get connected into a community of peers and who subconsciously absorb the value of those peers?

Fortunately, I'm seeing the other side of the picture too. I'm in the process of building a startup right now with a serious social mission (we want to get people excited about donating to charity by doing for charity what Whole Foods did for organic foods). I reach out to my network and I see my friends who came up 5 - 20 years ago in tech having the same frustrations by the triviality that's morphed the industry over the last couple of years. The outpouring of support has exceeded, by an order of magnitude, that of any previous startup I've worked on and I think it's precisely because there's a real yearning to see entrepreneurs solving hard problems with large impacts.

Delmania2• 11 years ago

I believe technology is one of the most potent forces of good in the world but for that to sustain, a culture has to develop around it with a deep desire to solve serious, large problems.

Idealism

It just seemed to me to be the epitome of the "we're in it for ourselves", move fast and break things, easy X-meets-Y description, get rich quick schemes attitude that is increasingly gaining mindshare in the tech industry.

Reality.

While I can definitely understand the belief that given incredible evolution of technology in the past few decades will be a force for good and change, always remember technology is just a tool. People have not fundamentally changed in a very long time.

shalmanese2• 11 years ago

I think you absolutely have to temper idealism with meeting people where they are but I don't believe that's an excuse for cynicism. At the end of the day, people everywhere want the same fundamental things: A life of connection, respect and joy and a world that is better for their children than for themselves.

Technology & economic development has eradicated illnesses, brought billions out of hunger, enabled new political systems and unlocked creativity as a career option for a large middle class. But it's technology in the broad, expansive sense, not the narrowly focused, web & mobile app economy that is what's meant by "tech" in the Bay Area.

jebblue• 11 years ago

> I believe technology is one of the most potent forces of good in the world

I believe technology will be the downfall of humankind; but the work is interesting.

platz• 11 years ago

Technology’s primary effect is to amplify human forces. technology has become a kinder, gentler variant of so-called trickle-down economics. Technology — even when it’s equally distributed — isn’t a bridge, but a jack. It widens existing disparities.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/09/us/taking-a-tire-iron-to-t...

DanielBMarkham• 11 years ago

In a way, this is a good argument for contracting, as long as you do it right.

If you know useful stuff, people will always offer you a bag of money to help them out. It is extremely rare that you get the bag of money and you get to do exactly what your passion is. Heck, most of us just have some vague idea of what our passion is anyway. So it's always some sort of compromise.

But with contracting, you should be looking at a fixed amount of time working, then a fixed amount of "downtime", then back to the market again. You should ask for enough money in the bag (or adjust your expenses) so that both the uptime and downtime is included in the payout. Otherwise you become a prisoner of your own lifestyle -- which is a godawful place to be.

kedean• 11 years ago

Working for a consulting company can also be a good middle ground. They provide a corporate support network for you, but you aren't tied to one kind of project for years. Most consulting projects are greenfield, too, because the other party doesn't usually want to give you their own hard-earned code, so maintenance hell isn't usually an issue.

renegadedev• 11 years ago

I feel his pain but it's easy to quit when you can cash in your stock options and pay off your mortgage

a3n• 11 years ago

Yes, that's how you do it. If he was burned out and asking how to do it, the answers would be variations on this.

He did it.

makeitsuckless• 11 years ago

"I’ve worked remotely my whole career"

Regardless of all the perfectly valid reasons for being unhappy in what most people consider a cushy job (the author seems perfectly aware of that), this could possibly be an important factor here.

Working remotely means you only get a small slice of what most people get out of their job. Again, this is perfectly fine if you're not "most people", but if you've never known anything else than that may play a considerable role in being dissatisfied with having a job.

eevee20• 11 years ago

I'm not exactly a social butterfly, so from my perspective I've been getting much more out of my job by not having to work in an office.

thrillgore• 11 years ago

It sounds to me that the OP simply got tired of confronting an endless sea of technical debt. It happens to the best of us.

jrochkind1• 11 years ago

Of course a full-time job sucks. Most people need one anyway in order to pay the rent. If you have the luxury of getting away without it, of course why wouldn't you?

I have the luxury of working a 4/5ths time (four days a week job). I'm still a programmer. At a university. That also allows me to work reasonable hours on that 4/5th time job, take personal days for personal business, etc. And most of what I write is open source, which is very nice. It's definitely still a trade-off, it's a very frustrating place to work sometimes, I don't always get to work on interesting problems (but sometimes do, in some periods often), I don't have enough colleagues to work on the _really_ cool stuff that would take more IT resources than my employer is willing to devote to what I think would be the really cool stuff. Etc.

My impression is that trying to start your own business will end up taking _more_ of your time than a 'full time job', not less. But if you end up finding that time more rewarding to spend, then, great.

bottled_poe2• 11 years ago

Your last sentence is certainly true, but the difference is being able to choose what is worth doing and being fully invested in the outcome.

mcdougle3• 11 years ago

Also control over your time. There's a huge difference between "9 to 5 every day" and "40ish hours a week, pick the times that are most convenient, and have some flexibility in that number based on how much actually gets done"

ivan_ah• 11 years ago

This post reminded me of another I-quit-the-industry blog post from a while back: http://mashable.com/2014/04/30/programming-sucks/

georgefrick• 11 years ago

The Mashable post was much better actually. It was a bit sarcastic, but more interesting in that he tries to point out some of the day to day problems instead of just throwing his hands in the air. Thanks for the link.

mvanvoorden5• 11 years ago

We're not meant to do jobs, this is just some modern made up concept to keep people busy so they don't see they are actually analogous to cattle.

So that you don't care about the virtual problems you solve for virtual company X, is perfectly normal and healthy. They are not your problems, they are not even remotely life-threatening, and so they are not relevant for survival.

Jobs are just created to keep us busy, as I said before. If we imagine a world without money (realistic or not), about 90% (educated guess) of jobs would not even exist anymore, as those are just jobs that do some money-related thing: Banking, insurance, financial advice, most lawyers, any administration department at any organisation. Indirectly even more jobs would disappear, because there is no need to compete financially, which means for example all R&D in a specific field can be brought together, as no one has to invent their (still unpatented) version of their wheel anymore.

We would be in a world where only work is done that is needed, that is directly involved with our survival, curiosity or entertainment, and no 'need' is created by some virtual dependencies. We would live in a world where everybody has the time and freedom to pursue their own dreams, without having to be afraid they will get in trouble later (because no pension built up etc).

We would also able to always pursue the most efficient and sustainable way to do something, as money is out of the equation. No more fraud, no more oil leaking in the oceans, no more rainforests cut down, and with all the empty offices due to disappeared redundant jobs, the demand for resources will be down and we wouldn't have to build any new houses or shelter for many years to come.

So yes, wake up and stop working and go exploring. Travel the world, find a skill that is directly useful to people, as helping out people will make you happy and you will get food/shelter in return even without asking for that. See also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7SVLaDdvDY and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCFe2KnBuJ0

Anyway, don't worry about financials. I went travelling in 2013, through Europe and Canary Islands, and spent about 5000 euro's in 18 months. With what I've learned now, I could spend twice the amount of time travelling with the same money.

At the moment I'm (unfortunately) working in IT again, because I haven't found the way yet to earn bread on the road. When I started travelling I knew nothing, now I know what to do and so this will be the last time I will spend many hours a day in an office, as my salary will buy me all the gear I need to make a(n easier) transition.

Anyway, whatever you do, don't lock yourself up in a stone prison for the rest of your life. Become your own boss. Don't spend your life realizing other people's dreams and wealth, because you WILL regret it when you are a pensioner, as then you find out you forgot to live your own life and there's no energy left for it now.

xienze8• 11 years ago

We're not meant to do jobs, this is just some modern made up concept to keep people busy

And

We would be in a world where only work is done that is needed

Contradict each other. Of course no one WANTS to work but there are things that HAVE to be done. Like farming, hunting, building shelter. Chopping firewood to keep warm in the winter. You know, modern, made up problems like that.

We would live in a world where everybody has the time and freedom to pursue their own dreams, without having to be afraid they will get in trouble later (because no pension built up etc).

There is very little time to pursue anything other than survival in a subsistence existence. And you better hope you have children to take care of you when you're physically unable to complete the work.

The fact that people have any time at all to dedicate to non-survival-related pursuits should tell you how important all that work that we're not "meant" to do is in the broader scheme of things.

mvanvoorden5• 11 years ago

Contradict each other. Of course no one WANTS to work but there are things that HAVE to be done. Like farming, hunting, building shelter. Chopping firewood to keep warm in the winter. You know, modern, made up problems like that.

But those are not made up problems, those are necessities and cost only a minimal amount of time per day, especially if it can be distributed over many more people.

Anyway, how does it contradict? With jobs I mean modern (office) jobs, and I'm clearly saying in the other sentences that it's about _needed_ work.

How is there no time to pursue anything? When I was travelling and not working at all for two years, my quest for survival meant that I had to get food and water and had to keep my shelter clean and working. I 'worked' like 4 hours a week on this.

There is a lot of time to pursue, like helping other people out, learning to play an instrument, making art, building things. If there is any hard physical work to do, we have machines for this, and otherwise always other people around who can help.

All the work we are not meant to do is any work that doesn't produce anything for our survival. That is everything money-related, everything entertainment-related, and everything that is done redundantly because of patents/copyright.

So collectively we would have ALL the time, not less, and then surviving is just peanuts in that case.

gerbilly• 11 years ago

So that you don't care about the virtual problems you solve for virtual company X, is perfectly normal and healthy. They are not your problems, they are not even remotely life-threatening, and so they are not relevant for survival.

Reminds me of:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_alienation

mvanvoorden5• 11 years ago

I never read any of his works, but from the parts that I've read, I think we could've been good friends. As he used to visit my home town every once in a while, I could've actually met him if I would've been born a century earlier :)

kohanz• 11 years ago

I’m just thoroughly exhausted. I have so much I want to do, yet I’m selling half of my waking hours every weekday to someone else, for the sake of cleaning up their legacy messes. By the end of the day I’m already worn out, and now I have to squeeze in whatever I wanted to do alongside relaxing and doing chores and maintaining this fleshsack. Weekends are nice, but become a mad dash to get fifty things done, meaning none of them get done.

And then add kids to the equation! I left my full-time job for part-time contracting (ahem consulting!) just over a year ago. I work about 60% of the hours that I previously did, make about 80% of what I did, and spend the rest of the time with the family and catching up on "life". Not sure if it's a longterm solution, but I'm enjoying watching my family grow.

Kiro• 11 years ago

I definitely don't agree with everyone screaming "burnout" in this thread. I feel exactly the same and I'm far from burnt out. Some people are just not fit to be employed.

mrgriscom2• 11 years ago

I don't understand the desire to pay off the mortgage after a big windfall, especially with interest rates so low. I suppose you get a vague sense of security, as in "the bank can never take my house away now", but you just took a big chunk of liquid money that could have been used to pay any kind of expense, and you put it into very illiquid home equity that was being loaned to you at a long-term locked-in rate barely above the historical rate of inflation.

eevee20• 11 years ago

I understand the math, but I feel like debt is a huge weight on my shoulders.

I grew up with parents who were constantly in more debt than they could handle and constantly reminding me of it. I would rather not be anywhere near that situation again, even if keeping moderate debt would've worked out a little better in the long run.

OneOneOneOne3• 11 years ago

Thumbs up.

Too many people take on unnecessary debt (big house, new cars, toys, ...) It seems like many are at peace with their debt.

Going into debt for anything more than a modest house (rather than paying rent) doesn't make sense to me.

hunterloftis• 11 years ago

This resonated with me because I feel the same way and grew up with similar parents.

I'm actually in the process of a cash-based home buy... the potential extra earnings of not fully owning my home aren't worth the mental anguish it would cause.

jliptzin2• 11 years ago

You don't have to justify yourself for quitting your boring full-time job. Most people don't have that option and you're in a fortunate position. I wish I knew more people like you with the courage to actually quit once you're able. I have too many friends who continue to slave away, complaining about their jobs, yet have banked 7 digits+, all because they think that they'd feel out of place and without things to do if they quit, or just want to continue accumulating more money. I don't see a reason to accumulate money if you have no time to spend it.

smhg• 11 years ago

There are quite a few different topics in this post. I just take one: the fact that people keep reinventing the wheel (libraries/systems/platforms) and the frustration that triggers.

Humans aren't really "built" to cooperate, right? I think almost all could accomplish far more if it would be easier/more obvious to work together. We call competition healthy, and it might be, but it also takes the focus away from cooperation.

It takes a lot of effort to make others (peers, customers, managers,...) work together. And if some don't (which is often the case), the amount of effort required grows exponentially. Although the satisfaction is huge, it's easy to think the cost is greater than the benefit.

Just a guess of course, but maybe this is what the author lacks in his/her career? Too little cooperative efforts on the tasks he/she performed?

mikecmpbll• 11 years ago

You got burnt out, no need to turn it into a sob story or a bitter industry rant. You couldn't manage your time effectively.

By all means if you're unhappy change your lifestyle -- and pronto -- if you can eek out an existence in a more fulfilling way then get to it, but don't try telling everyone they work in a "stupid, backwards, fledgling industry" because you didn't like your job.

Just another "woe betide me"-disaffected-techie rant.

vuyani• 11 years ago

I think OP really was burning out. I have a daily job but manage to get solid side projects shipped. 8-5(Till 5 is the important part! no overtime). I get home. rest or gym till about 7pm then get cracking. Usually sleep around 1am. Im a heavy sleeper so i dont do it every day. but its enough to get things done.

JDiculous• 11 years ago

The author's rant is not specific to the tech industry at all, it's the case for practically all full-time jobs.

Full-time jobs generally suck. Spending the bulk of every weekday in an office doing what you're told is not fun. If it was, then people would do it for free. Day to day work is generally unglamorous and boring.

I think part of the blame is that tech employers permeate this notion that one must "love" their work. So we feel guilty for not enjoying cleaning up somebody else's legacy code, fixing that tracking bug, or god forbid solving an IE8 bug.

I totally agree with the author that the tickets we're assigned are all puzzles that I could lose myself in and inevitably get some feeling of satisfaction when I figure it out. But in the grand scheme of things, most of us aren't working on problems of real significance (eg. curing cancer, creating a more efficient battery). Most of us are just reinventing some form of wheel. And most of the problems we solve as implementors don't pertain to us. Rarely do we capture any of the fruits of our labor aside from a "great job!" and a 10% pay bump at the end of the year if we're lucky.

We as employees need to change the culture of employment. Nobody should have to pretend to enjoy grunt work. Work should be about the output you produce, not face time or tracking hours. Being in an office 8 hrs/day and never seeing the sun is depressing, and it's time we acknowledge that and fight to improve the situation.

We can start by demanding that remote work be accepted by our employers. That immediately gives us back our entire commutes (even just one hour a day is huge when you spend the majority of your waking hours in an office and thus only have 6 hours of real free time). And we can demand the freedom to work on our own schedules rather than being confined to 9-5, which we all know for most people is bullshit because we're not on an assembly line and our most productive work doesn't necessarily follow a 9-5 schedule.

johnward2• 11 years ago

"We can start by demanding that remote work be accepted by our employers."

I used to commute somewhere between 3-4 hours on average each day. Then I started doing part time remote. Now I'm full time remote. I get 4 hours of my day back. Sometimes those for hours end up still being working hours but I guess that's better than being stuck in traffic with the rest of the drones. I still have to travel so I end up with 60 hours weeks when I do but going remote has helped me get a little chunk of my life back. Not enough to make me enjoy what I do but I hate it a very tiny bit less.

xacaxulu4• 11 years ago

I routinely interview for jobs (even when not really looking) and for each one I ask 'how progressive is your company regarding remote work'. If they waffle, I walk immediately. It's time to imprint recruiters with the notion that great talent won't be constrained by offices.

eevee20• 11 years ago

I was (well, am, for now) working remotely. I've always worked remotely. I couldn't stand doing otherwise. Still drives me up the wall.

I would suggest that maybe 8 hours a day is too much (France has a 35-hour week and, as I recall, is still ridiculously productive) but let's not kid ourselves — I doubt most people commenting here actually work only 8 hours a day.

chrismarlow93• 11 years ago

This. I waste 2 hours a day commuting. 10 hours a week I'm sitting in the car doing nothing, for no real reason other than some company culture nonsense.

buckbova• 11 years ago

For my last three jobs I've moved close to the office, within 5 to 15 minutes. For my own sanity I had to and I really love it. I have road rage insanity moments out there on the so cal freeways. I know not everyone has this option, but I won't have it any other way for the rest of my working days.

artmageddon• 11 years ago

I've been there before; I have a 2 hour commute door to door from central NJ to NYC, and back, each day. I don't know how viable it is for you, but do whatever it takes to make the change, assuming you're not tied to a mortgage and there just aren't any jobs nearby. After doing it for 6.5 years I was finally able to get it down from 120mins each way to 20mins each way, and it made such a huge difference in quality of life.

Dewie34• 11 years ago

I totally agree with the author that the tickets we're assigned are all puzzles that I could lose myself in and inevitably get some feeling of satisfaction when I figure it out. But in the grand scheme of things, most of us aren't working on problems of real significance (eg. curing cancer, creating a more efficient battery).

So what? Most people aren't curing cancer, or doing anything more of value than their paycheck reflects. And maybe the value of our paycheck is really inflated, even. In the end we are just floating on a giant ~ball through space and maybe someday we'll have a cataclysmic event that undoes all of our social and scientific progress. Stop thinking that you have to be some special snowflake, relax, and maybe you'll find that you can find pleasure in the little, mundane stuff. In the end, they're all we really have.

mark_l_watson• 11 years ago

I think he did the right thing paying off his mortgage. He does not have to create a successful startup as money runs out: he could switch to part time consulting, which is what I did about 18 years ago. Back then we became debt free and except for short jobs at Google and Webmind Corporation, I consulted for probably an average of 15 to 20 hours a week, remotely. The trick is reducing living costs (we live in the mountains in Central Arizona).

jimwalsh• 11 years ago

Work-Life-Balance, such a great lesson many 20 somethings should make an effort to learn before they destroy the passion they have for whatever it is they are passionate about.

I'd never tell someone to not work hard or to strive for things they want to accomplish. But be able to step back and look at the big picture. Life is too short. Don't forget to enjoy it while you can.

neverartful3• 11 years ago

Well stated. It applies to all age groups. I recently forced myself to 'stop and smell the flowers' (or however that phrase goes). I discovered something that had been around me my whole life that I had never noticed. I noticed the beautiful singing of the cardinal (the little red bird). Since then I listen for them and hear them often. It's a beautiful sound and it's a reminder to not take work life so seriously and enjoy the beauty of nature.

steve-howard4• 11 years ago

When you fall down the rabbit hole of burnout, there's not much help for you. Work sucks, but then you come home from work and you're exhausted and you don't have time to go work on a side project or nurture a non-tech hobby or really do much of anything but stay up way too late because, as the author said, you're not ready to wake up and have it be tomorrow again.

ianstallings• 11 years ago

He sounds like an entrepreneur that wants to do his own thing, and he's using his anger at the industry for motivation. We all find our power somewhere.

flipped_bit• 11 years ago

Understand the author's (Clintonesque) pain, as I am going through a similar problem, but don't have it all figured neatly to disengage from the industry yet.

My own views are that the software industry has reduced its 'professional quotient' a lot, to probably near zero, and hence all this chaos. I used to work in 'well-run and large companies' prior to the internet days, and in some sense we are a victim of the post-internet (mid-90s' post-Netscape) runaway success.

There is no professionalism in the industry anymore, and paradoxically it could be due to the 'open source model'. Don't get me wrong, I like open-source with all that emphasis to openness, freedom etc.. but it has led to the ruin of the small developer. It is forcing a lot of us to jump into the 'entrepreneur/solopreneur' bandwagon.

The openness part described above also includes anyone to jump into the industry (unlike say the medical, or civil-engineering profession; after all do you want a 'hacker heart surgeon' or a 'hacker bridge builder?'). The professionalism is completely mocked at, and all this hero-worshiping of start-up culture etc.. has ruined it.

OTOH, I am not arguing in favor of high-barriers of entry etc... Honestly I don't the answer on how to fix it....

some_furry• 11 years ago

Poor Eevee. :(

I hope he finds happiness from his new path in life. Goodness knows he wasn't finding it in his previous one.

peter303• 11 years ago

I've been in it 43 years! Still as fun as when I started.

thebouv• 11 years ago

Some days I dream about this and going out on my own, or pursuing that startup idea that's been itching the back of my head for so long. I couldn't leave the tech industry per se, but at least changing what I'm doing in it.

But then I realize I've been doing the day-to-day for so long that I have accumulated the trappings thereof: mortgage on a house, two cars, a "comfortable" lifestyle.

To leave puts it at risk. I fear not being able to make it solo. The startup idea will take too long or fail if I bootstrap it. We'll have to move. Downsize. Change our lifestyle. Affect the kids. And a downward spiral of thoughts like that.

So I'm back at my cubicle today. Wishing I was working from home to watch the new baby grow while I code.

muraiki• 11 years ago

"Do you have any internal libraries or systems or platforms at your company? Do you think no one else has ever had the same idea and built the same thing?"

Isn't this one of the reasons behind the FOSS movement? That we as programmers are often repeating the same uninteresting tasks, so perhaps we should just freely share what we've done so that we can all work on something more interesting.

And in the Libre sense of Free -- in the GNU sense (and perhaps I've interpreted it wrongly here) -- this is why GNU is not just "something to make our lives better". It is rather a moral responsibility towards your fellow users, which includes programmers who use your code, not just end users. Because if people don't share, you end up with people like the author of this article: burnt out on writing something that's been written before.

Of course how this meshes with the real world of capitalism is a whole other story. I'm not saying it's not viable: Stallman of course mentions selling support in the GNU Manifesto, and the article also mentions Patreon.

Note that I'm not saying GNU is the One True Way, but rather trying to stimulate a discussion about something I don't fully understand but have been thinking about lately and which I believe touches upon one of the core issues that prompted the author's action.

kev009• 11 years ago

Find some group of people and cause bound by something other than simply being coworkers working on bubble-ish webapps or boring corporate software. For me, this is FreeBSD -- the problems are interesting personally from running my laptop to scaling the Internet in my day job, the work and skills will transcend any one job I ever have, and the people are the best I've ever met.

scolfax• 11 years ago

Well said. I checked the article, and apparently I didn't write it.

mrgriscom2• 11 years ago

I'd like to plug going part-time as a good way to temper burnout and provide a soft landing for if/when you eventually decide to leave. You still get some money coming in -- proportionally more due to progressive taxation. You still have benefits, which the company may or may not still cover as if you were full-time. You avoid abrupt life change while getting a four-day weekend every week. If your company values you they will probably be more open to this arrangement than you may think.

notNow• 11 years ago

words of advice to the author of this piece: Just take a vacation and go somewhere new and interesting and then unwind for some time and after you clear up your mind, re-evaluate your decision and see what's good for you going forward and I'm sure you will manage to sort all of this out.

Best wishes

fotoblur2• 11 years ago

Unfortunately the world is a cruel place, and this guy wants freedom from it. I know, I took the 3-4 months off after quitting a job to do my own thing. I did earn a few dollars but nothing like what a business was willing to pay for my skills.

We'd all like to be free to do what we want to do, but in all honesty only a fraction of 1% ever get to. And even those people serve a master. Did I ever find the answer, no. I think what its going to take is a huge leap in what we call work.

mavdi2• 11 years ago

It's great that you at least tried it. Takes guts to do so.

It's something I've always wanted to do, but been waiting for that next level of financial security before I do so. Problem is, every time I reach the target, I'm not satisfied with it and want to make a bit more money before I can back off. It's a vicious circle into an ever looming burn out.

fotoblur2• 11 years ago

You can do anything you want to do.

thorin• 11 years ago

I've taken at least 12 months off since 2000. 4 months, 3 months, 4 months and a month as 2 sabbaticals, one time between jobs and one as parental leave. I also take around 6-8 weeks holiday a year. I could do with the extra money but it's not essential and life feels good if you have time to pursue other interests. I enjoy technical work but I also enjoy the outdoors, sports, travel and spending time with my family.

We're in an industry which has a good demand for work and pays well. It's important to take advantage of that when you can.

ChuckMcM• 11 years ago

I think it is great for the author that their career has allowed them to pay off their mortgage and sit back and examine what it is they are really passionate about. But this was a challenging comment for me from the article:

"I’ve only worked for two tech companies, in radically different fields. The only things they have in common are that their main products are websites with tertiary features that let you buy things. Yet both of them ended up scrambling to write their own payment platforms from scratch. What the fuck is going on?"

I'm currently working at a tech company that is trying to increase the survival rate for cancer patients. Others are working at companies that are providing medicine or support for folks who have no access to medical facilities. The point being that the experience of two tech companies is insufficient to evaluate the entire industry.

And the bigger point is that how you spend your time is your choice. Take the fact that you are getting burned out in your current job to inform your decision on your next one. That is the key to not getting completely burned out.

dataker• 11 years ago

Instead of quitting the tech industry, why not move to an existing smaller company, whose size gives you more freedom?

Wait and sit for a profitable idea doesn't look like a very good idea.

I'd go to AngelList and join an existing startup, rather than going on my own.

jgwynn2901• 11 years ago

boo friken hoo!

devonoel2• 11 years ago

Very constructive.

fecak2• 11 years ago

I fail to see how this is quitting the tech industry. This is quitting Yelp, but the listing of the Patreon account is all "tech industry" work, just without having a boss or company to be accountable to. The post doesn't seem to insinuate that the author will quit writing software - "Eventually it would be nice to make a thing that actually makes money on its own." Someone who codes and makes money off that product is still in the industry, no?

The author isn't quitting the industry. He is basically going independent, with an undetermined business model.

eevee20• 11 years ago

Is it really "the industry" if I'm not running a business?

fecak2• 11 years ago

That is the question I guess. If you are trying to make money from what you do, are you not "running a business"? It might not be a traditional business, but seeking individuals to support you financially for the work you do would qualify as a business to me anyway.

Even if you created multiple revenue streams - write a book, produce a game, Patreon, etc. - which appears to be your intent, you essentially are the business at that point, no? At least that's how I'd view it.

yellowapple• 11 years ago

Technically yes. In the computing world, "industry" is a pretty grey area; instead of a hard line between "hobbyist" and "professional" like in most white-collar industries, it's more of a gentle gradient.

bipin_nag• 11 years ago

I empathize with the OP. I wanted to post a reply to probablyfiction explaining to him. Instead I will list the reasons why burnout could have happened to him.

Point 1 "unless X has a toxic work culture,it's likely the author brought it on themselves by pushing too hard."

An overstatement unless you know what he faced. You were hired for your problem-solving ability where pushing hard can be expected at times. In reality this could be he's not pushing too hard so much as the existing environment which leeches effort and adds burden to every step. Toxic culture is somewhat unlikely but what if he inherited a huge technical debt, this happens a lot.

Point 2 it's a terrible feeling to have to spend your most productive hours working on someone else's problems. He or she may find themselves drawn toward entrepreneurship

Wrong. IMO you can either work as a product engineer role building something new (hopefully) or as support role integrating products/fixing glaring bugs crappy code/migrating systems. The latter is not exciting. A developer MUST be capable of both and SHOULD be given at least an opportunity for both. It does not have to be in your own startup. I maybe a coder but I am not a horseshit shoveler.

Point 3 Office culture is draining. Some people aren't cut out for it.

Why ? It doesn't have to be. Even then why assume work culture is the culprit here and he is not cut for it.

Point 4 Additionally, programmers tend to push themselves too hard for too long out of a misplaced sense of loyalty to the company. They don't see that the work they do is extremely valuable in and of itself.

Translation the coder has to see the fine line of enthusiasm between "working already" and overzealous. Seems like a hypothetical problem unless you tell why is it relevant here. About the "work" you say, you should tell what "work" is. It is not just the stationary lines of code lying on repository, but the amount of effort that went to write it, debug it and will go to maintain it. A badly written project demands higher effort to keep it running than what you could imagine.

Point 5 a coder doesn't owe the company anything more than their agreed-upon hours of work.

I know that is the agreement. But I don’t know if you have seen places where boss wants work in a deadline and not hours a coder spends and wants it done. You should remind him that then.

TheCapn• 11 years ago

Not to knock on the industry at large but the day I gave up wanting to program "services" (for the lack of a better term -- things that work the data to produce an outcome that although convenient, is not a necessity of our lives) and apply my skills to tangible, real world problems I became immensely happier in my day to day. I went from loathing the next day of work and counting the clock hours until I ran out the door to happily thinking of the problems, looking forward to the next project. I think a lot of people in software could benefit from taking the time to take a hands-on hobby of sorts where you create physical output, a useful craft with purpose. There's a chunk of our lives that logic and algorithms cannot fulfill in the same way that a craft can.

It seems like hokum re-reading that last paragraph. I wish I was better with words to portray what I'm trying to get across but its just something that's been on my mind in the last month or so. I feel into another slump similar to what our article's author describes. You get caught in a cycle of "I'm tired because tomorrow will suck" and don't use that time to regenerate and recover. When my car hit the tipping point last week and I was forced to get my hands dirty it broke that cycle. I came out from under with a true sense of accomplishment; beaming with pride for what I had done and suddenly Monday's problems were on the wayside.

To swing back to what I tried saying originally though; having a job where I produce factories, networks, systems that clients look, touch, and interact with just gives the same feeling of pride that I never achieved when building services for IPTV products, billing software features or other data applications. I'm certain there's a whole host of people that drool at some of those domains but if that's not your "thing" then you'll never be happy. I wasn't, the author likely wasn't but that's not to say she can't find happiness anywhere in tech. And to believe that leaving it all behind for a mystery won't solve those same problems that put her where she is now. "The Grass is Always Greener" will wane and she'll miss being among peers and those who she can share her problems with. A girlfriend in the medical industry just can't converse on the same level as other tech's can, its where I reach out to coworkers, peers, friends to blow off some steam. I wish her the best, I just hope she figures out where the true problems lie or where her true calling is before she regrets distancing herself from an industry that she has obvious passion for.

mikemarsh• 11 years ago

"I hate dread. What a completely useless emotion."

Funny you should say that, since the sense of dread seemed to motivate this decision pretty heavily. Seems like the emotion was pretty useful as a sort of "burnout immune system".

eevee20• 11 years ago

Ah, interesting! Useless in the same way pain is useless, then — not very helpful in the moment, but it sure teaches you what to avoid in the long run.

ZanyProgrammer2• 11 years ago

"I don’t know how to turn this into dollars yet. Hopefully I’ll figure that out." This just oozes privilege and naivete. If only most people scraping along had this kind of safety net.

eevee20• 11 years ago

I am definitely hecka privileged. What would you have me do? Keep working a job I don't enjoy, out of guilt that other people have to do the same?

ryanx435• 11 years ago

I hate the word privileged, especially when used in the context op did.

so you're successful, and an unquantifiable amount of that success was an accident of which family and socioeconomic background you were born into, and op wants you to feel shame because of that?

that's ridiculous. it's a free country: do what you want and don't worry about the haters.

peu40002• 11 years ago

You should definitely do what makes you happy.

However, the blog post seems a bit braggy. A lot of us experience the same things, but we don't have a safety net(other than the gubmit I guess), it breeds jealousy. If I were in the same situation I would have left off the part about cashing out and paying the mortgage and not created a patreon without something to back it up immediately.

It would have been better if it just listed the reasons you're leaving and maybe some insight into how you might fix some problems.

rvdm3• 11 years ago

I've been a tech consultant since my late teens but got out and passed all my clients on to a close friend so that I could focus on my own work about a year ago. It was a leap of faith for sure, but where there's a will there's a way. During my decade of consulting I set up some automatic income through a few different routes ( never put all your eggs in one basket! ).

I entertain the thought of selling what I'm working on some day for a big payout, but that's a completely optional scenario for me. Because of the simple fact that I've never been happier in my life.

I feel like my work I do now actually matters. And even if it never makes me a dollar, it brings me joy. And that's what life's all about in the end ( to me at least ).

I wish you all the best and in my opinion you certainly made the right choice.

One note: getting the combination of automatic income right was a learning curve, if you ever want to know what works for me, feel free to reach out.

ralmeida• 11 years ago

I'm interested in what you have to say about your automatic income. What can you tell us about it?

jliptzin2• 11 years ago

What do you do now if you care to share?

rvdm3• 11 years ago

I'm playing around with AI trying to improve our everyday productivity with it, so that more people would eventually have more time to live their lives and spend time with those near and dear to them. Very early, we'll see how it goes.

My automatic income combo in rough outlines is:

1. Invest, make sure you diversify. At least 10% return should be possible with a smart combination of stocks, ETF, etc. This should be considered your rainy day fund that hopefully you never need.

2. Open an online shop. A lot of us engineers are so good at 'the internet' that finding a product or category of products where the e-commerce offering can be improved on. You'll never beat Amazon in price, so you have to beat them in curation. Just sell whatever gets you excited. That usually works best. I have 2 online stores that I have automated and staffed to the point they basically run on auto pilot.

3. Aside from selling someone else's products also make something yourself and sell it. Physical products or anything that requires too much support is probably not the best idea here. For me building and selling in app apps, themes, add-ons to products that come with their own audience and market works really well here.

If you want details, I've added contact info in my about.

eevee20• 11 years ago

Thank you! I'm glad you found something simultaneously worthwhile and profitable. Here's hoping I can do it too.

rvdm3• 11 years ago

I'm sure you will! This is something that has always inspired me: in the US small businesses are heroes, going out on a limb and doing your own thing is the definition of the american spirit. Becoming a job creator in the process is an incredibly rewarding feeling.

udev• 11 years ago

This type of misery is common.

The author decided he needs a change in his life, there is no arguing there.

But what makes the author so confident that quitting the job is the solution?

pla3rhat3r• 11 years ago

Finding a balance is the best way to manage stress. And just like anything else, people have different levels in which they believe things are stressing them out. What may be stressful to one person may not be a big deal to another.

I feel this every day being in the tech industry and as a Navy Vet I almost giggle when I hear what stresses people out. I'm sure the Navy prepared me better for dealing with stressful situations but unless there's a gun pointed in my direction I rarely find anything about the tech industry, my work load, or stuff I'm working towards as stressful. Again, it's all about finding balance and being able to put things into perspective. If you have no context about what is really stressful, than everything becomes stressful.

meritt• 11 years ago

The guy cashed out enough to pay off his entire mortgage and is acting like that's a tough decision. Millions of Americans would love to have that "problem". Millions of people hate their jobs. They don't have the opportunity to just walk away from it, as they often have a family to support.

And then he has the gall to ask for donations? Seriously? Can this post be laden with slightly more privilege?

danws6• 11 years ago

Reality Web TV idea: Follow a few kids who have only worked one or two jobs right out of school in the Bay Area as they move to smaller industries throughout the country. Watch as the struggle with day to day activities like understanding why they need to pay for their own lunch or why they can't get a brand new macbook every year.

thomas9433• 11 years ago

Can this post be laden with slightly more privilege?

Sadly, it probably was laden with even more obnoxious privilege and what we are reading is the edited version. I'm in my late twenties and I am constantly amazed by how pathetic, obnoxious, and truly useless the younger generations have made themselves. This person wants donations to play with pokemons after letting us know they paid off their mortgage.

My only hope is that this blog post prevents this person from ever being hired again.

dang• 11 years ago

My only hope is that this blog post prevents this person from ever being hired again.

Please don't use HN this way. You're more than welcome to make substantive comments, but pouring vitriol in response to something annoying harms the discourse here. We all have the temptation, but it's important to resist it. Otherwise—long experience shows—the community becomes toxic.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

oinksoft• 11 years ago

I hate to break this to you, but as somebody of similar age, we are the "younger generation," at least in the professional world. Beyond that, "the young'ns are useless!" is a tired trope. If anything I notice recent grads being wiser and more industrious than my peers were at that age, possibly due to some combination of being too young to have experienced most of the peaceful and prosperous 90's, the economic fallout they witnessed through high school/college, and the cynicism they learned from the lukewarm "liberal" politics of the Obama administration with its burgeoning surveillance state.

It's especially cowardly to use what appears to be a throwaway account to wish that a personal, inoffensive blog post "prevents this person from ever being hired again."

cstross• 11 years ago

The only things they have in common are that their main products are websites with tertiary features that let you buy things. Yet both of them ended up scrambling to write their own payment platforms from scratch. What the fuck is going on?

* Raises hand *

I was the first dev hire at Datacash and wrote their back-end servers. Datacash only came into existence because an earlier (circa 1995-96) startup trying to sell stuff via the web couldn't handle payments without a card reader and a dialup connection. Handling payments properly is hard, especially as if you do it right (and your business grows) you turn into a juicy big target for black hats everywhere.

I also resemble the OC's burnout, except fifteen years down the line and mostly recovered ... by not working in tech any more. I'm a novelist and I set up and do my own projects more or less in my own time and (as a much earlier tech burnout case said, in Tracy Kidder's "The Soul of a New Machine") I try not to deal with any time frame shorter than a season.

Yes, there is life after you quit your last high pressure tech sector job. And yes, you can find things to invest your personal interest in that don't chew you up and spit you out and which earn you a living. The problem is with the way corporations are internally constituted -- especially with hierarchies of control and command where the people at the top don't have any deep understanding of the problems the people at the bottom are engaged with.

dempseye• 11 years ago

Hilarious. I just finished reading your memoir of that period.

bwanab• 11 years ago

Sorry to say, I'm glad you burned out - otherwise no "Halting State",....

eevee20• 11 years ago

This is inspiring and encouraging, thank you :)

jorgeleo• 11 years ago

http://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/morpheus.jpg

mcgrootz2• 11 years ago

A lot of the work we do as programmers is for a meaningless product. If we worked on things that we believed in, maybe something that helped people live better lives, especially those who really need the help like the poor and disenfranchised, I believe programmers would be happier people. There just isn't a lot of opportunity out there right now to do meaningful work with code. It's a shame.

mcgrootz2• 11 years ago

Additionally, I don't think the answer is to work less and have more leisure time. I don't think that really solves the issue. I think you can spend an enormous amount of energy and time on something you love, and be very fulfilled by it.

Coders have a lot of power in this day and age. Let's start using it to help people and do good work in the world. I'm so tired of meaningless tech achievements, one after another. Elon Musk may get us to Mars, he may help us reduce our energy usage, but we'll still be the same depressed people if we don't work on improving the system.

omouse2• 11 years ago

This is precisely why Google had 20% time and why other companies have hackathons; that ramp-up time to get anything done is definitely required.

It's also burnout; the dude is sick of working on something that he doesn't particularly care about anymore. I bet if Yelp offered him a few days a week or 1 week per month to work on whatever he wants he'd be happier and wouldn't be burnt out.

thwarted2• 11 years ago

I worked at Yelp for five years and was there when Yelp engineering first started doing "hackathons". People worked on some interesting stuff during them, but very little of it was meant to be production ready and useful (vs toy) projects saw little exposure outside of the company or the engineering department itself. Lots of things were meant only to scratch our own developer itches or impress co-workers, like internal engineering tools (which have their own value). I attribute this to "yelp the public facing product/service" having a master plan that is determined outside of engineering proper—nothing wrong with that, it is what it is. So if you had some cool idea to, for example, revamp the UI/UX of the business photos page, you could work on that during the hackathon, but it was only a hackathon project. This encouraged people to work on throwaway toy projects or experiment with deep backend stuff during hackathons to blow off steam vs something that someone could point to publicly. Not to say that no hackathon projects ever were exposed non-internally, but it was a very small percentage. Some people used hackathons to catch up on regular work while many other people were working on hackathon projects. Maybe it's changed since I left.

"Hackathons" are not a silver bullet solution to trying to get people to have ownership over the solutions to problems they are solving for themselves, their department, and the company.

discardorama• 11 years ago

I was wondering what this person's situation was. Then I read this in her(his?) blog:

I currently work for Yelp from the comfort of my home in Las Vegas. I live with my ridiculous cat, my partner, her three cats, her husband, his dog, and our boyfriend.

Now it makes more sense. In my limited experience, when you're working remotely, you feel disconnected from the mothership. To this, add some work stress, and it's easy to get disenchanted.

PS: I don't really know how to parse that sentence. No wonder NLP is so hard! ;-D

jcroll• 11 years ago

Not everyone can work on passion projects, someone has to be the employee, the economy just doesn't work without it. Unless maybe if you run a company like Valve where everyone is technically an "owner". Bottom line large value projects require economies of scale and the mobilization of large labour forces, it's just not realistic for every business in our industry to be a company with two founders who are in love with their project. And work should not be something we "love", work is something we do to bring value to our society and wealth to our families. There's no easy answers here but stick to providing value to those you work with, or for, or for your customers, and I hope in the long term it should work out for you.

omouse2• 11 years ago

A separate comment I want to make is that the cute puzzles talked about in the article are pretty much the same everywhere: deal with politics, deal with poor performing code, deal with random idiotic UI decisions. The more interesting thing is to work on your own code or company where you have users and customers and they can guide you toward a good design or to work on harder research-y things, things that fall under computer science or software engineering.

I was re-reading one of Paul Graham's earlier essays, the ones I read while at the tail end of high school and beginning college and it basically says give the hackers direct access to user feedback and they'll do the right thing. I don't know what happens but along the way all these companies that started out like that have just introduced layers and layers of people between the user and the hacker so much so that the hackers opinions about what's the right thing to work on right now are ignored.

Maybe it's just time to get back to that and take that exit strategy; just work on a small cool product that you own where you get user feedback immediately where you decide the priority.

rasur2• 11 years ago

I stay up hours later than I mean to, not even doing anything, just trying to put off sleeping — because the next thing I experience will be waking up and going back to work.

Shit, I get this and I'm not even in a particularly toxic work-place. Hell, I'd even go as far as to say it's the best place I've ever worked at (and it had some stiff competition, over the years).

That sentence resonated with me, i'm sad to say. Not a good sign.

EDIT: After having stewed on it for a few moments, I'm not sure me saying 'Not a good sign' is actually correct.

CyberpunkDad• 11 years ago

Congrats to the author, if this refills the battery good for him. That being said, be thankful you didn't have to get up at the crack of dawn and commute like most of the world. Working at home only seems like a burden to those who don't have to commute.

CodeSheikh• 11 years ago

First world problems.

bbcbasic• 11 years ago

How are he rant on a full stomach with a roof over his head.

zxcvvcxz5• 11 years ago

An interesting comment I saw in this thread is the suggestion to take medication [presumably to make working a job easier / more manageable].

To this I say -- are you fucking kidding?

Working like we do is already fairly unnatural. Taking medication to allow yourself to continue doing something unnatural, which you don't even like, has to be the one of the most dehumanizing things I can think of. That's modern day, self-induced slavery if you ask me.

And yes, I have experience with this. In college, I met with a psychiatrist about depression-related symptoms. I described my life circumstances (school, work, relationship, etc), and after just one 45-minute session he prescribed me SSRIs. They did nothing, except creates horrific withdrawals as I started coming off them. Then I made the real changes: I ended my toxic relationship, quit my cubicle job, and used my savings to have an enjoyable life for about a year. Then I finished school.

The OP seems to have had a pretty sweet set-up (remote, high-paying job, etc) but misery is still misery. Another comment mentioned burn-out. In my experience burn-out rarely has to do with the volume of work, but rather the mental anguish experienced. I've been burned out working 9 to 5; and energized beyond belief working 12 hour days on my own business.

Here's some advice worth considering for those in similar situations. Quit your job, or figure out how to go part time. Your company won't mind, you're quite replaceable most likely. Really cut down on your expenses; get roommates if you have to (this can be more than a financial improvement -- socializing and having good friends improves your quality of life).

And my god, quit consumer culture. That thing you think you need to buy with your next paycheck? You probably don't. What you need is: a roof over your head, food, laptop/phone, and a gym membership. What's the grand total of all this, maybe $1K/mo? (Depends where you live I suppose.) I'm assuming you're a single mid-late 20s male if you're reading this. What else would do you really need to be happy and spend your time working on your own tech projects?

Best of luck to the OP and anyone else doing something similar.

infinitone• 11 years ago

What you need is: a roof over your head, food, laptop/phone, and a gym membership.

Erm... what about I don't know the most human thing before all that... some companionship?

Frankly, i find thats actually the real reason for most of these burnouts/crashes. Humans are the most social creatures in the world and this trait is diminished by our tech culture.

zxcvvcxz5• 11 years ago

Oh yeah, I totally agree. My point is that limiting yourself to the basic necessities that cost $$, while reducing your wage slavery, will enable a much more fulfilling social life.

How many times have you bailed on friends, or skipped meetup-type events because you're just too drained from doing shit you don't want to do for half your waking hours?

mcantelon• 11 years ago

People love medication these days. Mention any alternatives (increased exercise and sleep that studies have proven work as well as drugs), and you'll get denounced in many forums.

moskie4• 11 years ago

That works both ways. zxcvvcxz just denounced someone for suggesting medication. And it sounds like you're looking down your nose at the idea, too.

Both medications, and lifestyle changes could help. It depends on the situation and the person.

moskie4• 11 years ago

I'm sorry you had a bad experience with the prescriptions you tried, and that they didn't work for you. But don't take that to mean you should lash out at others suggesting it might help this person, or someone else. I think it's a mistake to assume you know exactly what the OP's problem is, what solutions would work, and what solutions won't. There's a good chance he himself doesn't even fully understand why his mental state is what it is, and it could involve things besides his shitty work life. It is very possible that medication could help. I understand prescription drugs can be abused, or over-prescribed. But don't denigrate the notion entirely. Responding to the idea with "are you fucking kidding?" is out of line.

zxcvvcxz5• 11 years ago

The notion that one should consider pharmaceuticals as a solution to not deriving happiness from a desk job really is outrageous. And that's just from a statistical standpoint. It's very unlikely to be the "right" solution for that person.

Same goes for ADHD medication for boys (yes, predominantly boys) in grade school because they can't sit still and concentrate as they're expected at such a young age. I find it absurd how commonplace this is becoming. Humans have not fundamentally changed their genetic makeup in the last few hundred years. It's much more likely the case that the environment has become unreasonable, rather than that the kids are failing their roles as humans.

But wait, if you want mindless drones who do as they're told, contribute to bottom lines, buy shit they don't need to satisfy misery they don't understand, then by all means, humans are failing. Let's fix that. Let's over-medicate. Let's teach people how to cope with a life devoid of meaning and passion.

These are the trends I see when I tune into mainstream narratives and general societal expectations. And it pisses me off. Can the right medication help a small subset of the population who are a few standard deviations off in terms of brain chemistry? Of course it can, that goes without saying. Doesn't mean we're not facing some disturbing trends in the developed world.

And I'll express myself however I please within HN's guidelines, thank you very much.

dbg31415• 11 years ago

Ok, so... I agree with the author on a lot of points, but from what I've seen devs are the most pampered of all professions. Cut the most slack. Given the most pay. Extended the most deadlines. And rightfully so. But if you can't take it now... when things are "good" -- wow, I'd hate to be you in a down economy.

Lots of truth to this, but look we all have mortgages and what comes across as "asshole" is the complaining. We all have a mortgage, why are you a special special snowflake?

kzhahou• 11 years ago

I resent the fact that so many people here are calling this BURNOUT.

Can you not fathom the idea that Eevee simply saw and accepted the truth: that the job at Yelp was not personally meaningful?

devonoel2• 11 years ago

I guess the real trick is to build your own business, but it keep it small enough that you don't end up exactly in the same place, but with yourself at the head of it.

Find yourself a tiny niche, fill a need for just enough people that you can keep yourself gainfully employed doing something you care about, and not have to worry about hiring other people to work under you and all the other shit that comes with building a company. Stay small and lean. You won't get Facebook rich, but maybe you'll be happy.

mooogs• 11 years ago

Either you work for the man, or you are the man. The choice is up to you.

rilita• 11 years ago

Imagine that this article read as follows: "I used to have a great job working at Yelp. I was paid highly for it and accomplished a lot. I even got stock options. I've made it now though. Screw working hard, I'm through with that. I'm paying off my mortgage and gonna live the easy life now. Good luck to all you suckers still in the software industry. Bwwuahaha."

Somehow I don't feel much sympathy for this person. Many of us have been working miserable software jobs for years, but we still give it our all and don't throw in the towel.

Yeah it's great that this person made it through, but it's a crappy example for the rest of us.

desireco42• 11 years ago

This is not burnout, this is professional dead-end our industry became because... well he kind of explained it in his post. It is amazing that you have all this knowledge and you have to set it aside, because of all the same problems that are present everywhere. And I mean exactly the same legacy mistakes that are made in good faith supposedly and now you have to show professionalism and reason and as senior guy accept it and deal with it.

The only thing I am sad, is that I can't do what he did.

chrismarlow93• 11 years ago

Heh. I've thought about this a bunch and come to the conclusion that it's why a startup based purely on ability to execute succeeds so often. It takes the right group of people in every facet of the company (sales, technical, etc) that have seen these mistakes over and over and refuse to let the company repeat them.

It's not often you get that group of guys together in the same room with a good idea and a VC, but when you do it's a fun thing to watch.

johnthealy3• 11 years ago

The article makes a number of points that resonate with me and were the initial reason I felt obligated to start my own company:

* Corporate and management issues / misalignments * Uninteresting work content (e.g. fixing old bugs all the time) * Time and energy drain

I've been reading the two books about Google culture recently (Work Rules! and How Google Works), both of which cover similar issues and (ostensibly) how Google has responded to them. I understand there must be a huge pool of people out there in similar situations, many of whom are the best of the best. It's also clear that a few large companies are trying to figure out how to appeal to this group, while most large companies continue to be consumed by egos and the day to day grind and fail at this.

The most important benefit to having my own company has (by far) been the time management. I feel like I could have the proper amount of time and energy to devote to a child or two, which would have been unthinkable in previous jobs (mine were in consulting, but the same seems to apply to tech).

However, I've also learned a lot about communication from my company, especially when it comes to things that would cause unhappiness or conflict (not agreeing with management, setting boundaries around time, etc). The biggest leap was realizing that if people react negatively, 1) you don't want to work with these people, and 2) there are a ton of people out there who want to work with you because of this. I hope the OP is able to find people who share his/her extremely positive traits to work with.

(Incidentally, I've learned a lot about communication from the poly community as well, and I'm not at all surprised to read OP's about section after reading this post.)

nicholas73• 11 years ago

Half your day gone? Try having a baby! Then you can choose between getting 1-2 hours of "me" time at 6am or 10pm, both of which cut into your sleep time.

Not trying to make comparisons here. I was exactly the same prior to fatherhood. But now I wonder how I let all the time go to waste before. Half a day available would be great!

MyNameIsMK• 11 years ago

This resonates with me.

xacaxulu4• 11 years ago

"Even if you win the rat race, you're still a rat." ~some smart person

sbisker• 11 years ago

I net enough to pay off the mortgage, so I’m doing that, which will leave the entire household debt-free and cut our expenses drastically

The lead seems buried here. This isn't someone quitting, this is someone in a position of incredible privilege, essentially retiring (or at least going on "funemployment" for a little while).

There are far darker ways to make far less money, that are far more worthy of dramatic storm cloud drawings. Maybe once they see past their burnout they'll realize how incredibly privileged they were to even accomplish what they were able to (working remotely no less!) in the first place. Burnout really is a sad and scary thing.

eevee20• 11 years ago

I'm fully aware how lucky I am to be able to pull this off. (I don't have nearly enough saved to actually retire on, though.)

Knowing that other people have it worse — or even that I used to have it worse — doesn't make it any better.

michaelvkpdx• 11 years ago

This wouldn't be happening if we had a true estate tax in this country, and if we didn't allow corporations to sit on piles of money while laborers slave away.

We in the USA are wealthy enough as a society that we all could thrive on 15 or so hours of work a week, if we didn't have to subsidize the fortunes of billionaires.

hodwik• 11 years ago

HN is turning into Slashdot. Great.

jclish• 11 years ago

I wish you the best! At 52 I have cashed out the stock options and paid the mortgage twice. In the end 3 weeks or so is the most I can go without either wanting to help someone build a company or wanting to build a company. There is work life after burnout!

tbolse• 11 years ago

If you build some tech product/service to earn money you are in fact not quitting tech industry! You are tech industry - eventually. ;-)

lectrick• 11 years ago

Insist on reasonable work hours. Argue that it will maintain your performance long-term. Say it like you mean it, and don't settle for less. Be ready to leave if you must, in fact, and do not let the glitz/glamour of a well-known brand/company allow them to tread on you.

anotheryou• 11 years ago

I feel like this before even starting my career...

I'm passionate about structuring knowledge, perception, society, art, sound. I'm good at creating concepts.

As a programmer I'm mediocre (I can learn what I need quickly and on demand, but I'd not open-source a library anytime soon). Yet I still feel like this still is the easiest way to earn a living.

My aim is to have the freedom of a digital nomad. Making money and tech (also as the execution of ideas and concepts) is just a necessity...

snissn• 11 years ago

.. hang on let me write a blog post about how i'm quiting the tech industry

kadavy• 11 years ago

A huge congratulations to OP! 7 years ago, I got fired (I should have quit, but didn't have the guts). I had enough money to not have to worry for at least a couple of years, and I couldn't find it in my being to work for anyone – not even freelance.

For me, the first couple of weeks was just reminding myself that I still existed – that my "flesh sack" was still there, and would still be there despite the fact that I didn't have a job. Of course, all of the questions about "what will [I] do next?" didn't help this existential crisis.

I gradually got over it. My main metric for my days was reconnecting with the sense of "flow." For enjoying what I was doing in the moment. Thankfully, for me, I could still find that in something that resembled work.

I knew there was something in my brain that I had to discover, so after the first year, I fled SV, away from all of the noise. Two more years of experimentation later (finally supported by some freelance income), I scored a book deal on a topic that was a perfect amalgamation of my curiosities and interest.

I hope you find a similar sense of satisfaction! Just find the joy in what you're doing, and don't let others' expectations create worry for you.

reagency• 11 years ago

I don’t intend to look for another tech job.
Or another job at all.

To me, this is a love letter to tech. What other industry pays you near-FU money for uncreative grunge work?

coleifer• 11 years ago

Fuck this guy and his narcissistic post. So you retired early, the hell do I care? Nothing interesting here beyond a guy with the financial means to leave, and who left. Only a narcissist would think this was something profound.

roblfrieburg• 11 years ago

Guy complains that working for massive company X isn't very motivational, decides to leave. This isn't something unique it happens in every industry out there, especially tech. I don't get why this post has the amount of votes it has.

I quit the tech industry

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