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On August 27 2012 19:42 Morfildur wrote:Show nested quote +On August 27 2012 19:18 caboose_ wrote: I think the only reasonable course of action is a "program off" with R1CH to re-kindle your passion. Well, the problem is that there is no measurable way to compare two programmers :p
Speed programming. First to create a correct solution to a problem is victorious.
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On August 27 2012 16:25 Morfildur wrote: First things first: I know it's bad to quit one job without having another one ready.
I worked here for exactly 3 years now and when i started, i had energy, an ok private life and i was physically quite fit, now i'm a human wreck, burnt out, phone contact list has only one entry ("work") and i gained 40 pounds, so it's unlikely that another company will hire me in my current state. I have programming knowledge that rivals R1CHs but i just don't have any energy left to offer.
However, i also know that nothing will change as long as i work here, so maybe after a month off from work it will be better. I told myself for the last year "ok, tomorrow i'll apply for another job" but whenever i get home i can't get anything done anymore. Then again, even at work i can't get anything done anymore. I'm working since a month on a project that would have taken me a week just a year or two ago.
So the question is: Stay in this job for the rest of my life or quit now and maybe end up unemployed for some time?
If you aren't happy then I would start looking for another job while you work there. Of course do it in your downtime.
On August 27 2012 18:15 Morfildur wrote:Show nested quote +On August 27 2012 18:02 PH wrote: I honestly get so discouraged by blogs like this...
I tell myself that my life will turn around once I get a decent job, but seeing blogs like this make me realize landing the job is only the first step...T_T The most important part is having a good CV. If it sucks you only get sucky jobs. If it's good you get good jobs. Mine sucked.
Volunteering and having a good social network let alone good resume that really shows off your character will go along way.
Yes, landing that dream job is very difficult but there are steps you can take of getting there.
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I always felt better after starting to search for a new job. It might not seem possible at this moment, but when you start interviews and, overall, an active job searching process, it really makes you feel better .
Good luck!
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Just quit man, you'll be less wealthy, but infinitely more healthy.
If you work in a job X hours a week, that's X hours you won't be getting back. You life in Germany, not in some underdeveloped country without a social system, so you won't starve. Maybe you have to move to a smaller appartement, but seriously, I'd rather fiddle around on my guitar all day in a small flat than do a job I despise for 30+ hours a week.
Quit, get your life in order, take your time, recharge, get back in shape and then try to find a job you enjoy more.
Or better yet, go back to school. If you haven't got your Abitur already, go a Weiterbildungskolleg. You'll have 20 hours of school a week, you'll be surrounded by adults eager to further their education, you will earn enough to pay for rent and food, you'll have all the time you need to get your life together.
Living is free, making a living should be secondary.
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I'd say to quit but I'm in a similar position to you where I'm doing a 1 year coop and I'm staying. GL. People motivated enough to learn about computers like yourself shouldn't have much problems finding people in need of your talents.
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On August 27 2012 23:22 caboose_ wrote:Show nested quote +On August 27 2012 19:42 Morfildur wrote:On August 27 2012 19:18 caboose_ wrote: I think the only reasonable course of action is a "program off" with R1CH to re-kindle your passion. Well, the problem is that there is no measurable way to compare two programmers :p Speed programming. First to create a correct solution to a problem is victorious.
Knowledge.
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On August 28 2012 00:17 obesechicken13 wrote: I'd say to quit but I'm in a similar position to you where I'm doing a 1 year coop and I'm staying. GL. People motivated enough to learn about computers like yourself shouldn't have much problems finding people in need of your talents.
Unless the work environment is incredibly toxic you get another job offer on the table and then give your boss notice.
Don't remove the safety nets yet.
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i would say to focus on getting your life back and not your job, start working out, you will lose weight and gain energy and the. go out and do stuff, make new friends
if you have the right mind set you can achieve anything, but idk if you feel confident at all
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On August 27 2012 16:25 Morfildur wrote: First things first: I know it's bad to quit one job without having another one ready.
I worked here for exactly 3 years now and when i started, i had energy, an ok private life and i was physically quite fit, now i'm a human wreck, burnt out, phone contact list has only one entry ("work") and i gained 40 pounds, so it's unlikely that another company will hire me in my current state. I have programming knowledge that rivals R1CHs but i just don't have any energy left to offer.
However, i also know that nothing will change as long as i work here, so maybe after a month off from work it will be better. I told myself for the last year "ok, tomorrow i'll apply for another job" but whenever i get home i can't get anything done anymore. Then again, even at work i can't get anything done anymore. I'm working since a month on a project that would have taken me a week just a year or two ago.
So the question is: Stay in this job for the rest of my life or quit now and maybe end up unemployed for some time?
First of all, I'd like to say just right away that I won't be able (nor would I want) to give you a straightforward 0/1 answer. Secondly, please accept my expressions of solidarity. Despite my young age at the work market (29 but only really working full time since age 24), I've experienced some of that type of burnout (in a different profession, and I ended up changing job lines) and currently my step-father, also a very experienced programmer, is going through the same thing as you. In his case, it involves unemployment and he actually wasn't really given an option to avoid it. Stuff deteriorated to the point that he knew a year ahead of when it actually happened that they would eventually terminate him if he doesn't quit. (Office drama and office wars in the new job after being cut from the previous one due to a de facto hostile acquisition by a new owner.)
I would like to tell you that no job is worth losing your health, and your mental health too. A while of unemployment is a danger and evil which is unknown, which makes us want to stick with the known evils, but sometimes the unknown is actually better than the known. But you obviously can't dive head-on. So I'd suggest talking to job counsellors, career advisors, a psychologist who knows how such things work, perhaps a recruiter or HR person if you know one that doesn't work for your boss. Talk to a doctor about the impact of stress. Then make the decision. Perhaps talk to someone who knows about finance: you don't want to end up in a spot where you need to cut down on food (while cutting down on non-essentials isn't really as bad as having to deal with a hostile work environment). Whatever you do, make sure you are prepared, you know what you're doing, your decision is not rash and/or emotional but well thought-out and that you've given yourself some time to digest it. Don't do any rash things that you might later regret, such as burning bridges, but you may need to step out of your comfort zone.
Also: Look into the possibility of registering your own company. This is what saved the day for me. The beauty of having your own company is that you choose the jobs (you can't afford to be too picky and sometimes your hand is forced but not in the same way as when a boss has a contractual right, written on paper, to just pile unwanted jobs on you), you get all the exposure you want, you have your own website that emphasises your strengths and presents your bio and your achievements as opposed to the company's slogans, you don't have to share the profit, you may eventually create a couple of workplaces for the community (e.g. assistant, secretary, junior partner and so on). Just be aware that this may be stressful in different ways. Like for me every single day of operating a legal translation (and other translation) sole-proprietorship is less stressful than it was to work for a law firm as a rookie lawyer, but the single day of the month when I need to handle administrative stuff (invoices, taxes, debt monitoring/reminding/collection). But I guess there were higher peaks of stress than this in salaried work. Plus, with time, one can hire an assistant to handle all that (or even all paperwork). It can be tough sometimes if you need to deal with complaints from customers who are bigger than you but that too can be managed (especially by the lawyer for whom you did some programming a month ago and made him happy, just sayin' ).
Plus, in high-octane, highly-stressful job lines, some people sometimes (and probably most people, maybe even almost everybody) need to take a break. Like a month or two without work. Just tending to your garden. Talking to your wife. Fishing with your childhood buddy. Rediscovering life. Visiting your family. Whatever. The beauty of working as an independent contractor or owning a sole-proprietorship is that you can afford more such time and nobody is going to peek too much into how much free time precisely you take for yourself. Which in my case is a lot. (Like entire days during weektime.) Maybe this would work for you too.
Also, when you set out to get a new job, you absolutely need to read up on creating good CVs/resumes, motivational letters, self-presentations, handling recruitment talks, job interviews etc. Those things are a skill in themselves, I guess, and training is helpful, even passive exposure is helpful because it increases your confidence and decreases the stress you face in such situations. I'd take time to talk to business owners, hiring managers, HR people, job consultants/advisors/counsellors in your circle of friends if you can get them to have a beer and spill their guts for you. Be prepared. Then hit the market with a killer CV mounted on a killer website, preferably in some tech-savvy form showing off your skills. Gain confidence, get good tools, make the field more yours and less theirs. Maybe learn a thing or two about negotiation (especially the dirty tricks bad employers or recruiters use, signs of a bad company with a hostile work environment etc.) to help you avoid ending up in another bad environment any more.
And don't be ashamed to talk to an occupational psychologist/counsellor. Those people exist because they're needed, it's like going to a doctor. In some jobs you break limbs, in others the mental stress is exhausting just as much as a physical strain. Sports people (including e-sports players) have psychologists too. It's an aspect of keeping a good form for them.
GL HF!
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Guys, he already quit on page 2~ Hopefully having a big chunk of time where work would have been will be the perfect time to apply for jobs, work out, etc. Good luck to you!
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On August 28 2012 01:56 BreakfastBurrito wrote: Guys, he already quit on page 2~
Darn, I'm sorry! I really should've read the other pages. Oh well, some of the stuff is still relevant.
On August 27 2012 23:22 caboose_ wrote:Show nested quote +On August 27 2012 19:42 Morfildur wrote:On August 27 2012 19:18 caboose_ wrote: I think the only reasonable course of action is a "program off" with R1CH to re-kindle your passion. Well, the problem is that there is no measurable way to compare two programmers :p Speed programming. First to create a correct solution to a problem is victorious.
Back when I still programmed some (in my student days), I used to believe that the guy who needed less code to do the same task was the more skilled.
***
As for CV, a good thing about any job is that it provides the years of experience that are the formal requirement for some other jobs. Like if you do just about anything for the initial n years, you become eligible for positions that require 2, 3 and more years of experience (then 5, 10 etc.).
And CVs can be helped a lot by good design and neat execution.
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urgh. Curse reading comprehension.
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I'm starting computer science today. Even after reading this thread I'm still very excite!
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Unless you have kids to feed and no savings, quit your job.
There is no reason to ever sacrifice your health and sanity for money. If you stop spending money on crap you don't need and cook basic healthy food for yourself and live in a cheap area your living costs shouldn't be too high and you can afford to get yourself back in shape! Also look at any reasons other than work that you're feeling this way.
Quit dat job yo
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Physical exercise! How do you expect to have energy without any proper exercise. Don't be lazy, if you want something then make it happen. You make it happen. Make it happen.
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Lot of responses, didn't read them.
I've been unemployed for quite a while, because I could.
It's a pain to find a new job. It. is. a. pain. to. find. a. new. job.
Actually fuck it, I can't speak for you, I can only speak for me. When I left my job, I thought I would have more time to look for a better one. I sure had more time, but I didn't look. I enjoyed myself and my computer. Then the cycle begins. Cut from the work market, I was less and less inclined to look for work, barely do anything but enjoy myself and my computer.
Long story short : beware of that trap. Having MONEY, is important, because life sucks really fast, and really hard when you suddenly come to lack some. As I understand you now hate your job. Still, be fucking cautious before you quit it. I would really recommend looking for a job before you do anything. That will increase your value on the work market, too. Being employed, I mean.
With that said, decision is your own obviously, but do take care, especially in these current times of "crisis". In my opinion, make the effort to look for a job while staying employed, you could "lift the foot" (french expression, hoping it makes sense) in your current job to keep some energy for your search.
Well, my 2 cents.
On August 28 2012 01:56 BreakfastBurrito wrote: Guys, he already quit on page 2~ Hopefully having a big chunk of time where work would have been will be the perfect time to apply for jobs, work out, etc. Good luck to you!
Oh... well.
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From my understanding, there are a lot of jobs in Germany in your field. Don't worry about finding something new, it'll happen. I think you've definitely made the right decision. Onwards and upwards, chin up and all that!
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To the people saying that you should never give up your health for your job, don't you already give up most of your free time just going to or getting ready for or being at work? There's quite a bit that you need to give up if you want to be recognized as a non failure by your parents, and your friends around you. There are people who suffer emotional trauma from not being able to provide for their family, or their wife will leave them. These are a minority of cases though and isn't relevant to OP.
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Is programming a bad job?
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On August 28 2012 10:36 superbarnie wrote: Is programming a bad job?
Not by any standards no. You sit in a well ventilated room protected by the sun. In smaller companies you are regarded as a technology god. You do not come home as physically exhausted as work in a factory as I've done this. You make great pay.
You can talk to your colleagues who sit near you. You can listen to music. You can browse that web forum you're addicted to.
Not only that but you're combatting logic problems all day long. Many people really enjoy this. You can see it on their faces or see it by what problem sets they choose to finish first/bring to lunch/sleep with them.
I think programming becomes less desirable due to the social factor of any office job. People start working on things that they don't want to. They meet people who they think are lazy. They don't get their things done on time. Arguments start.
Constantly learning. Constantly challenged. Contributing something to society.
On the subject of desiring happiness. I think that it's true most people obtain happiness from their hobbies, their work, their friends, and their families. I used to think that the most lucky could combine all three into one. Work on things that you do in your spare time so work and play are the same thing. Then Make friends with the people you work/play with.
I'm not so sure now. Many BW pros say the game gets less fun when they start playing it all day. There's a lot of compeition to get to be the best. Many people also say to keep work and play separate. Just a random musing.
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