Your story is heartening. I wish it would work for me. Nothing really makes me happy or interested. I could lay in bed all day if I didn't force myself to get out.
I think it's great that you didn't have any formal education, and you have gone farther than me, someone with formal education and 'seven years' of experience.
> guess what I am trying to say is: - dont give up - expect success over time (1-2 years as a bare minimum) -
I've been unemployed for a year. I think my career is over. Other, better people can do more.
I get the tripe of what you mean, but perhaps I fail at failing, then. I don't really learn anything. Everything I do is wrong, I'm told.
I wish antidepressents would work. If I could cut out parts of my brain and be better, I would.
I just don't get it. Everyone else has done something right or at least better. People say things and everyone else gets it. I've been working for seven years, unemployed for one year. I had a job for a month and they fired me because I didn't have the skills they needed (not sucking, being experienced, nothing tech specific).
I don't know what my pay grade is, or how to feature the data I get. I do ask for feedback from interviewers; they usually don't response. When they do, I get conflicting answers.
C/C++, learning python, ruby over the lst couple of years. Been working for several years, graduated with bachelors from a cow college no one has heard of.
bug fixing. that's all i've ever done. anytime i try to move into a dev role they shut me out. Writing new code was not an option; tinkering with new code was not really allowed. I thought about what I could do to make things better but they're already fairly optimzed. doesn't matter, I'd just make it worse.
It's a good interactive method to constantly challenge yourself into remembering and learning material.
Basically, what you're supposed to do when you're actively reading material. I never really learned how to study until later in life but apparently this is how you're supposed to do it.
I think we don't see it a lot in many classrooms because of economy of scale. When I was in school, we had a professor who did this with his smaller class on computer networks but seems like maybe didn't in his larger classes. He'd ask questions but so many people trying to answer, less time for personal answers (which was fine with me since I was always the slowest person in the room).
> Go solo. At 40 you should be experienced enough to handle up to mid-sized projects, alone and on a reasonable time-frame. Try to pick projects that your clients will actually use,
This is fantastic, and makes me hopeful. I'm almost 40 and no real career accomplishments but there's still time for me, maybe, before I just decide to hang it up and just go home.
> I think the best way to get over that is to make something on your own that is so great that everyone wants to hire you without even doing an interview!
This is a good idea.
I have no idea what people would want or what I could make that people would want or what open problems are there that I could make. Every idea I have someone else already has a better solution.
I keep trying and put it in github but it's mostly for me; no one looks at it.
I wonder if it's common or I am just unlucky or unskilled...
I've been out of work for 11 months. I've been on a large number of interviews and it seems like after that many failed interviews, the answer is probably with me.
The most frustrating thing is the lack of consistent information about why I didn't get hired. Some people said I had good theoretical grasp but can't code. Others said I could code really well but didn't have the grasp of fundamentals they wanted. Most stay silent.
Highly recommend people apply for this company. I interviewed here and while I didn't quite make it, they're a good group with an interesting embedded/hw product and backend.
> I'm guessing you are someone who does not enjoy programming? Did your parents pressure you to take it up to have a well paying job?
I do like programming, and I can at least empathize with the parent's skepticism. I do recall the lessons that my other freelance colleagues have told me about 'work-for-free' schemes in different forms. I don't think that's what is happening here but I can understand why some might feel that way.
This is how I feel. I don't watch TV for hours like I did as a child. What I do now is worse; stay in doors programming, browsing the web aimlessly, or staring at the ceiling. I don't blame my internet lifestyle for this really, but I literally don't know what else to do and the internet is so accommodating to me being a shut-in. I know I'm wasting my life but I don't know how to stop.
San Francisco is a beautiful city but it is wasted on me and I feel like I should feel guilty for that. I don't deserve this nice city; it belongs to creative people.
Trying to leave the house to do anything interesting takes herculean efforts. I can't find joy or interest in anything beyond an intellectual level. Everyday sometimes feels like it's worse than the last.
I'm trapped in an un-ending present where I grow older but never grow as a person.
ps - anything you have to suggest is something i've heard already x10 and have or currently trying, such as therapy.
I think it's great that you didn't have any formal education, and you have gone farther than me, someone with formal education and 'seven years' of experience.
> guess what I am trying to say is: - dont give up - expect success over time (1-2 years as a bare minimum) -
I've been unemployed for a year. I think my career is over. Other, better people can do more.