> If you can't stand for your values because of "social anxiety" then maybe you don't value your values that much?
I’m not going to downvote you, but if you don’t suffer from social anxiety, you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. As someone who is affected by it, I can tell you it’s soul crushing when it prevents you from making a move out of a bad situation. It’s completely paralyzing.
I've been considering getting a budgie for a long time. Is it ok to keep a single one? How much attention to they need every day? I'm out all day for work, but I could give it attention for hours in the evening and early morning. Also, what is an appropriate cage size? I live in a small condo.
It’s not about perception. I have to stay late because the work itself is insane. Crazy deadlines, dependency on other people/teams, that sort of thing.
Seriously, I need names. I have daily daydreams about the “comfy, 9-5, well-paying corporate job”. Maybe it’s the Seattle area but I’ve never heard of one here. Every job ad no matter the company always has the subtle wording that indicates you’ll be working under a lot of pressure and forced to multitask like crazy and spend long hours in the office.
Having worked at Microsoft and being now at another big tech company, that hasn't been my experience at all. Those companies seem to be trying to mimic startup culture internally, so they promote the "entrepreneurial employee" idea and try to organize groups internally as small startups.
I wish I could do the 9-5 thing at those companies (given the great pay and benefits, adding a predictable and sane work schedule would be perfect).
You may last a couple years being the odd one out doing strictly 40h a week, but performance review is going to catch up with you at some point.
These days I bite the bullet and stay till 8 or 9pm at the office regularly.
> You know how to tell when the economy is in the last 25% of an economic expansion? When everywhere you turn is another white collar professional under the age of 30 in the middle of an existential crisis.
Can you elaborate on that? I feel like you’re talking about something quite important but I can’t really grasp what it is.
Yeah, it's something akin to the Peter Principle. Except I'm not being promoted. I'm still in the same position, except I always get assigned to do stuff I have no clue about, while there are a thousand other areas in the project where I could be doing my best work. I don't understand it.
I’m always afraid of letting me consider I have it, because I always seem to be put in positions where I’m incompetent.
It’s been a pattern in my career so far, and I don’t know how to break it. I join a new team, learn fast, do good work, everyone loves me. Then management assumes that because I’m good at x, I’m also good at y. So they put me to work on y and I fail miserably. Someone else has to come in and help me/fix it, and now all my credibility is gone.
I try not to beat myself up about it. I consider it a management failure. My current instance of this is management assuming that because I’m a good cider, I’m also good at dealing with infrastructure/operations type stuff. Which is simply not true.
I don't slack off, but I feel like there's a position as a Software Engineer past which I wouldn't want to be promoted. I see folks in the higher levels and the stuff they have to deal with has zero appeal to me. My salary and bonus at my current level are already more than enough to sustain my lifestyle and save plenty for retirement - I don't need more.
A lot of people are attracted to the idea of "getting more responsibility", and they like the prestige/visibility that comes with a fancy (e.g. "Principal" or "Staff") title. Me, I just want to put in my hours solving problems and go home do something else.
At a past job a very technically strong coworker spent months on a problem and eventually threw the towel and handed it to me. It took me another couple months to find a reasonable solution to it.
Some problems are _really_ hard and no amount of help will get a dev to solve it faster.
Sorry for not answering your question, but how do you get a job like that?
I miss that stuff so much. Did it from my late teens (yep, professionally) to mid twenties, then moved to America and all my jobs here have been services related in .NET or Java.
> From a religious perspective, I think our purpose should be contributing something to the world as long as we live.
I agree in principle, but what motivates me to be financially independent is not having to deal with all the bullshit that comes along with work. Office politics, drama, having your priorities set by someone else, etc. I also find having to care about promotions and such extremely stressful.
During periods of high stress, I find myself dreaming of FI just to stay home reading books and going to the gym. But more realistically, I’d likely continue to work my current job, with some changes.
If I were to become financially independent overnight, I’d schedule a 1:1 with my manager and explain that either I’m now working 100% on my terms, or I quit. That would allow me to just contribute to the product we’re developing, without having to deal with the bullshit. I’d then be perfectly fine staying at my current position for the rest of my career (i.e. no promos).