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> "there is no f'en way I can do this 40 hours a week for the next few decades" Not a bootcamp grad, but I just hit my two year mark a couple weeks ago and wan

> "there is no f'en way I can do this 40 hours a week for the next few decades" Not a bootcamp grad, but I just hit my two year mark a couple weeks ago and want to blow my brains out. Writing internal web applications is the most mind numbing thing ever. It's gotten to the point where I have so much trouble keeping focused at work. The real issue is that I have no idea what field I'd pivot into.

david-gpu 9y ago
If it's mind-numbing, can it be automated? Can you use higher-level tools to build them and reduce the repetitive parts?
- everybodyknows 9y ago
  If only there were the right high-level tool -- an android with an engineers face! It could attend the pointless meetings, and answer QA's trivial questions, the same over and over. Then I could have stayed on at FANGcorp.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
SeeDave 9y ago
You may enjoy a product manager, technical program manager, or business analyst role more. Not sure what city you're in, but there are plenty of courses at Galvanize! Good luck and please do not blow your brains out!
octalmage 9y ago
Have you considered a different company? I worked at a large company for a few years building internal tools and I wanted to kill myself. I couldn't imagine working there for the rest of my life. But I enjoyed writing code in my free time and knew it was what I wanted to do. I've been at a smaller company for ~5 years and I couldn't be happier.
SyneRyder 9y ago
It's gotten to the point where I have so much trouble keeping focused at work. Are you sure you're not expecting too much of yourself? Keeping focused is pretty difficult for programmers in general, we often need breaks to recharge. Famous Joel Spolsky essay related to this called Fire & Motion: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/ [But if you're not enjoying the work, that's different. Life's too short for that, find something that you enjoy.]
mseebach 9y ago
First, with the caveat of obviously not knowing you or your job, it's my experience that it's rarely the case that an area as broad as "writing internal web applications" is actually inherently boring to a person. The parable of the stonecutters come to mind, are you cutting stone or are you building a cathedral? Find out what energises you. Think back, what were good days and what did you do? Try to do more of that, try to make the work you do more like that kind of work. Of course, there are plenty of jobs that aren't remotely in the cathedral building business, and if that's the case, start networking. Get on Meetup and attend some meetings or hackathons or startup weekends or whatever. Your skills are generally in demand, so focus on getting inspiration for what might interest you, or meeting people that you think you'd enjoy working with, and let that guide your job search. And don't let internal webapps scare you. Building a "boring" app for a team that does good things with it and appreciates your work can be very satisfying.
throwawayxyz709 9y ago
Have you tried seeing a doctor or therapist? I have the same feelings as you and I'm giving SSRIs another go. There's a difference between hating your job without being able to cope and hating your job while being able to cope. Have you considered that you're depressed? Are you able to enjoy things and be productive outside of work or do you feel the same way you do as when you're at work? It can be a hard road to travel and there might not be a single good answer (only multiple possible answers with varying probabilities).
- coldtea 9y ago
  >There's a difference between hating your job without being able to cope and hating your job while being able to cope. The difference being in the latter case you've given up all hope and just keep at it?
  - throwawayxyz709 9y ago
    Sorry, I forgot that in Hacker News Land, everyone has an awesome rockstar ninja startup job where they work 60-hour weeks to write the next JavaScript AI piece of crap and god dammit, they like it! Yes, turns out not everyone is enamored with their jobs. This might come as a surprise to you.
markbnj 9y ago
Look, writing software is a trade. If you're not getting satisfaction from the act of creating something and doing a good job of it, even if that something is less "amazing" than you were hoping it would be, you probably need a different career. In any skilled trade the majority of the projects you do will be of the more mundane sort, but a skilled practitioner derives satisfaction from the doing and the mastery. You wouldn't work for years as a watchmaker, hunched over a bench 8 hours a day, if you didn't get satisfaction from making watches. Programming is more analogous to that than not, imo.
- EpicEng 9y ago
  >Look, writing software is a trade. If you're not getting satisfaction from the act of creating something and doing a good job of it, even if that something is less "amazing" than you were hoping it would be, you probably need a different career. Maybe. I've been doing this for about 12 years now and, if I were writing typical IT/web dev stuff, I'd move to a different field. Most software is just boring and unrewarding, the money wouldn't keep me if the interest fell away (though I have a family to consider at this point, but that's beside the point.)

david-gpu 9y ago

If it's mind-numbing, can it be automated? Can you use higher-level tools to build them and reduce the repetitive parts?

everybodyknows 9y ago
If only there were the right high-level tool -- an android with an engineers face! It could attend the pointless meetings, and answer QA's trivial questions, the same over and over. Then I could have stayed on at FANGcorp.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

SeeDave 9y ago

You may enjoy a product manager, technical program manager, or business analyst role more. Not sure what city you're in, but there are plenty of courses at Galvanize! Good luck and please do not blow your brains out!

octalmage 9y ago

Have you considered a different company? I worked at a large company for a few years building internal tools and I wanted to kill myself. I couldn't imagine working there for the rest of my life. But I enjoyed writing code in my free time and knew it was what I wanted to do. I've been at a smaller company for ~5 years and I couldn't be happier.

SyneRyder 9y ago

It's gotten to the point where I have so much trouble keeping focused at work. Are you sure you're not expecting too much of yourself? Keeping focused is pretty difficult for programmers in general, we often need breaks to recharge. Famous Joel Spolsky essay related to this called Fire & Motion: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/ [But if you're not enjoying the work, that's different. Life's too short for that, find something that you enjoy.]

mseebach 9y ago

First, with the caveat of obviously not knowing you or your job, it's my experience that it's rarely the case that an area as broad as "writing internal web applications" is actually inherently boring to a person. The parable of the stonecutters come to mind, are you cutting stone or are you building a cathedral? Find out what energises you. Think back, what were good days and what did you do? Try to do more of that, try to make the work you do more like that kind of work. Of course, there are plenty of jobs that aren't remotely in the cathedral building business, and if that's the case, start networking. Get on Meetup and attend some meetings or hackathons or startup weekends or whatever. Your skills are generally in demand, so focus on getting inspiration for what might interest you, or meeting people that you think you'd enjoy working with, and let that guide your job search. And don't let internal webapps scare you. Building a "boring" app for a team that does good things with it and appreciates your work can be very satisfying.

throwawayxyz709 9y ago

Have you tried seeing a doctor or therapist? I have the same feelings as you and I'm giving SSRIs another go. There's a difference between hating your job without being able to cope and hating your job while being able to cope. Have you considered that you're depressed? Are you able to enjoy things and be productive outside of work or do you feel the same way you do as when you're at work? It can be a hard road to travel and there might not be a single good answer (only multiple possible answers with varying probabilities).

coldtea 9y ago
>There's a difference between hating your job without being able to cope and hating your job while being able to cope. The difference being in the latter case you've given up all hope and just keep at it?
- throwawayxyz709 9y ago
  Sorry, I forgot that in Hacker News Land, everyone has an awesome rockstar ninja startup job where they work 60-hour weeks to write the next JavaScript AI piece of crap and god dammit, they like it! Yes, turns out not everyone is enamored with their jobs. This might come as a surprise to you.

markbnj 9y ago

Look, writing software is a trade. If you're not getting satisfaction from the act of creating something and doing a good job of it, even if that something is less "amazing" than you were hoping it would be, you probably need a different career. In any skilled trade the majority of the projects you do will be of the more mundane sort, but a skilled practitioner derives satisfaction from the doing and the mastery. You wouldn't work for years as a watchmaker, hunched over a bench 8 hours a day, if you didn't get satisfaction from making watches. Programming is more analogous to that than not, imo.

EpicEng 9y ago
>Look, writing software is a trade. If you're not getting satisfaction from the act of creating something and doing a good job of it, even if that something is less "amazing" than you were hoping it would be, you probably need a different career. Maybe. I've been doing this for about 12 years now and, if I were writing typical IT/web dev stuff, I'd move to a different field. Most software is just boring and unrewarding, the money wouldn't keep me if the interest fell away (though I have a family to consider at this point, but that's beside the point.)