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Ask HN: What do you do when you're struggling with a project at work?
I'm struggling at work on a project involving a large legacy codebase. I'm going to end up going well past the timeline that was budgeted for me and am starting to feel self conscious about how long the project is taking. I'm starting to have self doubt and am fantasizing about quitting. Thankfully my manager hasn't been breathing down my neck, although I am sure he's keeping some of his frustration pent up. Would appreciate any advice on how to deal with situations like this.
- philbarr 8y agoIf you're going to go way past the deadline, let your manager know as soon as possible and be honest. Explain why. They may be able to schedule more time or get you more help (possibly from someone with intimate knowledge of the legacy codebase). From a coding perspective, break each task into smaller, more manageable tasks that you know you can do. Sometimes looking at a huge task can paralyze you.
- daleholborow 8y agoYour absolute first priority is to raise this as an issue and make people aware of your concerns. Explain how you ended up where you are, what options are to remedy / alter the situation, and their relative pros/cons/odds of success/associated timelines. If you speak up and try to address the problems, you might be ok. If you sit silently, suffering, and then ultimately fail and have no reasonable answer to management's obvious question of "how did this happen?", then you're going to probably get hit with a big stick and you "quitting", might no longer be an option. Good luck.