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Dude, quit your job, work at a coffee shop, and build things because you want to build them. Your skill will return, the light will return to your eyes, and you
by giles_bowkett 18y ago
Dude, quit your job, work at a coffee shop, and build things because you want to build them. Your skill will return, the light will return to your eyes, and your career will improve.
I'm not even kidding. Take a few years away. You'll build something so much cooler than you would at these apparently soul-destroying jobs you've got.
I did it, and I'm now showing off what I've built at damn near every Ruby conference in the United States, plus ones in Scotland and Canada. I just recently had to very reluctantly cancel on speaking at a Smalltalk conference in Amsterdam too.
Nobody gave a crap what I was building back when I was building what the suit monkeys told me to. Now people are interested, and of course the job offers these days are much more interesting as well.
Ironically nothing makes a suit monkey drool more than meeting a programmer who several years previously told some other suit monkey to go fuck itself.
Might seem like a paradox but your best career move is to stop working for a living.
- giles_bowkett 18y ago(I should also mention there are employers with 0% suit-monkey DNA, and building cool things for their own sake draws out these employers as well.)
- randallsquared 18y agoAlso, stressing about money for a few years will keep you happier with whatever job you have next, if it has a steady paycheck. :D I'm working at a job with a steady paycheck for the first time since early 2001, and it's awesome.
- mynameishere 18y agoDude, quit your job, work at a coffee shop This is bad advice.
- aaronblohowiak 18y agoDisagreement is not refutation.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- astrec 18y agoSure. But Dude, quit your job, work at a coffee shop, and build things because you want to build them. is stellar advice. Seriously. The sabbatical is the instrument of champions.
- mynameishere 18y agoNo, it's bad advice. Without knowing a lot more about this guy, you can't just say, "quit your job" just because it sounds romantic. It's cheap advice. I notice that every time someone complains about his job the advice coming from the internet is always the same, "Quit". The world doesn't work that way for 99 percent of the population. Decent jobs are no one's birthright, and the poster may be an ordinary, mediocre person who will never make a marketable app. If he's capable of great things, he's not going to need prodding from Mr. Anonymous. In the meantime, keep your job and do what you can after hours. If you get a good idea and a year's worth of savings, then maybe think of quitting... http://www.theonion.com/content/node/39174 http://www.theonion.com/content/node/39174
- sutro 18y agoGreat link. Should be required reading for everyone on HN.
- astrec 18y agoThe purpose of a sabbatical need not be to create a marketable app, nor perform any great deed. In the corporate world it is literally a career break.
- wynand 18y agoForcing someone to do a job he hates is no-one's birthright either. We see "quit" everywhere we look because too many people are afraid to rock the boat, but wish they had the courage to do so. Quitting means nothing in itself. It is a vice when you back out of reaching good things because you lack the courage to do what is necessary. It is a virtue when used to eject soul-destroying things from your life. There is no virtue in voluntary suffering. There is no virtue in staying in a horrible job (I'm ignoring the complexities of having dependents).
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- Tichy 18y agoWhy? I regret never having worked at a coffee shop. Now I am over 30 it doesn't feel so appropriate anymore, and I am spoiled by the IT money. But sometimes I still feel like just working in a coffee shop. Only for a while of course, the money just isn't good enough. But if it leaves you with enough energy to code on the side, it might be OK. Also, the experience might come in handy if you ever want to open your own cafe later in life...
- wynand 18y agoWhy? If kamme heeds the advice without thinking, it would be bad. But not because working in a coffee shop is bad. A mini breakdown caused by soul-grating work convinced me to stop wasting my life. Not everyone needs the same amount of money and security to be happy.
- lpgauth 18y agoWhat have you built? And what conference are you attending in Canada?
- giles_bowkett 18y agoyes. I will tell you, because my existing response is not yet enough of a threadjack.
- whacked_new 18y agoThis advice reads like utter insanity, but the even more shocking thing is that there are at least 14 people here who thought positively of it, and a magnitude more that nod in assent but didn't click the up arrow. I have come to believe this kind of spirit is part of the core of true innovation. If this was posted in another community, I'm fairly sure you would've been treated like a lunatic. How amazing is that!
- giles_bowkett 18y agoI told him that if he wants to love what he does, he should do what he loves. And you call that utter insanity.
- whacked_new 18y agoThat is, in fact, not what you told him to do. Your advice is a risky proposition, and for people who aren't used to it, it is fair to point out how crazy it seems. I was not trying to criticize what you said, but I still think it sounds insane. It might truly be the core of innovation, just as how some artists create groundbreaking work when they go nuts. But if I repeated this to some people around me I'd expect loud disagreement.
- petercooper 18y agoIt certainly does read like utter insanity to a mind indoctrinated to the 9 to 5 and the traditional concept of getting and sticking to a "career." It doesn't read like utter insanity, however, to those who are independent, free thinking, and willing to do things a bit differently in order to have the life they want.