4 ms·

I think this isn't great advice for everyone. I'm 31 and actually, I've gone through phases and got bored and miserable about my job (I have ADHD and this happ

I think this isn't great advice for everyone. I'm 31 and actually, I've gone through phases and got bored and miserable about my job (I have ADHD and this happens easily). The thing I've found that helps is to keep things fresh, and find a job where you care about the company and product and have more flexibility in what you do and are still learning and keeping stuff interesting. I'm learning Rust at the moment because I know just doing front-end stuff (I've done all kinds of stuff in the past 12 years, but at the moment front-end is what gets the money). Even doing more jobs using React Native and opening up the world of app development has kept thing interesting. Also maintaining a work life balance, aggressively enforcing flexibility (I was straight up with my new employer that some days I am useless and just want to go for a walk, but I will work hard enough on the days my brain wants to play ball, that it won't be an issue). Burnout is a lot easier in corporates because there is less flexibility and you are so removed from the people at the top and are much more of a cog in a machine, there are arbitrary seeming rulebooks because they require consistency, and that is demoralising for individuals. Basically the more corporate a company is run, the less I like it. Once I lose interest I'll end up doing stuff that will end up in my being let go which has happened a couple times in my career, so maintaining interest and keeping things fresh in whatever way is absolutely imperative. Also the product I'm building is a factor for me - I've worked at companies where despite having a good team, what they're building is so mundane and dull I can't force myself to be excited by it. Remember what excited you about your field and why you got into it. If that was purely money then yes, previous advice is all you can do really, but if it was a passion for your field, then keep feeding the fire and reigniting that passion by whatever means necessary. Sometimes you need a break, sometimes you need a change, sometimes you need something new.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
corobo 6y ago
> find a job where you care about the company and product I'm an average person. I'm not qualified for those roles. I make websites in WordPress and I now hate the process of writing code of any flavour with such passion I'll take anything else that pays more. I don't have the capacity to learn some new thing on the off chance I go work somewhere that isn't just the same old. Also I now work for a small indie company for the very reason of having more responsibility and purpose. You know what that led to recently? I moved all our kit to managed hosting in case I went through with offing myself. It's burnout, not a bad day. I'd love to just take some time off all willy nillily as you say but that would result in a performance improvement plan and an eventual firing, which I can't afford right now. I'd fucking love to go back to Sysadmin work but I've been out so long everything's gone cloudy - again, not qualified. All these excuses and more in your nearest person with burnout :)
- antihero 6y ago
  Man it sounds like you have some deeper issues and I hope you can find more meaning in life in general, but being a WordPress admin would probably drive most of us to the brink. Probably one of the most tedious and banal jobs in tech. Why not start learning more languages and whatnot? What do you mean you don't have the capacity? I was a PHP dev back in the day and progressed to things like Python/Django, but there's a whole world of resources that are accessible to you as an existing coder if you wanted to skill up and take it to the next level. There were points in the last few years I was bored of coding and rarely did it outside of my work hours. Recently I started looking at Rust and it dazzled me into being excited again.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - corobo 6y ago
    I dunno if you'll ever see this but if you do thank you. Calling it out has put it in focus, today I'm trying to appreciate all of the stuff I have done For instance the CI/CD I set up is f-in cool how it just works. I'll start from there.
- naveen99 6y ago
  your hn karma is above average. And the average on hn is way above average for a for a non hn Sysadmin.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

corobo 6y ago

> find a job where you care about the company and product I'm an average person. I'm not qualified for those roles. I make websites in WordPress and I now hate the process of writing code of any flavour with such passion I'll take anything else that pays more. I don't have the capacity to learn some new thing on the off chance I go work somewhere that isn't just the same old. Also I now work for a small indie company for the very reason of having more responsibility and purpose. You know what that led to recently? I moved all our kit to managed hosting in case I went through with offing myself. It's burnout, not a bad day. I'd love to just take some time off all willy nillily as you say but that would result in a performance improvement plan and an eventual firing, which I can't afford right now. I'd fucking love to go back to Sysadmin work but I've been out so long everything's gone cloudy - again, not qualified. All these excuses and more in your nearest person with burnout :)

antihero 6y ago
Man it sounds like you have some deeper issues and I hope you can find more meaning in life in general, but being a WordPress admin would probably drive most of us to the brink. Probably one of the most tedious and banal jobs in tech. Why not start learning more languages and whatnot? What do you mean you don't have the capacity? I was a PHP dev back in the day and progressed to things like Python/Django, but there's a whole world of resources that are accessible to you as an existing coder if you wanted to skill up and take it to the next level. There were points in the last few years I was bored of coding and rarely did it outside of my work hours. Recently I started looking at Rust and it dazzled me into being excited again.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- corobo 6y ago
  I dunno if you'll ever see this but if you do thank you. Calling it out has put it in focus, today I'm trying to appreciate all of the stuff I have done For instance the CI/CD I set up is f-in cool how it just works. I'll start from there.
naveen99 6y ago
your hn karma is above average. And the average on hn is way above average for a for a non hn Sysadmin.