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Ask HN: Re-establishing a professional career after hiatus and disability
A longer version of this is at [1].
I would be very grateful for any career ideas for someone in my situation, which involves a partial disability (chronic/complex PTSD), multi-year gaps, and, after 2000, a typical job tenure of months. If there is a way to recover from this without lying, I’d love to know.
Over 20 years ago, as an embedded software engineer -- mostly finding & fixing bugs in a network of embedded boards made by 600 engineers -- my employee stock options vested near the stock's all-time high. But by then, I was barely hanging on. It had been almost two years since I’d felt good about my work product, and I’d been trying to get a leave of absence, but I hadn’t been diagnosed with anything yet. After a cashless exercise, I resigned. Living on the windfall allowed me to mask my burnout for long enough to lose credibility as a professional.
I need a career that is compatible with ongoing treatment, which will take years. By the time I got a diagnosis of chronic PTSD, my funds were low enough to interfere with treatment: Treatment for complex PTSD (from continual situations rather than specific major events) requires unboxing painful emotions, which increases the stress level, and the mind won’t really permit this process unless it feels safe-enough to do so. So, to progress in treatment, realistically I first need to identify and establish myself in a career whose stress level, for me, could leave a safety margin. It has to pay enough not to bring additional poverty-induced stress, be challenging enough not to induce stress from boredom, and be easy enough for me, who is, for now, not a quick thinker as a programmer or engineer.
References:
[1] https://www.dropbox.com/s/1d96l1ood9re55h/Ask%20HN%20Re-establishing%20a%20professional%20career%20after%20hiatus%20%28w_%20complex%20PTSD%29%20%281%29.pdf?dl=0
[2] https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/11x8um0lpccji7wmvnlk6/Post-uni-employment-history-to-2021.xlsx?dl=0&rlkey=h0w9xcnifnh6exkefrongembn
- tiramisu2 6y agoSorry the links didn't format right. Maybe they will in a comment? [1] Longer version of this post: https://www.dropbox.com/s/1d96l1ood9re55h/Ask%20HN%20Re-establishing%20a%20professional%20career%20after%20hiatus%20%28w_%20complex%20PTSD%29%20%281%29.pdf?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/1d96l1ood9re55h/Ask%20HN%20Re-esta... [2] Full post-uni work history: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/11x8um0lpccji7wmvnlk6/Post-uni-employment-history-to-2021.xlsx?dl=0&rlkey=h0w9xcnifnh6exkefrongembn https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/11x8um0lpccji7wmvnlk6/Post-un...
- tiramisu2 6y ago[3] A more readable version of my work history with chronology in rows: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/g306tj4kxry1bhf94e8rb/Full-post-uni-employment-history-to-2021-chrono-rows.xlsx?dl=0&rlkey=og2unkarkonwkdkzvjtb1zfl5 https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/g306tj4kxry1bhf94e8rb/Full-po...
- tiramisu2 6y agoThis isn't showing up under the "ask" link above, alongside the other "Ask HN." Is this is editorial decision, or was there a step I missed? Thanks.
- tiramisu2 6y agoP.S. I know about Upwork and other such gig sites. I have been scanning them for many years and not accepted any gigs through them yet, due to my experience with gigs acquired locally through my own organic networks. What I've learned in short gigs is that I've been a slow starter, except when I was very well-rested (e.g. after 5.5 years of rest) and doing a task whose plausibility was unknown. The way I graduated from my temp status in 2008 was by being as proactive as if I owned the company: Bringing my own computer (the company's IT department was slow), finding a disassembler on my own (management / purchasing were slow), and reverse engineering code whose source the boss was waiting for another division to provide (other division was slow). I was rewarded for being a new set of eyes living up to my own strong work ethic, rather than besting or even keeping up with peers in an organization. But when I did all this, it was new to me, so I'd not have been competitive against anyone who specializes in such work. Conversely, in a permanent role in a software engineering organization, most of my value came, not through raw technical prowess, but through ownership of and immersion in my work product and what it touches, and building a network of respect and trust among peers, over years. I'm a generalist (perhaps a "scanner"[0]) and probably never have been the best at any one task. Going in fresh, at my age (48) and suboptimal health, it's much harder to contribute value in a hurry. I'd fit well long-term into an organization that can use a generalist like me after qualifying me on a challenge that's well-defined and yet for which there may not be any well-defined type of specialist. [0] https://www.getmotivation.com/motivationblog/2017/04/barbara-sher-scanner/ https://www.getmotivation.com/motivationblog/2017/04/barbara...
- salawat 6y agoGot a less public point of contact? See some interestimg bits here, but I'd prefer a more direct exchange if that isn't too much of a nuisance to set up.
- tiramisu2 6y ago> Got a less public point of contact? Thank you for asking; I've since put my email address into the "about" field in my profile.