7 ms·

Not mentioned in the article: those young people in the tech industry with a stable, boring job working for a conglomerate company and depressed by constantly o

Not mentioned in the article: those young people in the tech industry with a stable, boring job working for a conglomerate company and depressed by constantly observing our adventurous peers trying to change the world in hip start-ups, wondering if we made the wrong decision. Grass is always greener, I suppose. Or depression is just infectious.

pkorzeniewski 12y ago
Not every startup is trying to "change the world" or "become a millionaire" - some just want to create a stable, profitable business with a reasonable paychecks for the employees.
nether 12y ago
I've slowly felt my soul being crushed after five years at a small, Office Space-esque mechanical engineering firm in an LA suburb. Our perks include two 10-minute breaks per day where we can make personal calls, walk around the parking lot, or close our office doors. Actual methods of analysis draw heavily from '70s to early '90s engineering. I sound horribly millennial (which I am) to complain about these things while I'm making six figures at age 29, but it feels stifling and inhumane to work like this.
- Chinjut 12y ago
  You oughtn't feel guilty about finding your situation stifling and soul-crushing. (If that's horribly millenial, well, perhaps millenials have managed to see the matter clearly. Every insight starts in some generation.)
- dismal2 12y ago
  were you chained to your desk or something? what do you mean 10 minute breaks?
- atom-morgan 12y ago
  I know exactly what you mean. I felt the same way with my first job as a developer out of college. I'd always considered myself a mentally stable person until _that job_. Like you, I had the feeling that my complaints were those of "millennials" but I couldn't keep myself there. I eventually left and I'm glad I did.
  - nether 12y ago
    I'm leaving in ten months. I have $60k in disposable savings (i.e. this excludes retirement) and a pickup truck. I will travel the world for at least a year, then do who knows what. Maybe I'll become a programmer.
- nimzo 12y ago
  Gen-Xer here... you would be surprised to learn how many of us wholeheartedly agree with you.
MagicWishMonkey 12y ago
Even working at a "change the world startup" can beat you down after a while. Working under a high level of stress for long periods of time, wearing 10 different hats and doing the work of 5 people while not knowing for sure if the investor who promised to cut you a check next week will actually come through.
- vonmoltke 12y ago
  The problem is, as the article indicates, image. While what you say is often the reality, the image many of these companies portray to the outside world, particularly those outside the SV bubble, is much different. I understand completely where AdmiralAsshat is coming from, because I resemble that remark. Way too strongly. I'm never satisfied with myself. Constantly second-guessing my past decisions. Feeling that I am inferior in some way. Forcing myself to start side projects because that is what "good" engineers do, even if I don't particularly want to do them. I have by all accounts a great life and a solid career. That doesn't stop me from obsessing over not being better, from beating myself up for not having put myself into the position I fell like I should be in.
  - MagicWishMonkey 12y ago
    I've spent a lot of time in both worlds, there's nothing really glamorous about the startup space. You're in such a hurry and requirements change so frequently that whatever you build ends up being a godawful mess and you just have to live with it. It kills me because I used to take so much pride in writing (what I considered) beautiful code, but now things are always so rushed that I slap stuff together as well as I can given time constraints. There are some components of my codebase that I try to avoid looking at because it just puts me in a bad mood. All I know is that it works and seems to be relatively bug free, but it's gnarly as all get out. My core project is around 60k lines of Python, I have no doubt that I could rewrite the whole thing in less than 10k lines if I had time to refactor, but there's little chance of that ever happening. I guess what I'm trying to say is that once you're burned out and forever trying to cram 20 hours of work into a 10 hour day there's little chance that anything you do would be what "good engineers" do, so don't beat yourself up about it. I was an engineer for a fortune 500 consulting company at my previous job, the work was somewhat boring but you had the resources to produce extremely high quality work if you were so inclined. I sort of miss that.
Jtsummers 12y ago
Working in one of those sorts of jobs I sometimes feel "depressed" when frequenting sites like HN. On the other hand, I specifically chose my job because anxiety (for me) leads to depression, and the last time I experienced that I almost didn't come out alive. There's something to be said for the "boring" jobs. For me, they give me a good paycheck and haven't usually required overtime. So I can still have a life outside of work while guaranteeing that I will leave my home 5 days out of the week (necessary for me, I have to be around other people to get an escape from my own mind for a while, it's that or something that'll numb my mind like alcohol or video games or something and that's a bad route). Grad school, startups, I'd like to be able to do those things, but I can't while also maintaining my sanity (I've tried).
adamnemecek 12y ago
95% of startups are nowhere near world changing.
- mrec 12y ago
  ...and the other 5% aren't all necessarily changing it for the better.

pkorzeniewski 12y ago

Not every startup is trying to "change the world" or "become a millionaire" - some just want to create a stable, profitable business with a reasonable paychecks for the employees.

nether 12y ago

I've slowly felt my soul being crushed after five years at a small, Office Space-esque mechanical engineering firm in an LA suburb. Our perks include two 10-minute breaks per day where we can make personal calls, walk around the parking lot, or close our office doors. Actual methods of analysis draw heavily from '70s to early '90s engineering. I sound horribly millennial (which I am) to complain about these things while I'm making six figures at age 29, but it feels stifling and inhumane to work like this.

Chinjut 12y ago
You oughtn't feel guilty about finding your situation stifling and soul-crushing. (If that's horribly millenial, well, perhaps millenials have managed to see the matter clearly. Every insight starts in some generation.)
dismal2 12y ago
were you chained to your desk or something? what do you mean 10 minute breaks?
atom-morgan 12y ago
I know exactly what you mean. I felt the same way with my first job as a developer out of college. I'd always considered myself a mentally stable person until _that job_. Like you, I had the feeling that my complaints were those of "millennials" but I couldn't keep myself there. I eventually left and I'm glad I did.
- nether 12y ago
  I'm leaving in ten months. I have $60k in disposable savings (i.e. this excludes retirement) and a pickup truck. I will travel the world for at least a year, then do who knows what. Maybe I'll become a programmer.
nimzo 12y ago
Gen-Xer here... you would be surprised to learn how many of us wholeheartedly agree with you.

MagicWishMonkey 12y ago

Even working at a "change the world startup" can beat you down after a while. Working under a high level of stress for long periods of time, wearing 10 different hats and doing the work of 5 people while not knowing for sure if the investor who promised to cut you a check next week will actually come through.

vonmoltke 12y ago
The problem is, as the article indicates, image. While what you say is often the reality, the image many of these companies portray to the outside world, particularly those outside the SV bubble, is much different. I understand completely where AdmiralAsshat is coming from, because I resemble that remark. Way too strongly. I'm never satisfied with myself. Constantly second-guessing my past decisions. Feeling that I am inferior in some way. Forcing myself to start side projects because that is what "good" engineers do, even if I don't particularly want to do them. I have by all accounts a great life and a solid career. That doesn't stop me from obsessing over not being better, from beating myself up for not having put myself into the position I fell like I should be in.
- MagicWishMonkey 12y ago
  I've spent a lot of time in both worlds, there's nothing really glamorous about the startup space. You're in such a hurry and requirements change so frequently that whatever you build ends up being a godawful mess and you just have to live with it. It kills me because I used to take so much pride in writing (what I considered) beautiful code, but now things are always so rushed that I slap stuff together as well as I can given time constraints. There are some components of my codebase that I try to avoid looking at because it just puts me in a bad mood. All I know is that it works and seems to be relatively bug free, but it's gnarly as all get out. My core project is around 60k lines of Python, I have no doubt that I could rewrite the whole thing in less than 10k lines if I had time to refactor, but there's little chance of that ever happening. I guess what I'm trying to say is that once you're burned out and forever trying to cram 20 hours of work into a 10 hour day there's little chance that anything you do would be what "good engineers" do, so don't beat yourself up about it. I was an engineer for a fortune 500 consulting company at my previous job, the work was somewhat boring but you had the resources to produce extremely high quality work if you were so inclined. I sort of miss that.

Jtsummers 12y ago

Working in one of those sorts of jobs I sometimes feel "depressed" when frequenting sites like HN. On the other hand, I specifically chose my job because anxiety (for me) leads to depression, and the last time I experienced that I almost didn't come out alive. There's something to be said for the "boring" jobs. For me, they give me a good paycheck and haven't usually required overtime. So I can still have a life outside of work while guaranteeing that I will leave my home 5 days out of the week (necessary for me, I have to be around other people to get an escape from my own mind for a while, it's that or something that'll numb my mind like alcohol or video games or something and that's a bad route). Grad school, startups, I'd like to be able to do those things, but I can't while also maintaining my sanity (I've tried).

adamnemecek 12y ago

95% of startups are nowhere near world changing.

mrec 12y ago
...and the other 5% aren't all necessarily changing it for the better.