Ask HN: In what order did the best and worst periods in your career come?
edit: I like that a modest amount of people have upvotes this, and thank you to the people who did respond, but just a very quick post mortem on 2 tine periods would be very helpful.
If you are a founder, employee, student, unemployed whatever, what moment or timeframe was would you say:
"Fuck Yes, I am/am close to my definition of success"
and
"the sick to your stomach, cold sweat, vomit in a trash can before work, abject failure monent/s in your life"
what order did they come.
24 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 64.1 ms ] thread"Partied" too much, went broke, ran up massive credit card debt and selfishly borrowed money from my parents. Had nothing to show for it, had to move back home and sell my car. However, I am finally starting to get my shit together and become employable again. I would have answered my own question from a professional standpoint, but have been perpetually unemployed. Now at least, I have a few small contracts ~1k lined up and am learning heaps. So hopefully for me the order is "worst" => 1 year to present, best => some time in the close future.
At all times I was employed for good money, happily married with 3 super-bright boys, involved in community and family.
Friend of mine at work took my picture seconds after I got it working, you can see the crazed look in my eye.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/24025582@N03/4150935582/in/dat...
The worst day of my professional life was probably the day Derek Sivers canned me because, "I want to do your job myself."
Had I known I was so easily expendable - I'd have left years before to get some variety (I was a systems admin / programmer)
High point - 6 months ago - got our first real corporate sponsor for my side project. Not enough to leave our day jobs, but enough to prove what we're doing isn't a waste of time and make life a bit nicer. responsibilities - anything and everything related to IT / Programming / DB Admin / Design / UI, etc...
Side project started about a year before I got let go from that low point job - so about 4 years in the making.
Was this agreement only good for the time you were an employee? Was the company ever sold?
Why did you have to sign any documents after termination? What did you stand to gain by signing those documents (or stand to lose, by not signing them)?
It's usual to sign a contract only if both sides get something out of it (whether money, a promise to do (or not do) something, ...). In many jurisdictions, a contract is void if this isn't the case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consideration
In the beginning I had started out at a telecom that was quite stable (around 1997). I was 19, it was my first "real job" with a paycheck good enough for me to live comfortably on my own. Within a year I went from lower-level support work to back-end support. The market my company was in was disrupted, causing bankruptcy in 2001. This was still a great time. When something like this happens, the company survives on the best members of its staff and I was that guy -- I quickly filled in gaps and started in software development (where my passion was anyway).
Over time, this led to my worst periods. The demands for the job grew, but my salary and frequency of interesting projects did not (except for a brief period in 2008). Every 6 months the company shrank taking with it a majority of the great people I worked with (most leaving on their own due to the environment). Coming in to work every day amidst the terrible moral was taxing.
I left that job last year though I wouldn't say that my work ethic has changed. I never let the bad things get me down -- ultimately, I have this job to support my family and that's motivation enough to do the best work I am capable of. But that has a cost. Every day I'd drag myself out of bed, start work, and when finished I'd be "spent". My performance at work didn't change, but I can now admit that my performance in everything outside of work suffered greatly to the extent of it being one of the reasons I am now divorced.
I'm now back on track. At my new job I work with and for excellent people -- people who truly love the work and the company they work for. I fly out of bed at 5:00-5:30 AM excited to work (so excited, in fact, that I use it as motivation to get a morning run in ... "I can start working as soon as I eat breakfast and run around the block" ... it's weird to use "starting work" as a reward for doing something I don't want to do). It helps that this place is both a good fit for my skillset and a great place to expand it. I'm a passionate learner and need a job that keeps things interesting and new.
My personal lesson in all of this is "If you can help it, don't keep a job that doesn't value you". If you work in software development today and you're any good (heck, even if your not from what I've seen) there are few good reasons to stay at a lousy employer for very long. I had no excuses. I stayed 3 more years than I should have, maybe more. Loss aversion and fear that I wouldn't find a job as good as I had were paralyzing for me. This was powerful enough to keep me from even getting my resume together and looking. Once I began looking, I discovered that despite the lousy local economy, there were endless choices available to me so I took the one that fit best with my circumstances. The end result is that I no longer finish the day "spent". I've managed -- using the 8 or so hours I can devote to it on the weekend -- to complete 5 personal projects, 3 released open-source. When I talk about what I do, those are the things I tend to mention first -- they are mine, and a direct result of mt overall happiness.
My worst period is now. I am 61, have been unemployed for two years and I sometimes wonder if I've retired and just don't know it yet.
Worst moment:
'00 tech bubble implosion. I had dropped out of college, was working for a major company (ask.com) and survived three rounds of layoffs. Watching FuckedCompany.com and seeing the rumors come true made me phyically ill. I saw friends lose their jobs and I rationalized it by telling myself they were the lower-skilled employees, not really adding value (that's true, they weren't). Then it was my turn to be cut. I couldn't help applying my rationalization to myself. It was bad for me.
High point:
I had a manager try to coerce me into signing an agreement to stay with the company for the next 2 years. I was interviewing at the time and quit a week later. When I gave him my resignation he said "I have a lot of friends in Silicon Valley, and you better stay at this job for a long time because it's the last one you're going to get." 2 years later I get an internal reference check email. I wanted to try to sub in for the on-site interview, but I'm glad I took the high road and just gave the hiring coordinator my history with him.
'Sub in': Act as a substitute for some else (in this case, another interviewer) if that person can't/won't make it.
The high point of my career was when I quit a job and just started making money without an employer.
I really don't think tech jobs pay well enough for what they demand. I read the descriptions of job ads now and just get disgusted.
The high point of my career was when I quit a job and just started making money without an employer.
I really don't think tech jobs pay well enough for what they demand. I read the descriptions of job ads now and just get disgusted.