I 'left tech' a few times, but the money is good, I have the skills, so its an ideal fallback. Take care not to burn your bridges, no matter how tattered they may seem.
Sorry but what are we supposed to take from this? It sounds like this person was helped every step of the way, including immigration, but fell into depression and mental health issues around the same time they transitioned gender. But apparently the only thing that changed was other people's perception of him/her? I doubt it.
Now they post a long self indulgent medium post rambling on about their career, which turns out to be a job ad / guilt tripping combo.
Nobody owes you a job, everyone goes through struggles like this sometimes. The fact that it even occurs to someone to post something like this is a sign they believe it'll work. That's privilege.
I was thinking the same thing ... I've been in tech for 35 years and it's generally a stressful industry (especially during crunch time). She also seems to spend a very short amount of time at each place she works and is constantly changing frameworks/technology. Don't get me wrong, I like playing with new technologies but you also need to achieve mastery at some of them.
It's wrong to say they're constantly changing frameworks/technology when they are clearly specialised within the JavaScript ecosystem: Node, React, GraphQL, etc.
Also, I think the post above yours is in very poor taste. They might have gotten a little help along the way, but the reality is that companies don't support people with mental health issues enough.
Also, I'm unfortunately not surprised that they were out of work for 7 months, and expect it probably was due to bias against non-conforming gender identities. The world is superficial and cruel about things like this.
Yes ... the deck is stacked against her for other reasons which may make it entirely impossible to prosper in a tech field. I'm not saying that any of the other factors that might have led her to abandon the field that (from the writing it seems that) she loves. Mental health issues can have devastating effects on any career (not that that's fair either) but it's no secret that many of the homeless in the U.S. have mental health problems.
It's true that one has to master a few but it is difficult in a rather unstable job market.
I am not complaining. I just sharing my concern. My perspective might be wrong, please comment.
Personally, my stack keeps changing with every job. I have worked on many diverse systems like vb.net desktop app, C# asp.net, java, django, jekyll, rails and I am honestly confused & lost. I will be hunting again in a couple of months.
Now I decided to start doing a personal project so I can focus on a stack and not worry of changing. I am focusing on js as I have spent most of the time in web apps and use html, js & css but my skill level is very average. Now I am learning js as I want to strength my front-end basics. I picked vuejs but the decision was tough one and I am not sure its the right one. While flask as my backend.
The variety of stack are just stressful. I am still not sure if this is a good choice for career or I should look at spring or python (django/flask) or ruby (rails) or go full on js with nodejs. React & angular are just nightmare. I am trying to not think of mobile. That is an ie6 nightmare all over again.
I am now looking for a steady job for 2 yrs with a particular stack as I can focus on it.
The health issue is another concern. I have stopped taking the lift for 1-2 floors and make a point to just go for 30 mins walk in the open air.
People don't like hiring people that have track records of long absences for work and mental breaks. I'd have 0 problems employing a trans/gay/gender fluid person but hiring someone with a documented history of sudden long absences would be a problem. ESPECIALLY in a startup where everyone has to be pulling their weight all the time-you can't put the effort into developing and integrating a team member just to have them check in and out of work randomly.
Hi, friend. If you are in the US, you might want to look at the requirements of the [Americans with Disabilities Act][0]. They specifically do cover mental impairments such as depression. [It can be hard to get needed accommodations from employers, though.][1]
This is one of the things that really bothers me, dealing with mental health issues. Even people that intellectually understand that mental health issues are as real as physical health issues, will, when it comes down to it, expect you to suck it up and behave as if you did not have those issues. It is endlessly frustrating.
I sympathize with the author, but I'm guessing the stints of unemployment have more to do with the potential for flight risk giving the sporadic employment history.
IMO, a mediocre but reliable developer is more ideal than an all star who you can't rely on.
Best of luck to the author though - I hope that sunnier days are ahead.
I'd suggest step back from everything, go camping away from all tech for a couple of weeks and use that time to reflect upon what makes you happy.
You had a passion for the artistic side form what I can tell and also coding, but I have personally found if you mix your passion with work, then getting that balance right can be hard and you will often find your taken advantage of (long hours/work loads, most self impossed) and can only end up burning out and wearing you down and lead to depression.
It is a common issue, not just in tech, but the industry does enable it more than other industries.
You may find that doing your own passion may well be profitable and by that doing your own company, not contracting, but providing a service of some form. As indeed you have done in the past, via your art initially.
But stepping back, and away from all everything, to collect your thoughts and removing all the noise is a great way to get to know yourself what you truly want and what you do not want.
Don't let a few bad people/experiences dictate your life, more so when you have had many good people/experiences. Why focus upon the bad more, is often easily done.
I appreciate writing about it can be very cathartic and enlightening, but equally, can end up forcing yourself into making decisions based upon the bad and ignoring the good. You may even find yourself writing a book of advice you wished your younger self had read and that is perhaps something to ponder.
But don't rule anything out, but do get away from it all and collect your feelings and enable you to work out what you want in life, what you need in life and what you want to avoid in life. Also be mindful that over time those goals/needs and wants change as time goes on, and currently your priority is yourself, what you want, what makes you happy.
TLDR: someone goes through a bunch of jobs, things didn't work out at current job, gets fired, decides on not working in tech anymore, and blames the world. Also a lot of talk about trigger warnings, depressions, gender related talk and considering becoming a dominatrix.
Trigger Warning: Don't read the article if you cannot stand boring content and copious amounts of self-loathing.
16 comments
[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 46.6 ms ] threadIf you get burnt out multiple times you should really change something because it seems the working environment is not a good fit.
I 'left tech' a few times, but the money is good, I have the skills, so its an ideal fallback. Take care not to burn your bridges, no matter how tattered they may seem.
Now they post a long self indulgent medium post rambling on about their career, which turns out to be a job ad / guilt tripping combo.
Nobody owes you a job, everyone goes through struggles like this sometimes. The fact that it even occurs to someone to post something like this is a sign they believe it'll work. That's privilege.
Also, I think the post above yours is in very poor taste. They might have gotten a little help along the way, but the reality is that companies don't support people with mental health issues enough.
Also, I'm unfortunately not surprised that they were out of work for 7 months, and expect it probably was due to bias against non-conforming gender identities. The world is superficial and cruel about things like this.
I am not complaining. I just sharing my concern. My perspective might be wrong, please comment.
Personally, my stack keeps changing with every job. I have worked on many diverse systems like vb.net desktop app, C# asp.net, java, django, jekyll, rails and I am honestly confused & lost. I will be hunting again in a couple of months.
Now I decided to start doing a personal project so I can focus on a stack and not worry of changing. I am focusing on js as I have spent most of the time in web apps and use html, js & css but my skill level is very average. Now I am learning js as I want to strength my front-end basics. I picked vuejs but the decision was tough one and I am not sure its the right one. While flask as my backend.
The variety of stack are just stressful. I am still not sure if this is a good choice for career or I should look at spring or python (django/flask) or ruby (rails) or go full on js with nodejs. React & angular are just nightmare. I am trying to not think of mobile. That is an ie6 nightmare all over again.
I am now looking for a steady job for 2 yrs with a particular stack as I can focus on it.
The health issue is another concern. I have stopped taking the lift for 1-2 floors and make a point to just go for 30 mins walk in the open air.
This is one of the things that really bothers me, dealing with mental health issues. Even people that intellectually understand that mental health issues are as real as physical health issues, will, when it comes down to it, expect you to suck it up and behave as if you did not have those issues. It is endlessly frustrating.
[0]: https://www.eeoc.gov/facts/ada17.html [1]: https://www.verywell.com/the-ada-and-depression-know-your-ri...
IMO, a mediocre but reliable developer is more ideal than an all star who you can't rely on.
Best of luck to the author though - I hope that sunnier days are ahead.
You had a passion for the artistic side form what I can tell and also coding, but I have personally found if you mix your passion with work, then getting that balance right can be hard and you will often find your taken advantage of (long hours/work loads, most self impossed) and can only end up burning out and wearing you down and lead to depression.
It is a common issue, not just in tech, but the industry does enable it more than other industries.
You may find that doing your own passion may well be profitable and by that doing your own company, not contracting, but providing a service of some form. As indeed you have done in the past, via your art initially.
But stepping back, and away from all everything, to collect your thoughts and removing all the noise is a great way to get to know yourself what you truly want and what you do not want.
Don't let a few bad people/experiences dictate your life, more so when you have had many good people/experiences. Why focus upon the bad more, is often easily done.
I appreciate writing about it can be very cathartic and enlightening, but equally, can end up forcing yourself into making decisions based upon the bad and ignoring the good. You may even find yourself writing a book of advice you wished your younger self had read and that is perhaps something to ponder.
But don't rule anything out, but do get away from it all and collect your feelings and enable you to work out what you want in life, what you need in life and what you want to avoid in life. Also be mindful that over time those goals/needs and wants change as time goes on, and currently your priority is yourself, what you want, what makes you happy.
Trigger Warning: Don't read the article if you cannot stand boring content and copious amounts of self-loathing.