Tell HN: Sometimes you don't realise how bad something is until you leave
As per title, sometimes in life you don't realise how toxic something can be until you leave it behind, no matter that be a bad habit, a relationship or even work. Sometimes it can be so toxic that you'd consider ending it all (as i did) because there is no visible way out and keeping the money flowing in at the same time when people depend on you. I am here to say thats not the case. Good stuff can happen.
Under another name on here I wrote about my previous job and I felt stuck because if I left I walked away on a large chunk of stock options. That and my age made me feel really depressed and unwanted.
I was driven to actively contemplate suicide due to my boss and his shitty attitudes and issues but no one actually seemed to care. Even then I convinced myself with "aww, it's not so bad" when in reality it was absolutely horrific. Getting out of bed became a real battle. People bitch about people being too lazy to get out of bed but some of those people will not be able to get out of bed because they are so depressed they see no point in it because "it's still gonna suck". I was so sidelined that I could literally disappear for an entire day/days and no-one would notice.
I had a "top 10 dick of the year" award boss who didn't like me at all and proactively sidelined me so much it left me nothing to do on a daily basis. That said, in a large company you can cruise for years and that's what I did. The previous boss was a good guy but he left to pursue better options. Things where quite good back then actually.
Just doing nothing sounds awesome. It's not. It's crap. Imagine having to sit at a workstation for months and years, having to be "present" with nothing to actually do but make some some BS stuff to appear busy. Even doing training courses and such becomes boring after a while. It was a kind of mental prison and my boss truly didn't give a flying you-know-what. Imagine having nothing in your week to justify the normal desire to do something useful. I even wrote scripts to make life better but my boss wouldn't consider them because I wrote them.
Anyhow, it all came to a head and I ended up moving on... (cant go into that too much) and my new job pays much better money and is 500% more interesting and I get to play with cool new technologies. It makes you realise what crap you will really put up with and how from an impartial viewpoint you should have just "nope'd" out of it years ago but the status-quo is just easier to maintain.
Looking back at it I knew my time was up a long time ago but I didn't have the courage to jump. It caused me so much misery and anguish. Looking back on the experience, I wasted several years of my life working for someone who didn't nurture or appreciate talent with his sociopathic tendencies. It's only after all these things have happened that you realise the effects it had.
As an example, my faith in myself is utterly crushed. My new boss has recognised a lot of the mental snot has been virtually beat out of me and is understanding and I am grateful for that and is very helpful.
Recovery will take time but at least I know I wont get verbally berated every time something isn't perfect.
For those that this resonates with, I am not saying jump out right now but plan to just get out, even if a new job pays less or means going into a less demanding job. You can always make more money later but you can't get your time back. I suspect it will take years to get my confidence back but I am so glad to be out of a terrible situation.
It's only when you leave you realise how truly terrible it was. I am however still resentful over the lost years.
223 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 233 ms ] threadBurnout & depression suck. They're cycles that area easy to get stuck in and hard to get out of. When it comes to avoiding such situations in the future, therapy and personal boundaries are the tools I personally reach for, but recovery is a long journey. Don't let them drain you of the energy you need to make life worth living.
As a mentor told me, "Illegitimi non carborundum".
A therapist can really help get you to a place where you feel more in control of your destiny. From there, you can take real action to get out of a bad situation.
Source: personal experience.
Your brain is in a way like any other organ in your body. When the other organs don't work you go see a doctor.
We need to normalize talking about mental health. Instead of making it a big deal and stigmatizing it.
We should be able to casually say "I went to the therapist yesterday and it was great, and then I got some eggs from the supermarket and then I made myself a sandwich".
We spend too much time worrying about what other people think.
True.
But also consider there are a class of people who suffer through things thinking "This is not that bad, right? Is this a normal experience"?. And especially an issue if they're isolated (which commonly causes depression), they lack normalcy around them reinforcing "Yes its that bad! That is not normal and you need help!"
The problem is a toxic working environment.
The meta problem is handwaving away too many toxic working environments with "the root cause of the problem is solved because the victims can get therapy"
It's no different than staying with an abuser.
I wish I’d left.
It can get bad if you stay. Take everything.
We are a highly specialized society with lots of occupations that can help you navigate different kinds of problems. For this kind of problem in particular, try talking to a therapist.
If you are overwhelmed by a plumbing problem, you call a plumber. If your house is burning down, you call the fire department. If your pet has a problem, you go see a veterinarian. This is the same thing. Nobody expects you to be an expert in getting out of every type of problem that exists. Just don't think too hard about it or care too much about what others might think.
Be kind to yourself.
I'd recommend avoiding talkspace.
And for the love of god, if a therapist isn't working for you within 3 sessions, For fucks sake don't "stick it out".
You're worth it. Get the help you deserve, not what the system is willing to give you on it's first try.
There's nothing worse than a therapist that you know isn't listening to you, and you keep going, because your actual problem is that you can't tell the difference between what's your fault and what's not.
And they never let you or helped you get there.
And you could see it. And you knew that was your fault.
So you didn't say anything.
And besides, you were a rich tech bro, he was employed on a gig platform. He's more economically dependent, ergo he deserves help, ergo I'll stick with him and try to be an easy client.
This is the product of a diseased mind that can't fucking stand up for itself.
So. Fuck TalkSpace.
And whoever reads this. Yes. Find someone else. It's not your responsibility to stick with a therapist that isn't working for you.
If you've gone through five therapists, maybe you're the problem, I don't know. Then open that box.
But you have _my_ permission, to go through five therapists before asking yourself that question.
You also have my permission to ignore that, and believe that you can go through any number of therapists.
I affirm your right to choose.
If your current situation sucks and you can step away (NOT end your life), do it. Whatever chance exists for things to get better, it's better than sticking with something you know is bad.
Whenever you think to yourself "why bother changing, it's just going to be as bad as it is here" that is learned helplessness, and you correct that the way you did, by leaving the situation. It's a coping mechanism for people that doesn't have the physical, mental or emotional energy to endure a change to get themselves out of a bad situation and it's a trap.
Congrats on working your way out of the bad situation and hopefully this empowerment continues with your for the rest of your life!
>Just doing nothing sounds awesome. It's not. It's crap.
Yeah, this is something people don't realize until they're it in. It's not fun. Humans long to be needed.
>but I didn't have the courage to jump
This is one of those things I personally have trouble wrapping my head around, but I know it happens. Kudos for getting it done.
I could very happily set and achieve little goals for the rest of my life -- in video games, education, little creative pursuits, and hobbies -- and never once look back. Really don't care for externally set goals or validation.
I wonder, why? Sisyphus was condemned to aimlessly push a rock forever, but isn't that basically just the human condition? Most of us convince ourselves we're doing something, but it's narrative. Very little materializes, very rarely as intended. We like feedback and certainty in the face of randomness -- it's the attraction to slot machines. But musicians rarely predict their most popular songs (and sometimes come to hate 'em), founders toil away pivoting for years before they stumble on something that works (but most give up first), artists often only have their work recognized posthumously.
I'm drawn to characters like Jerry in Parks and Rec or Stanley in the Office because they embrace the rock. They aren't revolutionizing or disrupting. In a certain way they're really very heroic. They meet the soul-crushing apathy and uncertainty of their place in the universe head on without complaints, excuses or lies. Though mocked and derided as lazy, incompetent fools they steadily carry on. They're stoics in a modern bureaucratic context. And really there's a certain beautiful zen to that. It's very unrelatable for me and, I assume, most of the tech world.
If you could convince the company to make you a part of a mini skunkworks team with the freedom to do anything as long as it benefits the company then I don't think anyone would object to it from a mental health perspective.
This is my lived reality right now. It's not necessarily super fun in the long run. It can get draining to work on new thing after new thing, only for it to get shut down because it doesn't _quite_ fit the company strategy or they can't find anywhere internally to anchor it.
Plenty of good ideas have died that way.
That said, I think it also heavily depends on the company. If the work you're doing is directly feeding into the development pipeline, it sounds like fucking heaven. Mine, however, is not.
It is funny though, the number of people I know who got there and then went back to work for "the man" again. Not for the money, but for having people they could hang out with and talk about things with. They sometimes find happiness working for a company where they have the freedom to be completely honest because "losing your job" isn't a threat that bothers them.
In the US managing health care is annoying, of course if you can live without working in the US then you can likely live as an ex-pat in a country that has decent health care included. It has its own set of tradeoffs (languages, community, Etc.)
And for some the "little goals" start to feel dishonest, kind of like knowing that you could do "anything" with your remaining life and you are doing little goals you made up for "fun." I know it doesn't sit well with people who were raised to "make a difference" and "be the change."
Giving back can be rewarding, mentoring younger people, people who are coming up the ladder. Working with organizations staffed with volunteers brings its own set of quirks. Sometimes "prima donna" doesn't quite capture it :-).
At some point you really internalize "hmm, I'm going to be dead and do I care what others think of how I spent these years?" Facing mortality sometimes re-arranges what is, and what is not, important to you. Depending on how close one sees the "finish line" that can be either empowering or depressing. Often a little of both.
Meanwhile hopefully the market/regulation sorts itself, and your boss loses his job, because someone does something worthwhile elsewhere.
A few years ago I had a tech job where they straight up didn't have work for me to do. For the first month it was amazing. But after a few months a day of doing nothing was completely draining. And my dads words rang in my head again, and I was like damn that as true now as it was when I was 11.
Doing nothing is shockingly hard mentally. We need to be engaged in stuff day to day, and without that engagement it seems like we spend a lot of energy trying to find something to do.
However, nobody was grumpy at me at any time.
What are good sources for learning more about how my body works and how to fine tune it?
Is someone responsible available for that revenue generating, or loss preventing, "thing", that has a high enough uptime to not attract anyone's wrath? OK then.
Because I love the phrase, but I'm not a native speaker, and unable to coax google into clearing this up.
Would you use this in written form only or when speaking too?
(third opinions are also very welcome!)
OP if you read my previous comment, then that does not apply to the phrase that ethanbond corrected.
Safe to say that no, not idiomatic. And if you use this phrase as quoted people will be very confused and have no idea what you're trying to communicate.
It communicates that you're in the middle of something chaotic/stressful like a jungle. The phrase is very natural for native speakers.
Between personal survival and tribal survival (a sort of partial gene survival pattern) It makes a lot of sense.
until recently (and even currently in some places). If you do nothing you freeze, starve, and fail to attract a mate for procreation.
Until recently if you were not a net contributor to the tribe, you risked being ejected.
We likely have hardwired circuits that ensure we are actively contributing (ie needed).
I had two short stints with government jobs (one working part-time while in college and once for a major defense contractor) and they were terrible. Strict rules prevented anyone from doing things that were fun and productive. At the end of the year, we once ran out of 'funded projects' and we were forced to work on trivial matters while tracking our time in 30 minute increments. It was painful to find a way to clean your desk for 2 hours. We would have a long meeting where nothing was really discussed just to have a few hours to charge to some check box item. This went on for several weeks.
The best jobs were the ones I had freedom to build what I though the customer wanted. I would sometimes work until 10pm not realizing that quitting time occurred hours earlier (I was still single at the time otherwise my wife would have interrupted).
Startups can be some of the best places to let your creative juices flow. They are not the most stable for guaranteed income, but they can be very rewarding in other ways.
I think a lot of it boils down to these factors:
- SUNK COST FALLACY. A lot of people work at one place for many, many years. When you're happy, your natural inclination is to not look around. So when the ball drops and things change, you long for the good old days and stay hoping for the things that kept you around to come back. Concurrently, your resume stale and you begin to forget what interviewing was like. As a result, when you finally realize "Oh my! I hate this fucking place!" you feel stuck.
- FEAR/LACKING SELF-WORTH. Maybe you have kids, a mortgage, a fancy remodel you're paying for, whatever. You are scared that your skills aren't attractive to employers. You're also scared you'll get found out and fired for treason or something. So you make do. (I was scared of this for a bit. The truth is, everyone knows when everyone is looking. "I'm feeling unwell" is the oldest lie in the book, most of the time.)
- FEAR OF CHANGE. "What if the new place sucks as much as this place?" This one's actually valid, but to that I say "What have you got to lose, except leaving a place you ALREADY KNOW is awful? Worst case, you leave and try again, which you can do now because you rock at interviewing!"
It consists in creating a hostile environment so that you are forced to quit.
It is illegal. You have to document everything, create a solid case, then sue the company.
EDIT: 1) Don't even need to go to court. 2) It's a nice F-off to the boss because their boss and above will now know what's happening.
You use it as fuck you money for your next job.
It sounds like the poster stayed a long time and got paid for doing nothing. The details of the actual "came to a head / moved on" are missing.
I don't think going after the company is a good idea based on the facts presented.
Sometimes you don't realise how GOOD something is until you leave.
Regret follows both.
I'll be earning less, yet I'll gladly leave a situation where not a lot of persons have a clue what our industry means let alone our specific domain.
Minor point, but it seems like another one for the "receiving actual money is better than stock options" column.
When I was an intern at a large company, I rotated through a TON of departments until I found what I liked.
https://www.issendai.com/psychology/sick-systems.html
There are people who I feel are annoying and toxic, but I don’t get rid of them because I am afraid of the reactions of those who are left. They are talking shit about the company to others and spreading discontent and it’s easy to feel like firing the person will somehow prove them right to everyone else.
Then after actually getting rid of them, suddenly a bunch of people come out the woodwork and talk to me about how the person has been terrible for years and the how they are so relived that they are gone. I get told so many stories which make me understand that things were much worse than I even realised.
Why was nobody saying anything before! That would have given me so much confidence to get rid of them sooner!
In reality, I do understand why. Talking shit about others is exactly the behaviour that the toxic people who need to be removed are doing. Well adjusted people don’t want to do it.
But still, it proves the point. Trust your gut. Don’t let a bad situation persist based on what others will think.
Is this a manager issue? Non-believers have never interfered with my work, and are much preferred to the more common species “the manipulator”, also known as social climbers. Interfering is their MO, and toxic positivity their hallmark.
If a manager sees a report as a troublemaker, slacker, or someone overstepping, things can get difficult for the report. And likewise if a report doesn't respect a manager, or thinks they could do better, or acts competitively, the manager will have problems managing.
Also IME: if a relationship between manager and report starts in the wrong foot, with impossible expectations, or even without proper recognition of each other's roles and talents, it's something that's very difficult to fix, but there's no way around fixing it. Time only makes it worse.
And this underlines what stress is all about: Not working hard, but spinning your wheels and going nowhere. It will make a mess out of you.
And yeah, for whatever reasons the tech startup world can be ultra-nasty compared to everywhere else. The level of vindictive, nasty, hateful behavior can get completely out of control, often happening right out in the open. Not sure why, but when startups go bad, they can go ultra-bad.
I know what I'm capable of, and when I compare it to what I've done lately, it just crushes my spirit.