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Ask HN: How should I deal with unhappiness at my job

1 points by mythriel ↗ HN
I am not sure what to do and I am in a big dilemma for a while now. I am unhappy at my current job due to the fact that I really do not like the projects my company has, the ideas and the crappy "enterprise" ideas they have where they label it enterprise(which in fact is crap) just for marketing purposes. The happiest time I have is when I arrive home and work for 2-3 hours on my side projects.

Why I have this dilemma and not just quit? Well because this job is paying really good and I only have 1 client for who I work during my spare time + I like to do a lot of fun personal projects and try new stuff. Maybe the problem is with me because I always want to do fun projects and projects that are used by a lot of people and learn new technologies, not just do the same crap over and over using tools and methodologies that are years behind.

I am considering of going full time freelancer, the only problem is I am afraid of not earning enough money to pay everything I can afford now.

Any advice?

6 comments

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Jemaclus
The first thing you should do is talk to your boss about it. Tell him why you're unhappy and see if he can help. If he values you as an employee, he'll bend over backwards to make you happy and prevent you from leaving. If not... then it's time to leave anyway. Full-time freelancing might be an option, but it's harder than it looks. You may just want to look for another job.
mythriel
Thx for the advice. The problem is I do not think they will change what they do because the company is doing great and generates nice income and I have talked with my boss and most of the time he says he listens for advices but he doesn't.
a123ea
You should begin to look for client. If you find something cool, ask for a big salary rise and tell them you can find your own client and want a promotion.

If yes, big salary, you chose fun projects : WIN.

If no, you leave, make fun project and big salary if you can chose them : WIN

NOTHING CAN FAIL ON THE WEB

lutusp
> I am considering of going full time freelancer, the only problem is I am afraid of not earning enough money to pay everything I can afford now.

Well, this may seem obvious, but you must either decrease your income expectations or your job-satisfaction expectations. Expressed algebraically:

JSE = 1/IE

Where:

JSE = Job satisfaction expectations

IE = Income expectations

Simple to express with an equation, but probably not very useful.

cdvonstinkpot
I thought this kind of thing doesn't happen to programmers because of the demand there is for them. I thought you can just leave jobs like these. Why are you staying here?
mythriel
I got many other offers but rejected them. The payment is really good that is why I am staying.