whatthedangheck

There are two possibilities:

- the entire media is in a conspiracy against the world's richest man.

- he really is a jerk and when he initiated the Twitter deal it got the public focus on him and so when stories started churning out they couldn't help but be about what a jerk he is.

I think which of these cases you find most likely will say a lot about your personality and state of mind.

That's really fantastic to hear. Another commenter said that Nursing is very brutal and abusive. I've heard the same said about medical school. How do you feel about this based on your first hand experience?

Before you take such a drastic action you should try to visit a shelter or an outreach service of some kind and keep an open mind and an open heart about any services they offer you. Wishing you the best.

Very sober advice and I appreciate it. That's why I haven't done these things.

This is really dark. How did this all start. Were you employed at one point or did you start that startup? How old are you? Where do you live?

That's really terrible. I hope you'll get into a better spot. Good on you for leaving that first job. Recognizing that it was bad and then acting on it took courage.

Yes. The pay cut would be obscene. The only way I could justify it would be to think of it as a soft retirement.

(Because I suppose we're here to trauma dump I'm moving my stream of consciousness about wanting to be a nurse to this comment where it seems more appropriate.)

My daydreaming about being a nurse started again when I was taking care of a friend in the hospital after she had a serious blood clot. I was spending 15-20 hours a week there feeding her and stuff because she could barely move and thinking that it was the happiest I'd felt in ages. I should have been stressed out because I was coordinating with her out of town family, and taking care of errands for her, and coordinating with her job, and talking with her doctors and nurses and such but I would leave the hospital feeling so happy and recharched. Meanwhile I feel so drained after spending a few hours "coding" or reviewing design documents or, worse, writing design documents. I think I just don't like technology even though I learned a lot about it to make money.

At this point in my career everyone wants to hire me at the equivalent of what would be L5/L6 at Google and at that level they all want me full time and want me to "mentor" people and be a leader. It's part of the problem of me doing really well at interviewing. I can solve your leetcode problems, design a distributed system, and tell you everything about how your operating system works down to the level of hardware interrupts so I pass these interviews left and right but I don't have the drive or passion to be a "leader" in this field.... Maybe this is the root of my burnout actually.

edit How can I even find a part time job at this point? I have executive recruiters sometimes even trying to get me to be a CTO. Everything points in the direction of companies wanting more of my time not less.

It's good advice, thanks for it. We are in good financial shape and only plan to have our one child luckily. My partner is not working at the moment but he has a masters degree in engineering so I'm sure he could also find work.

I hope your situation worked out in the end too.

Speaking of standup, yeah.... It's obviously a way to keep people on track and apply some social pressure insofar as that. It's not too bad compared to other stressful jobs but it's annoying haha.

Yes. I'm currently employed by a well known company but interviewing elsewhere. I've been a SWE for 10 years and even though I'm still able to smash tech interviews for the most part thanks to lots of grinding over the years I just feel so empty inside about working on computers. It's no fun. I feel isolated. I'm a very social person in real life so I live for the weekends and otherwise spend my mornings and afternoons stressed out about what to say at our daily standup because the truth is I don't care about any of it enough to get invested in a project. But it's hard to leave this field. I'm really good at interviewing and because of that I've been able to secure very good pay and conditions of employment.

In the past 4 years I've seriously looked into going to Nursing School and Cosmetology School respectively (Cosmetology School might seem silly but it's only a year, it's cheap, and it's something I'm interested in). The idea that I'd give up my cushy SWE job for much lower pay even in the case of Nursing says everything there is to say about how burnt out I am. In the end I probably will leave this field anyway. I don't suspect spending my middle age and above programming will be any more fulfilling.

Above all the weirdest part about burnout as a SWE is the GUILT that I feel about it. I get paid a lot. I have a very flexible job with a lot of autonomy. I am coddled but somehow I daydream about ... going to work from 7-7 at a hospital???? It makes me question my sanity.