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by JohnFen 1048 days ago
The best dev I ever knew developed a serious case of burnout. He went to truck-driving school and drove long-haul trucks for a couple of years. He then came back to software development cured of his burnout.

Not saying that you should drive trucks, but I think doing something else -- something completely unrelated to dev work -- might be of help.
2 comments
seabass-labrax 1048 days ago
There was a rather weird episode in British political history just after the first wave of COVID lockdowns. The performance arts, limited to outdoor events, were struggling, leading to jokes mocking the government's advice for these performers to 'upskill' as computer programmers. Simultaneously, the lack of temporary residents from other EU countries (who comprise the majority of truck/lorry drivers) due to Brexit meant that computer programmers were joking about 'upskilling' to become drivers with double a programmer's salary!
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jsunderland323 1048 days ago
I feel like taking a job where people take meth to drive for 3 days without sleep is probably the weirdest way to overcome JavaScript fatigue.
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Clubber 1048 days ago
You should probably brush up on modern trucking regulations that have been in place for at least 20 years.
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JohnFen 1048 days ago
That in no way resembles his work experience. He did tell me a few interesting things, though. He was really surprised how many software devs he met who were driving the big rigs. It seems to be a thing.

Another was how many skills overlap the two fields. Driving the big rig is an exercise in resource management and planning, so you can do things like ensure that by the time you need more fuel, you're in a place where the fuel costs are lower.

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jsunderland323 1048 days ago
Sorry, I made my comment in jest. I guess it didn’t land well.

Yeah, I can see the resource planning overlaps. I’m glad it worked out for your friend!

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JohnFen 1047 days ago
Ah, that went right over my head.

There is one stereotype that he confirmed, though: it's common for drivers to keep two sets of driving logs, one real and one doctored, in order to be able to drive longer at a time than is legally allowed without getting caught.

This was quite a number of years ago, though. It's entirely possible that GPS is used to mitigate this these days. I don't know.

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