[neutronicus]

Not the person you're replying to, but, personally, because my career is a Sword of Damocles.

There are projects, the time-scale is like a year, they can fail spectacularly, and it can be perceived as (may actually be) my fault. Projects from years ago can be understood, in hindsight, to have been fucked up. I fantasize about quitting and driving a bus, going home everyday having no doubt that the day's work met expectations. Giving my son a bath without feeling compelled to sneak away for another edit-compile-debug cycle.

It's becoming increasingly evident to me that I just want to stockpile savings against what feels like an increasingly inevitable crash-and-burn of this career. Be it GenAI, my own ADHD and lack of follow-through, whatever.

And when that day comes, just do something I can't fuck up

[analognoise]

It sounds more like a perspective issue than anything. Dev work is becoming more unstable - we’re now being sacrificed quarterly to appease the Shareholder Omnissiah - even the best of us.

The old deal was that “if you were good or smart you’d always have work” isn’t true anymore. Instead we have to just accept chronic instability - but we do have a choice!

…just stop doing extra. Stop it. Control yourself and re-evaluate what’s important. It’s a hard cycle to break, but I believe you can do it. Then if you get laid off or a project crashes, just shrug and onto the next one.

How can they really apply pressure to anyone if you’re subject to random layoffs? Eventually it will be your turn, so just chill to heal burnout, then instead of extra cycles for your job, do something you enjoy, maybe build a shelter in the woods somewhere, learn to live off the land, find a local source of body paint for your war band, learn to weld so you can build a mad max roadster in the coming wasteland apocalypse you know this isn’t coming out like how I expected; on closer inspection I also have a lot of anxiety about this “new normal” apparently?

[neutronicus]

> …just stop doing extra. Stop it. Control yourself and re-evaluate what’s important. It’s a hard cycle to break, but I believe you can do it. Then if you get laid off or a project crashes, just shrug and onto the next one.

That's why I need the savings. You're suggesting I behave like a man with leverage. Currently, I am not one.

FWIW, this current level of burnout-inducing commitment is because I am gunning for a promotion. If I get it, I will indeed pull back. Or, indeed, if I don't get it. One way or the other.

[apwell23]

> burnout-inducing commitment is because I am gunning for a promotion

Why are you gunning for a promotion

[neutronicus]

For the following reasons:

1. My career is no less a Sword of Damocles when I am semi-checked-out and spending more time on domesticity. Getting promoted would, I hope, (a) make me more secure in my current position by tying it to the judgment of the people who promoted me, (b) make me secure in my career more generally by generating a paper trail of high performance in this position, and (c) make me more secure generally by increasing my income and allowing me to save more.

2. My wife encouraged me to do it, and I need to demonstrate commitment to both professional success and The Domestic Project (enabled, as it is, more by our combined incomes than our actual domestic labor) to keep her happy. Possibly to keep her around. It is valuable for our relationship, I think, for her to know what it takes, so that FOMO on lost income does not foster resentment of my complacency in my career

[jf22]

> Possibly to keep her around.

Hey now. I think you have other issues than your job.

And to be honest, it sounds like you don't like your job because you're gunning for a promotion.

[wnolens]

After years of this in FANG/adjacent, I recently started a new job that isn't like this. I didn't know it really existed. But we work quarter to quarter on goals. If they slip, next quarter is fine, no stress. I work 9-5.

Re: AI. Ya I dunno. I imagine we'll ride the (10 year?) wave of being the principal AI tool users before we're replaced by an MBA and a prompt. More than enough to squirrel away money.