| > doing this without pay No, you got paid in vibes. Never. Accept. Vibes. Vibes are for losers. Refuse to be treated like a loser. Reject vibes; demand money. It is always a mistake to do un-paid work for an organization that wants turn a profit from your work. They will always suck you dry, as if you are a fire hydrant and they are a blackhole. > Planning on letting him know I'm out near the end of this week. Stand up for yourself. Stop working immediately and tell them that you won't work for free any more. If they want further work, they should start paying immediately. And consider demanding they pay for work already done. Your time is valuable; you can't get any of it back. Only genuinely charitable organizations and in-need individuals should ever get free work; everyone else must pay for work. > Co-founder didn't understand why I wasn't interested working without salary anymore. This is methhead logic on his part. Again, reject vibes; demand money. Methheads live on vibes, especially the vibes from stimulants. > most of my friends make way more money than me or have families Again, reject vibes. You see their vibes, but are you so sure that they are actually doing well overall? They could be in debt up to their eye-balls; they could have terrible family situations; they could be totally burned-out from working 80-hour weeks. A lot of people put out good vibes to try to make themselves feel better about a bad situation; vibes can't fix a broken home, a terrible job, or a bad financial decisions. A lot of people have started families/careers later in life. Now is the time to figure out why you want money/family/whatever. Working to feed your family is rewarding; working just to work is self-harm. Starting a family in order to shower them with love is rewarding; starting a family because it's a milestone is egotistical. > Anyone else pivot away from tech and still make half-decent income? Reject vibes; find a boring job. Research the sort of jobs that nobody wants to work, but which pay well. Those jobe have no vibes to offer, so they attract few candidates. A SWE can find good work doing boring jobs, because SWEs focus on details; and details are the antidote to vibes. |