Its making me a bit shaky and giddy, though that might be the coffee I'm drinking. Here's the thing though. I had a lightbulb moment this weekend. It came amidst confusion and fear that I am doing the absolute wrong thing for my life, my career and my family, but I suppose that's to be expected.
Let’s see if I can put it into words.
The original reason I took a break from work was because I was tired. I was not effective at work. I was producing a quarter of my usual output. Projects stretched, code just wasn’t coming forth. I dreaded starting on new tasks. Simple bugs took me hours to fix. I got distracted easily. The amount of eye rolling I did was beyond my usual. I was jaded, bitter and mostly annoyed, all the time.
They pay incredibly well. They like me quite a bit. The people there are mostly great. The work can be challenging. The projects are sometimes really damn interesting (and sometimes you want to poke yourself in the eye). There was always room for growth, for a career change. Most initiatives I took were accepted and embraced openly. I liked the people there. It was close to home. And really, its for a good cause. You could feel good about what you did.
My output does not come in a linear form. I have ups of crazy bursts of energy, I have plateaus, I have lows where days are harder than others. I always bounce back.
But at The Job, very slowly and steadily my confidence eroded. I was not able to stay up-to-date, nah, I stopped giving a shit about the Shiny New Tech™ that we're supposed to be using. I lost the excitement of loosing yourself in learning something new, creating something with it, and sharing that with others. My skills got pushed into a corner and got old. The new junior kid started producing 150% more than I did. Their attention span was 100%, mine 5. Everyone always seemed to know more than I did.
By the time I thought about changing jobs, a cursory look at what was available made me cringe and hide. How do you look at a job description and think to yourself you can compete? How do you willingly leave a job that you know won't fire you, that supports your lifestyle and allows you to do anything you want??
My first thought after leaving was to try to get back all that motivation, learn something new, accomplish something with this free time. Get My Shit Together. And it did, for about a day or two. But then it sapped away. The tiredness was the only thing I could feel. The crushing sense of failure, the panic attacks, the exhaustion. Escaping the only possible option, loosing myself in stories, in the fake-pretend.
And then when I tried regaining some of that motivation, tried wanting to get better... and I couldn’t, because I was so fucking tired, I got angry. I kept thinking, how can you not want to dive into this? How is it that you're not excited about The Shiny New Tech™ ? Why can't you accomplish the simplest of tasks? How can you like laying down all day, every day, watching the minutes tick by? How can you justify being unemployed for two months, causing you, your career, and your family hardship that is absolutely unnecessary?
Vicious circle. Try telling yourself its okay to bum around for weeks on end in the middle of all that shit.
This weekend. In the middle of a conversation with The Wife, plagued by all the self doubt in the world, I realized that maybe, just possibly, the issue wasn't all my fault.
And holy shit that's when I realized that I was so mothereffing angry. At The Job. That fucking job.
I have never been able to put into words, what exactly is wrong with it. There's really nothing bad about it. It's a dream opportunity.
But now I want to laugh at myself for trying to say that with a straight face. It is not fucking dream-like. There is one very large issue with it: they have no passion whatsoever. And passion is a privilege, not a requirement when you work; and demanding they have some is like complaining about the water being warm in the desert.
But the thing is... nobody at The Job gives a shit. They collect their very large paycheques, clock their 9-to-5s and go home. Rinse & repeat. Project Managers are afraid of being fired. Top management throws people under the bus constantly. Innovation isn't a collaborative venture, its someone's decision that trickles down leaving people with up-to-the-minute tasks that suck the life out of everything. Decisions are constantly challenged. Secrecy is the norm. Communication is as common as lakes on Mars. I have only ever cheered once after finishing a project--in three years! most times you are relived its over.
If they were to exercise that 'stay only if you're passionate' thing they do over at A Big Tech Company where they offer a really good severance package and a glowing letter of recommendation, to see who's stays and who leaves... I guarantee you more than half the staff would be gone.
That job sapped whatever little excitement I had about the industry I've worked in for 10 years.
There's some I should have been doing for myself. Learning new things, adapting to the changes, all that good stuff. Truth is that I've only ever wanted to give my best during my work hours. I'm the kind that will work 90 hours a week if the project needs it, because we want to finish, because we want to see it live. Because we are proud. I'm not one to go home and spend my free time messing around building yet another To Do App with The Shiny New Tech™. I have been in the industry 10 years and have managed just fine, so while this is a valid reason for me feeling like my confidence is sapped, I think mostly The Job just killed my motivation to even try it _during work hours!_
Because the truth is that I don't care about anything anymore. I'm too tired to learn something new. I'm too tired to build something with what I know. Because I don't want to build anything. There is nothing at The Job that makes me proud. There’s nothing there they want hard enough, passionately enough. Chug along folks, that’s the motto.
And maybe that's the issue isn’t it? I feel like I sold my soul to the devil. Good money & stability for my pride and self worth.
The Job and all the upper echelons stopped selling me their idea years ago. And I am a really good follower. Inspire me to a goal and I'll make sure we get there.
And they are not and I'm wasting my fucking time.