
Ask HN: In what order did the best and worst periods in your career come? - vonklaus
edit: I like that a modest amount of people have upvotes this, and thank you to the people who did respond, but just a very quick post mortem on 2 tine periods would be very helpful.<p>If you are a founder, employee, student, unemployed whatever, what moment or timeframe was would you say:<p>&quot;Fuck Yes, I am&#x2F;am close to my definition of success&quot;<p>and<p>&quot;the sick to your stomach, cold sweat, vomit in a trash can before work, abject failure monent&#x2F;s in your life&quot;<p>what order did they come.
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JoeAltmaier
Never had a bad moment, really. Joined a Silicon Valley company out of college
(Stanford) doing OS work which was nirvana. Came back to Iowa, did Neural
Network simulators and then Java stock charting apps (yes there was a
connection). Back to San Jose to design a Fibre Channel Switch product that we
sold to Dell. Then an InfiniBand implementation that didn't go anywhere. Then
consulting for big $$. Then another startup - web collaboration tools. I did
the network and media management parts. Now consulting again.

At all times I was employed for good money, happily married with 3 super-
bright boys, involved in community and family.

~~~
HiroshiSan
How did you build the habits to achieve all this? I'm currently in my 2nd out
of 3 years in College studying Computer Engineering and I'm having difficulty
just keeping up with my courses.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
I programmed computers since I was 10. My brother bought a kit (Altair 8800)
and that was it for me - I've been coding ever since. Computers have grown as
I did. So its been my life, not my job.

------
Dav3xor
The day I got georeferenced, shaded, 3d terrain working for a synthetic vision
system, singlehanded, in bare OpenGL ES 2.0.

Friend of mine at work took my picture seconds after I got it working, you can
see the crazed look in my eye.

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/24025582@N03/4150935582/in/dat...](https://www.flickr.com/photos/24025582@N03/4150935582/in/dateposted-
public/)

The worst day of my professional life was probably the day Derek Sivers canned
me because, "I want to do your job myself."

~~~
vonklaus
Stellar. Out of interest, how did Derek fare, Was it objectively a decent
decision on his part or what? Also, looks good from the flickr img.

~~~
Dav3xor
Oh man... Derek is an interesting guy. He hired me to do encoding and
distribution -- both the business and software sides. I did ok with the
software (except for ~2006 Ruby GC unknowingly causing me problems), but my
business/people skills weren't up to it at the time. The business side was
very very difficult though -- it was really difficult to get the retailers to
take more music after the initial load.

------
vonklaus
For me, the highest point was moving to LA from the east coast. so much
possibility and opportunity. Had some great experiences and got an education,
but ultimately lead me to now.

"Partied" too much, went broke, ran up massive credit card debt and selfishly
borrowed money from my parents. Had nothing to show for it, had to move back
home and sell my car. However, I am finally starting to get my shit together
and become employable again. I would have answered my own question from a
professional standpoint, but have been perpetually unemployed. Now at least, I
have a few small contracts ~1k lined up and am learning heaps. So hopefully
for me the order is "worst" => 1 year to present, best => some time in the
close future.

------
shortoncash
I found the early part of my career to be horribly boring. I'd ace all these
technical interviews that were hard and then get into jobs that weren't as
interesting as the interviews.

The high point of my career was when I quit a job and just started making
money without an employer.

I really don't think tech jobs pay well enough for what they demand. I read
the descriptions of job ads now and just get disgusted.

------
shaftway
Employee

Worst moment:

'00 tech bubble implosion. I had dropped out of college, was working for a
major company (ask.com) and survived three rounds of layoffs. Watching
FuckedCompany.com and seeing the rumors come true made me phyically ill. I saw
friends lose their jobs and I rationalized it by telling myself they were the
lower-skilled employees, not really adding value (that's true, they weren't).
Then it was my turn to be cut. I couldn't help applying my rationalization to
myself. It was bad for me.

High point:

I had a manager try to coerce me into signing an agreement to stay with the
company for the next 2 years. I was interviewing at the time and quit a week
later. When I gave him my resignation he said "I have a lot of friends in
Silicon Valley, and you better stay at this job for a long time because it's
the last one you're going to get." 2 years later I get an internal reference
check email. I wanted to try to sub in for the on-site interview, but I'm glad
I took the high road and just gave the hiring coordinator my history with him.

~~~
ahstilde
I'm sorry I don't understand what an internal reference check is? And what
trying to sub in means?

~~~
rahimnathwani
Internal reference check: HR contacts you because a candidate worked at the
same company as you before, and they want to know your opinion of them, if
indeed you know them.

'Sub in': Act as a substitute for some else (in this case, another
interviewer) if that person can't/won't make it.

~~~
shaftway
bingo

------
lsiunsuex
Low point - the day I was let go from a job I was at for 8 years. The company
made the promise (we signed papers) that if the company ever sold, we'd get a
(small) cut of it - which is the only reason i stayed so long. I reported
directly to the owners (of a 750 employee company) and never once thought I'd
get let go (this is a few years ago when the economy was doing worse then it
is now and it was a financial company)

Had I known I was so easily expendable - I'd have left years before to get
some variety (I was a systems admin / programmer)

High point - 6 months ago - got our first real corporate sponsor for my side
project. Not enough to leave our day jobs, but enough to prove what we're
doing isn't a waste of time and make life a bit nicer. responsibilities -
anything and everything related to IT / Programming / DB Admin / Design / UI,
etc...

Side project started about a year before I got let go from that low point job
- so about 4 years in the making.

~~~
rahimnathwani
"The company made the promise (we signed papers) that if the company ever
sold, we'd get a (small) cut of it - which is the only reason i stayed so
long."

Was this agreement only good for the time you were an employee? Was the
company ever sold?

~~~
lsiunsuex
Yes - only while employed - received documents i had to sign after termination
saying it was voided. I drive by on occasion and still talk to a few people
from there - never sold to my knowledge.

~~~
rahimnathwani
"received documents i had to sign after termination saying it was voided"

Why did you have to sign any documents after termination? What did you stand
to gain by signing those documents (or stand to lose, by not signing them)?

It's usual to sign a contract only if both sides get something out of it
(whether money, a promise to do (or not do) something, ...). In many
jurisdictions, a contract is void if this isn't the case:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consideration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consideration)

------
mrlyc
My best period was when I got my first job as a programmer.

My worst period is now. I am 61, have been unemployed for two years and I
sometimes wonder if I've retired and just don't know it yet.

~~~
throwaway6497
Do you feel, that you are unfairly discriminated because you are older? It
feels terrible to hear such things. If you are a programmer, it seems like you
either have to move to management as you grow older or change careers to
survive. Best case scenario for a programmer, of course is to make a ton of
money so that you don't ever have to depend on employment to pay your bills.

------
mdip
The best times in my career were shortly after I started out and right now.
The worst were several parts in the middle.

In the beginning I had started out at a telecom that was quite stable (around
1997). I was 19, it was my first "real job" with a paycheck good enough for me
to live comfortably on my own. Within a year I went from lower-level support
work to back-end support. The market my company was in was disrupted, causing
bankruptcy in 2001. This was still a great time. When something like this
happens, the company survives on the best members of its staff and I was that
guy -- I quickly filled in gaps and started in software development (where my
passion was anyway).

Over time, this led to my worst periods. The demands for the job grew, but my
salary and frequency of interesting projects did not (except for a brief
period in 2008). Every 6 months the company shrank taking with it a majority
of the great people I worked with (most leaving on their own due to the
environment). Coming in to work every day amidst the terrible moral was
taxing.

I left that job last year though I wouldn't say that my work ethic has
changed. I never let the bad things get me down -- ultimately, I have this job
to support my family and that's motivation enough to do the best work I am
capable of. But that has a cost. Every day I'd drag myself out of bed, start
work, and when finished I'd be "spent". My performance at work didn't change,
but I can now admit that my performance in everything outside of work suffered
greatly to the extent of it being one of the reasons I am now divorced.

I'm now back on track. At my new job I work with and for excellent people --
people who truly love the work and the company they work for. I fly out of bed
at 5:00-5:30 AM excited to work (so excited, in fact, that I use it as
motivation to get a morning run in ... "I can start working as soon as I eat
breakfast and run around the block" ... it's weird to use "starting work" as a
reward for doing something I don't want to do). It helps that this place is
both a good fit for my skillset and a great place to expand it. I'm a
passionate learner and need a job that keeps things interesting and new.

My personal lesson in all of this is "If you can help it, don't keep a job
that doesn't value you". If you work in software development today and you're
any good (heck, even if your not from what I've seen) there are few good
reasons to stay at a lousy employer for very long. I had no excuses. I stayed
3 more years than I should have, maybe more. Loss aversion and fear that I
wouldn't find a job as good as I had were paralyzing for me. This was powerful
enough to keep me from even getting my resume together and looking. Once I
began looking, I discovered that despite the lousy local economy, there were
endless choices available to me so I took the one that fit best with my
circumstances. The end result is that I no longer finish the day "spent". I've
managed -- using the 8 or so hours I can devote to it on the weekend -- to
complete 5 personal projects, 3 released open-source. When I talk about what I
do, those are the things I tend to mention first -- they are mine, and a
direct result of mt overall happiness.

------
shortoncash
I found the early part of my career to be horribly boring. I'd ace all these
technical interviews that were hard and then get into jobs that weren't as
interesting as the interviews.

The high point of my career was when I quit a job and just started making
money without an employer.

I really don't think tech jobs pay well enough for what they demand. I read
the descriptions of job ads now and just get disgusted.

