
Ask HN: I hate my job. Any short term options other than unemployment? - thraway2017
I joined my current team a couple of years ago to work on a project I was excited about. Two years later and multiple management re-orgs and code rewrites behind, I&#x27;m finding myself in a difficult spot. My job has turned into a big source of stress and unhappiness. The team is highly disorganized, understaffed, and in a constant state of chaos. It seems like we&#x27;re always moving from one crisis to the next. In addition to that, with the constant rewrites, the product hasn&#x27;t progressed much. I&#x27;m not growing my technical skills like I should be. I&#x27;ve talked to my manager about this repeatedly, and he agrees things need to improve, but nothing changes.<p>Six weeks ago, I decided the situation wouldn&#x27;t get better and I needed to move to a different team. I figured I&#x27;d start interviewing, but that hasn&#x27;t worked out so well. For one, I feel like my resume is a little weak because the past two years haven&#x27;t added much to my skillset. I thought I could make up for that by doing really well in the coding interviews or doing side projects. The thing is, there&#x27;s been extra chaos at work recently. I come home physically and mentally drained. I&#x27;m finding it very difficult to muster the energy to do more programming at night.<p>I&#x27;d like to get out of this situation as soon as possible, but finding a good next position might take me a couple of months in this environment. My question is: is there anything I can do in the short term to get out of this toxic environment while I find my next job?<p>I could take off a couple of months and live off of savings while I work on side projects and prepare for interviews, but I&#x27;m afraid a gap in my resume will be red flag for recruiters. I&#x27;d also like to avoid having zero income if possible. I figured there might be other options I&#x27;m not thinking about and thought this would be a good place to ask for ideas. Is there something I can do in the next 3-6 months while I find something more permanent, but doesn&#x27;t look bad on my resume?
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acjohnson55
Agreed. I'm a hiring manager. Gaps are not a problem to me. When you're
explaining your story, just say you took a break to regroup and be very
intentional about making the right next step. Because it is, indeed, really
hard to find something while still on the grind.

What you don't mention is what you're looking for, and that's the biggest red
flag to me. I'd recommend spending your time finding companies you dig and
reaching out over interview prep. Take managers out for coffee. (They'll
probably buy anyway.) It's a good way to warm up a lead. Even if they don't
have headcount, they may be able to make a warm intro.

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tlb
Gaps of a few months in resumes are not nearly as much of a concern for hiring
managers as people think.

Quit with dignity and be willing to spend a week training someone new. Hang
out with old friends. Travel. Ask around to see what's interesting. There are
so many fascinating projects out there you can work on.

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bartvk
You can easily explain some months off by saying you wanted to travel, or
visit Europe or something like that. I don't see why that is a problem.

In the meantime, start working strictly from 9 to 5, conserve your energy.

