

How to deal with a dead-end job - WiserBear

I'm a passionate programmer in a well-paid dead-end software job. The downside is that I am patching crap code (this week I made several hundred changes much like a human script), and for various reasons I can't quit. The upside is that they are paying me fairly well and I only need to work about 6 (real) hours per day, maybe even 4.<p>My dream is to work in a more interesting job. Startup, game company, Google, whatever.  I am willing to work hard for it.<p>My question is: How do I keep my head above water and eventually transition into something I would enjoy doing?<p>More problems: I'm a .NET programmer - people do interesting stuff avoid .NET like plague. And I have to stay in Canada for legal reasons (US is not an option). I am 35 years old, but in the last 5 years or so I did mostly business software.
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leak
I was basically almost in the same spot as you're in now. I was doing a lot of
coding for stuff that, to say the least, did not inspire me. I quit.

Quitting is not easy if you don't have backup. I had backup so it was a bit
easier.

I would suggest you spend your evenings learning other code or even do
freelance stuff. Freelance stuff forces you to learn other things and also
gives you extra income to get you a step closer to quitting.

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papaf
This famous Zen Shaw talk is good (its not only about ACLs and leads on to
surviving dead end jobs):

<http://vimeo.com/2723800>

