Ask HN: What do you struggle with? - meesterdude
======
ChuckMcM
I have a very wide area of interests, and doing things takes time. But while
I'm doing thing 'A', I think about the fact that I'm making no progress on
'B', 'C', ... 'n' and it distracts me both from thinking as deeply as I need
to on thing 'A' and the enjoyment I get from getting something done. So I
struggle with letting go of the desire to get everything done that I can
imagine would be fun and interesting to do.

~~~
madeuptempacct
Apparently that's a no-no:

... Flint replied, "Well the top 5 are my primary focus, but the other 20 come
in at a close second. They are still important so I'll work on those
intermittently as I see fit as I'm getting through my top 5. They aren't as
urgent, but I still plan to give them a dedicated effort."

To which Buffett replied:

"No. You've got it wrong, Mike. Everything you didn't circle just became your
'avoid at all cost list.' No matter what, these things get no attention from
you until you've succeeded with your top 5."

[https://www.businessinsider.com/warren-buffetts-not-to-do-
li...](https://www.businessinsider.com/warren-buffetts-not-to-do-list-2016-10)

~~~
ALittleLight
I'm no Warren Buffet, so I hesitate to disagree, but these kinds of stories
always make me think of a parable about weight lifting.

You go to a gym to learn to lift weights. You see a big strong guy and ask him
to teach you. He must know how to lift weights and get big and strong, right?
He's done it after all.

Sure enough, the big guy knows just what to do. He's got all sorts of advice,
he disagrees with conventional wisdom, he shares his training schedule etc.
The only problem is, when you follow the big guy's advice, you don't see much
gains - or maybe you get injured, or you plateau.

What you didn't know is that, in addition to all of his advice and
idiosyncrasies, the big guy takes steroids. The big guy is big not because of
his lifting schedule or the chant he says before he works out or whatever,
he's big mostly because he's taking steroids. Following his advice without the
steroids won't really be that useful for you.

To relate this back to the Buffet story, Buffet has been rich for decades. His
wealth came from his ability to value companies, make deals, etc. Then with
money he lives a very different lifestyle.

If you don't have the steroids - the vastly better ability to do something the
market puts a lot of value on, then Buffet's advice may not get you very much
and may actually hurt you. Where Buffet lets lower priority tasks slide or
delegates them they still get done by his employees. If you do it then your
house is going unmaintained or a relationship is getting neglected etc.

~~~
nostrademons
"Where Buffet lets lower priority tasks slide or delegates them they still get
done by his employees. If you do it then your house is going unmaintained or a
relationship is getting neglected etc."

Perhaps that's the lesson.

I'm reminded of the startup aphorism "You don't have to be good if you're
great." It's really a statement about market dynamics. If you are "great" (the
monopoly provider of a service, asset, or technology that other people value)
then you will attract capital and people who are "good" (hardworking and
skilled people who specialize in the non-monopoly fields you need). You can
then trade access to your skill for access to theirs, and do so with great
leverage because there are many more of them than you.

If you don't have a monopoly skill or asset, then - assuming you want to take
advantage of these market dynamics - your first priority should be to acquire
one. And yes, that means that your house is going unmaintained and your
relationships are getting neglected. So what?

~~~
fardo
>And yes, that means that your house is going unmaintained and your
relationships are getting neglected. So what?

Your relationships and the state of the environment you maintain for yourself
are important.

Together, they likely have more impact on your long term happiness and
physical and mental health than any kind of ability “to take advantage of
these market dynamics”.

~~~
zeeed
And that makes them one of the top 5 for me

------
mrdependable
I've been struggling with adulthood ever since turning 30 and starting a
family. I have this image in my head of what life after 30 looks like from
seeing my parents and all their friends doing basically the same thing as each
other. It's not a life I want for myself, but every decision I make pushes me
further and further in that direction. My mind has been programmed to think
and act in a way that eventually lands me in the same life as my father.

In order to buck that trend, I've decided to try doing something that goes
against my better judgement and pushes me out of my comfort zone. I'm hoping
I'll learn a thing or two about forging my own path.

~~~
criddell
Mid-life crisis? How do you feel about Corvettes?

~~~
dragonsky
Lol 30 year old midlife crisis. Wait till you are 50 and you look back and
think of what you didn’t do. The flip side is you can look back at what you
did with some satisfaction.

My point is that 30 is not old by any measure. Barring bad luck, you still
have another 40 to 50 years to do something different.

------
AnIdiotOnTheNet
Everything worth doing and about half of the things that aren't.

If I had to pick one thing, it'd be my weight. I've lost 150lbs and have been
keeping it off for years. People who've never lost a significant amount of
weight (north of 50lbs) probably can't understand what it is like to have to
fight your body every day of your life. I have to avoid temptation as much as
possible, which means keeping only enough food in the house to survive for a
week and avoiding social functions, among other things. If I know there's food
somewhere nearby, I'll be distracted thinking about it until I either eat it
or go somewhere else. I have to meticulously track my caloric intake and keep
it under 1600/day average just to maintain, even with 6+ hours of the gym each
week. They never tell you that part about losing weight, that the damage to
your metabolism is already done and will never function normally again.

Do you have any idea what it is like to be compelled to eat? To be unable to
stop yourself? to hate that you can't stop yourself? I'm going to guess not,
it's awful. And you know what the worst part of it is? How _easy_ everyone
seems to think it is. Oh, you're having trouble with overeating? Here, let me
parrot some bullshit clickbait nonsense from the internet.

~~~
sp527
Your caloric intake is dangerously low (assuming you're a dude). That's what's
slowing down your metabolism. There's tons of research on this. Also, your
goal should be to put on lean mass and reduce your bodyfat percentage (with a
goal of keeping it under 15%) - it makes staying in good shape a lot easier.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
When my caloric intake goes up, my weight also goes up. Trust me, I keep
meticulous data. You don't know what you're talking about.

~~~
rak00n
You have to increase your metabolism somehow. Either through exercise or
weightlifting. It won't be easy and it will take time but it's not entirely
impossible.

------
headcanon
I'd say I struggle with a few things, but I'll pick one. I overcomplicate and
overthink things. If I get into something, like a new hobby, I go in to
"engineer mode" and think about all the complexities of what I'm trying to do,
and end up going nowhere. Or other times, I will purchase a slew of materials
I don't initally need because "I'll need them later" and end up getting bored
with the hobby before they ever get used. Recently I've been trying to keep
things simple and iterate.

On that note, I also struggle with maintaining interest in new hobbies after
the first "hump", and go away from it for several months or years. By the time
I work up interest in it and get back into it I start from square one
essentially. I feel like I've been getting better at it with age, my mind has
"slowed down" a bit in a good way and I find focusing on things has become
easier.

~~~
citrablue
I can empathize with this. Add in the fact that the older I get, the more
impressive my project needs to be in order to impress myself. It's a form of
self-sabotage, but by realizing that I don't have to build something great in
1 day, it helps.

What are your strategies to cope with this?

~~~
headcanon
That seems like a symptom of comparing yourself with some ultimate,
unrealistic version of what you think you should be.

Kind of like learning guitar in your 30's and getting discouraged when you see
talented 16-year-olds on youtube getting famous.

I cope with that by 1) realizing that everyone's journey is different, and 2)
realizing that even though I'm not a famous artist or whatever, I have a
unique background that can bring value to people in the way I'm comfortable
with.

Also as you get older you recognize what's really valuable in life (friends,
happiness, etc.), and the things you thought were important when you were
younger (getting rich/famous) are actually really shallow.

------
legohead
I don't like the new way of doing things. Kubernetes, node, react,
terraform... Everything is more complicated and also more fragile. I feel like
the software world is collectively mad and I'm sitting on the outside asking
"wtf is going on?"

Or maybe I'm the crazy one.

~~~
wetpaste
This is just some MVP java app with an nginx proxy, elastic-search, and mysql?
Why is this running in k8s on aws via Kops in conjunction with a
cloudformation template for aurora inside of a VPC? With containers separately
built via packer +ansible kicked off via jenkins after each pull request
merge? The CI pipeline also kicks off a canary deployment in our UAT
environment with a prometheus exporter for monitoring on our grafana dashboard
and if you want to see logs you have to look at our ELK stack for that and if
you want to do any debugging we have Jaeger for tracing across our service
mesh which is based on Istio using Calico as a network overlay. All that for
an app does some crappy knock-off of trello.

~~~
newsbinator
I'd prefer to pretend that some of those names are made up, but I know they're
not.

~~~
autotune
DevOops Consultant here, all of those technologies are 100 percent on point
and heavily used. Also random fun fact, every time a stack includes
CloudFormation, it brings the owner of said stack slightly closer to becoming
an alcoholic.

------
80386
I make <$15/hr doing grunt work. I've been working on a code portfolio, but I
don't think it's good enough yet to let me start applying for tech jobs, and
I'm not great at algorithms or JS frameworks anyway. So I haven't been.

I try to get at least one Git commit every day, but my job is pretty draining,
so that doesn't happen. And sometimes all my projects get blocked on hard
stuff that I don't have the energy to solve.

For all I know, I might look alright on paper. I've co-authored a paper in a
respectable journal, written a few Rails apps, a few desktop apps, and a
crappy interpreter for an old language - which doesn't really use any compiler
theory stuff except a simple hand-rolled lexer/parser, so that's probably a
strike against me more than anything else. I'd delete it except I want there
to be something that lets me step through programs in this thing so when my
Project Euler problem attempts in this language fail I can figure out why,
which is why I wrote it in the first place. But I keep revising my goals
downward. I've been thinking I ought to go get an A+ cert and become an IT
grunt - the pay would be a little better than what I'm doing now, I'd be able
to afford the occasional steak...

~~~
jklein11
I can imagine that there are senior engineers that couldn't explain to me what
a lexer/parser does let alone elaborate on the trade offs of a specific
implementation.

I'm not in the position to hire but send me an email if you want to connect.

~~~
80386
I'm not to the stage where I can elaborate on tradeoffs yet either - I just
followed a tutorial. And the language it's for doesn't need much in the way of
parsing. You can't quite just build an array of tokens and use it as your
program stack, but that's only because you have to be able to handle
definitions and library imports.

Are there any good books on compiler theory?

------
Kluny
I'm struggling to get away from being a developer. I left a comfortable, but
low-paying job because there was no future and no promotions or job changes in
sight. I want to work with people, not code. I hate being by myself in front
of a computer all day.

That led to my current job, where I'm paid twice as much but not really
measuring up to their expectations. I'm still by myself in front of a computer
all day. I can't see myself getting promoted given how unimpressed they are
with my performance.

I had a chance to get some experience doing something other than programming,
so I took it - a 20-hours-a-week contract as volunteer coordinator on a
political campaign, which I absolutely love, but now I'm stressed and running
for my life all the time because I'm working every hour that I'm awake (and
sometimes waking up in the middle of the night to add more stuff to my todo
list).

I'm in trouble at my day job because my performance there has gotten worse,
and expect to be fired soon. And now I'm worried that I'm doing badly at the
second job as well, because I keep on forgetting things and making mistakes.
It's too much and I'm miserable.

~~~
cityzen
Let me ask you this... what would you do if your employer fired you right now?
Would you be homeless? What's really at stake here? You will NEVER have the
time to put towards the work you love if you spend the majority of your time
doing work you don't care about.

It's really a disservice to you and your employer to be in this situation.
Have you tried to communicate with them? Do they do any kind of employee
reviews? Not being funny, but are you scared to stir the pot a bit and tell
them you're just not happy?

Why not talk to your non-profit client and tell them you're leaving your job
and want to get involved on a bigger scale. Ask if they know people that could
use your talents. Life is short, sitting in front of a computer being
miserable is no way to spend that precious time.

~~~
Kluny
I need the last paycheck. So I'm sticking it out to the end of the month. But
if I don't get fired, I'm going to ask for a leave of absence, or quit.

But I'm still worried about what happens next. Rent in my city is expensive,
and salaries are comparatively low. The political job pays decently, for the
city, but even if I can find a similar full time job after election season,
I'll be paying a little over half my salary in rent. So that tells me that I'm
probably going to be leaving town soon, leaving my local network, and facing
more instability and turmoil... no matter where I look, I don't see a peaceful
settled life in my future for a long time.

~~~
abledon
Rent too high? Move in with more roommates. Or find a cheaper area to live.
Also eliminate expensive hobbies, replace with free ones like hiking or
community activities, cook all your food yourself, use lots of staple
ingredients.

------
etatoby
Long-term: dating/relationships. I'm very outgoing, but I have love shyness or
something like that. I basically don't date. I find the entire thing extremely
stressful and unbearable. I've always been alone.

Short-term: not much! I recently dropped everything and moved to the other
side of the globe (Japan) on a student visa. I'm studying a very interesting
language and culture and making friends with people from all over the world
that are on average 15 years my junior. I'm also brushing up on technology,
learning new programming languages and stacks. This is a sort of sabbatical
for me, so I plan on picking up creative hobbies (drawing, making music) as
time permits.

~~~
sloaken
" I basically don't date. I find the entire thing extremely stressful and
unbearable"

I had the same problem. I am sure you have heard this before"you regret what
you do not do, not what you did". So SUCK IT UP, and get out there. After a
few dates, you will thank me. But I agree the short term sucks, but it will be
worth it.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
I assure you, there are many many things in life that you will regret doing if
you have any sense of shame or a conscience.

~~~
jklein11
Yes but there are very few things in life that you can't make better however
it is very difficult to make up for lost time

------
quickthrower2
More recent jobs I have been told I am not coding quick enough, and being
grilled because something took 2X or 3X that they expected done in X. Not sure
if I am slow, have slowed down, or remained the same speed and now
expectations are a lot faster, or it is more transparent with time logging in
JIRA being a big thing now.

What I do different to other coders I have noticed when doing code reviews is
I do a lot less copy/paste and like to think about how to put code together in
a better way. I also find it hard to do boring work fast, I get distracted. I
also find it hard to focus in a noisy office so that can slow me down too.
Some joker comes up and makes some jokes and all the state I have built up in
my head is lost.

~~~
brown-dragon
One trick I've learned is to write out, (in a structured comment), what I am
going to do an how I'm going to do it _before_ actually writing the code.

It seems redundant but it actually forces me to do a quick think-through of
what's happening. Plus distractions get a _lot_ easier to handle: I just need
to read what I've written down to reload the context.

Paradoxically, I've found that this method of typing out _more stuff_ actually
helps me finish much faster.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I second this. Over time and struggling with concentration in bullshit jobs,
I've learned following tricks when I feel stuck and/or stressed out:

\- I have an org-mode document with a TODO list and project notes always open.
Whenever I'm stuck, I'll start decomposing the task into smaller and smaller
TODO items, simultaneously with doing a written brainstorm. Sometimes I'll
write out a hundred lines of text, but it does help me get unstuck.

\- Similar to what you mention, I frequently write a TODO list in comment as a
scaffolding in the file I work on, and I then proceed to fill the space
between TODO items with appropriate code.

~~~
brown-dragon
Yep - that's exactly been my experience.

(off-topic) Org mode is really amazing. I've transitioned almost completely
from Emacs to Vim over the last few years but I still have Emacs on my dock
only because of `org-mode`. I've tried substitutes in vim but nothing really
works.

(back on topic) Another advantage of writing comments is coming back to the
code becomes so much easier. I can re-read the comments and understand what's
going on much faster.

To do this properly I've developed a simple system of 'categories' that allow
me to structure the comments properly. I think they works really well. For
anyone curious - here's an example in my last weekend project:
[https://github.com/theproductiveprogrammer/luminate](https://github.com/theproductiveprogrammer/luminate)

Check out the comments in the code (`main.js`). I think they make the code
much easier to understand and maintain. It's almost an alternative to TDD -
Comment Driven Design (CDD!)

------
newfie_bullet
Procrastination - wanting to accomplish things (technical things - learn new
language, stack, technology) in my head but not actually starting/completing
them. I've tried to minimize my hobbies and whatnot so that I'm not being torn
in too many directions but I guess I just aspire to do more software dev-type
activities (in my head) but after a day job related to that I can't quite
muster up the energy (default to FO4, Youtube or guitar).

~~~
chrisshroba
I also noticed that after a day at work, I don't really feel like doing
anything other than browsing the internet or reading. What's worked for me is
recognizing that and moving things I want to do to the morning instead. I'll
go to bed at 9 or 10 and get up at 5 or 6, spend a couple hours in the morning
working on whatever project is currently interesting to me, and then go to
work. I do find that by the end of the work day I'm not as
motivated/productive, but that's a trade-off I've accepted. Something like
this could work for you too!

Also, I find that I am 1000% more likely to do something if I tell someone
else that I'm going to do it and ask them to hold me to it (and ask about my
progress every so often). I wonder if this could help you to make more
progress towards your goals?

Feel free to respond to this or send me an email at my username @gmail if you
want to chat more about this... I'm also looking for ways to conquer
procrastination and get more done!

~~~
C1ph3rL0ck
Here's some reading I did that helped me:

Zen Mind Beginners Mind - I'm not religious in the slightest but I knew a part
of my problem was that I wasn't really being self aware. I had friend that was
into meditation and swore it helped him be more self aware. So I picked up
this book and read it along side using the Headspace app to get into
meditation. I use it as a moment of calm and clarity, to regain my thoughts,
and refocus. Especially when I feel procrastination kicking in. It helped me
calm down and identify why I was procrastinating and often come up with a plan
to deal with whatever was making me want to procrastinate. I found I was often
thinking or focusing or stressing about something else instead of focusing on
me and my wants.

[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1590308492/ref=oh_aui_deta...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1590308492/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

The Now Habit - This was a book a friend of mine recommended to me. They said
it helped them breakout of the rut they felt they were stuck in. It definitely
helped me a bit. At the very least it helped me identify the things I wanted
to do and do them. While also enjoying myself with the "Guilt Free Play" he
talks about being important.

[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001QNVP7M/ref=dp-kindle-
redirect?...](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001QNVP7M/ref=dp-kindle-
redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1)

7 Habits of Highly Successful People: This book was another friend
recommendation, that helped me focus on and deal with my own internal issues
that was encouraging my procrastination. I was able to start identifying them
and working on them.

[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01069X4H0/ref=dp-kindle-
redirect?...](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01069X4H0/ref=dp-kindle-
redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1)

It took me about 6 months of diligent work to get myself out of my
procrastinating funk and get myself to a place where I was starting to be
happy with what I did. I still occasionally break these books out and go over
them, I still meditate to help me keep focused, etc. There isn't some quick
fix to deal with it, but I believe you can learn to manage and deal with your
procrastination like I have.

------
acconrad
My relationship with money. I make more than like 98% of the population but my
parents grew up middle/lower class so I'm just constantly worried about having
enough for retirement, and having enough money for kids, and having enough
money for their education, AND any possible illnesses/issues having seen
families with health insurance crippled by things like cancer treatments. It
seems like no matter what, I find myself cutting my own hair, using grocery
bags for trash bags, and generally being a bit crazy in the frugal dept while
also socking away 85% of my paycheck because it just feels like there is not
enough.

~~~
flatfilefan
Move to a country like Norway or Germany where it doesn’t matter how much you
make. Social security covers the basic and medical needs. Problem solved.

~~~
dewey
Living on the minimum amount of pension isn't as easy as it sounds, especially
if you never had a well paying job. There are a lot of very poor old people
that have to be supported by their families if possible or by smaller side
incomes.

~~~
tluyben2
Nor is living on wellfare in one of those places, however, OP has a job and
will have one there too. If is just the feeling of safety that if everything
goes wrong, you and your family are covered no matter what. That takes away
the healthcare and pension strssses. In the meanwhile nothing changes and he
would be in the 95% there too; big pension. But no stress for ‘what if’ while
getting there. It helps, I know, I am from the Netherlands and just the
thought that you have a safety net is all that matters even though I will
never use it.

------
Sukotto
Every day is a struggle.

For several years I've struggled to learn enough Japanese for daily living.
(Spouse is Japanese and we moved to Japan a few years ago with our 3 school-
aged kids). Very little success on this. しょうがないね

My wife is out of town anywhere between 3 days to 2 weeks each month for her
job. While she is gone, we rely heavily on her parents (with whom I cannot
communicate directly). They take care of laundry and dinner for the kids. I
take care of all the other housework and breakfast.

I work at a large corp (English speaking technology department, Japanese
company) with very little career progression without business-level Japanese
skill. My dev skills feel rusted and I try not to despair about my career.

So what do you do? Do you double down on Japanese and try to get some level of
fluency and let your dev skill rot? Or do you focus on polishing those dev
skills and push the language learning back even farther? You get maybe an hour
a day for this purpose.

Unfortunately I own a house where the mortgage exceeds the value of the
property. So I am not in a position to move to greener pastures.

As an added bonus, I've hit mid-forty now and my body is starting to go.
Exercise and diet help, but ifaik there is no cure for aging/degrading
biologic systems.

...

But here's the thing: As a man -- and especially as a white, English-speaking,
North American man -- nobody gives a shit about my problems. Sure, family and
old friends care that I have troubles, but from the perspective that they hope
the problems go away. (to be clear, I mean this as a general case, not
specific to this country)

I painting myself into a corner, and just have to keep working to make things
better.

It's simple, but not easy -> Keep working hard. Do whatever you can to improve
yourself and your situation. Ask for help when you can. Don't complain.

\---

Edit to add:

Thank you everyone for your kind comments. I appreciate it very much and will
carefully consider your suggestions.

~~~
oceanman888
Seems you are suffering from what a lot of Japanese married man have, no one
gives a shit about your problems except that you bring back the bills. There
is a reasons people don't even date anymore here. Take some time for yourself
and don't stop hustling.

~~~
mrfusion
Why don’t they date? Just curious.

~~~
ILikeConemowk
[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/17/more-
than-40-per...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/17/more-than-40-per-
cent-of-japans-adult-singles-are-virgins-says-s/)

~~~
mrfusion
Thanks. They only relevant part of that article says “they have gaps between
their ideals and the reality“. But why is that? What are their ideals?

------
JimboOmega
Getting excited about my career.

I keep getting in a loop where I feel like I can't grow and the challenges
aren't there, so my work performance starts to slacken, which in turn is used
to justify giving me the same tasks again. Eventually I burn out and get a new
job, which I'm excited about for about a year, before it becomes clear that
what was promised me in terms of opportunity and advancement isn't going
materialize any time soon. Then I start to slack again. I do average work and
remain in the same spot. Someone else gets the promotion I thought I was going
to, I get more bitter, and try even less. Then the loop repeats.

Some of this is cultural, but a lot of it is me. I really struggle to maintain
motivation and it shows. Especially when someone junior to me (in terms of
experience overall, though usually at the company longer) who hates managing
gets promoted to leading the team. At that point, I kind of check out.

As a result I never establish myself enough to be in the position to actually
get promoted, and just seem to cycle every 2 years.

~~~
Nevermark
Maybe start taking on as much responsibility as you can for the role you want
before you have it. Obviously that has to be done respectfully and in a
genuinely helpful manner relative to however has the role now.

But if you focus on the idea that anyone in a company can have a CEO type
impact (or other role impact) if they learn how to manage themselves and
others well, then you may be more motivated by the challenge and progress
toward your goal.

And you will be 100% more qualified than you need to be when you officially
get the role you want. So think beyond just the next step.

~~~
JimboOmega
That's been my go to the last couple cycles. It hasn't worked.

For instance, at my previous job, I wound up as essentially the only person on
a team. In addition to performing the technical functions, I worked to build
it back into a team. I created (and communicated) what my vision for that team
was supposed to be, mapping out what we would do when it was reconstituted,
and started training other people to do some of the functions.

After 6 months of what I was told was very impressive work, the reorg came.
They decided to have another person lead that team, and swap somebody new in
to the on paper non-lead role I had been filling. They put me in a different
part of the team underneath somebody more junior who had no interest in
managing as part of a general reorg.

That person also had no interest in working for the company even after the
promotion, and left (part of an ongoing exoducs at that time). You'd think
that would finally leave me as a team lead, but instead our team was
explicitly left leaderless, with the next level (and architect of the reorg)
theoretically picking up the slack.

This created a bit of a nightmare, because everyone expected me to be leading
that team, but I was explicitly forbidden from doing so. I went from setting
the direction for my own work to getting arbitrary tasks given to me. I wasn't
looped in on or consulted about the general direction of the team, and it was
far away from where I'd been so I didn't have any idea what the team (which
had only recently been created) was supposed to be doing.

It was chaos and frustrating - people kept coming to me assuming I was
leading, and I kept having to defer. I really don't understand what the point
was of not allowing me to lead the team (and it was a very explicit choice),
other than out of spite or some kind of built in bias. I really stopped caring
at that point. When I left a couple months later my boss reminisced how my
work had been so good but had dropped precipitously.

What's sad is the same thing happened at the previous job in a lot of ways. I
did get made the team lead eventually, but at that point there literally was
no team since the exodus was larger (all the non-contractor developers had
left). Once again, I was the tail end of the exodus.

I keep at it. I'm always evangelizing improvements, trying to create a better
environment for other employees, trying to work with the new ones, trying to
find those places where there is opportunity to grow.

A lot of time, my suggestions get ignored, but I keep making them. I implement
them anyway, they are well received. I get a pat on the back and told to work
on something very different. I can't get excited about that something
different and can only view it as an obstacle to be overcome before I can go
back to pushing on the things I care about, and the loop begins.

I do only okay work on the things I don't care about, which is used to justify
me staying in my position. I stop doing things that are beyond my role,
because it seems pointless. I care less and less.

There's something about somebody getting promoted to the position you wanted
and then using your 1 on 1s to complain about how much they hate the position
that just kills me.

At some point the job starts to become entirely managing visibility, be it
keeping meaningful projects under the radar so that they don't yoinked away,
or promoting them mercilessly. I've been in one on ones where my boss tried to
show me a list of things they wanted to see for me to get promoted, then
realized they were describing exactly what I was doing, yoinked it away, and
had to spend 6 months "refining" it.

If they do that enough times - if I spend enough time just playing these games
trying to find some way to sneak through the cracks and do some actual
refactoring or whatever it is, eventually I stop caring entirely. It starts to
feel like it's all politics anyway, so why bother.

I get into an Office Space state - work my ass off, get a pat on the back, but
make any mistakes and 5 people are asking why I didn't have test coverage for
that case, why I copy pasted this code carelessly, whatever mistake I made
when I was slacking.

I don't know how to break out of that state in any sense. I don't know how to
recognize if the environment really IS discriminating against me, or I'm just
letting laziness get the better of me. If I decide the latter I don't how to
motivate myself to care like I used to.

------
androidgirl
Depression.

I have a lot of social anxiety and I feel really isolated, my best friend
passed two years ago which didn't make anything better.

Isolation makes depression into a feedback loop, and it feels like you keep
sinking deeper and deeper.

~~~
house9-2
I highly recommend going to see a therapist.

~~~
Pamar
I second the therapist. But in addition to that I'd also suggest trying a
martial art. Depending on where you live you may have more or less choice in
terms of style/school/"hardness"... see what looks fine for you and try it
(martial art schools tend to have family/friendship connotations so this would
help with isolation too).

In any case, therapist first.

~~~
pvarangot
I did therapy, martial arts and high speed sports like MX and skiing. Now I
just know how to live with depression, it's easy if you learn how not to kill
yourself and have friends that enjoy your cynicism.

------
nbardy
Interviewing. I'm good at my good. My portfolio is at least decent, and I get
a lot of responses on my resume, but I consistently can't close the deal. I
also have a very hard time bettering myself with the lack of feedback. I've
gotten better at all the stuff you can read about online and often made it to
the final round, but I can't make it to an offer.

~~~
sushisource
IMO, software interviewing is pretty heavily broken. I struggled with this and
I decided (rightly or wrongly) that the problem wasn't me, it really was the
process.

Whiteboard coding is nonsense for any other purpose than weeding out the truly
incompetent.

Past that point, it's a crapshoot. I think homework / portfolio are the most
reasonable evaluative tools, but there are some legitimate downsides there
around the bias it can introduce into your process, and the potential
candidates who may be turned off by it.

Things worked out for me, but not before I had some serious self doubt.

So, stick too it. You (probably, I don't actually know) are good at your job -
don't let the nonsense process convince you otherwise. Look for companies that
share your viewpoints.

~~~
qwerty456127
> Whiteboard coding is nonsense

Absolutely. Asking a person to produce correct code with just a
whiteboard/pen/notepad is like asking a surgeon to do with just a kitchen
knife. An intelligent code-completing&checking IDE, a debugger and the
Internet should be considered parts of a developer's body nowadays,
restricting usage of these makes just as much sense as restricting usage of
glasses for reading or requiring people to get to the office without using
personal/public transport vehicles.

~~~
ccajas
The point of whiteboard interviews are supposedly to understand a person's
thought process when they're solving a problem. They're supposed to explain
step by step so the interviewer can pick their brain a little.

If an interviewer scolds you for writing whiteboard code that will cause a
compiler syntax error, red flag, time to bail out. This is now how they are
supposed to be done.

Properly done I might go against the grain saying I prefer whiteboarding tests
over take-home tests. With whiteboarding, both parties are at least with equal
time investment and a higher level of transparency. And once the interview is
done, it is done. No thinking about how to schedule your next few days around
finishing unpaid work for a company that you may have a chance with.

------
joelurker
I struggle with imagining the second act of my life. In my first act - my 20s
- I got more exciting jobs than I could hope for, started two organizations I
am proud of, made friends for life, was popular enough that people knew who I
was before I knew who they were. For various reasons, I left this first act -
both mentally and geographically.

Today I have a family, emotional and financial stability, and job prospects I
didn't have before. Yet whenever I talk to people about what who I am and what
I've done, I always refer to things from my first act, all 4+ years in the
past. Nothing happening in my life professionally or creatively now betters
what I've achieved already. Being still in my early 30s, this worries me.

~~~
Spakman
I hear you! I'm in my late 30s and, although I don't have a family, I'm in a
similar sounding situation myself. My first act sounds pretty similar to your
own and, for one reason or another, in the last few years I've undergone a
similar sounding shift.

Although it's all for the good, I've found the shifting identity tough (I've
always had a very clear self identity). When talking to others, any
description of myself or something in my life that I've come out with has been
accurate but several years out of date.

Very recently (last month or two) I've started to notice a little bit of
change around this. I suppose enough things have happened to this version of
myself that I'm starting to build some identity around that, as well as just
being more comfortable with the new situation in general. I have also been
reading and thinking about a lot of Buddhist philosophy, which I think has
helped give me some perspective.

I hope you're able to find whatever viewpoint you need to move through this
situation. I'm sure that you will - life has such a broad and deep variety of
experiences and there are many different avenues for adventure and reward.

~~~
JimboOmega
I'm in my mid 30's and if anything I'm in the opposite boat, most of my
accomplishments are in the last 5 years, and the last year in particular.

My identity was very tenuous for most of my life, and has only come into focus
quite recently. I spent most of my life trying not to be transgender, in
particular, and transitioned over the last year. A lot of the things I do and
am now would have been wild fantasy even a few years ago. It is going well,
and it feels nearly complete.

I do worry what I will do with my life now. Transitioning has been an all
consuming thing in all kinds of senses, but the end is in sight at this point.
Being the correct gender frees up a tremendous amount of emotional and mental
energy - but I don't know what to do with that energy. I've overcome something
tremendous but it's left me about where most other people are.

I definitely want my life to be about more than gender. I could very easily
stagnate where I am.

------
_sword
Pivoting my career and figuring out how to enjoy life again. I’ve been working
on Wall Street for the past 4-5 years in a front office role and am apparently
good at what I do, though I don’t find the work fulfilling or interesting. I’m
strongly considering going back to school to focus on more technical fields
where I believe my passion lies, but it’s a daunting task when I also have
career prospects with my current role that would likely pay more but at the
cost of less time, happiness, and fulfillment.

~~~
sp527
Protip: Strongly consider moving to Venice Beach, CA or similar. If you're
trying to escape the Manhattan grind (would strongly advise) and revamp your
life to focus on happiness, there are few better places I can think of.

~~~
askafriend
I'm curious why your advice was so specific. Why Venice Beach?

~~~
sp527
It's one-half of 'Silicon Beach'. Google LA and Snap HQ are here plus a ton of
other tech companies. If you don't want to live in SF or NYC, then it's
probably the next one down the list worth considering.

------
adamc
Depression, particularly since my wife of 28 years divorced me. It has gotten
a lot better in recent months, but it's almost two years since she asked for
the divorce.

And as I have turned to spiritual and mental health work to alleviate my
depression, staying interesting in tech stuff. Although Racket and Rust look
kind of fun.

~~~
brown-dragon
28 years! It frightens me and boggles my mind how something like this can
happen after being married for so long. Looking back do you have any idea why?
I'm sorry for your loss and I hope it'll get better for you soon. As others
have said it's perfectly normal to feel depressed at such a life altering
event and it probably does take a year or two to recover.

~~~
adamc
Some chronic depression before, maybe. But mostly, she said she wanted to find
herself, and she couldn't do that with others around -- too hard to "hear
herself think".

Which is to say, I don't really know and never will.

~~~
brown-dragon
I guess there are somethings you just have to let go off. I'm sorry man - I
know it must have been hard. I hope it's getting better everyday.

------
username77
I’m 30 and haven’t really had much dating experience. It boggles my mind how
people are already married by 30. How does dating work? Serious question.

~~~
nostrademons
I didn't go on my first date until a month before my 30th birthday. Met my
eventual wife on OKCupid 18 months later, married her 2 years after that, and
now have a 7 month old, ~7 years after it all started.

I'll disagree with a lot of the advice given here. The pictures on online
dating sites are what you make of them. I didn't even like my wife's pictures,
I only messaged her because she was playing 4 truths and a lie on her profile
and I wanted to call out the lie. I also read The Game and some PUA
communities, but soured on them when a.) all my female friends told me "Dude,
you're skeevy just for even mentioning them" and a married coworker was like
"Well, it works on some girls - usually the type that's a total trainwreck in
a relationship anyway."

Things that did work:

1\. Send _lots_ of messages, and go on lots of dates. I think I sent about 250
messages and went on 30+ first dates. Only 3 led to a second date, and the two
that were not my wife were previous offline acquaintances that happened to pop
up on my OKCupid matches. (I dated them for like 15 and 8 dates, respectively,
before deciding that it wasn't really working.)

2\. Dating is basically entirely emotional. Whatever rational thoughts you're
having about it are probably useless, and probably counterproductive (other
than avoiding obvious pitfalls like dating someone who's married, someone
who's cheated on everyone they've always dated, someone who wants a totally
different lifestyle from you, someone who wants kids when you don't, etc). Go
with your gut on everything. Don't trust your gut? Work on that problem first
before dating.

3\. "Common wisdom" is more foolish than most people think. I had a couple
coworkers take me out on a shopping makeover, where they helped me pick out
some very stylish new clothes that got me complements from a bunch of my other
friends. What was my eventual wife's reaction? "Well, he's cute, but I think
he may be gay. Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree here..." And then she
called me SkinnyJeans to all her female friends for the next 2 months (this
was 2012, it was the style then). She didn't (and doesn't) care about
appearances; that was part of what makes us a good match.

4\. Broaden your idea of what a good partner might look like. As a kid, I had
an image of my eventual wife: thin, white, blonde, popular, gracious, and
smart. My wife is the latter 3 of these, but she's a stocky Taiwanese-
American. And similarly, I'm not a bald Mexican soccer player named Santiago.
;-) (Ironically, both of us previously dated people who pretty much entirely
matched our checklist, and found we couldn't stand talking to them.)

5\. Related to the last 2 points, you aren't looking for America's sweetheart,
you're looking for _your_ sweetheart. Our couple's counselor told us that one
common failure mode for people who get married young is that they marry the
image of what popular culture says they _should_ want, which presents a lot of
problems when they grow older and realize that they have preferences & values
that are distinct from what the culture around them values.

6\. When you meet the right person, you'll know. Well, sort of. I knew within
20 minutes of meeting my wife that she was a lot more fun and easier to talk
to than any other first date I'd been on. I didn't know for sure that I wanted
her to be my wife until about 6 months after we got married. Most of my
objections in the intervening 3 years were fears masquerading as rational
objections - "Am I really ready to settle down?", "But she's not who I thought
I would marry", "It's weird having her family so close by when mine is all the
way across the country", "What'll this mean for my startup dreams?".

7\. Learn to recognize fear. If you want to be with someone _even though you
're afraid of it_, you must really love them. Listen to that and not the fear.
(Note that I said "it" instead of "them" \- if you fear the person, that's a
real problem you should listen to. Many people don't fear the person, they
fear the relationship and what it means for their self-identity.)

8\. Consider therapy. It's cliche, but you have to learn to love yourself
before you can expect other people to love you. I was bullied pretty
intensively in middle school, which included a lot of sexualized teasing of
the form "I can't imagine nostrademons ever getting a girlfriend", even from
my "friends". I internalized that over the next 18 years, such that even long
after I'd left my home state and everyone I knew behind, I was still
subconsciously living it. Once I became conscious of that thought-loop and
dealt with it, it was only 3 weeks until I found my wife.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
> I also read The Game and some PUA communities, but soured on them when a.)
> all my female friends told me "Dude, you're skeevy just for even mentioning
> them" and a married coworker was like "Well, it works on some girls -
> usually the type that's a total trainwreck in a relationship anyway."

I think the real value in that material is the disillusionment. If you
approach it as less a collection of cheat codes or parlor tricks and more as
an illustration of how what society has told you about attraction is
completely, utterly, ridiculously wrong, then you'll get a lot more out of it.
More modern approaches to "pick up" reflect this.

~~~
ryandrake
The PUA literature gets a bad rap as scummy but at its core it’s plain old
skill development: study, practice, have a plan, execute, review, repeat. This
isn’t a Disney movie where magic is required. Just hard work and dedicated
study / practice time.

------
AJRF
Finishing things.

I've started countless projects all with a wave of optimism on how its going
to be different this time, how this will be the side project that earns me
enough recurring revenue to leave my job and start making things I want to
build full time, but I never can finish them.

I am in awe at people who can work on things for 4+ years without getting
large scale feedback or revenue from them. My attention span for a side
project lasts a month at most.

~~~
tjungblut
I suffer very much from the same issue, although I'm not motivated by
recurring revenue. I also figured out that I'm only motivated on a couple of
evenings a month to really contribute to side projects.

What helped me in the past was to write down a _single_ thing that I want to
add the next time I feel motivated again and then spend the whole evening
focussed on shipping that particular thing. Because I always feel motivated
and focussed I can keep my attention span up for several months, previously I
would totally get bored after a couple of days.

~~~
nerform
This worked for me too, but only for a while. Now I can't find motivation to
even open the projects or start something new. I have way too many
responsibilities in my life. I think I gave up on my hopes on building my own
business alone. I'm thinking of hiring other people to do my side projects.

~~~
exikyut
Heh, I've been thinking of the hiring thing myself too, although more as a
moonshot idea since I certainly don't have the resources to actually hire
anybody at this point.

But reading your comment got me thinking... what about, hiring someone to work
on your idea, and then pair-programming with that person?

The (perhaps implicit) idea would be that the person/team would be leading,
and you'd be given a clear path to focus on the bits you wanted to and/or had
time+energy for.

Squinting at this from the right angles, you could interpret such an idea as a
race-to-the-bottom toward project management. But... perhaps that's a
direction you could go in?

In any case, what side projects were there?

------
paulintrognon
I feel that I live in a lie: the lie that we can keep on living with such high
standarts without destroying our planet (our more exaclty, our future selves).
I feel like we have to change radically the way we live to fight climate
change and all coming ecological disasters... Yet I don't do anything, because
it is to hard to give up all the comfort modern life can buy... But I know it
will have to end one day...

~~~
detcader
You can do something, with ideas like starting locally, experimenting with
your habits, setting a good example. Do you have time to practice cooking? Try
out some meatless/meat-substituting recipes. You don't have to give up meat,
it's not a black or white deal but can be any way works for you, with
exceptions or specific days. Do you feel you have persuasive writing skills?
You could write to local and state stakeholders about environmental sub-issues
you feel confident about. There's always a little to do.

Did you know the last U.S. marital rape exemptions were withdrawn in 1993? The
world rarely changes radically.

------
drakonka
I struggle with feeling like I never know enough. The more I learn the more it
feels there is to know. As a result even as I learn more and more, I feel
dumber and dumber :D

~~~
phakding
Dunning-Kruger.

~~~
mateo411
I think that's the opposite of Dunning-Kruger.

The Dunning-Kruger effect describes people who don't know very much, but think
they know a lot.

~~~
cimmanom
Dunning-Kruger also has a flip side where the people who are most capable
consider themselves far less capable than they are (possibly because of this
very effect where the more you know, the more aware you are of the things you
don't know).

------
Neff
1\. Finding things that drive and recharge me. I feel like I tend to
mindlessly go through motions but I am not getting much value out of my day-
to-day and find after a while I am worn out and tend to blow up at some part
of my life.

2\. Ensuring I build time for myself and not lose my personal identity while
being in a relationship. I tend to put my personal needs on the back burner
and go out of my way to please my partner, which leads to resentment.

The two feed in to each other.. I only seem to gain value from 2, which leads
to problems, and when I have time to myself I have no idea what to do with my
time to make me feel like I am enjoying myself so I choose to have less time
for myself.

~~~
100kg
I made an account to let you know that I'm also facing these very same issues.
If you'd ever like to talk about it let me know.

------
Crazyontap
I struggle with scaling up my business. I have been working from home for the
past 10 years and I have websites that generate ok money ($100K/y). My
struggle is I just can't get myself to hire my first full time employee. I
tried it many years ago but after facing the headache of hiring, dealing with
attrition, training, etc, it took away all my focus from work.

I feel management is a skill I just don't have. Also working from home,
staying with my family i now lack the motivation to get up on time and
commute, go to an office, etc.

Yet my business is as is for the last many years. I've tried hiring
freelancers and VAs but that too never lasts for more that 2 months. Hiring
freelance programmers has also never worked for me and in the end I always
think it would have been easier if I had done it in the first place.

So that is my biggest struggle for many years now :(

~~~
grizzles
I can relate to this. Try to find someone part time who you can trust and will
stick around for awhile. Look outside your bubble of hackernews etc, might be
a mom or a retired guy, whatever. Baby steps.

~~~
ksdale
This, the people you think wouldn't have the relevant skills can surprise you!
My wife went through a couple professional VAs who were... set in their ways
and expensive for what they were delivering and then hired a recent college
grad with absolutely no experience and she's been a total lifesaver.

------
jimmy1
A vicious cycle of procrastination and being easily distracted. When I finally
sit down to do something I am unable to complete meaningful progress
(meaningful to me). I have a laundry list of things I wanted to accomplish by
now, and haven't, and it's a growing weight on me.

~~~
stsmith816
Have you considered that maybe you simply aren't as interested in the things
you want to accomplish as you think you are? I ask because I struggle with the
same thing and that question is really what I'm asking myself now too. I'm a
mechanical engineer and I generally like building and designing things...to a
point. I enjoy it at work but by the end of the day, I just don't have the
motivation to keep trying to build things even if I'm superficially interested
in it at a high level. I'm probably just not as into as I thought I was. At
least not enough to do it at work and then at home.

~~~
jimmy1
I thought that, but those thoughts are invalidated by the few memories I do
have of being extremely productive, completing that project or task and
feeling wonderful as a result.

No, for me, I spent about a year reading books about adult ADHD. After getting
a couple of opinions, it appears that I am. However, I didn't fully believe it
until I got to talking to other ADHD adults, and I recognized some of the
quirky, fidgety, talking over others things that I always tend to do and I was
like "yup."

However I don't like how the stimulants make me feel and I already am a heavy
coffee drinker, so I am experimenting other ways I can cope: earplugs and
headphones with white noise, blocking visual distractions, letting my manager
know of my condition (big positive, at least for me), and I am now
experimenting cutting sugar completely out of my diet.

------
CM30
Overambitiousness. Or more precisely, actually getting stuff finished because
of overambitiousness.

I really need to remember the idea of a minimum viable product and not get
sidetracked with 'wouldn't it be cool if' type features that slow everything
down.

~~~
tluyben2
I have struggled with this ss long as I can remember (programming since 8, I
am in my 40s now). The way I combat it is by setting another ambitious goal at
the start of a new project; to make at least some money with it as early as
possible. That fights with new features; you actually just want to sell
instead of adding new features. Now for hobby things that do not make money, I
still am overambitious, I guess that is just something I will not get over as
I have nothing really to combat it. Even setting goals to really finish
something do not matter; my finished product looks like the Taj Mahal in my
mind while I am building the garden shed. I have not found the ‘make money’
that applies to hobbies.

Even with physical things; when I go hiking, I always go way too far and end
up getting ‘lost’ (never lost, I have google maps, but always thinking; I can
go just this path as it takes me deeper!) for a day on a mountain coming out
completely physically broken. Luckily I usually have my voice of reason in
this case; my wife, who says she is turning back after an hour.

------
kadabra9
Imposter Syndrome.

I've worked in various technical roles at startups, huge public companies, and
have received offers from FAANG companies. I still sometimes feel like a
complete fraud, like I don't deserve to be in the position I am in. It really
bothers me.

Maybe its related to the incredibly smart people I work around. Maybe its
because I am self taught, so didn't have a "formal" education in CS or
Statistics. Maybe its the destructive tendency to compare what I've built or
accomplished to others around me or those I read about.

I've heard that this is somewhat common in our industry. So it helps to look
back on where I was 5-10 years ago, and think about what I've done since and
how far along I've come. If anyone out there has had similar feelings or
experiences, focus more on what you have done as opposed to what you have not
(yet) done. It's too easy to sell yourself short. You belong.

~~~
Aloha
Impostor Syndrome.

I spent a bunch of my childhood in borderline abusive situations being told I
was useless or stupid. I also spent much of my childhood on the outside
looking in, as the fat weird kid. Like you, further complimenting this is
being completely self taught, so I'm certain that I'm less valued than peers
with a formal degree, and on some level I feel looked down upon by those with
a degree.

The more accolades I get, the more certain that its all gonna disappear one
day, and I'm going to wake up poor again working a dead end job, like I was at
18.

------
gubsz
I struggle with cronic injuries. Over the years I've accumulated a few
different injuries to my shoulder, back and knee which put me in a constant
state of pain. It's not debilitating but it is relentless. I'm always around a
3/10 on my pain scale, which just means I'm always uncomfortable. I can manage
with stretching and some targeted exercises, but generally my injuries do not
subside.

~~~
VMG
Fucked up shoulder here too! _pained high-five_

------
tmaly
Having enough time to do things. After you have a kid, you can only have one
hobby. After you have two kids, it seems you can only have one hobby once in a
blue moon.

~~~
roryisok
Try four :*(

I sleep five hours a night and get up at 4 to start work so that i can spend
the day with my family and not feel guilty about spending a measly one hour
hobby coding or writing (and it kills me to choose)

For the record, love my kids, wouldn't change a thing. I just wish I didn't
need those five hours sleep

------
Ramiuz
I want to leave my country for work/ study reasons, but I don't know how to
start or where to look. I'm a EE graduated from a university here in South
America (Chile) and currently working as a SW lead in IoT / fullstack
projects.

Every time I look outside (linkedin, /cscareerquestions, HN), there are people
with far more experience or qualifications. It makes me feel my ideas are all
wishful thinking. That the success that I have attained here is just because
"it's a shallow pond" and nothing else.

And when I look at grad programs (master); they require far more money that I
have with me right now. I would love to get a master in SWE (part of the
reason for going abroad), but I don't feel good enough for a
scholarship/financial aid.

~~~
isseu
Intenta conseguir trabajo en Estados Unidos. Para los chilenos es mas facil
que incluso un Europeo conseguir trabajo en Estados Unidos por la visa H1B1.
Pero ojo que solo las empresas grandes estan dispuestas a hacer la pega que
implica (Abogados y esas cosas). Ademas a los SW les pagan mucho mejor aqui
que en cualquier parte del mundo. Source: Chileno en USA

~~~
kgthegreat
translation Try to get a job in the United States. It is easier for Chileans
than even a European to get work in the United States for the H1B1 visa. But
beware that only large companies are willing to make the implication (Lawyers
and those things). In addition to the SW they pay much better here than
anywhere in the world. Source: Chilean in the USA

From google translate: [https://goo.gl/N57zNf](https://goo.gl/N57zNf)

------
gnulinux
I'm incredibly absent minded. I constantly keep forgetting/losing my cards, my
wallet, my phone, bags, random stuff; somehow I break things in ways I don't
understand... I just graduated from college, my life was fine so far, but I'm
currently getting kicked out by my landlord because he was sick of me making
trivial, small mistakes 10000 times a day. They're things like forgetting a
plate on the table, forgetting toothbrush in the sink, a towel on the dust
cabinet, a shirt on the couch, my laptop on a desk etc... In fact, it's
getting so bad if this persists a few more months I'll get an MRI because for
all I know this might be a brain tumor. What's worse is I have absolutely no
idea how to improve this since most of the time I can't remember the moment of
incidence.

Today I realized I lost my debit card. I went to my bank account and it seems
like I used it last 2 days ago, but it's not in my wallet now... I have
absolutely no idea where it is. This is the 3rd time this is happening this
year...

This is affecting my work too, but not significantly. Sometimes I push print
statements with my code, can't even see them until people point them out (I do
review my code before committing, `git diff`). One time I merged two branches
that should never ever ever be merged and spent half a day trying to fix git.
These are mostly minor things and afaik my manager is happy with my
performance and I consider myself an ok software engineer. But still all these
small mistakes are driving me crazy! I also worry it'll affect my career as an
engineer.

~~~
brendanmc6
I deal with this too. An example I'll never forget: leaving my sweater at a
friend's house, realizing half way home (on a bike, freezing), biking all the
way back to pick it up, then riding all the way home without my backpack (I
took it off to put the sweater on). I miss train stops, forget important
grocery items, leave my car at the carpool and think it's been stolen, etc.

I notice drinking makes it worse. So does cannabis. I have good months and bad
months. It makes me feel like I'll never be worthy of a leadership role or any
respectable level of responsibility. Major impostor syndrome when I'm working
with people. Gives me anxiety when I give talks because I am afraid I am
forgetting something and will act my usual foolish self in front of everyone.

I had an MRI for an unrelated issue and it came back normal. That helped a
ton! Hypochondria and being hyper self-conscious is certainly a part of it.
Last month I presented a concept for a webapp and a research project I did and
won a small internal pitching contest. That helped a ton-- when I feel like
I'm killing it and making strides, I don't feel like such an idiot, and stop
noticing all the little mistakes I make.

~~~
gnulinux
> leaving my sweater at a friend's house, realizing half way home (on a bike,
> freezing), biking all the way back to pick it up, then riding all the way
> home without my backpack (I took it off to put the sweater on).

This hits so close to home... In my experience things like this were just
"cute" little memories in high school and college so I never thought of it. I
graduated this May and last 3 months I've seen that things like this ACTUALLY
affect my life very badly. So I'm trying to improve this, and this thread has
been very helpful and encouraged me to see a doctor.

------
cimmanom
Making big life changes. I just don't know where to start, and even after
breaking them down into tiny tasks, I procrastinate on them... probably
because I'm a little bit scared. Or a lot scared.

The current project is moving overseas. The next step is to find a recruiter
in the country I'm looking to move to, since I'll need a job offer and visa
sponsorship, and it's really difficult to job search internationally. But it's
so difficult even to identify reputable recruiters locally, where you have a
network and can ask for recommendations from people you know. How do you find
someone to trust in a totally new location?

So I've been putting that off for (checks calendar) 6 months now.

~~~
davnicwil
I have done this. The simple answer is just look up some recruiters on
LinkedIn and fire some emails to them with a brief summary of what you're
looking for and your CV.

Then, view the rest as an interview process for the right recruiter. Lots just
won't reply. For those that do, set a high bar for filtering the initial
replies, then from that filtered group set up some calls. In the call, really
take the time to get to know them a bit. Ensure they know what they are doing.
Ask probing questions. Interview them! Once you've done the first call, you're
in a pretty good position to judge who you'll be happy working with.

It's really that simple, not exactly fun but not exactly that painful either,
and it all starts by sending some emails. Do it now :-)

On a side note, despite all the bad stuff (taking a slice of your salary, not
always offering the _most_ relevant jobs, etc) recruiters really do work very
well when you are first looking in a completely new place. It's not the only
way, but I would recommend it.

On a further side note, it is completely normal to be scared by something as
massive as moving to a new country. You will be changing your life in a big
way! So don't do yourself down over that. At the same time, just get the ball
rolling, push through it and get it done. There are quite a few things to do,
some hard, some annoying, some boring, some fun, but all individually small
and achieveable. At the end you'll look back and think, yeah, that wasn't all
that bad!

~~~
cimmanom
Thank you for the advice and encouragement!

------
stackola
Sleep.

Specifically, going to bed early enough regularly.

Feels like my day has 24.5 hours, so each day shifts back by 30 minutes

~~~
informatimago
Yeah. Same here. 24 h 37 m 22.663 s more precisely. The only explanation I
have is that we come from Mars.

~~~
drakonka
Not really! This is actually normal and documented, most people's circadian
rhythms are on a slightly longer than 24 hour clock:
[http://science.sciencemag.org/content/284/5423/2177](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/284/5423/2177)

------
sanderjd
Machine learning. It seems like an extremely important skillet to remain
relevant in my career, but I'm not willing to become qualified to do
fundamental research (that is, I don't want to commit the time and effort for
a phd), and the higher level sk-learn / tensorflow type work seems like it's
largely a bunch of data cleaning plus guesswork finding good models and
hyperparameters, which I don't find very satisfying. My current thought is
that I'll need to be more excited about the _application_ I'm using it for in
order to enjoy it, whereas I've always enjoyed "normal" programming just for
its own sake.

------
tequila_shot
Thanks for asking this question. I was reflecting on this lately:

I specifically struggle with 2 things:

\-- With adulthood and family. I'm not really sure how my parents did it, I
feel I'm still not an adult ( married 2 years ago).

\-- I did my undergrad in CS, got hired into an IT consultant company, and
started working as a developer implementing tool platforms. ( imagine
SalesForce, AWS etc., ) for customers. Now I'm working doing the same thing in
one of the top 5 companies in the world. I don't like this anymore. I want to
branch out and do full stack development, ML, AI OR ANYTHING ELSE EXCEPT THIS.
As I mentioned it's becoming impossible to change my career because 1/ I'm on
a visa 2/ I'm married and my wife's doing her graduate courses in the location
I live in.

I'm doing my masters on the side, but really at the end of the day I don' have
enough patience / will power to do anything else apart from my current work
and that's killing me everyday.

~~~
xaranke
Which city are you in? What visa are you on?

~~~
tequila_shot
SF, H1B

~~~
xaranke
If you're on H1B you can change employers, SF would definitely have a lot of
companies willing to make this happen.

~~~
tequila_shot
Yes, I know. I'm in my last years of my H1B, meaning my GC application is
underway, and I'm ....But more than that, it's the very thing that I'm unable
to spend time on items that I love to work with, and even if I did there are
>10,000s of folks with the exact same experience, so I'm not sure how I'd land
a job in those areas. . .

~~~
gyani95
Not applying is the surest way not to get the ml job. Or try switching roles
within the same company?

If you find the time you can do an online masters in Machine Learning from
Georgia Tech for around $7k. You can hack on your own projects and build
credentials.

Some companies might be willing to sponsor the OCMS course.

~~~
tequila_shot
Thanks, I'm already pursuing my masters in OMSCS. This is my second year.

------
ravenstine
I struggle to code in a timely manner, and I'm often wondering whether I'm too
slow or the world is too fast. I don't think I'm an incompetent coder, and I
don't believe I'm stupid, but I'm convinced that it takes me a lot longer to
build something than other people I know. It's not that I'm not trying, but
I'd rather not rush into problems. It's unclear whether this makes me a bad
software engineer since I've been both rewarded and punished for this trait.

~~~
linkregister
It sounds like a lack of years of experience in a given specialization. When I
graduated university and finished internships, I was fast at coding OOP
enterprise-type applications and systems-level C programs.

Now that I've spent so much of my career doing other things, e.g. reverse
engineering and infra work, my coding is less than a quarter as fast.

There are also considerations as to how productive you are at working for
hours straight, and also whether the "fast" people are creating durable
architecture.

------
honkycat
I'm about to turn 30. I spend my 20's in college for a CS degree and
developing my career after that. It went GREAT and my life is pretty
fantastic. I've made really excellent decisions consistently.

But, the work is never over. Currently I'm struggling with:

\- Getting healthy. I'm not obese but I'm not fit and if I don't have a habit
of regular exercise now it's going to just get harder in the future.

\- Working towards what I really want to do: game development. I paid off my
student loans by hustling and being an office drone. Now I want to get back to
what I got into programming for and get out of web development.

\- Become a more well-rounded person in general. I don't want to be a TV /
youtube / social media slave. I want to make art and explore and have a good
life.

So I guess overall I do an excellent job with the day-to-day job grind, but I
struggle to set goals for myself and follow through with those goals.

------
dabockster
I just got diagnosed with ADHD combined type. Looking back, my entire life was
a total mess before starting treatment. Little to no concentration abilities
make you lose focus on your surroundings so much that it can affect your
ability to eat and sleep on a consistent basis (not to mention employability).
You sort of just sit there mentally screaming at your body to get up and move.
Or you mentally scream at your body to stop moving and sit down. Bottom line
is that you have almost no control over your attention in every way. Your head
is also in a constant fog because you aren't able to maintain focus on what's
going on in front of you.

If you see yourself with constant attention issues even in an optimal
environment, please see a doctor. ADHD and other associated conditions can
ruin your life if left untreated.

~~~
Shanedora
I was diagnosed with that when I was younger. I am 31 and still find myself
suffering from it. One has to eventually discipline their daily habbits to
overcome it and that takes time, patience and effort.

------
ld00d
Focus. That's why I'm here right now instead of GTD.

------
deletethis
figuring out how to be a good partner to my boyfriend who just admitted he was
molested as a child. he says he doesn't want to talk about it but he's also
the one who's brought it up on multiple occasions. we both have very bad past
experiences with counseling and medication, so it is unlikely he'd be very
receptive to going down that road again. he's the most loving and beautiful
person i've ever known & i want nothing more than to show him that he can
still be loved by not treating him any differently than i would otherwise but
is that really and different from repression? there's also the fear that he's
becoming very dependent upon me while my own mental illness is still very much
unresolved. he still lives with his abuser and i really want to get him out of
that situation but if i take him in, it'll create a situation where he is both
emotionally and financially reliant. any advice would be deeply appreciated

~~~
_ah
Don't take him in.

People grow, and you can encourage/assist, but each person ultimately has to
choose for themself. If he needed to get out from his abuser he could
presumably do it on his own, with varying levels of difficulty / pain. The
fact that he hasn't done so means you would be "saving" him, a terrible
choice. Unless he takes the step himself to become a fully self-reliant adult
he is very unlikely to become that person under your protection.

Alternatively you could help him escape and provide a safe place for him to
grow, while realizing that your relationship will probably be doomed in the
process. I don't recommend this path.

------
Odenwaelder
I struggle with the question whether to have children or not. I'm surrounded
by new fathers who struggle with their children, whose wives have turned from
attractive women into unattractive moms. I read witty comments all the time
suggesting how much of a burden kids are.

This struggle burns me out.

~~~
souprock
I'm at 11 kids now.

The struggle and burden is real, though most people wrongly assume that it is
a linear function of the number of kids. It isn't so bad. The first one
upturns your life. The second and third are much less trouble. After that, the
only thing you notice is when you outgrow a vehicle. I'm at a 15-passenger van
now, which is hard to outgrow before the oldest kids learn to drive.

Once you have a couple kids, you might as well have a dozen.

By "unattractive moms" do you refer to flabby bellies? Yeah, that happens...
but then again, to some extent it happens anyway, and we all end up looking
awful in the end. If you meant presentation (makeup, hair style, high
heels...) then I don't know what to say because I purposely picked a woman
with a plain all-natural style.

~~~
EADGBE
> Once you have a couple kids, you might as well have a dozen.

You make completele sense. But you didn't; at one time.

It took a lot of convincing before we had our first one. I was terrified and
completely worried about everything all the time.

The second also took some convincing. But after he came; I really felt like I
could handle anything. After a few months of both; I no longer had these
worries about adding more kids. I don't think there's much difference between
2+ and 20.

------
meguest
OCD.

Lately I've been struggling with what they call inflated responsibility. I
typically ruminate that something I said, something I did, or something I did
not say or do will have some large negative effect on some or something and
that I will be responsible for it. It's immensely stressful to worry about.

I'm seeing a therapist to work on my issues.

~~~
Insanity
I also struggle with OCD. Have for 2 decades now. It's easily the #1 thing I
struggle with more than anything (repetitive thoughts to be precise) and it's
a pain in the __*.

------
JDazzle
Finding a programming job.

I've taken classes, done simple stuff, talk about it with friends who are
coders, but I just can't seem to get a job.

I've tried making a move to a programmer position in my last two jobs, but I
either blow the interview, or my department holds me back cause they need me,
or in my current job they tell me that they only hire level 3 engineers...

I can't find junior software engineer positions that would even interview me
and it's become a thing that all I'll be good for is application support, no
matter how much knowledge I show about programming and logic

edit: Thanks for the down vote!

~~~
sloaken
To get some credentials you need a body of work or a degree. Volunteer
program, either for a charity or an open source project. Then you can
reference that.

A number of years ago, a friend of mine did some work on an open source C++
library. Google called him.

------
sikim
Feeling always behind the others. I've recently completed my master in CS
while working full time. I still feel that I'm vastly behind other people in
terms of compensation and knowledge. I can never be motivated at my current
work when I know there are new grads making double or triple of my current
salary.

------
frenchman_in_ny
I feel like it's "everything" right now. Finding happiness. Impending divorce,
possibly losing my kids, fighting with my soon-to-be-ex-spouse with regards to
the kids education & where to live, how to make ends meet, etc. Being
miserable with my career... It's a long list.

~~~
iamthirsty
I know how you feel man — I'm in the same state. Not the same circumstances,
but the struggle is all the same.

The only way out is through.

~~~
thorin
When you're going through hell, keep going!

------
benzini
I struggle with the management of my life, honestly.

Dealing with a chronic health condition, working full time, exercise (which
often doesn't happen), spending time with friends and family (whom I've been
neglecting in favor of a project), and finding time for the absurdly long list
of projects I want to work on (which never gets shorter as I rarely get to
work on them).

The health and work thing really take up all of my time. It's kind of a
bummer, really.

------
mud_dauber
Struggling with the idea that I'm no longer valuable to the tech industry -
purely due to age.

------
ian_jeiner
I can't stop to underestimate myself on my programming level so that I'm not
applying to some cool jobs because I think that I wouldn't make it, while
knowing in my deep mind that I could totally do it.

I've been programming since ten years, I'm 23 now, I've finished my Msc in
embedded software engineering. Programming is my biggest passion. I've created
and sold websites for companies of my city and cities around mainly when I was
~16yo and even from time to time until now. I've made and sold multiple mobile
apps, some that have currently thousands of clients by subscription. And I
have always since 13yo at least a project in my hands.

I'm really not good at selling myself for companies where I'm applying for a
job, it's terrible

------
TeMPOraL
Lack of discipline and motivation. Just having an obligation to do something
causes huge amounts of stress (sometimes to the point of physical pain), so I
get easily distracted by _anything_ that is not the task at hand. Ending up
burning midnight oil to catch up.

------
waterphone
Getting freelance web development work. Maybe the markets are just changing,
but in the past couple years my opportunities for new clients and projects
have dropped off significantly and it's become very hard to sustain myself
anymore.

------
_struggling_dev
I am struggling to find steady work. I had a fabulous job after my Masters in
US, which I left to move overseas with family.

Was young and decided to start a company with a friend which was shut down
after quite a bit of coasting aimlessly. Tried another startup but didn't
market it much hoping people will find it themselves since the product was
good. (Lesson learnt !)

In the meanwhile, I developed a paranoia of flying which meant I could not go
back to my old job, not to mention the visa hassles. Been freelancing for last
two-three years and its just enough to put some food on the table and largess
from parents is seeing me and my family through. All this took a toll on my
health and I started developing classical anxiety symptoms (learnt about it
later) and started worrying that something is seriously wrong with me
medically. Still living with these although the frequency has gone down a bit.

Not enough money from a promising career guy (me) took a toll on all my
relationships especially my spouse. I haven't really spent on any hobbies or
have effectively killed all my interests as they all require money.

I am still trying to keep myself updated with latest technologies but since I
do not have regular work to show of to potential employers and probably little
big of ageism, its not getting easy to get any interview calls. Thinking of
trying to get into teaching as it might be something I can possibly be hired
for.

------
throwwwaw482
Money.... no matter what I do, I'm always living paycheck to paycheck. Even
when I budget carefully, it just flies out the door. I am not sure how to get
things under control and I'm worried that I'm just going to keep going further
into debt. I've been working for years and don't have anything to show for it
except for a bunch of debt and a credit card that's starting to fill up again.

------
haskellandchill
Insomnia, it's a fun one. I have learned patience, and through the buddhist
approach to non-self a way to deal with my suffering. I'm tired, a lot, but
sometimes I'm not! I've learned to appreciate those times immensely instead of
focusing on wanting to be in a state that is unattainable. I'm not fully in
control, and that's ok, I do what I can, when I can.

------
erobbins
Motivation.

I'd like to retire ASAP, but I'm already old (45) and I've just let so many
opportunities slip by because I can't get off my ass.

------
screaminghawk
People around me are stressed and burnt out and I don't know what to do to
help. I simply don't have this problem, so can't relate.

My wife is constantly asking when is the next time we can "have a break" but
I'm actually happier with the status quo than when we go away. I'm not sure
what to do.

I'm genuinely interested in advice if anyone has any to share.

~~~
curiousity
When people are stressed and burnt out and come to talk to you about it, you
don't need to relate. You just need to listen and be supportive. In my
experience, most people don't want advice or stories of related experiences -
they just want to talk through their problems and figure it out for
themselves. Just ask questions, or listen.

As for the second point, you should probably listen to your wife. The status
quo will be here when you get back from your break. That is assuming, you mean
break to mean something like "holiday" or "vacation".

------
mlthoughts2018
I struggle with avoiding desensitization or the status quo feeling one should
just focus on one’s own life and not let external sources of moral or ethical
outrage affect you.

It is so critical to be outraged by an ever-increasing number of things that
truly, sincerely deserve to evoke outrage. Any solution that proposes to
somehow not be outraged just cannot be considered.

Yet at the same time, nobody has the bandwidth to be so outraged, let alone to
try to have a happy life.

I think this is a non-trivial problem of modern philosophy. Is it ethically OK
to short-circuit your moral outrage because pragmatically there are too many
issues to be able to process, or it would be socially offputting to be “on”
all the time?

Shouldn’t you take great pains to boycott products or services from bad
actors, protest abuses of power and corruption, never ever become exhausted of
talking about or listening to discussions of these issues, even unto whatever
toll it takes on your personal life?

I’m very skeptical of people who quickly say no.

What a struggle this problem is!

------
mrhappyunhappy
I am mostly struggling with losimg weight. I have always been around 200lbs
with highest at 204lbs. Recently I went on a low carb diet and cut out most
sugar except from fruit and I got down to 194 lbs but according to an app I
have I am still at the extreme end of obese. I'm 5'11 with a body day of 26.4%
though I don't look that fat. I do have somewhat of a gut but it's been
shrinking on my new diet. Recently I started lifting and i put on some muscle
mass around arms and core but I have now plateaued in weight loss at around
193. I have never been able to get to 180 in my life except when I passed that
number on the way up. My ultimate goal is 175 with 10% body fat but I have a
feeling I need to go on an extremely controlled diet with a ton of exercise,
lifting and cardio. I feel demotivated and defeated so this is what I struggle
with most.

------
mo1ok
Energy/productivity. I have the time to work on things, but after a day of
work and an hour at the gym my brain just wants to go straight to reading,
videogames, or laying down and relaxing.

I'm struggling to consistently use those 5+ hours of free time every day for
something that will move me further in life.

~~~
drum
Maybe you're being too hard on yourself and expecting drastic results too
soon. Day of meaningful work + gym consistently over an extended period of
time will help further you in life. Reading can help further you in life
(obviously pending what you read). Only thing I see up there that I'd consider
as a time waster would be video games... but even then a few hours a week to
unwind can't be all that bad. I think Steven Spielberg and Elon Musk are known
to game from time to time

------
cg-enterprise
Keeping the amount of opened tabs in my browser below ten...

------
n0tme
I am 35 and I am lonely and it's not getting any better + my job is getting
boring (DBA), since I am pretty familiar with everything, and there's no
chance for me to switch to programming, even though I know JS and many other
languages, but my resume says: 10+ years DBA.

~~~
exikyut
Does improving query optimizers or other internal stages sound interesting? If
you've been a DBA for 10 years then you're going to know a few things about
the way databases work internally, even if you specifically only have
experience with say SQL Server or Oracle.

You could very probably pivot around into database development/maintenance and
the transition (including the job-hunt bit) may be less bumpy than you expect.

The process of figuring out if this is a worthwhile idea might also be able to
squash the loneliness bit: go tinker on open-source database systems for a
while, in your spare time.

I've heard Redis is very clean C code and very easy to hack on, so that might
be an interesting starting point. On the other hand Redis isn't quite SQL,
it's a key/value store, so perhaps it wouldn't be a good fit.

MySQL and PostgreSQL are so part of the furniture one's initial thought on
poking those might be "why would I even dive in", which is totally valid if
nothing's on fire and there are no critical money-eating bugs or whatever. But
the chances are a decade's DBA experience might come in handy.

I've no idea what languages you know, how much experience you have with what,
and (most importantly) what random technical things will leap out at you as
especially interesting when you see them.

~~~
anarazel
> Does improving query optimizers or other internal stages sound interesting?
> If you've been a DBA for 10 years then you're going to know a few things
> about the way databases work internally, even if you specifically only have
> experience with say SQL Server or Oracle.

> You could very probably pivot around into database development/maintenance
> and the transition (including the job-hunt bit) may be less bumpy than you
> expect.

Yes, that's totally doable in the PG world. Send a few small patches, proof
that you can work with the community, and you'll likely start to get job
offers. You won't get close 100% open source work immediately, of course, but
there's several places that hire where you can have growth potential.

~~~
n0tme
Hey, guys, thanks for answers. Didn't think anyone would even notice my
comment! I really like the idea of helping the community even for free. The
problem here is I have no idea how to start. For me to dig deeper (and I am
working with Oracle on a daily basis) the problem has to occure and be
repetable, so how can I get into fixing problems if I am not even using PG? I
could, probably, install it on my PC/notebook, but it won't be a production
use, so I probably won't face any problems.. It's always been a puzzle for me:
how do people start with open source projects.

~~~
exikyut
Ah, this is why I scroll through my _threads_ view repeatedly...

Well, putting fires out is one thing, but that's not everything.

It sounds like you've basically dug a hole inside Oracle and lived in it for
10 years. That certainly works, but as you've found, can be very insular. So,
spinning up a different database, or even database _s_ plural, so you can
learn difference between Oracle and what else is out there, would generally be
a good idea.

Understanding how to set up a new database installation and tune it would also
be good. If the above point refers to having a broad understanding of
different systems, this point covers having some level of depth with each
system, particularly configuration. (The thing that popped into my head was
the possibility that... maybe... one day you'd get the opportunity to go
"actually, I know of a faster way to solve this database problem - if we use
this free database over here _types for 4 seconds and suddenly a new PG
installation is running_ we can just import the data _types for 2 more seconds
and the data is imported_ and then _writes query on first try in 8 seconds_
get the result we need." "...Can you move this off your laptop?" "Sure! :D"

Okay, I have no idea if the above would ever happen where you currently are :)
but it's of course a good idea to be confident with configuration, setup,
optimization, how things can fall apart and explode, etc.

One idea: when confronted with a real-world issue, if you're in an environment
that will let you clip out bits of production data and play with them on your
own machine for testing, it might be useful/interesting to figure out how to
solve a given problem on multiple databases. (Translation: if you follow the
path you're on, it's possible you'll be using something other than Oracle. You
could use your current prod data as homework on "but how do I do X for Y DB?",
and save the boredom of using synthetic lorem ipsum. You might find certain
databases work faster for certain queries than Oracle does, which wouldn't
surprise me at all.)

To get at the question you asked - figuring out how to get started - this is
very context-specific and not something I can effectively answer; IRC could be
a good starting point: I found
[https://www.postgresql.org/community/irc/](https://www.postgresql.org/community/irc/),
and also [https://postgres-slack.herokuapp.com/](https://postgres-
slack.herokuapp.com/).

Also, on
[https://www.postgresql.org/community/](https://www.postgresql.org/community/),
I found the link to the [https://www.postgresql.org/list/pgsql-
jobs/](https://www.postgresql.org/list/pgsql-jobs/) mailinglist; this is
basically a "Who is hiring?" specifically for PG-related stuff. This
immediately makes me wonder: what should someone who's stared at Oracle for 10
years focus on with PG, so they could competently pick something up from here
and run with it? (Might be a question for IRC, Slack or the mailinglists.)

Thanks very much for mentioning that you are in Russia in a previous comment
:) this gave me more bits of entropy to throw at Google and found some
potentially interesting results.

First is [https://www.postgresql.org/message-
id/CANNMO++6tPiwBv2OKcy-H...](https://www.postgresql.org/message-
id/CANNMO++6tPiwBv2OKcy-HhiYmByhL+XSSUH3NDvOs3G1VVg++g@mail.gmail.com), which
suggests that Oracle is losing its ground there, with people switching to
alternatives like PG.

Indeed Yandex switched recently, and it hit the front page of HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12489055](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12489055)

So... this brought up a new idea that could be very interesting: you could
specialize in Oracle-to-PostgreSQL migrations! This may well be a very
worthwhile investment of time; large installations that need Everything And
Especially All The Details® to Just Work And Simply Never Ever Fall Over™ are
naturally going to be more than happy throwing you piles of money. I imagine
that even in an assistant or entry-level position (being pragmatic; no insult
intended) the associated portions allocated to you from said piles of money
may still be appreciable. (Something I think about a lot is "where does
everything scale so much it leaks tons of money?" :D)

Other resources that may be relevant:

[http://postgresql.ru.net/](http://postgresql.ru.net/)

[https://www.meetup.com/postgresqlrussia/](https://www.meetup.com/postgresqlrussia/)

[https://www.meetup.com/postgresqlrussia/events/past/](https://www.meetup.com/postgresqlrussia/events/past/)

NB, the Russian link at
[https://www.postgresql.org/community/international/](https://www.postgresql.org/community/international/)
is broken and appears to have been made redundant by the meetup links above.

------
01100011
Being tired most of the day.

I have sleep apnea, but it's controlled with a CPAP. My numbers are good and
I've felt better since I started using it, but I still like I need a nap most
of the time.

I exercise, eat right, take vitamins and supplements, but I just can't escape
the fatigue.

\---

Money. I got a divorce a few years ago and now I'm paying 1/3 of my income in
alimony. Combine that with having taken a lower paying job a year ago. My old
job slowed down and I hastily took a defense contractor job so I could pay
alimony. Now I have to work a side job just to make what I used to.

I'm trying to land a FANG job which will boost my income enough not to worry
about it, but that's tough to do when you're tired all the time.

~~~
DenisM
Ask your sleep doc about modafinil, it will set you straight wrt excessive
sleepiness. Check for anxiety too, that can mess up your sleep.

~~~
01100011
Got a supply of armodafinil but I weaned myself off when I got the CPAP. I did
OK for a couple months but now I'm sluggish again. I have essential tremor,
which is made worse by armodafinil so I'm trying not to rely on it. Good stuff
though.

~~~
DenisM
So, you have to pick your poison now, eh? Sorry to hear that.

Don't give up though, there might be a combination of drugs that will reduce
the side effect. It might be a lot of work to find the right combo, but the
stakes are high too.

------
BooneJS
Reading HN for 10 minutes when compiles only take 2.

------
kc10
I am 35 and do active software development. Most of my peers transitioned into
management, but I don't like management.

But I fear aging out, not able to keep up with technology changes, not be able
to blend with young team over time etc.

------
allenu
For me, it's being obsessed with productivity and getting things done, as well
as constantly having some side project going (for fun). It's not extreme (i.e.
I'm not losing sleep over it), but it does take the joy out of things
sometimes because I feel like I have to be producing something to be of value.
It's hard to just sit still and enjoy quiet because I feel like I need to be
working on something.

On top of this, because I've been working on getting more efficient and smart
at getting things done, I get impatient when people don't aspire to the same
level. I find it alienating.

------
webyacusa
Immigration. I came to the US (specifically to Indianapolis) about 12 years
ago. I acquired citizenship in 2016. And yet, I have failed to integrate to
this community. I have no friends, just co-workers. And I feel like I already
tried everything: meetup, book clubs, bar trivia, you name it. It does not
help the current political climate, in which we are guilty of all the
disgraces that occur here. I am contemplating going back to Colombia, but the
career prospects look real bad. Career wise I am doing terrific, I make good
money, own a house, have no debt. But I am so fucking alone.

------
fandango
Lack of (career) ambition. Because of a workaholic dad I sworn to myself to
always choose an easy worklife. Take the easy path. Currently in a family with
kids and a nice job, but I lack the motivation to really make a career. Sure
it's a fun (programming) job with a lot of freedom. But I only do what is
necessary, nothing more. Money is not an issue or driver for me. People may
see me as lazy. Will I regret this?

Also, is playing videogames in your thirties considered childish? I sometimes
get the impression that people do. Not sure how to respond to that.

~~~
patient_zero
I firmly believe that society puts too much emphasis on the wrong aspect of
our lives today. The fact you feel vaguely guilty for not being more driven to
achieve _at work_ is a symptom of this imho.

You have a family, a job you like, and a a work\home balance that allows time
for videogames? sounds like you've won at life, friend. people have ambitions
to get where you ARE.

~~~
fandango
Thank you for the kind words. I realize that all "problems" are relative, so I
guess when you state it like that it doesn't seem so bad.

------
cosmie
I'm struggling with how to market myself. I'd like to take what I do as a full
time employee and pivot into doing it as an independent consultant. Yet have
been struggling to find enough side income to support making that jump full
time, because I can't find an "elevator pitch" that articulates what I do and
what value I provide. The vast majority of side gigs I've gotten have come
from previous bosses who have firsthand experience working with me, but the
work is too sporadic to rely on.

In case anyone here has any advice in how I can position myself: I'm a
generalist that specializes in getting shit done. Whether that's
strategy/advisory support, execution of exploratory initiatives until they
show enough ROI for a full time hire, or filling skill gaps that are too
sporadic to justify an FTE. I've worked directly under CMOs, CEOs, COOs, CTOs,
business owners, as well as client-facing agency work. And in essentially all
cases, have been the guy you go to when you don't know who to go to. I
generally "seed" efforts, working end to end until it scales to the point of
supporting specialists. I've been a one-person data/analytics team (fully
owned from maintaining the databases to coding the ETL to writing SQL queries
that support the analytics/dashboards for the business) that I've scaled to an
entire operations and decision support department. I've managed advertising
campaigns and created an entire conversion rate optimization infrastructure to
support getting the most out of my campaigns. I've also worked with technical
teams to adjust development processes so that they incorporate best practices
that drastically improve the ease of marketing/analytics efforts. And most of
all, I end up getting pulled into meetings to resolve confusion between
business teams and technical teams.

Ideally, I'd like to provide those same type of "catch all" services as a
consultant. For a monthly retainer, I can fill whatever strategy or tactical
level gap you have. If you're a technical person/team struggling with sales or
marketing, I can provide that guidance along with initial
implementation/execution to prove it out. For business people/teams, I can
either provide technical points of view to ease communication with your tech
team, or provide actual execution services if needed.

------
Tade0
I might have lost a _second_ friend to suicide even though the last time this
happened I promised myself that I would do something before it's too late.

Problem is I have no way of knowing for sure, because the only means of
contact I had with him was through facebook and his account is currently gone.

He's been openly contemplating taking his life for a year now or so. Normally
whenever he did this I would try to be there for him but apparently that was
to little, to late.

I'm still hoping he'll resurface eventually.

~~~
TallGuyShort
>> I would do something before it's too late >> apparently that was to little,
to late

You can't take that all on yourself. The way people reach out is a factor in
suicide but it's absolutely not the only one. I hope you find out what
happened to your friend and that it was nothing too final, but please don't
make the mistake of carrying that burden. It would be as big a mistake for you
to do that as it would've been for your friend to feel like death was the only
way to deal with their problems.

------
Shanedora
I have a learning disability that I overcome by being methodical towards
approaching and solving complex problems. As a result, I require more time
over the average person for the simple requirement of being organized before I
can move on through a process. This has been a challenge that I'm still
learning to overcome. Lastly, I have a difficult time accepting and allowing
room for failure which is a necessary outcome or experience in engineering
disciplines.

------
xaranke
Struggling to find out what the right next step in my career is.

------
ok_coo
I struggle with deciding whether or not to stay at a job that's close to home,
one in which I really like my team and the work I do, but the pay is way below
market rate.

The pay normally doesn't bother me unless certain bills or other things come
up, but when it does, I always think about my pay rate and where I probably
should be at.

My issue is that the _only_ thing I don't like about the job is the pay but
everything else keeps me here and I don't know what to do.

------
neillyons
Explaining things to non technical people can be challenging.

------
harlanji
I struggle to get respect in the workplace. New in the last 5 years.

Have been a programmer since high school, now early-30’s. Am now homeless in
Silicon Valley because coworkers at each job profile me wrong and bully me
out. Recently I was wrongly identified as a Trumper and fired while on
berevement leave via bogus HR reports. Later I had my Christmas days off
revoked while boss was laughing in Hawaii at next employer, and had the final
employer do an illegal reference check and refuse to officially acknowledge
it—walked off these two. My network abandonded me in doubt, so options are
worse than ever and confidence is hard to muster/maintain.

Seems like there is no way to get on track beyond luck/good will, and I am so
skeptical of nice gestures that it can be offputting for all involved.

------
ratsimihah
LAZINESS! There's so much I can do, yet I'm not doing it all! Spiderman said
that with great power comes great responsilibity, and it's been haunting my
all my life!

Currently juggling with 2 projects, and I got 2 more ideas I barely started
implementing.

[https://twitter.com/ratsimihah/status/1035164159632199682](https://twitter.com/ratsimihah/status/1035164159632199682)

------
h0p3
I struggle with myself and the world:
[https://philosopher.life/](https://philosopher.life/)

------
meatyapp
I'm trying to do 3 things at once:

1\. Work my job

2\. Get a better job (leetcode.com)

3\. Build my own app

Besides #1 where I don't have much of a choice, I struggle to make progress
towards both #2 and #3 sometimes. I feel like maybe I should just focus on one
or the other at a time e.g. I'm not even 1 year into my new job, so perhaps I
don't already be practicing for another, and should just concentrate on my app
after work.

------
estevaovix
Try to use the Pomodoro Technique[1]... believe me, it helps.

It organizes your tasks in rounds of deep focus with intervals and the results
are very good, specially if you are dealing with multiple things at once.

[1] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique?wprov=sfti1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique?wprov=sfti1)

------
procedural_love
My health. The past several years have been a journey of finding a diet and
lifestyle that minimizes the pain and discomfort.

The other half of that is, when genetics and circumstance have such a
crippling impact on one's ability to live a "normal life", how do you cope
with it emotionally and spiritually? That's the more challenging half of what
I struggle with.

------
throwaway2356
I struggle with the fact that I'm going to have to quit academia and get a
data science job (probably). I love academia. But I am too slow, and personal
life means I am geographically constrained. My plan is to choose a topic and
work at that as an academic side project, with the aim to still publish either
alone or with seated academic friends.

------
openfuture
Discipline, time management, fear of commitment, money to some extent and then
occasionally my self-image.

Reading the responses here makes me feel blessed for my problems. Also I am
making progress on them (these are long term things that I will be dealing
with in some form my whole life, hopefully the money one will be gone by the
time I add health to the list).

------
truebosko
The never ending drive to feel qualified.

Extreme swings from excitement to depression / anxiety that I seem to hide
very well at work.

------
starpilot
I struggle with crippling social anxiety and shyness that has affected every
aspect of my life. I'm 33. It's made job interviews awkward/uncomfortable, and
even made it hard to find rock climbing partners because I'm not really fun to
be around. I don't know what to do. Therapists haven't helped.

~~~
abledon
Improv classes ,, and find some actors in classic films or television series ,
try to emulate them and incorporate their quirks into your style and
mannerisms basically you will fake it until it actually becomes a part of you
because the grooves in the neurons will finally be beaten down. Also helps to
do lots of exercise - work up to 1000 push-ups per day (with breaks) over
maybe 2 year training period but since u rock climb ur probably fit conscious
already . If you think a situation is embarrassing or something , reframe it
as an opportunity to collect a funny story to tell, think stand up comedian ,
so underneath all the chaos of the situation there’s the shining gem of ‘what
a f’ing funny - curb your enthusiasm - Essie uncomfortable situation I’m in ,
this will be a great story to tell later on .

------
throwythrow
Work.

I'm 30. I've never held down a full-time job. I've been in 4 software
companies over the years and I've only lasted a few months at each one. I've
also tried contact programming so I have a similar string of failures.

I've been to doctors, career advisors and so on but I don't really have any
answers.

------
toss0987
Echoing a few other posts, being myself and achieving my goals while also
providing for a family.

Addiction to pornography.

Off and on depression.

------
thatguy1527
Anxiety about the future of artificial intelligence. I feel like human
intelligence is constant and AI is ever-increasing. Eventually we’ll be way
behind and I don’t know how to think about a world where humans are second
tier. It’s honestly made me less happy and affects my day-to-day life.

------
fatboy93
To be really honest, I struggle with python, perl. This frankly sucks, because
most of my field is made up of those two.

R feels like home just like bash.

Perl feels too cryptic and python too verbose and everything feels that I have
to google.

Having no programming buddy to help learn with, it's an uphill task.

------
Aeolun
I think I care too much. I want to hit the deadlines, I want to make boss and
the client happy, and have a fulfilling personal life on top of that.

There’s too much, and something has to give eventually.

------
throwaway6388
Controlling my thoughts, I have really despecible thoughts going in my mind, I
tried meditation, trying to think about something else, etc., but it's really
hard to stop them.

------
seancoleman
Caffeine addiction, physiological dependence and psychological addiction,
where the caffeine plays a major factor in ill health effects (sleep loss,
anxiety, depression, etc.)

~~~
collyw
Jittery enough to submit this twice....

(Not sure if it will help, but l-theanine gets rid of the jittery effects when
I have had too much, though I am pretty sensitive to caffeine).

------
firemelt
Focus and self discipline, anyone can help me with this?

------
seancoleman
Caffeine addiction, physiological and psychological dependence with a
substance causing ill health effect (disturbed sleep, depression anxiety).

------
unixhero
Answering questions from a top down thinking, bordering on the existential,
but still tangible:

\- What am I doing with my life

\- Why am I an employee

\- What is the point of this?

\- What is my plan?

\- What is my strategy?

------
rooam-dev
Estimations...

------
schappim
Wife an I working on our startup whilst raising 3 kids. We never have enough
time!

------
cryoshon
finding a realistic way forward for myself in light of my talents and
shortcomings. with great effort i have produced stability that is comfortable
enough, but it isn't anything that i could ever be proud of.

------
abootstrapper
Making new friends, me being in my late 30's with young kids.

------
gido5731
As a non-adult, doing programming, cyberpatriot, and school...

------
codinghorror
At this point? Sanity.

------
benvineyard
Inspiration. I constantly seek new forms of thereof.

------
alexitosrv
A friend and coworker committed suicide last night.

------
rasengan0
Continued tribalism and polarization of group think facilitating exploitation
by state and corporate actors to the detriment of all.

And impunity from data breaches from said negligent irresponsible parties.

------
michakirschbaum
Testing with stubs/mocks, particularly in JS.

------
serhadiletir
I am definitely having a struggle about focusing.

------
claudiug
german language. And I'm living in Berlin.

~~~
dewey
Where in Berlin do you really need to speak German?

~~~
yitchelle
I guess it is OK if you are in the inner city of Berlin. But if you go beyond
Berlin a little bit, German language is needed to have a bit of a social life.

------
24tracks
Finding reasons to go on with life.

------
frnkshin
Coordinating multiple tasks..

------
anon1253
Good one to vent a bit. I'm 30 now, living in the Netherlands, and dropped out
of a PhD in epidemiology/bioinformatics to work remotely for a company in the
US. This has been great. Pay is wonderful, approx 130k/year. My official title
is something like Senior Data Scientist. I work mostly on the application of
machine learning and natural language processing to clinical study data.
Between the day to day ops and management, I sometimes put together neat
little ML prototypes. And, in the past 3 years I managed a team that I
personally put together through hiring and firing. The company I work for
gives me a lot of autonomy, and I think we've delivered truly amazing things
in that time span. We've literally build a state-of-the-art medical search
engine from scratch, from the design, to the Clojure programming, down to the
nuts and bolts of putting the machines in the racks. Since things were
seemingly going well, I thought "good moment to buy a house". So I bought a
house, approx 400k (coming down to 2000/month roughly). But ... I've recently
become aware of some changes to the company structure that may or may not play
out well. I think they will, but they might not. So there's a reasonable risk
that I might be unemployed soon-ish. This scares me. Being in the far North of
the Netherlands, there aren't a lot of job opportunities for a drop-out like
me. And, finding a company that is willing to take the risk of hiring me
remotely ... yeah I'd even be hesitant in hiring myself at that pay-rate. The
thing is, I might have to sell the house and all that shitty adult stuff if
that happens, just to cut monthly costs. That scares me.

On top of that ... I'm not even sure I /want/ to work anymore. I would love to
work on things like climate change, but that being underfunded (and not having
a degree) I don't see happening. The only openings I see for a Senior Data
Scientist position usually require a PhD (which I dropped out of _sigh_ ), or
are in the ad space. And, for as long as I have a say in the matter I will
never work in the ad space.

I've been thinking of doing my own thing, bootstrap something. But I literally
don't know what. Cynicism maybe. You hear all these stories of bozos pitching
some idea but can't get the people to build it; I guess I'm the opposite: I
think, given time and resources, I can build a lot of things ... but
seriously, I wouldn't have a clue what to work on. Except maybe multi-stage
flash desalination using concentrated (heliostat) solar power to green deserts
as a carbon sink ... but yeah, not a civil engineer.

The thing is ... through life choices I think I've made myself unemployable. I
need the autonomy to do stuff, or I'll go mad (also, don't make me get out of
bed before 10AM ... just not going to happen). But on the other hand, man it's
been a productive 3 years ... and I learned /so/ much. I wish I just knew what
to work on next. But my dysthymia prevents me from seeing that stuff clearly.
If someone with a cool idea comes around, I'd love to sink my teeth into
stuff; on my own, all I think of is the impending climate change disaster. Fun
fun fun.

~~~
Link-
I think you're amplifying the weight of the degree in the hiring process and
I'm not sure it's such a hard requirement given the increasing demand for data
scientists and ML engineers. I can definitely empathize with your lack of
confidence given that I'm a drop-out myself [Undergrad - quite far from PhD
:D]

~~~
anon1253
I even have an H-index of 8 (eight papers of which I am included as an author,
cited at least 8 times). It's more the uncertainty that I am struggling with.
I don't want to become some wage slave weighed down by a barely payable
mortgage. I want to work on stuff that truly matters, but funnily enough ...
the world is in disagreement on that one as far as I can see (ads, "social"
networks, forcing influence one way or the other ...)

------
bigbang
Getting up early.

------
hmart
Procrastination

------
samueldavid
health issues and keeping up with tech.

------
sremani
Focus.

------
gf263
tinnitus

~~~
tluyben2
Ditto. What an annoying thing. To fall asleep (and I sleep extremely well) I
have mp3s of comedy playing otherwise I only hear the sounds of my ears and
cannot get to sleep. It tried muziek, nature noises, white noise, other noise;
nothing really seems to work besides something that fluctuates enough but
somehow not music. The stuff I play I know by heart so it does not interest me
per se but it all still makes me laugh and is never annoying; cannot put on
audio books as then I would not sleep but listen to them.

I cannot do speech conference calls mostly as I will hear nothing and real
meetings need to be in quiet rooms or I hear nothing of what was said. Chat
rooms are a godsend. Not sure what I would have done if I lived currently in
the 80s.

Because I have had this for a long while I recognise people who have a similar
or the same affliction; in business especially men are ashamed or something of
it; many times in meetings when there is persistent background noise, I see
people in the room who clearly understand absolutely nothing of what is said
but act like they do. I just ask if we can move somewhere else or that they
will need to start talking louder and while looking at me.

Besides the tinnitus my hearing is good; in hearing tests I score well and
aids do not help with this.

------
lol_jono
everything

------
billybolton
Narcism.

I'm like the smartest guy in the world, and I can't believe how mediocre
everyone else is.

~~~
olooney
I can help you overcome the first part of that, right now: it's spelled
"narcissism." :)

~~~
billybolton
Do you know how to overcome autism?

~~~
dang
Would you please stop posting uncivil and/or unsubstantive comments to Hacker
News? That's not what this site is for, and we've asked you already.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
draw_down
I find it very difficult to care about the shit that needs shoveling every day
in the bowels of a tech company (or really anywhere in corporate America). I
remember when I used to be able to convince myself of the value of what my
employer was doing and my contribution to that.

Not only all that, but there is so much about tech companies now that I find
distasteful. The underplayed arrogance of engineers, the cliquishness of who
gets to make decisions and who gets the good work, being on a team starving
for resources while others get every blessing available, the pervasive self-
serious belief that we are changing the world instead of making a bit of lucre
(nothing wrong with that really, but call it what it is).

I don't have any drive for any of it. I just want to read and think about
things that are interesting to me. I'm hoping I can cash out and stop the
madness, but as we all know, options are lottery tickets until they aren't.

------
m1573rp34130dy
...I dont have any friends, and i always have to do extremely physical things
solo to stay warm, dry and fed...

