Ask HN: I need help finding a job that fits my current mental situation
The pandemic has taken a massive toll on my mental health. Not only because I can't socialize like I did before, but also because I had to stop practicing my sport. My sport was one of the main things that kept me sane. I work out at home now, but it's nowhere near the same thing as going to practice 3-4 times a week.
On top of that, my wife left me in January before the pandemic hit. We're now going through the legal stuff, which is pretty stressful.
And I'm potentially dealing with some health issues. Still waiting for an appointment with my primary care provider.
I'm doing therapy. It's been keeping me barely sane. My weekly therapy session is the thing I look forward to the most during the week.
I'm a senior engineer at a large tech company. I'm paid a very handsome salary and quite a lot in RSUs to care about some of their systems. Given my position as senior, I'm expected to make big, important decisions, and to mentor people in the team.
I can't do any of that right now. I've been feeling like I'm scamming the company, because there have been entire weeks where I literally didn't work. And it's not because I don't want to, but I sit in front of my laptop and feel totally overwhelmed by everything and completely blocked mentally. My manager is actually aware of that and has been very understanding, but I still feel really bad about it.
I don't want to quit to take time off though. I feel like that'd be worse, and I'd probably just spend my days in bed not doing anything. I can still code - I do my own coding in the evenings, and that's been going quite well (nothing that will make me money though). I just can't be expected to care about stuff and to be involved as if my life depended on the services we build. There's no space in my head for that.
If I could get a job where I'm basically assigned tasks to code things to spec, done, next, that'd be perfect.
Does that even exist though?