Tell HN: I am acting like parasite at my job and no one cares
I am a young software developer, in my early twenties. I love programming, I spent countless hours of my free hours on it and I like to think I am quite competent at it. Last year I started at new position in small, startup-like company, developing in-house product. I did very well at the interview and they were clearly impressed with me and my open source projects (they told me after they hired me). In last 2 and a half months I suddenly lost all the motivation, I have permanent brain fog and can't focus on anything mentally challenging. I am on home office due to COVID with flexible working hours. I am quite sure I brought negative value to the company during that time, as I barely touch the code these days, mindlessly browsing Internet instead. I reply immediately to e-mails and direct messages on Slack and attend all the meetings, but 90% of time I just have my webcam and microphone muted and don't contribute anything. But I realized that no one really cares. We have regular standups, but I have been giving the same answer "I am still working on feature XXX" for weeks now and no one bats an eye. Recently I had 1-on-1 meeting with the product owner and he said everyone on the team gave him good references on me and they are happy to have me on board. I think as a developer team we get along very well as people, we have regular self-organised teambuildings. But the company is not doing very well, we are under pressure of our investors and the numbers aren't so good. Some of my colleagues are very hard-working folks and I feel terrible because of it. But I spoke to some of my older friends who are developers at other companies and they told me they experienced something really similar, but most of them expressed no regret of it - that's how the game is played, they said, act social, be on good terms with your colleagues and managers and no one will care if you are actually doing something meaningful. (continued in the comments)