I miss the comfort of knowing everyone in the company and miss having all the relationships I built over time there.
I miss just being able to disappear for 2-3 hours midday with no one really being bothered by that.
Anyone else with the same feeling? What should I do in this situation?
I got lucky. But if it didn’t work out I would probably regret it, badly.
I don’t think people should go back to a prior employer. A lot of people have a cozy sort of path in life. They want comfort and stability. But if that’s all you do, I don’t think the highest levels of growth are ever possible.
Living a no risk or low risk life is the path to mediocrity. I’m glad about the risks I have taken.
Some of the risks I have taken have had devastating consequences.
When you take a risk and it doesn’t work out it is very hard to step back and say: “well, I took a risk and sometimes it doesn’t work and sometimes it does. But taking no risks is unhealthy so this is natural.”
If you took a risk and it blew up in your face, the pain and loss are always far greater than the sort of touchy feels.
The only thing I can offer is: “try to master your mindset, psychology and self talk.”
It is not much to say when you are in pain from a bad move. After having so many things work and so many things not work, all you have left is what you do in your mind when it happens and your self talk.
If you fix your self talk, you can sometimes turn a bad situation into a good one.
>I don’t think people should go back to a prior employer.
Personally, I don't think that going back to a prior employer is a bad look. I've seen colleagues who left and came back in a more senior role.
My group started real small and we had a great rapport. This was 95% in office (sometimes we were at customers or something for days/weeks here and there). We would go out for drinks at least once a week. We had debates and discussions, pranks and other nonsense. It was generally a fun time.
Then there was some attrition and I moved to another group and back again years later. The group was a little bigger, but it never came back to the way it was.
Flash forward another few years to Covid. Everyone goes full remote. Eventually my company adopts a 2 day policy (everyone’s in 2 days a week). At this point my department is expanding rapidly. People aren’t always in the same days and some people rarely come in at all (policies are loosely enforced). We also added some roles that were largely out of office (staff aug), so you would never see those people.
It got to the point where I would look at my company and think to myself “who are all these people?”
I started asking people out for drinks after works and, since I moved up, asked my director if I could organize some company sponsored outings.
Eventually I settled back in. Doing things with your coworkers outside of work helps to make it feel more whole. Companies, just like relationships, are not unchanging and you can experience the same sort of feelings even when you don’t move to another company.
Give it time. Try to socialize not over work, but doing something else.
Do I regret it... from a monetary perspective, yes. I missed out on a bunch of money. I'm going to have to compete for spots now amongst the rest of the "looking for work" tech world. After the few interviews I've done, I know that won't be easy.
From an experience perspective, I don't. I built the tech platform of this startup from the ground up. I now know that I never want to work for a non-technical founder again. I have been confirmed in my understanding the grappling scope is key for delivering (the founders didn't listen to this idea though).
Everything you do has plus and minuses.
Bored is bored, and is a feeling that arises contemplating the finite amount of time one has, whereas money is more open ended, even with a well-intended plan which turns out a setback in the money dimension.
It was just a lot harder at first, which is ironically much of the driver for me to leave the game studio, because I’d learned a lot and loved the space (auto racing simulations), but wanted to keep growing as a dev and thought that would be slower at the game company.
If you don’t have specific, unlikely to change negatives, give it more time. You’ll get back to the point where no one notices if you take off a bit here and there. (You might already be there.)
Start a chat group for alumni of your old company and invite a few people who still work there.
You should have asked about this in the interview. I only work/apply for companies that offer a flexible schedule: that basically means “we do have certain ceremonies per week at certain times that you should attend, but besides that it’s up to you how you handle your time”.
Flexibility and job satisfaction at her current job couldn't he matched by the large corpey.
Did you leave on a good note? Did they offer you a counter-offer before you left?
Left and went to a company that sold insurance (i.e. not software). My boss was a psychopath and expected everyone to be in the office 8-12 and 1-5. No exception.
I lasted 5 months before I scheduled a resignation email to send at 5:30PM on a Friday, telling them I wouldn’t be at work on Monday. Went back to the first company and stayed another 9 years. Just resigned from that company last week (really unhappy with post-acquisition re-org) with nothing lined up. We’ll see if regret follows…