Ask HN: How to come out of this situation? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How to come out of this situation?

7 pointsineedyouradvice9 comments

Hello entrepreneurs and hackers. I have screwed my career big time. I am in mid 30s and I am penniless literally. After completing bachelors degree in CS from university, I started masters. Had to drop out due to illness. Joined a company after a year. Company paid low salary. And lot of politics in the company. After 2 years just when things were improving, mainly the salary, I left as I hated that political environment. Started consulting and did that for many years. I earned enough to pay bills but nothing at all for medical and retirement so far. I believe I didn't have necessary (business) skills for running successful business so I couldn't make good money though I made clients happy. Now my gf left me as her company offered her a good role and huge salary. She thinks I am a loser. And may be she is right. All my fault. So, here I am - no money, no house, no car, no wife, no savings. Totally f4d. As you guys are among the most intelligent ones on the planet, I thought you guys could help me with a bit of your wisdom. If you were in my shoes, what would you have done to fix things? I don't have ego problem. So, even if you are half my age, please don't hesitate to post your advice. Thank you all in advance.

Most folks in your position have a hard time solving their problems because they collectively seem overwhelming.

You are employable, and have no difficult responsibilities (kids, debt, etc), so honestly you are not in a bad position. Also, if you have not considered moving, I would. Psychologically it can make a huge difference to feel like you are starting over, somewhere new. If that seems hard, remember you can always move back. And don't let yourself come up with excuses for why it wouldn't work: it can work.

Write down the problem you want to solve first. Say, getting stable employment.

For this problem, write down a few optimal outcomes. For each outcome, write down what you would advise someone to do to accomplish it. For example, "I want to move to Seattle and get a job at Amazon" (or whatever). Now write down what you would recommend: "Research Seattle; Find acquaintances there; Figure out Amazon's job positions; Social engineer your way into talking to an Amazon employee (probably not hard on this site); Convince them that you would be a good engineer for them".

Now the hard part: Follow your own advice from above. Wake up every day, and step-by-step work towards your goal. If you are worried you cannot, find someone to make you accountable (parents, etc) that you can talk to about it.

Good luck.

I know it's tough to look on the bright-side, but consider this.

You're in your mid-30s, no house, no car, no wife and experience in one of the most saught after and well paying professions in the world! Nothing holding you back from living the dream.

You've got money coming in from your consulting gig, but maybe that isn't what you want to do. You've got a good grasp of the english language, but you mention 'nothing put away for medical', so I assume you're in the USA. I'm also assuming, since you're on HackerNews, that you're interested in start-ups and working on cool tech.

I've got many friends from different parts of the world who would die to be in your shoes. If I wanted to move to the US, I'd be dying to be in your shoes too.

If you're not in one of the tech-hubs now, why not move? It costs too much to move? Companies will pay your moving expensive. Moving to a new city is hard? You bet it is, I've done it twice in the last two years, but what have you got to loose. You can be miserable where you are, or miserable somewhere else.

You are only a loser if you think so yourself, but don't worry. You are a winner! Like stated out, it comes out clear that you have a great set of professional experiences so getting yourself a decent job should not be a problem in my opinion.

I recently started reading How to win friends and influence people[1], by Dale Carnegie and already after 4 chapters it has changed how I think about how I interact with people. Get yourself a copy of this book and read it.

[1]: http://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/06...

I don't think you're screwed.

I'm 32 and in debt (fortunately my country provides for healthcare and has mandatory retirement money set aside), and I'm in a company with a toxic environment (like you said your old one was).

Yet I don't think I'm in a bad position, and I don't think you are either - as others said: we're in a well paying profession, with almost no unemployment. You're not tied to a city either (no emotional attachments).

If you're making customers happy, I'm pretty sure you can make more money. A good and reliable consultant is worth it.

I'd take it as an opportunity to reshape my life and realize my goals (if you don't know what those are, to find them out :) ). If I were you, I'd use the opportunity to be adventurous. Do you like traveling and startups? There's for example Startup Chile - http://startupchile.org/ .

You can travel with very little money by US standards too.

I'd try to meet people - is there a HN meetup or similar where you live? Meeting people face to face will probably help. Or if you have some kind of interest outside programming, meet other people that share those.

I'll start with this. Fuck the past. You can have whatever life you want, now. I've known people who quickly turned their life around. When only a few weeks prior they were broke.

I think you have to change your mindset. If you think your life is terrible it's going to be terrible. Take things one small step at a time. As humans we're impatient and what to see immediate results. But that never works. It's more important to make consistent progress over time.

I tend to think that Life is fair enough (to an extend) and the more effort and hard work you deposit, the better outcome you'd get. so, find a job in any organization you'd be ok working for, and work your a*s out and try to learn how others do it as well in the process.

Where are you located? If you live in the Silicon Valley or you wouldn't mind moving there, contact me (my email is in my profile). I would love to chat.

You gotta solve these problems one by one. Can you still code? Get a job at the highest salary you can find.

Yes, I code as part of my consulting work. In fact that is what I do a lot.

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