hoboon

Your story is heartening. I wish it would work for me. Nothing really makes me happy or interested. I could lay in bed all day if I didn't force myself to get out.

I think it's great that you didn't have any formal education, and you have gone farther than me, someone with formal education and 'seven years' of experience.

> guess what I am trying to say is: - dont give up - expect success over time (1-2 years as a bare minimum) -

I've been unemployed for a year. I think my career is over. Other, better people can do more.

Did that last year. No bootcamp guarantees placement.

> That is called learning.

I get the tripe of what you mean, but perhaps I fail at failing, then. I don't really learn anything. Everything I do is wrong, I'm told.

I wish antidepressents would work. If I could cut out parts of my brain and be better, I would.

I just don't get it. Everyone else has done something right or at least better. People say things and everyone else gets it. I've been working for seven years, unemployed for one year. I had a job for a month and they fired me because I didn't have the skills they needed (not sucking, being experienced, nothing tech specific).

I just don't get it.

I don't know what my pay grade is, or how to feature the data I get. I do ask for feedback from interviewers; they usually don't response. When they do, I get conflicting answers.

C/C++, learning python, ruby over the lst couple of years. Been working for several years, graduated with bachelors from a cow college no one has heard of.

bug fixing. that's all i've ever done. anytime i try to move into a dev role they shut me out. Writing new code was not an option; tinkering with new code was not really allowed. I thought about what I could do to make things better but they're already fairly optimzed. doesn't matter, I'd just make it worse.

You'd think they'd hire for c/c++ but not me.

It's a good interactive method to constantly challenge yourself into remembering and learning material.

Basically, what you're supposed to do when you're actively reading material. I never really learned how to study until later in life but apparently this is how you're supposed to do it.

I think we don't see it a lot in many classrooms because of economy of scale. When I was in school, we had a professor who did this with his smaller class on computer networks but seems like maybe didn't in his larger classes. He'd ask questions but so many people trying to answer, less time for personal answers (which was fine with me since I was always the slowest person in the room).

> Go solo. At 40 you should be experienced enough to handle up to mid-sized projects, alone and on a reasonable time-frame. Try to pick projects that your clients will actually use,

someday i might get there.

This is fantastic, and makes me hopeful. I'm almost 40 and no real career accomplishments but there's still time for me, maybe, before I just decide to hang it up and just go home.

You're right. I talk about this often. I'm going a little crazy, and maybe angry.

> I think the best way to get over that is to make something on your own that is so great that everyone wants to hire you without even doing an interview!

This is a good idea.

I have no idea what people would want or what I could make that people would want or what open problems are there that I could make. Every idea I have someone else already has a better solution.

I keep trying and put it in github but it's mostly for me; no one looks at it.

I wonder if it's common or I am just unlucky or unskilled...

I've been out of work for 11 months. I've been on a large number of interviews and it seems like after that many failed interviews, the answer is probably with me.

The most frustrating thing is the lack of consistent information about why I didn't get hired. Some people said I had good theoretical grasp but can't code. Others said I could code really well but didn't have the grasp of fundamentals they wanted. Most stay silent.

Frustrating.

I've grown to hate and resent myself.

Highly recommend people apply for this company. I interviewed here and while I didn't quite make it, they're a good group with an interesting embedded/hw product and backend.

These are very good points. It's what I tried but it seems like I never met anyone. Just keep at it, I guess.

I'm not OP but how do you find work/clients/projects? I saw a posting earlier that had some suggestions.

I like tptacek's list but I'm wondering about how to get clients.

tirrellp makes a good point, though. I guess that's how?

> I'm guessing you are someone who does not enjoy programming? Did your parents pressure you to take it up to have a well paying job?

I do like programming, and I can at least empathize with the parent's skepticism. I do recall the lessons that my other freelance colleagues have told me about 'work-for-free' schemes in different forms. I don't think that's what is happening here but I can understand why some might feel that way.

I've noticed people will look at it if you really have their attention, say an employer who is inclined to give you a job.

Having a site talk about requirements is useful. A lot of the times I don't know about features or needs in a system until someone told me.

20-30 minutes talking with an engineer and whiteboarding a solution to a site helped me along immensely towards a solution that had more meat on it.

> I got rid of my cell phone and got rid of internet service at my house.

I've been wondering about doing something similar.

>cool friends, lovely girlfriend.

I don't have any of those.

This is how I feel. I don't watch TV for hours like I did as a child. What I do now is worse; stay in doors programming, browsing the web aimlessly, or staring at the ceiling. I don't blame my internet lifestyle for this really, but I literally don't know what else to do and the internet is so accommodating to me being a shut-in. I know I'm wasting my life but I don't know how to stop.

San Francisco is a beautiful city but it is wasted on me and I feel like I should feel guilty for that. I don't deserve this nice city; it belongs to creative people.

Trying to leave the house to do anything interesting takes herculean efforts. I can't find joy or interest in anything beyond an intellectual level. Everyday sometimes feels like it's worse than the last.

I'm trapped in an un-ending present where I grow older but never grow as a person.

ps - anything you have to suggest is something i've heard already x10 and have or currently trying, such as therapy.

> I use wget for plain, old regular downloads a lot.

I loved wget for that. what are your options? Mine was always -r -p -k -nH --cut-dirs=2 -np

I would figure that by 1997 most people stopped using gopher/archive/veronica. I think I stopped by 1995 or so.

now days we use curl/wget for web dev it seems? probably used it for the same thing back then but I also image that lots of people just used their own ad-hoc scripts or whatever; i wish i had firsthand knowledge of that.

i used wget to download copies of websites when i found one that was mostly documents/images rather than webapps.

I interviewed with these guys a few years ago. Nice people, good people. I don't have a web background but they gave me a fighting chance anyways.

I wish them the best.

Hi!

I interviewed at matasano before and regret not really getting it. I think I came close but I'm eager to try again.

I'm curious to know something: how do you meet these non-technical people?

I've thought about what you said. It's not terrible advice, I think, and I can see what you mean.

It was difficult to apply in my situation, though. on top of my many-hour commute, family commitments, normal day-to-day work (bug fixing is all throughput, no down time), I just don't know how many more hours of my day I could commit, which is why I ended up quitting that job.

Others seem to make more progress for less work, so I'm doing something wrong, or just not seeing what they are, or whatever.

Thanks for your advice.

I've been looking through some of these. I hope it works out for me.

what do you think of topcoder?

this is very helpful advice. i thank you for it.

I think I might be below your threshold, though.

I agree with you about a great github. though i don't know what i could make that people would want in the dozens or hundreds.

my quip about python was more about np/pd/scikit. python is great.

i'm distantly aware that i'm whining. the past couple of months have been bad. in the past week i think i may have had a solid psychotic break.

> Alternatively you can always decide to work on something outside of work that can help sharpen your skills.

I do, a lot. It's all garbage, though, and no one really looks at it.

Don't get trapped into work you don't want, but perhaps don't quit your job yet, either. Don't wait. You don't want to be a near-40 year old loser like me before this hits you.

Thanks for the advice.

> and there is work for you, engineering work, that is a valuable contribution to a company. This is a pretty good time to be in tech, and there are plenty of positions.

This just drives home how much of a loser I really am. I live in SF. I'm surrounded by it.

> Or it's perfectly fine to do testing, automation, sys admin work, or take a management role.

I think tech support or other stuff might be my only option. I'll take an internship if I have to but at the altitude of late-30s, it hits me harder that I've wasted many years.

> Still, I think you are probably selling yourself short, because you feel discouraged.

Or it's a fact. I have to lie from now on to sell myself.

Thanks for the advice.