vectorboost

I can testify that similar daily routine works and can keep you inspired and on fire. However take enough rest and watch out for burnout!

It worked wonders for me until I realized my research subject is going to shit and that I science is not really my think.

I went to 2, or maybe 2,5 burnouts. When my 3rd burnout was on its way I realized I cannot continue like this.

I did a PhD in IT and taught a few courses. After some time i realized that the research I do is mostly useless and waste of public funds. I just could not continue, I felt like you for about a year and then decided to quite and went for a support job in corporate IT.

That felt good for about two years, I finally felt I am doing something real and useful. But later same feelings kicked in and I realized that very few people actually care about what I do. The people at the top cared only if the KPIs are fulfilled, not if the work is effective or meaningful.

After long thinking I reflected and tried to be honest with myself. I have put down pros and cons of the current job and realized there are way more cons.

I decided to move to smaller company and do a very different job. I left a senior position and started on a junior position. Which felt a bit weird but I can feel I am on a much better track, doing more hands on job with new technologies. In the previous job, the stagnation was actually the biggest problem. I realized that I actually cannot do repetitive and mundane task. I excel at examining new things and solutions.

So my suggestion to you is:

- Think about pros and cons, or write them down

- If you would not do your current job, what would you like to do?

- Is there some element missing in your current job? Like:

-- Do you miss new things?

-- Is it challenging enough?

-- Do you feel that you need to stretch a bit to complete your tasks (because this is where your grow, even muscles grow when they are pushed to the limit, at least sometimes)?

- Is there something in your job with which you have moral problem?

Sometimes you realize that only small change is needed. But I guarantee you that you need to change something, otherwise your burnout will get worse. If you realize a major change is needed, you can still take smaller steps.

For instance I still work in IT now, but I feel I would like to teach smaller kids, so I am planning to apply for evening study college to become a IT and History teacher on elementary school. Maybe I will find out that's not what I want, in that case I can just quite the college.

Last thing. Don't be afraid to take the step! Sometimes one just needs to do it to move things forward and see the changes happening!

Sure there were far-right people and calls for violence on Parler, but the same thing is on Twitter. Twitter and Facebook is literally overflowing with nazis, fascist, communists openly calling for violence against ppl or a particular class. And some accounts are left unchecked for very very long time. Calling for genocide of jews, killing of cops, racist comments against black people, asians etc. And suddenly Parler is the problem? I don't get this.

Twitter is full of pedos and rape videos and that's totally ok too? This is pathetic.

I left my last job in a senior position. In my current job I do something a bit different and I am technically a junior.

Since I was in both positions my advice or request to seniors would be to try to take your time to explain things to your junior colleagues. From personal experience this pays off in the long run and reduces dumb questions you receive later on. Some seniors just respond with "rtfm" or "Yeah I got to figure that myself too, won't hurt if you try that too..." to every single question. The fact that someone is younger or less experienced in some area does not mean they have to be treated like piece a of s* *t.

You have to realize that new person is not asking only to get technical knowledge but to also crate connection and relationships. Sure, one can be busy not have time to babysit fresh members, but in that case you can just say it.

It's also very common that different companies use the same technologies very differently so explaining how you use it is of big help to newbies. I thought that after 4 years I will quite well versed in some technologies, only to learn that the way they were used in my old job was quite obscure. So sometimes senior needs to help new colleagues to re-learn things in the right way. That can also be difficult.

Extra tip for juniors: Some people are good in explaining things some are not. Some very sharp technical minds might not be very good in interpersonal areas. So don't feel bad if you look stupid or someone is a bit nasty. It does not have to be personal. And if you think it is, find someone else you trust you can talk to and ask for their opinion or help.

Mozilla, I actually got a bit angry with some of their products lately (namely the Firefox) and stopped using it. But without it it would be kind of Chromium everywhere world.

Dev.to is great blogging and community platform. Twitter is also good.

Two things come to my mind:

1) Reflect on how is your problem solving process. What kind of emotions do you feel, when you are faced with new problem? How do you proceed, is it chaotic, or straightforward? Are you able to calm down and look at the problem from higher perspective? I was recently asking myself these questions, when I switched job and was suddenly faced with completely new type of technical problems but also new personal challenges (mainly inter- peresonal relationships). You might think you are good problem solver, until new, stressing situation appears, which makes you behave like 8 year old child :-D

2) Ask people around you. When I felt stupid, slow and incapable of solving problems I actually asked people around me what they think. To my surprise they said I obviously need more experience, but my approach to problem is very good! If you have people you can trust, this is very good way how to get valuable feedback and improve!

I just jotted this down real quick, but hope it helps.

I will just add some practical experience, we work with WebMethods flow languages (used for business integration). It looks cool because you can make "code" which is more readable for non IT people. The problem is that some task which would require one or two lines of codes needs several graphical "nodes" and just too many clicks. The more complex the diagram gets the easier is to make mistake and eventually some things has to be implemented in Perl, Python or Java because the flow languages also has it's limitations. I would say it is great for simple or medium complex solutions but very complex solutions tend to be messy and developers tend to avoid them. They say it is easier to iterate and skim through complex text code, where you can search and use some IDE features, than to expand and click through the whole graphical diagram. The graphical notation also does not show all the information so you cannot get it by scaning the code, instead you need to manually click and open the nodes to get e.g. the connectiong interface name. The graphical notation needs to abstract from some information otherwise it would be messy and hard to read.

I felt a bit similar and what I had to do is actually think and even write down what kind of activities really interests me, give me energy and inspire me. It was quite an interesting mix of tech, teaching, community service, working with youth. Now I try to slowly move to that and so far I feel much better. I wish you good luck!

Windows:

Vivaldi browser - Amazing for productivity, custom search engines, configurable, can be controlled by keyboard. I can search in company ishare/OneDrive via URL bar etc.

Total commander - I use quite minimal interface, it actually looks more like fman. I use the folder jumplist a lot which saves a lot of time. I have some custom buttons (open in gVim for instance) and lynx like movement.

Linux:

Terminator - Terminator with splits, nice font rendering, easy GUI configuration

Arch - I can also put it to the cost me 100 hours list :] but AUR definitely saves time compared to Ubuntu dependency hell.

Skype for Business - I really hate this shit. Random disconnects, errors, no offline message support, idiotic message history in Outlook, random errors "Text is too long" etc.

Agree, I kinda hated the GIMP but then I learned it's logic and I started to like it. The problem is when you used Photoshop before. Some things that you can do there with one click take quite tedious procedure in GIMP. For instance drawing simple rectangle with fill facepalm.