I hit almost this exact situation at my last gig. It came down to one of two things: was I okay with complete job security while being completely bored and apathetic all day, or would I take a bit of a leap of faith if it meant getting out of a rut? I chose the latter and it worked out. Maybe if I was a higher-up I would have tried to fix things, but it wasn't really my responsibility at the time. I'm not completely absolved; I could have tried harder to institute things like PRs and linters, but my give-a-fuck was far below the threshold it would have taken for me to really take action.
I really tried to dedicate myself to my day job but I work in a large IT corp where most people are apathetic to their jobs. Even my managers told me to take it easy, And that's when I tried my best to accept the culture and save my mental energy for personal projects.
I agree. For me the solution was to stop thinking about my career as much more than a means to an end ($$$). The system is broken, sure, but fixing it isn't my job.
I'll work on problems I find interesting, and for all I care, the system can crash and burn. All the while, I'll clock out when I want and go home with a smile on my face.
Good question, but as always, the answer is "it depends".
However, given how moving I find your username, I want to provide a few heuristics that I've personally found useful.
1. The merry-go-round
If you find yourself in a state of deep ambivalence, you're probably on the merry-go-round. Sometimes, the job is bearable. Other times, it makes you want to jump in front of a car. Try as you might, you stay put as you watch time slip through your fingers like sand. Much like an alcoholic struggling with drinking, you might swear off alcohol one minute just to find yourself drunk on the sidewalk the next minute. The situation is like a curse that you can't break.
2. Coping with burnout
There was this incredible answer to a previous thread, which I share here (https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=32035364). Once you look past the sarcasm, you can see that a really good point is being made. Not only is it difficult to act like you're not burning out when you are, you feel worse by pretending that things are fine. For that reason, I don't like the phrase, "fake it till you make it". In particular, if you're already mentally ill, smiling through the pain will only worsen the situation.
3. Mysterious culprit
Eastern philosophers are actually very diligent in their studies. They would never celebrate ignorance or apathy. Instead, they would advocate for a rigorous study of the truth, which may or may not yield an action to solve the problem. Because you've given no context, which is fine since you're entitled to privacy, I can only surmise that the truth is either too hard to bear or too difficult to verify. For myself, I find it easy to accept hard truths. The inability to verify something is like a figment of your imagination haunting you. You are so pre-occupied with the belief that the cause of your problem lies in one place, that you'll fail to see the real source of your problems. As the saying goes, if you try the same thing over and over while expecting different results, that is the definition of madness.
There is no silver bullet solution to your problems. You're in a bind, and the way forward will be very painful. Introspection is your greatest tool because trying to control a situation is the fastest way to get sick. Bon chance, mon ami!
Consider: you may become depressed, unfulfilled, and unhappy in this life. I had a position that was around halfway to what you want, government database coding, and I was miserable. I think becoming fully "chilled out" is ideal, because being "half chilled" and half "in-the-hotseat" gave me whiplash a few times. I developed lazy habits over time, my work output suffered, and all that free-time on my hobby wasn't as great as I envisioned.
You know the story, it's Christmas, you're the only one in the office this week because you're new and your PTO is garbage, you're young and have no family to go back to anyway. You stroll in an hour late through the side door, check emails briefly, okay no one is here, then you fire up the YT clips or the novel reading or whatever it is. By 3pm, after 5 hours of pure faffing around, you surely deserve the christmas cookies left in the break room. By 315, you're pooped, time to head home, sneak back through the side door, and you're off to use the screen at the apartment.
Is there some nagging feeling in your stomach? That you could've explored the database, you could've dived into that long-term project you've thought of. You could've been writing up a research proposal, searching for new grants, or helping someone at a volunteer organization. Instead, you're "half on" so you're half-assing your life, not fully relaxing, not working at all.
Honestly, it wasn't for me. I want to feel fully into what I'm doing, and having to half-ass my way through a boring job was causing serious depression. I'd only recommend this if you can use less of your ass, preferably remotely, and if you're sure you won't have a crisis of meaning in life.
I recently got out of a job where I had nothing to do, and it was soul crushing. I actually had a boss I really liked, but the company had so much red tape and bureaucracy that our team didn't have any real work to do. I didn't write a single line of work related code the entire time I was there, and it felt like I was losing momentum, like all my skills were getting duller.
You wouldn't think doing nothing would exhaust you, but not doing anything _real_ all day stressed me out a lot and I was weirdly tired at the end of the day. This meant I didn't have very much energy for job hunting or personal projects that would help me find another job.
I wanted to reply to this post in particular because it hits a point that a lot of job advice posts I see miss: a shitty enough job can make it hard to do the stuff you need to do to get another job. I don't know what advice I can give though, it's a hard problem and a lot of the stuff that makes it hard is in your head which makes it difficult to generalize.
My job has become tedious in the last half a year or so, too.
I think it's a natural reaction to an unsatisfying environment, combined with personal fatigue. There are many particular elements that an "unsatisfying environment" may consist of, but ultimately it's always on a spectrum.
> Should I be worried?
Depends. Does it affect your personal well-being? Do you feel like shit all the time? Has this been going on for a long time? If so, it might be worthwhile to seek a more pleasant place of employment. (I'd take my own advice, but I'm extremely socially avoidant)
I find that creative activities help a lot. Even if they feel that they won't - whenever I force myself to create something (in my case, music), I feel much more alive afterwards. Even if only for a short time.
The premise is simple: I have a career in software development. I'm quite good in what I do. Not a guru but good to be responsable for high profile projects in my current (and past) company. I don't have a big paycheck but it's good for humble mid-class life. I have a nice home and I'm solo provider for my family. Bottom line, I have a decent job that allows me to have a non-worried life.
What else could I ask for, right?
The problem: I'm uterly and completely tired and drained of what I do. I don't get annoyed or have any issues in my daily work (besides the "normal") but I just don't take any pleasure or fulfilling or motivation in my daily work life. In a nutshell: 8-10 hours of my day go to the drain.
The complication: This is pretty much all my profession experience. I feel like I'm in this professional hole and that the only way out is to just start over somewhere else which I can't (solo provider, bills threshold). So I'm in this cycle of unable to get away of it.
The joke: 1st world problem right? well.. it is what it is.
Has anyone felt the same? Are you willing to share your experience on how you dealt with it?
I think you need a balance. If you're completely stuck most of the time, you're going to start dreading work. But if you never have to make a real effort, you will be bored.
I got to a point where "actually working" seemed worthless because everything that determined the ultimate value of my work was a management/communication issue. My boss would tell me not to worry about that stuff, but it was demoralizing because I couldn't stand any longer to think about spending year after year doing technical stuff that had no positive, cumulative effect on the real world.
I don't want to be a "boss" or have more power or prestige, but I've gotten to the point where the only problems I am really interested in are management problems because everything else is a waste of time if those aren't solved.
How do you find work that you can be emotionally de-vested in?
I find it extremely difficult to stay engaged with work I don't care about, this creates a negative feedback loop that's the kiss of death for me at any job.
I've been in exactly the same situation as you. For me it happened because I was in a miserable team and company that didn't do anything significant or properly. I was constantly left without work and bored so at that point I stopped caring and was just getting away with any work.
What I did however is to use this free time to work on personal projects and to prepare for interviews for other companies. This played out nicely as I later changed job to a much more interesting company and team where I can make important contributions to the work and I care doing a good job.
Sounds to me like you are in the same situation, meaning you are not mentally stimulated and you simply don't care. My advice is either change job or if this is not an option then use this time to work on personal projects or further develop your skills/hobbies. Basically make sure you don't waste your time and put it into something productive for future gains.
I'm experiencing a version of this. I'm burned out at my job, but my life circumstances and personality keep me from looking for another one.
What I have done is strictly confining my job to have a minimal impact on the rest of my day and concentrate all my real effort in a particular hobby. I have gotten decently good at it in about a year, and made myself known in a few communities where the top practitioners hang around by sharing my results or giving feedback for others.
The result is that now I'm continuously rejecting commissions and offers that would turn it into a second job. I don't want that, but just getting asked feels so validating that the effort is completely worth it.
Exactly what I thought too. I was where op has described, I appeared to slit in there naturally and before I even know the job ate away all my motivation and productivity.
Today I code games for fun, read lengthy articles about irrelevant things I care about and so on. I focus boring work on small time frames in between.
I had this situation early in my career, where the main discussion people had was about the company's daily share price in the stock market. I didn't feel alive or wanted working in this environment. I also felt my brain was rusting.
Work is a fairly complex system and getting it to work towards our preferred success function or particular concept of happiness is herculean. I used to previously think that I need to adapt but I've dropped that concept. I go towards opportunities that are primed for what I consider fruitful and satisfactory work in an environment where I can see myself for 5+ years. Only if the particular work really needs me to do it, I do it else drop it. This may sound entitled but I feel its a way of taking care of yourself.
I used to go back to Steve Job's Stanford speech earlier as a cope but it's a good one to watch in your lows.
The OP's fundamental frustration (I think, oversimplifying) is that they feel no incentive or no motivation to "do better" or take on the kind of things you suggest. They do not believe it will be rewarding to them, and so what's the point? So, I don't think it's a problem of, they never considered these options before... it's more just, why bother?
Few observations for the OP:
- These are potentially signs of depression in general, that nothing seems worthwhile and you don't want to engage with any activities. Are things outside of work still engaging? Do you put your energy into other hobbies? Or does everything feel tinged with this same flavor of generalized discontent and oh-whats-the-point?
- Setting aside depression as a factor (which OP should seek diagnosis + treatment for, if relevant), in general this is also a self-fulfilling prophecy. By believing that your work has no meaning, that just being barely-better than the rest of the slow/lazy team is good enough, OP will make this into their reality. So in a sense, it's not an objective observation about FANG work-life, and more of a subjective decision to shape OP's reality into this mode.
- OP could be doing better work as you suggest (notice I said better, not more), improving their tech skills, adding impactful examples to their portfolio/resume, empowering their future career, but they're choosing not to. It's not as if the manager has actually blocked OP from learning or working on interesting things. And even if the team is a strategically unimportant team with no long-term career prospects, OP would still be hurting their career by not actually using this time more effectively, to add to their own portfolio of work or body of knowledge... So what if they won't get recognized or promoted for it on their current team, OP will still need to have something to talk about in future interviews or future promotion cycles on other teams. If someone asks OP, "what did you work on from 2019-2020, what significant value did you deliver, what did you learn, what skills did you gain?", what's OP's answer going to be?
- Speaking of promotions... it may feel to the OP that "coasting" along is going okay for now (i.e. no complaints from the manager), but I doubt they are at a career stage that they can really "coast" infinitely/indefinitely. In 2-3 years (or maybe sooner), someone will ask, "hey what has this person really done, that's meaningful or impactful? how critical are they to the team? feels like they're just coasting, right?". Even if OP isn't PIP'ed, they would still be extremely unlikely to earn any promotions, simply because, what is there to justify it? What next-level work have they done, if all they are doing is coasting? So, this is a fleeting/temporary situation, that OP is fooling themselves into thinking coasting like this is sustainable (because short-term, it is).
I've gone a day or two without really doing much other than emails and stuff. It's not really like you describe. Usually the task is just boring or frustrating. I'm also demotivated by a lack of career progress and all the lies the company tells us. Like, what's the point of trying hard if there's no reward?
Howdy everyone, I'm using a throwaway account for plausible deniability if any of my coworkers see this.
I have been at one of the big large megacorporation "brand-name" companies for almost two years now, and in the last year I have become incredibly bored with the work, due to most of it reducing to "add a field to this class, make a PR, wait two hours for it to be approved, repeat".
In a bit of irony, I have trouble actually completing these tasks because I find them so boring that I can't actually focus on them. With COVID exacerbating things, I am afraid that I'll be fired, or arguably worse, "professional purgatory" with no chance of ever being promoted to receive more interesting work.
I plan on talking to my manager about this, but due to past events that would be too personally identifying to go into, doing this is likely not going to lead to an optimistic outcome.
I guess I have two questions:
1) what do people do to stay motivated if you're given work that doesn't interest you in any capacity?
2) What do you do if your manager is uncooperative with you? Do you quit your job? Do you look for a transfer within the company?
Talk to your supervisors about how you aren't excited about your tasks at work. If there's nothing they can do about it, quit. Find something that excites you.
A family friend of mine used to play violin in a traveling rock band. He slept in the van and loved every minute of it. Later, when he had a family, he settled down and became a contracted fundraiser for non-profits. One day he came across a particular non-profit that he loved, identified with, and felt excited by. He took a 50% pay cut and settled into a permanent position with that company because "it felt like being back in the van again"
If you're the kind of intrinsically-motivated person who can trick their head into being excited about 12 hours of being immersed in a problem, then you'd be an incredible asset to any company that gets you excited.
If you have an idea of what company, industry, or problem that might be (good news: people usually do), pursue it like hell.
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