I've been in similar situations before, and even quite recently and I've started taking a more stoic approach to work and it's greatly helped my metal health.
That is to say, I focus on what I can change or improve and let someone else deal with the rest. I've put too much energy in the past on things I can't change, broken processes that everyone else is completely OK with, lack of testing/CI, horrible leadership teams, bad architectural decisions. If I can change any of those things I do, but a lot of time it's political and really difficult, you often have to "boil the frog slowly."
I also try to squeeze the absolute most I can out of the job to advance my career. Any chance I can to gain a new skill or improve existing ones, or just work on something interesting, that's what I'll do.
I can relate sometimes. Doing what you're doing, but harder doesn't seem to help.
Some things that help / helped me:
1. Some serious self-reflection about what the problem is: What are the things you do vs don't enjoy about your job? Do you really like what you're doing or are you doing it because of money, goals you set for yourself / you think this is the most prestigious type of company / problem / etc? Is the problem with yourself or the people you work with? Have you ever been happy at work before (at any job you had) and what was different about that? Or perhaps are you not sure about what you actually enjoy? Or are you just tired?
2. More self-reflection about what work means to you as a person and why: Is your job also your passion? Are you proud of your technical achievements? Do you have daily work hours or do the boundaries blur? Do you put in more work / care more about things than others (e.g. code quality, arguing for the right technical decision)? Do you feel especially good when people tell you you did a great job or somehow acknowledge that you're smart? Do you feel disappointed, unappreciated or like there's something wrong with you if you fail to get this kind of feedback? Not saying this is always the case, but for me they're warning signs for a type of relationship with work that's prone to burnout sooner or later. Maybe talk to a therapist about this kind of thing to help you sort out your stance on this, or just generally about a downward spiral in mood.
3. A big break - unfortunately not everyone can afford this but I'm assuming an engineer with a decade of work experience like you probably can. Go do something else for a while. Definitely a month. Maybe a year: e.g. take a job that's not the most technically or personally challenging but will give you other things: more work-life balance, meet interesting people you wouldn't, will expose you to different subjects you like, give you more freedom with your approach, let you play more. For example, I worked at an academic research center for a few years and it was not without its own challenges but overall broadened my horizons a lot. This isn't going to fix your problems in the long term but maybe you'll realize truly how things can be different - the benefit of perspective.
4. Some small "daily life" changes (obviously huge caveats here about lots of people not being able to afford / allowed to do this stuff but again software engineers usually have this kind of nice privilege, so why not take advantage): Some example ideas: Try to do less things at once, maybe work on one thing at a time even. Work on something with someone you like. Take 5-6 Fridays or Wednesday afternoons off in a row: just see how lessening the load a bit or breaking up the work helps. Enforce a hard-cutoff deadline in the evening. etc.
Any situation where work is more or less killing you is a good situation to not have to deal with it.
I can't speak to your case specifically, though it is basically impossible to hold up the world. Doing the best you can do is good, and if people are saying you are doing a good job (or not saying you aren't), that's a good thing.
It's important to take enough time to recharge and do other things than let work scenarios dominate, especially as some parties will extract all of your energy and never be satisfied there.
Dropping your guard can be a fine strategy, namely that it's easier to deal with politics or tech issues when you don't have things to defend. Because the right decisions are usually obvious and don't need defense.
There is an increasing trend in today's tech to be silent when someone agrees with something, I don't 100% understand it, but I wouldn't interpret that to mean something isn't right... it can often mean no one thought anything was wrong.
In any case, all software is barely held together. Any problems you have, the whole world is having in exactly the same way. It's a miracle any of that works, so don't sweat it too much and just try hard and it'll be ok.
My health varies unpredictably; some days I'm not really fit to be out of bed, some days I'm pretty good.
Bad days, if I feel i can try working on something, I tend to stick to smaller "side" parts of a bigger task. Grooming dotfiles, editing docs, that kind of thing. Limit the possible impact of mistakes, and do things more amenable to non-thinking "change and try again" approaches.
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.
Ya, therapy. But, short answer, stoicism / CBT, at least narrowly. Focus on what you can control. Check out the dichotomy of control. Do your best to be a positive influence. Give your work what is fair, but no more.
Work is for earning slavery units to live life. Everything outside of work is your actual life. Create hard edged barriers between work and not work. Develop and foster deep hobbies you enjoy. This takes effort. I would suggest they not be computer based hobbies.
I find that being stoic and and marching through is the best way. Also thinking someone else has it worse, that if you have meetings and deadlines then it’s a lot cushier than a nurse for example. Coffee helps too.
In the long run say no to stuff, delegate things and request more resource. I’ve found that in the long run giving it your all and going flat out is under appreciated. And who knows you might expand your empire and get the status that goes with that.
It may seem a little silly but simply making changes to your routine can help. It's not necessarily the case here, but it's worth investigating whether frustration at work is indeed the root cause or a symptom of some other problem that has built up over time. I hope I don't come across as an armchair psychologist. It's just that my experience has shown me that my mindset can dramatically change based on factors that seem less important than they actually are (for instance, a little more exercise or a little more sleep) or factors that seem only distantly connected (in my case, jadedness was cured by taking up cooking classes).
Badly, I've had some trouble maintaining employment in the past because at times it's just hard for me to start something. It's bad. I've been able to break some parts of the pattern, for instance I can manage to exercise daily now - but there are times where I wonder if I'll ever be able to cram enough productivity into a given day to really measurably improve as an engineer.
I wasted a lot of time being a perfectionist. I viewed my work as art and it had to be perfect. Later I realized it’s not my work at all, it’s my employers. I had also come close to burning out and I backed off quite a bit. The switch flipped.
My work is a little sloppier now. If I feel bad all I do is remind myself of the cool things I learned in my spare time. I’m better for it, and so is my collective body of work.
This is good. I apply these to ALL aspects of my life, not just the work place - "something here sucks. what is it? how do I fix it?"
I fixed my sucky job by identifying the main factors, then finding a job that doesn't have those.
I identified issues with my energy levels and concentration and addressed those with sleep/diet/de-stress methods.
Ultimately my problem is - work is unsatisfying. Nobody has a paid job for things that interest and fulfil me. So I need to find a replacement for "something that pays the bills" and that's what I'm working on. Then I get to work on whatever I want, however I want.
My situation is very similar to yours, am employed in a big enterprise software company and the work is very demoralizing. I do 2 things in my spare time, work on a product of my own, and do my own consulting business (development and high scalability architecture design), these 2 keep me sane and it actually makes me look forward to going home so I can do my own thing.
In the office, I try to help out the junior folks as much as I can, might as well make the best of a bad situation and maybe earn a bit of reputation as the go to person for software architecture. Also don't let go of your health, even if you don't like your job, no sense dragging down other aspects of your life with it. I tend to exercise every other day (alternating between cardio and free weights), and don't forget to eat healthy, it makes a huge difference in terms of your overall mood and energy level.
I think it's even worst in my place since my boss doesn't listen to other people's opinions and is more of a dictator. The result is something similar to the Fizz Buzz Enterprise Edition.
True. It still hurts though. I _want_ to care. I do my best work, with least effort, when I'm solving a real problem with people I care about.
I enjoy thinking back about stuff I made, knowing it's out there doing its job.
I can separate out my work (which, lest we forget, is the majority of my waking hours, because of the reality of working a full time job) but that's not particularly good for my mental health either. It's part of the reason I am looking to branch out my career into a different, perhaps more durable sphere.
All I'm saying is, if it's affecting you, changing aspects about your career is valid. Just getting used to it doesn't work for me, despite it being fine for others.
I'm not sure if I can offer any solutions, but I can relate to this very well. A few scattered but thoughts, consider any (or none) that seem relevant to you:
- I recently had some long conversations with coworkers who experience similar problems with motivation. I was especially surprised to hear it from one person, who--from an outsider's point of view--maintains an insanely high level of work ethic. His approach seems to boil down to having a top-down self-identification with his role and a bottom-up maintenance of good habits. So from one side he identifies as a professional who meets deadlines and is committed to doing good work. From the other side he tries not to work on the same task for too long, recognizes when he's starting to feel burned out, communicates it honestly to his manager and coworkers, and takes breaks to work on other more rewarding tasks, or just breaks from work altogether. His attitude reminded me a lot of the ideas in the book Atomic Habits, which is worth reading if you haven't already.
- It's easy to underestimate how much a change in environment changes your perspective. When I'm in a depressed mood, everything looks the same and I can't imagine how things could be less "true" in the future. In a different mindset, the bad things are still true, but seem less relevant. All software jobs *are* roughly the same, but having different coworkers, solving different problems, even working in a different building can help trigger a change in perspective.
- Do you have a good sense of what it is that *would* motivate you? Or what you want? Is there a particular part of the process of architecting software that you find satisfying? Or maybe a product or company whose mission aligns with your values? Personally, I'm most often stuck in this part. If nothing motivates you, it's likely more than work burnout and you might want to take some time to focus on your mental health.
- If you know what you want but struggle to set goals and make steady progress towards achieving them, I think it comes down to discipline. I've found that for certain things, if I wait for motivation to strike I'll be waiting forever, and unhappy the entire time. Sometimes detaching a bit and forcing myself to do something triggers a little bit of dopamine that inspires more momentum.
As someone who struggles with ADHD and depression, this isn’t always possible.
At 38 years old, what I have discovered are ways to make myself valuable to my employer even when I’m not at my peak. The move to a more “architectural” role has been a Godsend for me. It means that I’m a let to serve to some degree in an advisory capacity for others. When I’m not able to enter “flow” with my primary project, I can usually find someone else with a problem that they’re struggling on, pair up with them, and help them get over whatever is in their way. This makes the team as a whole significantly more productive.
As a bonus, I often find that focusing on a problem of short duration helps me overcome the mental barriers to becoming engaged in my work and lets me get done what I was struggling not to avoid doing in the first place.
Not that long ago, I found myself in a similar situation as you are. Though I was running my consulting company - I hit the bottom and needed to change, change I did.
Few things I do differently now and has helped me a lot:
1. I focussed on side projects as a way to blow-off steam - this helped me a lot. (Looks like you are already doing it)
2. Spice up your work environment - good audiobooks always help me stay sane on those long coding days. I usually choose some good light-hearted reading rather than the intense novels.
3. I allocated days to work on my side projects during the work-week. ThIs meant I had to get creative around how I schedule my work-work. Eg: Sometimes I had to work long hours (10+) to finish up with my work schedule.
4. Switch off day - usually on Sunday I tend not to do anything work related.
For me: accepting I have "down" days. And trying to never push during those days. Put breaks, read a book (not related to work, not reading it to be better at anything because thats work as well), go out, exercise. Learning to say no. Not overengineering things (because thats a time sink and I have to throw away 2/3 of the prototypes I'm making anyway). Freeing weekends (or free days). Taking time to talk to people about things not work related. Reduced the "arguing because someone is wrong" (on the internet or not) helped as well, it takes a LOT of emotional energy.
That is to say, I focus on what I can change or improve and let someone else deal with the rest. I've put too much energy in the past on things I can't change, broken processes that everyone else is completely OK with, lack of testing/CI, horrible leadership teams, bad architectural decisions. If I can change any of those things I do, but a lot of time it's political and really difficult, you often have to "boil the frog slowly."
I also try to squeeze the absolute most I can out of the job to advance my career. Any chance I can to gain a new skill or improve existing ones, or just work on something interesting, that's what I'll do.
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