Dude, don't harm yourself, it's just no worth it. Even living on welfare is better than giving up life entirely. I have struggled with thoughts like that for years myself, and I've been graced enough to know it's never worth it. My company, Bloomberg, is hiring a lot right now. Email me (http://scr.im/daveslab) at any time if you're looking for a nice place to work, even if it's just to get back on your feet again.
We already use a lot of open source tools (I got pretty good at Python at my current job). We're not as open to using new technologies as I'd like though (there's a review process for each new thing). Unfortunately, for each open source thing we use, management tends to think that they can now cut our deadlines in half since we said it would "save time" :)
This isn't gonna resonate with a lot of people on HN, but it's prayer, meditation, and writing. I'm a devout Christian and those things are more important to me, as much as I like programming.
This doesn't seem to make sense to me. Here you have technology driving money making as the primary engine. Wouldn't this be a very tense environment to get the algos right?
An apt and constructive criticism. Thank you for it. I am part of the problem, undoubtedly, but unfortunately when I do try to pad my estimates, I usually get back "That should take you two weeks." because management doesn't understand what they are asking for. I should work on my persuasive skills nonetheless.
Good to know. I always had a suspicion government would move slowly, but I didn't consider it might so slow to that you don't get anything done. EDIT: Upon further reading of the previous statement, I now realize how ridiculously obvious it would be that government gets nothing done :)
An interesting proposition and something I tend to believe. Any tips on how you can figure this out besides jumping from job to job waiting to see if it works?
That's a fair criticism indeed. I'm counting on being as honest with them, saying that I don't have a really strong background but I can grok the principles very easily. I'm fortunate enough to be able to understand this stuff but unfortunate in that I chose the wrong major :)
I personsally like The Changelog, run by two big fans of Github and open source. They have on guests to discuss what's new and hot in the world of open source. They've talked to Doug Crockford, John Resig, and some people behind projects like NodeJS, MongoDB, etc.
Bloomberg LP has a number of positions all over the world. We're hiring for our news, multimedia, and (most importantly) R&D departments. Good company to work for, great benefits: http://www.bloomberg.com/about/careers/
Perhaps this is just my just ringing my own bell, but I've felt like you for a while, but in a slightly different fashion. Personally, dude, I am very religious so I always have an outside focus that helps to keep me steady, not matter what, that sort of third thing that always matters in the face of any personal problems. For somebody like Gary Vaynerchuk, his "third thing" is his family.
I'm not trying to push the religion thing on you, because that's not your problem here, but what I will say that is that even though I have this other thing outside of coding and work and even family, I still feel (felt?) drained like you do.
After long conversations with my parents, and grandmothers, what I found the problem to be was anxiety and anxious thinking. That may not sound like your problem on the face of it, but here are some things I'd ask you:
- Do you find yourself constantly frustrated by your own limitations and imperfections?
- Do you have a hard time doing anything if it's not perfect?
- Do you berate yourself internally to such a degree that you are your own worst critic and that if you do anything wrong, no one needs to tell you so?
- Do you feel guilty for having all that you have and knowing that there are people out there who'd love to be you?
- Everytime you think of a new business/project idea, do you get all excited but then as you think about it more and more, you get turned off by all the roadblocks you'd have to overcome, until you gradually just fizz out and spend time on HN?
If this sounds like you in any way, then you're probably like me. I have no problem admitting (now) that one of the major reasons I don't get anything done is that I don't LET MYSELF. If you wanna talk personally about this, I'd be happy to be someone to talk to about this. My name is David and my email is at http://scr.im/daveslab (guarded from Spam Bots).
What am I doing about it? This program (http://www.stresscenter.com/mwc/), as cheesy as it looks, is truly, truly saving my life. It is a God-send for me and it helped my father and my uncle come to things they'd only dreamed of doing because of their fear.
Maybe I'm totally off the mark, but I truly hope this might help you. There are so many people affected by this but don't know it's name.
Bloomberg LP is hiring (and we have a big office in London) though I'm skeptical we might have anything specifically for Python. Not to worry though, we offer extensive training.