An accomplished Software Engineer I was. Working at a big company. Living at a noble neighborhood, driving a new car. Until I went reckless with my mental health.
In my family, we have a good amount of diseases, among those, dementia. I do not think I have that or am I even prone to have it, but just an interesting fact to make this post more interesting. Nonetheless, I did a few things back at my biggest company, actually the biggest company in the world employee count wise. But I was also facing the biggest problem my mental health has ever faced, psychosis. Bet grateful you do not have that.
How did I even get that job in the first place? I cursed my interviewer in my native language, and actually got the job. Probably the single most enlightening moment in my career. Why did I curse? A VP told me to “trust”, I trusted what was in my mind and it worked. The world was different back then, covid left some of us broken for a while. Perhaps the interviewer was broken also. Anyway, the job was strange, 4 of us working on the same task sometimes. Repeating the exact same approach in different codebases. I did no question it much, I was getting paid well.
Things did not work out at this company, I qualified for unemployment for a year, the year ended. I could not find a job as a Software Engineer. I contacted a few Engineers from the past, they could not do much. The timing was perfect for me to learn my lesson. I had to help my wife pay for the expenses, things became tough between us and she supported me all the way. I love her.
I ended up finding minimum wage jobs at a local KFC, at Burlington, and at a luxury apartment building. I was doing all types of chores, cleaning floors, prepping food, operating cash registers, organizing shelves, doing overnights as a front desk associate/security. It humbled me enough. Now I have a sense of appreciation I did not have before. I came closer to God. And now I appreciate everything about the things I do at work.
Be grateful!
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