My worst career decision was indecision about the unhappiness I felt at my job.
It was my first corporate programming job. The project was great for a few years, but eventually it went into life support mode.
I found it harder to go to work every day. I exhausted my vacation time early, came in late, left early... was basically a terrible employee and hated my job. Not sure why I wasn't fired.
I attributed my behavior at first to just being a lazy, worthless person who took a while to show it. (Ingrained guilt + inexperience in the working world.) At some point, I started trying things to make work interesting again (hosting lunch 'n learns, trying to rearchitect things with new tech). I eventually made the cognitive connection that not having creative work led to my unhappiness. Once I realized that, the bad behaviors stopped, and I asked my boss to move me to another project. But he didn't have anything else for me. I found a new job a few months later. (I left "the right way". I spent my notice transitioning my project to others.)
Final analysis: I was a builder in a maintainer's job. The comorbid issue was the unhealthiness of relying on guilt as a motivator. If I need to be 30 minutes late before I talk myself into getting out of bed on an average day... How do I raise enough guilt to face an especially demotivating day?
That experience brought me fresh appreciation for the old aphorism know thyself.
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My worst career decision was indecision about the unhappiness I felt at my job.
It was my first corporate programming job. The project was great for a few years, but eventually it went into life support mode.
I found it harder to go to work every day. I exhausted my vacation time early, came in late, left early... was basically a terrible employee and hated my job. Not sure why I wasn't fired.
I attributed my behavior at first to just being a lazy, worthless person who took a while to show it. (Ingrained guilt + inexperience in the working world.) At some point, I started trying things to make work interesting again (hosting lunch 'n learns, trying to rearchitect things with new tech). I eventually made the cognitive connection that not having creative work led to my unhappiness. Once I realized that, the bad behaviors stopped, and I asked my boss to move me to another project. But he didn't have anything else for me. I found a new job a few months later. (I left "the right way". I spent my notice transitioning my project to others.)
Final analysis: I was a builder in a maintainer's job. The comorbid issue was the unhealthiness of relying on guilt as a motivator. If I need to be 30 minutes late before I talk myself into getting out of bed on an average day... How do I raise enough guilt to face an especially demotivating day?
That experience brought me fresh appreciation for the old aphorism know thyself.