Feeling Depressed and in Danger of Hurting Myself

1

I’m not sure I should post this here, but since I’m a dev and this is dev-related, I need to at least get this off my chest.

So, I’m working at this company as a Web/UI developer (technically), but I’m really full-stack if you want to know the truth. I have been at this company for around 5 months now and am doing my first major project for these guys.

It seems like its one thing after the other with this project and it all seems related to my work. However, I have to say that the issues they found with my work is all db related, which I have no control over - we have dbas and my lead handles the procs and stuff.

However, I feel as if there is a ton of pressure on me and as if i’m not doing good enough.

I was trying to help them debug an issue that made it over to prod today but the s/w worked fine on my machine and I couldn’t determine what would cause the issue they were having. basically, one of my pages, on prod, work fine some of the time, but most of the time it doesn’t load.

After I reported my findings and let my lead know that I was leaving, he emailed me telling me that “unfortunately” he just fired off a ticket to me with another bug on one of my other pages. I’m not sure what “unfortunately” means in this case. but I just feel like I’m putting the project behind schedule. It was supposed to go live yesterday and QA is finding bugs in production.

I’m doing the absolute best that I can and am putting forth all the effort I possibly can. I want nothing more than for this project to go off without a hitch, but it seems like its full of issues. The other dev’s work is perfect.

Which leads me to my topic - I feel like I’m not going to be any good at this s/w development stuff. I have done great things in the past, but this project has been terrible for me. I think I’m better off dead, to be honest. I thought about buying a gun tonight and just ending it all. I can’t live like this. I can’t do this. /sigh /sigh /sigh

1 Like
2

I only know the situation from what you’ve described in this and other posts but I can see why the communication around these bugs and issues would be stressful. Of course you’re doing the best you can to fix things. And of course, web development doesn’t always play nicely with timelines + QA, but it is rarely framed like that in the overall picture.

I want to urge you to reach out for some additional support. I don’t know where you’re located but ImAlive is an online crisis network. Crisis Text Line could also be an option if you’re within the US. It could be helpful to talk some of this out and just externalize it.

1 Like
3

Thanks. I worked a 13 hour day today because two of my pages don’t always load on production. They load fine on dev and test, but not on prod. The other dev’s stuff is perfect.

I wound up adding logging to just about every other line of code so they can debug it that way through the windows event logs.

My lead had kind of a smart aileck comment to make about the code I wrote. I know I’m not the smartest person out there, but I think through business problems pretty well, I think. He’s going to wind up changing my code somehow, I guess.

I wound up breaking down yet again at work today - and I was given the “are you sure you are able to handle this kind of environment” question. I have worked at 4 other companies and have been asked that question at some point or another at each one of them.

I started out in QA so I know how it is. I know how the business works. I just feel that I’m not given enough information and the onus is put on me to do things that are out of my scope, or that I don’t know that I could do (not that I didn’t know how to do it) because of the structure.

4

It sounds like you’re still implementing all the things and doing all you can do within the system you’ve been given; you have a lot patience and endurance. Will there be a wrap-up/retrospective about the project where you can contribute your thoughts on not being given enough info but also having the responsibility of a larger scope?

And just have to say: :nerd_face: No-one’s code is perfect.

You’ve mentioned the other dev’s work prior to this. Can you tell how they navigate all this? I wonder what their method is to work within the company’s structure. (Or if they are internally feeling similar to you.) I can’t help but feel they must find this just as frustrating as you!

1 Like
5

by “this kind of environment” do they mean a toxic one? because, uh…

1 Like
6

I wish they had a wrap-up/retrospective. I would love to learn what in the world I did wrong on the project. We wound up fixing the issue today and QA, and the COO were happy campers. I turned out I was doing something that made sense to me at the time but when you use it in a multi-server environment (prod goes between two sites but test and dev do not), it breaks.

FWIW - I created some web methods in my code-behind to do the async XMLHttpRequest stuff. But I didn’t want to make extra calls to the db, so in the Page Load event handler, I populated a struct that had static fields with the fields I needed from those initial queries. In dev and test that approach worked just fine.

However, on prod, the struct’s data would be on one server and the web method stuff would be on another. So they were out of sync.

The (hacky, imo) solution was to store it in session state for the duration of the page. When they click “save”, it sets those session variables to null.

I hate to add more to my story, but I told my lead that was likely the problem but he did not listen. I wound up adding more event logging and console logging. That was fine because it let us see the issue first-hand, though.

At any rate, as far as I know, this project is ready to be released to the customers on Monday and QA has signed off on everything.

Edit: I forgot to answer your question about the other dev. She is rotten towards me, so I don’t talk to her unless I have to. She is kind of treated like a golden child by the lead…

7

I’ve worked in all sorts of environments, and every one could qualify for being toxic. If I could have a wishlist for improvements to make it less toxic for me, it would be:

  • Listen to my ideas and consider them -
    My lead will listen to and praise the other dev when she has ideas, but when I have ideas, they are deemed “dumb” and he never likes them. Also, the other dev will argue with me and challenge me on my ideas.
    That’s fine, I guess, to debate why one approach might better than the other, but she is incredibly aggressive and it makes me cower for some reason.

  • Don’t leave me in the dark on things -
    I was taken by surprise by a ton of config differences between test and dev. I didn’t know they store session state on sql server on test. My web.config, that I checked out, had it set to InProc. So, some of the objects I was storing in session that were not marked as serializable wound up breaking in test.

  • Improve the deployment process (everyone there loves it, but I think it could stand to be improved) -
    Instead of building and publishing the project, we build the project on our machine, check in our changes, copy those files over to a share, comment on a ticket, and someone goes out and copies them into the web server.

I guess I could go on and on, but these are basically wishlist things, I guess. Oh well. At least I have a job, I guess.

8

Feels sad reading your post muffinman32. There is a lot of pressure you need to face when you work, there are several responsibilities that you need to go through. Working as a Web/UI developer is not at all easy because I know about it. One of my friends is a Web/UI developer that is why I know it is not at all easy. This is life, you need to go through various difficulties in life, hurting yourself is not an option. There are ways to resolve your problems. There may be some reason that today you are facing these many difficulties that you even thought of hurting yourself. Everything happens for a reason. My uncle has gone into depression due to some crises in his business. His business was growing and growing, but suddenly don’t know what happened and he was bankrupted. He was so depressed due to this. He then started some other business and he did not get any success in it. Someone told him to consult a psychic like Voyante Sérieuse. She will tell you why exactly you have been going through these difficulties in his life. She consulted there and found out the reasons behind it. Likewise, you need to get the answers to your question.

1 Like
9

I am doing much better now. I am still having productive therapy sessions both by drugs and natural therapies and lately the intrusive thoughts are much less frequent and bothersome. It’s the memory of my postpartum anxiety experience that is the most vivid in my mind. Now, I mostly obsess over how I’m doing and am constantly evaluating myself. I have had a few setbacks that, at the time, were devastating, but each time it was easier to get back up than the time before.