Feeling like losing my time on a company

#1

Hi … I am 26 .
I graduated as a computer engineer on september 2015 and I worked 6 months for the university doing PHP in 2014 . I felt really good doing php but the salaries seemed to be low for php devs (by that time I thought the mony was important).
In the university I really liked algorithms and AI topics , but I also liked Software engineering . I took the software engineering area because I wanted to develop my own startup at the end of the university . Most of the career was focused on electronics and software engineering so by the time I took AI I was with a bad level on algorithms.
I started to look for a job at the end of 2015 and landed on a company on march of 2016 as a part of a development program on IT which was designed to work in multiple areas like dev , business analyst , architect and scrum each 6 months .
The first 6 months I developed on Android (I hate native movile development) in fact I was part of a team which won an online hackathon for the company.
Then I worked 2 weeks as BA and suddenly the company sent me to a training of 2 months to another country with everything paid on a software engineering academy .
Once I returned I took 3 months on a java project as an agile coach to apply all the learnings of the training. But none of the things I proposed could success due to the lack of maturity of our software projects .
Now Im on architecture in charge on setting standards of technologies which I´m not a master , not even a junior dev .
Everyday I have the idea of creating new startups … many people just say to me “great idea !” and that idea dies in my head.
I would like to be capable of coding every idea that I want but I feel that the people have put so much trust in my that I can´t quit the company . My future in the company is clear : 4 more months in architecture + 6 months as scrum and then I don´t know , I think the idea is that I finish working as a Scrum master which I really don`t like . But even if the company gives me a dev job I will end coding old things like java , but I would like to try LAMP stack .

On weekends I try to code but at the end I surrender to the idea that Im in a company in which I need to stay at least 10 months more . 10 months spending my time on things I really don´t like . And also my economic situation is quite hard .

This weekend I could not even code 1 line … and I got to the conclusion that I´m blocked due to the fear of knowing nothing that could allow me to quit the job and help my family with the economic situation and accomplish my idea of startup which is by now only on postits of a kanban in my room.

I have a problem of procrastination and for me is hard to take a decision.

#2

Doing stuff outside of work comes up a lot but I suspect for a lot of people that’s just not feasible or enjoyable. Go home and do more work?! Sometimes it’s just best to look after yourself instead - go home and just recharge doing things you enjoy. I personally can’t do any coding outside of work for fun especially as I want to spend my down time with my family. I’m not some medium.com superblogger who lounges around pools in the far east blogging about the virtues of remote working… And it’s fine, I accept that.

It sounds like your company is mixing it up for you and exposing you to a lot of different things - that’s probably a good opportunity to find out what you like and don’t like. In a few years, you’ll have some experience under your belt and hopefully that opens up some doors for you so you can pick and choose more interesting work with better pay.

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#3

Update , march 2019

Some things happened as I predicted on the original post .
I finished my 4 months on architecture doing standards of tech in which I wasn´t an expert and nobody used .

After that I spent 8 months as a project manager on an infrastructure upgrade project , it was an interesting experience from dev to management .

My grandmother passed away on may 2017 .

My uncle is diagnosed with terminal kidney failure on october 2018 . My exgf leaves .

I was diagnosed with depression since october of 2018 , took medication with sertraline and now fluvoxamine + therapy . I started to code again to create an app to follow the medical signs of my uncle.

My uncle passed away on january 2019 due to kidney failure .

Now I formally I´m an architect in charge of more standards and other things which are pretty operational and boring which can be made by a junior dev .

My economy situation has improved , i saved most of my money and now I feel I´m ready to quit an 8-10 hour job . I really need to think on something interesting to create my startup , gain good habits and code .

Most of the time I left everything I started to think about or code . Now I know these was because of depression .

Some things like reading about stoicism really helps when you are depressed . Understanding that everything is temporal and everything has an cause and effect from a rational point of view instead of magnifying everything as a tragedy .

At the end I know there will be better times .

#4

Really sorry to hear about the passing of your relatives. I also lost someone close last year and it can really make outlook on life different.

Sounds great that you’ve been able to save up. I’ve done this in the past and I’d like to give some advice on this: it’s essential to find some form of routine to get things done (as you already know), but also to get out and meet people. I spent a lot of time alone and it affected my motivation negatively after a while. I did meet people/relatives maybe 3-4 times a week for a few hours at a time but that wasn’t enough for me.

Also, I’d suggest to set a “date of no return”, i.e. if income from startup is not > X at a given date, it’s time to look for a job no matter what. I got into the situation that I had to look for a job or I’d go broke and it’s not a good situation to be in. But I think the criteria above can also be a great motivator. If I’d been able to find more of a social support network I think I’d like to try again.

#5

Thanks a lot for your reply Peter , I think depression and procrastination are very close to each other . The point of no return is a good idea in fact this video helps to explain a lot of this no return dates when you have trouble taking decisions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arj7oStGLkU . I will try to be the most rational as I can in order to make the best decisions and do not fall into depression due to a bad and emotional decision .
Right now I´m still working on enterprise architecture and hope things can change in some months in order to code again .
I will keep my updates .

#6

Hi nnn , in fact doing adopting different roles helped to have a better visión of a whole company . I think now I´m ready to create some criteria that can help me to focus to define the scope of my company .

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#7

Update

I left anti depressives on my own decision on may . After that I hae serious problems with short term memory and concentration .
Little by little I started to felt better without meds and gaining confidence in myself .
Now I´m a little susceptible regarding issues with my family , at this point I have earned enough to quit and start my own startup .
I have problems related with my family . My family is miss behaving in certain ways after grandma and uncle passed away .
The do not want to visit a psychologist and most of their problems I deduce are related prior to these events but now everything is worst .
I really know that nothing can affect me unless I allow it but is really sad how people I love miss behave and only makes their life worst surrounded by people who only cares about their money .
I hope this is my last year in the company , probably I will take some months alone in the beach coding and having a calm life just with a computer , some books and great sea food .
I´m also miss behaving I have lost fear of almost everything but at the same time I feel free .
Most of the time I ask myself what is the meaning of life but for sure I won´t kill myself . I learnt from my grandmother and my uncle that even in the worst illness it is worth to fight .
The point of no return will be when I finish my last cent of savings . By that time I hope at least I can deliver my first version .
One of the best things in this journey was to revisit habits one at the time , when you accomplish a list of habits you regain confidence but the contrary happens when you do not accomplish them .

#8

Update

Family if behaving better , we went to therapy to overcome my uncle and grandmother loses .

I was quite desperate to leave my job and start coding , thinking I was going to learn and code like a pro , fortunately , coronavirus lockdown arrived to show me some truths .

I was sent to do home office , doing the same silly things for the same 8 hours , the anxiety was worst knowing I could use that time now that I was at home .

I realized that not even with my 2 hours extra I took in transportation , I was coding at home . At the end I realized my procrastination is not related to depression . My procrastination is related with anxiety . The procrastination was a form of evasion from my anxiety of coding . I noticed each time I have anxiety I start opening new chome tabs , opening books and distracting myself from the main goal .

I created a certification path in order to leverage my knowledge because the last 2 years I did´t code . While studying for my certs , I had a great startup idea and I´m working on some diagrams and ideas . But I realize that even if this was a great idea , I was evading my original certification plan .

Now the plan is easy , I need to complete my certification path it doesn’t matter if I’m still working or I left my job no matter what it takes .

If my theory is right , I will create different ways to evade the cert path , new hobbies , new habits , new startup ideas even new posts in this forum .

I have restricted my apps usage on android with timers , I modifed my hosts file on my mac in order to not use certain sites like youtube .

After I complete all certifications , I´ll take a time to decide what to do , even if I had good startup ideas , or even the idea to specialize in a programming language , all those ideas came from the evasion of facing the real goal .

If you read the first part of this post , you will see that my original goal was to create a startup , what leaves me with the question that the certification path is also a way to evade reality .

My reasoning tells me that I need a technical knowledge to create a cloud native startup , so I think this cert thing is kind of real . And was the first thing I thought when I realize that I was not coding for my own even on home office .

After the certs I will evaluate the next step