Tag Archives: job

Career

Do something meaningful or just make money or FIRE

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I’m not sure what I want to do with my life, but it feels as if I’m running out of time to do it, whatever “IT” is. I always felt like in order for life to be worth living, you need to do something worth doing. But then I also acknowledge that life is fleeting no matter what, and even the most accomplished of individuals are forgotten, if not in generations, than at some point the the sun dies and humanity disappears forever. It’s a bleak way of looking at things, but it also is freeing. Nothing I do matters from that perspective. Nothing at all.

What does matter, at the moment, is paying the bills. Giving my kids a good life for the few years they get to live when it does feel like life has meaning. Giving my family a life that I can look back on, on my deathbed, and think, I gave them all a good life. We had fun. We laughed. We spent quality time together. We saw the world as much as we wanted to. We ate good food that we made or bought. We had some memorable experiences. My kids are well-adjusted, as much as possible with our DNA, and we’ve been generally good people.

How much money does THAT cost?

Well, right now we’re spending anywhere from $12k-$15k a month, and it doesn’t get us that lifestyle. Not here. Not in the Bay Area. We can have some of it. I’m getting better at learning the basics of cooking (taco night FTW) and honing in on managing my Amazon addiction.

But everything adds up.

New tires.

Special doctor’s appointments for my autistic kiddos, now with a $50 co-pay per appointment on my $1200 a month already-subsidized Obamacare plan.

What’s happening with the plant outside?

We should check on the house insulation as our PG&E bill is $600 a month.

Our car is on its last legs. We can manage with just the minivan for a while, but then we’ll have some uber costs to take us places and can’t take the kids two places at once.

My mom on the east coast is only getting older, and eventually she won’t be able to fly out here to see us. It kills to think about not seeing my mom at least two times a year, even though she drives me nutso. Family is family.

The kid’s school is having a fundraiser, again.

And so on.

Life is just expensive. People clearly manage on less. A lot less. Even in this insanely expensive part of the country.

But — to life the life I want — we need to earn. I need a job.

We can maneuver our savings and investments as such that I probably don’t have to earn a crazy amount to be CoastFI at least. That’s nice to know. It’s incredible to have a serious cushion at this point in my life. I’m not sure how I got here, but I did. I still remember saving my first 50k, 100k, 250k, etc, and thinking — wow, that’s a lot of money. So it’s all relative. I’m in a good place. We’re in a good place. But I can’t not work. Not here anyway. And as my husband refuses to move (and I don’t really want to) I need to figure it out.

He makes $110k a year with no benefits. We’re bleeding anywhere from $50k-$100k or more a year with his income alone. My goal is to make $150k a year minimum.

The job market is shit right now. Add to that my wonky employment history and not clearly fitting in any one position I’m a bit scared.

I’ve applied to 300 jobs, give or take. I have some interviews here and there, but nothing is sticking. This week I have two first round interviews, one second round, and one second round that appears to be a final round because it’s five hours(!) long. Remote at least. It’s good I don’t have a job because who has time to find a job when they do?

I know, I know, I’ve been daydreaming of a career change. I’m not against that either. Just scared. I’ve been starting to learn some very preliminary coding. Ok, I watched a few YouTube videos and have been conversing with ChatGPT about where I should start and my 6 year old son knows more Python than I do. I have a few app ideas, but haven’t jumped in yet. It’s difficult to focus with ADHD and 3 kids including a 3-mo old who needs to nurse every 3 hours or so. My brain is a big pile of mush. And I’m supposed to work full-time again, how?

The jobs I’m interviewing for are all over the map. I had a call for one that paid $80k-$100k. That was a horrible interview and they decided I wasn’t worth following up with to even tell me they passed on me, I guess. Most of the roles are senior IC or head of the small department and paying $180k-$200k. A few are $120k-$150 IC or some are head of in small startups where they think that range is acceptable. Then others at bigger companies are higher than $200k but odds of getting those are teeny tiny non existent (though there is one I’m applying to that seems like a possible good fit, so fingers crossed there.)

It’s just… I wish I could have a job that inspired me to do my best work… I feel like I need that. Something I wake up in the morning and I’m all like, wow, I get to do THIS with my life? But is that realistic? How many people actually get that kind of life?

The reality is that I have 25 years or so left to work. Which is a long time but it’s also not that long of a time. If I stay in a job 4 years, that’s 6 jobs or so between now and retirement. Six opportunities to do something meaningful or to just hold my breath and pay the bills. And if I do FIRE, then even less time. How much do I need to care? What if I just find a job I can do blindfolded with my hands tied? Why does it HAVE to be hard OR meaningful?

I just want to feel like I can do the job. Even if I can convince these folks that I can in the interviews (I doubt it), when I start working how do I actually do a good job? I never know where to start. If someone hands me a project I’ll get it done to the best of my ability, but these roles are all so much more ambiguous. Which, tbh, I like — as I get to be more creative and strategic — but then I just have trouble actually figuring out what’s worth doing. I see the big picture and all the things we should be doing, but of course there aren’t enough resources to get that done (esp when the only resource is me). And, so, I flop. When I have an agency or team to do the actual work and I can set the strategy it’s better. But I always run out of time. Some due to procrastination and panic, some due to overcommitting, some do to righting the course too late.

I really don’t know what to do. I know what not to do. What not to do is don’t get fired again.  I mean, I can’t avoid layoffs — which are more common than not these days. But I can’t get FIRED. So I need to figure out how to do things right from day one. Which includes during the interviews because that’s when I actually provide an overview of my plan for the first 90 days usually. I need alignment where I’m not overselling myself to get the job but also getting the resources I need to make a big difference fast. I made it 4 months in my last role and that’s because my first 90 days I didn’t get enough done. I would have handled things differently if I could do that all over again, but no matter what I think it wasn’t a fit.

I’m really struggling and scared. I know I’m not going to be on the street tomorrow. But I just don’t know what I’m good at. And I’m tired. And don’t have the energy to fight right now. I need a job that I can do and do well and earn ok money at and actually feel some sense of accomplishment at the end of the day. Is that job out there? Is it one of the roles I’m interviewing for this week? Will I ever find it? And when I do… how da fuc do I keep it?

Career Change

Should I become a software engineer at 40?

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Like many people out there, I turned 40 and wondered — what am I doing with my life? For better or worse the tech job market has imploded. That, paired with my depression-fueled repeat firings and inability to do a job that requires a certain part of my brain to function, has led me to deciding that I need a major change. Given I can’t get a job and I’m moderately to majorly unemployable, this is not even an option.

So I wondered — should I become a software engineer at 40?

What’s funny is that everyone has recommended I talk to people in various roles I’m interested in to decide if they are good options for me. I’ve considered everything from UX to chief of staff to jobs outside of tech altogether. But it happens I know a lot of software engineers. Not only do I KNOW engineers — they are always my favorite people in the companies I work for.,. because they are often brilliant, socially awkward, and way more fun to talk to than anyone else on my (the business) side of the office.

But am I smart enough to be a software engineer?

My developer friends think so. Maybe they are just being nice… or thinking I have enough of a brain to manage an entry-level programming role. I have no support from my husband who only wants me to have a career that enables me to support the family. He has no idea what I should do but isn’t opposed to this. I don’t blame him that he doesn’t gung ho support me in anything. After all, he has dealt with my recurrent job losses and mental health cluster of a life. It’s no fun being married to me.

I want to prove to him… and to me… that I can do this. I want a job where I wake up in the morning and get to work. Where I don’t feel like I’m going to fail before I even start. I don’t know what that’s like. I don’t know what it’s like to wake up and not dread going to work. Not know that I could only fake it for so long until I imploded.

Last Feb, my boss, who hired me 4 months earlier, who happened to be CEO of the startup, slacked me and told me to cancel my flight to a conference I had scheduled the next day. I shouldn’t have responded to him on a Sunday but I did. He said to join him on a call first thing Monday morning. I knew what that meant. He was firing exec team members left and right and I knew I failed to live up to his expectations. Maybe I could have done a  better job if I didn’t let my anxiety get to me… but at the end of the day the role… was wrong for me. My whole career is.

Will becoming a software engineer at 40 help? Can I actually do this?

It all feels impossible right now. I don’t feel intelligent enough. I struggle with ADHD and anxiety and depression and am using most of my energy to keep 3 kids alive. How can I become a software engineer? It seems more like a joke to me than a possibility. But maybe it could be real. After all, I’m the girl who in high school was hacking together geocities sites for fun. Sure, it was just HTML (and a lot of scary bad frame design), but it was… me. Something. Something I could have pursued more. But I didn’t. Because as of first or second grade, despite testing as “gifted,” I accepted I was dumb. My father told me I wasn’t trying hard enough. So I didn’t. I stopped because it was too hard for me to focus. I gave up. I was seven years old, and I gave up.

Now I’m 40. I’m tired of giving up. I don’t have much life left. I want to show my kids they can do anything if they put their mind to it. I want to work for a company and cause that is meaningful. Maybe coding would be where I fit, I don’t know. But I’m so so so tired of not firing, tired of the constant suicidal ideation, the inner monologue that tells me I’m a failure and can’t do anything right. I’m just tired. I need a do over. Maybe this is it. Not for anyone else. For me.

 

Other

CoastFI: How do I make $150k a year doing what I love?

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(I should probably start by saying I have no idea what I love.)

At this point with my portfolio I am pretty much CoastFI which means that as long as I don’t dip into my savings/investments I should be fine to retire (and probably retire early but at the least to retire at a normal retirement age.) That’s nice to know. It gives me some relief… but not enough… because I know how quickly I’m decimating my savings without a job.

My husband makes $110k a year, but that doesn’t include any health insurance. My estimate for our monthly expenses is $15k ($7k of that being our mortgage, another $2-3k being cost of home ownership). So $5k on life outside of our house. That alone is a reason I want to move, but my husband refuses, and I’m still torn on that since it feels like owning a home in the Bay Area is probably a good financial move long term (after we’ve made $600k in value in 4 years it feels like it might be… plus we have a 2.6% loan locked in for 27 more years on another $1.2M that we owe and taxes only go up 2% a year here.) Still… it’s frustrating to be so “house poor” when we don’t have to be. I imagine a life living in a MCOL city where we have money to take trips and all that on a lot less. Sell our house, walk with $900k cash, and basically buy something outright or with a small mortgage.

That isn’t happening, though, so I need to figure out how to make money so we can Coast and not flop.

Husband’s after tax is probably around $6k a month. So I need to make up $9k a month… or about $155k to break even. If I want to take vacations that involve airplanes (and islands and hotels) with my family of 5, I’m really needing $200k income… but for now I’m just trying to hit $150-$160k.

I haven’t had a lot of luck getting interviews and I know that I might have to settle for $100-$120k for the short term… if I can even get that. It seems not the worst to do that for a year or two as long as by year 3 I can be back up to at least $150k. It feels crazy writing this as the last time I earned less than $160k was in 2015! And that’s not inflation adjusted or anything. Salaries are so low right now and it’s an employer’s market. I haven’t shared how I got fired from my last job which was paying $200k plus bonus in Feb, but it was killing me and I wasn’t a fit for it… I’m sad it didn’t work out but really I needed the time off for my mental health while pregnant with baby 3. Now I’m not sure wtf to do. Job applying is getting me no where and my self confidence is at an all time low, at least work wise.

Some days I wish I had cuter feet, you know?

Career

Update on Life These Days

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I haven’t been in the mood to write a lot lately. Was just thinking about this blog and my readers as I work through my budget for the year.

The sort of everything is that it took me three months to find a new job. I got lucky — because a lot of interviews were getting to late stage (including projects I put a lot into) and then I didn’t get the job for one reason or another. One I thought I would get was eliminated as the company went in another strategic direction. A contact of mine from the past referred me to an opportunity and the interview process was very smooth as she is super well respected in the org, so I didn’t even have to do a project to get hired!

The role is much more junior than my past roles and on paper it’s a lot less than I was making at my last job (for even more work). I’m enjoying the role, though. It’s hard but I’m learning a lot and I feel appreciated for what I bring to the table. I realize the past years have felt like an abusive relationship with my past employer and I should have left a long time ago. I’m glad I didn’t because the comp was worth staying for — but it was definitely time to leave.

This job is very much a transitional role. I need to run with my new title and pick up as much experience and data for my resume as I can in the next 1-2 years. I’m at $175k salary now with no bonus or anything (plus minimal private co stock that won’t be worth anything.) It’s not horrible but going from $250k+ to $175k is pretty rough on the ego and home budget front. My husband is earning $100k so we can get by on $275k but it’s tight (yeay HCOL.) I need to spend some time reallocating investments as things are way off now. I’m tired and don’t have time to think about it. Plus I need to help my mother with her investments as she sold her house and it’s all in cash now. Fun times.

ADHD, Adulting, Career

Never Gonna Get Laid Off, Never Gonna Turn Around and Desert You…

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Weellllllllllllp. Layoffs have hit my sector bigly and I’ve had an axe hanging over my head by a thread for a long while now with my boss salivating at the chance to slice the string. I know, though I don’t know, but I know, and everyone at the company knows, because it’s pretty obvious when such things are going down, that I have a job for mayyyybe two to three more weeks. Then — (f)unemployment? Ugh, if only I could take a chill pill and lean into the “fun” part of that, you know?

Here’s the deal… I never was a fit for this job, or any job I’ve had. I’ve gotten by on producing shiny objects — tricking people into thinking I can actually do a job. I’m not a one-trick pony, mind you — I have a whole host of magic up my sleeves. Problem is, I got short arms, and I run out of tricks soon enough. Then everyone realizes I’m a total fraud.

Oh, before you start throwing “imposter syndrome” at me let me tell you that I am convinced most everyone is a fraud, their brains are just not trying to solve every single problem in the universe at once so they can slow down and focus on whatever it is they are doing at the moment and get it done and move on to the next thing. My anxious-as-fuck brain freezes up all while jolting around seeing ALL OF THE POSSIBILITY. And then, when I’m working on creative projects — which is most of my work — I don’t know how to give useful feedback as I nit pick to sculpt the project until I’m happy with it. I don’t actually know what the end result is until I see it, and that’s not the way one can work in the corp world. Everything is all frameworks this and Simon Sinek that. Yea, I came up with a blog business idea earlier that while on unemployment this winter I’m going to read every single “top” business book that my colleagues quote to quote-zoo to sound smart and I’m going to summarize them for people like me who have no attention span and create quizzes so we can all remember the important bits to sound like we know our shit.

After I get through my little project, I’ll be seeing stars and going to interviews quoting all of the visionary visionaries, nodding along as yet another CEO references yet another book that everyone in business obviously has read, duh, even though I haven’t, oops. Even if my name isn’t as alliterative or sepia-toned colorful as as 

I’m glad I’m getting let go. Really. Not really. Kind of. I should have left this job a long time ago. Let me say I am glad I didn’t. I’m so fucking lucky. Soooooo lucky. The amount of income I made the last two years is abso-fucking-lootely ridiculous. It’s unlikely I’ll ever see that kind of AGI on my annual tax return again, ever. Unless this blog blows up bigly and I get a book contract that goes top 10 NY Times bestseller list and my face magically appears in all of the airport bookstands next to all those other books someone must buy waiting for their flight because why else would they put them there?

So if you haven’t noticed I’m flipping out a wee little lot bit and terrified of what happens next. I’ve managed to land a series of interviews for a series of companies and they’ve all gone nowhere. I fucking HATE feeling like I have to fake it in interviews to get a job — both because I don’t like faking anything (TMI never faked it, that it, thank you much, yes I know you were wondering and wonderers cannot be left hanging in these parts) and also because that is just a recipe for disaster if I get hired under some pretense and then have to actually do the job. I just want to be able to be myself (well at least 80% of myself, I can leave  20% of myself  in the  NFT car in the virtual parking lot) and get hired for who I am and what I bring to the table. Ah, such wishful thinking. Who would hire that? Who would hire ME? I wouldn’t. That’s a problem.

I’ve got a whole host of ideas on what to do next. Because I need a job. One that pays well. I haven’t made less than $165k in over 7 years. And I’m looking at jobs that pay $100k-$125k. And I can’t even get those. I’m considering a year or two of a low-paid job to build up some specialist experience but still I have to get the job and do a good job at it and that all leads me to that I need an MBA and to get an MBA I need to learn math and take the GMAT and I’m going to be 40 in a year and it’s too late for all of this, I’m just fucked beyond fucked. I do figure that there are certain things I can improve — skills I can learn — and other things that are harder to get better at. Creativity seems hard to optimize. I can beg borrow and steal ideas but I’m never going to be some sort of creative genius. I can, however, perhaps, learn data science. So I’m shifting to trying to find a path that’s learnable. Real. Hard. Skills. Ones that pay well, ideally. Or I just start this business book blog and start interviewing business people and make a podcast and make myself a person that people quote. Yea, my dream job is being paid $250k to speak at a conference for an hour. Who’s hiring?

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Career, Career Change

Struggling and Scared. What’s New?

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I have 70 days until I will feel good about leaving my current job. But that still leaves the big question – what job should I go to next?

Reading job postings is the most depressing thing ever. I don’t have any skills that would land me a new job. And the jobs I’m qualified for, well, they aren’t even clear fits, and they would pay A LOT less. My only hope for making the same income is to take a VP level role, which is possible since I think I can probably convince some company no one wants to work at to hire me to run a department… I’ve done it before… but that means I actually can’t suck at this time. And while I think I’d be better than I was in my early 30s, I don’t see myself really being able to do the job well.

I keep having this sinking feeling that I’m stuck. That isn’t worst case, of course. That means I continue to do a good enough job where I don’t get fired. For however long I need to do that. I’m just not getting any more relevant experience for leaving and the longer I stay the more stuck I become. Until I get so depressed that I can’t function and end up losing my job anyway.

But I feel like I need to dig into something meaningful as my next step. I’m scared because part of me likes not giving a shit about my job beyond just doing a good enough job. If I am doing something that actually betters the world then I will be extra angry at myself when I slip up. It feels good to not care, I guess, but then I can’t motivate myself to do good work, so I think I need to care overall.

I wonder if I took some time off would I have the energy to get back to things. But I’m still convinced I don’t have the ability to learn enough skills to be employable in any job that a sane person would want to have. My number one skill is managing to make crazy sociopaths happy by doing what they want even though I disagree with it entirely. It’s not the best life though, at least for the past few years, it has paid well. But this year it’s leaning into being asked to do things that I’m not ethically ok with plus I don’t believe in and I just hate it all.

I’m curious what I’ll get for my bonus and raise (if any) this year. If I don’t get a raise again that’s going to hurt because inflation is bonkers. But I’m, well, not putting any money on a potential raise. I know even 5% is going to be pretty standard this year and anything below that is just a kick in the face and a clear sign to GTFO. But where do I go? I really don’t know. I’m just so worn down. I’m taking it week by week. 10 weeks left. Just 10 weeks. I can at least get through the 10 weeks right?

Career

Objectives Towards a Better Reality

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My “work husband” jokes that I ought to just say “loop” every time I text him how frustrated I am and that I need to get a new job. He often texts me similar sentiments in return so we put up with each other’s recurrent complaints, and both share the same frustration with the many things that don’t make sense with constantly-changing goals and lack of opportunity to focus on doing anything meaningful beyond the creation of a quick shiny object before moving on to the next. So, here I am, loop.

But leaving this job is no longer a question of if, but when. It’s more — what do I do next? I recently retook a Myers Brigs type test and I tested clearly as an INTP (no longer an INFP.) That tells me I’m fed up with bullshit and more appreciative of fact and logic in my old age. What a curmudgeon I’ve become. And I like it that way.

I feel like I have two paths here — one where I continue on my “business side” road, where I’ll never be a fit. I’ll have a few wins here and there because I can use logic to come up with ideas that make sense — but they will frequently be sabotaged by people who communicate better than I do and who think they know better. So everything I do will be some watered down or altered or not at all what it was supposed to be version of what I wanted to do. Even though for the most part I don’t even like what I want to do because I can’t get to it in a rational manner. I keep asking — WHY THE FUCK ARE WE DOING THIS — and if I can’t solve for that then it’s hard for me to do anything at all.

And in all my queries over the years I keep looping back to that I need to KNOW things. Not just any things. But I need skills. I need to understand programming. Not that I would be a programmer. Maybe I would be. I doubt it. But I need to understand how things work. To better communicate with the people who make things. So I can also make things. Even if I’m not, well, making them myself. This opens up paths to product management, data science, UX in collaboration with developers, and other roles that I could see being fulfilling in allowing me to build things and doing things that make sense.

The only problem is my focus is non existent. I’ve tried to go down this path before, and I don’t get very far. It’s not even frustration as I just feel like I have no ability to commit to anything whatsoever. It’s a problem. But here in my old age I know I need to. And I have this luxury of time that I normally don’t have where I could, if I get my darned act together, set aside some hours in the day to take a self-paced course and learn some things. I have a lot to do for work, but given I have a goal to move on soon, I don’t have to do anything above and beyond for my current job. And there are definitely times when I have downtime so I might as well put those to learning something useful.

I really like the idea that to get anything done in life you have to make a list of the 25 (or in my case 200) things you want to do and then pick the top 3-5 and cross out all the others. I haven’t quite made the list, but I’d say at the top of it would be 1. learn the fundamentals of coding (probs python since that seems to pop up everywhere) 2. build something even if it sucks 3. clean my house (/get a kitchen table set.) 4. exercise 4x a week 30 minutes a day and don’t order takeout; 5. prioritize work to-dos by day over the next 12 weeks and get that shit done (and repeat as needed.)

I think this is a reasonable and healthful list where if I can accomplish these things by the end of 2022, ongoing, I’ll be in a MUCH better place going into 2023.

I imagine applying for jobs would look much differently if I can say I completed a certificate for programming and/or built something. Because there are two types of people in the world, people who build and the people who try to make everyone see the value in what has been built. Ok, then also people who don’t want anything to do with building things and just want to make sure everyone is doing ok in the process of building those things. So maybe three types. I’m 100% a builder. I need to figure out how to be where I’m meant to be. I have 20-30 years of work left, which isn’t much time, but it’s quite enough time to either go batshit crazy or to be part of building something meaningful that I can be proud of.  I prefer the latter.

Career

The Roads You Didn’t Take

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There’s a part of me that still believes I have a big career in me. I could return to school for an executive MBA and find my voice and confidence to move up quickly on a high-potential path from junior executive to C-suite.

With my astute decision making leading to unprecedented revenue growth I’d no longer have to apply to jobs — jobs would apply to me. And 10 years later I’d look back at the last decade not as a smorgasbord of fake-it-till-you-make-it and no substantial work meriting pride but a full narrative around doing a whole bunch of great things. Maybe I’d be in one of those lists… despite no longer being young enough to make it into a 40 under 40. Perhaps a 50 under 50 but over 40. A 6 shy of 60. The one to watch. The one whose career is worth at least a couple of articles in respected trade publications.

Or – I quit the workforce entirely to write full time. A novel. A memoir. A TV series. A film or play or interactive art piece titled “pretentious” because it obviously is.  I create a storyline and cast and direct and edit something that goes on the internet and goes viral. Because everyone goes viral these days so why not me? I do something unique enough to capture some audience that wants more.

Or… I hand in my resignation and live off savings, moving to some town no one has heard of to live a life that won’t ever be heard of either. As a mom. Driving my kids to practices and classes and field trips. Volunteering at the school because there’s so much free time and I ought to use it doing something useful. 10 years of that.

Or none of these, more likely, just a schmuck doing some job half-ass not because I want to but because that’s all I’m genuinely capable of. Working for sociopathic leaders who at best are fake kind when you serve their visions well and at worst make you feel like shit until you land in a mental institution or die, whichever comes first.

There are so many roads and yet most of them seem so far away. Their starting point is a huge death defying leap across a chasm of diamond-tipped spikes just waiting to gut me alive. So I stay safely on the other side despite this wall behind me speeding up from a distance, clearly ready to nudge me off the ledge with no more space for a respectable momentum-building leap. So I wait until I fall violently to the end or I run and jump and try to make it across with my legs swirling at full speed in the air, like some long jumper who actually knows what the hell she’s doing — or perhaps not as gracefully but somehow I make it across, ready to take on the other side.

I don’t know and I’ll never know which is why I seem to just be waiting to be pushed off. Most people are here with me. Who says the other side is any better?

Career

Seven Recruiter Calls But I’m Not Interested

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The recruiter calls all go the same. Some company has some technology and then need someone on the business side to do XYZ for it. It’s a numbers game and at some point someone would believe I can fill the role they need (aka making magic) and I’d be hired. I’m told comp ranges $200k-$250k+, base. Don’t let that scare me away, they’re open to more for the right candidate.

The numbers are meaningless if I get hired and fired three months later, so I’m wary. After 15 minutes with a recruiter grilling me about my experience so hard I almost said clearly I’m not right for this role and hung up, she a second later said ‘you seem like a really good fit for this role’ (what?) and maybe I’ll speak with the founders soon. Ok. I don’t feel like I’m a good fit for the role, but a conversation can’t hurt…. or can it? Isn’t that what got me here, as in to this point in my career, in the first place?

I’ve said for a long time that this specific field I’m in isn’t right for me but it’s just so freaking clear I can see through it without noticing its there. It’s soul draining and yes it pays well especially in certain levels and companies but I just can’t do this anymore. I daydream of waking up excited about building something helpful in some way. But then again do I even have the energy for that.

I have the energy for nothing. Not even my typical long blog posts. Just this. A running log of where I’ll never be which is where I guess it is I am. Here. Still here. Always here.

Career

Where on earth do I go next?

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A short post, not so sweet, but short nonetheless.

I’m really struggling in figuring out where I realistically go next.

It does feel the time has come to move on in the coming months here…

But I’m looking at a $250k income next year, if I stay give or take. That’s a big “if” — because with a new boss that’s unlikely anyway. Even if I do my absolute best and never make a mistake.

That said… other roles out there just won’t pay as much. And they’ll probably throw some stock at me just to make it worth staying. But I know I need to get out for my mental health. There’s just — no where to go? I’m too senior for junior roles and too junior for senior roles. I am feeling really down about my prospects right now. I know it’s a job seekers market but the job postings out there really sting. I don’t want to go to a small startup unless I’m taking on a very senior time-consuming role and I don’t have the energy or time for that right now. But I don’t have the foggiest how to get into a legit large company with my background.

Feeling pretty darned hopeless. Grateful to have my job but hate the feeling of being so stuck. Maybe I could find a job for like $120k but is that really what I want? Is that really better than what I have now?