Long story short:
- I molded my personality over time since high school arguably to be this shy quiet super hard worker type cause in some part thats who I was and thats who I thought I had to be to succeed in my field (tech).
- I was dealing with a lot of personal fallout from this personality and stressors in my life
- Barely finish school and found a job in this economy
- Got fired 3 months in (it was a small company) for not going fast enough with getting my tasks done. Boss tells me shit on the way out like “maybe you're not actually cut out for this”
- And I also wasn't a culture fit as a minor point , I didn't have enough “personality” (IE – I was too quiet)
And I honestly think he's right to some degree. My programming classes were never actually my strongest as school went on and math nearly destroyed me – the writing classes were my best. But I powered through it cause I thought at least my career would be better after the bachelors.
To be fair:
– I actually do like coding, I love what I can build with it , and the complexity is fun despite those days you get caught in an absolute stalemate between what the change you have to make could be (is it this dependency? Or should I refactor the logic of how I'm using it? etc etc) . I don't think I'm someone who can code “at speed” though.
I acknowledge: I am definitely partly to blame for not creating a work life balance. But it was so stressful that all-work was the only way I could keep up. Now I'm just burned out though so I suppose it came back for me.
And then I reflected on the past decade of my life (I didn't graduate on time either) that I give to this FUCKING FIELD. Only to slowly come to terms I was maybe not actually cut out for it. I can't even put that credit on my resume cause everyone will know I was fired from it (in tech). And in this cutthroat market – nobody is gonna hire that and tbh with AI and lack of funding – I don't see that status quo changing.
What eats me up:
- I could have put people first , gone to the parties (I was invited), and coulda just had some fun
- I coulda picked a realistic trade and actually made money rather than floundering at university
- I could invested deeper in my writing skills created content I loved
I did this so I could be a good cog in the machine and make a life for myself and my family. The machine doesn't want me. Im staring down the barrel of a decade wasted, no sense of identity really cause all I did was conform to my niche rather than what I truly liked outside of it that wasn't entertainment/media, and just no fixed road from here.
I hate work. I'm doing the minimum to stay afloat and putting all the points on the people side of the skill tree now.
Any thoughts?