Overheard a Conversation

snoofle

I was in a peer-manager's office when one of his guys came in to talk. Right in front of me, they had the following exchange:

Employee: I don't want to work on XXX any more - it's been the same work forever
          The customer is a whopping jerk and I just can't deal with him; life is
          to short to put up with the abuse.
Boss: I need you to keep doing it
Emp:  I don't want to work on XXX any more
Boss: I need you to keep doing it
Emp:  Ok, let me rephrase less subtly: I am not going to work on XXX any more
Boss: I need you to keep doing it, it's important
Emp:  No, I am NOT going to work on this any more; please assign me to anything else
Boss: I need you to keep doing it, it's important
Emp:  Let me rephrase so you get what I'm saying: Two-weeks-notice!
Boss: Wait, let's talk about it
Emp:  No, I said I am not going to do this any more. I asked nicely 3 times. I repeated
      myself sternly twice more. You had your chance. Goodbye!

The manager just looks at me with this dumbfounded look on his face. I couldn't help but say: Did you really not see that coming?

morbiuswilters

This sounds... contrived. Would the employee really just quit without securing a new job? In this economy? And if he already had a new job lined up, then the whole thing sounds like a set-up just to backhand the boss and make a point. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

I've been in an almost-identical situation where I was fed up with poor management, unrealistic expectations and "difficult" stakeholders. I held out for months, letting my concerns be known, working with my boss to improve the situation and holding out hope that things would get better. Finally, I hit the breaking point and I pretty much the same conversation, except without the two weeks notice part. Instead, I just went out and started looking for a new job. One week later I walked into my boss' office and gave him my two weeks. Less satisfying, but safer.

fennec

@snoofle said:

The manager just looks at me with this dumbfounded look on his face. I couldn't help but say: Did you really not see that coming?

Thoughts. If the employee has mentioned this before then the manager does seem a little oblivious; still, I'd have expected him to say something like "I am getting tired of this abuse, please give me your plan to transfer someone else to this project before I go out there and have to put up with this again."
Don't wait until it's a do-or-die "I can't take it anymore" situation and something has to be done right now.

Alternative thought: Mr. Employee has gotten tired of this, raised the issue before, got no useful feedback that this task will be likely to end, and so went out for an interview with someone else on the side, got an offer he was okay with, and decided to make this last-bid attempt at this company and will officially accept the offer later next afternoon. In which case this was mostly for show.

(Not that the manager is miraculously blameless, but an employee should be prepared to deal with him in the case he's not.)

PJH

@morbiuswilters said:

I've been in an almost-identical situation

Similar sort of situation here, in that I ended up handing my notice.

Though the last straw that caused me to hand my notice in, was (initially) pay-roll's and (subsequently) my boss's boss's inability to sort out some site rates I was due 3 months on the trot.

Unfortunately I didn't have a job lined up. Fortunately I found my current job after 3 weeks of leaving the previous one.

DaveK1

@morbiuswilters said:

This sounds... contrived. Would the employee really just quit without securing a new job? In this economy?

Sure, why not? If you hate it you hate it. I did exactly that last winter.

vyznev

Whether it was for show or not, I rather doubt the manager is going to draw any lessons from this, except maybe "wow, some people are nuts". That dumbfounded look you saw on his face came from seeing someone make a choice which he wouldn't have thought any sane person would make if they had an alternative.

Most likely he spent a few dumbfounded moments considering how he might've been wrong before concluding that he wasn't and that the employee simply must've been crazy from the beginning. Which conclusion not only provided him with an explanation, but also allowed him to consign the whole situation into the "sometimes, shit just happens" file and thereby avoid blaming himself for it in any way.

As for the employee, I'd guess he either indeed had another job waiting for him already or, just possibly, was really so close to snapping and going postal that just getting away seemed like a better choice. Or, I suppose, he just might've been one of those fortunate folks with a modest lifestyle, few financial commitments and enough savings and marketable skills that he didn't consider an open-ended period of unemployment to be such a horrible risk after all, even in the current economic situation.

I've been in a situation somewhat like that myself, deciding that I'd rather keep living on my savings and studying rather than resume an IT job from which I'd been on extended leave for a while. Given than I now have a master's degree in math and funding to pursue a Ph.D., I think that was a good decision. I might still end up coding web apps sometimes, but it's no longer my job. (Mind you, all that was entirely on friendly terms, and I was already fairly sure of getting the funding at the point when I cut the final ties to my old job. But I knew from the start when I took the leave that I might not be going back, and just figured that even in the worst case, I could live on what I had long enough to find something else to pay the bills.)

snoofle

To All: the employee had had similar conversations with the boss over the past two months, and had already found another position. He wanted to stay and so gave the boss one last chance to move him to another position.

I can see growing frustration and hedging one's bets before giving a polite ultimatum - sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do...

morbiuswilters

@DaveK said:

@morbiuswilters said:
This sounds... contrived. Would the employee really just quit without securing a new job? In this economy?
Sure, why not? If you hate it you hate it. I did exactly that last winter.

Because it's much safer to find a new job first? I understand you are an idiot, but try to think of this like an adult. The job may suck but I think most people are mature enough to tough it out until they get something better. If you get something in a week: great. If it takes 4 months you'll probably be glad that you kept working. Being unemployed also leaves you with little leverage when negotiating. No hiring manager worth their salt is going to give you much of a pay increase (if any) if they know they don't have to.

morbiuswilters

@vyznev said:

Or, I suppose, he just might've been one of those fortunate folks with a modest lifestyle, few financial commitments and enough savings and marketable skills that he didn't consider an open-ended period of unemployment to be such a horrible risk after all, even in the current economic situation.

Honestly, it's not even the risk of not finding a job, it's the annoyance of not making as much money as you could be plus the tedium of unemployment.

bob171123

I bet the manager had another sucker lined up to take over the project. Either that, or he was a complete idiot not recognizing the warning signs that the project was horrible on the other guy.

CDarklock

@bob171123 said:

I bet...

TRWTF is almost always that whenever a WTF involving management is posted, people turn around and try to excuse the behaviour and conduct of the authority figures who created or accepted it - I mean, they're in charge, it can't be their fault.

@morbiuswilters said:

@DaveK said:
@morbiuswilters said:
This sounds... contrived. Would the employee really just quit without securing a new job? In this economy?
Sure, why not? If you hate it you hate it. I did exactly that last winter.

Because it's much safer to find a new job first? I understand you are an idiot, but try to think of this like an adult. The job may suck but I think most people are mature enough to tough it out until they get something better. If you get something in a week: great. If it takes 4 months you'll probably be glad that you kept working. Being unemployed also leaves you with little leverage when negotiating. No hiring manager worth their salt is going to give you much of a pay increase (if any) if they know they don't have to.

Hiring practices like that will leave your company missing all their good new developers as soon as the economy picks up.

ObiWayneKenobi

Sometimes it's better to quit without an offer, and save yourself the health issues. I'm at the point I want to do this in my current job; if I don't do something soon I'm literallly going to be hospitalized with a nervous breakdown or similar.

DaveK1

@morbiuswilters said:

@DaveK said:
@morbiuswilters said:
This sounds... contrived. Would the employee really just quit without securing a new job? In this economy?
Sure, why not? If you hate it you hate it. I did exactly that last winter.

Because it's much safer to find a new job first? I understand you are an idiot, but try to think of this like an adult.

(aside: Ah, there's the old Morbs we all know and love. Projecting your personal experiences as if they were a universal constant of life applicable to everyone in the world without exception, jumping to invalid conclusions based on that false assumption, and calling people names for then failing to live up to your miscalculated extrapolations! Welcome back.)

Well, that's exactly what I did, and like an adult, I made a mature balanced decision based on rationally weighing a whole range of relevant factors, rather than basing my entire decision on the sole factor of whether it is what I perceive as "safe" or not, like a frightened child would do. Sorry if that led me to a different conclusion than you would have reached in different circumstances. Guess what's right for you isn't always what's right for everyone else.

@morbiuswilters said:

The job may suck but I think most people are mature enough to tough it out until they get something better.

What's so "mature" about hanging around, pointlessly beating your head against a brick wall? If things are going wrong, and you can see they're going wrong, and you do everything you can to try and prevent the onrushing train wreck but the organisation has too much inertia to change and insists on ploughing blindly ahead, then the honourable and proper thing to do is to resign. At least it's not like you just sat there saying nothing and collecting your paycheck, knowing it was all going wrong but doing nothing but time-serving until the inevitable end. Sometimes you should be willing to sacrifice a bit of your personal interest toward the greater good.

@morbiuswilters said:

If you get something in a week: great. If it takes 4 months you'll probably be glad that you kept working. Being unemployed also leaves you with little leverage when negotiating. No hiring manager worth their salt is going to give you much of a pay increase (if any) if they know they don't have to.

Well, that might apply to you, but none of it's relevant to me.

CDarklock

@DaveK said:

What's so "mature" about hanging around, pointlessly beating your head against a brick wall?

Mature is whatever morbs would do. Everything else is immature, stupid, or both.

arty

@ObiWayneKenobi said:

Sometimes it's better to quit without an offer, and save yourself the health issues. I'm at the point I want to do this in my current job; if I don't do something soon I'm literallly going to be hospitalized with a nervous breakdown or similar.

I was in this situation last year, when I finally quit my old job; really drawing charts outlining the pros and cons of mortal existence, really having panic attacks going two blocks down the street to buy bread, really unable to do anything except go to work, go home and think about how much better off everyone would be if I just didn't wake up the next morning. I didn't have an offer and didn't need one when I left; I had made enough money monkeying for poorly managed projects that I didn't need to work for a few years, but more importantly, I absolutely needed to spend time away from stress.

For a year, I rose with the NYSE, traded a bit, walked about 3 miles per day across the mountain I moved to and basically just wrote on any programming project that came to mind.

I recently passed up one opportunity to interview entirely, on the basis that the project seemed to be already late and was aggressively adding people. In the end, I took a much better offer and I'm planning my move now. Believe me, if you can afford the downtime, it can help you see the way through. When I went back to the city I had come from to interview, I felt none of the associated baggage, no hidden hostility, no panic. 1 year was enough time for me.

I used to tell my friends that I'd have myself committed if I could stop freaking out long enough to get there. That was seriously true. Take the time. Take care of yourself. When you're seriously at the end of your rope, it looks like you have no place to go.

fennec

@CDarklock said:

@DaveK said:
What's so "mature" about hanging around, pointlessly beating your head against a brick wall?

Mature is whatever morbs would do. Everything else is immature, stupid, or both.

This may not be mature, but with what I've seen of late I just thought I'd chime in here, since someone else has already mentioned it:

Morbs, you're a doofus. I hope you realize this.

Thanks. That's all.

@vyznev said:

I've been in a situation somewhat like that myself, deciding that I'd rather keep living on my savings and studying rather than resume an IT job from which I'd been on extended leave for a while. Given than I now have a master's degree in math and funding to pursue a Ph.D., I think that was a good decision. I might still end up coding web apps sometimes, but it's no longer my job. (Mind you, all that was entirely on friendly terms, and I was already fairly sure of getting the funding at the point when I cut the final ties to my old job. But I knew from the start when I took the leave that I might not be going back, and just figured that even in the worst case, I could live on what I had long enough to find something else to pay the bills.)

@arty said:

I was in this situation last year, when I finally quit my old job; really drawing charts outlining the pros and cons of mortal existence, really having panic attacks going two blocks down the street to buy bread, really unable to do anything except go to work, go home and think about how much better off everyone would be if I just didn't wake up the next morning. I didn't have an offer and didn't need one when I left; I had made enough money monkeying for poorly managed projects that I didn't need to work for a few years, but more importantly, I absolutely needed to spend time away from stress.

I'm proudly unemployed myself, for about a month now.

I'd say that anyone who hasn't had this sort of experience in some way: either hasn't worked hard enough or for long enough to reach above their maximum-confortable accumulated-stress level; or are really passionate and happy about what they do and don't ever have to stop and disconnect for a while; or have enough power in their job (or are unimportant enough) to be able to take a break every time they just have to, because they've reached their point of saturation. Or they're not human.

Oh, and money isn't everything. What good is it if I'm not spending it? Sure, it would be nice for it to be there when I retire, but I'd rather enjoy it while I'm young and lively/alive.

And you find unemployment tedious, you're just not creative enough.

fatdog

@ObiWayneKenobi said:

Sometimes it's better to quit without an offer, and save yourself the health issues. I'm at the point I want to do this in my current job; if I don't do something soon I'm literallly going to be hospitalized with a nervous breakdown or similar.

I'm actually about to convince my wife to quit her job using this idea. Sometimes you mental health and peace of mind is more important than the money.

These are not the best times to quit without another secured job, but it's getting to a point, that either she quits, she reaches zen enlightment or total obliviousness to all the stupidty, or I'll go there and punch her boss in the stomach until he pukes his guts out. (Maybe burn the place down and have 16 killed. That might be cool).

Bumble_Bee_Tuna

@morbiuswilters said:

Because it's much safer to find a new job first? I understand you are an idiot, but try to think of this like an adult. The job may suck but I think most people are mature enough to tough it out until they get something better. If you get something in a week: great. If it takes 4 months you'll probably be glad that you kept working. Being unemployed also leaves you with little leverage when negotiating. No hiring manager worth their salt is going to give you much of a pay increase (if any) if they know they don't have to.

Well, the be fair, a mature adult would probably be competent enough, in both their job skills and their financial management skills, that they wouldn't find a period of unemployment "unsafe" at all. If you do feel that an immediate period of unemployment would be unsafe for you, you're just a wage slave.

belgariontheking

Why do I get the feeling that everyone's arguing against what morb said just because morb said it?

CDarklock

@belgariontheking said:

Why do I get the feeling that everyone's arguing against what morb said just because morb said it?

Morb's brought up a religious issue (should one fear periods of unemployment), which is very much like the question of using 1TBS or BSD style. Which amounts to whether you write code like

this() {
}

or

this()
{
}

Regardless of which way you feel, anyone who doesn't feel the way you do is clearly stupid and needs to get a clue. I mean, it's obvious how you should do things, isn't it?

bstorer

@CDarklock said:

@belgariontheking said:
Why do I get the feeling that everyone's arguing against what morb said just because morb said it?

Morb's brought up a religious issue (should one fear periods of unemployment), which is very much like the question of using 1TBS or BSD style. Which amounts to whether you write code like

this() {
}

or

this()
{
}

~~Regardless of which way you feel,~~ The first one is obviously better and anyone who doesn't ~~feel the way you do~~ recognize its inherent superiority is clearly stupid and needs to get a clue. I mean, it's obvious how you should do things, isn't it?

FTFY

fennec

@bstorer said:

@CDarklock said:
@belgariontheking said:
Why do I get the feeling that everyone's arguing against what morb said just because morb said it?

Morb's brought up a religious issue (should one fear periods of unemployment), which is very much like the question of using 1TBS or BSD style. Which amounts to whether you write code like

this() {
}

or

this()
{
}

~~Regardless of which way you feel,~~ The first one is obviously better and anyone who doesn't ~~feel the way you do~~ recognize its inherent superiority is clearly stupid and needs to get a clue. I mean, it's obvious how you should do things, isn't it?
FTFY

When I first started coding on my own preprofessionally, I wanted to do this:

blahblahblahblah;
blahblahblahblah;
if (foo) {
  code;
  code;
  }
othercode;
othercode;

such that the } lines up with the code it was ending. It seemed much more natural to me. But then I got to work professionally in an environment that does it a more standard way (with auto-intending editors, to boot) and I got over it.

blakeyrat

@morbiuswilters said:

@vyznev said:
Or, I suppose, he just might've been one of those fortunate folks with a modest lifestyle, few financial commitments and enough savings and marketable skills that he didn't consider an open-ended period of unemployment to be such a horrible risk after all, even in the current economic situation.
Honestly, it's not even the risk of not finding a job, it's the annoyance of not making as much money as you could be plus the tedium of unemployment.

I had a job I had to get out of before a fileserver crashed. My efforts at replacing it had failed, as the Director of IT of that place was such a... interesting person. But if it crashed, I'd be the one responsible for damage control.

As soon as I realized how fragile the situation was, I hightailed it to a low-paying (but bill-paying) contract position at MS, doing Xbox 360 game testing. It actually turned out to be really good for me.

fatdog

@belgariontheking said:

Why do I get the feeling that everyone's arguing against what morb said just because morb said it?

Because we are all rebels sticking it to The Man, and morb represents all that's wrong with The Man. So we are all sticking it to morb.

I bet he likes it too

tgape

@morbiuswilters said:

@vyznev said:
Or, I suppose, he just might've been one of those fortunate folks with a modest lifestyle, few financial commitments and enough savings and marketable skills that he didn't consider an open-ended period of unemployment to be such a horrible risk after all, even in the current economic situation.
Honestly, it's not even the risk of not finding a job, it's the ~~annoyance of not making as much money as you could be plus the tedium of unemployment~~ fact that I'm incredibly immature and cannot cope without someone telling me what to do for most of my waking hours.

FTFY. (Note: I'm not saying there's anything *wrong* with not being able to cope without getting direction. Self knowledge is a good thing! I'd just prefer to not have to translate this stuff, because I too am immature.)

DaveK1

@belgariontheking said:

Why do I get the feeling that everyone's arguing against what morb said just because morb said it?

I hear what you're saying, and I don't know where all the dogpiling came from, but I think the basic objection is not ad hominem, I think it's about what M says, not who says it. If you're going to call someone an idiot, you'd better take great care not to use an idiotic argument when you explain why you think they are so, or you will get righteously called out on it.

Everyone makes the mistake of projecting from the personal experience now and again, it's a constant of human psychology. But when this happens most people notice the dissonance and double-check their assumptions, rather than assuming everyone else is stupid. Morbs just gets angry and starts calling people names. That leads to an invalid argument pretty much every time.

tgape

@tgape said:

@morbiuswilters said:
Honestly, it's not even the risk of not finding a job, it's the ~~annoyance of not making as much money as you could be plus the tedium of unemployment~~ fact that I'm ~~incredibly~~ immature and cannot cope without someone telling me what to do for most of my waking hours.

FTFY. (Note: I'm not saying there's anything *wrong* with not being able to cope without getting direction. Self knowledge is a good thing! I'd just prefer to not have to translate this stuff, because I too am immature.)

FTFTFYFM. While Morbs may be incredibly immature, he wasn't saying or showing that here. I was out of line. In fact, by admitting that his issue was his own, he was showing greater than normal maturity.

Morbiuswilters, I apologize. I was wrong.

fatdog

@tgape said:

Morbiuswilters, I apologize. I was wrong.

Never apologize to morbman! NEVER!

Also try not to make direct eye contact, never raise your arms above his head, and it is extremely dangerous to aproach him from behind.

It is adviced that you do not wear shiny thing when near him, and keep your limbs and head inside the vehicle at all times.

bjolling

@fennec said:

blahblahblahblah( );

blahblahblahblah( );

if (foo) {

code( );

code( );

}

othercode( );

othercode( );

FTFY - It just felt wrong( );

morbiuswilters

@tgape said:

Morbiuswilters, I apologize. I was wrong.

This goes without saying. However, you are weak for admitting defeat.

As for your original point: you are wrong. It has nothing to do with "needing to be told what to do". If you can find something to fill 16-ish hours a day, 7 days a week, then good for you, but not all of us are so easily amused. The problem with that much free time is that it gives the ghosts of those I have wronged more time to torment me, and I fucking hate listening to those people; it's why I wronged them in the first place. Additionally, my leisure time actually decreases: there's no way I'm going to hours calling people stupid on TDWTF if I'm not getting paid to do it.

morbiuswilters

@Bumble Bee Tuna said:

@morbiuswilters said:
Because it's much safer to find a new job first? I understand you are an idiot, but try to think of this like an adult. The job may suck but I think most people are mature enough to tough it out until they get something better. If you get something in a week: great. If it takes 4 months you'll probably be glad that you kept working. Being unemployed also leaves you with little leverage when negotiating. No hiring manager worth their salt is going to give you much of a pay increase (if any) if they know they don't have to.

Well, the be fair, a mature adult would probably be competent enough, in both their job skills and their financial management skills, that they wouldn't find a period of unemployment "unsafe" at all. If you do feel that an immediate period of unemployment would be unsafe for you, you're just a wage slave.

The fact of the matter is, unemployment is a drain on your resources. Maybe you have enough stashed away to go years without a paycheck, but you are still reducing your net worth if you aren't bringing in money.

morbiuswilters

@blakeyrat said:

I had a job I had to get out of before a fileserver crashed. My efforts at replacing it had failed, as the Director of IT of that place was such a... interesting person. But if it crashed, I'd be the one responsible for damage control.
As soon as I realized how fragile the situation was, I hightailed it to a low-paying (but bill-paying) contract position at MS, doing Xbox 360 game testing. It actually turned out to be really good for me.

Agreed. It's the same thing as stashing a dead hooker in your office's ceiling and quitting before the smell attracts attention.

morbiuswilters

@arty said:

I was in this situation last year, when I finally quit my old job; really drawing charts outlining the pros and cons of mortal existence, really having panic attacks going two blocks down the street to buy bread, really unable to do anything except go to work, go home and think about how much better off everyone would be if I just didn't wake up the next morning.

Over a job? Fuck that. If a job gets stressful, I just spend more time fantasizing about loading all of my enemies onto a bus packed with C4 and sending it over a cliff. If that doesn't do it, smoke a joint or two every morning before you go to work. Or just be creative in your time-wasting. There are only two legitimate reasons for having a nervous breakdown: your kid has cancer or you are being hunted by pissed-off cyborgs from the future.

DaveK1

@morbiuswilters said:

There are only two legitimate reasons for having a nervous breakdown: your kid has cancer or you are being hunted by pissed-off cyborgs from the future.

That's not funny! Both my brothers died those ways!

ammoQ

@morbiuswilters said:

Because it's much safer to find a new job first? I understand you are an idiot, but try to think of this like an adult. The job may suck but I think most people are mature enough to tough it out until they get something better. If you get something in a week: great. If it takes 4 months you'll probably be glad that you kept working. Being unemployed also leaves you with little leverage when negotiating. No hiring manager worth their salt is going to give you much of a pay increase (if any) if they know they don't have to.

Earlier this year, I quit without having a new job. But in my case, it wasn't a two-week-notice, but a three-month-notice (that's what my contract required). I assumed it would be difficult to find a job 3+ months in advance (no employer wants to wait that long), so I had to take the risk. Turned out very well, actually.

morbiuswilters

@ammoQ said:

@morbiuswilters said:
Because it's much safer to find a new job first? I understand you are an idiot, but try to think of this like an adult. The job may suck but I think most people are mature enough to tough it out until they get something better. If you get something in a week: great. If it takes 4 months you'll probably be glad that you kept working. Being unemployed also leaves you with little leverage when negotiating. No hiring manager worth their salt is going to give you much of a pay increase (if any) if they know they don't have to.
Earlier this year, I quit without having a new job. But in my case, it wasn't a two-week-notice, but a three-month-notice (that's what my contract required). I assumed it would be difficult to find a job 3+ months in advance (no employer wants to wait that long), so I had to take the risk. Turned out very well, actually.

Yeah, that's a pretty difficult situation. How did you end up in a contract that required 3 months notice?

Nyquist

@morbiuswilters said:

Over a job? Fuck that. If a job gets stressful, I just spend more time fantasizing about loading all of my enemies onto a bus packed with C4 and sending it over a cliff. If that doesn't do it, smoke a joint or two every morning before you go to work. Or just be creative in your time-wasting. There are only two legitimate reasons for having a nervous breakdown: your kid has cancer or you are being hunted by pissed-off cyborgs from the future.

Wow. You have to be either still very young, or have never worked in a truly stressful environment, or both.

tgape

@morbiuswilters said:

@tgape said:
Morbiuswilters, I apologize. I was wrong.

This goes without saying. However, you are weak for admitting defeat.

As for your original point: you are wrong. It has nothing to do with "needing to be told what to do". If you can find something to fill 16-ish hours a day, 7 days a week, then good for you, but not all of us are so easily amused. The problem with that much free time is that it gives the ghosts of those I have wronged more time to torment me, and I fucking hate listening to those people; it's why I wronged them in the first place. Additionally, my leisure time actually decreases: there's no way I'm going to hours calling people stupid on TDWTF if I'm not getting paid to do it.

Who's weak? It's what we call a feint - you didn't respond to the prior post, so I posted something you would respond to - and how!

As far as filling 16-ish hours a day, 7 days a week, while unemployed, that's *easy*. Filling out job applications, interviewing for jobs, studying up on things that would enhance ones marketability, and, if that's somehow not enough, volunteering at a worthy charity.

And then there's MMORPGs. Infinite time suck, right there.

morbiuswilters

@Nyquist said:

@morbiuswilters said:
Over a job? Fuck that. If a job gets stressful, I just spend more time fantasizing about loading all of my enemies onto a bus packed with C4 and sending it over a cliff. If that doesn't do it, smoke a joint or two every morning before you go to work. Or just be creative in your time-wasting. There are only two legitimate reasons for having a nervous breakdown: your kid has cancer or you are being hunted by pissed-off cyborgs from the future.

Wow. You have to be either still very young, or have never worked in a truly stressful environment, or both.

Stress is what you make of it. I had one job where I spent 3 hours a day for months in meetings with senior management being yelled at because things were behind schedule. Trying to explain we were behind schedule because we spent 3 hours a day in meetings was not successful. I was in the office 70 to 90 hours a week for awhile. I didn't snap. I did what any sane person would do: I looked for a new job and did phone interviews on company time. I held meetings with other developers at the bar. I spread vile rumours about everyone who crossed me, and some who hadn't but who I just didn't care for.

In short: I flourished under pressure.

morbiuswilters

@tgape said:

Filling out job applications, interviewing for jobs...

For those of us who can type, speak and read at a college level, this takes two hours a day. Tops.

@tgape said:

...studying up on things that would enhance ones marketability...

I already know everything there is to know. Or... maybe you mean non-technical stuff? Things like a potential employer's home address, pictures of his kids at the park taken with a telelphoto lens.. you know, stuff that would make me a shoe-in? Even then, that's only a couple of hours a week.

@tgape said:

...volunteering at a worthy charity.

You lost me. The only charity case I bother with is your wife, and that's just because it's easier than listening to her cry.

@tgape said:

And then there's MMORPGs.

And I'm the immature one...

fatdog

@Nyquist said:

@morbiuswilters said:
Over a job? Fuck that. If a job gets stressful, I just spend more time fantasizing about loading all of my enemies onto a bus packed with C4 and sending it over a cliff. If that doesn't do it, smoke a joint or two every morning before you go to work. Or just be creative in your time-wasting. There are only two legitimate reasons for having a nervous breakdown: your kid has cancer or you are being hunted by pissed-off cyborgs from the future.

Wow. You have to be either still very young, or have never worked in a truly stressful environment, or both.

Wow. You must be not young enough, not old enough, or a very uptight stressed up stiff neurotic person.

And no, I'm not very young, and I have worked in more stressful enviroments than I care to remember.

Really man lern2zen. No job is worth it.

jinpa

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