A couple of years ago, I was working in a computer shop as a "technician", I was 15, first job I ever had.
One day an elderly lady came into the shop, probably 50'ish, she and her whole family "suffered" from electromagnetic radiation, and the mother had the worst suffering. She complained about her TV box that just had died.

I accept the tuner and see it's wrapped with 10 layers of aluminium foil, with a tiny hole for the IR receiver.

The whole box smells like burnt electronics, and the foil gets darker for each layer I unwrap. I try explain to her that the box gets warm and overheated by wrapping it like this, and she's lucky that it didn't catch fire.

I further explain to her that she will not get a new box, because the warranty does not cover _this_. The mother tells me she has to wrap it like this, because she gets headaches when she's watching the news.

She then proceeds to go into a rage mode and gets her whole family into the shop, where all of them starts yelling at me, the younger kids start throwing stuff down from the shelves and touching the TVs with sticky fingers (literally, sticky, like yuck!).

Unsure what to do, boss is in a meeting, and my colleague is busy in the back.

So I calmly tell them that in this building there's 4 wireless networks, 3 wireless phones, high voltage cables run in the wall behind me, there's factory tracks 20 meters behind the building, next door business is an electrician, you're standing in front of wall with 30-40 TVs, 5 HDMI splitters, 3 TV boxes and a Blu-ray player. And they've all been standing in front of them for the last 10 minutes.

They all suddenly feel really sick and run out of the store, never to be seen again. From that day, I decided I'll never work in a shop again, and pursued my dreams to become a developer.

TL;DR: Family is "sensitive" to electromagnetic radiation, almost put burnt down their house because of stupidity, yelled at me. I decided to pursue my dream as a developer.

I usually don't work for indian clients. But when I do, they make sure I don't get paid.

Some highlights from my last project,

Client: Do you know ERPnext?

Me: No, but I am good at python.

Client: My boss wants me to find a guy who can create barcode generator for erpnext.

Me: I can use pyBarcode to do it.
This is exciting I thought. I get to learn a new framework. Start working on it. Not an hour passes by,

Client: hey can you remove this menu item?
Me: Which one?
Client: Also can you add the dashboard icons to left sidebar? Like Odoo? Do you know it? It is also python based.
Me: Then why don't you just use Odoo instead?
Client: My boss wants it. He doesn't understand computers. He is pissing mr off.
Me: Then how come he suggested erpnext?
Client: His friend told him.
*experience mindfuck*

For the next 3 days he has me working on these UI tweaks, never mentions barcode again.

But I finish the barcode stuff. Tripple check everything to make sure they work. Tell him to check so I can get paid. Guy asks his boss to check.

Boss > Client: It doesn't work
Me: What doesn't work?
Boss > Client: Everything!
Client: I actually tested everything and they work. My boss doesn't know how to use it. He is very old.

Makes me make more changes and finally when I ask for the work done so far,
Client: Boss didn't come to office today. I'll get you paid. Please try to understand my situation.

Me thinking, "mofo your boss didn't hire me,l. You did". But I keep calm and tell him I won't work until I get paid 50%.

3 days passed. No reply. Set his skype status to "Away" forever.

*spidey sense tells me I'm not getting paid, again*

U am beyond pissed and burnt out. I fucking wish there was a mafia I can request to collect my fucking money from them.

Minimum wage employers and restaurants asking "and why should we hire you?".

You have 40 vacancies in your area for just your company alone.
You're paying $13.25 an hour when only a year ago you were paying $9.75.

Why should we hire you?

F*ck you, pay me, that's why.

You're not f*cking NASA
You're a God damn chain restaurant with a 40% turnover rate, who's employees probably shoot up in the bathroom on the rare occasion they even get a break.

I looked at the guy with all the annoyance I could muster, stared him down for a good five seconds and said. "You pay a few dollars over minimum. You're job is not important enough to even ask that question. Have a nice day." And got up and left.

Dude followed me and stuttered " hold up. I was just..."

But I was already out the door.

You were just what mark? Asking a dumbfuck question as if you had any leverage at all?

Your competitor *across the street* is offering 50 cents *more* per hour, and has guaranteed breaks.

What, did you forget 2008 and how you treated millions of people as disposable? The little part where you and most american industries demanded passion, without pay raises? Promotions without benefits? The jobs that if you worked hard, rather than a promotion or a pay raise, your reward was more work and less hours to finish?

You assholes thought we forgot about that? How you shipped millions of jobs overseas, blamed it on "automation" (chinese and indian slave labor), and then pointed the finger at millions of impoverished people as "lazy" in places like Detroit and Pittsburgh and told them "you just got to work harder and smarter!" Or "just get a small loan and create the next google!" from the comfort of your yachts? I'm looking at you bane corp.

No, now the shoes on the other foot motherf*ckers. Hows it feel needing all *us* commoners? "Why should we hire you?"

No, why should *I* WORK FOR YOU?
Cuz I saw THREE dirty tables coming in. A line of people that could be being served. A line that could have been optimized with the proper table count and some simple changes. A menu that doesnt even incentivize your biggest sellers and a dozen other things your store is doing wrong.

Think mark, think!

This is one of those braindead questions employers paying sub $18 an hour ask, because they suffered so much brain drain from years of payola profits from too-big-to-fail wallstreet bailouts, that they forgot they are not king midas, unless they are the king midas of shit, because increasingly everything corporate America touches turns into shit.

And while were on the subject, stopping bringing in outside management to stores. It destroys team cohesion, staff morale, pisses off people *on site* who *actually know* the team, the stores daily activities and processes, and who are better fit for that role. You bring in disinterested outside management, and it's one of the biggest red flags I've ever seen: these smarmy selfcongratulating f*cks who know nothing about the particular store, have no connection to the staff, go on firing sprees or alienation-sprees to hire in friends, fuck up the schedules because again they know nothing about the employees, and then move on after a few years to greener pastures, leaving a barren radioactive wasteland of chain smokers and burnt out staff in their wake.

Dear corporate America, your free ride on the public's good will is over. It's over.

Now you're in the bitch seat. Come sit at my desk and explain to me, EXPLAIN TO ME, why I should sweat and labor to save your shitty company hemorrhaging money like a bleeding crack-addicted hobo dying with a sucking chest wound from a chicago skidrow friday-night drive-by?

You dont deserve it. Your management and company culture is worse than incompetent. It's full of smiley guys expounding about their passion for customer service while giving each other sloppy BJs in broom closets, a veritable cornucopia of cult-like corporate dick suckers *and* dickheads, proclaiming, no...PROFESSING (hence "professional") their undying allegiance and dedication to their corporate family with the intensity of cujo, foaming at the mouth, or Mitt Romney preparing for a photoshoot, plastic smiles and feigned laughs.

Dont forget to wipe your chin, asshole. It's not Ronald McDonald your blowing, but it's definitely not Gordon f*cking Ramsey either.

Would you like fries with that?

I am Done! I am extremely burnt out and unhappy with my work. I have been doing this professionally for over 5 years now and much longer than that unprofessionally.
This new company I joined finally gave me the salary I always dreamt of but now I am extremely unhappy and depressed and anxious all the time. And I don't like the work I am doing. I don't like the team. I hate being isolated at home for over 2 years, working from home. I had a mental breakdown in the middle of the meeting the other day. And after that, I said. that's it. I am done. So, I gave the resignation letter. I don't know what I am gonna do. But I sure as hell can't do this shit any longer. But now, the fucking hr is making it even more difficult for me by not letting me leave without serving the notice period. I told her I am on fucking medication and I am having severe mental health issues. Now, she wants to see the medical certificate. Or I have to pay two months' salary. WTF? If I had that kind of money lying around, I wouldn't have slaved myself away at your shitty company, would I?
I went to my psychiatrist whom I have been seeing consulting for the last couple of years now. I asked for a medical certificate and he thinks it'll hamper my future career. So, he said I should get a certificate from a general physician. So, that's the world we live in then? You can't even speak the truth? And the way HR is behaving over the mail makes me feel like a total slave. I mean I am not at all fit for work these days, and it feels like, if she had her way, she would tie me down to a chair and ask me to push out code. what the fucking fuck. This is some fucked up industry and I think I am finally done with software development. But now, I don't have any idea what I am gonna do with my life or how am I gonna earn money. I am so burnt out and anxious that even the thought of working again gives me panic attacks. even working from home. What the fuck do I do?

So we've been on our Christmas holidays/vacation and decided to spend New year's eve at my place barbecuing.

Yes needless to say that we got somewhat intoxicated, had steak etc and then fucking fell asleep on the floor outside.
In -3 C°.
Woke up like 20 minutes later according to my friends.
Decided to continue barbecuing but since the fire turned into half dead embers I decided to fucking chop up some wooden planks laying around.

Short recap.
New year's Eve.
Barbecuing.
Intoxication.
Fell asleep.
Woke up.
Chopped up planks in the dead of night.

Continued barbecuing afterwards.
Fire ablaze again, roasted the remainder of the meat and since it was too boring for me I decided to pour fucking Korn, (German alcohol) over the flames.
Needless to say my arm hairs burnt off.

Friend comes out, sees me, fucking dies of laughter.

All promised to stfu about it.

Anyway the flamed steak and stuff were still delicious.

I have been burnt out for over a year and a half now combined with mental health issues.

I was working an underpaying job, doing senior-dev work for a less than junior-dev pay, with an incompetent understaffed team. The work was so mundane and most of the clients were stupid. I hated work, my colleagues, and most of all I hated programming.

I finally quit the job and quit programming as well. I couldn't touch or see a terminal window without panicking. I've been spending my time binge watching series and movies.

Recently though, I've started picking up coding again. I've been blogging and doing some changes to my blog beside other light stuff.

This is the story of my first burnout and it's taken its toll on me. I hope it's the last one but who knows.

For all my friends here who have known me for years can easily notice there has been a drastic change in me.

I used to be confident. That shit was hollow but I used to laugh in the face of fear. I was ignorant and that ignorance fueled a lot of the much needed confidence.

Over the years, I learned a lot. The more I know, the more I realised how much I don't know. And for all that I know, I have to use the brain power to retain and implement it, else it rusts.

This image is of my 2021 goals that I drafted last December. Wasn't able to achieve the first, the last and the art one. But surely got myself surrounded by some of the smartest people I have ever worked with.

Now they have rightly said, be careful with what you wish for.

MY CONFIDENCE IS SHATTERED.

I feel dumb. Constant imposter syndrome. While I am learning every moment and there is no measure to it, I feel incompetent to an extent that I have started questioning how did I even reach this far?!

While, yet again I am the youngest in my team, my manager is bit micromanaging and agressive with OKRs/KPIs and tech team isn't very supportive creating constant friction (something I never faced with developers in my life because devs are my best friends), I fear how much more time will I take to ramp up in this new job and feel confident enough to tackle things on my own without constant nudge from leadership or different teams?

Or is it just that I have burnt out firefighting and lost the motivation I had?

After all, what does this all even mean?

i think I'm burnt out again. yey

I've been a frontend engineer at 6 companies for the last 10 years. Both big and small companies currently at the largest I've ever worked for. I'm totally over it. Maybe burnt out is the term. I have zero motivation to do any work or coding. I'm not a lazy person. I love working, solving problems, learning new things. I'm just sick of what I do. I used to love following all the newest tech trends, following devs on twitter, checking hacker news and creating side projects. Now I feel like my job has lost all that joy and excitement. I work remote and have been for the past 3 years. I wonder how much of that, not having any social feedback and interaction around the job has attributed to me feeling like this. All the JS frameworks suck. PR reviews, process, requirements; I'm just tired of everything. Has anyone else experienced this? If so, what did you do? Were you able to find the passion for programming again?

On This Episode of Ghetto Medium..

Posted after midnight for extra spooky effects. Read in the dark at your own risk. You've been warned.

So my mother has been on a binge watching shows like long island medium (apparently the taller your hair the closer you are to god or something), and every time we talk she begins at length to talk about, you guessed it.. 'ghosts.'

Now don't get me wrong, I've had some 'spooby' shit occur in my lifetime, the sort that will tighten your sphincter faster than bill cosby asking you if you want some koolaid or grape drank, but I digress.

The ghost talk is tiring. Lately theres been a *flood* of these new shows, purportedly showing mediums and people who can 'look into the other side' and I realize just how vapid and ridiculous it's all become, as if they all are being personally haunted by the ghost of John Edwards burnt out husk of a career. Theres long island beehive big-hair medium, celebrity medium, allison DuBois (the inspiration for that one sappy show *medium*) whos red hair and vacant stare speak of glimpses into centuries past like an intimate unseen horizon. or maybe she forgot to unplug her curling iron in a hotel one time and has been rendered permanently catatonic. And who can forget *Beyond With James Van Praagh* (everyone) whos face, as measured by the width of his mustache, appears to be expanding at a constant rate like a bad image macro edit thats been memed and repasted a thousand times. Then theres Chip Coffee, whos name is about as believable as his teaching degree on the show *Psychic Kids* where he mentored, again, you guessed it, *psychic kids*. Of course theres Tyler Henry, a youthful, uh, "flamboyant" medium for celebrities with ghost problems. Never trust a man with two names, this ones no exception, he looks so clean cut hes either secretly mormon, or secretly gay, maybe both. I'm not judging, but I am saying if I ever saw his clean cut, smooth, wrinkless (seriously, how tyler? how?), all american face, say smiling that subtle smile outside my kitchen sliding glass door at 3 am, his face watching me from the pitch dark outside, I wouldn't at all be surprised, except for the hospital bill I'd have to pay after shitting a brick and needing anal surgery.

At this rate we have mediums popping out left and right, like clowns at one of them R.L Stein nightmare carnivals, or beggers outside a methodone clinic. Geez, they're coming out the wood work, like those painting you see with hidden faces in them, or wheres-waldo posters, only you're trying to find the non-waldo guy amongst all the characters because they're ALL waldo: goofy acting, goofy dressing, and just all around goofy looking.

At this rate I'm fully expecting "pet medium" (starring a character named Stephen King and his marital problems, played by johnny depp eating way to much corn), and "haunted objects medium", and "car medium" (it's just seinfeld in a car, talking to psychics instead of other people), and "ghetto medium."

Today on this episode of "Ghetto Medium"..

Medium: Teneesha, aw yeah girl, u *definitely* ded gurl, uh huh! You WAY to white too be alive, you done passed over gurl!

And in the next episode of Ghetto Medium, one man claims "every time I bend over I can hear "wOoOoOoOoO!, Is my asshole possessed? Find out is it real or fake, and what our verdict is in Ghost Medium, episode 3: A Haunting In My Nether-regions."

Cut commercial break.

"Jerry Springer: One women asks, 'jerry, is my unborn child's foreskin haunted? And later today we ask the crowd, would you have sex with a ghost?"

Welcome to American television 'programming' in 2019.

Yes, it's all brainwashing.

Had virus cause growth thing on my uvula. Dentist saw it got bigger. So we got another doctor to remove it. He suggested we just take the whole uvula out. He said, "You won't miss it." He had it done as well. They want to biopsy to make sure I don't have "the cancer". Not too worried. Been taking things to prevent that. Mostly good general health foods. Good vitamins and anti-oxidants.

So it took like a month to actually line up the time to do it. I was thinking this would take a while. It took somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes to burn it off. They used a cauterizer thing to cut it off. The whole time I couldn't breath out my nose because my mouth was wide open. I was breathing out seared flesh smoke during this time out of my mouth. Burnt me doesn't taste all that good.

I didn't gag nor puke. The doctor said he was good at dodging just in case. I have a feeling he would be fun to have drinks with.

So he said my uvula was large at the base. So it would take more than a week to heal. He gave me script for meds. I appreciate that because it kinda hurts. It feels like there is that large burn at the back of my throat. Because, there is a large burn at the back of my throat. I told them I came to the doctors office and lost weight. Got the nurse to snort.

I hope this turns out like getting my teeth pulled. Needed meds for right after and not again later. We shall see. It feels like a really bad sore throat. It kinda IS a really bad sore throat. Go figure.

So it’s promotion season in my org and once again I got passed up. Manager says “you’re right there just a little bit longer” but he’s been saying that for the better part of a year. I’ve consistently done the job not in my job description but the job of the position above me. Some of my senior engineers and staff engineers have told me personally that they are shocked that I haven’t been promoted yet. And I know I should be patient but hearing other people (albeit in different teams) get recognized when you work just as hard if not harder than they do, and you go to conferences and you volunteer to be on call and you lead meetings and when you’re one of the technical anchors of the team… I don’t know. I shouldn’t take it personally I get it but it’s a huge blow to my confidence and my mental health. I work hard and when I see news like this I work harder and get burned out and when I still see news like this it makes me work even harder and get even more burnt out until I reach a mental breaking point. Makes me feel like I’ll never be good enough.

Idk.