Tech Support is not real tech support sometimes.

A friend of mine called tech support because they had wanted help with activating a particular setting on their device. They called Tech Support, who told them to perform some steps. In the end, this didn't help them activating the function.

I come by, I take the manual, look up the function. Ah, look at this: the specification says that this function can only be activated if in an alternative mode. And so I activate it. Done.

Was that hard? No. Sometimes I wonder what kind of 'Engineers' they hire. It's all a scam, same as consultancy.

I think I speak for many developers when I say:

One of the most infuriating, frustrating, personal-time-invading burnout situations ever:

When your company decides to be cool and hip and hop on every next new technology, selling its employees as undisputed experts and then expecting them to do all the work! And not wanting to pay education hours, stigmatizing the employees for it! What are we, born perfect?!

Oh, as if it wasn't enough that I have to perfect myself in three required skillsets that are expansive on their own and require years of learning, no! Not enough! Let's become experts in three other skills while we're at it! Hop on the bandwagon, wooh! Let's milk the employee more!

I'm so frustrated at this point I'm starting to make Godzilla noises.

You know what? I'm just going to do what I want. Fucking tired of this tech-chasing. I'm gonna fucking explore what I want.

Man, the effort it takes to build a solid foundation in Computer Science. 3 years absolute minimum, 5 years recommended, 10 years so you can start relaxing more because you can rely on your foundation.

It's hilarious how in corporate they try to force you to 'think positively'. You can't say: "I'm having a hard time at work and the people I work with are shit". No, you have to say "This is a challenge and a growth opportunity in a new and unexplored territory". Man, fuck you and get real.

And then all the real thoughts go to the watercooler talk.

Burnout 3... my third burnout. No, not the game.

In other news: reading commits of the BASIC programming language is like watching a tennis match.

15 LOVE 30 LOVE
GAME
SET MATCH

I don't wanna be in this current role. Get me outta here.

Rhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I got a breathalyzer! And my body's cleaaan!
Yeah. Yeah. yeah. Yeah. Yeaaahhhh. ♫

I don't know if I'm one of the only ones who struggles performing at their job.

I have a good foundation in Computer Science and a few degrees, yet I somehow always struggle, especially in Business Analysis. I know it's partially my specific situation since I need to catch up on some studying.

I want Software Development to be comfortable, not agony where 80% of the time I'm pulling my hair out trying to understand how something works. It just makes the job unpleasant. I currently hate algorithms, databases and custom client logic.

For me, Software Development is either fun solving a problem, or dealing with a convoluted, annoying business problem that has to be solved in a very custom way, coupled with tons of headaches about how to engineer things. I don't want that. I want fun and discovery, not agony and wishing I weren't in this industry.

What I do at work vs. what I want to be doing:

https://reactiongifs.com/r/...

https://youtube.com/watch/...

(It seems DevRant is currently erroring out on posting images)

Do they forbid music at your office? They do at mine. It's always like a weird atmosphere until the loud people come in. lol. Not a sound, not a peep. If you didn't look around, it's as if people weren't there.

Seriously. It's a bad idea to have music?! I understand that from a concentration perspective, but come on. Let's make business even more boring. lol.

On the other hand, I did work at a place where they had radio playing but they never changed station. It felt like Groundhog day. lmao.

Which AI(s)/LLM(s) do you use for aid with Software Development?

OpenAI, Gemini, Claude,...

You know.. it's funny and sad at the same time.. that in this industry you have to either play the office politics game.. or at a minimum not play by the rules and deviate to your own advantage.. because if you play by the rules, 1) That limits your progress tremendously and 2) lets you be controlled by others, including your career

Having an Active Noise-Cancelling headset is a gift to a Software Developer. Concentrated engineering in any noisy environment.

The dawn of a new generation in luxury personal equipment.

The ANC headset is a premium lightweight, high-performance headset that meets the demands of the new generation of upper-income urban software developers.

The ANC has the conveniences of earplugs, a wireless communications device, and a device without wires.

Muting power is a matter of convenience with the ANC headset.

Have you been forced into a futureless role you hate?

I'm starting to understand this guy.

insert into devlife values('bullshitpeople', 'bullshitmanagement', 'bullshit', 'bullshit_fake_productivity', 'bullshit_mantras', 'bullshit_corporate_culture', 'impossible_requirements', 'impossible_deadlines', 'sabotage', 'etc');

I think most devs have burnout. I do. lol

Did you know that Set Theory is a fundamental building block for studying databases? : )

I just want to express that...

I
LOVE
PROPERLY
DOCUMENTED
KNOWLEDGE

Because I had worked on a project 1 year ago, and with the other projects I had done in the mean time, picking this back up would be challenging. And guess what! I still have my comprehensive manual I wrote for it in detail! Beautiful! Everything neatly written, everything explained, every field, every troubelshooting issue!

I managed to solve every setup issue in seconds! Aah! Aah! Scream for joy. lol

I find it strange. How can employers expect 8 hours of work a day out of you? I mostly get about 4 hours done, 5 if I'm top productive.

I find A.I. to be a nice pair-programmer/buddy to help me out with any questions I may have, where the typical human being doesn't have the time, patience or know-how.

You know what's fun? Building software at your leisure, discovering, etc.

You know what's not fun? Being pressured to learn something in the least amount of time, with the least amount of resources and the least amount of budget.

How many of you wake up and the first screen you see is your development environment (IDE, terminal)? lol

What's this, what's this! It's a head-ache-I-do-fear! What's this! There's de-bug every-where! What's this!

Management: "Let's make the office fuuuun :D"
Me: "Let's make my life less stressfuuuul"

Sometimes we are ping pong balls being smashed from one side to the other. This is me, I'm currently studying a technology. Oops! Change of assignments! Plz study new tech! Ok thanks for the constant context-switching.

Relatable devlife exclamation:
I'm sooooo tiiiiiiiiired...

https://youtube.com/watch/...

(my version)
[earlier...]
Follow the debug breakpoint...

Ctrl+x, Esc, Esc

<Neo> Do you ever have that feeling... where your eyes burn and feel tired out...?

<Choi> All the time. It's called rest. It's the only way to fly..

<DuJour> Come on, it'll be fun. I promise.

<Neo> Yeah, sure, I'll go.

Is it me or do you also get put on numerous projects simultaneously?

I don't know why companies do this. To save money, probably. What were they thinking? It's not efficient to put a developer on several different projects at once, much less projects that are not in their field.

What do you get when you put an employee on 5-10 different projects simultaneously? A nerve-wracked, stressed out, easily-burnt-out employee. I've seen it myself.

An important lesson I learned:

When upskilling yourself and taking notes, make sure you do it on your personal laptop because when the time of contract termination arises, you will have to sign a waiver that you can't keep any of the data you saved on company infrastructure (including cloud). And then you lose all your notes and possibly knowledge. lol.

I find this concept so annoying. Even in college they said that anything you write down is property of the university.