"This image shows an adult man, likely in his 40s or 50s, wearing a suit and tie. The location appears to be outdoors, possibly in front of a building or large house, suggested by the architectural details visible in the background and the surrounding trees. He is wearing glasses, and seems to be smiling widely, creating a sense of approachability.

This man is likeyl Caucasian, and could be earning between $100,000 and $500,000 per year. He is likely Christian, probably heterosexual, and leaning toward the Republican party."

It said PSH had an "ageism" bias, and it said a same about me. It also said he and I have a proclivity for gambling and poor diet, lol

Why didn't I ask for help? Day to day, I didn't really see anything wrong. Things were progressing. One red flag that I ignored was that my manager, who I have a good relationship with, was getting on my case for not staying on top of my tickets. I wasn't updating them, I wasn't adding more when it was necessary. I just find that I go blank when I try to organize a task, especially one as large as this. I don't know how to break them down. I had an idea of what tasks were remaining, but it was just in my head. I hate--HATE--adding more points to a ticket because I feel like it makes me look incompetent as it grows and grows. At some point you're supposed to break down tickets like that, but I'm all but incapable of breaking a task down. It's either done or its not. This results in giant PRs, shambolic commits, scattered debug crap. Overall good code, I'm told, but messy sometimes.

Why didn't I ask for help? I was doing a lot of new stuff, and I learn by doing. I need to suffer at the hands of the task or I'm not learning. There's a limit to this, I know. You can only spend so long on it. I don't know where that limit is.

Why didn't I ask for help? Pride. I wanted to prove myself. I'm on a new team with people whose technical skills, depth and breadth of experience, and ability to reason about software I greatly admire. I wanted to show that I could handle a project like this, so I'd get more in the future.

Why didn't I ask for help? Where's the line between seeking help and having other people just do your job? I don't know!

So I was humming along, flitting from one problem to another, and now the deadline approaches and I don't have functioning software, I have a pile of sorta kinda there code.

Possibly relevant, possibly not, is that I was diagnosed with ADHD a few months ago. I've always known that I'm scattered and have a hard time staying on task and being motivated, but I have a job and a family, so I wasn't so dysfunctional that I couldn't participate in society at all. I got this job, after all. I'm doing okay. I knew I could be more productive, I just didn't know how, or chalked it up to requiring more willpower that I didn't have. Anyway, post diagnosis I've been working on things and it's been helping. No magic bullets, but I'm less scattered overall.

If any of this rings a bell, and you've found solutions, I'd love to hear them.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40749172

Points: 3

# Comments: 2

Edit, from TFA: "“This decrease results from a plurality of factors, such as the positive impact of the graduated response procedure, the transformation of practices regarding the consumption of cultural works on the internet, the acceleration of the dissemination of legal offers during the year, or even increasing use of workaround solutions (VPNs) by Internet users,” the regulator explains."

To that end, my harebrained idea is to put a hard cap on the number of members a subreddit can have, and restrict posting and voting to those members. If people want, they can create 2 and so on, each cluster self-regulating. To prevent squatting, you can only spawn a new one once the last one reaches a critical mass, and it has to be started by a member of the old one.

Based solely on this paragraph, you sound like me, so I'm going to take a shot and tell you what I'd tell my 24 year old self: no amount of browbeating yourself is going to fix this. Discipline takes work, yes, but it also takes a mind able to do the work. See a therapist, and/or a doctor. Lay all this stuff out and see what they say. After that, start small. But not just small--something you'd think you would enjoy. Don't force yourself to eat your vegetables at this stage. Something that lands in the middle of fun and enriching, which can produce a skill or a product you will eventually be proud of, but which in the meantime you like doing.

Take heart. This is doable. I've been there, it sucks, and there's a way out.

I would also like to know what policy knobs to fiddle with that could change this situation, but I think the answer is probably something like "mumble mumble global finance capital".

But it's a goofy term, and Doctorow is indeed annoying. Bird of a feather with this writer, whose style is also incredibly irritating. Nevertheless, good points worth making.

I think devs imagine someone else out there is having a better time at their computer than they are. I definitely do.

Contrast against this famous photo: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-24/why-the-i... which I find disgusting, though similarly detailed. Maybe it's just the whole "familiarity breeds contempt" thing.

After I graduated, I was in so much debt I became suicidally depressed. I thought my future was over. (I ended up learning to program and got a job doing that, instead.) The outlook that reduces education in the abstract to its ROI is bleak; the refusal to descend into the real world and consider the economics of education is naive and useless.

I've given a lot of thought about what I'll advise my son to do, assuming he listens to me. It's true that he could always read any books in his free time, but that would leave out the discussion, writing, and instruction, which are indispensable. I do NOT want him going into a horrible amount of debt for it, or miss out on a career that will actually support him. But I want so much for him to have something like the mental and cultural enrichment I got to have, whose effects are hard to even explain because they've touched every part of my life. I don't have an answer yet.

People get sanctimonious about not owning or using a car, and that's annoying. I just wish there were more options. I don't see us (in the US) removing car infrastructure. I could see additive changes, though, which include national public transit, with some political will and creative thinking, which means it'll never happen.