This has happened (and still happens often) a lot, in different social circles, with people of diverse backgrounds. So, I figure it's not that I hang out with rude people, the problem must be me. I think the saddest part of all this is that even my wife's attention drifts off most of the time I try to talk to her.

I know it's not a language barrier issue, and I know for sure I enunciate my words well. I wonder though if the issue may be that I have a weak voice, or just an overall weak presence/body language. How can that be improved, if that's the case?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42612661

Points: 83

# Comments: 94

I’m not going to downvote you, but if you don’t suffer from social anxiety, you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. As someone who is affected by it, I can tell you it’s soul crushing when it prevents you from making a move out of a bad situation. It’s completely paralyzing.

Is there a path other than a PhD at this point?

Everything I hear about your country sounds amazing!

I wish I could do the 9-5 thing at those companies (given the great pay and benefits, adding a predictable and sane work schedule would be perfect).

You may last a couple years being the odd one out doing strictly 40h a week, but performance review is going to catch up with you at some point.

These days I bite the bullet and stay till 8 or 9pm at the office regularly.

Can you elaborate on that? I feel like you’re talking about something quite important but I can’t really grasp what it is.

It’s been a pattern in my career so far, and I don’t know how to break it. I join a new team, learn fast, do good work, everyone loves me. Then management assumes that because I’m good at x, I’m also good at y. So they put me to work on y and I fail miserably. Someone else has to come in and help me/fix it, and now all my credibility is gone.

I try not to beat myself up about it. I consider it a management failure. My current instance of this is management assuming that because I’m a good cider, I’m also good at dealing with infrastructure/operations type stuff. Which is simply not true.

I simply don’t understand their thought process.

I don't slack off, but I feel like there's a position as a Software Engineer past which I wouldn't want to be promoted. I see folks in the higher levels and the stuff they have to deal with has zero appeal to me. My salary and bonus at my current level are already more than enough to sustain my lifestyle and save plenty for retirement - I don't need more.

A lot of people are attracted to the idea of "getting more responsibility", and they like the prestige/visibility that comes with a fancy (e.g. "Principal" or "Staff") title. Me, I just want to put in my hours solving problems and go home do something else.

At a past job a very technically strong coworker spent months on a problem and eventually threw the towel and handed it to me. It took me another couple months to find a reasonable solution to it.

Some problems are _really_ hard and no amount of help will get a dev to solve it faster.

I miss that stuff so much. Did it from my late teens (yep, professionally) to mid twenties, then moved to America and all my jobs here have been services related in .NET or Java.

I agree in principle, but what motivates me to be financially independent is not having to deal with all the bullshit that comes along with work. Office politics, drama, having your priorities set by someone else, etc. I also find having to care about promotions and such extremely stressful.

During periods of high stress, I find myself dreaming of FI just to stay home reading books and going to the gym. But more realistically, I’d likely continue to work my current job, with some changes.

If I were to become financially independent overnight, I’d schedule a 1:1 with my manager and explain that either I’m now working 100% on my terms, or I quit. That would allow me to just contribute to the product we’re developing, without having to deal with the bullshit. I’d then be perfectly fine staying at my current position for the rest of my career (i.e. no promos).