Took a week off just to stop working because I’m burnt off, can’t help opening slack, it’s like muscle memory.
FML

Yh, understand that, slack was #1 used app on my phone. Employers should reach out free phones. Actually no, having two phones suck, I was in that situation. It was long ago that calling was still expensive so employers did actually reach out phones

you need some help lmao

if I had habits stuck from a job I would literally wanna take a bath until I could scrub it out of my brain. you get work from me but you don't get to train me like a Pavlov dog

@jestdotty well, work is just a big part of our identity. You're a programmer even while you're not coding. You'll keep analyzing things in a certain way. You can't stop. We're all trained doggos

@retoor I was a programmer before I had to get a job tho

my existence should be paid cuz I'm not a worthless human being. to tell me to be not myself is an insult to my human worth

this sounds communism but it isn't. I've always loved helping people out. I expect it to be appreciated, instead of being lied that making some dude 3 millions a year means I'm asking too much if I wanna be paid to my title's typical wage... which by that point I had for 3 years

by this point I might just scam people like everybody else does though because I'm so disappointed in humanity accepting this grifting bullshit

@jestdotty Yes, yesss! Give yourself to the Dark Side!

@jestdotty but a hard fact is, someone else would've made that dude 3 millions a year too for prolly the same salary. That's how it works. We have to look mad at people who deliver services for cheap. But we all have to eat

@retoor nope they wouldn't have

they had trouble retaining anyone they hired

people they hired to replace me after I left all left too fast to have even hit the SoW workload had they produced at same rate... not to brag but making a CRUD app is real boring after you made video games. I don't know how much time they would've needed. I tend to cut the fat. this was also their first crack at projects like that so I positioned their company with big clients that made half that company's revenue... they more than doubled their headcount in other departments and it was still half their revenue

though if that's the basis of getting paid maybe I should be walking in with a figurative flamethrower and coercing people, eh?

so let's see
either I'm shit and can't prove otherwise
or I prove otherwise but you're replaceable therefore we don't need you because everyone else will do the same shit you did

after I left their client got mad at them and they hired me back cuz contracts falling thru

and then because my boss was inappropriately competitive or something they let me go at 3 months saying they were gonna take their business in another direction

the company literally grifted off the software I wrote them for 7 years, until the the client got fed up and they couldn't seem to fix the relationship despite rotating devs and whatever else. and gave up in the end. their headcount was less then than when I had left the first time. at least this time when they hired me every stage of the interview kept adding tens of thousands of dollars more to my salary just in case I might've said no

up until that boss I had talked to me and then suddenly I got demoted

@retoor and I was underpaid by half the first time around. nobody would've accepted that salary

I did because I assumed I'd earn it higher -- after all I was doing so much to their bottom line. instead it was an insult to the owner when I had finally asked to be raised just to the salary's title. so I ended up leaving

HELL there was one time a manager joked how... when i was doing tax paperwork for them to get R&D tax credits from the government for them, and I did this on overtime and didn't even get paid for it, that I was gonna get my salary and then some in tax credits for doing it. seriously? and you can't just pay me what my title on the market would've been?

grifters. it has absolutely nothing to do with competition. I made them a thriving company and they treated me like garbage in turn. I made their tech department. I made all their software. when I was hired the guy who hired me told me they wanted me to be CTO, and they gave me all the CTO things and I did them

@retoor ofc the guy who hired me had an issue with his mom getting sick, and because he took time off to help with her situation management started hating him and giving him flack. up until he publically left in a grand scene and basically gave them the finger

so maybe it had something to do with that cuz the guy cased me for CTO. which sucks cuz that guy was fucking smart, and I really enjoyed anything I ever heard from him because it was insightful

in reality from what I'm told that company was just particularly garbage

I even reviewed them on Glassdoor. all I did was disclose my salary. review got taken down. nice. they paid somebody to remove it

you ever worked for a marketing company? cuz they lie and cheat. actually they would take alcoholics anonymous employees and make them drink. they kept trying to pressure me into doing illegal things. they scammed the government and their employees out of a lot of money, routinely. billed clients wrong. etc

@jestdotty what kind of software was it anyway?

@retoor it didn't matter

if they needed it I made it happen

the software wasn't important. wasn't interesting. it was just there to assist and meet business needs. and it did that very well

unfortunately evidently that sentiment was not reciprocated and I only got to find that out once I was suicidally depressed. cuz the more I did the more punished I was, up until I thought I wasn't built for this world. I didn't fit in. I should just die and save myself the pain

cuz the more important I got, the more needed. which meant I didn't matter. they didn't entice me. they coerced me

@jestdotty never worked for a marketing company. I won't, bevause the marketing departments are worse than hr. I went drinking with guys of marketing department and after two beers they said nasty stuff about their sisters. So, it only takes two beers to flatline the brains of such people

@retoor you don't even have to get them drunk