SOS: 3 hours to decide whether to quit career or "improve"? / :

[Ego]

What decision makers think of you is far more important than doing the actual work, don't let anyone fool you into believing otherwise.

@olaz: New jobs are hard because it can be extremely challenging to figure out what they really want from you vs what they tell you they want. Kinda like a marriage. It is hard to figure out what is a priority and what box-checking can be ignored. Often the person telling you what they want (HR) has no idea what they really want. That's where your social skills come in.

Augustus did you a favor by giving you bullshit-free advice. Maybe he is not precisely correct in every detail, I don't know, but in my opinion the quote above is 100% accurate.

[7Wannabe5]

@Ego:

It's not like a marriage anymore. It's more like a 3 month stand. The Way We Live Now. Bankers, engineers, and educators are now like punk musicians in the 80s, living "Job to Job. Body to Body." And the fact that the employment market is largely gender egalitarian means that the "Job to Job" is to a fairly large degree dictating the "Body to Body." For instance, if my BF were to decide to accept a lucrative year-long contract in Dubai, would I choose to go with him? I don't think anybody who has not been active on the employment or dating market for a number of years quite has a feel for this yet.

[IlliniDave]

I don't think that any of us who retain any notion of the era of gold-watch-presented-at-party after 40 years of service careers are quite yet grokking the "just-in-time" present day employment market.

This is true, although I think that despite my being a bit of an anachronism, I get it to some degree via intuition. That's one of the things that's put me off about the option to leap first, then go find another job that pays professional-level wages if it proves to be a mistake. The world has passed me by. Luckily I'm not racing.

[Scott 2]

. What decision makers think of you is far more important than doing the actual work, don't let anyone fool you into believing otherwise

Yes, dance for the king's amusement!

IMO better to be enter a firm with an agenda for your career, and an expectation to use them to further it. The relationship is a mutual exchange. They do not hold all the strings, and once both sides recognize it, the relationship is waaay better. Over the long term, this makes you very valuable, with minimal BS in your life.

If they're looking for a one sided, "we hold all the cards" relationship, get out. It's not worth it.

[distracted_at_work]

Now looking back, I felt "fragged" after a week of work. My partner noticed and mentioned this a few times. I would feel immediately better after a weekend of hiking and spending time with friends or her. This "fragged" feeling only got worse as the weeks went by. After not working today, that feeling is dissipating and I feel like I can go in and work there again. This is a trap, as that feeling and the problems would only return. Perhaps this also has something to do with the amount of time worked. Maybe working 40 hours instead of 50-60 would be better. Maybe working 20-30 would be even better.

I didn't realize you were looking for a 2nd job as a result of this event taking place. I'll have to line up with Augustus and say welcome to reality. You fucked up. Of course you feel better after a weekend of hiking and being with friends... we all do. The workday is time to buckle down and work. Early retirement isn't some freebie. You need to put the hard work in. We all want less hours.

Relevant experience. I had a summer student use earphones in our open floor plan and it was enraging for all of us in the office. Between that disengagement with the work, the people on top of constant mistakes with easy, trained-for, work; I would have fired her in two weeks. I couldn't because it was the daughter of the boss. I see a new hire the same way. You haven't earned the right to put headphones in. Ask yourself.. what value did you give the company in three months? Was it all training time? Did you make them any money? Did you work as hard as the people around you? You got let go after a probationary period. Time for serious reflection on what went wrong and how to move forward.

If I'm being harsh it's because you are roughly a year younger than me and I see this behavior in some of my peers. The workplace isn't university.

[TopHatFox]

I'm not going to argue here. Honestly. Getting to FI takes hard work, yes, but working 50-60 hours a week in a high-stress environment is not a pre-requisite. I've already acknowledged areas where I can do better, and the goal as always is to improve.

That said, I'm looking for a new job now, one that I'm suited better for and that doesn't treat me like shit. "The real world" is big, and there are less-stressful jobs in better places than NYC. I don't give a shit if it may pay less, the better quality of life is worth it.

I completed or help complete 50-100 projects for clients in 3 months. Technically, I decided to quit after the trial period.

---------------------

Also, I think there's a large problem in a lot of the FIRE boards. It's all "let's stick it through for 5-10 years in hell" to be free later. Fuck that. I used to be in this camp until trying to live that day to day. I'm now more staunchly on Joshua Sheat's wagon of building a career/life you wouldn't want to retire from.

I'd turn the question around on you both and ask whether your careers are worth having around if they may or may not make you miserable daily?

[Seppia]

When I hire new people that have zero working experience I don't expect them to "make me money" or "provide value" in the first three months.
If they do, the job is too easy or I'm not giving them challenging enough stuff.
If a company expects a new inexperienced hire to immediately be productive in the real sense of the term, well, I think the problem is with said company.

At the beginning for junior employees I'm looking for potential and social skills.

Mostly:
- can I trust you
- are you proactive
- do people like to work with you

Can I trust you means that if you say "I got this" is because you got this, and if you don't, I expect you to say it well before shit hits the fan.
This seems like a possible area for improvement for THF based on what he told us.

Are you proactive means mostly that you are never allowed to come to anybody with a problem if you don't have a proposed solution. It may be a suboptimal one, but that's ok because you're inexperienced.
You can't buy experience at the supermarket, so it takes time.
Being trained to offer a solution helps in building the right mindset.
Apparently the feedback he got mentioned some "asking too many questions he should have the answers already".
Based on my superficial reading of this forum it does seem like THF asks way more questions than the average user.
This may be due to attitude, or just to his age (I suspect he's younger than the average)

The third one is fairly obvious.

The most important thing for THF is to understand WHY this happened, maybe he fucked up, maybe that was just a place full of assholes.
I don't know, and we definitely don't have enough elements to say for sure.
I give it a 50-50 chance.

Who was to "blame" though is completely irrrlevant, as long as THF has learned something from the experience.

There was a Brad Stevens (Celtics coach) quote that I love
"I never lose: I either win or I learn"

[7Wannabe5]

Why am I thinking about a recent conversation I overheard between a couple older men who were in the same Fraternity? One was recollecting the experience of going through hazing, and the other one replied "Uh, yeah, I didn't do that."

[Scott 2]

Also, I think there's a large problem in a lot of the FIRE boards. It's all "let's stick it through for 5-10 years in hell" to be free later. Fuck that. I used to be in this camp until trying to live that day to day. I'm now more staunchly on Joshua Sheat's wagon of building a career/life you wouldn't want to retire from.

You're a fast learner. That's the secret.

[Kriegsspiel]

Why am I thinking about a recent conversation I overheard between a couple older men who were in the same Fraternity? One was recollecting the experience of going through hazing, and the other one replied "Uh, yeah, I didn't do that."

LOL

I think you're on the right track TopHat. Better luck with the next one.

[FBeyer]

...I had a summer student use earphones in our open floor plan and it was enraging for all of us in the office. Between that disengagement with the work...

What God awful job do you do, where blocking out the cacophony of an open office is FROWNED upon? I sit in a 6 man office and I get close to zero work done if I'm not wearing headphone.

Does you job involve a lot of calculus, programming and/or topology or do you have one of those jobs where productivity is measured by how fast your lips and arms are moving while seated in a cubicle?

I just want to make 100 percent sure that your current job environment will never 'happen to me'.

...Also, I think there's a large problem in a lot of the FIRE boards. It's all "let's stick it through for 5-10 years in hell" to be free later. Fuck that....

Being miserable due to your primary source of income is bad systems thinking, that's for sure.
Also: Violation of Proper Response or Pareto thinking.

[distracted_at_work]

That said, I'm looking for a new job now, one that I'm suited better for and that doesn't treat me like shit. "The real world" is big, and there are less-stressful jobs in better places than NYC. I don't give a shit if it may pay less, the better quality of life is worth it.

I'd turn the question around on you both and ask whether your careers are worth having around if they may or may not make you miserable daily?

Good answer. I think you'll find it then. To answer your question, yes, I like what I do. In my last three jobs (counting summers) I was miserable daily so I can relate to what you were going through. I viewed that as necessary sacrifice and I'm glad I did it. It enabled me to get reputation to have this better job fall into my lap.

The reason I got into ERE was due to those original jobs though. That's still the plan, it's just a much more pleasant road.

What God awful job do you do, where blocking out the cacophony of an open office is FROWNED upon? I sit in a 6 man office and I get close to zero work done if I'm not wearing headphone.

Engineering + sales. We're a 5-man crew sitting in a corner office; always chatting about projects, new clients etc or maybe just bullshitting if it's a slow afternoon. I'd struggle going back to the isolation of a solo office after this.

[FBeyer]

...

What God awful job do you do, where blocking out the cacophony of an open office is FROWNED upon? I sit in a 6 man office and I get close to zero work done if I'm not wearing headphone.

Engineering + sales. We're a 5-man crew sitting in a corner office; always chatting about projects, new clients etc or maybe just bullshitting if it's a slow afternoon. I'd struggle going back to the isolation of a solo office after this.

I take that back. That's not awful, you're just so good at your job that you don't need to concentrate as much as I have to. I NEED specially curated music to make the most out of my workday. I'm not talking smooth jazz, rage against the machine or Katy Perry here...

[suomalainen]

Don't know exactly where THF worked/s, but it sounds like a typical entry-level position in NY finance. THF didn't have the skillset (power point and excel skills) or the personality (always-on) to do the job. There's literally nothing for THF to take away from this other than that it's a shitty job in a shitty industry full of shitty, insecure people (yes I just indicted an entire industry). They thrive on making you feel like worthless shit if you "can't hack it" doing the bullshit job of perfectly editing excel spreadsheets or power point slide decks as if it's some prerequisite to be a fucking genius. It's so stupid. Chalk this up as an experience not worth repeating and move on.