"Come on, it can't be that bad"?

There's always stuff which drives us up the wall

Isn't there good stuff to focus on?

lets see, my boss hacked a bunch of changes into a code base I wrote, which are horrific. And even though I had code analysis in place to fail the build for certain things (like not properly disposing of objects), he just added a #pragma to ignore that warnings. The worst string building abomination I've seen. A repo that had its perms somehow completely broken. Someone deployed some stuff by just copying their debug folder, even though I had setup auto releases in the repo, just no one can be arsed to learn how to fire them off. Someone knocked up a horrific php site that has gone out to customers, no one here knows php and the guy (non-dev) who hacked it together left over the holidays. We are making a new site for a project, and someone has decided its to be react, no one here knows react, well, the guy who suggested it says he got halfway through a course watching some videos at 2x speed... That was just the stuff before lunch.

And im going to be going back to working on a project where the tech lead doesnt believe in automated testing or source control

😦

There are no words in elvish, entish or tongues of man for these crimes

we have a file in this project, that is something like foo-20.blah, because with no source control, if it needs a lot of changes, they just make a new file, increment the number at the end and change the references to it

then delete -19 when they are happy with it

because "merges are a pain"

So pardon the question, why not quit?

time for a new job?

yeah, I started reading while nodding, because I also suffer from work induced anxiety, but no, nothing this severe, if anything, I have the opposite problem 😄 so yeah, I can assure you there are places where people can say "environment down, so i can't do anything, i am waiting", because there is no procedure for that scenario, even though it happens literally every week :D

I'd like to get a new job, but I don't think I'm in a good place mentally to do interviews right now. Problem is, I feel this job is making that worse, so I kinda feel stuck

Quit first, then interview?

I worry that lots of employers won't even give you an interview if you don't currently have a job.

A. That sounds odd. B. You don't have to tell them you quit

I worked on a project with no automated source control before -- 27 years ago was the last time, though. Now even things I work on for personal use only I have under automated source control.

I've found employment in the past between jobs, where I was not presently working. I took plenty of time off in my "career" to do fun things etc., I firmly believe that with any degree of reasonable development experience, you'll find a job - without having to be currently in a job.

So, I would advocate what others have hinted at too - take some time off, get back into a better state of mind, then look for something more rewarding.

You seem to be in an environment with many variables unfavorably set around you. I hope you find courage soon in 2022 to test the job market around you. From my understanding, it's a good time to be a job seeker. However you read what I wrote, please understand that I hurt for you, with you while reading you. I wish you the best.

Trust me, it's very easy to get a job if you're not working right now

I did it at the height of the pandemic when the market was at its worst for engineers and got my best job ever. The market is even better now. People don't care about gaps and if they do it's a yellow flag on their culture

It's an interesting take indeed. Previously, if a HR person saw a 6 month gap, they would be like "Why has this person taken 6 months off? Is this going to be a problem?", whereas nowadays it's more like "Why hasn't this person got some gaps in their CV? Is this going to be a problem?"

(naturally, that's an oversimplicification, there are various factors why people can't time off, but generally, it's seen as a good thing now to have some experience outside of work)

A very good thing is probably to check for jobs you'd really want to try. In other words, please make sure you don't simply switch to whatever else seems handy on the job market right at the moment you're checking it. Take some time to find something you really want to try. If you don't, search differently. Usually I find that remote-first or remote-friendly environments have a tendency to be more humane. Limiting yourself to opportunities that seem genuinely interesting to you should help you a lot to be gradually more positive. Slowly but surely and progressively get some dreaming back into your game. Learn again to hope for better, much better. There's better for you out there.

Anecdata: I've taken two 1 year breaks in my career, and had no issue finding a job after. No one even asked or seem to care about the gap. This was in the US and when I was in my 20s and early 30s fwiw.

I, too, have different gaps, and it's not been an obstacle.

not everyone has the means to take a break

yeah, I for sure didn't... taking a break isn't necessarily necessary. That's why I advise progressively getting back into the game of dreaming and hoping about a better job. It should make it possible to switch without taking a break.

Thanks for the advice guys, it really is appreciated. I need to think hard about getting a new job, getting into a mindset where I can do this, or taking a break (thankfully I'm lucky enough that financially it wouldn't be a problem, I understand others aren't so fortunate).

@Stuart If you believe it will help to have a job while interviewing, and you find it takes time to get into a good interviewing mindset after the current job, perhaps trying to take a solid week or so off from current job to do interviews may help. Not sure how feasible it is, just tossing random thoughts out.

at what volume do you want to scream @U013YN3T4DA

I took a small resume gap to play around with clojure and no one seemed to mind, your health is more important @U013YN3T4DA