Yet another carreer advice thread. Or, I need to change my life like, RIGHT NOW

You guys are probably going to think I'm nuts... I need to get this off my chest though...

So at the end of March my contract was extended for an additional year. I actually hadn't expected that at all, as the whole project is supposed to be wrapping up, but my boss managed to find some funding at the last minute. Our team of six was reduced to four and I'm the only hardware/fieldwork guy left.

Thing is, I probably shouldn't have taken the extention. I should have left while the going was good.

I've just lost all will to keep going on this. I've been sitting around in my office for like the last month surfing the internet all day (i.e. like now), and my lack of progress is starting to show. My boss wants to send me off to Indonesia as soon as I've sorted out an argument with the travel budget office (another long and aggrivating story which is further souring my opinion of this institute.) I'm supposed to go over there and set up two new-design GPS stations. Unlike previous trips, which I looked forward to, I'm really dreading this one. First of all I'm going into the boonies and won't have any of the convenience of working in cities and at well-equipped offices like I have been in the past. Secondly, without going into details, I predict with 100% certainty that these things are NOT going to work well and are going to be a huge pain in the arse to get up and running - if they ever do. Me and my former office mate basically designed the whole thing so it's going to look bad directly on ME if they don't work.

I'm completely stressed out and completely unmotivated at the same time. Combined with some problems in my private life (telephone & internet were cut off, car needs expensive bodywork now, miss my family in Canada badly, trying to keep a long-distance relationship with an Indonesian girl, landlord jacked my rent, etc. etc. etc.) I'm at my wits end. I've been coming in to the office every weekend, staying past 6:00 PM most days, and still getting nothing done.

Here's the thing though.
I DON'T dislike my job (I mean the actual type of work I do, not the recent problems.)
I DON'T dislike my boss.
I'm making decent money and have some nice savings put away (I could probably make more though.)
I DON'T dislike the town I'm living in, or life here in Germany in general. Actually I quite like it.
I LIKE travelling, and I especially like Indonesia. Every time I go over there I have my ups and downs, but I always seem to come back on a high note.
Lots of people hate everything about their work yet still stick at it for years. But all I can think of is that I need a way out.

So far as I can see, here are my options.

• I have 35 vacation days saved up. I tell my boss I'm at the end of my rope and use a big chunk of them like RIGHT NOW. I either tool around Europe, go to the Nürburgring, drive to the south of France, whatever, or bog off back to Ontario and get some badly needed visiting time in with family and friends who still live there (that's just about ALL my really friends still.) Go to some autocross or two, maybe get my Starion running. This is really appealing to me. I can deal with the work trouble when I get back. Problem: my boss wouldn't be happy about this AT ALL, and I respect that. We're under time constraints and I DO have work to do.

• Quit. Like, now. My boss won't be happy about this either, but at least I'll have gotten out before the utter failure of this project can reflect on me. Problem 1: then what? Problem 2: I leave my work group up E36 M3 creek without a paddle. I like and respect my colleagues, and I don't actually want to do that. I've put a lot of energy into this project and DO want to see it through, but I've just lost the will. Problem 3: who knows when I'll ever see my Indonesian friends again? Not somewhere I can afford to go to without backing.

• Suck it up, go to Indonesia, and see what happens. This is intellectually the best choice but it's also the hardest to do, and will definitely put me deeper into my two-months-so-far black funk before I see any end to it. If I go over there and nothing works out, it's going to look really bad on me.

Oh yeah, my former office mate, who co-designed the equipment I'm supposed to go set up and went several times into the field with me, is still with the company, just in a different department. Was talking with him yesterday and he said he'd be totally enthusiastic to go over there and install these things. I'm totally not. If I leave my boss might be able to borrow him to do the job.

Right now I'm leaning towards 'piss off everyone and take a holiday.' Better than putting in a less-than-half-assed effort and collecting pay for doing nothing right? I don't know how refreshed I'd be when I got back though.

Keep in mind, when I'm done with this job, it's not like I'm not going to be looking for work as a tradesman in the northeast U.S. (and my heart goes out to those who are!) I'm a geophysicist, I have two passports, one of which is E.U., I'm young and unnatached, and I can go anywhere I want in the world. There are loads of jobs for me out there, some of which pay very well indeed. I'm not even sure I want another "job" though, I'd love to somehow become self employed.

I don't really know why I'm writing all this, usually I try to keep these personal issues down to a minimum... I guess I'm just looking for someone to read all this crap and tell me I'm not crazy? Am I?

Sorry for the long rambling post, and if you got this far, thanks for reading. I'd love to hear your guys opinions though.

First, I don't think you're nuts for thinking about jacking in your job. You're obviously massively stressed out and things are starting to go wrong. I've had phases like that in my life too (a mild one right now due to UK and US housing issues) and the first important thing to do is to to stop digging yourself further into the hole.

Jay wrote: . I've been coming in to the office every weekend, staying past 6:00 PM most days, and still getting nothing done.

My advice? Stop doing that right now. You're knackered, you're not getting anything done so you really need some time to recharge your batteries. Don't try to work 7 days a week if you can't concentrate on what you're doing.

Get a good weekend's sleep, do something else, go out etc. Make sure you're rested, then go back into the office on Monday and see if you can get something done.

If I were you I'd try to get the equipment in a reasonable state if you can, go out to Indonesia (but tell the boss about the problems you know of). Install the equipment, then take a week or so off with your girlfriend and make it clear to the office you're incommunicado once the equipment is up and running.

If you're thinking about quitting because you're overworked and all that, talk to your boss if you think it might help. Make sure he understands where you're coming from. If the company is being ignorant or doesn't give a monkeys' as we say in the UK; you can always walk out then. Work relationships work both ways, a sensible employer will try to look after you. If they don't and they're just going to spit you out when they're done with you, hell yeah, just walk.

There is something you're not saying.

The answer lies there.

foxtrapper wrote: There is something you're not saying. The answer lies there.

I read that in a fortune cookie once. Can you bring the girlfriend out in the boonies while you work?

What's your Citizenship? Canadian?

Jay wrote: ...... I predict with 100% certainty that these things are NOT going to work well and are going to be a huge pain in the arse to get up and running - if they ever do. Me and my former office mate basically designed the whole thing so it's going to look bad directly on ME if they don't work.

It SHOULD look bad for you, if you designed it and you're sure it isn't going to work. Suck it up and deal. Fix it or pay the consequences. It's not the end of the world. What's the worse thing that can happen? You get fired? Big deal, you'll have to find another job. Getting paid for sitting there surfin' the interweb all day is basically stealing from your employer. Sorry if it sounds harsh, but you better realize there are an awful lot of people that would jump at the chance to do what you do. That's reality. Clear your head, stop stressing, and do what you're supposed to do. daddy rant off

I'm Dutch and Canadian.

I'm not sure what I'm not saying... I pretty much covered the basics in the novel I wrote up there. Of course there are a million little things going on that I haven't gone into but mostly inconsequential.

I hate to say this, but the long-distance relationship will probably be a dead-end. We both really like each other but she's not willing to move away from her family (nor could she afford to if she wanted to, nor could I afford to move her either), and I don't want to settle permanently in Jakarta, so at some point we'll be saying "it's been fun, but time to move on..." I realize that's not a very nice way of thinking but I'm a realist. It's just a matter of time. We saw each other for about six weeks in January/February. Maybe I'm wrong and the light of Allah will shine down on us and make it all work out. I'm not holding my hopes up though.

You're dissatisfied with the current situation in your life. Have you thought about how much of that dissatisfaction is personal (long distance relationship, wanting to be closer to family) and how much is professional? A vacation away from work can do wonderful things for your mood[*], but it won't make you family or girlfriend live closer to you. If those things are the major source of angst, they need to be addressed.

My personal advice would be to finish the task at hand (install the GPS ground stations) and then take a vacation.

[*] - Seriously, vacations can be wonderful to a point bordering on being life transforming.....I recently took my first one in about four years, and it really had a positive effect on me. While on vacation, I did some hiking and kayaking, and remembered exactly how much I like spending time in the outdoors. Since getting back, I've stopped eating as much junk, patched my kayak, bought another one, been paddling with friends, and lost some weight. I feel better than I have in years.

The only negative is that the work on the datsun has slowed to a crawling pace.....

minimac wrote: It SHOULD look bad for you, if you designed it and you're sure it isn't going to work. Suck it up and deal. Fix it or pay the consequences. It's not the end of the world. What's the worse thing that can happen? You get fired? Big deal, you'll have to find another job. Getting paid for sitting there surfin' the interweb all day is basically stealing from your employer. Sorry if it sounds harsh, but you better realize there are an awful lot of people that would jump at the chance to do what you do. That's reality. Clear your head, stop stressing, and do what you're supposed to do. daddy rant off

Yeah, nice idea. Without going into all the details, I don't think it's going to be MY GPS readers that fail. We were constrained to incorporate this into a previously installed communications infrastructure, which was built and installed by many different people (like actual engineers, which I'm not) over a period of years, and has been proven not to work reliably at all. I don't have time or resources to go fix everything wrong with the system, but when it fails it makes MY equipment useless no matter how well it's built. That's where I'm predicting the problems will lie.

I really can't go into much more detail about it on some message board. I'm not going to badmouth people who worked on this previously, but I'm the one at the end of the line here when everything they did is starting to unravel.

Move to South America. Suriname would be a good start.

Or go study in Japan for a while - http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/off-topic-discussion/hello-im-student-wally-chang/23176/page1/

Seriously, though, how well would it go down if you detailed your concerns to the bossman? Maybe request some assistance on the trip, or whatever you need to make it work.

A vacation doesn't have to be a long one to do you some good. One of the best vacations I ever had was nothing more than a long weekend in Chicago - I went out for a couple nice meals, wandered around downtown seeing the sights, sat in the hotel bar reading a book and drinking Scotch for an afternoon. I just needed a couple days away from the daily grind, and I had a lot better attitude about things when I got back to the office the next Monday.

I have a similar motivational issue at the end of a long product development cycle (sans the exotic locales). New overlords due to a buyout, constant 12hr days, deadline pressures... they all add up. If I didn't sneak off to the track every so often I'd have blown up a long time ago.

I decided to see it thru to the release date more out of duty to the others on my team than to the product or the company. In the grand scheme of things its a couple more months and then I can leave with no hard feelings. Pay is good, people are good, etc... so really it was more about coming to terms with my own expectations and changing my focus.

Pick a non-work related goal... I built my own car, I'm going wheel-to-wheel racing in it next month and running a marathon in October. Focusing on something else helps put work into perspective... that is someone else's goal. I'm just getting paid to help them realize it.

Take a week or two of vacation and hike off into the mountains somewhere. Read something cover to cover.

Finish the job. When you look back it will be a story of overcoming adversity to get the job done, not quitting or failure.

what geophysical skills do you have? a lot of the independent consultants that i've met started out doing a little consulting on the side and then started doing it more and more until they could quit the daily grind and work for themselves. you do have to be fairly well known and good at what you do to get there, though

Jay wrote: I hate to say this, but the long-distance relationship will probably be a dead-end. We both really like each other but she's not willing to move away from her family (nor could she afford to if she wanted to, nor could I afford to move her either), and I don't want to settle permanently in Jakarta, so at some point we'll be saying "it's been fun, but time to move on..." I realize that's not a very nice way of thinking but I'm a realist. It's just a matter of time. We saw each other for about six weeks in January/February. Maybe I'm wrong and the light of Allah will shine down on us and make it all work out. I'm not holding my hopes up though.

From someone who's just been in a long-distance relationship - you've got to help Allah to shine the light in the right direction, it ain't happening all on its own. But it's doable, lots of people have managed so I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand.

It's going to be hard work, though. No doubt about that.

A lot of this sounds like the real issue is a stressful private life spilling over into your work. I'd break up with the girlfriend as soon as you can come up with a tactful way to do so - it sounds like maintaining this relationship is difficult, it's going nowhere, and if the two of you are from different religions too it's going to be seriously tough.

How about taking a week or so of vacation and using that to see your family in Canada? Might be enough for you to come back feeling refreshed.

This is intellectually the best choice but it's also the hardest to do

The right thing to do is often the hardest. Finishing the job is the right thing to do.

Don't sweat the hardware failure. That's your boss's job!!! Does he know your thoughts on the situation (regarding this E36 M3 being...well...E36 M3?) If so, stop stressing about it. If not, all you have to do is tell him once. Don't harp on it, don't stress about it, go in, get your work done, and collect your check.

Regardless, having the "There's plenty of work out there for me" attitude, while simultaneously talking about taking a month off in the middle of a project and pissing all your co-workers off, or up and quitting, doesn't make a lot of sense. Do you think your current employer would give you a reference after that? Are you in a pretty tight-knit industry where your boss knows a lot of other "bosses" in the field?

Do you want to be known as the complain-ey guy who quit, or the guy who sucked it up and got the job done even though the conditions sucked?

PS: I've read through and edited this post several times. I'm not trying to sound like a dick, but if I do, it's because I want to see us ALL do well and make money!!!

I agree with the vacation idea. If you've been putting in ridiculous hours at work, you need a break. While on vacation look for a job to see what the market is like before you quit your present job. After the vacation, you may return to work with renewed enthusiasm and you can drop your job search, or you're that much further ahead if you are still unhappy.

Detail your concerns about the project not working before you go to Indonesia, preferably in an email, that way you can show your design is not the problem. Include your boss and coworkers in the email, and possibly his boss depending on your relationship with him and your boss. Request equipment/funds/manpower/etc to fix the problem before you encounter it and when you do run into problems and nothing works you're not the scapegoat, you're the star who is able to recognize problems before they occur and plan for them accordingly.

Bob

Having been a real project manager from 1995 to around 2008, I can tell you one thing. Failing projects ruin the lives of people that hate failure. Your prediction of impending doom is correct. I have never seen, been a part of or ever heard of a project that surprised its own team members with success.

Soooooo, what do you do now. You sir, are burned out. It feels like there is an invisible wall in front of you, that you can't push away. No single thing in your job life sucks, but the sum total steals your energy, drive and motivation like a free Lotus.

Take a break. Just the act of telling your boss, you are going to need to take a 20 day break, and scheduling it with him can bring a huge feeling of relief. If he balks or bitches, then you know that your opinion of him may be wrong; and it won't matter if you quit. But vacations are paid, quitting is costly.

To avoid this in the future, don't accumulate that much leave. Use it, or lose your mind. Work generally sucks, that's why we get paid for it. Time off is how you spend that money you made. You certainly use your money, now use your time.

After you get back from that first vacation, your mind should be clear enough to figure out what is really happening.

Good luck, and remember your life is never as bad as it seems; and your project is never as good as it seems.

Timeormoney wrote: It feels like there is an invisible wall in front of you, that you can't push away. No single thing in your job life sucks, but the sum total steals your energy, drive and motivation like a free Lotus.

I love this.

Talk to your boss. It may be posible to send the co-worker who is enthusiastic about going.

Also, you are overdue for a vacation. It will be easier to focus if you have a point of relief on the horizon. Go ahead and schedule yourself AT LEAST a week off in the not-too-distant future. Make an effort to get more sleep and don't work 7 days a week, period.

Oh yeah, breathe. It will be OK.

hmmmm. being in a similar position in the past have thought about this a good bit. i think taking avactaion now isnt worth it. you wont REALLY be rested as you will always have it in the back of your mind that something bad is waiting for you at the end of it. whether that is the installation trip, or the news that the project failed, the boss thinks you suck, and you no longer have a job to return to. quitting really only helps if you have decide that you dont want to work there ever again and you have committed yourself to finding another job/ carrer. my advice is to talk to your boss about how you are feeling (though you may want to keep the internet surfing discussions to a minimum). tell him whay you are getting stressed out and that you dont feel like there is much you can do ALONE to fix it. maybe approach it as a request for some assistance instead of a general complaint (employers seem to like progressive action more than general dissent) if you get along with him like you seem to suggest, he will possibly get you the help to make the project successful or he will sympathize and appreciate the effort you make even more. if he cant get you some help, see if you can leverage the extra strain you are under into a promise that you can take some additional vacation time, after the instal reaches some agreed upon level of success, to clear your head. if you can get that kind of a promise (in writing is good regardless of your friendship) , suck it up and dig in for the next couple of months. in the end i think you will find that a vacation taken after the end of a project is immensly more satisfying. you will get more out of it, your family will get more of the you they WANT to see, and you can leverage a successful project installation into a better position at whatever company and country you want to.

as far as the girl is concerned get that one out of your head. it sounds like it will either figure itself out or get faded out by meeting someone else with fewer logistical problems along the way. if you cant fix this. dont spend time thinking about it.

minimac wrote:

Jay wrote: ...... I predict with 100% certainty that these things are NOT going to work well and are going to be a huge pain in the arse to get up and running - if they ever do. Me and my former office mate basically designed the whole thing so it's going to look bad directly on ME if they don't work.

It SHOULD look bad for you, if you designed it and you're sure it isn't going to work. Suck it up and deal. Fix it or pay the consequences. It's not the end of the world. What's the worse thing that can happen? You get fired? Big deal, you'll have to find another job. Getting paid for sitting there surfin' the interweb all day is basically stealing from your employer. Sorry if it sounds harsh, but you better realize there are an awful lot of people that would jump at the chance to do what you do. That's reality. Clear your head, stop stressing, and do what you're supposed to do. daddy rant off

He said what I was going to, only nicely. You don't design E36 M3, and then when it's supposed to work, bail and pass the headaches to someone else.

You never work in a vacuum. What you do today will follow you through your career in some fashion. Your boss and your coworkers will remember what happens (and most importantly, so will you), and you never know when you'll run into the repercussions (or the boss, or the coworkers) down the road. Make them good repercussions. You gotta live with the man in the mirror.

It's a real PITA, but it's not forever - suck it up, do the job, then take a REAL vacation in a positive atmosphere. In the future, try to burn some leave when you can - think of it as mental health time.

Change jobs for a better or more interesting one when you want to (positive reasons), not because you're having a tough time. There will be more tough times ahead, that's a constant in life. Get 'er done, then play hard (or goof off hard).

I made the mistake of not taking a day off since last July, and my two weeks of vacation is expiring in a week or so. Be mindful of your co-workers, but in the end, only you will look out for you. At least take a few days off. I need to take my own advice, too.