Sometimes it takes someone who has been at the very rock bottom to know what true hell looks like. Software development is something like that in a sense. You’d think feigning ignorance would save you from the realities of bad management until you see it all unfold, sometimes in real-time. Sometimes repeatedly. I’ve known my limitations for a while now. I cannot be a person that performs blazingly fast and without mistakes without sacrificing something, and it turns out that something is just mental health. The mental fatigue that is chaotically spun through all these events leaves me in a very bad shape.

There’s sometimes little to no thought to spare for people who solve problems for a living. After all, all they do is sit.

I feel like it is taking a harder hit due to the workforce reduction going around. You’d think it is because the company has grown a lot, but in reality it is because it has over-extended too much. Now you see all the middle managers panicking, even creating a lot of useless reports that in truth bring little to no value to anyone in the business. I think the desperation to cling to a job is a very disgusting sight to see. Not because the person shouldn’t, but mostly because there shouldn’t be a reason to degrade yourself to such an extent. But not everyone sees it simply as “it is just a job”. For some, that job could mean everything to someone even though we might know better than that.

And that’s… why I have to keep going even if it sounds futile. Because I have to, not because I want to. Those are very different things and the meaning itself can take different levels of mental fatigue depending on the month and cadence.

Most importantly, we shouldn’t be losing our marbles for a job. I understand the panic. But the world keeps moving and we can’t just see it as all or nothing and burn ourselves to the ground.