Not much good at anything, still need to work

April 10, 2013 9:19 PM

I'm pretty much useless at everything but have been gainfully employed as a coder for 15 years. Quite frankly I'd just like to do nothing. What do you suggest?

I've just had a serious bad review, before that I've had one middling review since starting work. I realise I probably should find a new job but find that difficult when essentially it's looking for someone silly enough to give me a job. I don't really want to inflict myself on a new employer. I look good on paper, have good academic qualifications but am just not much good.

Somehow I need to earn money due to various financial commitments but am unsure what to do.

posted by anonymous to Work & Money (20 answers total)

I'd start with some therapy. You're good at something but you sound like you have some self-worth issues. You'll have difficulty feeling successful at work if you don't feel good about yourself in general.

When you're not at work, are you happy?
posted by shew at 9:23 PM on April 10, 2013 [4 favorites]

You might just need a vacation. Do you work in the US? US corps tend to work people into a frazzled lather, then discard them. Maybe a long period (like the length of a typical European vacation) away from work is what you need.
posted by telstar at 9:31 PM on April 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

I hear joining the Coast Guard is a hot ticket these days.

This really isn't enough information to give you an answer. If you want real advice please add your interests and the skills that I'm sure you do actually possess, regardless of your assertion to the contrary. Do you want an office job? Do you want to be self-employed? Do you prefer to work independently or with a team? Do you like customer service? etc.

Don't let one bad review hit you so hard. If you enjoy your job, you could always try to remediate your performance - there is nothing to say you must find a new job, unless they are actually firing you.
posted by treehorn+bunny at 9:44 PM on April 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

Do you have money saved? Quit your job, go to a developing country where you can live off of a few hundred dollars a month, do free lance web-design or something else similarly low stress that you can do over the internet.

I know a guy that's been living in Nicaragua for over a year now just doing SEO stuff for like 5 or 6 hours a week.
posted by empath at 9:50 PM on April 10, 2013 [2 favorites]

Also, get into treatment for depression, because I suspect that is the real problem here.
posted by empath at 9:50 PM on April 10, 2013 [8 favorites]

Pick up the tuba.

Members of the US National Symphony Orchestra make bank. An acquaintance plays tuba there, and we calculated that from the little amount of time he plays (tuba players have a lot of rests in most music) he makes about $1600 per note.
posted by horizonseeker at 10:02 PM on April 10, 2013 [9 favorites]

IT Finance
posted by roboton666 at 10:06 PM on April 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

Do you want to do nothing because you are down on yourself because you are not performing your work well?

Or are you not performing your work well because you are down on yourself?
posted by Dansaman at 10:19 PM on April 10, 2013

15 years a coder? You have a dead cert in to any low-to-middling IT position in any large and stupid company that does little to nothing of practical worth: that's guaranteed 8 hours a day being paid to sit on Reddit expelling air through your nose at cat gifs and terrible sex anecdotes. Get out there and seize the dream, man.
posted by Kandarp Von Bontee at 10:35 PM on April 10, 2013 [31 favorites]

I've just had a serious bad review, before that I've had one middling review since starting work. I realise I probably should find a new job but find that difficult when essentially it's looking for someone silly enough to give me a job. I don't really want to inflict myself on a new employer. I look good on paper, have good academic qualifications but am just not much good.

The following advice assumes that you are not simply burned out (which would be aided by going on a very long hike - at one point I took 2 months off and it was not quite long enough to resolve my burnout) and are legitimately a mediocre coder.

1. Find a niche where people have lower expectations. In general, if you are in the valley, move from product companies to service companies or enterprise IT. Go from a Google or the Cisco to the IBM or the RackSpace or similar. Get away from startups and go into some fat, mediocre company like Brocade. Or just get out of the valley - being mediocre in the valley is a special kind of hell. The quality of developers in Austin or DC Metro are a tier below, and outside of NY/WA/AUS/DC the expectations are even dramatically lower. I know a guy who barely passed CS who makes a great living in Houston doing VB.Net.

2. Move from development into management. Hey, it clearly worked for just about every engineering manager I've ever worked for. First line manager is a pretty good if mindnumbing place to coast or awhile until you decide what you want to do with yout life.

3. If management doesn't work, consider developer relationship or SDK roles. These are still developer roles, but they're more rote and there's more of a focus on having a good (human to human) user interface and less on being particularly good at coding.
posted by rr at 10:59 PM on April 10, 2013 [5 favorites]

which would be aided by going on a very long hike - at one point I took 2 months off and it was not quite long enough to resolve my burnout

I just want to second this -- I quit my job which was starting to wear me out (I'm in my mid 30s), took 3 months off to travel and it changed my life. Came back, found a better job, I'm a lot happier now than I was before I quit.
posted by empath at 11:00 PM on April 10, 2013 [2 favorites]

btw, I have a friend who is going through this right now. It sucks.

Dude is a really nice guy but was never very good and has gotten to the point of having enough seniority that expectations are high. He got away with it for about 10 years because the dotcom crash covered for him when he would otherwise have been revealed as not really functional and then again in 2008 since he had attached to real estate firms. He should really have been an SE kind of guy or a developer relations guy - he's just not good enough to compete in his geographic area of choice and will not move (very expensive, particular spouse, mortgage underwater, etc.).

Now he's in this position of having worked 13+ years and the last three years of his life have been getJob->failModerately->badReview->getNewJobBecauseStuffIsHot->repeat. This seems like a win from the outside but for him it is continual feelings of failure and worthlessness that is basically destroying his life.

Consider strongly what you want to be doing in a few years and be honest about it. "But I need to make $X" is not a good way to frame the discussion.
posted by rr at 11:09 PM on April 10, 2013 [6 favorites]

What kind of a question is this? You're saying that you have recently had a bad review and one middling review in your 15-year career, and that you're somehow globally "bad" at "everything" and how can you leverage this situation into fooling someone else to give you a job?

In all seriousness, how are we supposed to answer this? Is it really believable that you're just globally bad at everything?

Start by improving your analytical skills and ask yourself some questions. Tell us the answers if you like, because that will actually help us to answer your original question better.

1. You got a bad review - what was said in it? Is each statement accurate?
2. If the review is or isn't a fair representation of your work this review period, why or why not?
3. Is the problem something else that wouldn't normally go in a review?
4. Are these problems things you can fix by improving your skills in particular areas (if not for this job, then for another)?
5. Why have you had okay reviews for most of the rest of your career and a bad one now? What's changed? You? The company? What?

I don't know if you're a bad programmer or not, but if you can find the thinking skills to analyze this problem you may want to consider that you're not as bad as you say.
posted by tel3path at 5:25 AM on April 11, 2013

I suspect that you're turning your anger at the bad review against yourself. You should look at how you feel about being angry, especially towards someone in authority (such as a parent.)
posted by Obscure Reference at 6:16 AM on April 11, 2013

I used to be a programmer, and I've found that finance triggers the same structured and logical part of my brain which wants to impose order on the world. (There's actually a surprising number of people who transition between finance and programming, so I know I'm not alone in this analysis.) Additionally, it's a lot easier because you don't have to learn new things all the time - in coding you constantly have to learn the latest new software, but accounting systems basically haven't changed since the Renaissance.

However, before switching tracks, you should reconsider whether maybe you're just depressed. You've had 15 reviews since you started this line of work, and only one was bad? That doesn't sound like the definition of "terrible" to me.
posted by wolfdreams01 at 6:54 AM on April 11, 2013 [1 favorite]

Driving instructor?
posted by springbound at 7:16 AM on April 11, 2013

I agree with the posters who say this sounds more like depression (or perhaps anxiety) talking than your own mediocre job abilities. Unless you have a pattern like rr's friend - that of job-hopping to cover up poor performance - one bad review in 15 years doesn't mean you are bad at your work. It just says something specific about one time frame at one job under one boss.

I would suggest talking to your supervisor about that review and specific, concrete steps you can take to improve your performance if that is needed. Then counseling/therapy for you to address any depression or anxiety issues.

Maybe you do need to switch careers or jobs if it turns out you hate your field or your workplace. But don't do anything rash or self-loathing until you've addressed various possibilities: you are depressed, you are anxious, this particular workplace is a bad fit, etc.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 7:20 AM on April 11, 2013 [1 favorite]

I'm not going to try and give career advice since so many have covered it so well above.

That said, I think you should consider having a classic Office Space epiphany. You don't need to burn the building down, but it may be time to just do whatever the hell you want all day. If you aren't the achievement-driven type, there is a good chance it will make you immensely happier.

Downsize your lifestyle, find the easiest job that will support you, and enjoy life. IT support at a tech illiterate company will make you seem like a computer wizard but leave you immense amount of free time. Even better, become a security guard. Every person I've known who has been a security guard has said it is a great job to catch up on reading, video games, etc.

There are plenty of jobs out there that pay a (modestly) living wage but require very little effort.
posted by _DB_ at 7:58 AM on April 11, 2013 [3 favorites]

Hey, I'm sorry if my previous comment came across as harsh.

I just really want you to understand this:

There's no such thing as being "just not much good".

There must be things you are good at as well as things you are bad at.

Now, I totally understand the desire to just do nothing because you don't think you'll ever succeed at what you do. I absolutely do. I've been there. That's how I learned the thing I'm trying to tell you here.
posted by tel3path at 10:10 AM on April 11, 2013

Call me cynical, but don't worry so much about your ability and start thinking about how to get a better review next time. Often it's not that related to the quality of your work.
posted by callmejay at 4:03 PM on April 12, 2013 [2 favorites]