Hiya
If you’re at all like me, there’s the manic periods of development, where things get done… and there are the lulls. What do you like to do in those lulls? Do you have a bin of fun work shit to do? Do you watch videos? Touch grass? Socialize?
Just curious
A few years ago, back when I still gave a damn (and probably during my most productive quarter in my entire professional career), somebody complained that my language was too curt on Slack, and I was a denied a 20k performance bonus as a result. It was pretty easy to not care after that.
Wow. Since I presume that you didn’t stay there: how curt was your letter of resignation?
I actually stayed there (I’m still there); just finished taking my 2 month paid sabbatical, I now have an 8 hour time zone difference with most engineers so I get to work on my own without distractions, and I have a strong policy of not developing anything bespoke and only plugging together off-the-shelf components (I specialize in Platform and Infrastructure).
With the mindset shift, it’s actually a pretty relaxing job. I make $180k, which isn’t the best salary, but also far from the worst, and I have both an abundance of time and very little oversight (amplified with the timezone difference now that I’m in the US) which means that I can use that salary to pursue things that I am interested in, spend time with my family etc.
I definitely thought about quitting at the time, but visa restrictions (I had just arrived in the US on an L1-B visa which is non-transferable) meant that I couldn’t. Now I’m a permanent resident, so I could leave if I wanted to, but I think that “quiet quitting” is still the right choice for where I’m at in my life.
I see, didn’t think of the case of somebody with visa requirements. I don’t really know how to compare US salaries to my German salary, since taxes and social security and cost of living are different, but for 162k Euro I’d probably also would rather not resignate, but do “Dienst nach Vorschrift” (= doing exactly what your asked for, but not showing extra initiative)