I used to be the guy who lit up the room when I entered it and had loads of great friends until I started working in the tech industry. Now I am depressed and I suffer from anxiety and chronic insomnia . Not expecting any pity party but I want to share my experience to educate others of how the tech TC chasing lifestyle can ruin your life . Being an awesome engineer takes a toll . Not everyone is gifted with great IQ. I had to work 10 times harder to outperform others at work and get the top TC. This lead me to slowly lose contact with my close friends and ruined relationships with ppl. I work after-hours to impress my boss and to standout at work which leads to less family time and more misunderstandings in my marriage . My marriage is still intact but the damage is done . When I play with my son , I feel guilty if I play too long , because I have a ton of work to deliver and this will surely be a problem once my son grows and starts understanding how sick i was to prioritize work over him . I have some fuck-you disposable money with which I did high risk options trading and it sometimes caused me insomnia . I have stopped doing this for my own good but the damage is done . Now, I have the money and all fancy titles I ever dreamt of at work but I have forgotten how to enjoy life. For those who are chasing money, TC and fancy titles , my request to you is stop this chase for a while and do some introspection. Being a high “top-performer” in any profession requires enormous sacrifices and sometimes your professional goals could be meaningless. It maybe high-time for you to start enjoying life everyday and manage your expectations. Trust me , once you cross the 100k range.. it does not matter how many more zeroes you add to the end of that number , your happiness will not increase proportional to it. At some point , higher TC will lead to diminishing returns for life. TC 450K.
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Thank you for sharing this! As a young worker, what do you suggest I should do? 1) burn my ass for fast promo/TC OR 2) build relationships at the cost of working less (slow promo) and less TC OR 3) something else? Given I am young with no responsibilities. I assume it would be different once I get married or have more responsibilities.
Don’t aim for less TC.. Aim to be holistic .. if you are working beyond 9-5pm and are giving lame excuses for spending more time at work like “ I love my job” , then there is a problem . If you are well rounded you will eventually also be reasonably successful at work . Don’t aim for quick growth because you will go through massive burnout episodes in your career which could force you to retire early and lead to poor mental and physical healthy . Try to be as efficient as possible during work hours and be disciplined about it. That will get where you want to be without compromising your quality of life.
Thanks for sharing your experience OP. I think you should make all efforts to get the balance back in your life. Hopefully it goes well for you.
Thank you for this post.
This. I needed to hear this. I am a moderate level of OP. And the damage started only in 2020 with the crazy stock market and insane TC FOMO. Also, i gave up on joining Affirm. Maybe I should chill for a while. I know I won’t.
Why did you give up joining Affirm?
Recently get a similar TC as yours. I always work whenever I can, because I truly enjoy it. High TC or not. Once ppl go to sleep or watch TV or other hobbies, working is my choice. My family time is short but with high quality. Always homemade food (female). Time to visit elderly parents/family. I don't have many close friends. Kids never complain, growing up happily. I also spend time for gym, 45min daily. This number used to be 2-3 hours daily pre covid. I guess people are different. Just want to show my point of view.
Nice, what is your level at SAP?
What is female food?
On a side note, what is your level at intuit with that TC? It seems high. Are you PE and above?
DE
DE- Data engineer ?
Grinding in the corporate world is so useless.. just buy some real estate lol
I funnel as much of my w2 income into RE as possible
Truuuu just bought first investment property ;)
Thank you for sharing this but chasing high TC has a very big reason these days - Job Security. You never know when you are out of job, there is rampant ageism in the industry, Automation & AI are gonna take huge amount of jobs which can create political unrest, very now and then you hear about mass layoffs(non Covid). Anyone will feel VERY insecure with all this which may trigger a urgency of accumulating wealth. just saying
Insecurity is the leading cause for conscious bad decisions in life ..
Carelessness also is. What will you say to a 40 something person having a hard time getting a software job? What would be his options when he now have a family to feed? Considering he is not fit for management/people oriented roles like many in tech are...Any thoughts? Big companies collapse because they don't plan for future. We are still individual humans.
There was a thread the other day and managers were saying there's really not much difference in the TC of a top performer vs mediocre performer. The extra grind for more w2 isn't worth it, unless you're doing it because you enjoy the project(s) or only care about moving up the ladder.
Life is long - take a step back, meditate, read The Power of Now and focus your attention on the present. Don't chase the future, live for today!
Stop putting meditate into everything. Has meditation helped you personally?
Ufff haha. I love blind
Old article but relevant. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/nation-now/2018/02/26/does-money-equal-happiness-does-until-you-earn-much/374119002/
I wonder how much it'd be for 2021 Bay area residents
Would building your tech company & making multi millions make you happier?
It’s a fact .. most entrepreneurs are not happy until they retire .. Most successful entrepreneurs are very egoistic and don’t expose their soft underbelly.. if you read some of their memoirs u will realize how poor their quality of life is/was. If you want to find a cure for cancer , then maybe the sacrifices you make have a greater good for humanity but if your goal is to just make $ then your sacrifices are meaningless unless you are just trying make a living .. greed is dangerous and uncontrollable after some point. Example : I tell myself that I have loads of money but my anxiety level for not seeing 30% growth YoY shoots really high for no reason .. when u make more money you get addicted to it and any type of addiction is bad for you.
OP I might just be a broke dumb kid, but thank you for posting this and sharing your knowledge.