Broken promises, burnout and depression

Quite the cocktail in that title, isn't it? Well, if even one of those shows up in your workplace, my advice is simple: start looking for another job.

Let me explain.

When I started my first job, my motivation was sky-high. I was learning something new every day and watching my skills grow nonstop. Every morning I was more eager than the last to keep going and give it everything.

The company's leadership saw real potential in my work, so they bet on me. They trained me up, and over the years I grew into a senior developer, though not without a few bumps along the way. And not gentle ones, either.

Every six months or so, from the day I joined, I'd have a little "chat" with the CEO. He'd tell me how much potential he saw in me, how far I could go, and how a raise was just around the corner.

Same speech. Every six months. For four years.

Meanwhile? I kept improving, taking on more responsibility, tackling heavier and heavier work, and never saw a cent of that raise.

It wore me down more and more, and the company's relentless pace didn't help. Then the pandemic hit, and with it came remote work. For once I could breathe. Working from home was so much more comfortable.

I worked just as hard, if not harder, mind you, before you jump to conclusions.

When lockdown lifted, most companies kept remote work going. They'd realized it suited developers perfectly: we don't need to be in the room, and everything gets done over chat and calls.

My company was the exception. Everyone back to the office before the restrictions had even fully eased. When we asked why we couldn't keep working from home, HR told us "certain individuals weren't performing to the company's expectations," so we all had to pay for it. Funny thing is, as a developer I can see exactly what everyone ships (Git logs don't lie), and nobody had slowed down. If anything, being home had made us more productive.

Basically, they just didn't feel like letting us work from home.

On top of that, the company had decided during lockdown to move to a bigger office, which meant someone had to set up the network and everyone's machines. Guess who got the network? Me. Of course.

I put up a few Ubiquiti access points, wired them into the router, and went home. A few days later, HR asked me to research and install a biometric entry system for the office. I ended up chasing quotes from locksmiths, but nothing came of it in the end, because even the locksmith could see how ridiculous the whole idea was.

Little things like this kept chipping away at me, and after everything that went down with the CFO, I was completely done.

My personal life wasn't in a great place either. Not because of the pandemic, not at all. I'd just found out I had two siblings I never knew about, and the truth about my family came spilling out. It all piled up and dragged my depression down to the point where I needed anti-anxiety meds and antidepressants every day.

When it rains, it pours.

Then, out of nowhere, a friend's company reached out with an offer: slightly better pay, remote work, and training on top. I told my company, and their answer was, word for word, that they wouldn't raise my salary or make a counteroffer. So I reminded them of the four years of promises they'd been feeding me, and handed in my resignation on the spot.

The lesson? Don't let anyone walk all over you. Because, as a certain Spanish politician once famously fumbled, "we're not human beings who have feelings, we're feelings that have human beings." Botched quote, but somehow it fits.

I eventually burned out at that next job too, but that's a story for another day.

Cheers, and take it easy!