I fucking hate being put on the spot. I'm trying my best over here to learn and improve but I don't know my entire project by memory and how every single little thing works, and it makes me feel like shit constantly having to say "I don't know" when asked about task estimates and work difficulty

Now I've made myself look like an incompetent moron because it's stressful and the one thing I was left in charge of I screwed up

Christ man since when did programming become a social management activity?

@NoMad i do try to BS a bit, I've gotten ok at it with the whole I'd have to check or I'm not totally sure right now, but honestly how does anyone know that stuff right away?

Who is able to look at a lengthy ticket written in business technical spec and immediately know what work needs to be done and what hurdles will be faced? The mental map required for that must be immense.

I think it's just this whole energy of MUST BE CONSTANTLY IMPROVING is just getting to me. It's unhealthy to be in an environment where taking off the "I'm so passionate about my career and all I do is eat breathe and shit technical specs" mask is looked down on.

I feel like that a lot. I inherited an very complicated projected half way through and now when more is added into scope I have no idea on the estimates to give or what is actually involved until I can have some time to research it.

The other day I mentioned that we might have to take a different approach and seconds later I was asked for a time estimate for testing and putting it into production.

I only heard the name of the thing a few minutes before I mentioned it so had nothing more than the name to go on.

@NoMad For sure. From college it's cutthroat, they shove down your throat every day how you have to be better and passionate and stay on your grind.

It's toxic and I've seen people go down that road and come out different. Apparently when I was first learning web development I shut myself in for months and barely spoke to my friends, doing 6+ hours of learning and practicing a day on top of school and work. All for the sake of being a leg up and getting an internship to set off a chain of events where eventually I'm successful.

If I wanted to feel like that I would have been a mechanical engineer lol.

"Let me look into this to come up with an estimate for you"
I do it all the time. totally legit and they are happy you do something for them.
Sometimes I will even let them know when I will be ready with the estimate, so they learn that it takes some time.