It's a travel mug but I think that counts

Good for you!

@AlmondSauce That's pretty much what I did. That and put the interviewer's name on a list of people to watch out for.
Even if i'm never going to work there there's no point in causing more of fuss; it's not worth the effort.

Well, yeah. It's hard to herd cats, but you can get them to go where you want pretty easily with the proper incentives.
If they can't adapt to the behaviours of the citters your dealing with they really shouldn't be managing them.

@norman70688 Yeah, there's some places i'm happy to name and shame. Place like Sainsburys. Where i've had 5 interviews over the years, which have ranged from "absurd" to "verbally abusive".
This was just aggravatingly unprofessional on the part of the interviewer themselves. I ended up with a better paying role elsewhere though, so i've got no hard feeling about the company itself.

@endor I thought about pushing it but decided it wasn't wort the effort in the end. I go through a LOT of interviews every year and sadly this isn't even the worst I've had.
It might just be bad luck; I assume the interviewer forgot about the meeting and all that was just his way of covering himself.
I try to think the best of places I get rejections from, this just really stood out as being particularly unprofessional.

Well, I learned to code when I was a kid cos my parents wouldn't buy me a NES, but they did get hold of an old ZX Spectrum. and in those days you literally had to make our own fun.

These days, I just do it for the money and dim sense of control it gives me over the world around me.... but mostly the money.

I'll let you know if it happens.
I've been working as a professional dev for almost 20 years and in spite of all the evidence that i'm pretty good at my job, everyday is just a big pile of impostor syndrome.

@norman70688 nah, I'm not going "name and shame" this one. Overall the company seems ot be doing good work.
But yeah, If my code is bad then that's fair, but at least pretend to have looked at it!

@ninjatini what job did you switch to? That kind of change sounds really good, but i've got no idea what else my skills could work with

@CrankyOldDev well, most of that 12 miles is just getting to and from place for work, walking between train stations etc.
Not much that can be done about that without spending a fortune on taxis and stuff.
i've tried to cut out things that are draining me like that but it doesn't seem to be enough.

yeah.... I don't know about the rest of it.
People keep saying it's always possible to re-evaluate stuff, but i'm not sure how, without other people to help with some of it; and there's no one available for that.

Something needs to change, but i've got no idea how to make that happen.

@ninjatini Sadly a vacation isn't in the budget. Maybe in a year or two, if business stays good and nothing crazy happens.

I used to go to the gym a LOT, but for various reasons that's not really an option right now; I generally walk about 10-12 miles a day though, when I can.

Here in the UK, jobs like nursing don't pay even close to what I'm making. and unfortunately, right now, I've got people that need me to be making that much.

@theactionslacks more or less, yeah. I get paid well these days, but it all goes really quickly on bills. And with all the hassle I have with getting clients to pay the invoices, I wonder if it's worth it some times

@CrankyOldDev I can say "no" to the clients, but I still need the money. I've got bills that need paying and people who need me to be bringing in money.

@SoulSkrix I just do fairly standard software development (Python, PHP, GoLang, etc etc), with abit of DevOps from time to time, and occasional security consulting.
Before I started freelancing I was still working the same crappy hours, just for less money and more abuse.
It's insane the number of places I worked that only hired permanent staff, so they could get them to sign aweful contracts, work them crazy hours (I worked at 3 places that literally hand signs in main office saying "it is always crunch time"), and then fire them right before the end of their probation.

@CrankyOldDev I always kinda assumed anyone who was a workaholic would actually like their work :-/

I'm a freelancer so I'm never really in a position to automate much or delegate responsibilities at work. I keep trying to cut back on the things I'm needed for but then that time get filled with more critical stuff.

@kunashe I'm a freelancer too, but i'm usually onsite in the client's office, so even finding a moment of privacy is usually out of the question.

My social life is kinda non-existent these days; I guess I meet up with people socially once or twice a year maybe?

@configurator Heh, I wish something like that was an option.

@projektaquarius Wow, where are you working that acknowledges that burnout is even a thing that exists!?

I feel ya :(
I've not had a proper holiday, or worked less than a 50hour week, in over 10 years.

@Codex404 yeah, you're probably right. It's just a pain in the short term, and, as a freelancer, it's all short term

@DLMousey Not quite burn out. Work 70+ hours a week, without a holiday for 10 years, and every project is like that. Now just keep that up with the dawning realisation that you no longer know what you'd do even if you had time off, you're alienated from all your friends and family due to the long hours and obscure nature of your work, and you can't relate to your co-workers because the built up cynicism (and quietly increasing PTSD) clashes too strongly with their innocent enthusiasm for the work that is slowly killing you.
When you get to the point that every moment even thinking about work is physically and emotionally painful, and you can see no way to change any of it; That's burnout.

@DLMousey Ah, the words of someone yet to hit 'burn out' XD

Work. Definitely work. It was a hobby years ago, but now I only code in my freetime if a personal project absolutely demands it.

@Letmecode Yeah, I know; but such is the world and industry in which we work.

@hardeepasrani it does attract comments from coworkers sometimes XD
(the image won't rotate properly on here)

I use a gilded crows skull in a bell-jar. for rubber ducking. Not cheap but much more personable to work with, IMO; I can put you in touch with the artist if you like.

@k0pernikus I've done that in the past (always an uphill struggle but often worth it) but I'm just a freelancer at the current place, and embedded in a non - technical part of the project. so don't have much clout in the decision making.
I know they are planning to switch to Jira but it's taking ages to get it approved and rolled out, and no one seems to be enthusiastic about it. It's a government project so I doubt anything will change much while I'm here

@k0pernikus yeah, you'd think they would tell me stuff like that. Sadly, this project team isn't organised enough to have a proper ticket system and i'm the only technical person on the team. Extracting vital information from them is a big part of my current role. It's kinda maddening.

@Torbuntu The audio studio software? nah; I used to do a lot of audio work but not so much these days. In that pic there's a 40" screen with a code editor and some network monitoring stuff going on and another on the wall hooked up to a PS4 for helping with the slow times :)
And a couple of auxiliary screens and tablets on arm mounts for music/skype/more monitoring/etc etc. :)