There are services available. People will help. The help and services may not be what you wish they were. You may elect not to use them for that reason, and that's fine.
Everyone just wants do to what they're very good at. Sometimes, it turns out nobody wants to pay you for that though, so they make the decision to do something else instead that pays better, so they can live somewhere nice, and eat.
The services that are supposed to be available are not helping me.
Anyone who actually understands what OctantOS is and what it's true capabilities are would be insane to not want to be involved in bringing it to market.
Maybe most people are happy to settle with a dead end job being depressed for life just to eat.
No thanks. I'd rather focus on making something of myself - even if that means temporarily suffering until someone sees the opportunity I bring.
Spreadsheets became popular in the 80s, before PCs were ubiquitous and cheap. Computers cost in the order of 5 to 10 thousand dollars, with lots of incompatible systems. Spreadsheets were a killer app that drove adoption and grew the market, so I'd say on balance it was positive for programmers and software generally.
AI comes at quite a different time, when tech adoption was already pretty mature / saturated to start with.
If you're in the US, look into FMLA, or possibly even consult an employment attorney to put together a plan.
If you are going to be in and out, not 100%, etc... you are better off erring on the side of taking medical leave, asking for accommodations as needed, rather than trying to "soldier on" and have any unavailability used against you or characterized as a performance issue.
Aside from that, treat your new boss as a new job / new company that you need to prove yourself too. Your new boss didn't choose you, and may have a desire to "make changes", bring his own people in... etc.
Yeah, fair enough. I think the same general principle applies though... figure out what the rules are around medical leave, and err on the side of taking medical leave and having the job protected rather than trying to push through it and having performance called into question.
Email has morphed into something quite different from when it started, and was a good way for humans to send messages to each other. That use case has mostly been supplanted by SMS, whatsapp, the social media app of the day, etc.
These days, it's really only used for that purpose mainly inside organizations, and "public" email seems to be overwhelmingly marketing material and automated notifications, with only the sporadic message from a human being. It's kind of functioning as what people wanted RSS to be.
The cynic in me would say that it survives because it is an effective tool for marketing, and the subscriptions / recipients are controlled by the sender.
Fundamentally, it's because the "marketplace" is owned, operated and funded by the seller. So, they fill it with ads and dark patterns to get you to buy what they want you to buy, which is probably some high-margin junk, and not what you want to buy.
If there were a hypothetical "marketplace" that was operated by, say, a consumer co-operative, funded by subscriptions from consumers, then it would operate with different incentives. It would be something like... Consumer Reports. But, it turns out, people would rather scroll through ads than pay for that kind of service with money, so that's why we have what we have.
Even a traditional marketplace owned by a municipality, or an association of vendors, or a shopping mall, is a bit more consumer friendly because they impose some standards on the tenants/vendors. A true "marketplace", like a stock market, or a fruit and vegetable market, needs to be vendor neutral, and there aren't any "marketplaces" like that on the internet.
1. Most of them probably are shareholders, 2. people "vote with their feet" all the time. You don't think losing large numbers of difficult-to-replace employees would put pressure on leadership? (edited for grammar)
I've done the expat/migration thing myself, there are some upsides for sure, but it can also be quite draining being a bit of a social misfit, not having a much of network/connections, dealing with the linguistic/cultural/administrative issues of visas, etc... in many ways you're just forever at a disadvantage to the locals.
I also don't see Portugal as being a big step up from Turkey in the grand scheme of things. Both basically europe, mediterranean, decent standard of living but kind of second-tier economy, etc. If anything, Turkey is obviously bigger, has some bigger cities, more of a range of lifestyles, etc.
I think migration/expat life can be worth it if you're moving to silicon valley, tokyo, new york, shanghai... or somewhere that is a centre of gravity for your industry (like australia for mining, texas for oil, shenzhen for hardware manufacturing, etc...), and the income/growth potential is many multiples of what you can get at home, but I wouldn't be doing it for a modest, largely sideways move.
As for your 10k EUR... obviously, beware the sunk cost fallacy. Also, these things aren't permanent, if you want you can do it for 6 months or a year, see how it is, if it's great, stay, if it's not... go back (or somewhere else).
I appreciate your perspective! The social misfit issue is definitely amplified in towns where local Portuguese life is dominant. No matter what I do, I will likely remain an outsider, even though the Portuguese people are genuinely friendly and understanding.
You're right that Portugal isn't a step up in the same way moving to a global hub like London or New York would be. It’s starting to feel like a lot of mental effort for a "sideways move," especially when I already have an established network at home.
Regarding the 10k EUR, I’ve definitely been thinking about the sunk cost fallacy. It's a lot of money to leave behind, but throwing another year of my career away just to justify the spend might be the bigger mistake. I suppose this is where I’ve been feeling trapped financially.
Taking it one step at a time seems like the only way to avoid burnout.Maybe a very short trial as you suggested at least until I find a suitable accounting role back home can be attempted. Thank you!
The other thing I would say is, for this kind of decision, you're looking for a "hell yes!" / "this is a no brainer" / "i can't afford to miss this opportunity". It's like hiring someone, buying a property, getting married, or even changing jobs... If it's not that, then it's a no, stay where you are, sit on your hands, keep waiting for something better.
If you're comparing option A and option B, and comes down to 48% A vs 52% B... if it's toilet paper or car insurance, fine, choose option B, but if it's moving countries buying a property or something, then the right answer is do nothing, keep waiting for option C, option D, etc to come along.
Sometimes it seems that the primary "benefit" / use case for AI is that people can use it, and if it outputs something useful then they look like they are AI early adopters, geniuses, etc, and if it outputs something dumb, then it's not their fault, it's the AI.
Either way, they get the upside, and apparently now it's your job to sort the AI slop from the reality, for some reason.
A few times, I have pointed out to people that their AI slop is wrong, and they said "yeah, it's wrong sometimes, but humans are also wrong sometimes, so it's no better/worse". It's the same logic as self-driving cars that kill people being fine, because after human-driven cars also kill people. It's true, but that's a _problem_....
Everyone just wants do to what they're very good at. Sometimes, it turns out nobody wants to pay you for that though, so they make the decision to do something else instead that pays better, so they can live somewhere nice, and eat.
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