Do most HN readers enjoy their jobs?

I have been working at a newspaper for the past 8 years (I'm 27). At first I loved my job, it was all new to me. I started off as a graphic artist building print ads for local businesses, I then moved departments to IT/WEB where I've been for the past 5 years. My job description has been butchered over and over due to people being laid off.

I now build web ads (banners), maintain 5 newspaper sites, provide tech support to 3 offices, book online ads, run Advertiser Reports, run page view reports, move furniture, work on door locks, etc...

I have grown to hate my job. No one in my office can program other than myself, which sucks. I have no one to bounce ideas off of, too busy for side projects. The pay is shit, the people are nice. The publisher is clueless and is not held accountable by our parent company, but then again the newspaper industry as a whole is clueless.

My skills have not improved much, but I've learned a little bit of everything. Some people take the phrase "Jack of all trades, master of none" as a compliment, I'm starting to take it as an insult. I am OK at a lot of stuff, but not great at anything.

I've tried getting out but my location does not help me much.

I would love to have job satisfaction and not have to worry about money so much.

Find a job that you love.

Just to add my two cents :

- If you like switching context, consider finding a small company. You'll have to do way more stuff and get out of your comfort zone more often.

- I think it is normal to prefer side-projects than daily job. Simply because spending 60 hours a week on the same thing makes it less sexy (even though it can be really cool).

- If your collegues don't care about good practise, then put them up by yourself. Force things to change. You'll become more experienced and will develop new skills (mostly human related though).

- I never spend a day without thinking that I suck at my job. Use it as a strength, read books and code to get better.

This is 2013 : Change job if you think the grass is greener somewhere else ! Just keep good relations with your old collegues even though you didn't enjoy them :)

I graduated late 2010, if you want to have a chat about experience, feel free to PM :).

Surely I don't have as much industry coding experience as many people around here, but during and for a while after my undergraduate education I worked a couple different programming positions - mostly web development.

What I saw was stark difference between the environments not from the type of work, but simply the people and the general attitude of the administration. One job was a very small web dev startup and it was a fantastic experience. I worked there for about two and half years, getting more solid in both server and client-side programming. Of course after the first six months, I hit the so-called intellectual wall, but I was lucky enough that I was allowed to work on internal R&D with one of the other programmers. That was probably where I had the most fun at that particular job.

Another job I had, though, was quite similar to what you describe. I was consulting for a company who had a couple of their own programmers who refused to learn anything, just coded like monkeys locked in a cage and the people in charge didn't care because they really couldn't tell the difference.

My suggestion would be that it's not typical to find poeple that dissatisfied in a place like this, where startup job postings are everywhere and we obviously have enough time and energy to keep up with all the posts :D

If you aren't terribly concerned about lots of cash, check out a university and find a startup or two. They are using fast-moving and energetic. Once they get the tech base going, they'll definitely bring in more and you can make sure to keep the vibe going, etc.

If changing jobs isn't possible, I'd say find some user a user group - I hear about a lot in London - and network with them. It can help just to have some facetime with others who share your passions.

Good Luck!

Between high school and my early college days, I must have held at least three dozen jobs. Some lasted no more than a week or two (in one instance I think it was two days) and at most never more than six months. In hindsight I think I made a pretty shitty employee and was never satisfied. As such, I always ended up doing my own business and for roughly a decade now, haven't had to work for others (including stuff like never have done consulting work). I just can't seem to fit in but I chalk that up to my own fault for not being motivated to do better at finding the right fit early on. However things still worked out for the best.

If it was fantastic fun, they wouldn't need to pay people to do it :-)

From 15+ years working in IT in Investment Banks, I would say that the culture and ethos varies greatly from team to team, even inside the same bank.

If you don't like the team you're in, try networking internally to see what other opportunities there are. Also, if you get the team to adopt some best practises, then you get something good to talk about at appraisal and bonus time.

Working in the financial industry as a developer is terrible. The stars are the investors/bankers, not the developers. IT projects are all subject to federal control/regulation. Do you know why you hate your project managers? It's because they run projects in a way to make them accountable to federal audit. Know why you hate your ancient/odd systems? Any new technology must be proven to the feds to be safe for users.

Stay out of finance. Prefer working for software companies. They understand how to build software which will make you happy. Many on this site will push you toward startups. Personally, startups bring their own bag of problems. So do big comapnies, granted. At least at the large companies you (generally) get better pay and less working hours. Startups leave little room for personality differences (nowhere to run) or advancement. Regardless, the source of you pain is the finance/banking industry. Steer clear. In addition, a lot of people will be prejudiced against you with IT finance experience.

I've worked at a global investment bank in the past and have a somewhat different view. We had control over what language/tools to use per project (as much freedom as any startup) and it was definitely not subject to fed regulation. During my time there I was frequently contacted by recruiters from great tech firms such as google. Any company that knows how to recruit will look at what you've learned and what you've accomplished and not prejudice you simply for having worked at a financial firm.

If you feel you're not progressing as much skill-wise (which can happen at any job/industry), you can try to move to a different team within the company as many people do. The important thing is to keep learning so you can find things you are interested in.

Try contracting for awhile, do a few six or twelve month contracts. Get as much variation in type of work as you can find, to your taste.