Leaving the perfect job
Trigger Warning: this post may be distressing to readers as it mentions the following topics: job market, AI
I've been looking for a new job, because the situation has been daunting here. From an external point of view, I shouldn't. I have the perfect situation, with decent pay, accommodation for my disability (i mean, they don't know i 'm disabled so i built them myself: remote work, less hours and text based communication first). But it has become a terrifying shit show. The-technology-I-shall-not-name-but-you-get-it is everywhere. It's pushed from all sides. We should praise it. It's shit. My colleagues put crap in production, don't look twice about it, but it's full of bugs. Oh, and they don't ask for review anymore. What's review worth, when they already reviewed the statistically correct produce of the machine?
I put boundaries early. Said "nope, won't use this". Gave corporate appropriate excuses—because ethics don't matter to corporate, never. It's painful. My manager spent 4 hours trying to persuade me. I'm glad i'm his elephant in the room. But being this pachyderm means he doesn't support me at all. My voice isn't heard. My concerns, brushed off. The shiny tool is the best and is perfect in all points. Mistakes? Oh, that's just because you didn't know how to use it. That's because Ⓑ is refining his workflow. But you know, Ⓑ is so fast thanks to it, you should be as fast. I say it's fast to produce mess. I get blamed for being "too harsh". Ⓑ is better paid than me and at a higher level (he got a raise this year thanks to all his initiative around it). He should do better than me. In theory. Ⓑ gets paradoxically very personally affected when i do constructive criticism of the Slop. And that's the worst thing about it: the humans have gone properly insane.
It's exhausting and frustrating and every day is a new surprise about how I'll have to fix my colleagues mess. Not because they were junior, or particularly bad at their job. But because they now let a construct do it for them, and never look back.
Now, I've been trying to find another place. I don't want to stay in a company with terrible managing practices and I'd like a better team. Also maybe not being the only woman in the room (if you know, you know). I'm aiming at 2 maybe 3 different line of work. But I cannot find anything. It has been 3 months, I applied only to two offers that seemed vaguely exciting. Got a rejection email (and that's okay). Now, looking at more job posts around my place, I'm wondering if I should stay in tech at all. All descriptions mention that I'm expected to be proficient in the Tool. I'm not even excited about the work. It lacks meaning. But I'm great at computering, I know that. I do want to work with a computer. But there seems to be no more room for me.
I'm glad that at least I got a job. Layoffs are frequent now, job market is more hellish every day, and when the bubble will pop (i cannot lose hope it will), it'll be even more worse.
Until them, I'm stuck and I hate it.