Reflecting on Career Choices and Happiness

It takes more than lobbying to add salmon mode in addition to dark and light modes to your favorite product. To be a great software engineer, this is episode 5 10 of the soft skills Engineering Podcast, where I'm your host, Jameis and Dance. I'm your host, Dave Smith. Soft Skills Engineering is a weekly advice show about all the non-technical things that go into the technical field of software development, like figuring out if they mean the color salmon or some kind of fish based persona ? What if a fish were to use this text editor? How would it express its intent? Have you seen the webcomic where there's a salmon fish talking to a human and the human goes, Hey, fun fact, we have a color named after you and the fish is like, Oh really? It's called salmon? And the human's like, yeah. And the fish goes, It's gray, right? Yeah. And the humans like sweating. Uh not exactly . It's gray, right? I learned that sometimes they dye salmon to make it more pink and that made me sad. Oh but I still eat it. This is not you know, we're not about the technical side and we're also not about salmon. Dave, do you wanna thank our patrons? Yeah yes, I do. Okay, big shout out to those that are contributing at the level where we read their profile name from Patreon every week. They are Angel Will Not. Please stop asking. Quote twenty two close quote not equal to quote twenty two quote. I got rich and bought the yacht back . Error your will angel name variant must contain at least one uppercase letter, one number, and one special character. No one knows my real name is Seth Angel . That's a double L at the end there. I thought this was a funny name, but you didn't feel self-conscious. Will Angel, if you can hear me, please save us. Ha ha ha I want to put no carrier on my tombstone, but if I live long enough, no one will get the joke. Wait, I don't get the joke. Oh crap, you're too young. I'm gonna say this person is between forty and fifty. Is this a modem thing? It is a modem thing, but it was uh big on slashd ot comments back in the day where you were pretending like the the government like cut you off, like mid comment, it would just go to no carrier. Okay . Huh. Anyway. Uh my actual name on LinkedIn is Yami Debugging in the Dark Canny, the mobile development ordinaire, first of his name. Oh boy. Name his of first ordinaire development mobile, the canny dark, the inn debugging Yummy, Jacob Chandling . I love how Jacob Chandling misspelled Yummy because no one knows how these things are actually spelled. Only we see them. Yes, that is our privilege. Okay, here comes uh another one that's I'm just so thankful for these horrible Is this an anagram you think? I don't know. I'm gonna put it into Google Translate. Okay. Kval uti Oferquan turti, or as my mother used to say, Fitha Klitha, who's Nitha Google Translate is unhelpful about detecting this language. Huh. I'm gonna ask a large language model. Have you heard about these? Yeah. Tell me how it does. I hear you're annihilating water by doing this. It will no longer exist. Deleting water. Yeah. Oh, this is a r a phonetic rendering of a common phrase, likely spoken with a very thick stylized accent, think heavy Brooklyn Old World or of specific family joke. Here's the translation of what you've got there. Quality over quantity, or as my mother used to say, first, second, who's next? Huh. I think this is not right. Well, rest in peace, the rainforest. All right. Uh let's continue reading this. The missing silicone sem semi the missing semicolon. Uh drone angel works at will deploy. Oh, the just the word help. That is literally a cry for help. And then there's plain old Nick Molyneux. The guy doesn't change his name, but he is hiring. Ha ha ha embedded engineer street assembly the same way TypeScript engineer street JavaScript. Javier Gonzalez Chewy t chewy landed his first engineering role. Thanks, SS Hart . Yes. Oh, nice. Congratulations, Chewy. Ted Timbrell. Everyone wants to know Will Angel, but nobody asks how is Angel. A crying emoji phase. A literal open parent. Dan from drone deploy. Never is not just a creator or martial mingo emoji. I like chicken I like liver. Meowmix, meowmix. Please hit over SysPython Summit on the 22nd and 23rd of October 2026. Kyle Boss Kent C Dodd slowing down. Jenny Kim, the stochastic parrot, Will Angel is the crab of Patreon names with a beautiful crab ASCII art. Nice job, Will Angel. Irachan, Jonathan Kings, and I, beautiful functional user documentation. If I were Angel, I wouldn't . Vote . William Angel.net. Ignore the smell. Let's see what we're voting for today. Oh, it's beautiful. Just beautiful. Thank you. Okay Dave the perfume tycoon. Dave smells. Nice . Adding inside jokes to your agents. Braden Keynes, John Grant, Brittany Brittany Ellick Slash New castle's best dev conference, May twenty seven, twenty-eight, and closed parenthesis followed by a literal closing paren . Oh my goodness, thank you so much to everyone who contributes on Patreon. If you would like to have us read your Patreon profile name on the air every week, go to soft skills.audio and click the support us on Patreon button and contribute at the exorbitant level and we will say whatever your profile name is as long as it's safe for work and won't get us canceled . And uh if you contribute any amount, we'll send you a Slack invitation to join our Slack community uh around the first week of every month. So unless you ask nicely on our Patreon page, which a lot of you have, and I we we just we love giving those invites out, so thank you. Dave is nice. I rule with an iron fist,. No no you must wait. Yeah. It it tastes better if you wait, is what Jameson thinks. Yeah. Like salmon. All right. We've made them wait long enough. Should I read our first question? Go for it. This is from an anonymous listener who says I work at a large remote company. We meet up once or twice a year. I don't really know much about my engineering coworkers, aside from the five people on my team, so the in-person meetups seem like a good place for me to get to know people from the other teams. I am a career switcher and cur Ir'entlym a mid-level IC borderline junior in my late 30s and have a youthful appearance. Oh, lucky you look at look at you bragging . I'm also in my late 30s. I do not have a youthful appearance. At these meetups, my position and appearance, and honestly possibly my demeanor, make me feel like I am expected to socialize with other ICs in their twenties. Although they are nice people, I find it hard to relate to them when talking about non work related topics since I am much older and in a different stage of life, married with a mortgage and kids. Oh yeah. I want to socialize with coworkers closer to my age and stage in life, but most of them are team leads or managers. Also heard that once someone is a manager, it is very hard for them to befriend ICs because they are now their boss. True. But they mostly befriend other managers. My previous career had little management or corporate politics type stuff, so I don't know if this is true. Would I be hurting myself by doing this? Am I overthinking this? Would I be fine socializing with whomever I want? Do you have any words or advice regarding my situation? Thanks. Oh boy. I had the same problem, except I was actually in my twenties. Oh, like you were in your twenties but you uh you got married young. Married young, had a mortgage and kids, and uh you were spiritually old. Yes, I was like old on the inside. That's what I mean when they say you're an old soul, right? It means you work a corporate job with uh a mortgage and kids very young. I'm pretty sure. And hang out with whippersnappers. Yeah. What did you do? I don't remember. That was a long time ago. I don't think I thought this hard about this problem . Yeah. I think it's fine. I mean socializing would be seen as brown nosing. I don't think it would be, not if you're not brown nosing. I've heard once someone is a manager hard for them to be friend ICs. I've heard people espouse that sentiment, but uh people are friendly at meetups, and that's part of the point is to get to know each other a little bit more. So it's it's possible you might not develop long-lasting friendships that continue outside of the meetup with managers if they're trying to keep a little bit of distance. But if they're not your manager, then that kind of goes away a little bit. And it wouldn't hurt. I don't know. I think it's nice to know the people you work with, whatever level they're at. I agree. And it's only once or twice a year. So like what are you worried about? Yeah, even if you are brown nosing, how uh like I don't know, you can't do that much damage, surely. You're like challenge accepted. Yeah . They have an open bar at my meetup. You would be shocked at how much damage I could do. I think what's happening under the hood here, under the psychological hood and, we'll just we'll just put on our space psychiatrist uniform here. Let me just suit up. Yeah. Into my I'll just zip that right up. Drop the visor. Psss. Yeah. All the way. The zipper goes right up the front all the way. What if we had a big mecca montage of like like you're stepping into that's the actual suit. Oh that would be so great. That'd be cool. Yeah. I mean we do have that obviously. Yeah, yeah. O cofurse. What if we showed people the mecha montage that we have been sitting on this whole exactly I don't know why we've never recorded it. Yeah. It sounds really cool and this is an audio only podcast, so you just take our word for it, it looks really cool too. Anyway, I I think under the hood, space psychology mode engaged here. You are in your thirties. You are a career switcher. You are junior. It says borderline junior, which is I'm gonna say rounds to junior and you are nervous in this new world and you know every every career has its own little culture and I think you're feeling skittish and nervous that you're gonna screw this up, especially given that you've already switched careers once and you know how painful it is to do that. And you're just probably overly nervous about screwing this up. Yeah, I think the stakes aren't that high as long as you're kind of within the bell curve of reasonable human behavior. Yeah . Somebody's gotta push those ends out though. So I think there's a tendency sometimes at these meetups, especially if you're shy, to just stick with the people you work with. And it is nice, especially if you all work remote, to see the people you work with every day in person . But I think you would not look out of place. I I imagine a bunch of people will be bouncing around and meeting other people on other teams and socializing and yeah. Part of the point is interact with people in other contexts and other ways. So I I think this is fine. I think it's fine too. I don't think anyone on your team would think it was snooty. Yeah. And then uh on the direction of hanging out with the younger ones, you know, I think the immediately jumps to my mind the meme, which came from a show that's actually getting quite old now, the thirty rock show, where one of the characters hires a private investigator. Yeah, the how do you do fellow kids one how do you do fellow kids? Yeah. And he's wearing his hat backwards and he has a t-shirt that says music band on it . And he's carrying a skateboard over his shoulder. Yeah. I mean I think as long as you stay away from that kind of caricature of youth where you're like trying to be like the twenty somethings and hang with them. I think that's one possible hazard is just be who you are. You know, you might and you might even be surprised. No, I I know you're you're thinking maybe I just don't like hanging out with the the young ones, even though their career experience more aligns with yours and it's hard to relate with them. I get it. But you know what? These people probably love hanging out with you because you're d you've been down the road a little further and you've seen what's up ahead and I think people are deep and rich and meetups are one way to experience some of that richness. Yeah. Not everyone shows it off in those contexts, but yeah, I agree. You might be surprised. Yeah, so I'd say don't avoid the young people, even though they might not be your favorite, it might be a little annoying. I it's so funny. Like I say annoying because I have teenagers in my house right now, and they are so so annoyed by kids who are literally one year younger than them. Yeah. And they're like, oh, they're so annoying. And I'm like, listen, as far as I'm concerned, that was you yesterday. Like I can barely tell the difference between you and the next year down. Interestingly, they're also so annoyed by people older than that. That's right. And this-oh, by the way, today, let's just take a moment and do the Gen Z uh slang sidebar of the day. Okay. New word making the rounds among the Gen Z for old. Have you heard this? Is it unk? Yeah. Yeah. It's one of my favorites. Yeah, I'm in touch. I love the unk. Yeah. You're so unk anyway. So anyway, b back to the question. Yeah, so uh I I totally agree with Jameson. Hanging out with managers will not be considered brown nosing. It's fine. And I in fact I think the people who organize these meetups, which are probably quite expensive to put together. I mean you're flying people in, you're putting 'em in hotels. The last thing that the organizers would want is for you to artificially limit the people you connect with in person because quote, I don't want to look like a brown noser. Yeah, I agree. I think if people are genuinely worried about that or observing it, it is something off in in the culture. Yeah. I guess. I would make sure I'm not literally spending all of my time, just like you don't want to spend all of your time with any any group at this meetup, but don't don't just kind of glom onto this group of all managers and you because I think there are are likely times where they'll want to just sort of talk shop and yeah. That gets harder to do if you're talking about managery things. Like if they go into a room that's full of smoke and says managers only on the door, just let 'em go. You don't need to follow him. Yeah. Yeah. That sign won't stop me because I can't read. So there's a couple yes or no questions at the end of this. Am I overthinking this? Yes. Would I be fine socializing with whomever I want? Yes. And do you have any words of advice regarding my situation? No. No. That was easy. We could have saved a lot of time today. We just stuck to the script. Yep. All right, Dave. You want to read our next one? You bet. This is a this uh this must be an anonymous listener. Let's just double check. Yeah, this is uh an anonymous listener. Man, one of these days we're gonna screw that up and we're gonna We're gonna dox somebody. We're gonna reveal the social social security number. Yeah. We should take social security number out of the field out of the form, probably. I just keep thinking it'll be helpful one day. It hasn't been yet, but take a photo of your passport and put it in the Yeah. Just kidding, we don't collect any we don't require any identifying information, so give us your PII at your own risk. Alright. This comes from an anonymous listener, truly anonymous, who says Hi David Jameson, before you tell me to quit my job, hear me out. You know someone's been listening for a while when they say that, and and you know what? We appreciate it. Thank you for sticking with us. That's right. I have worked in technology for thirty years. I've been at the same company for the past twenty years, but I've changed roles many times to keep work interesting. I've enjoyed learning new technologies while working in development, architecture, system administration, management, vendor relations, and more. This has been very beneficial to my career and I appreciate all the opportunities to grow. I've earned a good reputation and I am well respected by my peers. I've proven my worth to leadership many times over the m over by reducing expenses by many millions and creating innovative solutions to improve efficien generally not incorrect . Continuing. I've never appreciated this industry's business practices, but I've had to make a living over the years, so here I am. I am finally at my breaking point. And I'm absolutely fed up with how employees, customers, and communities are treated by my industry. I'm gonna just interject. So am I. You have that in common. Okay. Continuing. Because of this, I just cannot find value in my work. I've been beaten down over the years and I'm tired of being exploited by management. I no longer volunteer to take on big projects, and instead of being someone who outshines others, I have decided to settle for mediocrity. I'm planning to retire in a few years and honestly don't have the energy or desire to search for another potentially more meaningful industry to work in, especially in the current job market. I genuinely care about many of the people I work with. Very few of them are in it to climb the corporate ladder. Most are just trying to earn enough money to pay the mortgage, feed their children, care for ag ing parents, and hope to have enough left over for their own retirement. How do I not leave a wake of malaise for my peers when I leave, but also not help feed the beast until then. Whew. That is a somber question, my friend. Yeah, that is fascinating. Honestly, I I'm getting the feels a little bit on this one. What do you mean? Like you can you can you can squint and see a similar thing for you in the future? Oh Oh wow no I I feel really sad I don't know how to say this. You know it's funny. We've been doing the show for 10 years and what that means is that the emotional sensitivity as we age, you get to see that in me by jumping from episode one to episode five hundred and ten. I tear up a little, just a little, when I hear about the predicament this person is in. You know, you've you've put so much work in for so many years and this corporate machine, this this whole industry is just a freaking dumpster fire. It's terrible. And you're like, I want to live my life and do something meaningful and wonderful , but I am I feel tied down to this thing. Yeah. And I probably given the time frame here, probably there's a pension on the line is my guess. So you know, leaving now would be like could be financially devastating. I mean talk about Stockholm syndrome. Whew. Anyway. Yeah. Just behold into this machine. Sad. Okay, that makes sense. I do not mean to insult your age . No, honestly, you know what? I I think I was a little defensive when I said no, I wasn't thinking about myself, but I can I can definitely see it. Like in a you know, fast forward a few years and this this could be me. And I'm like, what do I do? Do I just kind of fake it till I make it? I I also recently had a friend who told me he's a little older than me, but he basically said, like, I cannot wait to get out of this rat race. And he he works in tech and he's just so tired. Yeah. It's been so many years. He's just exhausted. It his personality's not super compatible with kind of like fast paced, you know, hype filled technology work. And yeah. And he's just he's exhausted. And I feel for him too. Whoo. Well, I have a bunch of thoughts about this. Yeah. One of them is I I worked at a company that has been called evil by some people and maybe justifiably. And I think I did I I mean wasn't there twenty years, but I did struggle with this vibe of like I care about the stuff I work on, I care about the people I work with. Mm-hmm. But I'm part of this gigantic machine that certainly has at least at least some negative externalities. Yeah. And at worst you could call like actively making people's lives worse. Somewhere on that spectrum. And and also doing a lot of good too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. At least that's what I told myself. Oh, for sure. I mean to feel better. I know the company you're talking about and and for sure it did. Yep. For sure it does a lot of good. No, I I really mean it. Yeah, yeah. You think about the the kind of work it takes to deliver what they do and make that all work? Man, it's incredible. It's needed. Yeah, but it is a bit yeah, there's a there's a dissonance there of like, well I'll I'll be letting these people down. Yeah, oh yeah. But also be vaguely in some way sticking it to the man if I quit or or I don't know, sabotage them like office space style. But also they will never notice 'cause they're so gigantic and I'm s this tiny little speck and listen, they they have designed this whole system to prevent you doing any damage to it. Yeah. And if you accidentally get some stuff done, great. Yeah. The immune systems in these organizations that have survived this long and are thriving in the world are incredibly strong against pathogens that might want to do them harm. Yeah. I was sad at times when I worked there. I don't think I deliberately said, I'm just gonna not do any work. I think I was at times depressed and not effective at work. Sure. But I believe that if I had said actually I have very strong evidence based on reports I've heard from other people about things they've observed that I could just like not go to work for many months and still have a job. Yeah. So the good news is if you want to slack off and not get fired, there's a lot of room to hide in these giant megacorpse. Oh. This is not good news to my ears . That feels so bad. And I don't mean I don't mean it feels bad because you're taking money and not working for it. I just mean the soul destroying sad ness of just milking a paycheck out of the system over the long term is just oh my heart sinks. Yeah we we talked about it before, but I I do believe if I had done that, I would have been much more miserable at least if for no other reason than because of the fear of getting found out and the guilt. Like I work really hard at my job and I still have this irrational fear. Yeah. What if they find Yeah, yeah. It's your imposter syndrome. But if I had deliberately yeah been just not showing up or trying to do as little as possible, then I think that fear would crush me. Doesn't crush everybody though. Well the good news is it wouldn't it wouldn't be imposter syndrome though because you're like, No, I know I'm an imposter. It's not a syndrome. Yeah, that's true. Yeah it's a strategy. Yeah, maybe there'd be some comfort. I mean I have a playful idea to find some meaning in your last few years before you retire. Yeah. Hit me. Where you can at least convince yourself that you're doing some good for the people you really care about. And I I'm latching on here. You care about your f your co-workers. Let's see, what did he write? He or she um Anyway, people I work with. Okay, let's go with that. Yeah. Um, spend your last few years building a covert network of code that will cause playful inside jokes to appear for your coworkers and your customers after you leave. Oh, it's like do you remember that story of that guy that got fired and he left all these like backdoors and deleted a bunch of data and he went to prison for it. Yeah but do the playful version of that. Yeah it's like the benevolent version. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's like, hey, it's Bob. Hope you're having a great day. You know. I didn't delete our active directory. Yeah. Don't worry . You're like, I wasn't until you said that. And what if what if your face appears between transactions in people's checking accounts when they log into their bank? Ooh, that would bring me joy. You'd probably go to jail for that, right? Yeah, probably. What about like what if there's some inside jokes that you and your coworkers have and you've got some admin tools and you could go like s like steconographically insert these things so that after a certain date is triggered they get some really great little inside jokes that show up at the top of the screen. Yeah. I mean, I referenced office space earlier and don't like steal from the company and burn the building down like they do in that movie. But there is something to be said for deciding, you know, I don't really care about the kind of threats and the whip part of the motivation anymore and I'm just gonna try to have a good time. I think there's a lot of meaning to be found in whimsy and righteous mischief, I guess. I'll put it that way. Yeah. Yeah. At my last couple of weeks at this corporate job, I feel like I became a little bit giddy. Yeah. And I didn't pull any like pranks or anything, but it was so fun to show up to a meeting and have my like boss's boss's boss announce that they're leaving and then type good riddance in the chat, JK JK . Like like a thousand people in this Zoom meeting and You just didn't care, right? Yeah, I wasn't like malicious, but I'm like, this this will entertain me. So I think in your last few years you really do have to be careful to strike the right balance of investing your effort because if you do back off and go to mediocrity, yeah there's a chance you can string that along for a few years. But in today's climate, there's a really good chance that you will be laid off. And make no mistake, especially in this industry, I don't care if you have thirty years of service under your belt, or twenty years in this case. They will fire you tomorrow. Yeah, they have a lot of practice in yes. Loingok at situations and figuring out, wait, we can make this person mad and make money. Yeah. So don't think for a minute that they won't do that. I guess I'm just gonna say, like, let's disabuse everyone of any kind of notion that this mega health insurance finance company has any any degree of loyalty to you. They do not. And so know that, whatever you plan for the next few years, know that this company could exercise that option. And they will do so and to you it it's like a microsecond of consideration. That's what it'll feel like to you. And you are just you're out on the street. Yeah. So everything we say, I think you gotta remember that that is not only possible, but more likely than ever right now. And by the way, I was joking about putting your face in the checking account transactions because that'd be that would be really don't do that. I you think you really would you could actually go to jail for something like that in the finance like the finance industry has so heavily regulated that uh in space we send those people to jail. That's the space law. Jail is outside in in space. Yeah, we just we just open the door. It's pretty draconian. Yeah yeah. It's pretty rough. I mean l,isten, I uh the thought, you know, I was kinda tearing up a little earlier, sort of. The thought to me of just burning my last few years, trying to avoid attention, trying to do anything good, working for an industry I hate, is so painful for me to internalize that I think about the damage that will do to your psyche, the way you will feel, the way that it will trickle into your other relationships, that to me is a not a risk worth taking And then to think about the day after you retire. Like think about you sitting in your retirement party, everyone standing around you and clapping with a cake, and you're just like, I hate this place. You know? And that's what you're thinking, right? And like that's a terrible story. But going out and saying like I did my best to serve my coworkers, I did my best work here, I helped everyone I could, I left nothing on the table, I earned my wages and this company and my friends are better off because I was here. Like that's a totally different story than yes, I successfully distracted them from firing me for three years so that I could retire. Yeah. This is also like we've talked about this in the past when people are discussing leaving jobs not for retiring, but just going to another job. There is a certain amount of clarity and risk tolerance you get if there's a definitive end line or end date in your mind at least, um maybe you're more willing to I don't know, try this risky project that might blow up but might be fun or I don't know, push hard for some change. Although if you're really fed up that,'s probably gonna just burn you out. But yeah. You do have some freedom to do things you you have not done yet, knowing that there's a finish line. I don't know how you want to use that, but it's it's different than when you're just trying to climb the ladder or uh you probably don't care a ton about your performance review as long as it's not like you're getting fired, right? Right. Everything short of that is no problem. Yeah, and you you get to cut out a chunk of work that is useful when you do need to care about your performance review. Maybe that could be freeing. Yeah, I think so. Imagine trying to kick off some initiative that only you can do because you know this company inside and out, you have thirty years of tenure under your belt, you know what makes people tick, you know what's needed. Maybe you could do something really cool here. And who knows, maybe it'll be a big failure, but at least going out knowing you tried to do something big, that could be really cool. Yeah. I mean you probably have a bunch of connections across the orgs from working there and so much. Tell them they need to pivot and you'll be their director of Bitcoin strategy. Yeah. That's what you should do. What could go wrong? Quite a bit. It turns out. But I'm glad you took quit your job off the table. Yeah. I agree that it would be tough to find a uh in the in the tail end of your career kind of start over. And you you might want to try just actively looking around a little bit. It doesn't cost you anything. It is hard out there, I think, in general for the the labor market for engineers. But maybe you'll find something. But I wouldn't I think your path to a successful retirement is probably finding some some whimsy and playfulness at your current gig and focusing like Dave said on on the people around you. That's right. And making their lives better. Do great work not for the business, not for the bloodsuckers who would fire you in an instant , but for your coworkers, try to make their lives better. Try to inspire them. Look, this is an opportunity for you to provide mentorship like you've never done before. You know, you've got so many years, you've seen a lot of stuff. Share that wisdom with people. Make new personal connections. In fact, try maybe your goal should be connect with people so deeply that they want to stay connected with you after you retire. Yeah, I mean a lot of your work relationships are I always there's some people who are better at this than I am. I'm not as good at keeping in touch with people that I really enjoy working with after I don't work with them anymore. Yeah, me too. And we have these great friendships and part of it is forced proximity of well, you see them every y da, but there's something nice. But you you can try and shore those up and and build things that'll last after you aren't working with them anymore. And I gotta say, even though you said don't tell me to quit my job, I did this once. So I was working at a big company and I'd been there several years and I was making a lot of money. More than I've ever made before and since. But I had a lot of these same problems. Not I didn't have the like ethical concerns, thankfully, that y that this person had, but I felt like a cog in a machine, couldn't make any difference, couldn't really make an impact or do good. And it was so worth it to me to go to a place where I felt like I could contribute, make a difference, and actually do good that I took a enormous pay cut. It was actually more than fifty percent of my pay to leave that. And I was very nervous to do that. I think a lot of people are nervous to walk away from money. And a lot of times there's a good reason for that, right? Like I'm barely making paying my bills as is. Okay. If if that's the case, this is not for you. But if you have the wiggle room, it's really hard to put a price on feeling great about what you spend your waking hours doing. And I know a lot of people have said this, like this is like you know, the Ebenezer Scrooge story in a thousand variants out there is that there's more to life than just, you know, earning a wage. And it's true. It's actually true. And I put a lot of money where my mouth is on that one and I'm so glad that I did. And it wasn't a perfect path. Like when I left I I definitely made the a a bad choice in my first company. But man, I feel so much better now than I did during those last couple of years at that giant company. Yeah. I feel like my my whole soul was rejuvenated and back. Even my wife noticed, like, wow, you're you're just you're not super happy. And like I think it was starting to affect my family life and other relationships. So be mindful of that because there's really not a price where those things are worth selling out so that you can make it all the way to retirement or those so that you can have your wage paid out on time. Yeah. I'm gonna replay this episode in like thirty years. Yeah, exactly. So I should too. Uh that'd be funny. In thirty years I'll be clinging to my last job for the last few years . In my seventies. No, I I mean I it sounds wise and I agree and I I think I did something pretty similar of of taking a pay cut, leaving a big company feeling so much happier. But I can definitely see myself getting sucked back in again to really sucked into work. In fact, I do often get very sucked into work. And doesn't have to be at a big company. It turns out you could do that at small comp anies too. Yeah. But I appreciate the perspective. I guess I'll say it that way. That it might not matter. And thinking about retirement also puts that in a different perspective too of like, well I feel good about the choices that I am am making now. Yeah. Well, good luck. This is a great question. Thanks for asking it. It's making me think. Yeah, it is a good one. It's a serious one. Yeah. It's an important one. Let us know if you need f fun joking ideas of what to do if you if you stay. Yeah we're we're here for it. Tell us what happened too. I want to I want to hear what you decide. I agree. I'd love to hear it. All right. What can people do if they want their own questions answered. Go to soft skills.audio and click the ask a question button where you can fill out our form. Don't worry. No social security card required, nor passport, nor any other identifying information. And uh thank you so much to everyone who fills that out each week. We really appreciate these questions that come in. They just flow, just a steady, nice flow, so many of them. We read them. I I print them out and I uh read them before I go to bed. I read them to my kids as bedtime stories. They love it. I'm interested to know if my kids will ever listen to this. They're too young to care now, but maybe there's a future forty years from now where they they go and peruse the backlog and say, Oh maybe. Maybe turns out he wasn't lame. Or oh he was just as lame as as we thought. Yeah. Even lamer. Yeah.. All right Thank you for listening. We will catch you next week.