>>22Being fired as a part of a bigger layoff doesn't look that bad in the papers. Things like that get some publicity as well, if it's a big layoff in some recognizable IT company (e.g. Mozilla, speaking of recent situations), odds are the people laid off will be getting back on their feet fast.
Things look way different if you're the only person to get fired, as I don't think that happens often.
I'm glad your to hear your layoff didn't affect you that much.
I just worry that you end up spending a lot of energy worrying about what your next gig is going to be in your off time if you don't set it up right. The other worry is being the sort of person it takes to deliver a product in the kind of timespans and constraints contractors like that work on, it'd be so nice, but I just don't know if I'm that kind of person after the jobs I've worked.
Sounds like this line of work when you just keep getting contracted sounds a little stressful. You have to have a lot of confidence for sure, both to convince yourself you'll be able to keep getting the gigs to do since you're good enough for that, and also the confidence required to convince yourself and the client you'll deliver on time.
I'm glad that you were able to take off some of that stress, I totally feel the same way about how much effort it is just to get going with work, especially when everyone wants to take up time with meetings.. Time is going way too fast lately, especially when everything seems like its the same.
Oh man, the meetings. There's so much overhead these days I really feel like I work for 2 hours a day maybe. There isn't that much stress, but time passes in a blur. I blinked, and I'm both halfway through the month and the current week without achieving *anything*.
I was planning to do something in my spare time to learn some new tech and get hired somewhere else, but I'm way too burned out for that it seems.
I feel like I need like a month of vacation where I'd be doing nothing, then at least a month to find my love for programming again.
I could even afford that, since I've got enough savings, but it sounds pretty crazy...
>>21I can't see Kotlin going away anytime soon since there's a big market for phone apps.
I can't see Golang going away either, it fits a specific niche.
If anything, Elixir doesn't look like it's used much. I know it's used as the backend for Discord, but apart from that...