What was your darkest hour like?

18 points by bjm 16 years ago | 27 comments

I've been a freelancer for, like, 5 years. And during that time, I've always dreamed about starting my own "web 2.0" thing (that's what got me here in the first place). However, lately, things are going in a totally different direction. The business is slow, I'm out of cash and I'm considering getting a job. I've hoped that day will never come, but right now, I have my email client open (actually it's another Firefox tab :) with what should become a job application. Still I just can't seem to be able to do it yet.

Have you ever been in a situation like "thank god I didn't get a day job back then"? If so, how did you manage to get back on track? Is there a silver bullet?

caffeine 16 years ago |

My darkest hour certainly had nothing to do with job woes.

No offense, but if this is your darkest hour, you need to be living a much wider spectrum of human experience!

bjm 16 years ago | |

No offense taken, my fail, I should have explicitly said "the darkest hour in my professional life".

carbon8 16 years ago | |

"No offense, but if this is your darkest hour, you need to be living a much wider spectrum of human experience!"

I'd say that about someone who would make a comment like this. Things that are unbelievably difficult for one person can be easy for the next, and vice versa.

holaberlin 16 years ago | |

That's a cheap shot although you made me laugh. But let's for a moment assume that one person's walk in the woods can be another person's nightmare. (Especially if they're really dark, creepy woods - but I digress).

Job hunting is stressful even at the best of times. And this is certainly not the best of times. On top of that, you are considering a possibly necessary major shift in direction in your career and lifestyle so that adds to the stress of this. The process of searching for a job has a bearing on so many aspects of who we are that some people can be so paralyzed by the thought of it that they will stay in the same job for years to avoid searching for a new job (points finger at self). I sympathize with your situation. Getting support from those close to you as well as trying to participate in enjoyable activities that help you to maintain your sanity are likely to help you get through this without feeling too overwhelmed. Whatever direction you choose, when you emerge at the other end of the tunnel you are likely to wonder what you were so worried about. Best of luck.

rgrieselhuber 16 years ago | | |

It didn't come across to me as a cheap shot - I think it's literally true. Stuff that would have been extremely discouraging to me 5-10 years ago simply bounces right off me now. Based on this, I know that stuff I worry about right now isn't going to seem like a big deal as I get older. The best technique I know for making this process work is to continually do new things and challenge myself. Some of it may be painful at the time, but once you've come through it, you'll be surprised at the confidence you gain.

The only thing I know of that works against this process is sliding back into the "safe" realm in order to avoid having to deal with the problem at hand. This becomes a repeating pattern and you end up being much less capable of achieving challenging things.

It sounds to me like the problem is less one of motivation and more of vision. What is it exactly that you want to do? If you need to answer that question, I recommend changing contexts dramatically. Go travel for awhile, try moving to a new town, etc. Once you know what you want, little things like money and wondering how you're going to survive matter surprisingly less than you think they would.

iamelgringo 16 years ago |

My darkest hour was moving from Chicago to Rhode Island with my credit cards maxed out, collections people calling all the time, and desperately needing a change in my life. We had $50 bucks to our name, and it had to last us two weeks until I got my first pay check.

So, we arrived in Rhode Island on Thursday, my new job started on Monday. Tuesday, the union I'd just joined voted to strike, and by Friday I had a pink slip and lost the job that I'd moved 1000 miles for.

I smelled the pink slip coming the day I started the job, so I was hustling to find a new gig, any gig I could get my hands on.

I was actually able to scare up a job the following week. I was making twice as much money as the job I'd moved for, and for a much better company. It was a miserable couple of weeks, though. We survived on a package of spaghetti someone had sent us for a house warming gift.

We did the check cashing service because we couldn't open a bank account. We had to borrow money to pay rent. But, it worked out.

When the chips are down, you do what you have to do. If you're just not willing to get a 9-5, things probably aren't that bad for you yet. When things are bad enough, you'll do what you have to do to pay the bills. You won't have any choice.

Also, you never know what direction unexpected decisions may take you. Things may well work out better than you expected at a 9-5.

pj 16 years ago |

Keep your head up. There are lots of dark hours when you pour your everything into something. It's true of girl/boyfriends. It's true of jobs. It's true of your family.

Business is slow for everyone. It's is a dark hour for the world. As a nation, we have lost courage. Don't lose yours.

If you run out of cash, it's okay. Lot's of companies run out of cash. How many banks are closing right now? How many companies are bankrupt? How many companies are unable to pay their employees? Be glad you are not in debt. You are ahead of many. You are out of cash. Many are out of cash and credit.

It's okay to go back to work. It is okay to build a cv and send it out. Take the time to find a good company where you can learn and bring the skills back to your business. You can keep running it while you work. It isn't going away. Longevity has value. How many companies stuck it out through the last dot-bomb?

Learn from any mistakes you have made that brought you to this dark hour. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. There are many tunnels.

Keep your head up. Be proud of how far you have come. Many don't even begin the journey. Life is long. You will have many failures enroute to your final destination.

akamaka 16 years ago |

There's a lot of comments here saying that you need to "get some perspective", but I recently got into the exact same situation, and have had some of the most terrible months of my life.

Before this year, I had never been turned down for any job I interviewed for. Now, I'm getting rejection after rejection, and it's shattered the confidence that I could apply my skills to benefit society, and generally made me feel worthless. The thought of being broke doesn't keep me awake at night, but thinking that I might be useless does.

It was painful having to send out my first job application (because I'd gotten every other job through my network), and my confidence was so low that I applied for jobs that were way below my skill level. Not getting them made me feel even worse, and I quickly got into a downward cycle.

After a couple of months, though, my initial panic started easing, and I've had a chance to get a better perspective on work and life. I've found that I can stretch out my money a lot farther than I imagined. People are a lot more willing to help me out than I thought. Instead of using the downtime to worry, I can spend it learning new things. And, most importantly, I've learned that it will take patience to wait for the really worthwhile opportunities.

bjm 16 years ago | |

Yeah, my situation is exactly like this. I guess I relied on my network too heavily. Now I'm just about to start applying for jobs way below (what I thought to be) my level. That's really confidence-shattering. I hope everything's going to be OK for both of us :)

menloparkbum 16 years ago |

If you're truly out of money, it will soon change from "thank god I didn't get a day job" to "thank god someone gave me a day job."

bjm 16 years ago | |

lol, that may turn out to be very true :)

mannicken 16 years ago |

It's probably when I lived with my parents when I was four in Ukraine. My father's salary was delayed by months, I don't think my mother worked, we were poor and I was ALWAYS hungry.

One of the brightest moments of my life was when my uncle brought us two big sticks of sausage. The smell of sausage, how it combines meat, onions, some kind of sauce and a bunch of other ingredients.. sausage still rocks.

Another turning point was when I was a bit older (six?) and my mother gave me chicken soup. The problem was that I ate too fucking much of it and for probably the first time in my life that I can remember my mother said: Stop, that's too much soup, you'll feel sick, little guy. I was really surprised -- how could anyone ever eat too much? Is that humanly possible? Soon after that, our finances were going upward and I began to battle another problem: obesity.

And of course, I still have some food disorders, even ten years later :)

noodle 16 years ago |

if your darkest hour is going from your ideal work situation to working a 9-5, you might need some perspective.

endless_steve 16 years ago | |

That's exactly what he asked for.

brc 16 years ago |

"Tough people last but tough times don't"

If you have to get a job to pay the bills, do so. See it as a detour to your dreams, rather than a permanent change in direction. You can always quit and start your business again. Maybe you'll meet a co-founder at your new job.

I've had several dark hours. At the time they seem like the end of everything. It's just your dreams dying that make you sad. You can have new dreams, where everthing is shinier and better. Dreams are the most renewable resource.

ryanwaggoner 16 years ago |

Go read "How to Get Rich" by Felix Dennis. Despite the rather crass title, there's a lot of great entrepreneurial nuggets in there, including one of my favorite stories of all time, where he's burning furniture for heat in his dilapidated apartment in the back of a sweatshop, trying to get his publishing company going. His girlfriend tries to get him to take one of the job offers on the table, and he almost relents because he knows that she'll leave if he doesn't. He doesn't, she does, and eventually he succeeds.

If you want to start a company, don't take a job, and don't continue doing freelance. Just start something. Here's a fantastic comment by pj on the subject:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=625644

Just keep walking.

randallsquared 16 years ago | |

On the other hand, once you start digging a hole, you have that much farther to go to get on top. I dug my hole deeper for about 5 years, and while I'm still not sure I had a better option at the time, I sure am glad that I can fill in that hole with a regular job/contract for a while.

compay 16 years ago |

I was in a similar situation in 2000 and ended up in a job I really enjoyed for 2 years. It was at a startup with a cool boss who let me more or less make my own hours as long as I was getting the company work done. I'm still good friends with some of the people I worked with then, and the experience I gained helped me out a lot in my career.

When I left the job, it was to get back into running my own small company, and have been self-employed ever since.

I obviously don't know all the details of your situation but maybe you'll be lucky like I was and be able to turn this into an opportunity.

waivej 16 years ago |

It took 5 years before my start-up started paying off the debt I had accumulated.

There were a couple of "dark" times where I decided to give up and get a job. But I messed up the interview each time. It's like my heart knew it wasn't right and I bombed. Maybe it gave me clarity about what I needed to be doing.

When you're stuck, it's hard to guess if a change is right. Though, if you start down a path, it might be easier to know if you are going in the right direction.

cellis 16 years ago |

I have had MANY hours that were far darker than having to look for a job. Please don't whine about your darkest hour/ struggle unless you have lived through a war, famine, or disease, as I can assure you everyone here has had the same or close to the same problem you have now.

bjm 16 years ago | |

I know many people here had the same problem. I just wanted to know what they did and what happened next.

(OK, I whined a little bit as well :)

vonsydov 16 years ago |

What's wrong with getting a job ? As far as I am concerned..one doesn't get any extra points for being self employed. Often times you need to work in teams to get stuff done especially in a startup. I'd rather be impressed by one's work and creativity than by his ego :)

bjm 16 years ago | |

I've rarely had any problems working on (competent) teams (on the contrary, it's nothing but a pleasure), it's almost always "the man" who is the problem :)

Do you have a job yourself? :)

vishaldpatel 16 years ago | |

Nothing, as long as it satisfies you.

gregking 16 years ago |

Getting pulled out of school in 3rd grade with mom who had mental illness, driving down to florida, living in car for 1 month, utilizing hotel showers because workers felt sorry for u, moving into an all womans homeless shelter for 3 months. -- Starving for a week after my dad went on a hooker/crack binge.

wlievens 16 years ago | |

Okay, you win. Thread ends here.

unbannable 16 years ago |

If your freelance experience will set you up to get a good job, then you're not in a bad place. Most jobs available early on (e.g. out of college) suck; some jobs available later on are great. If you learn from and enjoy the people you work with, get interesting projects, and are respected, having a paid job isn't so bad.

My darkest hour was when I moved under undesirable circumstances, developed a serious health problem, lost my job, and broke up with my girlfriend in the space of 3 months, while the economy/job market was falling apart but before it started making the news (spring 2008). What was it like? Well, it ended.