Hey,

Not sure if this is helpful. There are a couple of things which stand out in your in message: '...I know I have problems... have also complained...' and 'I know I have issues ...' To me, this reads as if you are you parroting what you might have been told repeatedly. Whether or not the statements are factual is irrelevant. What is important, is that you have embraced the language and are defining yourself with it. Unless you are worshiped like a god, you are usually better off using your own language to define yourself.

As a corollary, and possibly not applicable to you, this type of parroting can illicit similar remarks from others, reinforcing this (maybe) incorrect assessment. When someone keeps saying that they have, for example, a lack of attention, people will start to zoom in that feature with laser focus and even the slightest hint of drop in attention will affirm the idea which was placed in their heads. Also, realize that you provide others with an 'easy out' if they are uncomfortable discussing their real reasons for letting you go. Maybe you just have a bo issue, which can be solved by switching cologne?

I am just saying that you should take some distance from this, regain your own language/words/etc. and redefine yourself. I too can be outspoken and direct when it comes to my failings, but I never phrase them as debilitating, shameful, or even 'that big of deal.' By choosing the right words, by framing things correctly, many flaws can be accepted.

Accept the fact that you are not great at what you do and promise yourself you'll work hard to be one ! Can you do that? I feel the same sometimes. I started masters degree after more than 5 years in programming and after couple of months I was just depressed. I just could not do anything. It was so much heavy maths. As I write this, I'm looking at another assignment to submit. And it's scary. but I accept the fact that I'm not good at it, but I'm going to be one if I don't quit and keep working hard. People feel depressed because they think they have to be good at it. You just need to say "Yes I'm not good, may be I'm worst but I'm going to change that." Rather than thinking it over and over again and wasting your time, start working towards it. And remember, it takes time. Don't compare yourself to anyone.

This is assuming you work in an organization and not freelance:

Before self doubt about self abilities and anyone questioning you on it (in work, life, or in comments here).: I've met a huge amount of people that feel they're not great at what they do, but are actually quite good.

How is your communication about what you're doing?

Do you communicate your tasks back to the person you report to? I mean formally, in the form of a weekly email (preferably on Tuesday or Thursday, as supervisors tend to be busy organizing their week on Mondays and fighting fires on Fridays)?

A lot of managers don't know how to manage. "I'd really like him/her to do this for me they may thing." "Do this, you're qualified" they may say. And you're left "What the hell is this, OK, I'll try, I'm hopeful it will work..." and then several days or weeks later you're in a situation where things don't work. This may or may not be your case. It would probably be the case of a reader.

Email your supervisor a schedule of everything you've done. Task ID, description, request date, expected completion date, actual completion date, and pain points you may be experiencing. Do it regularly.

You're helping them be a better coach. Which they may not know how to do. So help you supervisor be a better supervisor.

If you do that and they don't provide 1-1 feedback face-to-face in a sit-down private environment on at least a twice per month basis, then you're better rid of them. They're bad managers.

I've been working remotely over the internet, on different timezones, with different people from different countries. Not in a specific organization in my country.

We were using Slack to communicate, and I was communicating on a daily basis with the manager.

Run 3 miles every morning to improve your concentration problems and build confidence. Please try this first.

I agree ! Just get out for an hour or so every day and exercise. It just gives you so much positive thoughts.

Have you spoken with a psychiatrist regarding ways to address your concentration problems?

Without medication, getting my brain to do what I want it to is like bushing a bolder up a hill. With the proper medication, I gain a lot of control over my concentration.

No, I never spoke with a psychiatrist.

Have you always had this issue, or only recently? Being burned out or overstressed can cause these symptoms.

I could get work done, don't get me wrong, it's just that it does takes me more time to complete than other developers.

Sometimes I could do them faster than others. It depends.

I also believe my problem could be discipline.

I usually work during the night, sometimes in the morning. I choose the night because it's less distraction, but then I distract myself with reddit or IRC, and I get little done.

I remember having some learning difficulties when I was at school, not sure if that was related to attention problems, and I had to go to a special school for that.

These days I don't have much problem with learning, but with attention/productivity.

I have to compensate for ADHD, which may or may not be your issue, but it sounds similar.

Few things:

1) Sleep on a regular schedule. Set a "go to bed" alarm. Stick to it. Makes a huge difference.

2) Exercise, even if just taking brisk walks. It directly affects concentration/attention for the rest of your day. That's fairly well-supported by studies/literature.

3) Eat right. Be careful about caffeine and sugar, as the crashes will probably hit you harder than most.

4) In general, get on a schedule. Rhythm is the key.

As far as productivity:

1) Underpromise, overdeliver. This is hugely important. If you know you're not as efficient as you want to be you have to stop telling people what they want to hear and start telling them something more accurate. Even if you were ideal, we usually underestimate software tasks.

2) Look into Pomodoro or some other interval work rhythm method. It makes it OK to take breaks by regimenting them some.

3) Use a Todo list. Try to get one impactful thing (or chunk of thing) done each day at a minimum. Look up "Big Rocks" or "Zen to Done" on Google for some good tips there.

3) Find a coach. There are ADHD and productivity coaches out there that specialize in this stuff.

4) If you can't find a coach, at least find a mentor.

5) Go talk to a doctor. You sound like you have issues to actually address. If yours are like mine, meds help. You probably also need to learn some good habits though--there's no magic solution.

You also need to work on making yourself happier and regaining your own trust back. You're way too down on yourself, and you've actually written yourself off as inherently problematic. Objectivity is good, but it can also be how you get defeated before you start.

You actually sound like I did when I didn't feel like I could even be accountable to myself. Your first challenge is to get a grip on how you work and make yourself OK with it while you get better. Everyone's different, and the important thing is to accommodate yourself effectively, not to be perfect. But first, start making yourself happy. One accomplishment a day is a good step towards that.

Last thing:

I listed a lot of stuff. Don't try to do it all at once. You'll flop hard. But start working towards it.

Since you're having work issues in particular, I'd look at sleep, Todo lists, and Pomodoro as some of the first things you try.

That all sounds like excellent advice. I don't have ADHD myself, but I use a lot of those techniques to make myself more productive.

A few other suggestions:

- Take a bit of a break from finding work, to let yourself clear your head and destress.

- You could possibly look into getting some other type of work , and code in your spare time. Perhaps you're just getting bored and burned out with working on boring projects, and working on your own stuff might make you more productive and creative.

"Be careful about caffeine and sugar, as the crashes will probably hit you harder than most"

What do you mean with this exactly?

Sorry for the late reply.

I mean that caffeine and sugar both have an energy upswing and an energy downswing associated with them. If you're already having issues with motivation, maybe even with lethargy, the downswing will potentially take you from minimally functional to useless. Any sleep or nutrition problems will also exaggerate this effect.

Without (a) having worked alongside you or (b) seen the work you produce, it's impossible for anyone here to give accurate advice.

For (a) I would advise asking previous employers (both the manager who made the decision to let you go and former work colleges) for honest feedback. It's difficult to give honest negative feedback, so be clear that you are asking because you are genuinely interested in self-improvement.

For (b), just thinking aloud here, do you have a github repository where you can show us your work? There may be fundamental issues with style, logic etc that could be addressed through training.

Hi,

When you say that you have problems with performance, was there any specific concrete examples that you can share?

For what it's worth, everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses. The fact that you can program relates to a great skill that you have. There are millions of people who can't do it. Don't take it too personally - you can definitely overcome any "problems" you have.

Learn to work as a "workhorse": find your tempo and don't try to get faster, just commit regularly to your boss/customer; and do not compare to others until the end of the year.

You will be more appreciated than a "race horse" in a few years from now and you will find your working place easily in any large corporation sooner than you think.

Would you mind to share more details? So far, there could be many reasons behind what happened.

What details would you like to know?

- Do you get along with your coworkers?

- Where are your shortcomings?

- Can you actually program?

- Are you misunderstanding requirements?

- There are times I get along with my coworkers, which happens to be most of the time, there are times I don't.

- I don't know, I feel performance tends to be one of my problems, especially when working under pressure and being stressed / burned.

I hate working under pressure, and when clients have unrealistic expectations. I don't mind deadlines if they are realistic.

- Yes, but I tend to get stuck a lot, I try to solve problems and most of the time I can solve them, but it takes time, and what frustrates me the most is when clients don't understand that writing code takes time, and they insist, several times per day... with emails: "How it's going?" and so on, then they might get rude, etc.

This is what frustrates me the most, unfortunately many managers and clients don't understand that writing code is hard work and when I'm taking more than a week on a task they fire me.

- No, if I misunderstand something I speak immediately.

It looks like you are victimizing yourself more than you should.

I was fired from my first serious job, and I felt terrible, but I realized it was my fault and I worked my ass off to eliminate (or lessen) the weaknesses I know (note the tense) I have.

"Hard work beats talent". Discipline is what makes you great, so work towards getting it.

What client goals are you not meeting?

I don't know, they tend to be vague, but performance comes to mind. They sent me this email today which is really vague:

"Given the urgency of the project, and the communication problems, I don't think this is a good first Company project for you. I removed you from the project. So I can make sure you're put in a better position, what's the ideal project for you?"

Can you say a little more about the communication problems? Problems in communication can exacerbate any other problems, to the point that people would rather not work with you than sort out the issues. Clear communication is a requirement before any other issue can be addressed.

Why did they send this to you over email? Are you in a separate time zone, deaf or something else? Seems like it would be an odd thing to discuss over email.

FWIW I've worked in places where this would be standard to communicate over email, particularly if it's not that big of a deal (as in, we have plenty of other projects).

We don't really know the details of how the rejection even took place--maybe he asked for it that project, maybe he was on it and performed poorly, etc.

Yes, we are in a separate timezone, and some of their developers are too.

This was remote work.

Do you do the work?

Most of the time I get the work done, yes. But there are other times where the client doesn't have realistic goals, like the last project I've been to, they just say something like this:

"We need to ship this on Monday May 11th, so we need you to aggressively plug away on this. You still need to do X and Y. I'm going to put something together with info on how to prioritize the work."

And this after 2 weeks of hiring me, then they say nothing and fire me, without a word, while I'm getting the work done.

Perhaps it's just the companies you're working for. All the companies I worked for were pretty relaxed about schedules and I always ended up getting stuff finished way ahead of time.

If you're working too long hours and getting stressed out about it, it's perfectly normal to have attention and concentration problems. Perhaps you just need to relax a bit more, take breaks, and you might find you get more done. Also don't work for dipshit companies that put too much pressure on you!

> I also believe my problem could be discipline. > I usually work during the night, sometimes in the morning. I choose the night because it's less distraction, but then I distract myself with reddit or IRC, and I get little done.

You're right - discipline is a challenge for you. It's a challenge for everyone, but you're the person of concern here.

Work on your discipline habits. This is different for each person. Try lots of things. Keep trying.

As you've described, your current career is a struggle. Many short-term gigs, constant pressure, almost no social capital, and (I pessimistically assume) low pay.

And regular criticism, either direct or indirect.

That sucks! And it's not likely to improve. You're in the midst of a market that runs on people meat. Like a sweatshop, except your mind instead of your body is being exploited.

It's better than a physical sweatshop, but it still sucks. The key thing to remember is that you're participating in a market which places little value on humans. It's easy to absorb that attitude, and devalue yourself.

If you stay in this career, the likely outcomes are:

- burnout

- depression

- resilience

- aggression

(This is all personal experience & opinion, BTW. It might not match reality.)

In order to survive, and even succeed, you need to minimize your burnout and depression, and cultivate your resilience & aggression.

Aggression doesn't mean rage - it means hunger. It means viewing every single interaction as fuel.

You've shown you can write decently (many people can't speel sipmle word).

For example, this communication:

Given the urgency of the project, and the communication problems, I don't think this is a good first Company project for you. I removed you from the project. So I can make sure you're put in a better position, what's the ideal project for you?

looks like a solid opportunity. You might reply:

"Thanks for taking this action, and for the frank communication. I understand the tight schedule and I appreciate your help in matching my abilities with your needs. You asked what the ideal project is, and we both know projects are never ideal.

For me to bring maximum value, I need time. You're probably familiar with the good/cheap/fast triangle. I work in the 'good' corner.

Thanks again for your time. I'll be happy to talk further at your convenience."

I bet you can write it even better. (hint: shorter = better)

The fact is, in the cheap-gig market, you'll get to write this response dozens of times. You'll have plenty of chances to practice, until you're either a iron-hard pro, or a mentally destroyed basket case!

(or some strange hybrid of those two things)

Hope this helps.

If I was a sociopath or narcissist who wanted to hire people to bully into working sixty-hour weeks, I'd hire you based on how you're talking alone. This might be your problem if you insist on a work-life balance, or have more backbone and resolve than my first impression suggests.

I'd insist on finding a place that has good mentoring. That'd be my primary job-search criteria in your shoes.

Keep looking until you find a job where you fit in.

Would you hire yourself?

A lot of programming groups at companies are very picky about your personality type, so don't blame yourself by default.

Address each complaint with a goal or action to resolve or prevent it.

Persevere.

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