My instincts are telling me that i should resign from this company asap.

My team lead knows a to z of the project and he is the all rounder guy here. If my team lead leaves, I could be the one replacing him. But i don't want to accept this kind of responsibility.

My life goal is to not get sucked into the 9 to 5 life or work in this kind of environment.

The only pro i find is that i now have few more cool friends.

But I'd rather be be my own boss and work 24/7.

I now feel like living a lie going to work everyday..

Wish I could +1000 this as I feel exactly the same

@Jonnyforgotten also on other hand, it's really heart breaking when your fav coworkers leave l.. :/

I have hard time dealing with that.

Try it.
Really. Try it.

Try being your own boss, and find yourself actually productively working for only 1-2 hours per day. Find yourself lose important time, while your peers gain priceless experience on that boring 9 to 5 job.

Now, while you tried this, you realized that after a year, you can include a couple of "interesting" projects in your CV. Meanwhile your peers have been promoted to team leads and are now speaking in a dialect that seems absolutely foreign to you. You want to try to join another team, and everybody looks at you with dismay - why don't you know all of this basic knowledge?

Anyway, if you don't want the 9 to 5 job, it's probably because you're lazy. I'm not judging - it's natural to be lazy. But it's important to acknowledge your feelings and what causes them, to be able to react sanely.

The simple FACT is that the vast majority of people just can't manage their own time. That's why countless books and resources exist about combating procrastination.

do both? monday to wednesday 9-5 and thursday to saturday freelance.

I only work to earn some cash. I hate working freelance projects due to fact I dealt with couple of clients that drove me crazy, that's why I prefer a job for income. But rest of my free time is for sure spent on sharpening my skills and make me a project for personal use. But damn it does make me sooo tired 🙁

@apisarenco i did it for 10 years and yeah it wore me down, having to chase clients for money, working long hours and weekends, sometimes wondering where the next lot of work is coming from. I gave it up about 18 months ago for a 9 - 5 job and I miss it like hell :(

@Jonnyforgotten yup chasing clients and sometimes refuse to pay for the smallest damn thing. I ended up putting a receiver in one of my projects that I made for a client so that if he refused to pay I just disable the service with a click of a button and open Gates of hell on him from service down reports 😒

@Jonnyforgotten I do miss it too. I miss the flexibility of working from whatever place I choose, even Antarctica if needed.

But then, I was missing serious work, working close with people and achieving far more than I did on my own. Freelance rarely gives you the opportunity to excel at large projects or very complicated problems.