Should i leave traineeship after the time scheduled? [closed]

Question

I am about to leave my traineeship after the time scheduled (6 months, now is 4 and a half) because i have a huge amount of little problems which i don't know if they are reasonable or not.

I will start from scratch: first of all i was offered this traineeship in a electronic company as a programmer to develop software on machines. To start dealing with this thing my boss told me i would have started doing some tests on machines and whatever, which i felt good because no much responsabilites for me and no risk for them.

But when i started... things have suddenly changed. First of all i was put doing some SEO for the company website (which sucked!) and i never did SEO (in fact i learned this term by doing it!), then i was asked to start a database for internal purposes (so Access and VBA), and after i finished my boss asked me to make it accessible to external devices; so i obliviously started everything again doing my first web application (PHP, MYSQL, HTML, CSS, JS), a responsive one, and started to learn a huge amount of things about web-developing (as a full-stack).

I am thinking that i am learning too much things in a very cheap way, while i prefer to specialize in something, and the fact this is still not what my boss asked me at first make me think that things will not change in the future.

Then i have other "minor" problems:

• I don't know how to communicate in a friendly way with employers. I am a metalhead/anarchist and working in a company, no, is not that easy for me, even if it's for sure a training in "social-life", but i can't fake my identity everyday since is really difficult to act as another person. For me is not a problem not to talk but it looks like i am forced to say "hi" even if i don't want to not appear like a ghost. If you add that professional talking rarely happens it could be a serious issue i think.

• Second problem: i want to be a musician, and not a developer. But i have no time to develop my skills in both parts because i stay out 13h a day because workplace is far.

• Last-but-not-least problem: the work i am doing is all done... by me, i decide everything of the workflow of this web-app and i think that working on just one project alone is not a great idea, i have no confrontation, i cannot experiment things (as i said i have no actual free-time to do so!) and continous pull requests from my boss make me feel like i am doing a second-hand job for almost free.

And here comes the actual question: should i leave after traineeship because of these reasons?

This company is 30 years old so it has build its own structure well and employers seems to be happy working here, it's a nice place where i also feel good and everything, and my boss expect good things from me so i feel a bit guilty to leave.

But i don't feel suited for this position, even if it is because of my individuality. At the same time however i don't want to have no money or no job, but i don't think i can accept a contract of employment thinking of going away when i please. But at the same time i cannot look for other jobs, since i have no time.

It is bad to leave in this condition?

EDIT: My question itself could have looked like an advice but actually it was a pratical question because i don't know how things go in a company well and anyway i received good answers so i don't know why you tell me it's off topic, maybe because i am a newbie! I was betting that this would have ended like this but whatever, i received the answer so i don't care.

Answer 1

Having a new hire 'just do the QA for a while' is a classical mistake that usually comes from underestimating the value an actual qualified tester can provide.

Having said that, it seems that your manager isn't really misusing you, he is preparing you for the job that an actual software engineer will often have to do in real-world circumstances. Any given developer being able to focus 100% on their specialisation is a very rare thing outside of large development teams. By giving you all these jobs and 'forcing' you to figure them out you're learning how to solve problems to which you don't have a ready-made answer, which a developer will encounter a lot no matter how much experience they have.

Your 'minor' problems are not really minor at all, they are core social skills that you will need no matter what type of a job you end up in. Being able to detach a professional relationship with someone from your own personal likes and dislikes is basic professionalism and is a requirement for basically any job.

If you feel you don't have enough time to figure out what the optimal solution is to a given problem, this ties into another core social skill: the ability to communicate. It's your job as an employee to let your boss know if you're running into issues, so that they can take appropriate action if needed. This doesn't mean you should go directly to your boss for everything, but you should definitely approach them when a problem starts to take a while to solve, or if you encounter an issue that you feel is preventing you from realising an optimal result (such as not having enough time to decide on the best solution).

As for the issue that you'd rather be a musician, that makes things rather difficult. Software development is not a job that you can just 'sort of do halfheartedly' and still excel at. Being a musician also requires a significant investment of time and effort. You should have considered the 13h work day before you took the traineeship, but now that you are where you are I'd say you have three choices:

• You can quit when the traineeship is over to find a job closer to home
• You can move closer to the workplace
• You can focus on your development for now and put more time and energy into your music again when you've gained more experience with development and don't need as much time to keep up with it anymore

Answer 2

The bad news is that there are more positions open in software development than in music. The even worse news is that, even in the musical industry, you are likely to meet a corporate-like environment.

That being said, you're the one setting up your own objectives. Don't feel guilty. You get paid(or not, depends on the kind of trainee you are) for doing a job, you do the job, fair enough. As long as you respect your countries laws in temrs of leaving, you shall not feel guilty.

But don't leave without a clear plan. A colleague left us recently by saying "oh, by the way, early September, I'm entering a school of helicopter pilots in another country". He had a plan. As soon as you have a clear, definied plan, and everything set up for that plan to work OK(he had his visa, was accepted by the school, and had already budgetised the whole year), there is nothing keeping you at this place.

Be sure to have a clear, realistic plan, with as much elements as strong as possible(the ideal situation being to have already another contract signed).