"BS! Indentured servitude has long ago been outlawed in the US, and while my company generally tries hard to get our good interns to come back full-time, HR doesn't phrase it as an obligation."
I'm sorry, but, you left out the most important part of that quote: "More than that, I wanted to comeback."
She was joking! I only included her statement to show that they were seemingly excited to have me return! The truth is, I appreciated the opportunity and felt a great sense of loyalty to the people at the company. I wanted to help.
I don't see loyalty as a flaw, nor was I blinded by it. Remember, the president actually said to me: "You have a number of years ahead of you, let's find out if there's something wrong."
If nothing was going to change, I was ready to walk out the door without so much as a word. I didn't seed my will, I simply wanted to believe what I was being dealt with honestly. I had a number of great offers in Boston, Austin, and San Francisco that I turned down to give this company a chance to work things out with me.
"There's an awful lot of relationship "turbulence" in the mid-20s, and it's awfully hard to pin a breakup to a specific root cause, especially when it's fairly vague."
Very true. We had been in a semi-long distance relationship for six years (90 miles while we were undergrad, then 180, when she went to law school.) When I stared working through the weekends or sleeping through my weekends with her, it put an obvious strain on our relationship.
"Going to academia, or anything other than hacking, is a cop-out."
I agree completely. Going back to school feels wrong on a number of levels.
"Go get another job hacking, and if that doesn't work out, go get another job hacking, and repeat until you find one that makes you mutually happy. If you get to 4 or 5 and find that you're still "0 for", then think about whether there are other root causes, and whether you bear more responsibility for some of your challenges than you are currently admitting to."
Considering that I was hired after two internships, they knew me, and that I had some ability to perform. After a year w\o sleep, a bad breakup, and moving across the country, all within a three month period, my confidence is rather shaken. I would rather not take another job and waste the time of my new employers, and bruise what's left of my ego while I grapple with existential dread. I probably need to get back on the FOSS horse.
I don't think of myself as a victim. I simply feel that I was lied to and don't fully understand why. Well, perhaps I do. The people involved simply didn't care. If they wanted me gone, they could have taken me up on my offers, or, as it was an at will work state, they could have fired me without explanation. The fact that they drug this out for over nine months and left me with extremely high medical bills when they knew that nothing was going to change seems cruel, and has apparently left them open to legal action.
I didn't know that I was entitled to a reasonable accommodation. Hell, I didn't even know what a reasonable accommodation was!
If nothing else this experience has taught me a lot. Unfortunately the price was much higher than I would have liked to pay.
Next point is really harsh - there's no way you turned in all-star caliber work at your last post. And if you want exceptions, you've got to be really, really good. Because managers really fear giving exceptions, because then everyone wants them. A lot of managers take the easy road and don't accommodate staff at all - they're not mean, it's just that once you stop having a consistent set of across-the-board policies it becomes really hard to balance everything and keep everyone on track. It just takes a high level of skill and personal touch that most managers don't have. Now, if you're amazing, like the most important person that's ever worked there, they might find a way to accommodate you. If you're another cog in the wheel, then rightfully or not, they probably don't gun hard to keep you specifically as that cog if you need accommodation. (That's not to say whether that's right or not - it's just how it is)
If you want to get different hours from other people, highlight how much it'd benefit your employer and tell them right from the start. "Hi XYZ Company, I'm sleepy. I have this sleep thing but I do exceptional work. If you're flexible, I typically enjoy working 50-60 hours per week, but I've got to do some at night. I'd love to find a way to make this work - and it'd be cool to have someone alive and alert when the company's normally sleeping right? I can be that guy, and I pride myself on getting more done than everyone else."
The average person only does 2 hours of productive work each day - you can double the average person's production by not procrastinating and focusing for 5 hours a day. If you're the best guy on the team, you get more slack.
Finally, if you want to contract - easiest way to start is by taking Freelance work somewhere like Elance or Odesk. Log onto to one of their sites, create an account, then bid the minimum possible for your first job and knock it out of the park. If you do 4-5 jobs below market rates and get excellent feedback, you'll be able to get work at market rates pretty fast.
I don't want to sound unsympathetic, as you seem to have an actual medical condition that's substantially impacting your life. At the same time, I want to point out a few things that really struck me reading your post, as I don't think mindless sympathy is the ideal approach to helping others. (Asperger's has its upside, too... :) )
"essentially told by HR that I was obligated to comeback full-time"
BS! Indentured servitude has long ago been outlawed in the US, and while my company generally tries hard to get our good interns to come back full-time, HR doesn't phrase it as an obligation.
"my girlfriend of 8 years (seriously, we had been together since we were 16) had just left me because I was exhausted and working all of the time"
There's an awful lot of relationship "turbulence" in the mid-20s, and it's awfully hard to pin a breakup to a specific root cause, especially when it's fairly vague.
"I'm actually afraid to get another job."
Why? For a good coder, they're everywhere, easy to get, and pretty handy for paying the bills.
There's an substantial chance that your prior employer is just a grind 'em up and spit 'em out crappy employer, though it's hard to say from only hearing your side. But if it really was "your employer's fault", then getting another one has a substantial chance of fixing a large part of what you are complaining about. (And if it was really "your fault" (see below), getting another one gets you that one step closer to figuring that out too, so that you can change that.)
I'd offer a couple pieces of advice:
1. Take responsibility for choosing your own path. Don't let HR tell you you're obligated to come back. Don't work for crappy employers.
2. Don't "double down" on your limitations. Given that you have a legitimate medical condition, don't tie other aspects of your life to that condition. Don't blame a failed relationship on it, etc; otherwise, you're liable to fall into a victim mentality, which regardless of whether or not there is a true linkage, doesn't help you to make thoughtful choices in your life.
3. There are plenty of employers out there for good hackers, and I've worked with people with far more messed up sleep/work schedules than you, and I'd hire (some of) those people with nothing more than a phone call telling me they were available.
If hacking is the one thing you love doing, do that. Going to academia, or anything other than hacking, is a cop-out.
Go get another job hacking, and if that doesn't work out, go get another job hacking, and repeat until you find one that makes you mutually happy. If you get to 4 or 5 and find that you're still "0 for", then think about whether there are other root causes, and whether you bear more responsibility for some of your challenges than you are currently admitting to.
You need more data. You came to HN asking for it. IMO, you really need more data about YOU and how YOU will handle your life responsibilities, and while you can ask HN how people here handle their lives, ultimately, it's going to be a lot more productive to find YOUR answers in YOUR mirror.