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I've never understood the irrational desire to quit your job. Jobs are wonderful, magical things and I've been thankful to have every single one of them, even

I've never understood the irrational desire to quit your job. Jobs are wonderful, magical things and I've been thankful to have every single one of them, even the ones that sucked, like that time I worked 12 hour shifts in a warehouse doing product assembly. Or when I had to deal with father as an electrical apprentice. Or when I was on the shit list in the military. I guess it's because every job I've had, I've subjected to an intense inquiry on exactly what I'm getting out of the job. I'm very intentional about my work. For the warehouse job, I was saving up for a move. I knew exactly what I was doing and why. When I see people with these crazy flights of fancy throwing away perfectly good opportunities to work and build incrementally to their dream lives, it makes me a little sad. The very irrationality of his thought processes caused him to utterly fail to learn how to market his services, making him piss away a decade of what could have been fortunate prosperity. Sure, he never starved. There was always some money coming in the pike. But he purposefully did not shoot for any more. It's almost like these people hate money for some reason. He finally comes to his big life realization and then sees his path. And when I read his big life realization, I was immensely struck by the fact that I want exactly what he wants. A nice, comfy lifestyle where I can have conversations, share what I know, and learn. My job is the perfect tool to allow me to do that. I get all my money from one place. And I can have conversations, share what I know, and learn at work.

pdonis 9y ago
> A nice, comfy lifestyle where I can have conversations, share what I know, and learn. Yes, and you, unlike the author of this piece, appear to grasp the basic fact that nobody will pay you for this. So you have to make a living some other way, and use the leisure you earn to do this nice thing that you want to do.
- dv_dt 9y ago
  Aren't there a whole range of media jobs that do just this, from blogger, to journalists, youtube hosts, or documentary makers, etc. It may be very difficult/risky to get to an independent financially sustaining position doing this, but it's not an impossible aspiration. I do think the author is downplaying the difficulty to even himself though.
  - pdonis 9y ago
    The problem with all media jobs like this is that you are beholden to the media. You aren't self-employed in the sense the author of the piece is using that term; you don't have sole control over what you say, what you investigate, etc.
    - dv_dt 9y ago
      Even if you're self employed, you're beholden to your customers. With Patreon, you're beholden to your collective patrons. But maybe that was your original point that I misunderstood. Still, I'd say in many of those jobs you have the self-determination to choose any topic. You just can't guarantee that there won't be any blowback of you pick some topic of controversy.
      - pdonis 9y ago
        > maybe that was your original point that I misunderstood. Sort of. If you're a journalist working for a media company, from the viewpoint of the media company, the value you're producing isn't your content, except indirectly. The direct value you produce is in attracting eyeballs, and hence ad revenue. So if your goal is to produce value with your content and get paid for that, you're not going to achieve that goal working for a media company, except as a lucky side effect. If you're self-employed and being supported by your readers (say, by Patreon contributions), then you are producing value with your content, directly. That was my understanding of the goal of the author of the article. > I'd say in many of those jobs you have the self-determination to choose any topic. You just can't guarantee that there won't be any blowback of you pick some topic of controversy. You can't guarantee no blowback if you pick a controversial topic no matter how you are getting paid. The difference is in how that plays out. If you work for a media company, your future depends on the people running the media company and whether they will support you. If you work for yourself, your future depends on your readers and whether they will support you.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- coldtea 9y ago
  >Yes, and you, unlike the author of this piece, appear to grasp the basic fact that nobody will pay you for this. You'd be surprised. Actually, there are tons of freelancing jobs that pay you just for this. Not to mention that the "author of this piece" has been making money for 10 years now, and getting paid, thank you, for doing his thing. So maybe it's not him, but you that don't understand what's available?
gr2020 9y ago
> When I see people with these crazy flights of fancy throwing away perfectly good opportunities to work and build incrementally to their dream lives, it makes me a little sad. I think you're making an assumption here that your "dream life" is a destination. Which is a perfectly rational way of thinking. But, alternatively, your dream life could instead be the journey. So, perhaps, rather than working at a job today to make your dreams come true later, maybe your dream instead is to do what you love today, and let the future take care of itself. Not saying either is right or wrong - I know many people in each camp. Just saying there's two ways of thinking about it.
ajkjk 9y ago
I wonder why you wrote > I've never understood the irrational desire to quit your job. instead of > I've never understood the desire to quit your job. It sounds like you think it's irrational by definition. If you start out already thinking that, of course you won't understand it. I think it's easily explained by the fact that people have very different emotional responses to "going in to an office every week day for the rest of your life and doing what someone asks of you". I, for one, dread that, and as soon as I had saved up enough in my first tech job to quit, I quit, to travel and often to do nothing, and I love that. When my bank account gets low I'll get another job for a while. Others want (in a way that ought to be described as 'need') to be in control of their own fortunes, or to be doing a mixture of things that keep life interesting, or to be doing something that constantly subjects them to new experiences and new people, or to not know what next month holds. So they live their life in a way that gets them toward that. Others don't know what they want, just that they don't want this, so they're trying other things and experimenting. Anyway, I don't think you want what he wants. This is nothing like what you wrote: > But take it from me, a ten-year veteran self-employed creator: If you are looking for security or reassurance, I do not recommend this line of work. However, if you are burning with curiosity — if your heart and intuition lead you to do things that don’t make sense—well, then you don’t really have a choice in the matter, do you?
- vinceguidry 9y ago
  The desire is irrational because it doesn't respond to reason. If you try to drill down to real specifics with these people, then eventually you have to give up because there aren't any. They're fixated on not having anything that looks or feels like a job. They can't be convinced that less drastic measures are necessary. They won't engage with their problems logically. You mention control, they want control of their fortunes. That might be true if not for the fact that they don't actually want to learn anything 'salesy'. Their decision-making process is completely oriented around not having a job, not around making money. Because if they really wanted to make money under their own steam, then that would be their goal, and the intermediate steps would reflect that. The closest I can get to these people's underlying thought mechanics is that they just don't want to subordinate any time at all to anyone else. They want complete 100% control over all of their time. Which would be really nice, but c'mon now.
Mz 9y ago
He has health problems. That is the same reason I do freelance work. Additionally, the economy is seeing a general uptick in gig work and a general downtick in full time employee positions. I have run into a number of people online who have been job hunting for a year or more, to no avail. I tell them all the same thing: You may not be able to find a job, but that doesn't mean you cannot have an earned income. Go looking for gig work while you keep job hunting. While I would dearly love to be you, my health makes that impossible. Modern medicine has created a lot of people who lived that would have died a hundred years earlier, but they may never be genuinely hale and hardy. They limp along as best they can. I do not qualify for disability, but a regular job is a problem for me. Gig work has been a better answer, though I kind of hate it because I value security and social status. So I would much rather have a job and a brag worthy title. That simply was not working for me. I was running up crazy levels of debt when I had a corporate job, in part because that lifestyle just does not work for me. I have been paying down debt while making a lot less money doing freelance work. Good for you. You go. But you are very fortunate. Not everyone can pull that off, even if they desperately want to.
- vinceguidry 9y ago
  If you learn a lucrative enough skill, and the basics of negotiation, then you can find a corporate job that can fit your needs. I have a friend with narcolepsy, he worked ten years at a company that let him come in whenever he wanted to, usually around 3 or 4 in the afternoon. What I would do in your position would be to be very clear in a job interview what health conditions you have that must be accommodated for. Once you start the job, find a routine that works. And then don't let anyone pressure you into deviating from your routine. They need to accommodate you, not the other way around. Eventually it'll get fixed into the company firmament and you'll have your security.
  - Mz 9y ago
    I wasn't asking for advice. And you are ignoring large parts of my point, such as the fact that there are fewer full time jobs and more gig work. Some people simply will have no real choice here, your insistence to the contrary not withstanding.
peterwwillis 9y ago
First of all, jobs are irrational. Wanting to quit one is wanting to be freed from the shackles of wage slavery. Second, the fact that you justified what you were doing for yourself doesn't make you right. It means you convinced yourself you were right. Being "intentional" about your job is irrelevant to whether it is a good idea or not. Third, a lot of people don't want to buy into a system which, if they follow its procedures and restrictions exactly, might allow them their dream life (it often does not). A lot of people would rather live right now the way they choose to, because they prefer the experience of living on their own terms instead of simply dreaming of a similar life in the future.
mcguire 9y ago
For me, it was the realization that I had been doing the same thing over and over for several years, had no prospects for change, got no special respect for my skills and experience, and was being paid much less than the incompetents wise code I was being asked to fix. Share what I know? Learn at work? Nope. Sure, all of the above is my fault. But once you've dug the hole, it's hard to get out.
swayvil 9y ago
And dogs don't understand our irrational desire to not eat kitty litter. It's a matter of taste
coldtea 9y ago
>When I see people with these crazy flights of fancy throwing away perfectly good opportunities to work and build incrementally to their dream lives, it makes me a little sad. If everybody thought like that there wouldn't be jobs in the first place, as nobody would risk to start a business (and hire people). Not to mention that freelancers are becoming a dominant percentage of the workforce. Besides, the story is about a person who didn't like his job, and built a decent (if not great) career for himself by himself after he quit. Not sure what's "irrational" about it. >Sure, he never starved. There was always some money coming in the pike. But he purposefully did not shoot for any more. Shoot for more of what? More of the same job he hated, with perhaps better compensation but the same lack of satisfaction? And why should have he "shot for more"? Shouldn't he just shoot for enough? (and he seems content with what he has) In fact, why don't you "shot for more" and do something on your own? Why is your idea of more constrained to being a salaried employee?
EvanAnderson 9y ago
(I'm an American, working in the United States. My perspective is that one alone.) I've never understood the irrational desire have a job. My contract work over the last 13 years has been immensely rewarding, both financially and personally. I've met and worked alongside many very interesting people. I've had some great relationships and untold wonderful conversations (and billed for them). There have been contracts that are grueling and difficult and some that have been embarrassingly easy. I have always been thankful that diversity in my income has allowed me to ride-out economic hardships and to be selective about the work I do and how I spend my time. When I see people chain themselves to a single source of income (and particularly a single source of health insurance) I get a little sad. I see people frustrated with dealing with HR policies, working unpaid overtime, and forced to deal with unpleasant co-workers. So many people seem to be slaves to their jobs but are either unwilling or unable to make a change. The fear of losing a job today and being without health insurance has turned work into near-slavery for many people. I've heard many stories of hardship that start with "I lost my job..." Working intentionally and working a job/freelance are orthogonal. I work very intentionally, but I don't have a job. I watch my billable number every day, and I tune my work up/down based on my personal commitments and goals. Any perceived "security" in a job (for the vast majority of jobs) where you hold no equity is an illusion. (Sure, sure-- different states have different protections for employees, unions have contracts, etc...) I feel very comfortable that, so long as I don't do anything to tarnish my reputation in the public sphere I have pretty good security in my income. Edit: Grammar... oh, the grammar...
kafkaesq 9y ago
It's almost like these people hate money for some reason. No - they just hate wasting time. Like time spent living someone else's dreams, for example. And I can have conversations, share what I know, and learn at work. That's great for you. Not all jobs work out like that for everyone, unfortunately. In fact they're nearly 100% "dead time" for many people I know. An acceptable enough tradeoff (given the available choices), mind you -- I'm not saying these people are complaining. But in and of itself -- 8-12 a day (depending on your commute) gone straight down the toilet, nonetheless. So like the author of the original post himself acknowledges -- the grass certainly ain't always greener, on "the other side". But I don't poo-poo these people for trying. In fact I'd wager it'd be a much more boring world to live in if people didn't try to "break loose", as often as they do.
- kafkaesq 9y ago
  That should be "8-12 hours a day .."
amorphid 9y ago
I like working. When a job makes it hard for me to do the work I'm good at, all of the joy gets sucked out of my day, and life becomes about hating work and recovering from work. For example, being hired as a Sr. Front-end Developer and then being tasked with manually cleaning up an unending amount of mangled HTML would suck big time.
the_cat_kittles 9y ago
very simple- when what you really want to do does not make you money!
amatecha 9y ago
I recently heard a funny quote: "Job stands for 'just over broke'"
imgabe 9y ago
And yet, if nobody ever threw away a job and started something of their own, there would be no jobs for you to have.
grecy 9y ago
> I've never understood the irrational desire to quit your job. When you don't have a job, you have a lot of time to live how you want. Last time I quit I spent two years driving from Alaska to Argentina through 16 countires, and right now I'm spending two years driving right around Africa through 30 countries I hike, swim, camp, cook, learn languages, talk to locals, see sunrises, sunsets, beaches, mountains, rivers, lakes, oceans, volcanoes, animals, take photos and generally do whatever I want on any given day. It's paradise, for me.
phil21 9y ago
So... having owned a company before, and somewhat understanding your rationale but not really sure how to explain the other side to you... Have you ever thought that perhaps a life doesn't need to have this work/life separation at all? When you run/own your own company your life becomes work and vice versa. It's incredibly freeing. You wake up when there is work to do, and any time you are working on something when you don't want to be - you know the direct and logical reason you are doing so. Want a vacation tomorrow? Take it. You can push a couple meetings and take those other conference calls from the beach no problem. You are never sitting there plugging away at pointless work no one will ever see - and if you are, the second you realize it you can simply stop and switch to a different direction. Ever been in the office at 3pm wondering why the hell you have to sit there staring blankly at a screen? As a business owner that never happens. Not being productive at that moment? Just leave and go swimming. No boss to justify it to, and no reason to feel guilty about what your co-workers may think. It's freedom. Sure if I could somehow work a job I hate for 10 years and then have financial freedom so I could do whatever with my day - great. Sign me up. That doesn't really exist (for me) though - so the next best thing I can do is make my career my life and hopefully reach the same financial goals in 40 years instead of 30, but having come out ahead since I didn't hate most of my waking life working on some useless thing I don't have any investment in. I've done the commute to work 10+ hours a day thing, and I honestly don't know how anyone can act like such a mindless drone for so much of their useful life. Seems incredibly myopic to me. There are jobs you could not pay me $50k/hr to do. Life is too short to spend time doing stupid busy work - no matter how well paid it is. Or put in a much more simple way? It's about enjoying the journey, not just the destination. When the journey equals the vast majority of the waking hours you exist for, I think it's incredibly important that part of your life gives you direct satisfaction over simple monetary concerns. Once my basic needs are met - compensation is certainly nowhere near the top of my list when evaluating job opportunities.
laythea 9y ago
I thought you were being sarcastic, but now I am not sure.
dunkelheit 9y ago
The problem with most jobs (well, at least the kind of jobs those who frequent this site typically get) is not that they are bad. In fact most of them are quite comfy and well-paying. By the standards of previous epochs they would qualify as leisure. The problem is that a job robs you of that tiny bit of fuel that you can use to change the world in the direction that is yours alone. I don't know the exact word for it, so let's call it agency. I would argue that it is in large part what makes you human and not an automaton. You didn't have that problem when you worked that warehouse job because you used it to save up for doing something you wanted. But for some senior engineer at the BigCo polishing the internals of an ad-serving backend in exchange for a hefty paycheck the problem is real. It is especially tantalizing for us software developers because we are constantly bombarded with reminders about how much leverage and power we have. This makes the pain of wasting our agency on someone else's crappy vision even more acute.

pdonis 9y ago

> A nice, comfy lifestyle where I can have conversations, share what I know, and learn. Yes, and you, unlike the author of this piece, appear to grasp the basic fact that nobody will pay you for this. So you have to make a living some other way, and use the leisure you earn to do this nice thing that you want to do.

dv_dt 9y ago
Aren't there a whole range of media jobs that do just this, from blogger, to journalists, youtube hosts, or documentary makers, etc. It may be very difficult/risky to get to an independent financially sustaining position doing this, but it's not an impossible aspiration. I do think the author is downplaying the difficulty to even himself though.
- pdonis 9y ago
  The problem with all media jobs like this is that you are beholden to the media. You aren't self-employed in the sense the author of the piece is using that term; you don't have sole control over what you say, what you investigate, etc.
  - dv_dt 9y ago
    Even if you're self employed, you're beholden to your customers. With Patreon, you're beholden to your collective patrons. But maybe that was your original point that I misunderstood. Still, I'd say in many of those jobs you have the self-determination to choose any topic. You just can't guarantee that there won't be any blowback of you pick some topic of controversy.
    - pdonis 9y ago
      > maybe that was your original point that I misunderstood. Sort of. If you're a journalist working for a media company, from the viewpoint of the media company, the value you're producing isn't your content, except indirectly. The direct value you produce is in attracting eyeballs, and hence ad revenue. So if your goal is to produce value with your content and get paid for that, you're not going to achieve that goal working for a media company, except as a lucky side effect. If you're self-employed and being supported by your readers (say, by Patreon contributions), then you are producing value with your content, directly. That was my understanding of the goal of the author of the article. > I'd say in many of those jobs you have the self-determination to choose any topic. You just can't guarantee that there won't be any blowback of you pick some topic of controversy. You can't guarantee no blowback if you pick a controversial topic no matter how you are getting paid. The difference is in how that plays out. If you work for a media company, your future depends on the people running the media company and whether they will support you. If you work for yourself, your future depends on your readers and whether they will support you.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
coldtea 9y ago
>Yes, and you, unlike the author of this piece, appear to grasp the basic fact that nobody will pay you for this. You'd be surprised. Actually, there are tons of freelancing jobs that pay you just for this. Not to mention that the "author of this piece" has been making money for 10 years now, and getting paid, thank you, for doing his thing. So maybe it's not him, but you that don't understand what's available?

gr2020 9y ago

> When I see people with these crazy flights of fancy throwing away perfectly good opportunities to work and build incrementally to their dream lives, it makes me a little sad. I think you're making an assumption here that your "dream life" is a destination. Which is a perfectly rational way of thinking. But, alternatively, your dream life could instead be the journey. So, perhaps, rather than working at a job today to make your dreams come true later, maybe your dream instead is to do what you love today, and let the future take care of itself. Not saying either is right or wrong - I know many people in each camp. Just saying there's two ways of thinking about it.

ajkjk 9y ago

I wonder why you wrote > I've never understood the irrational desire to quit your job. instead of > I've never understood the desire to quit your job. It sounds like you think it's irrational by definition. If you start out already thinking that, of course you won't understand it. I think it's easily explained by the fact that people have very different emotional responses to "going in to an office every week day for the rest of your life and doing what someone asks of you". I, for one, dread that, and as soon as I had saved up enough in my first tech job to quit, I quit, to travel and often to do nothing, and I love that. When my bank account gets low I'll get another job for a while. Others want (in a way that ought to be described as 'need') to be in control of their own fortunes, or to be doing a mixture of things that keep life interesting, or to be doing something that constantly subjects them to new experiences and new people, or to not know what next month holds. So they live their life in a way that gets them toward that. Others don't know what they want, just that they don't want this, so they're trying other things and experimenting. Anyway, I don't think you want what he wants. This is nothing like what you wrote: > But take it from me, a ten-year veteran self-employed creator: If you are looking for security or reassurance, I do not recommend this line of work. However, if you are burning with curiosity — if your heart and intuition lead you to do things that don’t make sense—well, then you don’t really have a choice in the matter, do you?

vinceguidry 9y ago
The desire is irrational because it doesn't respond to reason. If you try to drill down to real specifics with these people, then eventually you have to give up because there aren't any. They're fixated on not having anything that looks or feels like a job. They can't be convinced that less drastic measures are necessary. They won't engage with their problems logically. You mention control, they want control of their fortunes. That might be true if not for the fact that they don't actually want to learn anything 'salesy'. Their decision-making process is completely oriented around not having a job, not around making money. Because if they really wanted to make money under their own steam, then that would be their goal, and the intermediate steps would reflect that. The closest I can get to these people's underlying thought mechanics is that they just don't want to subordinate any time at all to anyone else. They want complete 100% control over all of their time. Which would be really nice, but c'mon now.

Mz 9y ago

He has health problems. That is the same reason I do freelance work. Additionally, the economy is seeing a general uptick in gig work and a general downtick in full time employee positions. I have run into a number of people online who have been job hunting for a year or more, to no avail. I tell them all the same thing: You may not be able to find a job, but that doesn't mean you cannot have an earned income. Go looking for gig work while you keep job hunting. While I would dearly love to be you, my health makes that impossible. Modern medicine has created a lot of people who lived that would have died a hundred years earlier, but they may never be genuinely hale and hardy. They limp along as best they can. I do not qualify for disability, but a regular job is a problem for me. Gig work has been a better answer, though I kind of hate it because I value security and social status. So I would much rather have a job and a brag worthy title. That simply was not working for me. I was running up crazy levels of debt when I had a corporate job, in part because that lifestyle just does not work for me. I have been paying down debt while making a lot less money doing freelance work. Good for you. You go. But you are very fortunate. Not everyone can pull that off, even if they desperately want to.

vinceguidry 9y ago
If you learn a lucrative enough skill, and the basics of negotiation, then you can find a corporate job that can fit your needs. I have a friend with narcolepsy, he worked ten years at a company that let him come in whenever he wanted to, usually around 3 or 4 in the afternoon. What I would do in your position would be to be very clear in a job interview what health conditions you have that must be accommodated for. Once you start the job, find a routine that works. And then don't let anyone pressure you into deviating from your routine. They need to accommodate you, not the other way around. Eventually it'll get fixed into the company firmament and you'll have your security.
- Mz 9y ago
  I wasn't asking for advice. And you are ignoring large parts of my point, such as the fact that there are fewer full time jobs and more gig work. Some people simply will have no real choice here, your insistence to the contrary not withstanding.

peterwwillis 9y ago

First of all, jobs are irrational. Wanting to quit one is wanting to be freed from the shackles of wage slavery. Second, the fact that you justified what you were doing for yourself doesn't make you right. It means you convinced yourself you were right. Being "intentional" about your job is irrelevant to whether it is a good idea or not. Third, a lot of people don't want to buy into a system which, if they follow its procedures and restrictions exactly, might allow them their dream life (it often does not). A lot of people would rather live right now the way they choose to, because they prefer the experience of living on their own terms instead of simply dreaming of a similar life in the future.

mcguire 9y ago

For me, it was the realization that I had been doing the same thing over and over for several years, had no prospects for change, got no special respect for my skills and experience, and was being paid much less than the incompetents wise code I was being asked to fix. Share what I know? Learn at work? Nope. Sure, all of the above is my fault. But once you've dug the hole, it's hard to get out.

swayvil 9y ago

And dogs don't understand our irrational desire to not eat kitty litter. It's a matter of taste

coldtea 9y ago

>When I see people with these crazy flights of fancy throwing away perfectly good opportunities to work and build incrementally to their dream lives, it makes me a little sad. If everybody thought like that there wouldn't be jobs in the first place, as nobody would risk to start a business (and hire people). Not to mention that freelancers are becoming a dominant percentage of the workforce. Besides, the story is about a person who didn't like his job, and built a decent (if not great) career for himself by himself after he quit. Not sure what's "irrational" about it. >Sure, he never starved. There was always some money coming in the pike. But he purposefully did not shoot for any more. Shoot for more of what? More of the same job he hated, with perhaps better compensation but the same lack of satisfaction? And why should have he "shot for more"? Shouldn't he just shoot for enough? (and he seems content with what he has) In fact, why don't you "shot for more" and do something on your own? Why is your idea of more constrained to being a salaried employee?

EvanAnderson 9y ago

(I'm an American, working in the United States. My perspective is that one alone.) I've never understood the irrational desire have a job. My contract work over the last 13 years has been immensely rewarding, both financially and personally. I've met and worked alongside many very interesting people. I've had some great relationships and untold wonderful conversations (and billed for them). There have been contracts that are grueling and difficult and some that have been embarrassingly easy. I have always been thankful that diversity in my income has allowed me to ride-out economic hardships and to be selective about the work I do and how I spend my time. When I see people chain themselves to a single source of income (and particularly a single source of health insurance) I get a little sad. I see people frustrated with dealing with HR policies, working unpaid overtime, and forced to deal with unpleasant co-workers. So many people seem to be slaves to their jobs but are either unwilling or unable to make a change. The fear of losing a job today and being without health insurance has turned work into near-slavery for many people. I've heard many stories of hardship that start with "I lost my job..." Working intentionally and working a job/freelance are orthogonal. I work very intentionally, but I don't have a job. I watch my billable number every day, and I tune my work up/down based on my personal commitments and goals. Any perceived "security" in a job (for the vast majority of jobs) where you hold no equity is an illusion. (Sure, sure-- different states have different protections for employees, unions have contracts, etc...) I feel very comfortable that, so long as I don't do anything to tarnish my reputation in the public sphere I have pretty good security in my income. Edit: Grammar... oh, the grammar...

kafkaesq 9y ago

It's almost like these people hate money for some reason. No - they just hate wasting time. Like time spent living someone else's dreams, for example. And I can have conversations, share what I know, and learn at work. That's great for you. Not all jobs work out like that for everyone, unfortunately. In fact they're nearly 100% "dead time" for many people I know. An acceptable enough tradeoff (given the available choices), mind you -- I'm not saying these people are complaining. But in and of itself -- 8-12 a day (depending on your commute) gone straight down the toilet, nonetheless. So like the author of the original post himself acknowledges -- the grass certainly ain't always greener, on "the other side". But I don't poo-poo these people for trying. In fact I'd wager it'd be a much more boring world to live in if people didn't try to "break loose", as often as they do.

kafkaesq 9y ago
That should be "8-12 hours a day .."

amorphid 9y ago

I like working. When a job makes it hard for me to do the work I'm good at, all of the joy gets sucked out of my day, and life becomes about hating work and recovering from work. For example, being hired as a Sr. Front-end Developer and then being tasked with manually cleaning up an unending amount of mangled HTML would suck big time.

the_cat_kittles 9y ago

very simple- when what you really want to do does not make you money!

amatecha 9y ago

I recently heard a funny quote: "Job stands for 'just over broke'"

imgabe 9y ago

And yet, if nobody ever threw away a job and started something of their own, there would be no jobs for you to have.

grecy 9y ago

> I've never understood the irrational desire to quit your job. When you don't have a job, you have a lot of time to live how you want. Last time I quit I spent two years driving from Alaska to Argentina through 16 countires, and right now I'm spending two years driving right around Africa through 30 countries I hike, swim, camp, cook, learn languages, talk to locals, see sunrises, sunsets, beaches, mountains, rivers, lakes, oceans, volcanoes, animals, take photos and generally do whatever I want on any given day. It's paradise, for me.

phil21 9y ago

So... having owned a company before, and somewhat understanding your rationale but not really sure how to explain the other side to you... Have you ever thought that perhaps a life doesn't need to have this work/life separation at all? When you run/own your own company your life becomes work and vice versa. It's incredibly freeing. You wake up when there is work to do, and any time you are working on something when you don't want to be - you know the direct and logical reason you are doing so. Want a vacation tomorrow? Take it. You can push a couple meetings and take those other conference calls from the beach no problem. You are never sitting there plugging away at pointless work no one will ever see - and if you are, the second you realize it you can simply stop and switch to a different direction. Ever been in the office at 3pm wondering why the hell you have to sit there staring blankly at a screen? As a business owner that never happens. Not being productive at that moment? Just leave and go swimming. No boss to justify it to, and no reason to feel guilty about what your co-workers may think. It's freedom. Sure if I could somehow work a job I hate for 10 years and then have financial freedom so I could do whatever with my day - great. Sign me up. That doesn't really exist (for me) though - so the next best thing I can do is make my career my life and hopefully reach the same financial goals in 40 years instead of 30, but having come out ahead since I didn't hate most of my waking life working on some useless thing I don't have any investment in. I've done the commute to work 10+ hours a day thing, and I honestly don't know how anyone can act like such a mindless drone for so much of their useful life. Seems incredibly myopic to me. There are jobs you could not pay me $50k/hr to do. Life is too short to spend time doing stupid busy work - no matter how well paid it is. Or put in a much more simple way? It's about enjoying the journey, not just the destination. When the journey equals the vast majority of the waking hours you exist for, I think it's incredibly important that part of your life gives you direct satisfaction over simple monetary concerns. Once my basic needs are met - compensation is certainly nowhere near the top of my list when evaluating job opportunities.

laythea 9y ago

I thought you were being sarcastic, but now I am not sure.

dunkelheit 9y ago

The problem with most jobs (well, at least the kind of jobs those who frequent this site typically get) is not that they are bad. In fact most of them are quite comfy and well-paying. By the standards of previous epochs they would qualify as leisure. The problem is that a job robs you of that tiny bit of fuel that you can use to change the world in the direction that is yours alone. I don't know the exact word for it, so let's call it agency. I would argue that it is in large part what makes you human and not an automaton. You didn't have that problem when you worked that warehouse job because you used it to save up for doing something you wanted. But for some senior engineer at the BigCo polishing the internals of an ad-serving backend in exchange for a hefty paycheck the problem is real. It is especially tantalizing for us software developers because we are constantly bombarded with reminders about how much leverage and power we have. This makes the pain of wasting our agency on someone else's crappy vision even more acute.