4 ms·

The best job I've ever had is about 10% interesting and 90% horrible grind. I've come to believe the secret to getting something out of a career is learning to

The best job I've ever had is about 10% interesting and 90% horrible grind. I've come to believe the secret to getting something out of a career is learning to love the grind. Incidentally, that 10/90 ratio happens to dominate everything else worth pursuing also. Sports in particular. You get that initial ramp up high and then when you hit the part with smaller and smaller gains, that's where "learning to love the grind" kicks in. It's much harder than it sounds, too!

vlunkr 9y ago
I think this is about right. I really enjoy starting new projects and tackling new types of challenges, but I always end up spending more time on maddening bugs or re-implementing some variation of a feature you've already built 10 other times. Staying focused and excited for that stuff is the hard part.
ChemicalWarfare 9y ago
right on. one of the reasons folks who jump ship too often look suspect resume-wise. not always the case but those frequent short gigs look like the person is prone to bailing after the ramp-up honeymoon is over and it's time to get sh1t done.
- pmoriarty 9y ago
  "one of the reasons folks who jump ship too often look suspect resume-wise. not always the case but those frequent short gigs look like the person is prone to bailing after the ramp-up honeymoon is over and it's time to get sh1t done." Reasons I've quit jobs after a year that had nothing to do with lazyness (in fact, I'm often one of the people who puts in the most hours in my teams, and praised for it so as long as I keep putting in the hours): 1 - There's no connection between my boss/team-mates apart from the work. We have nothing in common. We see the world differently. We like different things. Interactions not related to work are strained. We probably wouldn't choose to spend time with one another if work didn't force us to. This is actually kind of a big deal, since I wind up spending most of my waking time with my coworkers, who it'd be nice to actually like and enjoy spending time with. There's only superficial due dillegence you can do for this during the hiring process. Most people seem at least decent during the interviews. It may take time to find out they're really not your type of people, and you're not theirs. 2 - Getting blamed for something out of my control, and having no power to change it. You can't fix it because the boss says no, but you're the one who gets blamed when things go wrong. 3 - Being surrounded by a company full of money-chasers, whose sole reason for existence seems to be to make more money. This is related to reason 1 above, and kind of makes me depressed. 4 - Working crazy hours for long periods of time. There's a lot of talk about 4-hour-days on HN recently. Well, if you're a fan of 4-hour-days you can probably understand how debilitating 12-, 14-, and 16-hour days are, especially when you have to work them for months if not years on end. 5 - Being forced to do boring, menial work you're way overqualified for because the company is too cheap to hire someone less skilled to do it. This leads to extreme boredom and frustration. 6 - Having no growth opportunities and feeling stuck in your position. 7 - Having spineless bosses that constantly kiss up to upper management and force the team do whatever they're told no matter how ridiculous or wrong they know it to be. 8 - Being underpaid and feeling unappreciated -- especially when you choose not to work crazy hours, which seems to be the only way some people can be impressed. 9 - Being treated with contempt by people who don't understand what you do. 10 - Feeling like your life is slipping away working on crap you really don't care about. 11 - Learning new technology -- something that got me excited a decade ago -- just seems like more of the same, and a drudge, full of irrelevant minutia. 12 - Having lots of interests outside of work that I'd much rather be spending my time on. 13 - Having to deal with mountains of bureaucracy and political bullshit. Having to hear endless cheerleading from upper management that everyone knows is a load of crap, yet having to smile and applaud. 14 - Feeling seriously depressed and burnt out, in large part due to much of the above. I wish I could say companies like the above are rare, but they're way too common.
- kstrauser 9y ago
  Before my current job, I'd gone through a few 6-months or 1-year jobs (after spending 8 years at my previous place). For me, at least, it wasn't so much "we're no longer in the honeymoon phase" as "wow, this really just isn't a good fit". I see it kind of like getting out of a dead-end relationship: why drag it out if you know it's not going to work? I think it's better to recognize the disconnect and get out quickly while everyone can part as friends.
pmoriarty 9y ago
"I've come to believe the secret to getting something out of a career is learning to love the grind." I've never been able to achieve this, which is probably one of the reasons I've burnt out more times than I can count. I'd probably be retired by now if only I could have loved the grind. Instead, I'm now probably never going to be able to retire in my lifetime.
- shortoncash 9y ago
  I'll give you a tip, if it helps. So, early on in my career, I'd be in big companies with big products. The little feature or whatever I'd work on just didn't seem all that important to me. I didn't care what my managers thought. I didn't care about the company. The stock price didn't matter because I only had a few measly shares worth nothing. Everything about the situation felt like a waste of time. I'd stay up late at night working on side projects, only to be tired at work and, again, too tired to complete the side projects I felt were more worthy of my time. Somewhere along the way, I decided I wanted to make a product for myself. Something complete, contained, and ready to release to market -- good or bad. It was that process of trying to make something stable, complete, and market-worthy that let me understand the grind. The last 1% is so much more awful than the first 99%, and it's in those details where all the "mental gains" are made. Today, there is no shortage of opportunity to get a feel for what it takes to make a complete product. Whether it's the app store, a functional web site, or just anything that gets, oh say, 1000 users. You just need to go through the abuse of completion once to get an appreciation for the grind. Once you know what you're in for, then you'll be more selective about what to start. Moreover, the end goal will make the grind seem like a logical step instead of endless toil -- this is where the grind is understood and appreciated. Just my opinion and experience! Hopefully it helps.
  - pmoriarty 9y ago
    Thank you for the advice, but there a couple of reasons why I doubt I'll ever do what you suggest. "Today, there is no shortage of opportunity to get a feel for what it takes to make a complete product. Whether it's the app store, a functional web site, or just anything that gets, oh say, 1000 users. You just need to go through the abuse of completion once to get an appreciation for the grind." The problem is: I don't really care about making some stupid app or website. That sort of thing interests me about as much as scraping out a sewer. I'm interested in things like reading old books of fiction, essays, and literary history. I enjoy feeling like I'm communing with the truly great minds of the past. Nobody's going to pay me for that -- especially as I don't really like to write articles, books, or essays myself -- and that's really critical for any kind of success in academia. I have other interests, but they're very mercurial. What interests me today might bore me tomorrow, and I'd probably hate doing any and all of it if I was forced to do so day in and day out for years on end -- especially if I couldn't choose my own subject matter as my mood dictates. The second problem for me is I really don't care about the business and marketing side of self-employment and running one's own startup. That's even more boring to me than writing code for apps I don't care about. I'm sure your advice is great for many people -- particularly if they're young and still enamored with technology. But unfortunately, I think I've just turned in to a grumpy old man who really couldn't give a damn. Too bad I can't afford to retire and go off to mind my own business, reading old, worm-eaten books until I die.

vlunkr 9y ago

I think this is about right. I really enjoy starting new projects and tackling new types of challenges, but I always end up spending more time on maddening bugs or re-implementing some variation of a feature you've already built 10 other times. Staying focused and excited for that stuff is the hard part.

ChemicalWarfare 9y ago

right on. one of the reasons folks who jump ship too often look suspect resume-wise. not always the case but those frequent short gigs look like the person is prone to bailing after the ramp-up honeymoon is over and it's time to get sh1t done.

pmoriarty 9y ago
"one of the reasons folks who jump ship too often look suspect resume-wise. not always the case but those frequent short gigs look like the person is prone to bailing after the ramp-up honeymoon is over and it's time to get sh1t done." Reasons I've quit jobs after a year that had nothing to do with lazyness (in fact, I'm often one of the people who puts in the most hours in my teams, and praised for it so as long as I keep putting in the hours): 1 - There's no connection between my boss/team-mates apart from the work. We have nothing in common. We see the world differently. We like different things. Interactions not related to work are strained. We probably wouldn't choose to spend time with one another if work didn't force us to. This is actually kind of a big deal, since I wind up spending most of my waking time with my coworkers, who it'd be nice to actually like and enjoy spending time with. There's only superficial due dillegence you can do for this during the hiring process. Most people seem at least decent during the interviews. It may take time to find out they're really not your type of people, and you're not theirs. 2 - Getting blamed for something out of my control, and having no power to change it. You can't fix it because the boss says no, but you're the one who gets blamed when things go wrong. 3 - Being surrounded by a company full of money-chasers, whose sole reason for existence seems to be to make more money. This is related to reason 1 above, and kind of makes me depressed. 4 - Working crazy hours for long periods of time. There's a lot of talk about 4-hour-days on HN recently. Well, if you're a fan of 4-hour-days you can probably understand how debilitating 12-, 14-, and 16-hour days are, especially when you have to work them for months if not years on end. 5 - Being forced to do boring, menial work you're way overqualified for because the company is too cheap to hire someone less skilled to do it. This leads to extreme boredom and frustration. 6 - Having no growth opportunities and feeling stuck in your position. 7 - Having spineless bosses that constantly kiss up to upper management and force the team do whatever they're told no matter how ridiculous or wrong they know it to be. 8 - Being underpaid and feeling unappreciated -- especially when you choose not to work crazy hours, which seems to be the only way some people can be impressed. 9 - Being treated with contempt by people who don't understand what you do. 10 - Feeling like your life is slipping away working on crap you really don't care about. 11 - Learning new technology -- something that got me excited a decade ago -- just seems like more of the same, and a drudge, full of irrelevant minutia. 12 - Having lots of interests outside of work that I'd much rather be spending my time on. 13 - Having to deal with mountains of bureaucracy and political bullshit. Having to hear endless cheerleading from upper management that everyone knows is a load of crap, yet having to smile and applaud. 14 - Feeling seriously depressed and burnt out, in large part due to much of the above. I wish I could say companies like the above are rare, but they're way too common.
kstrauser 9y ago
Before my current job, I'd gone through a few 6-months or 1-year jobs (after spending 8 years at my previous place). For me, at least, it wasn't so much "we're no longer in the honeymoon phase" as "wow, this really just isn't a good fit". I see it kind of like getting out of a dead-end relationship: why drag it out if you know it's not going to work? I think it's better to recognize the disconnect and get out quickly while everyone can part as friends.

pmoriarty 9y ago

"I've come to believe the secret to getting something out of a career is learning to love the grind." I've never been able to achieve this, which is probably one of the reasons I've burnt out more times than I can count. I'd probably be retired by now if only I could have loved the grind. Instead, I'm now probably never going to be able to retire in my lifetime.

shortoncash 9y ago
I'll give you a tip, if it helps. So, early on in my career, I'd be in big companies with big products. The little feature or whatever I'd work on just didn't seem all that important to me. I didn't care what my managers thought. I didn't care about the company. The stock price didn't matter because I only had a few measly shares worth nothing. Everything about the situation felt like a waste of time. I'd stay up late at night working on side projects, only to be tired at work and, again, too tired to complete the side projects I felt were more worthy of my time. Somewhere along the way, I decided I wanted to make a product for myself. Something complete, contained, and ready to release to market -- good or bad. It was that process of trying to make something stable, complete, and market-worthy that let me understand the grind. The last 1% is so much more awful than the first 99%, and it's in those details where all the "mental gains" are made. Today, there is no shortage of opportunity to get a feel for what it takes to make a complete product. Whether it's the app store, a functional web site, or just anything that gets, oh say, 1000 users. You just need to go through the abuse of completion once to get an appreciation for the grind. Once you know what you're in for, then you'll be more selective about what to start. Moreover, the end goal will make the grind seem like a logical step instead of endless toil -- this is where the grind is understood and appreciated. Just my opinion and experience! Hopefully it helps.
- pmoriarty 9y ago
  Thank you for the advice, but there a couple of reasons why I doubt I'll ever do what you suggest. "Today, there is no shortage of opportunity to get a feel for what it takes to make a complete product. Whether it's the app store, a functional web site, or just anything that gets, oh say, 1000 users. You just need to go through the abuse of completion once to get an appreciation for the grind." The problem is: I don't really care about making some stupid app or website. That sort of thing interests me about as much as scraping out a sewer. I'm interested in things like reading old books of fiction, essays, and literary history. I enjoy feeling like I'm communing with the truly great minds of the past. Nobody's going to pay me for that -- especially as I don't really like to write articles, books, or essays myself -- and that's really critical for any kind of success in academia. I have other interests, but they're very mercurial. What interests me today might bore me tomorrow, and I'd probably hate doing any and all of it if I was forced to do so day in and day out for years on end -- especially if I couldn't choose my own subject matter as my mood dictates. The second problem for me is I really don't care about the business and marketing side of self-employment and running one's own startup. That's even more boring to me than writing code for apps I don't care about. I'm sure your advice is great for many people -- particularly if they're young and still enamored with technology. But unfortunately, I think I've just turned in to a grumpy old man who really couldn't give a damn. Too bad I can't afford to retire and go off to mind my own business, reading old, worm-eaten books until I die.