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> New college grads can really struggle with finding balance after transitioning out of college > Ambitious juniors often see this and decide to go all-in The

> New college grads can really struggle with finding balance after transitioning out of college > Ambitious juniors often see this and decide to go all-in The most common issue I see with dedicated juniors is when work is, by a large margin, the biggest thing in their life. When work is your thing, it only takes one thing to go badly at work for it to impact your happiness. Given how much can go wrong in a career that is entirely outside your control, no matter how good you may be you'll inevitably hit a bump, and that can be really painful. I was lucky in that when I started work, I always had a large piece of my life that was outside of it. At first this was rowing crew, eventually it turned into cycling and crossfit. Finding hobbies like this, where your results are almost entirely within your own power, I found to be a powerful hedge against negative factors at work. It takes a while to figure this out, though, and I don't blame anyone for whom this hasn't clicked or didn't quite work. > It normalizes the idea that work is inherently bad, and that hating your work is natural Yes! I have a real problem with this positioning, especially because I don't think a solution to not enjoying work is to suck it up and do a bit less- I'd love more people to aim for work that excites them, and gives them energy. > No job is going to be fun all of the time, but if you're hating every hour of work and counting down the hours to the end of the day every day then you're probably in a below average job. Absolutely true. When I first joined my current company, we were 35 people in size, now we're ~650. That growth means I've worked on so many different things, in several different environments. Sometimes it was great, other times it sucked. Sometimes it sucked even while it was great- finishing an infrastructure migration into Google Cloud was an awesome achievement, but after a 18 month migration, I was fairly exhausted. If you get the balance right, there's an amount of flexibility and distance you and afford with your work that helps you get through the difficult parts, and maximise what you get from the good.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> The most common issue I see with dedicated juniors is when work is, by a large margin, the biggest thing in their life. Great point. The transition from college to work is a shocking experience for many. Modern colleges are excellent at keeping people socialized, entertained, and surrounding them with activities to do and people to meet. Then they enter the working world and suddenly it's not so easy. They need to make an effort to socialize, meet new people, and schedule activities. They need to plan ahead to find something to do on the weekend and coordinate with others to find people to do it with. I think many of them gravitate toward work because they think it will fill the void left when they left the ultra-social college environment. It takes time and effort to re-learn how to add activities and friends to your life when they're not falling into your lap.
- jlokier 5y ago
  I actually found the opposite with regard to college, work. and socialising. At college I had few friends, and spent most of my time with computers, studying mostly things outside what I was supposed to, and staying up far too late by myself or with one or two friends in the computer room. We did good things, but I wouldn't say that time was particularly sociable. At my first job after college, that's when I started to get a decent social life. The people around me were more rounded and better connected than those at college, and I was invited to things like house parties and outdoor activities much more than at college. Perhaps it helped that I could also finally afford the costs of socialising. This was at a games company - low pay relative to other programming work, and a reputation for not exactly rounded people (I certainly wasn't one), but many of them were fun and interesting people. Fast forward a decade, and in my 30s I found the best social avenues ever were through people who ran regular house parties, regular enough that substantial communities formed around them. That was even better than in my 20s at work. Fast forward another decade, and even ignoring the pandemic, unfortunately it's much harder to meet people in a sociable way. I enjoyed technical Meetups prior to the pandemic but that doesn't lead to the same kinds of social relationships as house parties with hot tubs do.
balfirevic 5y ago
> The most common issue I see with dedicated juniors is when work is, by a large margin, the biggest thing in their life. How could it not be, at 8 hours/day, 5 days/week?

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> The most common issue I see with dedicated juniors is when work is, by a large margin, the biggest thing in their life. Great point. The transition from college to work is a shocking experience for many. Modern colleges are excellent at keeping people socialized, entertained, and surrounding them with activities to do and people to meet. Then they enter the working world and suddenly it's not so easy. They need to make an effort to socialize, meet new people, and schedule activities. They need to plan ahead to find something to do on the weekend and coordinate with others to find people to do it with. I think many of them gravitate toward work because they think it will fill the void left when they left the ultra-social college environment. It takes time and effort to re-learn how to add activities and friends to your life when they're not falling into your lap.

jlokier 5y ago
I actually found the opposite with regard to college, work. and socialising. At college I had few friends, and spent most of my time with computers, studying mostly things outside what I was supposed to, and staying up far too late by myself or with one or two friends in the computer room. We did good things, but I wouldn't say that time was particularly sociable. At my first job after college, that's when I started to get a decent social life. The people around me were more rounded and better connected than those at college, and I was invited to things like house parties and outdoor activities much more than at college. Perhaps it helped that I could also finally afford the costs of socialising. This was at a games company - low pay relative to other programming work, and a reputation for not exactly rounded people (I certainly wasn't one), but many of them were fun and interesting people. Fast forward a decade, and in my 30s I found the best social avenues ever were through people who ran regular house parties, regular enough that substantial communities formed around them. That was even better than in my 20s at work. Fast forward another decade, and even ignoring the pandemic, unfortunately it's much harder to meet people in a sociable way. I enjoyed technical Meetups prior to the pandemic but that doesn't lead to the same kinds of social relationships as house parties with hot tubs do.

balfirevic 5y ago

> The most common issue I see with dedicated juniors is when work is, by a large margin, the biggest thing in their life. How could it not be, at 8 hours/day, 5 days/week?