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One thing that helped me is not to care so much about my employer's goals. It's almost heretical. But once you embrace this mindset, it does wonders. Or at lea

• Lammy 5y ago
  > In that context, why do so many of us take on so many unnecessary responsibilities? Honestly I think it’s a wonderful reflection of humans’ innate empathy and drive to help each other, the Stanford Prison Experiment shown to be junk science over and over and over. We humans are unfortunately exploited by humanoid entities (corporations) who turn humans’ one truly-limited resource (attention) into something that’s also non-human. Everybody has heard the idiom that “time = money”, but have you ever stopped to think how fucked up it sounds when you apply the transitive property of equality to get “money = time”?
• snarf21 5y ago
  Well said. It is frustrating with the "everything is an emergency" mindset at some companies. I far along in my career that I just let it slide off but others aren't. We had a potential customer that was definitely going to sign a contract on Monday so another engineer spent all weekend getting a new rack mount computer all set up. That was four weeks ago and no one has heard anything from them. The bosses think they they are helping to keep everyone motivated and moving forward but they don't get how bad it is for morale. Everything can't be most important.
  • sudoit 5y ago
    Bingo. 90% of the things I broke my back over because “it was an emergency” got scraped or abandoned a week later. And my ex-employer was wondering why our team turnover was through the roof.
    • snarf21 5y ago
      I had an old boss that I developed a rule of 3 for. He like to change priorities constantly because that was "agile". So I just knew that until he asked for something the 3rd time, I would say "yes" and let it die on the vine. If he did ask 3 times, then it was probably going to actually stay a priority.
• caminante 5y ago
  > In that context, why do so many of us take on so many unnecessary responsibilities? It's tempting to say "Well, my employer assigned them."... It's interesting to audit what you do v. your ACTUAL job definition, especially when it comes to blurred responsibilities. Tell your friend this realistic boss saying: > If you work hard, put in extra hours, and push to be the best, then "I" get a new Ferrari next year!
• dreyfan 5y ago
  This attitude works at random jobs where you’re replaceable, absolutely. However if you’re a meaningful part of an early team with equity, this is quite literally how you can indeed get rich.
  • knightofmars 5y ago
    This was how you could get rich. Maybe I'm overly cynical, but I feel that these days VC and founders know all the right tricks to play to remove value from the contributors and reallocate it to the investors.
    • bluefirebrand 5y ago
      Yeah, staff does not get big payouts anymore because investors want that money. If you're a founder you might get rich
      • argc 5y ago
        What do you mean by big payout in this context?
        • bluefirebrand 5y ago
          Enough to retire early.
          • edmundsauto 5y ago
            I think this is around $2M in the US, using what the FIrE community says. Does that seem reasonable, Or are you thinking about $20M+ payouts? (That’s what I would need to retire now.)
            • bluefirebrand 5y ago
              "retire early" does not necessarily have to mean "retire tomorrow", I guess it depends how old you are. If you're in your 20s or 30s, 2M is probably not "retire tomorrow" money, but it would probably let you retire very early if you managed it and made smart investments with it. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think many ICs are getting even 50k from startup equity, nevermind 2M. 20M is "retire tomorrow" money for sure. And definitely workers do not get that kind of money from startup equity. Most of what I hear now is companies giving fake "shares" that are ostensibly tied to the value of the company but are not actually shares and do not represent any ownership. If they do give shares it's not enough to pay out big, and they get diluted repeatedly over time.
• nly 5y ago
  I have recently jumped ship from an employer of 3 years after adopting a similar attitude. New Job will pay me double and as such will help me achieve my goals. Old Company said if I stayed I could achieve a 25% increase in TC if I continued to work on "impactful projects" for 2 years or so. But those projects are the ones I hated there (otherwise a great company) I've seen first hand when developers leave how all their prideful work becomes a burden to be distributed and shared, and while on notice myself I've seen how all my best and most impactful ideas and projects has been deprioritised. I expect some of it to be lost forever when I go. Instead of milking me for info on my most useful works (libraries, scripts, etc), they have me reassigning meaningless JIRA tickets.
  • caminante 5y ago
    >Old Company said if I stayed I could achieve a 25% increase [within 2 years] For existing employees, this is rather high, but as you did, you should discount this. To get that boost with your current employer, you need to (i) be irreplaceable for a critical service; or (ii) show proof of external offers. HR/Finance will sets wages at low-mid market so that the 10 other high performing/underpaid employees in your situation will stay and only you will leave. HR's fine with that bet, and people with initiative like you are the victors.
    • nly 5y ago
      My TC increased 7-10%/yr each year I was there, so the promise is inline with expectations. Me and my partner just can't wait 2 years for 25% when I can have 2x now. Even with 2x, raising kids will be financially challenging.
      • idontwantthis 5y ago
        Were you making a very small amount then? You said you were in college 20 years ago. Did you start your career very late or do you want an very large salary before you have kids? I made $60K right out of college (far less than 20 years ago) as a software developer at a small consultancy in one of the cheapest cities in the country. People on here are always talking about changing jobs and getting a huge salary increase, but these numbers don't make sense unless you were tremendously underpaid for many years.
• h0l0cube 5y ago
  > It's almost heretical It really shouldn't be. At the end of the day, the vast majority of workers are being compensated to do/build something they otherwise wouldn't of their own volition. Your mental health ought never be lower in priority than the ambitions of your senior management, or the ROI of the stakeholders.
• chitowneats 5y ago
  Just know that we see you. We understand that this is your mentality. That's why we don't promote you, that's why we don't hire you, etc. Saying yes to everything some random PM wants from you is of course not the way. But neither is "lying flat". Hard work is in many ways its own reward. After decades in the industry, those that have put in the time and effort far outshine their coasting peers. There are benefits for your career should you choose to put in the effort and ascend.
  • sillysaurusx 5y ago
    This doesn’t mean no effort. This means putting effort into saying no. There’s a difference, and school (and parents) don’t teach us the distinction.
    • chitowneats 5y ago
      Saying no is easy once you get passed the initial mental block. Let's not pretend otherwise. It's certainly easier than doing the work. That's the entire premise of your argument.
      • sillysaurusx 5y ago
        It’s not so easy. I thought it was. Many people — perhaps most — are inclined to be afraid of saying no. You also can’t say no to homework assignments. So we learn the behavior early in life.
  • draebek 5y ago
    Maybe people who put in a ton of work get ahead. That's a big maybe. Sometimes people get ahead because they had the good fortune to be tapped for the big project. Sometimes they were in the right meeting and got tapped by the boss because they were in the room. Sometimes people get ahead because they're better at talking than doing. But maybe you work hard, do more. What's the financial return on that, for a typical employee over your hypothetical "coasting employee"? 50%? 20%? Less? Is it worth it? The stress, the extra hours, the opportunity costs?
  • 5y ago
• bumby 5y ago
  This is tough if you actually try to have a team-oriented mindset. I’ve worked in groups (hard to really call them a team) where everyone, everyone , stiff armed duties. The end result is that the hard stuff, or low status stuff, never got done. I get there’s a balance, but if you entered a career where you actually care about the mission, it’s hard to just see that mission suffer because people want to take the easy way out. It’s particularly problematic when they are positions of public trust. Would you want to go to a hospital where the “it’s not my job” attitude is prevalent? Would you hire a contractor to build a house with that attitude? I tend to think the better organizations don’t think in terms of what are peoples “jobs” but what problems actually need solved
  • asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
    I wouldn't appeal to a person's better nature to counteract this attitude. If their nature were to be a team player, they would be a team player. Instead, employers need to recognize that there will be mercenary employees, and they need to set up their systems to reward the behavior they actually want to encourage. If mercenary behavior is rewarded, that's what you'll get at the margin. At least at my employer, it doesn't seem like shirkers and work-to-rule folks are rewarded. Maybe there are some people who do work like this and are still getting rewarded by giving off the appearance of being team players, but I guess you'd have to be a pretty careful actor to accomplish that. You'd also need to be able to manipulate your colleagues into doing the work you aren't, but still liking you enough to review you well during 360 reviews. That being said, there is a grain of truth in what the op was saying as well. It's not healthy to care too much about your employer's goals, because they are necessarily in tension with yours to a certain degree. Work should be compartmentalized to the degree appropriate to how much you enjoy it and the material rewards you're getting from it, and this balance is going to be specific to each individual person.
    • bumby 5y ago
      I couldn’t agree with this more. I think it also speaks to the importance of leadership in creating a culture that incentivizes the right behavior
  • 5y ago
• tomerbd 5y ago
  Do you have OnCall shifts?
  • Consultant32452 5y ago
    The only on-call I accept these days are ones that I get to bill my full rate for the entire time whether they call me or not. Most companies don't accept this deal, but I don't need or want to work for most companies.
• jjulius 5y ago
  >You're probably not going to get rich from working a day job. You're replaceable, and if you left your job tomorrow then you'll soon be forgotten. This is true for the majority of software engineers. I'd honestly be replace "software engineers" with "all jobs"; your post is highly relevant to most fields.
  • WealthVsSurvive 5y ago
    Are the owners not also, extremely replaceable, moreso than the engineers? I think so.
    • jjulius 5y ago
      Of course, hence my use of the word, "all". :)
• resonious 5y ago
  Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like the premise here is that the only purpose for a career is to "get rich". I think a lot of people genuinely enjoy the work they do, and the relationships they have with their co-workers. Or, on the darker side of things, over-work themselves because they can't find anything engaging _outside of work_. For both of those groups of people, they might not actually enjoy getting rich and retiring early. At the same time, it seems like your yes-person friend is both willingly over-working themselves and complaining that they are overworked. So I'll agree that it doesn't make much sense - unless they truly are aiming for an early retirement.
  • MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
    >the only purpose for a career is to "get rich". What other reason is there for a career? If there was no financial incentive for most, I highly doubt anybody would waste the time learning how to be a lawyer, programmer, or doctor. People don't just go into a career hoping to make a menial wage and work 40-60 hours a week.
    • alfiedotwtf 5y ago
      Most (if not all) programmers I personally know are in it because they love computers and programming, and they'd all agree that we're lucky to be doing what we love 9-5 (and then some) whilst getting paid better than average. I almost feel guilty I get paid to play with computers all day.
    • ixacto 5y ago
      Because you are interested in what you are doing? I had no idea how much a developer or sysadmin made when I was 13 and started playing with FreeBSD and Debian...
    • jasbur 5y ago
      I think what resonious is saying is that your particular job is unlikely to make you significantly wealthier than any others in your field. Don't make huge sacrifices unless you have a realistic expectation of abnormally huge returns.
• abhiyerra 5y ago
  I started doing this around 7 years ago. A company I worked at imposed a nights and weekends working schedule. I left mostly to move to be closer with my current wife who lived further (> 1 hour) away. At the time it was still early in our relationship. Seven years later she is my wife and the company that asked for nights and weekends, no one cares about.
• thallukrish 5y ago
  People don't know what to do with their time. For those who know, they don't know why they do, what they do.
• SubuSS 5y ago
  I know of so many folks in fang and my current job who’d disagree that you can’t get rich from a day job. Most of them got there by not being cynical about their employer’s goals and working with the team to make those happen. I guess I’ve been incredibly lucky and probably am in a nice west coast dream bubble, but my bubble vision means I definitely don’t buy that am a rare unicorn. I don’t think I would feel happy about working with peers who had a cynical outlook and we’re not invested in the shared dream. I am replying only because this was the top comment - I really hope I reach at least one person who’s on the fence about committing to a goal bigger than personal!
  • sillysaurusx 5y ago
    Why is it required not to say "no" or suggest alternative directions in order to work with your employer to make their goals happen? I don't think it's cynical at all. Quite the opposite: I think it's how functional teams work effectively. Of course you can get rich from a FAANG job. But most of us don't work at FAANG. And there are plenty of slackers even at FAANG: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21961560 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21961560 "Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?" My thesis here is that this person wasn't doing anything wrong. They don't need to feel bad about providing value to their employer by only "patching things together from an internal codebase" or "not deeply understanding every aspect of what they do." The vast majority of the world operates this way, and I'm not sure FAANG is much of an exception.
    • SubuSS 5y ago
      I totally agree with push back when necessary: my own career has seen lean times and heavy times as well and thankfully I had built enough work-equity with my employers that they gracefully helped me tide over them. So that’s not what am contesting. I was addressing the heretical point you mentioned - ignore employer’s goals. May be I missed an exaggeration there.
      • sillysaurusx 5y ago
        It's a balance. I think most people care too much about their employer's goals. The heresy is that you can't just say "Well, I don't care about my employer's goals," or else you'll be facing some negative reviews. The trick is to make it a mental shift. Here's a concrete example: Suppose you were coordinating with some large bank that takes a very long time to do anything. Should you feel bad that most of your day is spent waiting for them? Should you proactively go out of your way to find extra work for yourself? I don't think so. You waiting for Big Bank is the business goal. But most people will tell their manager "I have nothing to do; please find me more work" (in so many words). There's no reason to stress yourself out like that. Some would say you'd be doing the bare minimum. I would say that you'd be fulfilling your business obligations, and that you'd be acting professionally. Most people won't have such direct opportunities to minimize their workload. But they often maximize their own workload for no reason, until their managers practically force them to take time off. (Or they don't, which is worse.)
• geodel 5y ago
  Great point. I try to apply it to myself. Instead of working twice as hard for 5 percent chance of any promotion or other benefit, I'd prefer working hard enough at minimum acceptable level and try to control things from expense side.
• jollybean 5y ago
  You have to be careful here. A lot of things will fall through the cracks if people don't pick up. Professionals are not hourly workers, you're not there to do A->B, you're there to deal with the complexity, which means picking up pieces. That said - you definitely do not have to worry about stuff. A healthy sense of detachment is actually kind of good for both you and your employer. Your job is a civic responsibility, it's frankly moral to do a 'good job' - but that doesn't mean 'over striving', it doesn't mean 'being taken advantage of' and it doesn't mean having to worry about the bigger picture. That's definitely not your job. I think a lot of people could be just as productive if they figured out the emotional strain part. One little trick is to say to yourself 'I Don't Care' - but then go in the office, and put one foot in front of the other, and just get whatever is in front of you done. It's weirdly liberating and can be productive. Like 'corporate mindfulness' - be present in the thing that you're trying to do - and not caught up in the giant hill of politics, bits and pieces, it's just noise. Do your job well, go home, and forget about it.
• pjmlp 5y ago
  It does wonders, only care for the team. Employers most of the time only care about the management board goals, employee of the year can quickly turn into a jobless employee, given the way company roadmaps work in practice.
• henrikschroder 5y ago
  > It's almost heretical. But once you embrace this mindset, it does wonders. Or at least, it has for me so far. The only reward for a job well done is more work. The quicker you realize that, the happier you'll be.
  • Scea91 5y ago
    Also raises, promotions, bonuses, RSUs...
    • henrikschroder 5y ago
      No, those are earned through office politics. A job well done is a good bargaining chip when playing office politics, but it doesn't guarantee you raises, bonuses, promotions or RSUs.
  • Godel_unicode 5y ago
    I feel genuinely sad for people who believe this. As someone who is extremely critical of my own work, the feeling of walking home knowing I really did something well is so awesome.
    • systemvoltage 5y ago
      Also, spending your career in cynicism guarantees depression of some sorts. It makes you dull, you’ll have poor friends, you’ll attract the worst of people, you’ll create a toxic workplace that would resemble some of the worst run government departments. Impossible to fire, useless bloat of people that have zero interest in improving themselves or others, and life a fulfilling life. Sad. But on the bright side, those that excel at what they do are going to be disproportionately rewarded. I love this aspect of society and certain political ideologies want to destroy this.
    • WJW 5y ago
      A job well done can be its own reward, that is true. Just be careful that the satisfaction does not turn into the main reward, because your management also knows that you derive significant value from the satisfaction and will attempt to save on raises/promotions/etc since you are apparently already happy enough even without those.
• systemvoltage 5y ago
  This is a terrible way to live a life. This cynicism would be evident to others, create a toxic pathologically depressing environment and then pull others down with it. I can’t believe I’m reading this on HN, a place that used to be full of optimism and accepting grand challenges, looking upto leaders and doing hard things others shy away from. I know this is a taboo to compare with Reddit, but lately I have to pinch myself and ask is this really HN!?
  • odshoifsdhfs 5y ago
    Well, maybe most people have finally seen through what a BS most of the VC/Start Ups are if you are an employee with shitty behaviour from founders/investors that you realize the best way to go through life is to do the same they do, just from the other side. If you don't own a significant (5%+) chunk in a company, don't do a single minute of non-paid overwork. Do the bare minimum to justify not being fired (and this is key, if they don't fire you for that, it means they accept that what they pay you is being returned to them in work, so why give them more output for the same money?). Save your energy and time and focus on you, your family, your projects. Companies don't care for you, so why the fuck care for them. Get in. Put the minimum that the company accepts for they pay and get the fuck out. Anything else is just bad choice that are have more positives for the companies and downsides for yourself
• lelanthran 5y ago
  > I think a lot of us want to be proud of the work we do, and we feel that if we slack off, then we shouldn't be proud. But it's the other way around. I think the slackers have it right. You're more correct than you think! https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-... The TLDR of the above is: 1. There is usually only a single promotion-role on offer. 2. That promotion will go to the best performing employee (whatever metric is used). 3. If you're not the best performing employee, then do only the bare minimum to avoid being fired. 4. Doing the bare minimum to avoid being fired frees up the employee to concentrate energy and efforts towards jumping the corporate ladder (new project, etc). Note that #4 is an "up or out" proposition: if the employee fails to gain power/influence in the company, then that energy can still be used to land a higher-level position at a different corp using the "new project" effort as an indicator to other companies that the employee has more power/influence than they actually possess.
  • fuy 5y ago
    I feel this is missing a lot of details. Even if there's a single promotion per team per year (and there are certainly companies where promotions are not limited like that), that means that, in a team of 4 people, 50% will be promoted in 2 years. So if you like the job and plan to stay for a few years, I fail to see how this tactics is even remotely close to optimal.
    • lelanthran 5y ago
      > I feel this is missing a lot of details. Yes. The link goes into details. > Even if there's a single promotion per team per year (and there are certainly companies where promotions are not limited like that), that means that, in a team of 4 people, 50% will be promoted in 2 years. So if you like the job and plan to stay for a few years, I fail to see how this tactics is even remotely close to optimal. It's an analysis based on The Office; maybe read it and critique the 20k word write-up (in the link) instead of the 4-point summary.
• luckyandroid 5y ago
  There's a balance needed with smaller companies. I, for a long time, chose not to care about the company's goals and just hit the daily tasks, and for a while it worked and I did very well. But eventually the management had a build up of stress, realising that THEIR choices of assigned tasks were not taking us properly to the goals, and let out the stress on the development team to a point where a few of us quit. This isn't an objection to "not caring about employer's goals", far from it, it's clearly an issue with management teething problems as they try to expand a relatively small company and don't know how to do it. But I've found that caring a little bit about the goals, trying to see what they're aiming for and having that inside view of why we aren't getting there, allows me to bridge that gap, offer better advice to management and help the entire team have a less stress filled day, at the expense of some of my own peace of mind. It'd be easy for me to say "well that's managements issue" but I can't ignore that management issues trickle down to the rest of us, which is much more obvious in smaller companies.
  • luckyandroid 5y ago
    Oh, and a mention on 'saying no' - it's very hard to convince an employer to start saying no to customer demands even when they agree with all the reasons set out in front of them, especially when they've had a decade of doing nothing but bespoke work for them. It's taken a year but we're finally at the point we can firmly stand our ground as a dev team and say "no we're not working on that", or "push to Q4", and ignore the "we need this done TODAY" type of demands that have plagued us for years.
• mouzogu 5y ago
  I totally agree. Don't be "pro-active" be "re-active" - is my way of putting it. Frankly, most orgs will not reward pro-activity, in fact you can even be punished for it, since if a problem is not yet known by stakeholders then why are you solving it. There have been times in my career where I spotted issues from other teams on preview or staging servers and helped to fix it. Then I later got blamed (or dragged into the subject) when a similar issue occured on live which I had no association with. It's better to just sit back and do the minimum, but do it well and professionally. Most importantly, don't make yourself too available: > Don't respond immediately to messages and emails. > Don't propose solutions, that you will have to own (at least partly). > Don't answer questions outside of your responsibility space - even if you know the answer. Instead, direct people to others who should be answering those questions.
  • paulluuk 5y ago
    One thing I did learn though, is that if you spot a problem and then report it to the relevant stakeholder, along with a plan for how you think it could be resolved, that's a really easy way to work yourself up in a large organisation. You have to work the politics, not just the code.
    • mouzogu 5y ago
      Yes, it does depend a lot on the environment. Many cases, the stakeholders don't have an appreciation for what you're suggesting or even the consideration to balance your workload: "Oh, thanks for bringing the problem to my attention, let me just add that to your massive pile of work and make it a P1 like everything else - and this problem space is also now your responsibility forever because you're (in my mind) the expert on it" - unfortunately, there are many managers that operate this way. Just clueless. That's why i always advocate a cautious, cynical, self preserving approach but again depends on the env and your relationships.
    • fzzzy 5y ago
      No, that's an easy way to get fired.
• amelius 5y ago
  > That's true, but they won't get rich from that career, so I don't understand why they care so much about it. Perhaps they have company shares?
• Chyzwar 5y ago
  It is easy to say. But people characters are well-formed in theirs twenties. If someone is hardworking and motivated, they will work hard and be proactive regardless of project, compensation or whenever they care for the company. It is not something you can switch on and off. For me, it is better to ride it. Since I am not going to change my approach to work, I will continue to be an expensive contractor until I can live from my savings and pursue my side projects.
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• WalterBright 5y ago
  > You're probably not going to get rich from working a day job. If you make a middle class salary, underspend your income by at least 10%, max out your 401k and IRA, invest in stocks, and start doing this in your 20s, yes, the odds are pretty good you will.
  • zerr 5y ago
    This also assumes that one has already won the lottery of birth.
    • WalterBright 5y ago
      If you were born in the US, and are of sound mind and body, you won the lottery.
      • WalterBright 5y ago
        For the people who strongly dislike that opinion of mine, consider the hundreds of thousands of people trying to win that lottery by walking thousands of miles just for a chance to slip through the border.
  • mark_l_watson 5y ago
    +1 and I would add try to own income rental properties by first buying an inexpensive house, not a huge expensive home; as soon as you can buy another inexpensive home and rent the first. Much better to own two modest homes and rent one than to own just one high maintenance cost huge home.
• beckman466 5y ago
  Agreed. It’s also important to remember that as a member of the non-propertied working class you’re always creating more value than what you’re paid for; you’re creating invaluable intellectual property that will bring in truckloads of cash and capital even after you leave the company.
• Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
  First, employees stop caring for their employer's goals. Next, they are upset when MailChimp sells and they don't get their options (apparently believing that receiving options is their sacred right protected by God, Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human rights).
• vidarh 5y ago
  The irony is that I've consistently gotten more respect by saying no than saying yes. If you say yes all the time, you become the person people go to when they want to dump things on someone. When you say no when you're busy, people quickly learn to respect your time more, and they'll be far more grateful for your time when they get it. More importantly, if it helps you deliver what you agree to deliver on time with more consistency, people quickly learn to appreciate that.
• krallja 5y ago
  This sounds like you’ve shifted from the “clueless” to the “loser” archetype in Ribbonfarm’s Gervais Principle (https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...) — ignore the insulting names for all three archetypes, I think you’re exactly right about how to reclaim the balance of power between labor and capital.
• leokennis 5y ago
  > You're probably not going to get rich from working a day job. You're replaceable, and if you left your job tomorrow then you'll soon be forgotten. This is true for the majority of software engineers. This part is so true. I worked with people who were the "conscience" of the project I worked on - they started it, knew everything about it, worked late nights to fix issues etc. Then they left and...the project kept running...everyone managed.
• iainctduncan 5y ago
  1000 times this. The investors who own your company care about your well being as much as it affects the attrition stats in a way that matters to the bottom line. I say this as someone who's job is literally to talk to these people about their priorities before they buy a software company.
• roguas 5y ago
  Even if you do get rich. There is also not much more reason to care. Find joy, i know a lot of rich folks have not.
• exnor 5y ago
  As a serial entrepreneur, and therefore employer of many people, I'm pretty horrified to read this. My immediate thought is that it's a toxic attitude, but totally understandable in what is probably the rule rather than the exception, i.e. a 'regular' company. And that's sad. If you are really feeling as you do, I think it's time to reassess your employment and potentially your life. For instance, I think many startups are different to this, and not only because they are small. More meaning: the genuine opportunity to enact change, I think is the biggest differentiator, alongside better incentives and stock options that in some cases lead to life-changing financial outcomes. There is always risk with this, and it's a higher risk than a larger company, but that's just the mechanics of life, economics, and society. I work incredibly long hours, so i'm always 'busy', but for the most part I love what I do, like a passion project. This is because I'm transfixed by cause and effect. It's an amazing thing that I don't think our brains are wired to appreciate by default. It takes discovering this and then confirming it, illustrating that just one person can have disproportionate impact in the world. It seems the vast majority of us limit ourselves or feel a sense of imposter syndrome in our own skin. The more one realises this and manages to instrument some change, the more positive reinforcement one gets, until one can look back at varying chunks of time in one's life to see the impact that was made. This gives you strong sense of meaning to your life, motivating you to fill your time with high impact activities that have the capacity to genuinely change people's lives, alongside your own. This could includes making time for your family and so on: because in many cases this is an important high impact activity. After realising this and doing it, the feeling you get with a positive outcome, even if you're still in the middle of doing whatever it is, is better than any drug i've taken. Steve Jobs did an interview in which he more eloquently expresses this ethos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYfNvmF0Bqw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYfNvmF0Bqw I think a lot of entrepreneurs feel this, but it isn't just limited to starting companies. There are so many ways each of us can make an impact.