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Modern work is weird. All your energy goes into it. But at the end of the day there's no satisfaction. Just emptiness and exhaustion. So you invest your remain

Modern work is weird. All your energy goes into it. But at the end of the day there's no satisfaction. Just emptiness and exhaustion. So you invest your remaining time in entertainments, drugs and shopping. Frantically groping for a scrap of joy. My friends in carpentry call it "feeding the monkey". The monkey must be fed, one way or another.

gambiting 3y ago
>>But at the end of the day there's no satisfaction. If that's the case then you need to find a different job. Plenty of people are really satisfied with what they do at work. I've accepted lower salary for years because the job I did was really satisfying and I'm still glad I was part of it.
- wahnfrieden 3y ago
  Blaming workers for their poor conditions is elitist and fragile advice. There are not “good jobs” available for all or most. Your cushy PMC role is contingent on miserable labor supporting it. See the contractor/full time divide at Google or Meta for instance
  - gambiting 3y ago
    >>Blaming workers for their poor conditions is elitist and fragile advice I literally don't see where I said such a thing.
    - swayvil 3y ago
      You literally told the worker that his misery is his own fault for having chosen the wrong job.
      - gambiting 3y ago
        I said if there is no satisfaction then you need to find a different job. The misery part was added by you.
        jasonlotito 3y ago
        Assuming good faith, we can easily determine that OP was suggesting the working a job that provides no satisfaction would be misery. Considering satisfaction and misery are subjective, quibbling over the word choice is pedantic at best. If you're incapable of seeing how someone might describe working in a job that provides no satisfaction as misery, I suggest taking time to understand how that can be the case, as your ignorance in this area does you harm.
        gambiting 3y ago
        All of that is reaching some conclusions and arguments that I didn't make and didn't use. All I said is that if your job doesn't bring you satisfaction then find another one. Everything beyond that is your own interpretation - I can of course see how you reached that interpretation, but I don't agree with it. There can be a job without satisfaction that isn't "misery". But that's not really relevant to my original point.
        mahogany 3y ago
        > I said if there is no satisfaction then you need to find a different job. In this is the implicit assumption that there are enough jobs to give everyone satisfaction - that is what people are taking issue with. Do you believe that assumption is true?
        gambiting 3y ago
        I think people are coming up with this assumption just to have an argument for no reason - I'm replying to an individual comment on HN, not giving advice to every single worker out there
      - tristor 3y ago
        There’s a difference between blame and prudence. It’s not blaming him to suggest he is empowered to change his conditions. If someone eschews prudence once aware of it, then they do bear some accountability for their outcomes, but even accountability is not blame. The confusion of the two has become commonplace as our society tries to avoid any conception of accountability.
- coffeefirst 3y ago
  Sure but these can be hard to find. Let's suppose the factors that make people like their jobs are a sense of ownership, applying skills, having friends, a high level of trust, and a sense that they're contributing something useful (the classic example is the construction worker isn't laying bricks, he's building a house). The hyper-financialized economy we find ourselves in loves meaningless Goals and OKRs, then does mass layoffs for no apparent reason besides investors like it. This is a pretty stark misalignment in values and incentives. Of course people are unhappy with it.
  - supertrope 3y ago
    This is why I roll my eyes internally when business leaders talk about wanting employees who are passionate about their role. When forced to choose decision makers will size up an individual contributor’s performance KPIs not their passion. e.g. Did you close enough sales? Was your butt planted in seat on schedule? Did you generally resolve problems for them or create them? Saying anything to suggest otherwise is a trick to distract you from keeping your eye on the ball.
- mordae 3y ago
  Why must the burden of getting a job that is not shitty always seem to fall on the worker and never the employee or the state? Why don't we have a law that says "if the boss is disrespectful to the worker, they pay the worker the average of their hourly wage for every such incident" while being rude to your superior would be considered a breach of conduct that, when repeated, would be grounds for dismissal? Stop adoring the hierarchy and licking the boot.
  - gambiting 3y ago
    >>Why must the burden of getting a job that is not shitty always seem to fall on the worker and never the employee or the state? What makes you think that my arguments precludes the latter? Equally, do you think that you as an employee have no agency in your own choice of employment? I understand there is a lot(probably even a majority) of people in the world who don't have that - but my comment isn't addressed to those. It's addressed to the specific HN comment. >>Stop adoring the hierarchy and licking the boot. ...what? I think you've constructed in your own head what my position is and are arguing against that, and not against what I actually said or believe.
constantly 3y ago
Speak for yourself, I know many people who derive a lot of joy from their work and find it energizing, myself included.
- wahnfrieden 3y ago
  “Not all men” type argument Obviously rich people provide inspiration to many miserable workers to improve their conditions, doesn’t mean it’s achievable for most
  - constantly 3y ago
    Not really. First, it’s unfair to extrapolate one persons toxic mindset to work in general. But aside from that, what I’m saying is that there are plenty of examples of people who are happy at their jobs and if one wants to be happy at their jobs they can follow those examples or use them as inspiration.
    - almost_usual 3y ago
      I’m sure there were some happy servants in the past as well.
      - constantly 3y ago
        Your weird strawman aside, servants rarely or never had the same career and life mobility as hacker news posters.
- cableshaft 3y ago
  I've enjoyed my work before (especially working on games I enjoyed), but I've never found it energizing. Any mentally challenging work at the end of the day has alays left me feeling pretty low energy afterwards. Also physically challenging (I remember working 10 hour days in a warehouse and then going home and having a quick bite to eat and then immediately sleeping for 10 hours, I didn't even have the energy to watch tv). Also not physically or mentally challenging jobs either (as if just having to be present and 'on' during that time is enough to drain the energy). The only times I usually still have energy to do something are in the mornings before work or on weekends, and that's pretty much when all the chores and errands and personal project work has to happen.
OO000oo 3y ago
Karl Marx insisted people need to relate to the product of their labor.
stevenwoo 3y ago
The mastodon items are modern American but isn't this alienation ala Marx or Hegel?
- reocha 3y ago
  What swayvil described sounds almost exactly like alienation in the Marxist sense.
wiseowise 3y ago
> Modern work is weird. All your energy goes into it. But at the end of the day there's no satisfaction. Just emptiness and exhaustion. As opposed to what? Works was always like that.

gambiting 3y ago

>>But at the end of the day there's no satisfaction. If that's the case then you need to find a different job. Plenty of people are really satisfied with what they do at work. I've accepted lower salary for years because the job I did was really satisfying and I'm still glad I was part of it.

wahnfrieden 3y ago
Blaming workers for their poor conditions is elitist and fragile advice. There are not “good jobs” available for all or most. Your cushy PMC role is contingent on miserable labor supporting it. See the contractor/full time divide at Google or Meta for instance
- gambiting 3y ago
  >>Blaming workers for their poor conditions is elitist and fragile advice I literally don't see where I said such a thing.
  - swayvil 3y ago
    You literally told the worker that his misery is his own fault for having chosen the wrong job.
    - gambiting 3y ago
      I said if there is no satisfaction then you need to find a different job. The misery part was added by you.
      - jasonlotito 3y ago
        Assuming good faith, we can easily determine that OP was suggesting the working a job that provides no satisfaction would be misery. Considering satisfaction and misery are subjective, quibbling over the word choice is pedantic at best. If you're incapable of seeing how someone might describe working in a job that provides no satisfaction as misery, I suggest taking time to understand how that can be the case, as your ignorance in this area does you harm.
        gambiting 3y ago
        All of that is reaching some conclusions and arguments that I didn't make and didn't use. All I said is that if your job doesn't bring you satisfaction then find another one. Everything beyond that is your own interpretation - I can of course see how you reached that interpretation, but I don't agree with it. There can be a job without satisfaction that isn't "misery". But that's not really relevant to my original point.
      - mahogany 3y ago
        > I said if there is no satisfaction then you need to find a different job. In this is the implicit assumption that there are enough jobs to give everyone satisfaction - that is what people are taking issue with. Do you believe that assumption is true?
        gambiting 3y ago
        I think people are coming up with this assumption just to have an argument for no reason - I'm replying to an individual comment on HN, not giving advice to every single worker out there
    - tristor 3y ago
      There’s a difference between blame and prudence. It’s not blaming him to suggest he is empowered to change his conditions. If someone eschews prudence once aware of it, then they do bear some accountability for their outcomes, but even accountability is not blame. The confusion of the two has become commonplace as our society tries to avoid any conception of accountability.
coffeefirst 3y ago
Sure but these can be hard to find. Let's suppose the factors that make people like their jobs are a sense of ownership, applying skills, having friends, a high level of trust, and a sense that they're contributing something useful (the classic example is the construction worker isn't laying bricks, he's building a house). The hyper-financialized economy we find ourselves in loves meaningless Goals and OKRs, then does mass layoffs for no apparent reason besides investors like it. This is a pretty stark misalignment in values and incentives. Of course people are unhappy with it.
- supertrope 3y ago
  This is why I roll my eyes internally when business leaders talk about wanting employees who are passionate about their role. When forced to choose decision makers will size up an individual contributor’s performance KPIs not their passion. e.g. Did you close enough sales? Was your butt planted in seat on schedule? Did you generally resolve problems for them or create them? Saying anything to suggest otherwise is a trick to distract you from keeping your eye on the ball.
mordae 3y ago
Why must the burden of getting a job that is not shitty always seem to fall on the worker and never the employee or the state? Why don't we have a law that says "if the boss is disrespectful to the worker, they pay the worker the average of their hourly wage for every such incident" while being rude to your superior would be considered a breach of conduct that, when repeated, would be grounds for dismissal? Stop adoring the hierarchy and licking the boot.
- gambiting 3y ago
  >>Why must the burden of getting a job that is not shitty always seem to fall on the worker and never the employee or the state? What makes you think that my arguments precludes the latter? Equally, do you think that you as an employee have no agency in your own choice of employment? I understand there is a lot(probably even a majority) of people in the world who don't have that - but my comment isn't addressed to those. It's addressed to the specific HN comment. >>Stop adoring the hierarchy and licking the boot. ...what? I think you've constructed in your own head what my position is and are arguing against that, and not against what I actually said or believe.

constantly 3y ago

Speak for yourself, I know many people who derive a lot of joy from their work and find it energizing, myself included.

wahnfrieden 3y ago
“Not all men” type argument Obviously rich people provide inspiration to many miserable workers to improve their conditions, doesn’t mean it’s achievable for most
- constantly 3y ago
  Not really. First, it’s unfair to extrapolate one persons toxic mindset to work in general. But aside from that, what I’m saying is that there are plenty of examples of people who are happy at their jobs and if one wants to be happy at their jobs they can follow those examples or use them as inspiration.
  - almost_usual 3y ago
    I’m sure there were some happy servants in the past as well.
    - constantly 3y ago
      Your weird strawman aside, servants rarely or never had the same career and life mobility as hacker news posters.
cableshaft 3y ago
I've enjoyed my work before (especially working on games I enjoyed), but I've never found it energizing. Any mentally challenging work at the end of the day has alays left me feeling pretty low energy afterwards. Also physically challenging (I remember working 10 hour days in a warehouse and then going home and having a quick bite to eat and then immediately sleeping for 10 hours, I didn't even have the energy to watch tv). Also not physically or mentally challenging jobs either (as if just having to be present and 'on' during that time is enough to drain the energy). The only times I usually still have energy to do something are in the mornings before work or on weekends, and that's pretty much when all the chores and errands and personal project work has to happen.

OO000oo 3y ago

Karl Marx insisted people need to relate to the product of their labor.

stevenwoo 3y ago

The mastodon items are modern American but isn't this alienation ala Marx or Hegel?

reocha 3y ago
What swayvil described sounds almost exactly like alienation in the Marxist sense.

wiseowise 3y ago

> Modern work is weird. All your energy goes into it. But at the end of the day there's no satisfaction. Just emptiness and exhaustion. As opposed to what? Works was always like that.