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“It’s just a job.” It's just 8 hours a day. 5 days a week. Roughly 25% of your life. Another 33.3% is spent asleep. Maybe you commute to work; maybe that takes

“It’s just a job.” It's just 8 hours a day. 5 days a week. Roughly 25% of your life. Another 33.3% is spent asleep. Maybe you commute to work; maybe that takes you 45 minutes each way. That's 4.4% of your life spent driving, walking, on trains or buses to get to your job. You're going to spend a small percentage of your life on the toilet; another small percentage in supermarkets buying food, in a kitchen preparing it, or in a dining room eating it. All the 'big events' in your life will be squeezed into the precious little time you have left after survival's necessary subtractions. Going to school. Getting drunk. Being hungover. Getting married. Buying a house. Attending funerals. Perhaps we were thinking in similar terms. You took those thoughts—nay, facts—and channeled them into a manifesto which guides your relationship with your employer. Here's what I did with the same facts. I decided I'm not spending over 25% of my life (37.5% of my waking life) doing something I don’t LOVE. For comparison, if I find a spouse, it's likely I won't spend 25% of my life in their company. So if I'm going to spend more time at work than I will with my future husband, I need to love my job at least as much as I do him. That's the conviction which caused me, just a few hours ago, to hand in my notice of resignation to my current employer. Because when I find myself watching the clock waiting for 5:01, I must concede that 25% of me (37.5% of the waking me) has already died. This isn't a judgement. I respect you for your decision. There's probably some pity in there too, but honestly, it's mostly respect.

bfirsh 15y ago
Not everyone who programs loves programming, but everyone needs to make a living. You are lucky that what you love also makes money.
- driverdan 15y ago
  Make a living doing something you love. If you don't love programming then do something else.
  - astine 15y ago
    "Make a living doing something you love." That is ideal, but it is not always feasible. There are some things nobody likes doing, but somebody's got to do them. I'm fortunate that I like programming and that people will pay me to do it, but not everyone is so lucky.
    - jrs235 15y ago
      If someone loves making lots of money, and those things "nobody" loves pay good money because the supply of people willing to do them is low, then those people who LOVE to make money will do them... EDIT: It all comes down to balancing and finding what you truly LOVE. If being a janitor paid $300 an hour because supposedly nobody would do it otherwise... I'd do it knowing, thinking, and planning with what I love in mind... saving up money so I could do/have what I love! My time! Sometimes you have to put in short term pain for a long term gain...
  - jquery 15y ago
    How much does playing video games pay these days?
    - tjpick 15y ago
      Like anything: quite well, if you are good at it.
      - getsat 15y ago
        Indeed. There are streamers on twitch.tv who make $500+/day playing video games.
      - jquery 15y ago
        If you're the best in the world at anything there's an audience, sure. But don't pretend it's available to anyone who's passionate about it. I'm passionate about casually playing various games with my fiance while drinking a beer. Who's going to pay for that?
  - chc 15y ago
    I think this is the nearest real-life equivalent to "let them eat cake" I have ever seen. Are you going to pay me to play Xbox with my brother or go out to dinner with my wife and talk about interesting books we've read? Neither is anybody else. For most people, the set of "things I love" and "things people will pay me to do" intersect very little if at all. (I don't actually have this conundrum. There are a few things I enjoy doing that people will pay me for. But I'm lucky that way. If I suddenly became unable to do those two or three things, I'd be in the situation I described.)
    - scommab 15y ago
      The adage should really be "Do what you love AND excel at". If the conversation you had with your wife about books you read was very interesting, you could film it, sell it (or more likely ads around it) and make it your job. While some passions are easier to monetize then others if you are in the top 100 people that do it, there is a good chance someone will pay you for it.
      - Drbble 15y ago
        He said he loves hanging out with his wife. He didn't say he loves blogging or being a voyeurism target.
    - nahname 15y ago
      Do something you love is referring to creative passions. Find something creative you love to do and make it your profession. Think of the people making the games you enjoy and how many of them must enjoy what they do because of the obvious quality in the product they are producing. Try to find that for yourself. If you only love consumption habits, try taking up new hobbies. There must be something that you will enjoy that is constructive.
      - mapleoin 15y ago
        Think of the people making the games you enjoy and how many of them must enjoy what they do because of the obvious quality in the product they are producing. Try to find that for yourself. This sounds very naive. I've gone for beer with various people in the gaming industry. From ubisoft QA team leader to indie game programmer to Blizzard Project Manager. All of them were tired of their jobs. For all of them it was "just a job" and sometimes even less. It's these people that I end up going to beer with in normal social contexts. Maybe because the ones who really like their job don't go out. OTOH I know the colleagues in my company who spend too much time on their job and I really wouldn't want to go out with them.
  - Tomis 15y ago
    And the award for "scumbag reply from a high horse" goes to driverdan, for telling others what they must and must not do while showing no empathy for their personal situation. You have great talent lad, keep at it.
  - sireat 15y ago
    I like the following advice "Work at the job you do not actively hate", this might be paraphrasing Buffett. Very few are lucky that their most enjoyable pastime that they are good at is also the highest paid. As it has been noted, for most of humanity some sort of purely consuming task seems most enjoyable these days. I would much rather play strategy video games or chess, but there is a very limited market for good players. Also, it has been noted playing anything for money actually changes your enjoyment of that task. Corollary - if you are the best at something in the world - you can create your own profession. Programming is something that I enjoy, but it is not something i want to do 24/7. However, it is well rewarded.
AznHisoka 15y ago
What are you now pursuing or starting now?
- zacharyvoase 15y ago
  I'm not entirely sure yet :)
Drbble 15y ago
Do you take drugs to prevent sleep? Because sleep is stealing a huge amount of your life too.
- mwhite 15y ago
  Sleep is pleasant.
- zacharyvoase 15y ago
  It's fair to say that I love sleep :) Indeed, very few people in our industry don't appreciate a daily hit (or two) of caffeine.
  - andrewingram 15y ago
    I avoid caffeine, but mostly because of other issues...
marcofloriano 15y ago
Epic post. And by a woman (sorry by saying this, but had to). IMHO we all should work less, 15% less indeed. Finding a work that you love as much as your spouse is way too hard if not impossible for most people. So, work less your time and more your financial intelligence.
velshin 15y ago
Hopefully you change your employer more frequently than your spouse, hobbies, family, or friends. :) The vast majority of people in the world do not have the luxury of loving their work. For those, 25% of their lives working for someone else in a job they tolerate but do not necessarily enjoy is a means to an end. Maybe it's 20 years of comfortable retirement, or the relative security of a regular paycheck to support their spouse and children. Most of us on HN are lucky enough to enjoy coding and are well compensated for it. We get caught in the feedback loop of tech chatter and forget that the majority of our friends and family, outside the blissful tech world, do not enjoy their work.
vetler 15y ago
This. A thousand times this. We spend too much time at it to call it "just a job". Sure, I've been there ... close to burning out, hating going to work, wanting nothing to do with co-workers. But this is my life, and it's the only one I got. Life is to short to have a job that is "just a job". Many probably can't just walk out of their "just a job" right now - they have obligations to their boss, they have to feed their family, etc. But the goal should be to work to change it, and make their jobs more than "just a job".
marxjohnson 15y ago
I was going to write my own response, but zacharyvoase has already written it.
gnosis 15y ago
"It's just 8 hours a day. 5 days a week. Roughly 25% of your life." That's only if you're lucky. At least in America, 10 or more hours a day is quite common. In the tech field, some weekend work is also not unheard of. In some companies and industries (like game development, startups, finance, not to mention insane shifts that nurses and doctors are forced to work), death marches and sweatshops where you work 14 to 16 hour days for months on end is the (pathological) norm. The above doesn't even count the times where you bring the work home with you, nor how the crap you have to deal with at work affects the rest of your life emotionally and the (usually detrimental) effect it has on your health. You do get compensated somewhat financially for this. But how much is your health and emotional well-being really worth? Consider this next time some company sends out a pitch for a ninja or rockstar that loves to work in an "exciting", "fast-paced" environment.
- zacharyvoase 15y ago
  Oh, absolutely. The extra work we all put in has to be from love and passion, not bullying and pressure. I've experienced burnout before and I hear alarm bells any time I see 'fast-paced', 'exciting', 'ninja', 'rockstar', or any other term that implies chronically-high cortisol levels.
eli_gottlieb 15y ago
So if someone doesn't love their job enough to spend MORE than 37.5% of their waking hours at it, the solution is to find a job they'll love THAAAAAT MUCH? No, obviously the solution is to minimize the time spent working, either way. "Only when we are free from working to live, will we be free to live to work."

bfirsh 15y ago

Not everyone who programs loves programming, but everyone needs to make a living. You are lucky that what you love also makes money.

driverdan 15y ago
Make a living doing something you love. If you don't love programming then do something else.
- astine 15y ago
  "Make a living doing something you love." That is ideal, but it is not always feasible. There are some things nobody likes doing, but somebody's got to do them. I'm fortunate that I like programming and that people will pay me to do it, but not everyone is so lucky.
  - jrs235 15y ago
    If someone loves making lots of money, and those things "nobody" loves pay good money because the supply of people willing to do them is low, then those people who LOVE to make money will do them... EDIT: It all comes down to balancing and finding what you truly LOVE. If being a janitor paid $300 an hour because supposedly nobody would do it otherwise... I'd do it knowing, thinking, and planning with what I love in mind... saving up money so I could do/have what I love! My time! Sometimes you have to put in short term pain for a long term gain...
- jquery 15y ago
  How much does playing video games pay these days?
  - tjpick 15y ago
    Like anything: quite well, if you are good at it.
    - getsat 15y ago
      Indeed. There are streamers on twitch.tv who make $500+/day playing video games.
    - jquery 15y ago
      If you're the best in the world at anything there's an audience, sure. But don't pretend it's available to anyone who's passionate about it. I'm passionate about casually playing various games with my fiance while drinking a beer. Who's going to pay for that?
- chc 15y ago
  I think this is the nearest real-life equivalent to "let them eat cake" I have ever seen. Are you going to pay me to play Xbox with my brother or go out to dinner with my wife and talk about interesting books we've read? Neither is anybody else. For most people, the set of "things I love" and "things people will pay me to do" intersect very little if at all. (I don't actually have this conundrum. There are a few things I enjoy doing that people will pay me for. But I'm lucky that way. If I suddenly became unable to do those two or three things, I'd be in the situation I described.)
  - scommab 15y ago
    The adage should really be "Do what you love AND excel at". If the conversation you had with your wife about books you read was very interesting, you could film it, sell it (or more likely ads around it) and make it your job. While some passions are easier to monetize then others if you are in the top 100 people that do it, there is a good chance someone will pay you for it.
    - Drbble 15y ago
      He said he loves hanging out with his wife. He didn't say he loves blogging or being a voyeurism target.
  - nahname 15y ago
    Do something you love is referring to creative passions. Find something creative you love to do and make it your profession. Think of the people making the games you enjoy and how many of them must enjoy what they do because of the obvious quality in the product they are producing. Try to find that for yourself. If you only love consumption habits, try taking up new hobbies. There must be something that you will enjoy that is constructive.
    - mapleoin 15y ago
      Think of the people making the games you enjoy and how many of them must enjoy what they do because of the obvious quality in the product they are producing. Try to find that for yourself. This sounds very naive. I've gone for beer with various people in the gaming industry. From ubisoft QA team leader to indie game programmer to Blizzard Project Manager. All of them were tired of their jobs. For all of them it was "just a job" and sometimes even less. It's these people that I end up going to beer with in normal social contexts. Maybe because the ones who really like their job don't go out. OTOH I know the colleagues in my company who spend too much time on their job and I really wouldn't want to go out with them.
- Tomis 15y ago
  And the award for "scumbag reply from a high horse" goes to driverdan, for telling others what they must and must not do while showing no empathy for their personal situation. You have great talent lad, keep at it.
- sireat 15y ago
  I like the following advice "Work at the job you do not actively hate", this might be paraphrasing Buffett. Very few are lucky that their most enjoyable pastime that they are good at is also the highest paid. As it has been noted, for most of humanity some sort of purely consuming task seems most enjoyable these days. I would much rather play strategy video games or chess, but there is a very limited market for good players. Also, it has been noted playing anything for money actually changes your enjoyment of that task. Corollary - if you are the best at something in the world - you can create your own profession. Programming is something that I enjoy, but it is not something i want to do 24/7. However, it is well rewarded.

AznHisoka 15y ago

What are you now pursuing or starting now?

zacharyvoase 15y ago
I'm not entirely sure yet :)

Drbble 15y ago

Do you take drugs to prevent sleep? Because sleep is stealing a huge amount of your life too.

mwhite 15y ago
Sleep is pleasant.
zacharyvoase 15y ago
It's fair to say that I love sleep :) Indeed, very few people in our industry don't appreciate a daily hit (or two) of caffeine.
- andrewingram 15y ago
  I avoid caffeine, but mostly because of other issues...

marcofloriano 15y ago

Epic post. And by a woman (sorry by saying this, but had to). IMHO we all should work less, 15% less indeed. Finding a work that you love as much as your spouse is way too hard if not impossible for most people. So, work less your time and more your financial intelligence.

velshin 15y ago

Hopefully you change your employer more frequently than your spouse, hobbies, family, or friends. :) The vast majority of people in the world do not have the luxury of loving their work. For those, 25% of their lives working for someone else in a job they tolerate but do not necessarily enjoy is a means to an end. Maybe it's 20 years of comfortable retirement, or the relative security of a regular paycheck to support their spouse and children. Most of us on HN are lucky enough to enjoy coding and are well compensated for it. We get caught in the feedback loop of tech chatter and forget that the majority of our friends and family, outside the blissful tech world, do not enjoy their work.

vetler 15y ago

This. A thousand times this. We spend too much time at it to call it "just a job". Sure, I've been there ... close to burning out, hating going to work, wanting nothing to do with co-workers. But this is my life, and it's the only one I got. Life is to short to have a job that is "just a job". Many probably can't just walk out of their "just a job" right now - they have obligations to their boss, they have to feed their family, etc. But the goal should be to work to change it, and make their jobs more than "just a job".

marxjohnson 15y ago

I was going to write my own response, but zacharyvoase has already written it.

gnosis 15y ago

"It's just 8 hours a day. 5 days a week. Roughly 25% of your life." That's only if you're lucky. At least in America, 10 or more hours a day is quite common. In the tech field, some weekend work is also not unheard of. In some companies and industries (like game development, startups, finance, not to mention insane shifts that nurses and doctors are forced to work), death marches and sweatshops where you work 14 to 16 hour days for months on end is the (pathological) norm. The above doesn't even count the times where you bring the work home with you, nor how the crap you have to deal with at work affects the rest of your life emotionally and the (usually detrimental) effect it has on your health. You do get compensated somewhat financially for this. But how much is your health and emotional well-being really worth? Consider this next time some company sends out a pitch for a ninja or rockstar that loves to work in an "exciting", "fast-paced" environment.

zacharyvoase 15y ago
Oh, absolutely. The extra work we all put in has to be from love and passion, not bullying and pressure. I've experienced burnout before and I hear alarm bells any time I see 'fast-paced', 'exciting', 'ninja', 'rockstar', or any other term that implies chronically-high cortisol levels.

eli_gottlieb 15y ago

So if someone doesn't love their job enough to spend MORE than 37.5% of their waking hours at it, the solution is to find a job they'll love THAAAAAT MUCH? No, obviously the solution is to minimize the time spent working, either way. "Only when we are free from working to live, will we be free to live to work."