4 ms·

Are we talking about 'jobs', or 'career'? When I was in school, I worked as a Night Stock, Insurance Agent, bunch of other minor stuff, hated it all. But, as a

by rnovak 12y ago

Are we talking about 'jobs', or 'career'? When I was in school, I worked as a Night Stock, Insurance Agent, bunch of other minor stuff, hated it all. But, as a software architect, I absolutely love every day. I never wake up in the morning going "oh man, I have to work today". Sometimes I don't like how loud my office is (Open Office floorplan), and some of the people I work with. Otherwise, for the past 5 years or so, I've loved almost every minute. I would do what I'm doing for free, and I get paid relatively well to do it, how could I complain?

rifung 12y ago
I was referring to "career". It sounds like you're in a nice place. On the other hand I get paid a good amount and yet still find myself very unhappy
- rnovak 12y ago
  Unfortunately I'm not in the best place, I'm still paid about 20-30% below fair market, work in an open office layout, and have some pretty terrible people responsible for setting requirements and such for our projects. Probably a little bit of the 'imposter syndrome' being responsible for me not seeking better work, but for now it puts food on the table. That being said, I really try to separate the work from the workplace. I kind of take pride in being able to use what I learned in school and on the job to develop better systems. Design & Architecture are project agnostic, meaning even the stupidest web interface can have a thoughtful design and meaningful architecture. So yeah, I might not like the environment, or the product itself, but I love the actual work that I do. I'm proud of it, and I work hard to do well, and that gives me meaning. I can't say leave your job if you don't like it, because in all honesty not everyone gets to do what they love for a living. But what I would recommend is to find an aspect of your job that you do enjoy, and focus on doing that part more. For instance, if you prefer working on your company's SDLC instead of writing code, I know at a certain big name company we had 'Process Engineers' who's whole job it was to create a good process.

by rnovak 12y ago

rifung 12y ago

I was referring to "career". It sounds like you're in a nice place. On the other hand I get paid a good amount and yet still find myself very unhappy

rnovak 12y ago
Unfortunately I'm not in the best place, I'm still paid about 20-30% below fair market, work in an open office layout, and have some pretty terrible people responsible for setting requirements and such for our projects. Probably a little bit of the 'imposter syndrome' being responsible for me not seeking better work, but for now it puts food on the table. That being said, I really try to separate the work from the workplace. I kind of take pride in being able to use what I learned in school and on the job to develop better systems. Design & Architecture are project agnostic, meaning even the stupidest web interface can have a thoughtful design and meaningful architecture. So yeah, I might not like the environment, or the product itself, but I love the actual work that I do. I'm proud of it, and I work hard to do well, and that gives me meaning. I can't say leave your job if you don't like it, because in all honesty not everyone gets to do what they love for a living. But what I would recommend is to find an aspect of your job that you do enjoy, and focus on doing that part more. For instance, if you prefer working on your company's SDLC instead of writing code, I know at a certain big name company we had 'Process Engineers' who's whole job it was to create a good process.