7 ms·

What if the idea of work itself is what you dislike? There are plenty of activities I can enjoy, and some, quite a few of them in fact, are profitable. Once y

What if the idea of work itself is what you dislike? There are plenty of activities I can enjoy, and some, quite a few of them in fact, are profitable. Once you shoe-horn them into the power dynamic situation of a traditional job (with the bureaucracy that entails unless you're dealing with Actual People as opposed to corporations), suddenly a lot of the luster disappears. As a ridiculous example - I enjoy reading. It's not really work at all, right? Ask me to read 9am-5pm and I'd start to find it frustrating. Or add in a commute, or very low pay. The actual job itself is very rarely the issue for me. It's what you miss out on, and also the fact that it invariably involves submission, acceptance of being subordinate, etc. edit: To be clear here; I'm not talking about work ethic in the sense of 'pushing through something you find difficult'. More the general idea of not wanting to be a part of a machine, a construct that you don't agree with. Large corporations and their 'policy documents', for example. I don't want to work for a company in which my boss doesn't have the autonomy to speak to me as a human being - this stands regardless of whether my job is backbreaking labour or eating chocolate bars.

ashark 12y ago
Anytime I read one of those "just do what you're passionate about!" posts, or job postings that read like "we're looking for people who are passionate about [thing that literally no-one has ever been passionate about]" I try to think whether there's anything whatsoever that I'd enjoy (let alone stay passionate about) doing (at least) 40 hours a week, 49ish weeks a year. I haven't thought of anything yet. Left to my own devices, I'd probably spend 100 hours one week programming, then not touch a computer for two or three weeks, reading or building something or doing stuff outdoors instead. Lock me down to 40 hours every week, even weeks when I'm not in to it and would rather curl up on the couch for hours on end with some math books and a notebook or marathon-watch some Criterion movies or go camping with my family or whatever, and any fun I was having in those 40 hours will disappear fast. It doesn't matter if the thing I'm clocking in to do is play video games of my choice and in the way that I choose, even—I'll be ready to not look at a video game for the next year within a matter of weeks. That's not to say that I consider all work equally bad, but I'm probably not going to love anything at 40+ mandatory hours every week. The only way I can imagine enjoying that many hours on the clock is by splitting it between at least two very different things, like programming 4 hours/day then carrying heavy stuff at a construction site the next 4 hours, and even that might not do it over the long haul.
- stegosaurus 12y ago
  Indeed. For me it's not so much the absolute requirements (i.e. 8 hours a day, these specific hours, can't do anything else within that time) but rather the subordinate aspect of having no control over that. The way in which it's just the only option for seemingly _no reason_. It's totally arbitrary. I'd love to work a job where I could say, choose three days a week to work (or alternatively have 100 days holiday, restricted to not allow huge stints off) and receive 60% of a reasonable salary. Even better, though less realistic, would be an MMORPG-style job in which you could choose to put in 100 hours in week 1, 20 hours in week 2, etc and choose those hours whenever you wish. Self employment comes close if you're not dealing with megacorps, but you still run into the problem that clients may not want you to just disappear for weeks at a time.
  - robryan 12y ago
    Yeah, it would be awesome if you could trade x% of your salary for x% extra holiday time. Just not possible in most jobs.
  - risk000 12y ago
    Thanks Stegosaurus, for articulating so well what I have also been strongly feeling about work. I liked this part especially: "For me it's not so much the absolute requirements (i.e. 8 hours a day, these specific hours, can't do anything else within that time) but rather the subordinate aspect of having no control over that." I would restate that in my own way as follows: I consider myself thirsty for life, thirsty and desirous of enjoying my life experiences. Once someone has put me under contractual obligation to 'just do x' for a significant slice of my life, its really set into motion the pendulum's swing in the other direction: How can I not, almost immediately, begin to subconsciously yearn for the day when I can live differently? Whatever it is, whether its an office commute or even a lax remote job (hard to admit in the latter case), whether I'm building widgets or contributing to a huge multi-application 'Widgetron', confine me and you all but guarantee that one day I will seek release from you. It may take years, but thats life for me. I don't think our society has achieved ethics yet, hasn't yet demonstrably earned ethical values for itself. And freedom is a value that is even higher or more rarified than ethics or the golden rule. In place of that we have a rampant survival ethos, with bits of social status signaling / prestige-mongering thrown in. Asking for self-determination in this environment can appear at times like walking into a soup kitchen and requesting their finest tiramisu. How dare you be so bold, slave? And yet, nothing can stop me from trying.
dxbydt 12y ago
> What if the idea of work itself is what you dislike? In one of the economic courses I took, the Professor posed this very question. Apparently Karl Marx had also opined along these lines - how would a society incentivize someone who only likes to build sand castles ? He can't monetize the sandcastle because the waves wash them out, so he just builds another one & another one & so on. Sometimes I think programming is like that. You write some code in some language & 5 years later write the same thing in some other language & then another 5 years later...I am pretty sure much of the Scala I write these days is simply something I've written in my early teens in QBasic. We're just building sandcastles that time will wash off.
- stegosaurus 12y ago
  On the incentives point, it seems to me that 'we' as a society focus far too much on money and expect it to paper over the gaps that employment inevitably causes. Finish after your children leave school? Money -> childcare. Can't get time off to cook for yourself more? Money -> restaurant meals. Small stuff. Office located in a stupid place like downtown, forcing _everyone_ into a silly commute. Lack of parking spaces.
  - eru 12y ago
    Can't you move downtown?
    - tonyedgecombe 12y ago
      Money -> housing
      - eru 12y ago
        Sorry, what does that mean?
        tonyedgecombe 12y ago
        It means that your solution is exactly like the problems the parent was enumerating, throw money at it.
TeMPOraL 12y ago
> What if the idea of work itself is what you dislike? It's that for me, and I'd very much like to know how to handle it. The very same task done 'just because I like to' turns from ecstatic moments of crazy productivity to total misery and physical feelings of sickness when it becomes a job or an obligation. And it's not even on a System2 level. I'd really like to like work. I just can't force my body and subconsciousness to like it. It keeps dragging me down not only financially but emotionally. It's very destructive to my feeling of self-worth to see how given all the skills I acquired through 13 years of coding I still can't get myself to be productive at work, to get peanuts while during free time I'm mentoring inexperienced programmers who earn 3 times as much as me. (not that I care that much about the money - but I have people depending on my support and it'd be nice to stop worrying about cashflow for at least a moment)
- jlees 12y ago
  Maybe traditional work just isn't the answer. Or maybe a task you kind of like doing but can't find the will to finish on your own becomes a really awesome job, and your 'just because I want to' stuff remains a passionate hobby. Coding gives you a lot of literacy beyond simply writing code to build systems; perhaps those skills could be applied in a slightly different direction, from SRE to teaching to writing a book (personally, writing's one of the things that turns into a chore when it's for money, but you might be different!).
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    Thanks for the tips! I'm growing to consider different directions; I tend to default to writing code when looking for an income source as it's a thing that I'm proficient at and can do pretty effortlessly. The other thing I might consider is teaching. I did a few gigs teaching basics of graphics tools to various people and though stressful at times, they went pretty well. I have a knack for explaining things, and I generally like people and talking with them. Tutoring also pays pretty well.
stegosaurus 12y ago
As an addition to this, I've struggled a lot with the concept of working for pay and only recently could I really begin to explain why. Some people would probably call it 'entitlement', but I'm not really sure that's an accurate description. As an employee, your role is essentially a permanent state of brown nosing. First of all you must convince a rich person/company that you are worthy. Then you must convince them that you want to work for them, that they're special, and so on. And then later, you must defer, every single day. Ill? According to policy document AED, page 5, section b, one of your eight sick days will be deducted, worker drone! It's not enough to simply perform a valuable function for society. You need to be subservient and defer to authority - you are worth less than your betters (those with wealth) and must please them in order to eat, in order to shelter. There are a few ways left in which you can directly serve other humans and profit via such - private entrepreneurial services such as window cleaning, antique dealing, etcetera - but these make up a small portion of the employment market today and are often subject to ridiculously overbearing regulation. The vast majority of 'jobs' in the Western world involve being directly, by rank, inferior to another human being. Other people seem much more capable of dealing with this than I do. Often I find myself resenting others for putting up with the more ridiculous aspects - it feels like a betrayal, that if only people were better human beings and less likely to defer to authority we could all have a better experience. This is the struggle I face, really. Physical trauma I find very simple - the emotional aspect of actively taking part in a system that I despise is much more difficult.
- dreamdu5t 12y ago
  I know exactly how you feel. Unfortunately, I don't have any solution or advice to offer. It's a burden I bear because I don't know what else to do.
- cgag 12y ago
  I feel this way so strongly. "Why do you want to work for us?" Because I have to sell my labor to pay my landlord for a place to sleep. I'm passionate about a few things, but none of them include being told what to do, then having someone take a large cut out of the value I produce. Edit: I'm currently researching alternatives to traditional corporations, like worker owned cooperatives. If you or anyone reading this have ideas or want to talk, my emails in my profile.
ArkyBeagle 12y ago
So treat the drones as Actual People. You'll be surprised. It... doesn't always work, but it's worth a shot. I think the perception that it's "submission" is a framing problem. (s)He has his problems, you have yours. You probably don't want his. I have at times gotten way too close to being the boss; I don't want it unless it's a very narrow situation. If it's actual submission, then I can't help you. I just don't last in those. My boss gets my respect and dare I say - loyalty ( far as it goes ) - because I sympathize with the sort of insanity (s)he is likely dealing with. If you think of things as an opportunity to serve others, your own problems melt away, and you got to score a few points against the dread lord Entropy for the day. "What can I do to help?" Even if it's ... ludicrous, Panglossian even, it's the best way to keep the stiff upper lip and make the best of the day. I am thinking that Mr. Mark Twain had something to say on this subject... what was that book?.. ah, "Tom Sawyer". Something about a fence...
- stegosaurus 12y ago
  I understand what you're saying to an extent, but personally I have only ever once had a 'boss' that I could truly consider as having enough autonomy for this to even make sense. Unfortunately this was for a casual job alongside my undergrad (i.e. not enough to pay the bills in the real world). Otherwise - 'The Boss' is not an actual person. They're not my manager, they're not the HR department. 'The Boss' is a nebulous set of policy documents. Or as you say, there's a boss above a boss above a boss, and no-one that can actually be reasoned with or respected. One day perhaps I'll be lucky enough to work for a small company without these issues cropping up, but that's been my take on things so far.
  - tonyedgecombe 12y ago
    Small companies can be dysfunctional as well, often that is why they are still small.
jusben1369 12y ago
I feel as though this is PG's point though. If you enjoy reading from 9-5 everyday and dont view it as burdensome then that is your "thing". Mind you there's probably a second essay on how incredibly hard it is to find your thing.

ashark 12y ago

Anytime I read one of those "just do what you're passionate about!" posts, or job postings that read like "we're looking for people who are passionate about [thing that literally no-one has ever been passionate about]" I try to think whether there's anything whatsoever that I'd enjoy (let alone stay passionate about) doing (at least) 40 hours a week, 49ish weeks a year. I haven't thought of anything yet. Left to my own devices, I'd probably spend 100 hours one week programming, then not touch a computer for two or three weeks, reading or building something or doing stuff outdoors instead. Lock me down to 40 hours every week, even weeks when I'm not in to it and would rather curl up on the couch for hours on end with some math books and a notebook or marathon-watch some Criterion movies or go camping with my family or whatever, and any fun I was having in those 40 hours will disappear fast. It doesn't matter if the thing I'm clocking in to do is play video games of my choice and in the way that I choose, even—I'll be ready to not look at a video game for the next year within a matter of weeks. That's not to say that I consider all work equally bad, but I'm probably not going to love anything at 40+ mandatory hours every week. The only way I can imagine enjoying that many hours on the clock is by splitting it between at least two very different things, like programming 4 hours/day then carrying heavy stuff at a construction site the next 4 hours, and even that might not do it over the long haul.

stegosaurus 12y ago
Indeed. For me it's not so much the absolute requirements (i.e. 8 hours a day, these specific hours, can't do anything else within that time) but rather the subordinate aspect of having no control over that. The way in which it's just the only option for seemingly _no reason_. It's totally arbitrary. I'd love to work a job where I could say, choose three days a week to work (or alternatively have 100 days holiday, restricted to not allow huge stints off) and receive 60% of a reasonable salary. Even better, though less realistic, would be an MMORPG-style job in which you could choose to put in 100 hours in week 1, 20 hours in week 2, etc and choose those hours whenever you wish. Self employment comes close if you're not dealing with megacorps, but you still run into the problem that clients may not want you to just disappear for weeks at a time.
- robryan 12y ago
  Yeah, it would be awesome if you could trade x% of your salary for x% extra holiday time. Just not possible in most jobs.
- risk000 12y ago
  Thanks Stegosaurus, for articulating so well what I have also been strongly feeling about work. I liked this part especially: "For me it's not so much the absolute requirements (i.e. 8 hours a day, these specific hours, can't do anything else within that time) but rather the subordinate aspect of having no control over that." I would restate that in my own way as follows: I consider myself thirsty for life, thirsty and desirous of enjoying my life experiences. Once someone has put me under contractual obligation to 'just do x' for a significant slice of my life, its really set into motion the pendulum's swing in the other direction: How can I not, almost immediately, begin to subconsciously yearn for the day when I can live differently? Whatever it is, whether its an office commute or even a lax remote job (hard to admit in the latter case), whether I'm building widgets or contributing to a huge multi-application 'Widgetron', confine me and you all but guarantee that one day I will seek release from you. It may take years, but thats life for me. I don't think our society has achieved ethics yet, hasn't yet demonstrably earned ethical values for itself. And freedom is a value that is even higher or more rarified than ethics or the golden rule. In place of that we have a rampant survival ethos, with bits of social status signaling / prestige-mongering thrown in. Asking for self-determination in this environment can appear at times like walking into a soup kitchen and requesting their finest tiramisu. How dare you be so bold, slave? And yet, nothing can stop me from trying.

dxbydt 12y ago

> What if the idea of work itself is what you dislike? In one of the economic courses I took, the Professor posed this very question. Apparently Karl Marx had also opined along these lines - how would a society incentivize someone who only likes to build sand castles ? He can't monetize the sandcastle because the waves wash them out, so he just builds another one & another one & so on. Sometimes I think programming is like that. You write some code in some language & 5 years later write the same thing in some other language & then another 5 years later...I am pretty sure much of the Scala I write these days is simply something I've written in my early teens in QBasic. We're just building sandcastles that time will wash off.

stegosaurus 12y ago
On the incentives point, it seems to me that 'we' as a society focus far too much on money and expect it to paper over the gaps that employment inevitably causes. Finish after your children leave school? Money -> childcare. Can't get time off to cook for yourself more? Money -> restaurant meals. Small stuff. Office located in a stupid place like downtown, forcing _everyone_ into a silly commute. Lack of parking spaces.
- eru 12y ago
  Can't you move downtown?
  - tonyedgecombe 12y ago
    Money -> housing
    - eru 12y ago
      Sorry, what does that mean?
      - tonyedgecombe 12y ago
        It means that your solution is exactly like the problems the parent was enumerating, throw money at it.

TeMPOraL 12y ago

> What if the idea of work itself is what you dislike? It's that for me, and I'd very much like to know how to handle it. The very same task done 'just because I like to' turns from ecstatic moments of crazy productivity to total misery and physical feelings of sickness when it becomes a job or an obligation. And it's not even on a System2 level. I'd really like to like work. I just can't force my body and subconsciousness to like it. It keeps dragging me down not only financially but emotionally. It's very destructive to my feeling of self-worth to see how given all the skills I acquired through 13 years of coding I still can't get myself to be productive at work, to get peanuts while during free time I'm mentoring inexperienced programmers who earn 3 times as much as me. (not that I care that much about the money - but I have people depending on my support and it'd be nice to stop worrying about cashflow for at least a moment)

jlees 12y ago
Maybe traditional work just isn't the answer. Or maybe a task you kind of like doing but can't find the will to finish on your own becomes a really awesome job, and your 'just because I want to' stuff remains a passionate hobby. Coding gives you a lot of literacy beyond simply writing code to build systems; perhaps those skills could be applied in a slightly different direction, from SRE to teaching to writing a book (personally, writing's one of the things that turns into a chore when it's for money, but you might be different!).
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  Thanks for the tips! I'm growing to consider different directions; I tend to default to writing code when looking for an income source as it's a thing that I'm proficient at and can do pretty effortlessly. The other thing I might consider is teaching. I did a few gigs teaching basics of graphics tools to various people and though stressful at times, they went pretty well. I have a knack for explaining things, and I generally like people and talking with them. Tutoring also pays pretty well.

stegosaurus 12y ago

As an addition to this, I've struggled a lot with the concept of working for pay and only recently could I really begin to explain why. Some people would probably call it 'entitlement', but I'm not really sure that's an accurate description. As an employee, your role is essentially a permanent state of brown nosing. First of all you must convince a rich person/company that you are worthy. Then you must convince them that you want to work for them, that they're special, and so on. And then later, you must defer, every single day. Ill? According to policy document AED, page 5, section b, one of your eight sick days will be deducted, worker drone! It's not enough to simply perform a valuable function for society. You need to be subservient and defer to authority - you are worth less than your betters (those with wealth) and must please them in order to eat, in order to shelter. There are a few ways left in which you can directly serve other humans and profit via such - private entrepreneurial services such as window cleaning, antique dealing, etcetera - but these make up a small portion of the employment market today and are often subject to ridiculously overbearing regulation. The vast majority of 'jobs' in the Western world involve being directly, by rank, inferior to another human being. Other people seem much more capable of dealing with this than I do. Often I find myself resenting others for putting up with the more ridiculous aspects - it feels like a betrayal, that if only people were better human beings and less likely to defer to authority we could all have a better experience. This is the struggle I face, really. Physical trauma I find very simple - the emotional aspect of actively taking part in a system that I despise is much more difficult.

dreamdu5t 12y ago
I know exactly how you feel. Unfortunately, I don't have any solution or advice to offer. It's a burden I bear because I don't know what else to do.
cgag 12y ago
I feel this way so strongly. "Why do you want to work for us?" Because I have to sell my labor to pay my landlord for a place to sleep. I'm passionate about a few things, but none of them include being told what to do, then having someone take a large cut out of the value I produce. Edit: I'm currently researching alternatives to traditional corporations, like worker owned cooperatives. If you or anyone reading this have ideas or want to talk, my emails in my profile.

ArkyBeagle 12y ago

So treat the drones as Actual People. You'll be surprised. It... doesn't always work, but it's worth a shot. I think the perception that it's "submission" is a framing problem. (s)He has his problems, you have yours. You probably don't want his. I have at times gotten way too close to being the boss; I don't want it unless it's a very narrow situation. If it's actual submission, then I can't help you. I just don't last in those. My boss gets my respect and dare I say - loyalty ( far as it goes ) - because I sympathize with the sort of insanity (s)he is likely dealing with. If you think of things as an opportunity to serve others, your own problems melt away, and you got to score a few points against the dread lord Entropy for the day. "What can I do to help?" Even if it's ... ludicrous, Panglossian even, it's the best way to keep the stiff upper lip and make the best of the day. I am thinking that Mr. Mark Twain had something to say on this subject... what was that book?.. ah, "Tom Sawyer". Something about a fence...

stegosaurus 12y ago
I understand what you're saying to an extent, but personally I have only ever once had a 'boss' that I could truly consider as having enough autonomy for this to even make sense. Unfortunately this was for a casual job alongside my undergrad (i.e. not enough to pay the bills in the real world). Otherwise - 'The Boss' is not an actual person. They're not my manager, they're not the HR department. 'The Boss' is a nebulous set of policy documents. Or as you say, there's a boss above a boss above a boss, and no-one that can actually be reasoned with or respected. One day perhaps I'll be lucky enough to work for a small company without these issues cropping up, but that's been my take on things so far.
- tonyedgecombe 12y ago
  Small companies can be dysfunctional as well, often that is why they are still small.

jusben1369 12y ago

I feel as though this is PG's point though. If you enjoy reading from 9-5 everyday and dont view it as burdensome then that is your "thing". Mind you there's probably a second essay on how incredibly hard it is to find your thing.