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While I completely agree with your list of things that make work less fun, I think there's one important thing missing: the fact that you have to do it. It's st

by rifung 12y ago

While I completely agree with your list of things that make work less fun, I think there's one important thing missing: the fact that you have to do it. It's strange but I like to program in my spare time, and I love to learn more about CS in general. But, when it's a job.. it kind of takes the fun out of it, because you have to do even when you no longer feel like it. Just my opinion though!

TeMPOraL 12y ago
100% agree. Just the change from "can" to "have to" instantly damages my motivation, obliterating it completely over longer time scales. This makes it incredibly difficult to be a decent employee even though I'm a quite good developer (having spent over 10 years programming, which was my hobby since childhood). It's soul-sucking and destroys self-confidence.
- deepvibrations 12y ago
  It's good to hear from others who think in the same way- I moved to a new job last year where there were no fixed hours (my previous job required that I should be in at 9am). This alone made me feel like I was going into the office because i 'wanted' to, not because I HAD to... Ironically I still end up going in for just after 9am everyday anyway, but that sense of freedom leaves me feeling so much happier on a day to day basis!
  - juliangregorian 12y ago
    I used to work at a company that had no fixed hours... I usually spent at least 10 hours a day on the weekdays and often stopped in on the weekends and there was usually at least a smattering of people there, and collaboration and morale were both high. They really got it right on that one. Then investors started courting the company, and management started telling people they wanted butts in seats at 9:30am. Well as soon as 5:30 rolls around it became a ghost town.
ashark 12y ago
Indeed. You have to do it 40+ hours a week, 50ish weeks a year. I'm not sure there's anything I'd voluntarily spend that much time on with such consistency. I know some people can lose themselves in video games for whole weeks, my experience from the couple of times my wife and kids have left me home alone for a few days is that I have about 16 total hours of pent-up video game binging in me at any given time, and once that's satisfied I'm totally done with video games for the next several days and would rather fix things around the house or catch up on my reading or get outside. Anything but play video games. If I had to wake up early to go play video games 40 hours a week every. single. week. (with another 5+ hours lost to commute) I doubt I'd make it through the second week before I started to dread it. And that's if I got to choose the games and didn't have to do anything work-ish related to them, just play, so 100% ideal conditions (not like the notoriously-crappy jobs of video game testers)
- svachalek 12y ago
  This is in fact the life of a video game tester, and everyone I know who's done it speaks of how quickly it becomes hell.

by rifung 12y ago

TeMPOraL 12y ago

100% agree. Just the change from "can" to "have to" instantly damages my motivation, obliterating it completely over longer time scales. This makes it incredibly difficult to be a decent employee even though I'm a quite good developer (having spent over 10 years programming, which was my hobby since childhood). It's soul-sucking and destroys self-confidence.

deepvibrations 12y ago
It's good to hear from others who think in the same way- I moved to a new job last year where there were no fixed hours (my previous job required that I should be in at 9am). This alone made me feel like I was going into the office because i 'wanted' to, not because I HAD to... Ironically I still end up going in for just after 9am everyday anyway, but that sense of freedom leaves me feeling so much happier on a day to day basis!
- juliangregorian 12y ago
  I used to work at a company that had no fixed hours... I usually spent at least 10 hours a day on the weekdays and often stopped in on the weekends and there was usually at least a smattering of people there, and collaboration and morale were both high. They really got it right on that one. Then investors started courting the company, and management started telling people they wanted butts in seats at 9:30am. Well as soon as 5:30 rolls around it became a ghost town.

ashark 12y ago

Indeed. You have to do it 40+ hours a week, 50ish weeks a year. I'm not sure there's anything I'd voluntarily spend that much time on with such consistency. I know some people can lose themselves in video games for whole weeks, my experience from the couple of times my wife and kids have left me home alone for a few days is that I have about 16 total hours of pent-up video game binging in me at any given time, and once that's satisfied I'm totally done with video games for the next several days and would rather fix things around the house or catch up on my reading or get outside. Anything but play video games. If I had to wake up early to go play video games 40 hours a week every. single. week. (with another 5+ hours lost to commute) I doubt I'd make it through the second week before I started to dread it. And that's if I got to choose the games and didn't have to do anything work-ish related to them, just play, so 100% ideal conditions (not like the notoriously-crappy jobs of video game testers)

svachalek 12y ago
This is in fact the life of a video game tester, and everyone I know who's done it speaks of how quickly it becomes hell.