Exercise.
Meditate.
Cook.
Listen to music.
I never found the ability to rationalize a task I dislike. Instead, I find joy elsewhere and try to preserve that feeling as I tackle the task.
Ask HN: What do you do when your entire being opposes the task at hand?
131–140 of 210 posts
Re: Ask HN: What do you do when your entire being opposes the task at hand?
#132I felt obliged to comment because I feel I know what you are talking about and I also worry that much of the advice posted so far is wrong at best, dangerous at worst. I am 42-year-old very successful programmer who has been through a lot of situations in my career so far, many of them highly demotivating. And the best advice I have for you is to get out of what you are doing. Really. Even though you state that you a…
This a thousand times. I just quit a job because the work was dull, unimportant and consisted largely in cleaning up other people's messes. I'm replacing it with a job at a company with high values and strong ethics, a profitable and secure business model and it's a company I enjoy. I'll be working on a project from start to finish and code quality will be my driving force. Quit your junk job and find a situation tha…
How do you know this is the right job for you if you've just started at it? How do you know that you won't be bored at this job or you won't be cleaning others' mess, after a few days/months (No pun intended).
Re: Ask HN: What do you do when your entire being opposes the task at hand?
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
Who says your job can't be something you enjoy? What if programming is what you'd be doing if you weren't at work? I know that's certainly the case for a lot of programmers I know.
> Who says your job can't be something you enjoy This is unrealistic. Do you think an economy can survive with everyone doing what they enjoy? Do we have enough people who enjoy cleaning toilets, stocking shelves, and all the other menial, labor intensive jobs? This notion is a utopian, post currency (Star Trek Economy) fantasy.
I'll chime in because I always hear this argument and I don't see it as a particularly good one.
Take cleaning toilets, for example. If no one wants to do it then it will become more expensive to find people to do it. That will drive others to come up with an automated solution to the problem that, while expensive, will be cheaper than paying someone to do it. Eventually someone will come up with a solution that maybe wasn't even considered before, like self-cleaning toilets or something.
Now everyone is better off (toilets are clean and no one needs to clean them), because people were free to do what they enjoy.
This is why I believe in basic income, where people don't need to clean toilets for a living, and the actual issue of "how do we, as a society, get clean toilets, without submitting anyone to the awful task of cleaning them?" comes up for debate. Right now we don't talk about it because our system makes some people's livelihoods depend on their cleaning toilets, so they have to do it for the benefit of others, even though they'd rather do something else. Basic income is a very efficient way to force those problems to be solved, via the ingenuity of those that like problem-solving (entrepreneurs), because it makes it so that it's less likely that you can force someone to work doing something they'd rather not do.
That's just how I understand it.
Re: Ask HN: What do you do when your entire being opposes the task at hand?
#134Every job has some aspect of it that you will resent, and we've written about it on our blog (http://blog.sandglaz.com/how-to-do-tasks-you-simply-resent-d...).
I've been there before, and had some periods of time at a previous position where it felt like every minute of the job was a struggle. Getting things started was the most difficult for me, but once they were started, I could get them done.
If this job is just to pay the bills, and is not critical for your career, then: * Work on autopilot. Do what is required of you, and use some of your time on the job to learn things that would advance your career. For example, for each 4 hours worked, allow yourself an hour of learning something new to advance your career. * Find outside activities that you look forward to each day. Don't let the job define who you are. If you do, it could crush you. * Since they value you, ask to work reduced hours if possible. The less time you need to commit to the job, the less likely you are to burn out.
However, I can't help but recommend that you stay on the look-out for a job that brings you satisfaction and challenges you to do your best everyday.
Re: Ask HN: What do you do when your entire being opposes the task at hand?
#135I know the exact feeling you're talking about - I used to work at a wonderful small dev shop where things moved fast; whole projects were wrapped off in a week or two. Until this one project where we were asked to 'fix' an already written Android app (written by an Indian outsource then sent to Canada). The contract was for a massive amount of money, everything looked clear cut and straight forward, how could we say…
Wasn't it possible to create the exact apps from scratch? You get to pick the technology you like, you don't have to waste time understanding and refactoring those stupid classes.. Sometimes, from scratch means faster, easier, cheaper. There's a famous Joel Spolsky post where he argue that you should never start from scratch.. but that sounds like a case where it would have been worth.
On the other hand, Alan Kay argues you should start the same project from scratch every 3 months. :)
Re: Ask HN: What do you do when your entire being opposes the task at hand?
#136I just read this stern but lovely dirge in a novel last night..
"Do you wrestle with dreams? Do you contend with shadows? Do you move in a kind of sleep? Time has slipped away. Your life is stolen. You tarried with trifles, victim of your folly."
Life is short. It is time to see through the trap you have woven around yourself and move along. Just do it constructively so that in the end, EVERYONES interests will be better served.
Re: Ask HN: What do you do when your entire being opposes the task at hand?
#137This is par for the course for programming. I usually just shrug, write it their way, and figure it is their money they are wasting. It's my job to mention better ways, but in the end, do it how I'm told. One work place in particular we often rewrite the same thing 3 times over. Sometimes it gets better, sometimes worse. On rare occasions, things do actually work out better their way if they knew a different product was coming down the line with different requirements, or a graphics designer pushed really hard for something that ended up making the app look cleaner or kept her engaged in the project even if it was a PITA for the programmers, etc.. So sometimes you'll discover it isn't so bad after you implement it. For the rest of those times, just grab a personal project, or hit a hackathon, and do it your way. Then don't grasp so hard on having it your way on work projects.
Re: Ask HN: What do you do when your entire being opposes the task at hand?
#138I felt obliged to comment because I feel I know what you are talking about and I also worry that much of the advice posted so far is wrong at best, dangerous at worst. I am 42-year-old very successful programmer who has been through a lot of situations in my career so far, many of them highly demotivating. And the best advice I have for you is to get out of what you are doing. Really. Even though you state that you a…
I'm sorry for not adding much value to the conversation but I just wanted to say that this was an excellent reply jblow. So much of this is spot on, particularly the parts about personal identity.
I've stayed in jobs where I became complacent and stayed too long. When I had finally had enough it was incredibly difficult for me to find something new because my skills were so specific that people couldn't see where I would fit. I will never do that again. If I have to switch jobs several times over the course of a few years, I'll take that over droning away and having my skills atrophy.
One thing that's kept me relatively sane are my side projects. My side projects have also made me realize I won't really be happy until I'm doing my own thing (or at least taking a shot at it). With a family though, I need the predictable income and benefits that a "regular" job provides. I'd love to take a few years off to pursue some of my own ideas, but it's just not feasible for me right now. Or I'm too scared/stupid to figure out how to put myself in the position to pursue my ideas.
It's tough knowing what you should be doing, but not knowing how to get in a position to do what you should be doing.
Re: Ask HN: What do you do when your entire being opposes the task at hand?
#139Find something about the task that intrigues you, and build your motivation around that. A new gem, or new language feature, etc. I've also found focusing on tests helps. Write as many tests as possible - focusing on getting those to pass. In theory, by the time you're done, the feature will be to.
Just first ask yourself if the next person to work on this code will appreciate the 'new features' you used.
Always a good point. Based on OP's description, they may not feel the next dev would appreciate the code at all, and it's just a matter of fighting through this feature on a personal level.
Re: Ask HN: What do you do when your entire being opposes the task at hand?
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are presuming a lot about what my early career looks like. Really I never worked any jobs as bad as what you describe. Well, maybe the time I did data entry during my first year of college. The longest I ever worked in a highly corporate environment was 7-8 months, but at least at that time I was doing something at least slightly cool (a port of Doom 2 back when that was a new game, and with which I had full auto…
I'm someone graduating from college in a few months, and this is one of the most striking things to me about a programmer's expected outlook on jobs. The career path of going and getting an internship, then becoming a junior developer, etc etc at some corporation is something that seems like it would suck the soul out of anyone that is even moderately creative. During my first internship at a "normal" corporation, I…
I just did it. It's not magic. I did have about a year of money saved up from previous jobs (relatively highly-paying contract work).