Ask HN: Tricks to enjoy your job more?

Work sucks. Unless you're a shot caller you're destined to be ground down to the bone via attrition. Work politics, non-sense meetings, code you have no passion for. Developers are still cost centers to be minimized. Professional code is rarely important, meaningful, or enlightening. Neither are the people you work with. Promotions rarely pay commensurate to the responsibility.

The trick is to stop caring so damn much. Your job doesn't need you no matter how good you are. There's 100,000 developers in another country ready to be contracted out to take your place once it becomes fiscally responsible for the company to do so. Keep this in mind at all times while at work. You are replaceable no matter what superlatives they assign to you. In fact, superlatives, 360 reviews, etc are all just carrots dangled in front of you to get you to take more on-call shifts, push yourself harder, skip holidays and meals, etc. They may not overtly indicate this but regardless of how "good" a company is these are fundamental. Paretos principle. 20% of the developers (the morons) do 80% of the work. Don't strive to be the 20%.

The solution? IMO, find some hobbies. Use 'em as excuses to never do extra. The ole "sorry I'm busy with " trick. Dedicate the least amount of brain power to work that you can get away with. I often check out mentally for several hours at work. It's probably some kind of survival mechanism but I don't really hate showing up, coasting, and collecting a paycheck. My work still gets done and occasionally I'll even "take one for the team" to get a couple extra positive reviews. Gives me more energy to spend on things I like. It's honestly not my job. I do this at every job. In general, I am far happier not killing myself so the CEO can buy another ferrari. Let the bright eyed new grads learn the hard way.

Did it. Wrote some Clojure in a large Java shop about 10 years ago. Took about 4 months before I got a slap on the wrist.

+1

Ideally try to combine exercise with something you enjoy, so that exercise is the side effect. Then it becomes effortless and something to look forward to.

As an over-worker, but also someone who enjoys their job, I still find it important to make room for these other things in life (physical activities, adventure, music, art, whatever)... they give you perspective and balance in life, and without them work can start to feel overwhelming. Small details start feeling more important than they really are - and I think this is where that feeling of exhaustion can come from, because even though you might be making good progress and delivering value, it stops feeling like it without that perspective.

>The trick is to stop caring so damn much.

This is the key right here. Work is just something you do to make money to live and enjoy life. There's other jobs you can go look for if the current one becomes too much of a drag. The company isn't yours, so stop acting like you're an "owner"; you're not, you're just a hired gun. Just do well enough to get some decent reviews, professional contacts, and a pathway to other jobs to ensure your career has a good future, and don't stress out about anything.

After my last change things got even worse. Well... except $$$. But it was promising in the beginning.