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People start hating their jobs at 35

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Re: People start hating their jobs at 35

#161

Post by dougmwne »

konart wrote: post #13
grecy wrote: post #4

I can't stress this enough - if you're not happy with life, and you feel like you aren't moving closer to your goals and dreams, make a change!!! I realized that sitting at my desk for 30 years to pay for a house was not what I wanted to do, so I quit my job and have been driving around Africa for 2 years[1]. I dreamed for years of being a travel writer and photographer, and I am making that dream come true! I now wr…

Sounds nice, but what about your family? Relatives that might need your attention? I love examples like this one, but unfortunatelly they can't be applied to a general guy. Though I have to agree that you have to go for a change one way or the other. Some people can do this almost right now, some will have to do some kind of preparations which can take quite some time too. PS: not to metion that economical\social con…

Most people I've met in big American cities have come there from a home far away and not brought their relatives. They are then tied to that new place and can't easily spend much time back where they came from.

I absolutely agree that it's the privileged few who are able to go to California to seek fame & fortune and who can take life on the African safari road.

Re: People start hating their jobs at 35

#162

Post by Humdeee »

Radim wrote: post #104
nikofeyn wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let the other guys stress office politics and fear for their job if they take vacation. You're the guy who knows what this job market is like, and that you have options. as someone currently job hunting, i feel this is overly optimistic. the job market is extremely conservative, so if you have a strange background, be prepared for the long haul. this is extremely stressful as no one seems to care where you have wor…

Try walking in the employer's shoes: "can this person learn what we need them to learn?" is notoriously difficult to assess. While the risk of making a bad hire is tremendous (deadly for smaller companies), the upside's lukewarm (hypothetical loyalty). The only safe way to see if a person can do the job, is for them to do the job, pretty much. I'm speaking from painful experience: we also used to hire based on potent…

A multiple week long project as part of your interview process for assessing candidates? Genuinely curious, what makes this a better process than others? I don't have a solution, but I imagine the majority top half of applicants will not even bother applying.

Re: People start hating their jobs at 35

#163

Post by Wohlf »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #122
wernsey wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, round about the time I turned 35 I stumbled upon Erik Dietrich's Defining The Corporate Hierarchy [1] blog. It cynically divides corporate workers into sociopaths at the top who step on other people to get where they are, idealists in the middle who don't realize they're being stepped on and think they'll eventually get to the top through hard work, and then pragmatists at the bottom who come in in the morning…

> and then pragmatists at the bottom who come in in the morning, do their work, and find meaning in their lives elsewhere, like family or hobbies. How do those pragmatists deal with the fact that, summing job, commute and sleep, over 2/3 of their lives is not part of the purpose?

Because they've taken a look at the alternatives and decided to make the best of a bad situation.

Re: People start hating their jobs at 35

#164

Post by keiferski »

paulie_a wrote: post #83
empath75 wrote: post #20

I start hating my job every three years or so. Then I get a new one making more money.

Don't you have troubles finding work? I review resumes at times and I don't expect someone to be married to a company. But three years is a warning sign. Companies fail, there was a bad culture. But job hopping is a reason to not want to hire someone.

Not sure what industry you’re in, but three years doesn’t translate as ‘job hopping’ to me. If anything, 2 years is an average ‘acceptable’ job length.

Re: People start hating their jobs at 35

#165

Post by gringoDan »

dougmwne wrote: post #131
ggambetta wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't stress this enough - if you're not happy with life, and you feel like you aren't moving closer to your goals and dreams, make a change!!! I generally agree with this feeling, but with some caveats. Change for the sake of change is at best a temporary solution. You get some excitement because of the new situation (new job, new country, new partner), but if you don't first identify what isn't working before c…

This is exactly how I used to think. Then I started moving around. A lot. Now I think that our environment determines our behavior and our mental life to such a huge degree that it's embarrassing and uncomfortable to grasp the full extent of it. New career, new you. New friends, new you. New country, new you. New language, new you. The thing is, most people experience a very slowly changing environment for long enoug…

I think this is a both/and, rather than either/or scenario. There's no doubt your environment has a massive impact on behavior modification; I agree with everything you wrote.

However, the key here is that you first identified a specific problem that you wanted to solve. From there, you created an environment that exploited our (for lack of a better term) inherent laziness and brought about desired behaviors because it was the path of least resistance.

I think often people change their environment without first undergoing the uncomfortable but integral process of self-reflection to determine what needs to change. Then, when their lives aren't magically better, they are disappointed.

We are all constantly changing; our environment and our actions are a vicious circle that produce this change. But from what I've seen, the vast majority of people don't direct those changes through conscious thoughts & behavior, so they take on both the good and bad characteristics of their environment (profession, city, friends, culture, etc.) and then are surprised at the result.

Re: People start hating their jobs at 35

#166

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

EZ-E wrote: post #89
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boy, I wish I could find part time work that paid even a quarter of what I make supposedly working full time. The reality of course is that I'm at most actually working 15-25% of that time and the rest I'm just piloting a desk and being available for people to pick my brain. Then there's the health care issue to consider, at least for US residents.

> The reality of course is that I'm at most actually working 15-25% of that time and the rest I'm just piloting a desk and being available for people to pick my brain Working remote can solve this, I've realized. One day I was stuck at home so I told my supervisor I would work at home for the day. I ended up doing my work in few hours, and was free the rest of the time since I was free from the "stay at desk" require…

Sure, if your company isn't actively hostile to the idea like the one I work at is. Lot of places are very butts-in-seats focused.

Re: People start hating their jobs at 35

#167

Post by drchickensalad »

paulie_a wrote: post #83
empath75 wrote: post #20

I start hating my job every three years or so. Then I get a new one making more money.

Don't you have troubles finding work? I review resumes at times and I don't expect someone to be married to a company. But three years is a warning sign. Companies fail, there was a bad culture. But job hopping is a reason to not want to hire someone.

Really? I've always heard 2y or more at each place is the line of no suspicion, and from more conservative sources than HN. Interesting.

Re: People start hating their jobs at 35

#168

Post by grasshopperpurp »

bollockitis wrote: post #133
grasshopperpurp wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and no. Maybe a better way of phrasing would be, their effort will never be appropriately compensated. The problem is that much of the economy is pure bullshit, and it takes brainwashing to make the thing run/make people want stuff that is really of no value. So, there are very few jobs that provide real value - other than keeping the hamster wheel moving.

I think the brainwashing is somewhat voluntary. When fighting for survival is no longer necessary, most people enter a state of perpetual boredom which, at its extremes, becomes depression and anxiety. An economy of ever-flowing distractions is a great way to pass the time while waiting to die. In the meantime, we build up these absurd fantasies of how we're going to be important or do great things as a way of justif…

This is an excellent post, and I agree. It's important to remember, though, that the majority will move with the wind, a small group will be virtuous (almost) no matter what, and a small group will be terrible no matter what. If the system rewards the terrible, the majority will sway that way, and vice versa.

So, while you're right, the brainwashing is largely voluntary, and people seem to even enjoy it in the short term, it's up to the "adults" to set a sustainable structure - to not succumb to greed and petty wants. With regard to politics and business, I can't tell you how many times I've heard, 'Where are the adults?'

My situation is similar to yours. My job is fine but only fulfilling in short bursts, where I get to alleviate pain for people. The rest is pure shit. But, my life is pretty great. This morning, I saw four wood storks overlooking a canal in a warehouse district that most would consider an eyesore. It was beautiful.

Re: People start hating their jobs at 35

#169

Post by ggambetta »

dougmwne wrote: post #131
ggambetta wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't stress this enough - if you're not happy with life, and you feel like you aren't moving closer to your goals and dreams, make a change!!! I generally agree with this feeling, but with some caveats. Change for the sake of change is at best a temporary solution. You get some excitement because of the new situation (new job, new country, new partner), but if you don't first identify what isn't working before c…

This is exactly how I used to think. Then I started moving around. A lot. Now I think that our environment determines our behavior and our mental life to such a huge degree that it's embarrassing and uncomfortable to grasp the full extent of it. New career, new you. New friends, new you. New country, new you. New language, new you. The thing is, most people experience a very slowly changing environment for long enoug…

I agree about environment conditioning you to some extent; but not necessarily solving underlying, unrelated problems.

I've lived in 4 different countries in the last 8 years so I've also been moving quite a bit, even between continents, and I have "reinvented" myself in every new country and job, and absorbed new ways of living as well. But it took me this long and this many countries to realise that some of the issues I had were relationship issues, not country or job issues, which is why I took them with me across countries and jobs.

While I agree with what you're saying, this is why I believe that trying to fix a general sense of unhappiness or unfulfilment by going through drastic changes may be an overreaction if you don't understand what you're trying to fix in the first place.

Re: People start hating their jobs at 35

#170

Post by Kurtz79 »

pc86 wrote: post #121
Kurtz79 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> there is really no job security, and they could be one layoff wave away from unemployment >Why would there be? Nobody I know is signing employment contracts or working in Civil Service positions. Probably not true in the US, but in Europe many a 35yo has grown up under the general assumption "get a good degree, get a job at a good company, and you are set for life", simply because it was their parents' experience.…

I mean you say yourself it's an assumption. And things change, I'm not sure expecting your parents' experience to be your own is reasonable.

Of course. I was answering as to why some people might have had the expectation of indefinite employment at some point, which in some places was somewhat justified until recently.
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