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Am I Happy At Work? Analyzing my entire career

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Re: Am I Happy At Work? Analyzing my entire career

#101

Post by cs02rm0 »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #97
geforce wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I feel the same way. What hurts is when you decide to switch to another company, which has good rep, and finally find out: it's the same. Everywhere. After the big bosses do stupid shit, they get promoted elsewhere, leaves you fix the broken plates, rince and repeat until a merger, bankruptcy, or major reorg. Meanwhile middle management gets bigger and everything gets slower. Good employees leave, bad one get p…

That's why I'm a private contractor.

Likewise.

And I've reaped the rewards from it, but there's still plenty to be miserable about. What was that Nietzsche quote?

To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.

I'm not sure I've found much meaning in my work life.

Re: Am I Happy At Work? Analyzing my entire career

#102

Post by ne0free »

guhcampos wrote: post #10

I don't want to sound an asshole, but I will sound an assholle nevertheless. I was damn happy as one can be at 3.5 years in my career. 10 years in, I feel like my happiness and awesomeness has been slowly consumed by corporate politics, unfair promotions and layoffs, bad work ethics and the such. I still like my work. I really really enjoy it when it's productive, and I still feel amazed to see the green checkmark on…

...my happiness and awesomeness has been slowly consumed by corporate politics, unfair promotions and layoffs, bad work ethics and the such...

You are not an asshole. Bootlickers gets promoted and stupid managers are biased towards them

Re: Am I Happy At Work? Analyzing my entire career

#103

Post by fsloth »

plankers wrote: post #36

In my (relatively short) life, I've always been far more happy in my periods of unemployment than when I was "gainfully employed." Don't expect a single person on HN to share this view, but there it is.

It would be awesome to have no job if someone else paid my bills :D

Re: Am I Happy At Work? Analyzing my entire career

#104

Post by kilroy123 »

oceanman888 wrote: post #67
kilroy123 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel exactly the same way and also just hit the 10-year mark. I'm literally working at the worst place I have ever worked at in my career. Next Friday will be my last day. I'm seriously considering trying to get out of tech forever after this last gig. I'm moving to Asia in a few weeks to try to work on bootstrapping a small company.

Good for you and good luck! just curious which Asian country?

Thailand first. Then maybe I'll roam around. Vietnam, Cambodia, etc.

Re: Am I Happy At Work? Analyzing my entire career

#105

Post by JoeAltmaier »

cs02rm0 wrote: post #101
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why I'm a private contractor.

Likewise. And I've reaped the rewards from it, but there's still plenty to be miserable about. What was that Nietzsche quote? To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering. I'm not sure I've found much meaning in my work life.

I've got 5 people brought in for the latest contract, folks earning a living because together we provide a much-needed skill to a company in a tight spot. Its been a great few months, and we continue to execute on a 6-month work list and bring them back in control of their process.

Work from home but I'm having a lunch meeting with the major players today which is always a great time getting updates and planning the next week!

So, my work life is great.

Re: Am I Happy At Work? Analyzing my entire career

#106

Post by YinglingLight »

kinkora wrote: post #44

Ctrl-f + "fire" in comments... Nothing?? The author mentioned FIRE (Financially Independent, Retired Early) which, IMHO, a big factor in your happiness at work based on my own experience being on both ends of having money and nothing. Some background context - worked for a decade+, quit job to go travel for 6 months with sizable savings in bank account, came back almost broke, now back in the workforce. So I am one o…

Downside of FIRE/Mr. Money Mustache is that it promotes a 'scarcity mentality'- many believers would NEVER take a 6 month break from work to drain their savings.

A healthier mindset is a 'plentiful mindset', which promotes positive 'risks'. Say, taking off 6 months to develop a personal project of yours for potential income.

Re: Am I Happy At Work? Analyzing my entire career

#107

Post by hamstercat »

guhcampos wrote: post #10

I don't want to sound an asshole, but I will sound an assholle nevertheless. I was damn happy as one can be at 3.5 years in my career. 10 years in, I feel like my happiness and awesomeness has been slowly consumed by corporate politics, unfair promotions and layoffs, bad work ethics and the such. I still like my work. I really really enjoy it when it's productive, and I still feel amazed to see the green checkmark on…

You sound an awful lot like me. The first 3.5 years was great, maybe even stretch that to the first 5 years. All downhill from there.

I'm starting to understand why everyone says the best jobs are never on public display and you should network and making a brand for yourself. Working actively on that now, will see where that brings me. Also working on my own projects. The most important point for me is to try to make it better.

Re: Am I Happy At Work? Analyzing my entire career

#108

Post by ptr »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #95
guhcampos wrote: post #10

I don't want to sound an asshole, but I will sound an assholle nevertheless. I was damn happy as one can be at 3.5 years in my career. 10 years in, I feel like my happiness and awesomeness has been slowly consumed by corporate politics, unfair promotions and layoffs, bad work ethics and the such. I still like my work. I really really enjoy it when it's productive, and I still feel amazed to see the green checkmark on…

~10 years here too, it's not so much corporate politics that bugs me, but the apparent futility of what I've done. I've had a number of assignments but it's all roughly the same - rebuild this existing thing over the span of two years, but this time in $technology. It's often rebuild projects for rebuild's sake, and not because the old one is bad, but because the old one's developers are gone and nobody wants to inve…

I don't think the effort was wasted; you made money and hopefully had fun while doing it. The system was probably useful to the customer either directly or indirectly (by testing a hypothesis, for example).

Re: Am I Happy At Work? Analyzing my entire career

#109

Post by samiralajmovic »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #95
guhcampos wrote: post #10

I don't want to sound an asshole, but I will sound an assholle nevertheless. I was damn happy as one can be at 3.5 years in my career. 10 years in, I feel like my happiness and awesomeness has been slowly consumed by corporate politics, unfair promotions and layoffs, bad work ethics and the such. I still like my work. I really really enjoy it when it's productive, and I still feel amazed to see the green checkmark on…

~10 years here too, it's not so much corporate politics that bugs me, but the apparent futility of what I've done. I've had a number of assignments but it's all roughly the same - rebuild this existing thing over the span of two years, but this time in $technology. It's often rebuild projects for rebuild's sake, and not because the old one is bad, but because the old one's developers are gone and nobody wants to inve…

Could be perhaps because Angular 1.x is not going to be maintained in the next 2 years so there are some security issues with that. And obviously, effort was not wasted since people used the application during those 2 years and you hopefully learned some stuff.

Re: Am I Happy At Work? Analyzing my entire career

#110

Post by chaosbutters »

mikekchar wrote: post #40
fallingfrog wrote: post #33

They wouldn't call it work/life balance if work was really part of your life. It's dead time, lost time. I've always felt that way anyhow. You can convince yourself otherwise maybe, if you're a musician or something. For most people though that's the truth of it.

I think you have it the other way around. People for whom work is dead, lost time really need to get their work/life balance sorted out. If you view work as part of your life, then it's a much less binary view of prioritisation. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't prioritise. It just means that the prioritisation is more nuanced than: do what I don't like for 8 hours and then do what I do like for the rest of the da…

Relevant?

"Rick, the only connection between your unquestionable intelligence and the sickness destroying your family is that everyone in your family, you included, use intelligence to justify sickness. You seem to alternate between viewing your own mind as an unstoppable force and as an inescapable curse. And I think it's because the only truly unapproachable concept for you is that it's your mind within your control. You chose to come here, you chose to talk -to belittle my vocation- just as you chose to become a pickle. You are the master of your universe, and yet you are dripping with rat blood and feces. Your enormous mind literally vegetating by your own hand. I have no doubt that you would be bored senseless by therapy, the same way I'm bored when I brush my teeth and wipe my ass. Because the thing about repairing, maintaining, and cleaning is it's not an adventure. There's no way to do it so wrong you might die. It's just work. And the bottom line is, some people are okay going to work, and some people well, some people would rather die. Each of us gets to choose."

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