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I just don’t want to be busy anymore

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Re: I just don’t want to be busy anymore

#211

Post by mmastrac »

listless wrote: post #186
mmastrac wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider that COVID is part of it. I was enjoying myself at work until it hit and then my motivation and desire to learn new things plummeted. I decided to take a sabbatical to recharge and it took a few months before I could enjoy writing code again. I just didn't realize I was burnt out by the world in general.

I feel this so much. But I can’t take a sabbatical - I have to pay bills. I basically work everyday and tell myself “just one more hour and then I’ll take off the rest of the day”. I do that every hour until I get as close to 5 as possible. I’ve been like this for over a year. This is my life. I try not to think about it.

Can you handle a few months off on savings? I realize I'm talking from a privileged position but it can make a real difference.

Re: I just don’t want to be busy anymore

#212

Post by Talanes »

EnlightenedBro wrote: post #101
rootusrootus wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP, but I usually go to bed at 10 and wake up at 4:30 or 5. It only sucks if you are a night owl.

That's like 6-7 hours of sleep (below recommended normal). Do you take naps during day time?

That's not wildly outside normal ranges. The average recommended sleep for an adult is 7-9 hours, with up to an hour variance outside that still being within healthy ranges for some people.

Re: I just don’t want to be busy anymore

#213

Post by derwiki »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #194
xur17 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some employers will structure these as double trigger RSUs that do not vest until a date passes + a liquidity event occurs to avoid this.

I had no idea that you can get RSUs this way. Does anyone have any suggestions on what to search for related to this? Part of why I wanted to be a contractor was precisely because I didn’t want to play the startup lottery. But RSUs would give an alternative.

“Double trigger” seems to be the common term per a quick online search

Re: I just don’t want to be busy anymore

#214

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

bumby wrote: post #155
sillysaurusx wrote: post #109

One thing that helped me is not to care so much about my employer's goals. It's almost heretical. But once you embrace this mindset, it does wonders. Or at least, it has for me so far. I think a lot of us want to be proud of the work we do, and we feel that if we slack off, then we shouldn't be proud. But it's the other way around. I think the slackers have it right. You're probably not going to get rich from working…

This is tough if you actually try to have a team-oriented mindset. I’ve worked in groups (hard to really call them a team) where everyone, everyone , stiff armed duties. The end result is that the hard stuff, or low status stuff, never got done. I get there’s a balance, but if you entered a career where you actually care about the mission, it’s hard to just see that mission suffer because people want to take the easy…

I wouldn't appeal to a person's better nature to counteract this attitude. If their nature were to be a team player, they would be a team player. Instead, employers need to recognize that there will be mercenary employees, and they need to set up their systems to reward the behavior they actually want to encourage. If mercenary behavior is rewarded, that's what you'll get at the margin.

At least at my employer, it doesn't seem like shirkers and work-to-rule folks are rewarded. Maybe there are some people who do work like this and are still getting rewarded by giving off the appearance of being team players, but I guess you'd have to be a pretty careful actor to accomplish that. You'd also need to be able to manipulate your colleagues into doing the work you aren't, but still liking you enough to review you well during 360 reviews.

That being said, there is a grain of truth in what the op was saying as well. It's not healthy to care too much about your employer's goals, because they are necessarily in tension with yours to a certain degree. Work should be compartmentalized to the degree appropriate to how much you enjoy it and the material rewards you're getting from it, and this balance is going to be specific to each individual person.

Re: I just don’t want to be busy anymore

#215

Post by alfiedotwtf »

MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #209
resonious wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like the premise here is that the only purpose for a career is to "get rich". I think a lot of people genuinely enjoy the work they do, and the relationships they have with their co-workers. Or, on the darker side of things, over-work themselves because they can't find anything engaging _outside of work_. For both of those groups of people, they might not actually enjoy getting…

>the only purpose for a career is to "get rich". What other reason is there for a career? If there was no financial incentive for most, I highly doubt anybody would waste the time learning how to be a lawyer, programmer, or doctor. People don't just go into a career hoping to make a menial wage and work 40-60 hours a week.

Most (if not all) programmers I personally know are in it because they love computers and programming, and they'd all agree that we're lucky to be doing what we love 9-5 (and then some) whilst getting paid better than average.

I almost feel guilty I get paid to play with computers all day.

Re: I just don’t want to be busy anymore

#216

Post by ixacto »

MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #209
resonious wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like the premise here is that the only purpose for a career is to "get rich". I think a lot of people genuinely enjoy the work they do, and the relationships they have with their co-workers. Or, on the darker side of things, over-work themselves because they can't find anything engaging _outside of work_. For both of those groups of people, they might not actually enjoy getting…

>the only purpose for a career is to "get rich". What other reason is there for a career? If there was no financial incentive for most, I highly doubt anybody would waste the time learning how to be a lawyer, programmer, or doctor. People don't just go into a career hoping to make a menial wage and work 40-60 hours a week.

Because you are interested in what you are doing? I had no idea how much a developer or sysadmin made when I was 13 and started playing with FreeBSD and Debian...

Re: I just don’t want to be busy anymore

#217

Post by jasbur »

MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #209
resonious wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like the premise here is that the only purpose for a career is to "get rich". I think a lot of people genuinely enjoy the work they do, and the relationships they have with their co-workers. Or, on the darker side of things, over-work themselves because they can't find anything engaging _outside of work_. For both of those groups of people, they might not actually enjoy getting…

>the only purpose for a career is to "get rich". What other reason is there for a career? If there was no financial incentive for most, I highly doubt anybody would waste the time learning how to be a lawyer, programmer, or doctor. People don't just go into a career hoping to make a menial wage and work 40-60 hours a week.

I think what resonious is saying is that your particular job is unlikely to make you significantly wealthier than any others in your field.

Don't make huge sacrifices unless you have a realistic expectation of abnormally huge returns.

Re: I just don’t want to be busy anymore

#218

Post by whatever1 »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #208
whatever1 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t want overworked medical professionals. I want the hospitals to hire more people to work healthy 8 hour shifts. There is a viable different approach, but the employers do not like it. Let’s stop pretending.

Ultimately, it's payers -- taxpayers and insurance payers -- that aren't down the the "hire more people" solution. Another stakeholder group that's not down with it? Doctors. The AMA, who doctors control corporately, don't certify enough medical schools to train sufficient doctors to make the reality you want possible.

Does the AMA certify the colleges of nurses? No. And yet here we are:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/feb/12/nurses-hospi...

Re: I just don’t want to be busy anymore

#219

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #91

I have a friend who once told me that they can only work for about 4 hours a day. When I challenged them that this seemed like a very priviledged position to be able to take, they insisted that it was actually true for pretty much anyone, it's just that as a society, as an economy, as a series of employer/employee relationships, we pretend that it's not. What they meant of course was not whether they could be "at the…

I've always lived by "put the least amount of effort to achieve the most optimal results."

So using school as a for instance. If it takes me 12 hours of studying a week to ensure an A, but only 2 hours a week to ensure a B, is the additional 10 hours wasted studying really worth it? Nope. Much rather make my life more enjoyable.

Re: I just don’t want to be busy anymore

#220

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

whatever1 wrote: post #218
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultimately, it's payers -- taxpayers and insurance payers -- that aren't down the the "hire more people" solution. Another stakeholder group that's not down with it? Doctors. The AMA, who doctors control corporately, don't certify enough medical schools to train sufficient doctors to make the reality you want possible.

Does the AMA certify the colleges of nurses? No. And yet here we are: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/feb/12/nurses-hospi...

I didn't say doctors were responsible for all understaffed roles in the country. But they are partly responsible for understaffed physician roles. :) The payer aspect I mentioned is relevant for the nurses.
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