Why I Find Bullshit Work Intolerable

Matches my sentiments pretty well.

My way out is two-fold - it is still work in progress, so take it as an attempt rather than a solution:

1. Stay at the soul-sucking job a bit to gain cash and invest in assets that generate passive income

2. Find a time slot in your day or week that is absolutely sacred and do what you consider creative and fulfilling. That you're able to allocate only a tiny fraction of a day to creatively fulfilling work will hurt. But I'm hoping slowly you identify yourself more with this fraction than what you do to for the 8 hours.

Been trying to do this for a little under a year now and there are some good days and some bad days, but I think it keeps me sane. Will need 5ish years to know whether it's really working.

(Edit: formatting)

Reading the article, to me this sounds like a person who turned their hobby into their job, reasonably common in our industry and for anyone who ends up doing this, it will mostly end in frustration.

> Consider a painter who is used to getting inspired and painting in long sessions. Imagine that they find themselves in a corporate setting where they can’t follow their intuitions and have to follow the laid-out process.

Imagine a "team" of painters who all need to come up with a cohesive end result? You can't have Frank doing a bit of cubism in the bottom-left corner and Mitch doing some abstract realism in the top-right. And the reason you work in a team is because is most scenarios, having a single person doing all the work is a liability, especially when it comes to knowledge work.

The work is based on a "brief", i.e. a set of requirements. These are given to you and with your knowledge and experience it is up to you (together with your team) to come up with the best result (taking into account a lot of trade offs such as cost, delivery schedule, maintainability etc). The work you deliver is not your work, it belongs to your client/employer.

I think the term golden handcuffs would apply here and I’d say it’s not enough. If the basic necessities were affordable, I might put my skills into a completely different field than the one I’m in. Unfortunately, everyone is hoarding money, which means I have to hoard money (or make as much as humanly possible).

It can definitely contribute, though, right?

Being annoyed at the same things for a long time can really sap your enjoyment and motivation.

Sure, but that's still a distinct thing. When burned out you physically can't put yourself into performing the job (and often other things in your life too) regardless of your motivation or desire. Being demotivated may but does not necessarily lead into that state; it's not necessary for it to occur either.