People Start Hating Their Jobs at Age 35

"Refocus on a personal project". How about we stop grinding out 40+ hour mentally and physically strenuous weeks. Programming hours on end is difficult, as is sitting at a desk and staring into a monitor. I could be happy programming for the rest of my life if I'm only doing 15 hours per week but unfortunately there's extremely little work that pays well per hour and is part-time. I'm willing to work at a discounted rate, but the offers I'm finding are either full time, or embarrassingly low hourly rates.

And this is in Canada where we have single payer government healthcare, so employers don't even have an excuse.

Re: People Start Hating Their Jobs at Age 35

#5

Post by damnfine » Tue, Aug 22, 2017, 4:23 PM UTC

psadri wrote: post #2

Probably around the same time they realize they don't have unlimited time and become aware that their life clock is ticking away.

I wasted my good years working and studying for the opprotunity to have this job I now just slighly less than hate. -everyone my age

Re: People Start Hating Their Jobs at Age 35

#6

Post by karllager » Tue, Aug 22, 2017, 4:27 PM UTC

I believe the tech sector is extremely prone to this: If you cannot climb out of a technical role, over time, you realize just how clueless most people are, especially those who imagine themselves of being "in control". Not just a bit uninformed, no: absolutely positively clueless[1].

If you go the management route, you often give up, what got you started with all this is the first place: curiosity and exploration, creation and progress. It becomes: handling paperwork, keeping the clients' bad ideas in check, motivating those on the payroll, who wait for your instructions to act. It must be nightmare.

Where is the exit?

[1] Update: I believe this is what is called the nerd/nerd-exploiter dilemma.

Re: People Start Hating Their Jobs at Age 35

#7

Post by dkersten » Tue, Aug 22, 2017, 4:31 PM UTC

damnfine wrote: post #5

psadri wrote: post #2

Probably around the same time they realize they don't have unlimited time and become aware that their life clock is ticking away.

I wasted my good years working and studying for the opprotunity to have this job I now just slighly less than hate. -everyone my age

Pretty much.

I've been finding myself more and more dissatisfied with my work as I get older and regretting that I didn't do something crazy when I was younger instead. Its not too late for me to do some of those things luckily, but its very difficult to drop everything to do so (and its not clear that, for example, a years travelling will make me any less dissatisfied with my work, although at least it would help me refocus my life).

Re: People Start Hating Their Jobs at Age 35

#8

Post by mkbnnh » Tue, Aug 22, 2017, 4:32 PM UTC

damnfine wrote: post #5

psadri wrote: post #2

Probably around the same time they realize they don't have unlimited time and become aware that their life clock is ticking away.

I wasted my good years working and studying for the opprotunity to have this job I now just slighly less than hate. -everyone my age

You know where the roof is, yes?

Re: People Start Hating Their Jobs at Age 35

#9

Post by _ncxu » Tue, Aug 22, 2017, 4:34 PM UTC

karllager wrote: post #6

I believe the tech sector is extremely prone to this: If you cannot climb out of a technical role, over time, you realize just how clueless most people are, especially those who imagine themselves of being "in control". Not just a bit uninformed, no: absolutely positively clueless[1]. If you go the management route, you often give up, what got you started with all this is the first place: curiosity and exploration, c…

I'm only 31 and found out the hard way that 90% of the way successful people got to where they are is through charisma, lying, and cheating others.

Re: People Start Hating Their Jobs at Age 35

#10

Post by sharkweek » Tue, Aug 22, 2017, 4:34 PM UTC

I started to notice this in my late 20s. It felt kind of like a "the emperor has no clothes" moment when I was working at a tech startup that pushed long hours/weekend work in order to fulfill some "mission" and "greater purpose" and that I should feel a part of this for the greater good. It kind of hit me that this was mostly just a fantastic way to extract more work out of young, impressionable 20somethings who didn't know any better without paying them for this extra effort, but that, at the end of the journey it will pay off!

With that in mind, I realized that I much prefer being a hired gun, where I typically can add benefit for about 1-2 years, then it's onto the next thing. I have very little interest in the corporate grind working my way up from new employee to VP or whatever, repeating the corporate mission like some sort of indoctrination, trying to keep myself sane.

I would be interested in a workplace that just kind of accepted this, but I'm afraid optically, no company wants to present its relationship with its workforce as entirely trasnactional. I'd be a huge fan.