People start hating their jobs at 35 • Hacker News Board

Re: People start hating their jobs at 35

#201

Post by TheCoelacanth » Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 2:35 PM UTC

jasonkester wrote: post #43

This seems counter intuitive to me. All through your 20s, you're working your way up through the bottom of some crappy bigco, paying your dues and getting experience under your belt so that you can jump to better jobs later. By your mid 30s, at least in our industry, you can get to a position where you can choose a nice gig at a good company, and pretty much steer your destiny as you choose. So it's surprising that y…

What you are missing is that rate of improvement often matters as much or more to happiness than absolute quality. In your 20s, it is easy to make rapid career progress. By the mid 30s, most people's careers have plateaued or are progressing much more slowly.

Re: People start hating their jobs at 35

#202

Post by triplee » Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 2:39 PM UTC

Wow, for once I was an early adopter! I started around like age 22, hardened at 30, and started rage quitting at 35.

I didn't actually like my job again until age 38 when I found the right employer, because I got picky.

Re: People start hating their jobs at 35

#203

Post by nhfoiwehf » Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 2:44 PM UTC

3pt14159 wrote: post #193

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…

Hey, I mean this in no way disrespectfully, but if you want to land a job you need to show that you're following the rules. I've hired a lot of people at different places over the years so I'm going to try to help you with some unsolicited feedback. Every comment like this on HN is an opportunity for someone desperate for talent to reach out to you. When you're job hunting make sure you use proper capitalization. Inc…

Please take my comment as constructive criticism. I'm sure you have good intentions.

I found your comment extremely patronizing to the person you're replying to. HN is an informal place where people feel comfortable to speak casually. It's not necessary to have perfect grammar in the comments.

Going through the trouble of rewriting their comment to be more professional implies that the original commenter can't write and needs you to teach them. Nobody asked you for a course on writing.

Also, HN is not primarily a place for finding work. If someone doesn't have an email in their profile, don't assume they are bad at job hunting. Maybe they don't want their comment history associated with their professional life.

Re: People start hating their jobs at 35

#204

Post by paulie_a » Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 2:47 PM UTC

keiferski wrote: post #164

paulie_a wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Personally I find it a short term stint considering it probably takes upwards of 5-6 months to get upto speed and be genuinely productive.

Re: People start hating their jobs at 35

#205

Post by xevb3k » Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 2:51 PM UTC

hobofan wrote: post #158

xevb3k wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The employment bubble you describe really only exists in the Bay Area. The majority of users on HN are not in the Bay Area: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3298905 People 35 and over, are somewhat likely to have families and find it difficult to relocate.

> The employment bubble you describe really only exists in the Bay Area. There are a lot of places where you get a job in this industry faster than you can say "Software Engineer", so it's definitely not only a Bay Area thing. NY/Berlin/London are just as bad from personal experience and as a rough estimate every city above 1mil population, is probably not too different.

The largest group in the poll was US (not including SF/NY) followed by Europe (not including UK).

From your list that leaves Berlin.

Few other towns have the density and variety of startups that the Bay Area has to be honest.

Re: People start hating their jobs at 35

#206

Post by drukenemo » Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 2:53 PM UTC

lmm wrote: post #44

grecy wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. I've made a conscious decision not to live life in fear, and not make decisions based on fear. Having spent 2 years driving from AK to Argentina and now 2 years in Africa, I know more strongly than ever that I'm not interested in a "stable" or "guaranteed" future. It takes away so much spontaneity and adventure from life, and those are things I'm not willing to give up. Without them, I personally don't think life…

Sounds like this could be survivorship bias, in a very literal sense.

Could be. But also talking about all these other hypothetical adventurous people who are now broke and starving feed into our fears. I wonder if it just feels right to assume most people regret such decision because it matches what we worry about.

Do you have any data to back up that sentiment?

Re: People start hating their jobs at 35

#207

Post by wernsey » Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 3:08 PM UTC

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?

Like others have said, the purpose is to make money to enjoy the other 1/3.

Bear in mind that different people will find meaning in different ways. If you find meaning in participating in the rat race, then by all means go for it.

For me personally, I thought I _had_ to participate in the rat race, but this was a lie.

I saw this scenario play out at my last corporate job:

At that company it was typical for some managers to over-promise on what they can deliver to customers, knowing full well that their developers and QAs would have to work serious overtime to achieve those goals.

Even mentioned before the project started and the first line of code was written they would say something along the line of "this is a very important project. We're going to need you to put in lots of overtime for this".

The developers who were _idealists_ would then overexert themselves: Work until midnight, always be tired and miss out on quality time with friends family. They thought they would get rewarded when promotions are doled out, where in actual fact they were being exploited by the managers.

The managers in the meantime wasn't that concerned with the project or the goals of the company per se. Rather they were concerned with looking good in front of their managers. They were playing the _real game_.

There was always some form of emotional manipulation, like "the team depends on you". When you're an idealist you don't recognize it.

One of the developers had been with the company for 30 years, yet he didn't have a senior position, precisely because he was a pragmatist. He did his work during the day, but never did overtime. Then in the evenings he would go home to his family. Over weekends he would work on his photography hobby. He seemed a lot happier than all the others rushing around.

A younger version of me might've accused him of having a poor work ethic, but older me sees his point.

Re: People start hating their jobs at 35

#208

Post by glenneroo » Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 3:09 PM UTC

badpun wrote: post #173

tasuki wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Financial independence and early retirement? With 27 years of living expenses if you invest wisely and don't get unlucky, you shouldn't ever have to work again.

I don't like the "don't get unlucky" part. It would really suck if I indeed got unlucky around the age of 60 or 70, and then had to support myself working as a janitor till I die. In other words, I tend to be risk-awerse.

"Unlucky" in my book would be if you died before having the chance to use any of your hard-earned savings ;)

Re: People start hating their jobs at 35

#209

Post by FranzFerdiNaN » Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 3:22 PM UTC

wernsey wrote: post #197

jerf wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I look at history and my ancestors, and am grateful that merely 2/3rds of my life is not "part of my purpose". Plus I don't actually hate work, even if it's not what I would be doing of my own accord, nor would I say it's entirely bereft of purpose. It feeds my family, fairly well all things considered, and I work in a part of the industry that is about protecting people and defending them, rather than abusing…

I won't know where to find it again, but I came across an article the other day that mentioned that a big reason why modern people have midlife crises is because we live longer. Our ancestors worked themselves to death (in the sense that they died before what we'd consider retirement age) and didn't have to worry about finding meaning outside of work.

For most of history, once you reached puberty you had a good chance to reach your 60s or 70s. Of course this presupposes no wars or colonization or industrialization or capitalism, all things that are terrible for your health. But life wasn’t as short, deadly and horrible as the stereotype goes.

Re: People start hating their jobs at 35

#210

Post by lmm » Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 3:29 PM UTC

drukenemo wrote: post #206

lmm wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like this could be survivorship bias, in a very literal sense.

Could be. But also talking about all these other hypothetical adventurous people who are now broke and starving feed into our fears. I wonder if it just feels right to assume most people regret such decision because it matches what we worry about. Do you have any data to back up that sentiment?

No. I'm not aware of anyone doing a randomized controlled trial on going adventuring. I'm just pointing out that people who died naturally won't be able to tell their stories, so we're disproportionately likely to hear from the ones for whom it worked out ok.