But I do love my work. I'm not pretending. I do look forward to sitting down to work on Monday morning. It's creative, fun, fulfilling, and satisfying.
I just feel sorry for the author that they're so relentlessly incredulous that anyone could find joy in doing something.
I am not so sure. People tend to adapt to things they can't change. They put their hopes and dreams into it and end up loving the idea. I know people who "love" their apartment, but it is just an average apartment with a huge mortgage.
The question as always is of course whether it is real love. Chances are a lot of people will be disappointed at one point.
Interesting point. I love my wife and children in the sense that seeing them thrive makes me happy and I'm willing to sacrifice my own comfort (and probably even wellbeing) in order to increase theirs. Some people seem to have a similar relationship with their employer, which baffles me.
I think you're getting the sentiment mixed up.
People aren't sacrificing their own wellbeing in order to increase their company's, but rather, they find the work they do personally sayisfying and rewarding.
For instance, I enjoy my job, I don't dread Mondays. I like my coworkers and the work atmosphere, I enjoy creating tangible value and I find the success of my work projects intrinsically satisfies me.
But at the same time, I don't work weekends, I don't work outside my ~40 hours, and I don't sacrifice my wellbeing for my job.
So I work hard because of the personal satisfaction, I don't do it to make already rich people even richer.
I don't know how it is for others, but personally if I didn't get some level of internal satisfaction and motivation from how I spent the working time of the best years of my life I would be quite depressed.
People are definitely depressed, especially relative to how things should be. You don't see it much on hacker news, but you do on other forums. 20 year olds who are relatively well educated who see no future.
I don't want to take anything away from you. If you are enjoying your job and your life, that is truly great. But I would encourage you to take care of your future. Make sure you have progression, or something else, to show for it. You wouldn't be the first one to change perspective when life, or work, changes.
I'm sure I heard a much higher figure recently but 2000 UK employees surveyed gives 40% looking to change job this year - https://www.thehrdirector.com/business-news/jobseekers/chang.... That doesn't necessarily mean they don't love their work, most dissatisfaction is with bosses usually in these surveys, but it's certainly an indicator. Loving your work and not loving your job also leaves you more likely unhappy too, or at least malcontent.
What's your explanation for the mechanism behind this?
Jobs are universally good and bad, and most unlucky people just have to do the bad ones? Do we really need as many "office drones" as we have?
Alternative mechanisms:
People pick (or are guided into) their career path when they're young and don't know any better, and by the time they figure out what they really want to do, they have obligations and can't make a big change. People don't know what other jobs are available to them in the world, and don't realize that they might enjoy something else far more than what they're doing.
I wish there were a "Dirty Jobs" show for all kinds of careers, not just physically messy jobs. School (all levels) did a terrible job of informing me of what is involved in various careers.
Do you think that’s true for more than a small minority of people?
The author isn’t incredulous that anyone could find joy in doing something. Of course some people love their work. The author is contending that a lot of people don’t, but feel like they have to pretend that they do for cultural reasons.
There's a good book[0] I continually recommend which traces why people really do love their jobs, and especially the transition between the concept of work in earlier capitalism to the concept we have today. In short, companies (directly or not) put a lot of effort into making sure that your desire aligns with theirs, past the desire to materially sustain ourselves which Marx theorised originally.
A summary of the book:
>Why do people work for other people? This seemingly naïve question is at the heart of Lordon’s argument. To complement Marx’s partial answers, especially in the face of the disconcerting spectacle of the engaged, enthusiastic employee, Lordon brings to bear a “Spinozist anthropology” that reveals the fundamental role of affects and passions in the employment relationship
It is provocative and refreshing to even unsympathetic readers.
I love the work your lab does, but you are seriously lucky no matter how hard you worked to get there. There are only so many positions like yours in the world. The vast majority of the people didn't and don't have the opportunities you had.
This comes off like a humble brag. I don't think you feel sorry.
Meh, I am an utterly replaceable software writer at a SF company, and feel like the OP wrote down what I was feeling.
It's fairly easy to find out where I work, and I think you'd agree that I'm not curing cancer or anything. I do wake up Monday mornings excited about work (and try to change teams/companies when that stops being true)
Before I went into research I used to have a previous career that was hard, dirty, dangerous, and poorly paid, and I took as much joy in Monday mornings then as well.
You're projecting! The author did not strike me as being incredulous. I think your own comment, your reading of the article, and your insistence (nobody is arguing with you) that you love your work -- this is the phenomenon being examined in the article.
Edit: sorry to see this downvoted. Guess it's a little on the nose.
I think the author is the one projecting. They don’t like work, they don’t want to feel anyone else does either because that would mean they’re missing out on something, and they’re so convinced that they think everyone who does must be lying.
This is the real test. If money was taken care of, I'd probably be doing something else with my time. In my case, I've found the most fulfillment volunteering in very remote areas. My job is good, but I'm under no illusion that I love it or that it loves me.
If money was already taken care of, I would absolutely be building software (and playing music). I just wouldn't be doing it at my current job (the software part...my music would be frowned upon at work).
At Google and other recent tech giants, you'll find thousands of people who could live comfortably without working a day for the rest of their lives. They're clearly not doing it for the salary.
This is pretty unfathomable to me. Similar to how youth is wasted on the young, wealth is too often wasted on the wealthy. Don’t these people have any hobbies or ability to entertain themselves? Is going in to work their favorite thing to do or simply the only thing they know?
It's not an accident... Success people are successful in part because they like doing these things.
I see it all the time here and on Reddit: people eschew giving a shit about what they do, then turn around and complain that they can't get ahead. News flash: people that care about things are better at those things. I don't think this should be a surprise to anyone, but it sometimes feels like it is...
> chooses to keep earning more money for their boss
But they aren't choosing to keep earning money for their boss. They're choosing to keep doing what they enjoy. That happens to earn their company money as well - why's that an issue?
Would you say the same thing about A-list actors or pro athletes? After a couple of successful movies or seasons, they could afford to retire too, but most choose to continue working as long as they possibly can.
Have you considered that maybe their work is their hobby, and a huge part of their life and purpose?
I work somewhere where a lot of my coworkers and management are incredibly dedicated and passionate about what we do. They will show up and go apeshit on a project for 12+ hours a day for a month at a time because they're excited about the challenge and the outcomes. Even when they're not working on such a schedule, they often go home and work on personal projects that parallel what they do in their work. There are plenty of days where I can't wait to get to work; all issues outside of it take the backseat. No matter how bad those issues are, I have no choice but to get over them, because my work is never finished.
I'd imagine that some jobs would be grating, but there's a lot of them that would never get old for some people.
I wouldn't work at Google for free if I was a junior or mid-level engineer doing something boring like maintaining an old codebase or trying to keep servers online. But some of these employees get to work on truly interesting projects with some of the best engineers in the world. Especially if they are inventing new products or researching and discovering new things. I imagine that the AI researchers earning millions per year probably love their work and would do it for free.
> Don’t these people have any hobbies or ability to entertain themselves? Is going in to work their favorite thing to do or simply the only thing they know?
Why are you so snide towards them? What's wrong with them enjoying their work as a hobby and entertainment? Why is building whatever at Google invalid as a joyful activity someone might chose to do, but building a model aeroplane or anything else outside work would be a valid hobby instead?
I'm pretty sure I would. I derive a lot of satisfaction from the things I'm making in software and if it wasn't my job then I'd definitely do that as a hobby (as I did in the past, when my job at the time didn't involve development, I was active developer in different open source projects). Software engineering is a very satisfying activity that I wish more people would have a chance to experience.
It is _because_ my job already takes care of all my software development "needs", that I don't feel the need to do that anymore when I get home and instead pursue other passions.
It's important for the author of this article and those who think like him that you're lying to yourself, because that way they're not the ones with the problem.
I'll go on even to say this. A lot of people who actually love their work aren't posting a post/story on instagram every Monday #hustle.
It's almost the same as a lot of people who actually go to gym regularly won't post on instagram about their work outs compared to people who go once in a blue moon or only go for 2 weeks and then stop who will post "hustle never stops/keep grinding everyday"
It seems to be a trend in media to try to convince people that fulfillment must be found in life - but not in work. Anywhere but work. Work is supposed to be mindless drudgery which you only do because you’re forced to, and if you think otherwise you’ve been taken in by the evil capitalists.
We must consume different media; I'd honestly have placed it the other way, that media in general preaches that fulfilment should be found in work and that those who haven't found it there, and aren't rich and successful in a job they love, are themselves the problem.
That said you can enjoy your work but still be being used as a peon for a greedy capitalist; they're pretty orthogonal.
Often times, the most exploited workers are the ones who love their job. Because of that, they don't ask for raises, seek workers rights, or diversify their lifestyle. They sleep in their car in the parking lot making the boss millions of dollars a year on entry level salary because "they love the job". The boss then gets to laugh all the way to the bank.
Its not that liking your job is bad, its treating employment in the traditional sense - salaried or hourly - as if being charitable with your time or ability to your employer because you like doing it so much is a virtue. It isn't, its just giving those with power more power out of laziness. Because its lazy to just give yourself away like that. It takes courage and strength and effort to fight for fair compensation and a balanced lifestyle that doesn't revolve around making someone else filthy rich.
> The boss then gets to laugh all the way to the bank.
I don’t know whether it is true that such bosses expertly manipulate passionate workers into slavery. Based on experience, I have an alternative theory: those kinds of bosses have an “ambitious” personality (for the lack of a better word). They are never happy no matter how much they achieve, and so they demand more and more from others. It may very well be that in the end they end up with a lot of wealth, but in their minds they failed because they’re comparing themselves with even more successful people. So it’s more a case of “crying all the way to the bank even thiugh the account is filled”.
How do you fight for this? What leverage do you have? There's another kid that can do the job just as well, directly behind you. I am possibly wrong, but I would really like an answer about how to fight for more compensation, it seems that we are expendable ...
If you are expendable expect to be exploited. Its why so many programmers go out of their way to become needed - if you are the only one who properly understands critical code in your business, you have leverage. If they can replace you with a week of onboarding you are going to be treated like dirt most places.
Sometimes that means not going out of your way to explain how you implemented a feature. If your company is going to treat you like an expendable money sink treat them like a hostile actor too.
The article is about people who are glorifying the striving, not the work. It's about the hustle, not the doing. It's specifically humourless, not fun.
Isn’t the answer obvious?: Work has become much more precarious again and looking like you aren’t into it is a competitive disadvantage that few can risk.
Or maybe some people actually do love the work they do... Are people really this disenfranchised that they can't possibly imagine that some people really are doing work they enjoy? I love my career and the work I do is fulfilling and gives me a sense of accomplishment
Considering that all social media networks are being monitored by employers nowdays, why would anyone complain about their job anywhere, except in meat space with trusted long time associates?
Because, unless you are in some market niche, surviving got really complicated.
> It is obsessed with striving, relentlessly positive, devoid of humor, and — once you notice it — impossible to escape.
That's the world we build for ourselves. Let me quote a passage from Max Weber, in his book "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism":
"The Puritan wanted to work in a calling; we are forced to do so. For when asceticism was carried out of monastic cells into everyday life, and began to dominate worldly morality, it did its part in building the tremendous cosmos of the modern economic order. This order is now bound to the technical and economic conditions of machine production which to-day determine the lives of all the individuals who are born into this mechanism, not only those directly concerned with economic acquisition, with irresistible force."
If others are stepping the game up, we have to step the game up too if we want to survive.
I actually do really like work (wouldn’t say ‘love’), am 23 and have a consulting side-hustle which pays somewhere like 220% more per hour than my salaries job.
I’m not doing this consulting work because I love software so much my day job isn’t giving me enough satisfaction, I’m doing it to earn well-needed money.
I got into heroin addiction a couple of years ago and built up a decent debt (in total probably about 50% of my annual income). Put simply, I need somewhere to live and something to eat. I’ve interviewed at other companies which offer me about 40% more than where I’m working now, but my company has stuck by me so I’m going to stick by them.
Basically, I wonder how many people are working like this due to circumstances beyond their control.
Workers fought for centuries to get the 40-hour work week, something seems wrong when we’re stating to go the other way.
(I have been clean of heroin and all drugs except nicotine, alcohol and cannabis since around mid-August, I don’t keep track of the date anymore because last time I got clean I got completely fixated on it)
Just preliminary phone interviews I get from recruiters on LinkedIn, I don't take them seriously. It's just always good to keep up with the industry.
Thanks for the offer of talking, I feel pretty secure in myself right now (no desire to use due to the adverse effects it has on literally every factor of my life except feeling really good for a few hours. I don't miss having to ask colleagues to get me a coffee because I couldn't walk the 10 minutes there and back to Starbucks, or having people staring into your eyes to see if you're high, or more obviously, the bruises and trackmarks,
Weed, alcohol and I'm trying to quit nicotine, then I'm hitting the gym. Already signed up.
You are 23 and you are talking about loyalty to some consultancy company? I can tell you right now you have a bad perspective from inexperience. You are worth probably (definitely) more than any company can value you at so get over the idea of "loyalty" in this industry young buck.
Yes, I work both for a consulting company that takes contracts from the public and private sector, as well as run my own consulting company as a sole trader. They are by necessity entirely independent, I use personal hardware for personal stuff, I don't have anything that could connect to the Internet on my work laptop and give me away etc.
I am loyal to them because they have been loyal to me, and monetary compensation is not top of my priorities, being treated right is.
They knew what has happening, gave me almost two months to get over it (paid, I just didn't have to go into work), and now they've stuck by my I like to think myself a pretty decent SE who's going for SSE next round.
I'm not loyal to the generic idea of a company I've been at for a few years, I am loyal to my current company because time and time again they've proven themselves to reciprocate that loyalty.
I do have a side hustle where I do some small contracting work at £25/hour (my friend who is kind of my mentor in this says I should be charging way more, but this is Northern Ireland and my first gig.)
I do see myself migrating towards my side hustle in the future, but I don't see myself leaving my current company to join another consultancy company, regardless of the money (within reason). My company does a lot of GOV.UK apps so almost all the providers know each other (Kainos, BJSS, Valtech, CapGem, Clarasys etc.)
I can just about afford everything I need and a few things I want, and I'm hoping to be debt free (sans-student-debt) in a year or two.
Also, bearing in mind I am a few months clear of one of the most life-destroying substances in existence I am quite happy to take it slow for a year or two.
I have overdosed and almost died due to pulmonary oedema, really puts things in perspective when you wake up on a gurney with tubes everywhere, no idea where you are, and a pain like you've inhaled a knife-blade.
Wow, that comment took a real turn at the mention of heroin--haha. Good for you, no bs. I have no doubt it will be a long-term struggle, but stay on the path. I can only relate with my "addiction" to video games, which has similarities, but I admit is not the same. Don't let that debt get you down. Pay it off and get clear. You have so much time.
If you have a consulting side-hustle, you must have something financially valuable to offer the marketplace--which is more than most 23 year olds can say. If you need support, please seek it out. Our world needs as many people with their act together as we can get. So I'm rooting for you!
Thanks man, the debt is manageable, just about. I actually need to get on to the credit card companies and claim financial hardship, i'm just a bit wary of admitting addiction to people who will control my life in future.
Are they going to offer me a mortgage if they're worried i'll go and shoot all my money up my veins? I don't know, I know a financial advisor who owes me a favour so I'll ask him.
My side-hustle came from the serendipity of meeting some PHP FIG guys who kind of took me under their wing, they're still the ones finding me side gigs while I build up a reputation.
You don't need to be ashamed of your addiction history. Personally, I wouldn't be touting it unnecessarily either though--in most cases it's not their business.
There are several options for consolidating debt, but beware. You don't want to be skipping from one master to another. YouTube some Dave Ramsey videos. It's up to you what kind of financial future you want. I decided I want to have no debt, except maybe a manageable home mortgage at some point. You have to figure out what's right for you and chart the course. That way, the results will be entirely owned by you.
I commend your loyalty (and the grit and determination required to pull back from addiction), but I have to agree that such loyalty will not benefit you long term. Stay loyal to your boss and to those who helped you through tough times - but don't mix that up with a loyalty to the company as a whole.
This is really good advice that I had managed not to think about before; the people who really helped me number in the double digits and there are well over 1,000 people working where I work, and I doubt they would all be as understanding.
Agreed. I worked with an incredible boss and company, probably the best period of my life.
But later, the boss took a step back, hired someone for the CEO spot. The company aggressively hired people and attracted a lot of really bad types with their hiring policy. Whole thing started to go downhill rapidly within two years. Same company, entirely different culture.
While I enjoy my work, you’ve got to have breaks even from things you love. It seems doubtful that even if someone is in love with something, they try to spend all day, every day thinking about it or doing it. Heck, I love my SO and my dogs but I need breaks from them as well lol.
Some people love work, some people don’t. That being said, the excessive propaganda that work, work, work doesn’t typically benefit the person working as much as those they report to, like the article points out. That seems to be the main issue rather than an entrepreneur trying to materialize their dream.
I'm happiest when I'm working hard on meaningful problems that I care about.
I also understand that everyone doesn't feel that way. I think that's okay too. I don't understand why this needs to turn into a debate or perpetual flame war.
I wrote about this previously, but here it goes again:
I think the 7 day "work" week is the most life-relaxing way to work.
I try to work 7 days a week. Some days I work 3 hours, some rare days I work 36 hours.
When I'm not working, I'm enjoying that time and not stressing out regarding income taking time off, because I know I have given it my 100% and not held anything back.
It is satisfying. I feel relaxed at work. I feel well rested.
I think the 5 day work week is soul-crushing: there's just enough time off from work that you dread coming back, and there's enough time at work that you feel overworked.
40 hours over 7 days is a little over 5 hours per day, and sprinkling in a couple 12 hour days spreads the remaining work to 5 three-hour days.
The huge advantage of the 7th day is that you know you cannot work, nobody else is working, that it's pointless and you can relax. It's 'the time for not working'.
When you work 'every day' - the nagging of 'maybe I can do something' always exists.
If you put in your time on the 5 days, then you can have this 'I know I gave it 100%' feeling.
Also, knowing that you can 'finish stuff on the weekend' I find makes one even a little bit more likely to procrastinate!
I've lived extensively in both worlds (i.e. 5, 6 , 7 days) and I think 7 will catch up to you. It caught up to me.
When I go home at 11am, I know that I won't be working until the next morning. I can do whatever I want during my free time, I can go shopping, spend time with family, watch Netflix, work on house projects, exercise, etc.
If instead I have to work until 5pm every single week day, I will feel stressed/exhausted when I come home, and when the weekend comes around, I need to fit in all the things I couldn't fit in during the week. In other words: I would have to hustle on my personal time because I know that Monday will come very soon and unless I get it done now, I won't be able to get it done until the following weekend.
I worked 5 day weeks before and I was miserable and exhausted. I work 7 days now and I'm invigorated. And I make a ton more money as well.
I do wish I had more time to travel, but I can take care of that once I've built up enough savings to retire at age 50.
Given your experience, what are your thoughts on five 6-hr days vs four 7.5hr days (but these 7.5 hours must be fully productive otherwise I cannot bill them).
I would say it's likely a personal issue, you may want to try to see what works for you.
I think the most important thing is that there are 'hard lines' i.e. you have time which you know to be 'yours'. The bleeding of personal time into professional time takes its toll.
Also, not relevant to your case, is the 'every day' nature of 7 day a week work - I believe this to be grinding as well, and it extracts a hidden cost on your health.
There are multiple things happening here. I don't think a majority or even a double-digit percentage of young people have what this author is calling "hustler" mentality, but we'll ignore that, and focus on the people who do have it. Thoughts on "hustle" culture in no particular order...
- Some people are legitimately trying to build a business and be first to market. There are arguments for and against burning the midnight oil, but it could be a rational thing to do.
- Some people are filling a void in their lives left by the evaporation of community, family, and church. The "hustler" types typically live away from their family, don't have kids, and certainly are not going to church. Immersing yourself in a lifestyle with other people struggling, in the same way, is a decent way of feeling like you're a part of something.
- This is probably just a thing in places like NYC and SF where you're surrounded by hyper-successful people at all times. That's why they call it a rat race.
FWIW, I've never been able to work anything like a 12-14 hour day unless it was something I truly wanted to do. There was no pretending.
You raise an interesting point about filling a void.
I have talked to more than a few hustlers who had fairly deep rooted issues around failure and rejection and not amounting to enough.
This is present in all populations, but I personally have noticed that it's strikingly common among people trying to create startups compared to other groups of people I talk to.
The same is true for many great athletes, they are "running from something". It makes a lot of sense that at the very top of any human activity only those that have had the talent, a bit of luck and _very importantly_ sacrificed everything else over it will make it. And that's much more "easier" to do when there's something in their lives driving them strongly towards that goal.
I wouldn't even say that's a bad thing. The achievements of those people push humanity forward and even if you focus on the person, if they wouldn't have done that what makes you think they would have otherwise been happy and productive members of society?
I dread thinking about how that second group of yours feel during a layoff.
About the rat race, isn't that name just because it doesn't matter how much you run, the wheel just spins faster and you never get ahead? That's how I always understood that phrase.
I think of a little maze for the rats to find the cheddar, which they endlessly repeat just to get more meaningless rewards while never being able to escape the maze. What you describe sounds more like a hamster wheel. Do rats also run on such wheels?
In any case, IMO the streets of SF make a good visual for the OP's definition of rat race.
The entire tone of this article, written by someone whose beat is literally "Startups and venture capital for the New York Times" according to their Twitter bio, is so absolutely beyond patronizing and Knows-Better-Than-You that they can't possibly fathom the idea of people both enjoying work, and having a purpose that is a long way off.
So you're working for someone else's startup right now. They're getting rich off your work. Is the idea that you might be working to prepare yourself for a next job, a startup of your own, somewhere where you have a larger piece of the pie, completely unreasonable? Not all of us came from families that can afford to put us up for the time it takes to get the funds to start. Others of us already have families and want something better.
Furthermore, yes, this generation really does seem to give a fuck about making the world a better place. It often materializes in ways that personally enrich ourselves, but such is capitalism: There's literally no way to be widely effective at helping people that doesn't also enrich yourself along the way. Hence why all the largest charities have significant government sponsorship alongside, and Religion is more commonly seen today as the ignorant hideaway for homophobia, sexism, and the status quo. But many of us also think that we have an idea, that might just work, that is hard to execute on. So why not work toward it?
I'll never fault someone for hating their job. My first gig was being the locker room towel boy for a bunch of fat, sweaty rich people in the densest population of poverty in America at the time(Fresno, CA). The job I got before I became a professional coder was delivering car parts in Claremore, OK, for a guy who store rumor said did some stuff to kids. At that job, I worked 80-90 hour weeks and only billed 50 because I both didn't know what I was doing, and was afraid of being yelled at by my boss.
But for those of us who have something better than that, who enjoy bettering themselves at their craft, while making stabs and tries at something better- why be a cynic about our day job is still a job? Yeah, it's the rat race. But I'm not doing it for a big house, or a car, or fame or fortune. I'm doing it because I hope I can say I left this place better than I found it.
They're not faking it, they believe they have impact and are finally able to have the identity and distinction of 'real responsibility'.
They are 'grown ups now' able to live their lives and do real things.
That said - this for those in decent jobs and most of the generation actually doesn't believe that 'hard work' is a defining quality. I looked up the reference but sadly could not find it but from 'greatest generation' to 'baby boomers' to 'gen X' - they all put 'hard work' as a top 5 characteristic of their gen. Gen Y/Z are the first to not include this. It may be a matter of semantics or wording, or even their perception of others in their generation as opposed to an objective reality.
If you're lucky, and many tech workers are, at the beginning of your career work can be insanely fun because, unlike school, you're finally spending most of your time doing the one thing you're good at it, you're gaining skills rapidly, and you're getting paid to do it. The thrill wears off after a few years.
Eh, I'm like...7 years in or so. It's still pretty fun. It feels good to develop expertise and to have valuable insights that people are interested in. If I were still doing the same job as when I started, I think I'd be very bored.
The title is a little misleading. It leads us to believe that young people pretend to love work regardless of working conditions
> I saw the greatest minds of my generation log 18-hour days — and then boast about #hustle on Instagram.
This summarizes the idea better. It is unnatural to love an activity that simply drains you of all your time and energy. I "work" all the time. I'm always doing some course, doing actual work, learning, practicing different skills, but mostly I do it in my free time.
The author questions then the surprising nature of the relationship young people have with extremely time consuming jobs, and I believe that is a valid criticism. We need to protect the youth from believing it is OK to reduce the daily routine to sleep and work. Health, mental and social problems all rise from such situations and cost a lot of money from society, from having to waste time and money on therapy specifically to counter those issues that rose from work abuse, to ultimately crippling depression and suicide
lol yesterday I saw an ad from JP Morgan on Twitter...”why young people don’t just want a paycheck”.
The ad led you to page that talked about how a charity in Seattle got basically 2 weeks of free work from an entry level dev at a JP Morgan event...and now the dev works at the bank.
The subtext of all this of course, wink wink, was how to pay your employees less by giving them something, anything, other than the one thing they actually need, money.
Work is not some uniquely arduous activity. I blog for fun, as a writer I'm sure she would find that to be "work". Even playing video games could be work nowadays. Sex and going to restaurants could also be work to some people. If the "work" is cool and rewarding it could be good. The writer probably grew up in an era where work is divorced from achievement and the results are all sucked up by some far away corporation. Then it sucks, but the problem with that is not work, but that somebody is stealing the credit for your work.
I think some people are confusing the point. It's not about whether or not you enjoy your work. It's about the glamorization of working more than others.
I think a critical mass of people have bought into the belief that overwork is equivalent with success. That dedication to work is heroic. So there's signalling going on, a desire to cultivate the image of being a winner (in this narrow sense). There's also naivety... people who buy into this and aren't just signalling but truly think working in this way is somehow reflective of the superiority they desire to possess. So there's a cyclical effect, one group feeding back into the other.
That survey looks at current views, not views across generations at the same age. Older people are more conservative on average, but there is evidence that millennials and Gen Z are more conservative than their parents and grandparents were at the same age: https://capitalresearch.org/article/the-conservative-millenn...
You have a good point, but that article is not convincing. Most of the claims don't consider other generations at the same age either. The statistic about abortion comes from a push poll conducted by an anti-abortion organization. The claim about Obamacare is cherry-picked from an Atlantic article about how cherry-picking polling results can make young people look very conservative or very liberal!
> "At that particular time [in the paper], however, young people were especially unlikely to identify as Republicans or conservatives because of the short-term effects of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal. If we exclude the 1970s from the analysis, it looks by my reading of the tables and figures as if the political attitudes of the young have remained fairly stable over time, and in some respects they have liberalized somewhat," Hopkins said about the new paper.
The idea that millennials are opposed to the ACA is a particularly misleading take. I suspect if you dig into why millennials claim to oppose the ACA, it'll largely be because the ACA is perceived as not liberal enough relative to universal health care systems.
This is one of the things which really rubs me the wrong way. I've rejected a couple of offers over the years simply because the interviewers came off as weird robots with poles up their asses (that unfortunately includes Google, where the people I met couldn't take a joke but had no problem laughing about others). You CAN crack a joke without being unprofessional, especially if it's about the profession. I don't understand why people choose not to do that. Humor is one hell of a stress coping mechanism and inside jokes are a side effect of having a cohesive team.
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[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 1079 ms ] threadBut I do love my work. I'm not pretending. I do look forward to sitting down to work on Monday morning. It's creative, fun, fulfilling, and satisfying.
I just feel sorry for the author that they're so relentlessly incredulous that anyone could find joy in doing something.
The question as always is of course whether it is real love. Chances are a lot of people will be disappointed at one point.
For instance, I enjoy my job, I don't dread Mondays. I like my coworkers and the work atmosphere, I enjoy creating tangible value and I find the success of my work projects intrinsically satisfies me. But at the same time, I don't work weekends, I don't work outside my ~40 hours, and I don't sacrifice my wellbeing for my job. So I work hard because of the personal satisfaction, I don't do it to make already rich people even richer. I don't know how it is for others, but personally if I didn't get some level of internal satisfaction and motivation from how I spent the working time of the best years of my life I would be quite depressed.
I don't want to take anything away from you. If you are enjoying your job and your life, that is truly great. But I would encourage you to take care of your future. Make sure you have progression, or something else, to show for it. You wouldn't be the first one to change perspective when life, or work, changes.
https://news.gallup.com/opinion/chairman/212045/world-broken...
Jobs are universally good and bad, and most unlucky people just have to do the bad ones? Do we really need as many "office drones" as we have?
Alternative mechanisms:
People pick (or are guided into) their career path when they're young and don't know any better, and by the time they figure out what they really want to do, they have obligations and can't make a big change. People don't know what other jobs are available to them in the world, and don't realize that they might enjoy something else far more than what they're doing.
I wish there were a "Dirty Jobs" show for all kinds of careers, not just physically messy jobs. School (all levels) did a terrible job of informing me of what is involved in various careers.
The author isn’t incredulous that anyone could find joy in doing something. Of course some people love their work. The author is contending that a lot of people don’t, but feel like they have to pretend that they do for cultural reasons.
How does the author know that they're pretending? That seems rather presumptuous.
A summary of the book:
>Why do people work for other people? This seemingly naïve question is at the heart of Lordon’s argument. To complement Marx’s partial answers, especially in the face of the disconcerting spectacle of the engaged, enthusiastic employee, Lordon brings to bear a “Spinozist anthropology” that reveals the fundamental role of affects and passions in the employment relationship
It is provocative and refreshing to even unsympathetic readers.
[0] Frederick Lordon - *Willing Slaves of Capital: Spinoza and Marx on Desire" https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/228873/willing-slav...
This comes off like a humble brag. I don't think you feel sorry.
It's fairly easy to find out where I work, and I think you'd agree that I'm not curing cancer or anything. I do wake up Monday mornings excited about work (and try to change teams/companies when that stops being true)
Edit: sorry to see this downvoted. Guess it's a little on the nose.
Even people that "love" work usually know that it isn't the thing they would most want to spend their time doing if they had the choice.
I literally did while doing my PhD! And I quit a previous paying job to do it even.
I couldn’t literally do it for free now as I have commitments and dependents of course.
I see it all the time here and on Reddit: people eschew giving a shit about what they do, then turn around and complain that they can't get ahead. News flash: people that care about things are better at those things. I don't think this should be a surprise to anyone, but it sometimes feels like it is...
It’s just a foreign concept to me that someone with enough money to do whatever they want chooses to keep earning more money for their boss.
But they aren't choosing to keep earning money for their boss. They're choosing to keep doing what they enjoy. That happens to earn their company money as well - why's that an issue?
I work somewhere where a lot of my coworkers and management are incredibly dedicated and passionate about what we do. They will show up and go apeshit on a project for 12+ hours a day for a month at a time because they're excited about the challenge and the outcomes. Even when they're not working on such a schedule, they often go home and work on personal projects that parallel what they do in their work. There are plenty of days where I can't wait to get to work; all issues outside of it take the backseat. No matter how bad those issues are, I have no choice but to get over them, because my work is never finished.
I'd imagine that some jobs would be grating, but there's a lot of them that would never get old for some people.
Why are you so snide towards them? What's wrong with them enjoying their work as a hobby and entertainment? Why is building whatever at Google invalid as a joyful activity someone might chose to do, but building a model aeroplane or anything else outside work would be a valid hobby instead?
It is _because_ my job already takes care of all my software development "needs", that I don't feel the need to do that anymore when I get home and instead pursue other passions.
It's almost the same as a lot of people who actually go to gym regularly won't post on instagram about their work outs compared to people who go once in a blue moon or only go for 2 weeks and then stop who will post "hustle never stops/keep grinding everyday"
That said you can enjoy your work but still be being used as a peon for a greedy capitalist; they're pretty orthogonal.
Its not that liking your job is bad, its treating employment in the traditional sense - salaried or hourly - as if being charitable with your time or ability to your employer because you like doing it so much is a virtue. It isn't, its just giving those with power more power out of laziness. Because its lazy to just give yourself away like that. It takes courage and strength and effort to fight for fair compensation and a balanced lifestyle that doesn't revolve around making someone else filthy rich.
I don’t know whether it is true that such bosses expertly manipulate passionate workers into slavery. Based on experience, I have an alternative theory: those kinds of bosses have an “ambitious” personality (for the lack of a better word). They are never happy no matter how much they achieve, and so they demand more and more from others. It may very well be that in the end they end up with a lot of wealth, but in their minds they failed because they’re comparing themselves with even more successful people. So it’s more a case of “crying all the way to the bank even thiugh the account is filled”.
Sometimes that means not going out of your way to explain how you implemented a feature. If your company is going to treat you like an expendable money sink treat them like a hostile actor too.
The article is about people who are glorifying the striving, not the work. It's about the hustle, not the doing. It's specifically humourless, not fun.
> It is obsessed with striving, relentlessly positive, devoid of humor, and — once you notice it — impossible to escape.
That's the world we build for ourselves. Let me quote a passage from Max Weber, in his book "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism":
"The Puritan wanted to work in a calling; we are forced to do so. For when asceticism was carried out of monastic cells into everyday life, and began to dominate worldly morality, it did its part in building the tremendous cosmos of the modern economic order. This order is now bound to the technical and economic conditions of machine production which to-day determine the lives of all the individuals who are born into this mechanism, not only those directly concerned with economic acquisition, with irresistible force."
If others are stepping the game up, we have to step the game up too if we want to survive.
Is this good or right?
I’m not doing this consulting work because I love software so much my day job isn’t giving me enough satisfaction, I’m doing it to earn well-needed money.
I got into heroin addiction a couple of years ago and built up a decent debt (in total probably about 50% of my annual income). Put simply, I need somewhere to live and something to eat. I’ve interviewed at other companies which offer me about 40% more than where I’m working now, but my company has stuck by me so I’m going to stick by them.
Basically, I wonder how many people are working like this due to circumstances beyond their control.
Workers fought for centuries to get the 40-hour work week, something seems wrong when we’re stating to go the other way.
(I have been clean of heroin and all drugs except nicotine, alcohol and cannabis since around mid-August, I don’t keep track of the date anymore because last time I got clean I got completely fixated on it)
PS, good luck staying clean. Hit me up if you want to talk, I've been through similar stuff.
Thanks for the offer of talking, I feel pretty secure in myself right now (no desire to use due to the adverse effects it has on literally every factor of my life except feeling really good for a few hours. I don't miss having to ask colleagues to get me a coffee because I couldn't walk the 10 minutes there and back to Starbucks, or having people staring into your eyes to see if you're high, or more obviously, the bruises and trackmarks,
Weed, alcohol and I'm trying to quit nicotine, then I'm hitting the gym. Already signed up.
Be eager to do great work not a ton of work.
They knew what has happening, gave me almost two months to get over it (paid, I just didn't have to go into work), and now they've stuck by my I like to think myself a pretty decent SE who's going for SSE next round.
I'm not loyal to the generic idea of a company I've been at for a few years, I am loyal to my current company because time and time again they've proven themselves to reciprocate that loyalty.
I do have a side hustle where I do some small contracting work at £25/hour (my friend who is kind of my mentor in this says I should be charging way more, but this is Northern Ireland and my first gig.)
I do see myself migrating towards my side hustle in the future, but I don't see myself leaving my current company to join another consultancy company, regardless of the money (within reason). My company does a lot of GOV.UK apps so almost all the providers know each other (Kainos, BJSS, Valtech, CapGem, Clarasys etc.)
I can just about afford everything I need and a few things I want, and I'm hoping to be debt free (sans-student-debt) in a year or two.
Also, bearing in mind I am a few months clear of one of the most life-destroying substances in existence I am quite happy to take it slow for a year or two.
I have overdosed and almost died due to pulmonary oedema, really puts things in perspective when you wake up on a gurney with tubes everywhere, no idea where you are, and a pain like you've inhaled a knife-blade.
If you have a consulting side-hustle, you must have something financially valuable to offer the marketplace--which is more than most 23 year olds can say. If you need support, please seek it out. Our world needs as many people with their act together as we can get. So I'm rooting for you!
Are they going to offer me a mortgage if they're worried i'll go and shoot all my money up my veins? I don't know, I know a financial advisor who owes me a favour so I'll ask him.
My side-hustle came from the serendipity of meeting some PHP FIG guys who kind of took me under their wing, they're still the ones finding me side gigs while I build up a reputation.
There are several options for consolidating debt, but beware. You don't want to be skipping from one master to another. YouTube some Dave Ramsey videos. It's up to you what kind of financial future you want. I decided I want to have no debt, except maybe a manageable home mortgage at some point. You have to figure out what's right for you and chart the course. That way, the results will be entirely owned by you.
But later, the boss took a step back, hired someone for the CEO spot. The company aggressively hired people and attracted a lot of really bad types with their hiring policy. Whole thing started to go downhill rapidly within two years. Same company, entirely different culture.
This bears repeating.
Some are some are not.
clickbait nyt
It’s like a variant of Orwell’s vision. The proles are probably the happiest ones.
Some people love work, some people don’t. That being said, the excessive propaganda that work, work, work doesn’t typically benefit the person working as much as those they report to, like the article points out. That seems to be the main issue rather than an entrepreneur trying to materialize their dream.
When even low level retail job listings demand A Burning Passion!!!!!11oneoneeleven for the terrible job?
They're trying to find the people who would do this work anyway, without getting paid for it. Why?
So they can pay us all less. When we work partially for the privilege of what we do, money matters less... and we can get away with expecting less.
Anyone else? Is too busy fitting this mold to even be able to ask for a raise.
I also understand that everyone doesn't feel that way. I think that's okay too. I don't understand why this needs to turn into a debate or perpetual flame war.
I think the 7 day "work" week is the most life-relaxing way to work.
I try to work 7 days a week. Some days I work 3 hours, some rare days I work 36 hours.
When I'm not working, I'm enjoying that time and not stressing out regarding income taking time off, because I know I have given it my 100% and not held anything back.
It is satisfying. I feel relaxed at work. I feel well rested.
I think the 5 day work week is soul-crushing: there's just enough time off from work that you dread coming back, and there's enough time at work that you feel overworked.
40 hours over 7 days is a little over 5 hours per day, and sprinkling in a couple 12 hour days spreads the remaining work to 5 three-hour days.
The huge advantage of the 7th day is that you know you cannot work, nobody else is working, that it's pointless and you can relax. It's 'the time for not working'.
When you work 'every day' - the nagging of 'maybe I can do something' always exists.
If you put in your time on the 5 days, then you can have this 'I know I gave it 100%' feeling.
Also, knowing that you can 'finish stuff on the weekend' I find makes one even a little bit more likely to procrastinate!
I've lived extensively in both worlds (i.e. 5, 6 , 7 days) and I think 7 will catch up to you. It caught up to me.
If instead I have to work until 5pm every single week day, I will feel stressed/exhausted when I come home, and when the weekend comes around, I need to fit in all the things I couldn't fit in during the week. In other words: I would have to hustle on my personal time because I know that Monday will come very soon and unless I get it done now, I won't be able to get it done until the following weekend.
I worked 5 day weeks before and I was miserable and exhausted. I work 7 days now and I'm invigorated. And I make a ton more money as well.
I do wish I had more time to travel, but I can take care of that once I've built up enough savings to retire at age 50.
I think the most important thing is that there are 'hard lines' i.e. you have time which you know to be 'yours'. The bleeding of personal time into professional time takes its toll.
Also, not relevant to your case, is the 'every day' nature of 7 day a week work - I believe this to be grinding as well, and it extracts a hidden cost on your health.
- Some people are legitimately trying to build a business and be first to market. There are arguments for and against burning the midnight oil, but it could be a rational thing to do.
- Some people are filling a void in their lives left by the evaporation of community, family, and church. The "hustler" types typically live away from their family, don't have kids, and certainly are not going to church. Immersing yourself in a lifestyle with other people struggling, in the same way, is a decent way of feeling like you're a part of something.
- This is probably just a thing in places like NYC and SF where you're surrounded by hyper-successful people at all times. That's why they call it a rat race.
FWIW, I've never been able to work anything like a 12-14 hour day unless it was something I truly wanted to do. There was no pretending.
I have talked to more than a few hustlers who had fairly deep rooted issues around failure and rejection and not amounting to enough.
This is present in all populations, but I personally have noticed that it's strikingly common among people trying to create startups compared to other groups of people I talk to.
I wouldn't even say that's a bad thing. The achievements of those people push humanity forward and even if you focus on the person, if they wouldn't have done that what makes you think they would have otherwise been happy and productive members of society?
About the rat race, isn't that name just because it doesn't matter how much you run, the wheel just spins faster and you never get ahead? That's how I always understood that phrase.
In any case, IMO the streets of SF make a good visual for the OP's definition of rat race.
The entire tone of this article, written by someone whose beat is literally "Startups and venture capital for the New York Times" according to their Twitter bio, is so absolutely beyond patronizing and Knows-Better-Than-You that they can't possibly fathom the idea of people both enjoying work, and having a purpose that is a long way off.
So you're working for someone else's startup right now. They're getting rich off your work. Is the idea that you might be working to prepare yourself for a next job, a startup of your own, somewhere where you have a larger piece of the pie, completely unreasonable? Not all of us came from families that can afford to put us up for the time it takes to get the funds to start. Others of us already have families and want something better.
Furthermore, yes, this generation really does seem to give a fuck about making the world a better place. It often materializes in ways that personally enrich ourselves, but such is capitalism: There's literally no way to be widely effective at helping people that doesn't also enrich yourself along the way. Hence why all the largest charities have significant government sponsorship alongside, and Religion is more commonly seen today as the ignorant hideaway for homophobia, sexism, and the status quo. But many of us also think that we have an idea, that might just work, that is hard to execute on. So why not work toward it?
I'll never fault someone for hating their job. My first gig was being the locker room towel boy for a bunch of fat, sweaty rich people in the densest population of poverty in America at the time(Fresno, CA). The job I got before I became a professional coder was delivering car parts in Claremore, OK, for a guy who store rumor said did some stuff to kids. At that job, I worked 80-90 hour weeks and only billed 50 because I both didn't know what I was doing, and was afraid of being yelled at by my boss.
But for those of us who have something better than that, who enjoy bettering themselves at their craft, while making stabs and tries at something better- why be a cynic about our day job is still a job? Yeah, it's the rat race. But I'm not doing it for a big house, or a car, or fame or fortune. I'm doing it because I hope I can say I left this place better than I found it.
They are 'grown ups now' able to live their lives and do real things.
That said - this for those in decent jobs and most of the generation actually doesn't believe that 'hard work' is a defining quality. I looked up the reference but sadly could not find it but from 'greatest generation' to 'baby boomers' to 'gen X' - they all put 'hard work' as a top 5 characteristic of their gen. Gen Y/Z are the first to not include this. It may be a matter of semantics or wording, or even their perception of others in their generation as opposed to an objective reality.
> I saw the greatest minds of my generation log 18-hour days — and then boast about #hustle on Instagram.
This summarizes the idea better. It is unnatural to love an activity that simply drains you of all your time and energy. I "work" all the time. I'm always doing some course, doing actual work, learning, practicing different skills, but mostly I do it in my free time.
The author questions then the surprising nature of the relationship young people have with extremely time consuming jobs, and I believe that is a valid criticism. We need to protect the youth from believing it is OK to reduce the daily routine to sleep and work. Health, mental and social problems all rise from such situations and cost a lot of money from society, from having to waste time and money on therapy specifically to counter those issues that rose from work abuse, to ultimately crippling depression and suicide
The ad led you to page that talked about how a charity in Seattle got basically 2 weeks of free work from an entry level dev at a JP Morgan event...and now the dev works at the bank.
The subtext of all this of course, wink wink, was how to pay your employees less by giving them something, anything, other than the one thing they actually need, money.
1. I actually enjoy programming and working with others.
2. Sense of purpose. Working with others towards a common goal.
3. Reward. The harder I work, the more I increase my chances of greater financial output.
4. Recognition. When my boss or peers acknowledge my accomplishments, it makes me feel proud.
5. Growth. A lot of my personal development has come from wisdom gained through work.
I think a critical mass of people have bought into the belief that overwork is equivalent with success. That dedication to work is heroic. So there's signalling going on, a desire to cultivate the image of being a winner (in this narrow sense). There's also naivety... people who buy into this and aren't just signalling but truly think working in this way is somehow reflective of the superiority they desire to possess. So there's a cyclical effect, one group feeding back into the other.
Basically it's another one of those misunderstanding implication fallacies.
They are saying:
hard work <=>success (equivalence)
When really:
success => hard work (hard work is necessary for success)[1] hard work =/> success (hard work is not sufficient for success)
[1] Mostly.
During the Protestant Reformation? Another sign of young peoples' rightward drift: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/generation-....
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2019/01/17/generation-z-looks...
> "At that particular time [in the paper], however, young people were especially unlikely to identify as Republicans or conservatives because of the short-term effects of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal. If we exclude the 1970s from the analysis, it looks by my reading of the tables and figures as if the political attitudes of the young have remained fairly stable over time, and in some respects they have liberalized somewhat," Hopkins said about the new paper.
The idea that millennials are opposed to the ACA is a particularly misleading take. I suspect if you dig into why millennials claim to oppose the ACA, it'll largely be because the ACA is perceived as not liberal enough relative to universal health care systems.
I remember a time when humor helped build trust and friendship at work.
I remember laughing at work...