Ask HN: Do you *love* your job?
It’s not uncommon to hear people (or rather, guests on various podcasts maybe) say that they love their job, or that they love what they do.
I personally like programming and problem solving, and in theory should love my job, but I really don’t.
Intuitively, I want to blame daily standups, the obsession with JIRA and microtasks, and OKR and the like, for sucking the joy out of it. However, thinking about it more, I’m starting to suspect that it might be somewhat inherent to the fact that these jobs are part of the economy, and as such, the day-to-day is eventually driven by doing whatever makes money for the company. Maybe that’s why many of us have side projects.
So my question is, is there anyone here who can say that they love their job? If so, what is that you do? How did you get there?
49 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 106 ms ] threadThings they do right:
* Typically one scheduled meeting per day, agile standup, that typically lasts 10 minutes.
* Lots of pair programming and team assistance.
* High selectivity for new employees based primarily on personality, honesty, organizational capabilities, interests, and potential. There was no code test or leet code during the interview.
* They strongly encourage initiative in the code. For example I would like to introduce TypeScript to the code base and increase automation. They are completely fine with that so it’s on me to work that in and ensure I am not breaking things.
* They have a high level of incentive pay for going above and beyond.
* They listen deeply thereby encouraging team members to fully and openly disclose their insecurities, risks, and challenges on their current work. It’s better to fail early as an individual and deliver successfully as a team.
It sounds like you've found a great place to work. Do you think they're successful because it's such a great place to work or do you think their success has enabled them to create a great work environment?
1) do you think your job is meaningful?
2) do the proscriptive process rules around your job "spark joy" (sorry Ms Kondo)
I think 1) used to be true, I had a very strong sense working in the not-for-profit sector in public interest governance/standards was both meaningful and important. I'm less sure about both, and my own relative contribution now, so its hard to believe the labour is justified on the public purse, which makes it hard to have self worth, and harder to feel like problems in 2) are worth tolerating
In 2) the process burdens have risen as roles have moved, and as the organisation both grows and ossifies. So whilst I want to say "it's me: I've grown out of this" it's also partially true "it's them: they've changed the underlying basis of HOW we do this"
Some of 2) is justified. bigger orgs need more structure and process. some of 2) is justified, public interest s/w and services SHOULD be better, SHOULD be "fit for purpose" so we need more test, and UX, and check-before-commit-and-deploy
But a lot of 2) is "yea, this is performance theatre" to make middle managers and hired process consultants feel good about their 1) issues. Their idea of "meaningful" differs from mine.
I'd say "I'm jaded" is a soft version of burn-out. You can do a role too long, against change in expectations and cost and benefit to community, and yourself.
https://youtu.be/zYJLpX4AD2g
I found this story from Simon Sinek interesting
I doubt anyone truly loves a job unless it's run by them.
personally i think devs in the usual scrum process can do most for themselves in actively participating is user story/ticket (re)formation during one of the (too many) meetings you have. Creating well crafted chunks of work make for a very perceptible sense of "joy" you want to find during programming and avoiding, at least in my experience.
Try to fix it if you don't like it cause you're probably going to suffer through it either way.
Sometimes drinking the scrum/agile du jour kool aid gives you a sense of credibility rather than just rebeling silentlyagainst it you get some tools to try to modify into something more enjoyable and sensible
i took a job at a consulting firm in hopes of getting a lot of variety, but i keep getting stuck digging the dumbest customers out of the deepest muck for years at a time. :(
I found joy in my technical work, solving problems, and often breaking them down and bringing clarity to others. I got the same satisfaction that I get from working out. I did some technical work myself, and a lot of my time went towards meetings and design reviews with other engineers. It was rewarding, and I enjoyed mentoring and seeing people get promoted and progress in their careers.
I didn’t find joy in the layers and layers of bureaucracy and management, who often had no idea what was going on. Many of my management peers were clueless, obsessing with how to build their empires and get their promotions, instead of actually investing in people.
I was in meetings where engineers would literally break down in tears describing their situation. Their management chains were atrocious at managing their people, driving things to completion without stressing everyone out, etc., but they excelled at managing up. When I felt enough was enough and pushed these people to do better, it reflected in poor feedback for me. At one point, I was asked to not be a third party in these matters, to let things be as they are, and avoid forming close relationships with these engineers. I was told directly to focus on productivity and organizational goals.
I thought this was bullshit. Obviously it’s a small world and so I didn’t piss on the table on my way out, but I resigned. Wrapped up things I was driving forward or did a proper hand off. Bye bye!
It's by nature a rather conservative environment, but that's one of its strengths - less continual churn, and getting to make focussed changes that improve performance and reliability, which in turn contributes to helping first responders save lives.
One of the best parts has been able to integrate the best aspects (IMHO) of what you'd call "agile" and "devops", without having to include the whole box and dice of bureaucracy and gesturing/posturing that comes with that. Another has been working in an environment that is not "just" about making money, but also has an impact on people's lives. I've never been happier with my job in my life.
It’s been downhill from there, in terms of fulfillment and uphill in terms of money.
This makes me profoundly dislike my choices. I keep lying to myself that once I make a decent amount of money I will go back to lower wages and more fulfilling work.
By staying focused, I earn my respect, but I'm not seen as a "team player" and that's probably not the best thing for my career. But, and here's the key, it appears to be the best thing for my happiness.
I never get invested into a job, ever. This is a cataclysmic mistake of the first order.
However, no matter what I do, I love doing what I'm doing. Doesn't matter if it is working a retail gig, programming, sales, bookkeeping. I just like the process and compete against myself.
If I ever work for a cunt of a person or company, this is no problem at all. I just leave and don't get tweaked out about it.
I only do what I am required to do. I will never work more than 8 hours, unless that is part of the agreement. The agreement is the agreement.
I never make friends at work, I only have business acquaintences. Making friends at work is always a monsterously huge mistake, which I think pretty much everyone can figure out why I say this. Being friendly, yes. Friends, no. Be diplomatic, polite, kind, quick with a compliment, yes. Friends, no. Just google all the reasons why you shouldn't be friends if you can't figure out the reasons. However, one thing that I can tell you is that I never make friends at work, but I am generally among the most liked. Because I don't get involved in all that backstabbing, gossiping crap. And so everyone unfortunately tell me everything because they deem me trustworthy. However, I also tell them not to gossip to me, I don't want to hear it and this is generally respected, and basically because of all this, I'm genarally like by all. However, those with "friends" get all up into the factional warfare and backstabbing and all that noise. So my point is that this is kinda why I always am good anywhere I go.
I also manage up. If someone is being an asshole and is a boss, they are NOT going to get away with that shit from me. Again, I will be nice and stuff and polite, but they will know in no uncertain terms what is not acceptable. Or, if I see that they are such an ass that even managing up they will then get vengeful or vindictive, then I either transfer to somewhere else or just get another job.
I never love jobs. I love myself and how I go about doing things. My little self-competitions, and gamifying tasks.
No sense in loving any job.
I mean, someone can be mean and spiteful and hate everything about work and make everyone around them miserable. Certianly we've all known people like that. And that means it certainly is a way to go about things. But percentage-wise of a way to go, I don't know, maybe it works better for the person who is mean and spiteful and makes everyone around them miserable.
So I guess you're right. If someone wants to be miserable to themselves and others, if someone wants to make friends and then get involved in the factional warefare, if someone wants to make friends and then you are promoted over your friend who wants the promotion, or they are promoted and you are not, and then have to fire your friend, or get fired, and then hate them forever and feel like you were stabbed in the back....well, hey, it's your life.
I don't know what other "ways" you are specifically talking about, though. But as I said, the trade-off is that with MY way, you don't get involved in petty office backstab bullshit, you don't have arguments with your friends after you know them for a while and find out that you hate them and now you have to work at a place and avoid the other person all the time. But I, since I only work on the pure professional level, ALL of this never happens to me. Never. I go to work, do my job, friendly and polite to all, diplomatic, tactful, never engage in office backstabbings, no factionalisms, everyone likes me because of it, everyone respects me. I don't get sidelined by petty bullshit, I don't have people coming up to me and talking to me for 45 minutes about how much they hate such-and-such person and why they are horrible person. I don't know....call me crazy, but I like being liked, and not drawn into work bullshit, because everyone knows better and doesn't even try to involve me. So how can anyone ever be mad at me, unless I fuck up on my job? Then that's on me and is ok. But I rarely screw up on my job because I don't waste my time on bullshit like factional office warfare and gossiping, and instead, do this think called work - doing what I was hired to do.
I have made some of my best lifelong friends from old jobs, and wouldn't give up those relationships for anything. Really good people are worth keeping close in your life, and I don't buy the "million fish in the sea" argument.
If you've made multiple high value, life long friends at work then how can you not buy that argument? From a relatively small pond you've landed multiple great catches.
Million fish in the sea — just, not yours, if you swim around the same old beach.
I think we’re taking it too far at this point lol.
Making friends at work does not necessitate participating in backstabbing, gossiping crap. In fact, being a good friend generally requires not participating in backstabbing, gossiping crap.
You could try being a good friend at work? You might get even more out of life than you currently do.
Otherwise it all seems in vain unless you leave for a raise. No one has loyalty anymore.
I need to feel that I have the required authority and autonomy to effect change. If there are failures that I'm held responsible for, that I also feel powerless to fix, then I burn out. If there are things that I stuffed up but felt like I was empowered to achieve, yet still stuffed up that is a huge learning opportunity. Note it's about how empowered I feel. My feelings don't always line up with reality.
I need to be learning and achieving. If I'm growing as an individual and can see the work I've put in paying off then I feel like I have a purpose and feel great about life.
I need feedback from above. If I'm unsure where I stand I start to get worried and that worry prevents me from working well. Waiting a year for a performance review doesn't work for me, I'm too needy. I should have learnt years ago to ask for more feedback. It's scary but it helps me stay on track.
I also need to feel like I'm part of a team. That we're in this together working towards a common goal. If there are jerks pulling each other down I don't want to be in that team.
Money is important as it feeds my family but my sanity only seems to hold if I get some satisfaction from my job.
My ideal is to work for a boss that manipulates me into performing well.
But even during those times, I'm not like in love with every minute or even every day of it. Its more like a sense of energy to learn/do something, or a feeling of accomplishment/pride when i hit a milestone. Maybe a joy in learning something new and cool sometimes. I think thats the closest you can get to loving a job - its fleeting moments of specific positive feelings.
The day to day is still just work - JIRA and dumb bugs, annoying tasks, boring meetings, broken dev environments, frustrating APIs and code blah blah :p
I'm the only technical person on staff, worldwide, so it's obviously an insane workload, but it keeps me fizzing with solutions. If I have an idea for something, I can build it and try it - so it keeps my crackpot inventor soul happy.
And it's wonderful to see my trainees flourishing in their lives and all their achievements. We have supported hundreds of people to become developers and restart their lives. It makes it easy to work hard, to do this.
1. I get to play with APL[1] every day which makes work fun[2] in itself.
2. The company I work for very much feels like a family. Most of us are friends as well as colleagues, and end up seeing each other outside of work. We have a strict no overtime-pay policy to avoid employees overworking themselves, and a flat management structure with a large degree of freedom to organise oneself and choose what exactly to work on. Everyone is expected to speak up about any issue they encounter, be it internal, in the product, or in outside communications. After interviews by managers, potential new hires have to present and answer questions about some project of theirs to the entire company. Then we send them out, and anyone can express any concerns (or positivity!) We don't adhere to any strict way of working; just a beginning-of-week standup where we say what we're expecting to work on this week and if we need anything from anyone else, and an end-of-week report on what we got done. And no, we're not a startup, we've been in business for over 45 years, and have customers that are making hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
[1] https://apl.wiki [2] https://chat.stackexchange.com/search?q=apl+fun&room=240
I hated the pay (too low) and the commute (too long), but making things is awesome for your soul.
I work in medical embedded software. So I love developing software, tinkering with hardware, I don't enjoy the ton of paperwork that medical products require