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Comment by wernsey | Hacker News Reader

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, do their work, and find meaning in their lives elsewhere, like family or hobbies.

I found myself much more relaxed at work when I realized that I would be better off as a pragmatist (though YMMV). I have since left the corporate world for a smaller company, and I'm much happier at work now.

[1] http://www.daedtech.com/defining-the-corporate-hierarchy

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> 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?

Diplomacy is the art of saying “Good dog” until you get to the rock. I save religiously (~80% of my income) to one day be financially independent. Until that day, you put on a smile and do your job to the best of your ability, not working a moment per day longer than required.

No one is coming to save you but you. Have an exit strategy. Buy your time back for yourself.

I've worked with so many people that satisfy themselves with this lifestyle. Frankly, I'm envious. I simply cannot be happy that way, I've tried, I failed. I cannot live in the suburbs, I probably cannot have a stable family life, I will not commute. Instead I decided to accept that I cannot burry my desire to be on top, doing things others look forward to in the future, I'm trying to find ways to be sustainably excited about constantly being out of my comfort zone with new things.

I've left jobs paying over $1 million / year to do something that barely breaks even to chase this, and ironically it always seems to end up delivering another well paying venture with too much of the things I don't enjoy doing at the other end. It's immensely productive and counter intuitive all at once. I'd love to find something that lasts, but instead I feel destine to cycle over things that initially I love, and eventually despise for what I've turned them into.

That’s an entirely legitimate approach, as long as you’re putting enough aside for when the chase isn’t fun anymore, you burn out, etc. That time will come.

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 them psychologically, and that's not something I could do as effectively if I just stomped off and did my own thing. Overall I consider it a fairly good trade for what I get.

My great-great-grandparents that I know about were all farmers, using 19th century technology. I'm pretty sure they'd just laugh at the "purpose" you're talking about. Pull the other one, it's got bells on. Now shut up and go milk the cows, ye useless git.

(shudder I'd be so useless in that environment. Not just because I've been raised in my own environment, but because I know what it's like to have celiac in that environment; my grandmother did, and it was not enjoyable.)

Edit: I want to add, I'm not just showboating here for virtue points (which I detest). There are times when I'm a bit down, and remembering these things really does help me. I really do think about them spontaneously sometimes. Gratefulness is something that can take a bit of training, and I say that from the perspective of one who still feels he could stand to be quite a bit better at it, not as one who (believes he) has already accomplished it fully.

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.

@FranzFerdiNaN, who I can't seem to reply to directly, yes, you are right. I might've missed the point of the article I was referring to.

People today has more free time to ponder things like the meaning of life and has potentially a lot of time after retirement, and I think that is part of what makes people think differently about their careers once they reach 35.

I wouldn't think that's quite it. To be sure, anyone making it to middle age was tougher than the average peasant, but I think it's more that at that point, one would transition from caring for one's children to caring for one's grandchildren, and that takes a completely different mindset.

I consider myself in the pragmatist group.

- Commute: I work from home, doesn't apply - Sleep: This is part of life, so is an irrelevant metric

So, that narrows your question to, how do I deal with the fact that I spend 40hrs / week programming. The way I look at it is that the deepest source of meaning in my life comes from my spiritual practice and my family. The job fits into both of these buckets:

- Spiritual: A job well done, or properly understood is a part of most western spiritual practices-- there's a reason that Catholic monks don't just sit around and chant all day. The western monastic life, which is deeply spiritual, always incorporates work. - Family: Providing for the needs of my wife and children is a key part of that source of meaning.

Of course, it helps that I like programming. I've been doing it for 20 years. Every indication seem to be that I'll enjoy doing it for another 20 years at least, so in that sense, I'm fortunate.

What is your spiritual practice?

By realizing that the other 1/3 of our lives are spent on what is meaningful to us. And the 1/3 that is work funds more resources to put towards what is meaningful. I can go buy expensive tools and supplies for my sculpture hobby. I can afford gas and hotels to explore the country. I can go out to eat with my friends and family. And the last 1/3 is sleep... which isn't really a negotiable part of the human existence.

Also, don't discount weekends. You don't really work 1/3 of your life because you get 2/7ths off every week.

Well they're pragmatists, so they'll recognize that pragmatically they need some way to fund their life and accept that as a cost they'll have to pay until they find something more efficient.

Because they've taken a look at the alternatives and decided to make the best of a bad situation.

Personally, I went down the path of “pragmatist contractor”, working short, 3-6 month gigs and taking most of the year off to do that other stuff that gives my life meaning.

The cool thing about being a developer is that we can live a long time on a quarter of our salary. And the cool thing about contracting is that they pay you twice as much to do it in short bursts than they would to do it full time.

Well that 2/3 is spend earning money that allows you to make the 1/3 better. Obviously there's a delicate balance there, but it's not as if they're wasting 2/3 of their lives. A friend of mine works 9-5 in a big corporate company and he loves life - he's paid well (or, well enough), never has to pull long nights or answer e-mails on the weekend. Gets home in time for dinner with the kids and to put them to bed.

(and can you really factor sleep in this? No matter what your state of employment everyone needs to sleep)

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.

> 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.

Well you wouldn't want to promote the most gullible would you?

I think cynical might be a better description than pragmatist. A pragmatic person might see the reward in working hard but a cynical person will see through that. It's a shame cynicism has come to be seen as a negative trait (probably by people who like to manipulate you), a healthy dose of skepticism, cynicism and pessimism has served me well so far in life.

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

What do you do now instead? How do you view your work?

Basically, I decided that it was okay to be just a developer.

I realized that I didn't have to be promoted into management. In fact, I think I wouldn't be as happy in my job if I had to do management instead of coding.

I also read a lot about stoicism at the time. I think a lot of young people think success is measured by how much money they have, but I came to the conclusion that I'm happy at this moment.

Burning yourself out at work to earn money has diminishing returns; I'll need to earn a lot more money to be a fraction happier than I am at the moment.

I'm now working at a smaller company. We still have corporate clients, but there is not a lot of politics going on.

Is it 2/3 though? With the assumptions below it comes out to about 40% of waking time:

- 8 hours of work + 2 hours of commute / 5 days per week

- weekend 2 days per week

- 20 days of vacation + 5 public holidays per year

That's the trouble, everyone is different. My commute is only 20 minutes total every day (30 minutes if I ride my bike). I get 36 days of vacation every year (and a 6 week sabbatical every 5 years), plus from memorial day to labor day we only work until noon on Fridays.

5840 hours of waking time a year.

1845 hours of work time (217 working days * 8.5 hours; 1590 hours in a sabbatical year).

3995 hours left over to potentially do whatever I want.

Well, my commute is only 10 minutes and I'm not sure how sleep comes into it (sleep is my favorite part of the day!), but I'm definitely a pragmatist at my job.

Right now outside of my job I am replacing 100 feet of fence on my property. It is hot, sweaty, miserable work. At my job I sit in a very comfortable chair in A/C with snacks close at hand and headphones on doing work that I actually enjoy. My coworkers and boss are super nice. All in all my job is absolute luxury compared to the life of a manual laborer. Monday is my favorite day because I get to go back to work and relax instead of working on projects around the house ;-) Plus, they pay me really well.

This "Defining the Corporate Hierarchy" is a re-hash of the (acknowledged) original, the "Gervais Principle" by Venkatesh Rao. The Gervais Principle is brilliant.

"The Gervais Principle" series home: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/

The Gervais Principle is brilliant, indeed. It manages to explain aspects of the show that lead to its success, whilst also providing an in-depth and raw description of the corporate world.

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