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Comment by eertami | Hacker News Reader

But would you turn up to your work on Monday morning if it didn't pay you a salary?

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.

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> But would you turn up to your work on Monday morning if it didn't pay you a salary?

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.

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?

> 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?

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.

Yeah, I guess as someone with a purposeless life it’s hard to understand how somebody could feel their life has purpose.

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...

I’m not complaining about not getting ahead. I know I’m a lazy loser with no ambition and even less follow-through.

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.

> 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.

Yeah, I don’t get that either.

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.

My hobby is essentially the same as my work, except I have way more resources (equipment) at work.

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.

That could be a good test of whether someone is being truthful in this claim. In my case, yes, I volunteer my time doing this, too.

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).

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