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Comment by DrJones1098 | Hacker News Reader

I've found I can really dig in to any task no matter how trivial, offered to me at work and get enjoyment out of it. The work part of work is the funnest part. The issue the makes work unpleasant is PEOPLE and the inherent complications that accompany that. Managing up and managing down. Politics, poor leadership, meetings to plan other meetings, open offices, promotions based on allegiance instead of skill, office parties that are a pretense, I could go on etc, etc. If I could just work...that would be glorious, but people always seem to get in the way. Maybe like Sartre I'm a misanthrope and 'hell is other people' for me. This emphasis on 'teamwork' over creative individuality and self-expression these days really just bugs me. It's also early and I'm just drinking my first cup of coffee.

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I agree in part. In my experience people per se are fine, as long as we're talking to each other as people. The problems seemingly come with spending a lot of energy being the company instead of being ourselves. I think this can turn into a downward spiral where dumping too much energy into corporate identity is both the cause and effect of poor management and lack of engagement.

Similar to you I find that I can become interested in just about any task. At the end of the day I enjoy solving problems, and so I turn a task into a problem-to-be-solved. That can include finding ways to automate boring/repetitive tasks.

I have mixed feelings about the people component. Many of the people I work with are smart, focused, rational and personable. I look forward to meetings with them. What I struggle with is all of the 'overhead' of the work. The time spent discussing, rationalizing, prioritizing, justifying. It saps a lot of the enjoyment out of the work.

I'm trying to figure out how to turn that into a problem-to-be-solved.

My last job was with a large fortune 50 company and my current job is with, not quite as large but as recognized a company. I’ve tried to hack the meta work as well but try as I might I can’t trick myself into believing the loads of waste are necessary nor am I willing to expend any more energy than is required on the meta work.

The good part is that the experiences have helped me realize I would gladly be compensated less if it meant being able to focus more on the actual work that directly translated to positive ROIs for the business.

> This emphasis on 'teamwork' over creative individuality and self-expression these days really just bugs me.

We live in a world of increasing complexity. Especially in tech, it has become increasingly apparent that no one can do everything.

It is inevitable that you will need to collaborate with people if you want do something that will impact the world. There is no way around it.

I’ve found that the more that I care about the problems of other people, the more interesting problems that I find for myself to solve.

I’ve made peace with endless meetings by just going to them and working and only half paying attention unless they need me for something.

Remote work is your friend.

The meetings won't go away, you'll just have to join them over Skype/Hangouts - with shitty audio where you're guessing what people in the room are saying half of the time.

However, I think that, for people who really despise meetings and all the coordination with other people, startups are a place to be. There's just way less stakeholders there to allign for any given initiative, plus the founders are super-conscious about wasting time and money, so they minimize devs involvment in meetings that could be handled solely by management/product people.

On it already my friend.

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