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Comment by braindongle | Hacker News Reader

Disagree. This is an endorsement of accepting the fact that your work, your professional work, done by most of us at a job, makes you feel like a cog, a unit of production. It is better called a surrender than a compromise.

Surely it's often case that life has people in this sort of scenario and there is no realistic way to a new path. In that case, sure, take care of your loved ones and yourself, stay put, and make the most of it. This scenario arises from the messy mix of circumstances and decisions. There is no blame.

But! "Change jobs if you must", must, be changed to "Change jobs if you can.", especially for younger people. It's not mature to accept an unfulfilling job. It's a life-scale bummer. Tenaciously go after fulfilling work. Don't write off 1/3 of your remaining life. An approach that worked for me: distance yourself from the profit motive. It's not that hard.

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> This is an endorsement for accepting the fact that your work, your professional work, done by most of us at a job, makes you feel like a cog, a unit of production. It is better called a surrender than a compromise.

The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

The problem with cog in the machine analogies is that people only think of the plus sides of having more input in decision making processes.

What people generally ignore is the added responsibility and liability that comes with being more invested in the decision making process. In my experience, after you start holding people accountable for making the wrong decisions, most people quickly go back to being happy about being a cog in the machine and taking orders from someone else. For the few who enjoy calling the shots and accepting the blame when things go wrong, you can always move up into management.

> and accepting the blame when things go wrong, you can always move up into management.

In most companies, accepting blame is career suicide. Most people who move up in management are good at taking credit for wins and pinning down someone else for failures, or moving on to different projects before their decisions come back to bite them. And that's the kind of management that leads to broken process that the OP mentioned in the article.

Blame will make problems go underreported and responsibilities shunned. A healthy org will invite organic planning and distribute power while providing psychological safe space for real autonomy. The moment of blame or downward finger-pointing, all of this too easily gets lost.

> It's not mature to accept an unfulfilling job. It's a life-scale bummer. Tenaciously go after fulfilling work. Don't write off 1/3 of your remaining life.

For many (probably most) people all jobs available to them will be unfulfilling. For the rest, many of the jobs can be fulfilling, but have unreasonable demands, like concentrating for 40 hours a week and constant stress.

Obviously everyone's body and mind are different and if yours can easily deal with stress and 40 hours a week of concentration, then go look for a fulfilling job. If you're like me, on the other hand, you will burn out due to weariness even in what is supposedly your dream job. In such case, the only way to win is to make as much money as possible and retire early. The alternative - working while constantly tired and grumpy till you're 65 - is grim.

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