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Comment by offtop5 | Hacker News Reader

Like the 20-person startup, who expects you to work on Christmas Eve, and then hires your replacement behind your back cares about you. This article came off as very naive, give me the the blandest job, at the biggest mega Corp as long as my pay is nice.

The goal is to make so much money you can save it, and retire early. Or if you're doing the family thing put your kids into a fantastic college. I have no qualms about working on a product which is absolutely boring, and I have no real influence over.

If they tell me to stare at a wall for $400 an hour I'll be the best wall starer .

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FWIW, I agree with you, but some people prefer to enjoy their job rather than maximize dollars per effort. I don't entirely understand them, but I can't tell them their life goals are wrong.

life to work and work to live are both perfectly valid approaches.

I do feel it is important to own your decision. if you chose money, don't complain (too much) about how boring your job is. if you chose passion, don't complain about the pay. most people get neither.

As someone that's had a bullshit job[0] where I might as well have been paid to stare at a wall, it's really not what it's cracked up to be. Considering you're spending 40 hours a week (1/3 of all your weekday hours, and half your weekday waking hours) at your job, the creeping realization that you're wasting your life and labor gets unbearable after a short while. It's even more miserable when you have to pretend to your boss and coworkers that your job is Making A Real Difference (tm).

I think it's best to just settle for a healthy medium between the outlooks of "who cares as long as I'm paid" vs. "my job is my life and identity".

[0] Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber is a great book on the topic.

Unfortunately money is not the only thing in the world. Staring at a wall for a huge price will not make you any friends and puts you in a position where you are degrading at other skills while doing so (making your future employability less certain).

If staring at a wall paid $10m/year, would you really care about future employability? I'd do it for 3 months and then fuck off to enjoy the rest of my life.

If we had teleportation and a wish ball I could also do a lot of things, but this is not what I base my arguments on.

>where you are degrading at other skills while doing so (making your future employability less certain).

I taught myself Python a few years back and greatly increased my income.

I don't expect any job to improve my skillset .

> I don't expect any job to improve my skillset .

Then you are working in the wrong place. Learning python is a basic skill that almost everyone is capable of doing at my workplace and it is heavily encouraged.

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