Comment by ibudiallo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ibudiallo | Hacker News Reader

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I hate it when people say a job is a job. 10 hours a day is dedicated to my job. I'm awake for 16 hours and 10 of those I spend at work. This is where my friends are. This is where I meet new people. This is where I spend my time. But the reality is... Well yes, a job is a job, and the quicker you can accept it, the better you will feel.

Once, this realization came to me when I worked at a fortune 10. I loved the job and was fascinated by the cool tech we used everyday. One day I came to work only to find out I was fired. My manager was just as surprised to hear it. Obviously it was a mistake, but my team watched as security guards came to escort me out of the building like a criminal.

It didn't matter that they figured out it was a mistake. My coworkers became distant when I came back. When the story blew up, my employer denied I was ever employed there. An ex-coworker later told me that my position and projects have been completely scrubbed out of existence.

A job is a job, if you can focus on your own gains please do. Then spend a little bit of time on this fun Ask HN[1]. We can't all get a job that loves us back, so in the meanwhile find something you love outside the job.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26721951

>> 10 hours a day is dedicated to my job. I'm awake for 16 hours and 10 of those I spend at work.

That's the tragedy of wage labor, even highly paid salaried positions. We spend so much of our adult lives in a place that's ultimately transactional and labor to produce profit for someone else. It's bonkers.

And yet it's the best deal most of us are ever going to get without concerted action within and across industries.

https://www.indiehackers.com/start

How is that helpful? If we were all lucky geniuses capable to afford the risk, into the required grinding (none of the IH projects were overnight successes), and succeed at bootstrapping a 500k SaaS, most of us would have already done it.

Parent is absolutely correct that for most of us, the best we can hope is wage labor to make someone else richer. Posting a link to indie hackers without context doesn’t change that, and isn’t helpful at all.

Wait, were you fired then hired back? That sounds like an emotional rollercoaster. When security came to escort your out of the building, your team, the people who you made friendships revealed the true nature of the relationship. It's just a business transaction and you should not dedicate more than you are paid for.

Yes, I read the previous HN post you linked in this comment. What was your conclusion for that? I'd like to know too

Yes, I was hired back. I learned my lesson, so I used this time to get all my ducks lined up and left the company in my own terms.

I added a link to that thread because our most important commodity is time. Sure it sounds like promoting laziness, but lots of comments were about automating your job. You get to invest that newly found free time to do something you enjoy.

> Wait, were you fired then hired back?

In this person's case the firing might have been a mistake, but rehiring is not so uncommon. The large (Fortune 500) tech company I worked at at the time laid off a bunch of people - mostly in sales and management - during the 2008 recession. Many of them were re-hired within 12-18 months once things got better.

Edit: reworded

I agree with your perspective here. But the corrective action should be to have you spend less time at the job. I think the 4 day workweek and other “radical” ideas may address some of this.

Incidentally, I wouldn’t mind spending 10 hours dedicated to work for 2 days a week, or some other such balance. Problem solving requires along stretches of time, limiting it artificially seems counterproductive. It becomes an issue when it takes all the time I have.

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