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Comment by jmauritz | Hacker News Reader

This guy seems smart and ambitious but has a very romantic/naive mindset. A job is an exchange of services, never get it confused with your own mission or "dream".

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I disagree heavily with this. Lots of people make a living doing what they love/building a better world. Just because we normalized selling our attention to the highest fiscal bidder, doesn’t mean that the highest fiscal bid is actually valuable in terms of life quality. Nobody looks back and says “eh, I wish I’d have worked more at [soulless job]”. I think your perspective is extreme dystopian, and it makes me sad to think about how many people live their lifes with that mindset. Look up “purpose economy”

Not going to try to look like I'm explaining how life works just my 2c: life is complicated and quality comes in different shapes and forms. "A job is an exchange of services" is a way to reduce this complexity and cut down on the interdependence of dimensions we optimize for.

I personally don't have the constraint that i need to give everything to my job and it needs to give back, so i agree with the GP and don't see it as dystopian, just one of the many ways of living.

Others legitimately do have this constraint and probably have to simplify elsewhere (not have kids is something I've seen a lot).

I might come off as really cynical, but i agree with your statement completely. The best place i worked didn't feel like work, smart motivated people with little managerial oversight and a shared vision, awesome times.

What I'm trying to say is: look out for yourself out there because no one else will, don't let yourself be exploited

I really appreciate this response and relate to this.

I think I was in a really similar mindset as OP, the last company I was at I was very naive and believed this pitch about the company. Come to find out the company had nothing. What I did gain is a great learning lesson on how I should approach work and more.

My current company I looked for specific things and listened during the interview. I know interviews can only give you so much, but when I decided on the last job I ignored so many red flags in hope that this will turn into something huge, I should have looked at it as a true red flag that this will be a rough experience.

Also having ADHD this is something that is tough at times

>Lots of people make a living doing what they love/building a better world.

Really? America must be a great place then. Don't know anyone like that where I live. My doctor friends would be closest but they certainly don't have a good quality of life and their lives are quite dystopian.

How do you explain the ten's or hundreds of thousands of people in the world that already have financial freedom (i.e. enough in the bank to live comfortably the rest of their lives), and yet still get up everyday and goto work?

Unless you grew up to it, I think it’s really hard for humans to live a life of leisure.

> Nobody looks back and says “eh, I wish I’d have worked more at [soulless job]”

There are a lot of people which quit their "soulless" job and to chase their dream just to ultimately be forced to give up on them after loosing years of savings. I very much doubt that none of them regret leaving their jobs

It's tricky, because in the alternate universe those people are regretting wasting their life instead of trying to follow their dreams. The only situation that doesn't lead to some form of regret is the one where following the dreams works out.

Or one where pursuing them was still worth it for the lessons in/the pursuit of it.

> I very much doubt that none of them regret leaving their jobs

Maybe in the moment. But savings don’t buy you anything when you’re dead. I’m inclined to believe that you’d later look back on that period of your life as ‘sure glad I did that when I could’.

There is plenty of time in one life to work for both dystopian corporations and follow your passion.

The issue with the world view that "a job is an exchange of services" is that it is unsustainable. The sheer time magnitude of work - 40 hours a week + commute for many decades dictates that it is a very significant portion of your life. On top of that on a day-to-day basis the timeslot itself between 9/5 is the best part of the day for the vast majority of people.

Seems like in order to have a deeply fulfilling life you need to have a job that you like and find it deeply meaningful. There is just no way around it, it is too much.

Moreover, check your tax filings next time you want to feel like you give back to society.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t do anything extra-curricular, but as a wage earning citizen you are already doing a good bit of your fair share just by earning money and handing it over as tax revenue.

(Where I am sure this falls down, for many people, is that their local and federal government is useless at moving the needle on any kind of issues for social good. Hands up if you live in a nation with both aircraft carriers and child poverty!)

IMO I'm in the camp that the money you 'lose' to taxes were never yours to begin with, and not worth all the handwringing people give about rates. It only really makes sense to consider take home minus fixed costs such as rent when considering how much money a job is making for you, since that's the only cash that's actually yours at the end of the day anyhow. If I want more of that given these fixed costs, seems like I need to demand more in wages if I'm left with too little every paycheck.

You're giving back to society (in a free market) by creating something they want to have. The exchanges are mutually beneficial.

There's a word for a trade where the benefit goes only one way - stealing.

Taxes don't go one way though. Governments provide plenty of useful services. If your government provides no useful services then that would be stealing, and you should probably move asap.

Even after you move, you have to pay $150,000 to buy another citizenship before you can end your relationship with the tax authorities :)

On a more local level this can apply in terms of city and state as well, so not just country. If you get literally no useful or beneficial services from a city government that's not a bad reason to move away unless you have no need for anything governmental.

Wealth redistribution programs go one way. It's the whole point of them.

Yeah it read like he was competent in his job, but elsewhere in the company people were struggling so he was reassigned to help out.

He should not have treated his employer's asset (the product) as his child and sacrifice things for it.

This may be a fact, but that doesn't mean it aligns with human psychology. Most of us do want to spend our days doing something we can take pride in and enjoy. This doesn't necessarily imply high income. But it does involve interacting with other people who respect you, solving problems/tasks, and being given at least enough autonomy to feel one has ownership over those problems' solutions.

> A job is an exchange of services, never get it confused with your own mission or "dream".

A job is also a significant portion of your time. Its hard to make it be both, but its also near impossible to both follow your dreams and work full time separately. Seems like making a job be both is a worthy goal if you can make it work.

I agree with this but it's also possible to, realizing your job is unfulfilling, and realizing you also don't want to turn your calling into your job, just checking out entirely. (at least for a time)

> never get it confused with your own mission or "dream".

I would hesitate to use the word “never,” there.

It’s kind of amazing, when a job becomes a vocation and a calling.

These days, that kind of describes where I’m at. I don’t get paid a dime, and work harder (and more productively) than I ever have. I’m doing work I never dared to dream of.

I had to be forced into this position. Long, sad story. Get your hanky. TL;DR, no one wants to play with someone over 50, that used to be a manager.

But the last few years have convinced me that you couldn’t drag me back into the rat race with a locomotive. I’m almost deliriously happy.

I’m extremely fortunate, in having built up enough to get to this point, and also, in learning to live humbly enough to have my needs met.

I wish the OP well.

Happiness is something that has no price tag, and is often found serendipitously. For some of us, we are only truly happy, when we are working.

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