Hacker News Reader

> There's this strange myth that white collar workers try and find meaning or reward in their work.

It’s not entirely a myth. I am one of those people. But I do think that most people kind of just go through the motions.

It’s possible that my work history helped shape my perspective. My earliest jobs were things like unloading trucks, stocking shelves, and waiting tables. Those are hard jobs, physically. When I finally got a desk job, it felt like I had finally arrived at something. Boredom was certainly present, at times, but it was easily mitigated by simply thinking: boring jobs are the ones that require little thought; jobs that require little thought are perfect for computers; how can I make a computer do this? Then it was fun again. And my employers always loved this line of thinking because they were getting more for their money.

So it’s not that white collar workers (or even blue collar workers) try to find meaning in their work. Some do, some don’t. It’s that they SHOULD.

>So it’s not that white collar workers (or even blue collar workers) try to find meaning in their work. Some do, some don’t. It’s that they SHOULD.

Since blue collar work tends towards more tangible outcomes I would think finding meaning in blue collar work is easier, but that's speaking as an office drone. Maybe the grass is greener, but it seems to me that receiving a broken motorcycle and it leaving your shop running is easier to find meaning in than delivering TPS reports. On the other hand, shoving out burger number fifty thousand doesn't seem steeped in inherent meaning either.

And that illustrates my point; if you end up in a situation where you have a job turning a crank, be it white or blue collar, and it's hard to get out of that situation because it's your only income, then pursuing something more meaningful is very difficult. Maybe you can convince yourself that because your work has economic meaning you are fulfilling someone's needs somewhere, but when you come home too exhausted to enjoy your own time you can quickly spiral into nihilism.

The mental trick I have always used, and the rationale I have employed to make myself feel better, is that a good job matters more than a bad job. This is not always true. But it is often true. And in my life it has been true often enough that people have noticed, commented on it, and I have been explicitly promoted because of it.

I hear the comment about coming home too tired to enjoy one’s own time. That happens to me even now, in a fulfilling job. I often feel too tired to even play a video game (it doesn’t help that many games feel like work). The only solution I’ve found to that particular problem is to find a different job. Fortunately, in my current job, it does not happen often enough that I am willing to give it up just yet. And I still see a path (and progress) toward my goals in my current job.

You seem to be very lucky to have found your niche.

In most companies people neither notice, nor comment and certainly don't promote you for doing a good job.

Most corporate software engineering job are about how good you are playing the corporate social games. Being exceptionally good at programming does not matter. It can even be a hindrance as it means you get more work and are less likely to be promoted as you are "irreplaceable" and your coworkers and hire-ups might start to hate you because they feel threatened by you.

The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.

> "There's this strange myth that white collar workers try and find meaning or reward in their work."

White collar workers might not; "white collar" encompasses a broad range of employment including repetitive clerical work.

Members of a profession¹ can and often do because they are talented enough to have some level of choice in what career path they go down, giving them the opportunity to seek meaning in their work. Software development used to be a profession but today most coding jobs are merely a complicated form of clerical work that doesn't really require that much skill or education (people on HN say this all the time). So while it's not surprising to hear some people say that it's a myth, I will say that it's not a myth everywhere in the tech industry.

¹ In the specific sense of "a paid occupation, especially one that involves prolonged training and a formal qualification."

>because they are talented enough to have some level of choice

That's doing a whole lot of work. I don't want to get into the myth of meritocracy, but you have to be extremely lucky to be able to invest the time and effort to end up in a career that is personally fulfilling. Not saying we disagree. There is absolutely a subset of workers who's values and interests align with what is currently economically viable, but they're few and far between and the odds are stacked against most.

For me it is pretty clear that there was work-before-I-started-raising-a-young-family and work after.

To be clear, it wasn't over-night. After all, it took me quite a bit of time to adjust to my new role in life as "father". But once it started to embrace me (or, you know, vice-versa) the importance of work and its rewards diminished significantly.

In short, I was soon content to put in the work that got the job done, but I had few aspirations of climbing any kind of career ladder. "Dad" was my new and dominant identity. The paycheck was how I could take the girls on vacations, get them bicycles, fix up the house we lived in, etc.

I think this is what is missing from most people (especially here, where its more likely to be dream driven?).

Once you have a kid (and properly well adjusted), your life is no longer yours. You can't go on a sabbatical as a father. Your child's future will appear to be the most important thing to you and everything becomes secondary.

I think this is probably what life is for the majority of people. Work is just something they do to sustain the life of their family. They don't have the time (nor interest, nor care) to keep up with C++ conference, the latest JavaScript libraries, etc etc.

This is one of the reason why I think that "dead jobs" is not necessarily a bad thing. It points to a much larger question of "why are we even doing this in the first place?"

>This is one of the reason why I think that "dead jobs" is not necessarily a bad thing. It points to a much larger question of "why are we even doing this in the first place?"

That's a wonderfully succinct way of putting it. We've lost sight of what the economy is for, or maybe we've never had it nailed.

Dead jobs can be fine. I've done brain dead system administration for 3 days a week with a 4 day weekend. My bills were paid. I have a more stressful higher paying job now but it wasn't worth it; the new car is nice but on the whole I would've been better off driving a beater and having the time and energy to live life on my own terms. I think that's why I'm doing it in the first place.

My experience is there is this dynamic you are describing, and then there's the period when your kids enter late adolescence or get ready to go off to college, and suddenly it's time to invent yourself again.

It can be very difficult to adjust to the process for when your kids are no longer tied to you at the hip for physical and emotional support on the day to day cycle and it's more on the macro ... financial... level.

Yeah, the empty nest is a trying time when you've identified primarily as "father" for over two decades.

At the same time, "reinventing myself" was to retire at exactly that moment. I was lucky of course to be able to do that — by cashing-out the expensive California home and then "down size" back to the midwest where I grew up.

I am considering substitute teaching in the area in order to maintain an income — a more modest one, this being Nebraska.

Work is not just something one has to do in exchange for the allowance to do more meaningful non-work things, or at least it shouldn't. Your view sounds like escapism.

To work is to take part in the economy, ie in the collective endeavor to produce a better life.

Now of course, our modern world being based on decoupling the work from its output, maybe I'm the one sounding like an escapist right now :)

There's plenty of meaning up for grabs in parts of life that don't have anything to do with money.

nicely said, but the most significant (time-wise) portion of our lives is earning means to do other parts. if I am miserable for 8-9-10 hours per day chances are I will he fairly miserable the rest of the time as well…

That is exactly my point. We have designed the economy with the expectation that anyone able should be investing that much time to make ends meet, when we could lower our expectations and output to ease that burden instead. But that is an entirely radical paradigm shift in the direction of solar punk / degrowth that the world just doesn't seem interested in.

could not agree more. I look at this as basic economics, in order to “have more” you have basically two choices:

- increase earnings

- decrease expenses

In USA at least, I think the 2nd group is <1% of people

> invest that time where you're sure to derive meaning from it.

all my time is taken up with doing work, chores at home and childcare.

I feel fucking depressed.

I know it doesn’t feel good on the spot, but as a single hopeless man, I can tell you that having children is meaning.

If only because the world doesn’t listen to single men. So, enjoy your glimpse of power. Repeat your life day after day, and you will understand one day.

I’ve never understood this infinite loop thinking. Why is it meaning to create new people who in turn will have to create new people to derive meaning for themselves?

Where do you propose meaning be derived?

If you aren't being listened to, it could be that your form of communication isn't in line with the listeners. The same signal is being interpreted differently between sender and receiver.

Just a possibility to look into. Hope you're well.

I’m in the same boat! I wouldn’t say I feel depressed though, I’d say strained. There’s no “me” time.

The thing that keeps me going (besides love for my family) is a little bit of hope. How can you take small steps toward a more balanced place today?

Do you know what self care you need? How can you start making time for it? Can your wife / parents / in law help? Can you hire someone? Or can you combine stuff?

For a while (before I fell off wagon), I was jogging with my kiddo so I took one task (watching kid) and knocked out 3 birds with it (watching kid, giving kid outside time, exercising)

Another one: I want to start eating more healthy. And my kid doesn’t eat vegetables on his own. So during his meal times I started eating a bowl of veggies with him. I eat veggies, and he will often start eating with me too. Win / win.

It’s the small things that help me get through.

> Do you know what self care you need? How can you start making time for it? Can your wife / parents / in law help? Can you hire someone? Or can you combine stuff?

yes skiing is my passion in life. I feel like it was brutally taken away from me ( by me) . Haven't found a way to make it happen because we don't live anywhere close to mountains.

How old are your kids? I found it was really tough for me until they hit around age 3 or 4. Getting them into school helped enormously. As they grew older it became easier for me to reason with them and they also became more capable of taking care of themselves and even helping me with some things.