How Much Is a Fun Job Worth?

This article hits a nerve right now. I get ping'd daily about opportunities. In general, I politely decline. Why? Evaluating priorities.

I have a full time gig that allows me an insane amount of flexibility (60% at home, flexible hours when in the office to avoid traffic). The time not commuting and lack of stress allows me to work on personal projects. I like the group I work with, the fact that we are a mix of product and research, and that we all collaborate well through a mix of communication -- in person, email, Skype, etc.

Recently, a company I previously interviewed with, liked, but turned down, made a very generous offer -- probably 20-30% over my current situation at the cost of flexibility and working at home. It was technically more interesting and challenging than my current job. I thought about it and was going back and forth.

My wife came to the point -- are you willing to give up your own projects and 6+ hours of commuting a week for the $ difference? Calculate the hourly rate just based on how much more you are commuting.

She was right. Opportunities need to be weighed against what you want. Sometimes having a third party for a bit of reason helps.

I may be in the minority here, and obviously no-one should continue to work in a job that makes them unhappy or is abusive, but work is work and fun is fun.

Work is what you do to pay the morgage, feed your kids and put them through school etc. It may suck, but (speaking as a husband and father) I have responsibilities that trump whether I am enjoying every hour of my work day.

Fun is the stuff that you do voluntarily because you enjoy it.

If you can get the two to overlap, great, but I would say that is the vast minority of people and for most probably unachievable. But, that's OK.

If work was that much fun, then they wouldn't need to pay you to do it.

Made me really think about what I'm doing. As a freelancer, I get lot of work. Plus I'm pretty good at marketing the practice and just shipped out 3 MVPs last month. Its an insane amount of work, but an insane amount of financial gain too. Its fun, in a way. I get to meet new people every day, get to manage my own business (I find that sort of fun), set my own hours and work from my home. But I miss focusing on one thing, and making it fun for me. In every past job Ive always found a way to make it fun. But in freelancing, the conditions change every day, and its complex to do that. During the last few days Ive been thinking (and talking to other developers) about looking for a job that I can really enjoy and excel at. Sure, making MVPs is fun, and its challenging because there is always some catch, but the enjoyment level is not as a good as a job. I don't know. Maybe its the long hours ( I work for about 14 hours a day). But if someone came up to me and gave me a fair job offer, I would really consider it. Not about money, but about quality of life. And for me quality of life > money. Thats the reason I havent really stepped into the whole startup thing.

It's worth a lot. However, you don't necessarily have to give up a lot to get one. The thing is, jobs like that tend to also offer good pay and benefits, etc etc. The jobs that are horrors also tend to try to cheap out on pay and benefits are hard to come by.

At least, this has been my experience. The culture on HN is a little different, and startups certainly play by different rules.

I get a lot of job offers lately (even calls) and I tell them all the same thing when they ask if I'm looking: "It'll have to be really compelling, because my current job is really great." I've got good pay, I pick my hours, they rarely bother me after work hours, and overtime is extremely rare. My only complaint is that I don't find the work challenging enough, and that's an important thing. Still, it leaves me free to enjoy my freetime more because I'm not constantly burnt out from challenging myself 8 hours a day. So it's a tradeoff. (Previously I was challenged, but I'd come home and do nothing productive at all. I'd already satisfied that itch at work.)

10% increase versus just the risk of taking a new job is probably not worth it.

To me it's worth $30-40k per annum. That's approximately the pay cut I took to run my own business. I get to spend more time with my wife, and work on things I enjoy.

There isn't an easy way to assess unless you put values on it. What's it worth? What's the difference in job satisfaction worth? What is the value of the extra time from not commuting worth? This can be broken down into the likely activities you would be doing e.g working on own projects, spending time with famlly, leisure activities such as cinema or bar) What are the values of any other work differences? (flexi-time, provided lunch, health insurance cover, pension, time off etc.)

Sometimes attaching a monetary value to these things are difficult, but it's a good exercise to do so that you understand what you value more and what you are and willing to sacrifice for more $$$ (or less $$$ depending on the opportunity).

I'm 40 as well, and have learned the hard way by making the wrong decisions: always focus on the 'fun'. You'll never regret fun and it takes orders of magnitude more money (not 10% but at least 2x) to make up for fun.

There's the potential to try and "grow the new group" into a fun and happy place to work. As long as the regulatory guidelines don't turn out to be actually restrictive.

People who enjoy the rewards (tangible and intangible) of leadership can find building that up to be very rewarding. But you need to have a good feel on the senior management to ensure they won't try and micromanage or make changes that destroy what you're trying to build up.

If you are making enough, and you are happy, then why did you look in the first place? Often times just the act of dipping your toes in the water will send you swimming.

Evaluate why you are even looking. If you are happy and the new thing is about pay, tell your current employer. Chances are they will fight to keep you.

People move around in jobs a lot. What makes it fun right now might change.

a few points that come to mind. 1. 10% pay raise could probably be negotiated in your current job so that shouldn't be a big factor. 2. is there a longer term upside to the new position? that should be a bigger deciding factor than initial pay bump 3. by leaving doesn't mean you can't return to the original place. I've made the jump a few times, and almost always ended up working again with people i left behind. I stil seem to have a open invitation to come back to some of the places. 4. i like that i've developed new friends in each place, and do best i can to keep the relationships i've developed over the years. Some good people to be found in every place!

in the end, you're taking a risk by leaving a good thing.. I have overstayed my welcome in one place once because of this reason as well :)

It depends on where the margin is. A fun job is worth spending a good chunk of your discretionary income on, but you have to meet basic needs - particularly if you have responsibilities to family/etc.

With caveats, however, I'd say "A bit more than you expect, but not as much as a short commute".

Wow, this is incredibly timely. I'm in the middle of series of interviews with a number of companies and this has already come up. Just two days ago I turned down a senior position that was about a 30% pay bump from where I am now because I felt like the job would not only be not fun+, but so restrictive and stressful that I left the interview sweating just thinking about it! I called them back that afternoon and let them know that regardless of what they decide, I simply didn't want to work in that position.

Yesterday I had a really positive interview with a company that I think would be fun, but would represent a 20-30% pay reduction. You know what? I've pretty much settled on the fact that if they like me, I'll probably say yes to it.

I've spent the last 15 years bouncing around between large and small companies, large meaning 30,000, 40,000 and 125,000 employees, and small meaning 15, 6, 4, 30, 16 and 2 employees. I was always moving up in salary and building a career and so never really gave much thought to if I was having fun or not. But looking back, and particularly after that last 3 very stressful years trying to turn around a distressed startup, I would much rather go back to working at the companies I had more fun with, even taking my original salary to do so.

The stress, overwork, aggravation and frustration and sleepless nights is just simply not worth it. I've spent significant portions over the last 3 years ill from problems that are probably stress related. I've gained weight, lost fitness and my work-life balance has gotten terribly out of whack. I just realized earlier in the week that my license expires next week and I literally have so many meetings scheduled that I simply won't be able to make it to the DMV in time. I've even had to cancel my vacation for the later part of this year.

I realized this year that of the three major parts of my day, with 1/3 sleeping and 1/3 working, I'm so miserable that the 1/3 I should have as free time is simply wasted either over working, or coping with stress. And realistically I'm not even getting my 1/3 sleeping time either.

My advice is, if you are happy with where you are at with your career, and can reasonably afford to take a pay hit, there's no amount of pay that can make up for poor health, constant stress, loss of weekends and time with friends and family. I'm fortunate enough to be in a position where I can conceive of a 50-60% delta from my current earning potential to consider a position where I think I might enjoy my time there. I recognize that not everybody is in the same position. But try and be more judicious in what positions you end up in than I've been. And when you work for a place and the fun stops, start to look for the next gig.

+fun defined as a rewarding and challenging job where I'm free to work on interesting problems and focus on the customer. Something I look forward to coming back to day after day and not something I have to will my way through.