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Comment by RussianCow | Hacker News Reader

But I don't want to build my entire lifestyle around my job; it should be the other way around. What if I like cooking and eating homemade food? What if relocating to an apartment close to work isn't an option? I get that you have to make compromises, but I would much rather compromise on my job and enjoy the rest of my life than have a great job but compromise on everything else. This is exactly the kind of attitude that pushed me towards contract work instead of fulltime employment.

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"But I don't want to build my entire lifestyle around my job; it should be the other way around. What if I like cooking and eating homemade food? What if relocating to an apartment close to work isn't an option? I get that you have to make compromises, but I would much rather compromise on my job and enjoy the rest of my life than have a great job but compromise on everything else."

Amen. I'm glad I'm not the only one that thinks it's crazy that we as a society think it's normal to spend almost all our time chasing money.

I think there are a lot of programming jobs that don't provide every meal free and any sort of housecleaning service. In fact, country-wide, I'd say the majority provide neither of those. I feel like outside of the brand-new-startup-with-no-revenue scene, 40-45 hour work weeks are also the norm by far.

Those perks tend to be concentrated in the Bay Area, where they are worth more than elsewhere since people there tend to spend a vast portion of their income on housing.

True, but even elsewhere (I live in Portland, OR), I'm starting to feel the "hussle" attitude infecting startups. I think it has a lot to do with investments: startups with a lot of cash are more likely to overhire and overwork their developers (in exchange for great pay), whereas bootstrapped startups that have less cash can't afford to pay huge salaries, so they instead need to make their company appealing by providing a better work schedule, etc. I don't know that there's a causal relationship there, but it's just an observation I've noticed.

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