Ask Polly: I Hate My Job and Feel Like a Fraud. What Should I Do?

nymag.com

3 pointsvkb2 comments

I love going to court and showing off, but that's the only thing I love, and it doesn't happen all that often. I like people, and talking and attention, and not sitting at my desk doing boring shit. ... People are fooled every day into thinking I'm working hard, but I'm not. I'm phoning it in. I usually get pretty good results, and I am super-good at faking my way through. I win, for the most part (more than half the time, which is a pretty good average). But I really don't care all that much. I just can't get it up for this job, and this job requires a giant, ever-lasting boner — for details, for being correct, for rules and regulations and other people's shitty problems.

When I think about what I want to do, it's all "have a nice vegetable garden and make muffins and ride my bike and throw parties and have babies" ...I'm passionate about things, but not career things. Family things, book things, living-the-good-life things. I like to hike, I like my friends. I like vacations. I like restaurants and barbecuing wild-caught salmon while drinking dry rosé.

Such profound honesty. I'm touched, quite frankly. No really I am. I'm sure most of us overlap at least 50% (or have at some point in our careers), we just don't have the courage to admit it, even to ourselves.

Maybe its more an attitude problem. I like those things; a job enables them. Maybe this author is well-off enough to afford to indulge every desire. If not, too bad - suck it up and go to work like the rest of us.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com