[jupiter90000]

This doesn't directly answer your question and you didn't ask it, but I feel it relates directly to the source of your frustration potentially: you may never find a job that is fully satisfactory in terms of what you hope to find. I used to be in a similar boat striving to work towards and find some magical job that would make me feel fulfilled and purposeful. They all ended up having things I didn't like and would quickly lose interest.

So at least what I did is stop trying to put so much of an expectation on my job to fulfill me. I took responsibility to find and do things at and especially outside of my day job that did fulfill me. Now I feel no large angst or annoyance at glacial paces at work that occur, political games, etc.. because I have other things that are more important to me that are interesting, provide meaning to me, challenging, etc.

Having a nice paying job with relatively little work to do is something of a luxury, especially in this pandemic time where the economic toll is hitting many. So my unwarranted suggestion is to find something meaningful for yourself to do/experience even if your work isn't where it's at.. you probably will even have extra time to discover and pursue that since sounds like you're not so busy at work.

[jasode]

>So at least what I did is stop trying to put so much of an expectation on my job to fulfill me. I took responsibility to find and do things at and especially outside of my day job that did fulfill me.

I'm not debating you but I just want to point out that your advice depends on the personality. It may even work for most workers but for some us, we cannot mentally "compartmentalize" the day job as the isolated 9-to-5 soul-sucking slog and then use the weekend activities to make up for it.

I used to have a boring high-paying job and used the money to go on exotic travel and buy expensive hobby toys like hi-fi audio equipment and camera lenses.

I should have done the opposite. Find a day job that I was passionate about instead of looking for fulfillment in after-hours hobbies. For me, I need my hobby to be my day job. I know an entrepreneur who sold his business for millions and I always envied him because he worked 80+ hours every week and he had more energy than I did even though I only worked 40. Why? Because his intense overtime aligned with what he wanted to do. Mine didn't. He didn't golf or go on vacations. He always worked because that's what the most interesting activity was to him. His only break was weekly meditations.

That's what I'm trying to do now. I want to find something I can really sink my teeth into and work overtime on. I don't believe in "work/life balance". I tried that. I need work to be my jam. I'm probably the minority and others may even see that as a psychological defect but I can't help it. For me, the dissatisfaction of a boring day job always bleeds into the weekend as an underlying unhappiness I can't shake.

[JSavageOne]

With all due respect, the fact that you haven't found that "dream job" yet kind of proves the commenter's point.

I'd love to work a "dream job" myself, it just doesn't exist. The whole purpose of a job is to make a company money, and money just never really motivated me other than in the freedom it buys me to not have to sell my time. Everything I enjoy doesn't make money, and if I wanted to "monetize" any of my hobbies it'd completely kill the fun out of it.

Being an entrepreneur and your own boss sounds amazing, but it's difficult and requires a lot of hard work, time, and money. The safest path for anyone who wants to be an entrepreneur is thus to get the highest paying least demanding job with the most prestigious title (for fundraising purposes), and work on it on the side until it has enough traction and you have enough financial cushion to quit the day job and go full-time on it.

Of course one shouldn't put up with a job they absolutely loathe, but in my experience the search for a "dream job" is a journey bound for disappointment. If the job were so fun, the company wouldn't have to pay people to do it.

[llampx]

True enough. Have you tried to get a paying job playing with puppies for example? It's hard enough to get a volunteer position for that.

[BTCOG]

I agree with that to a point, but I think it's more like a job employed at someone else's company and making them money is never going to be a dream job. I do think there's hope in creating your own dream job via entrepreneurship and paving your own way, working for yourself. It can be a job that you control the schedule and all that you do. Everything you say I still 100% agree with and have also never found a dream job out of what are considered great positions. I think it's out there if you take and make your own music, start your own company, whatever is that you like/want to do on your own terms and if that becomes a successful venture. Self made.

[derangedHorse]

Well they’d have to pay people to do it well haha

[peacemaker]

Just wanted to let you know that I'm exactly the same way. In fact, I've even thought perhaps I was the one with the psychological defect where I simply can't stand the 9-5 grind, regardless of the pay, status or type of work. No amount of hobbies, travel or social efforts have made a dent in the deep, existential dread I feel after only a few days in a "normal" job.

Unfortunately, while I have had some successes working for myself, I tend to find down periods come along where I need to work again and I convince myself it will be different this time. It usually never is, the only difference being the length of time I can stomach being employed and even then it's a difference of a few weeks at most.

Is this actually a defect that needs some kind of therapy to correct? Or is it an acceptable way to be? Who knows but I thought I'd let you know that it's not just you.

[awelkie]

I'm in the same boat as well, and I'm also questioning whether this mindset is something that is best to fix (e.g. through therapy), deal with ("suck it up, work isn't meant to be enjoyable"), or work with (by finding a fulfilling job). I'd love to hear from someone with the same mindset who's found satisfaction in one way or another.

[PascLeRasc]

I'm currently in therapy for work/career anxiety so I can weigh in on this. I've always felt like work should be fulfilling, as long as I can remember. It was around 5 minutes into my first job out of college when the feeling of "this isn't right" started and it hasn't left yet. I started trying to get over it but from working through why I feel this way with a CBT therapist, I believe I just need to follow this. I've found some satisfaction in I'd say 3 things:

1. Knowing that I'll always feel this way and always have a need to do something meaningful. It's my life and I get to decide what's important. This might not sound like much but just cementing that I don't need to change has helped me get through bad days.

2. Starting to make a career change. I'm going to try to get into med school, and to get healthcare experience I've just recently completed an EMT certification. I absolutely loved this class. Such a diverse group of people all from different backgrounds who also just want to have direct impact on someone's health. My therapist says I sound like a totally different person when I talk about how EMT is going. I think about that a lot. Last week I got to help a stranger with heat exhaustion and she was incredibly thankful, I think about that a lot too. Just starting to take the first steps towards something more fulfilling has been huge towards giving me something to wake up excited about.

3. I now treat my CRUD app office job like how most people would treat selling stuff on Craigslist - I do not care about it beyond the paycheck. I don't think about how it should provide any fulfillment. I don't think about being here a year from now, or even a month from now. It won't matter in the long run.

Possibly some of these things can be applied to your life as well. Hope this helps.

[peacemaker]

I'm currently working on a combined approach - deal with it + fix it via therapy/CBT/Mindfulness. Dealing with it by practicing gratitude for the benefits it provides and the goals it allows me to work towards. Current plan is to use this approach for 5-7 years working towards FIRE and then move into something more fulfilling with less pressure to secure a high salary.

We are lucky that tech pays so well that we could, in theory, retire early. It is very difficult to keep that in mind when you're miserable at work though...

[brootstrap]

Definitely ok to feel the way you feel. Talking to people is always an option as well. For me i was lucky to find a wife and now have a child. The 9-5 literally blows by, i'm at a giant mega co (not faang) and it sucks similarly. Sometimes it's crunchtime and u gotta work hard, other times no one gives a shit as long as systems function. I've put in my time grinding (5 years at startup) and now want to milk the shit out of these corporate bastards as much as possible.

Basically my wife and now child have changed my life , work sucks (just like blink182) said but hey they are payin me big $$$ to chill out. As a father and husband consitent steady income is name of the game. If you are single and want to hustle, sure fuckin job hop all you want bud!!

[jerf]

"isolated 9-to-5 soul-sucking slog"

jupiter90000 said not to bank on finding your "dream job" that fulfills you; you jumped to talking about "isolated 9-to-5 soul-sucking slog".

There is an in-between. Rather a lot of it, actually.

My job does not on its own fulfill my self-actualization needs on the Maslow hierarchy. I don't think any job could. That's rather a lot to put on a job. But I am satisfied with what I am doing, satisfied with the effect it has on the world (I'm not even remotely working to make advertising more effective), and I don't see it as a "isolated 9-to-5 soul-sucking slog". Sometimes I have to do some less-than-fun stuff, but then again, that is why they're paying me.

Does your mental models of jobs encompass this in-between? While you can continue to search for the "dream job", it may well not exist, whereas the "good enough jobs that are not isolated 9-to-5 soul-sucking slogs" do.

[slfnflctd]

Absolutely 100% this. I worked for several very large organizations, and I am one of those people who just cannot cope with what feels like the pure insanity of it all. I would far, far rather take a huge pay cut for a more sane life, and I did. The alternative is feeling like I'm slowly dying.

Another thing-- even if your job is 'easy', the commute, the drudgery and the psychological stress we've been discussing leaves people like me drained at the end of the day. So the idea of finding fulfillment in hobbies doesn't work out in practice, because the energy just isn't there. Everything feels too hard, and not good enough.

[henrikschroder]

> It may even work for most workers but for some us, we cannot mentally "compartmentalize" the day job as the isolated 9-to-5 soul-sucking slog and then use the weekend activities to make up for it.

Remember that the absolute majority of humanity are working soul-sucking slog jobs to get a salary to be able to afford a home and food and some nice things.

We who work in tech are extremely fortunate to be able to find jobs that are both very well-paying as well as fulfilling. Thank your lucky stars that this is a possibility for you.

[hardlianotion]

This is meant to be helpful, but it does not help.

And you cannot say to someone that is depressed - most out there are worse off than you. It will not help with the depression.

[icebraining]

Not all feelings of "this sucks" are necessarily depression, though.

[hardlianotion]

Of course not. I was reaching for an analogy

[santoshalper]

And also, we are not his therapist. I am not concerned with helping his depression.

[hardlianotion]

I did not imply that the poster has depression.

[ema]

In my experience menial jobs are not necessarily soul sucking. One of my jobs was literally 90 percent cutting open plastic bags and throwing their contents into a machine. Sure that is not nearly as rewarding as cleaning up some messy code or thinking up an elegant software architecture but it beats having to deal with an horrible third-party API day in and day out without any hope of fixing it. During a lot of menial work you can let your thoughts float around so I digested many an abstract idea which I had read about the day before while my body was engaged in an activity that only needed a fraction of my attention.

[abj]

This is an important perspective. I'm grateful for what I have, but I deeply struggle with the same feelings others have shared in this thread. Knowing that I'm fortunate to not be subsistence farming doesn't fill that hole where purpose should be. It seems some humans might not be wired to feel okay about this, no matter how hard they try.

Maybe our goal should be to free everyone else from soul sucking slog jobs through automation/reorganization of incentives to not have these make work jobs? I'm really interested in finding/working towards a solution for everyone.

[henrikschroder]

> but I deeply struggle with the same feelings others have shared in this thread.

Yeah, it's like the old saying "rich people problems are still problems". :-)

I get it and I sympathize, everyone should strive to make their lives as fulfilling as possible. But a tiny bit of humility and outside perspective works wonders.

> Maybe our goal should be to free everyone else from soul sucking slog jobs through automation/reorganization of incentives to not have these make work jobs?

110% this. We must reach post labour as soon as possible to stop the insane waste of human potential.

[fulafel]

Citation needed!

The global employment rate is about 60%, for reference... So nearly all of the employed would have to have such a demoralizing job to make an absolute majority.

I think many relatively low income workers still have things meaningful social relationships at work, or perform jobs frequently rated as meaningful like nursing/farming, which can make up for some of it.

In nearly all western countries people could get all the things you mentioned even as unemployed, but most people choose to work, frequently because they like luxuries and status.

[mlatu]

Seconded.

I've been quite miserable in my day job for the last 2-3 years.. At first it was allright, but the shit just kept coming. I even started looking for something new late last year, but when the lockdowns etc came, I gave up on the job hunt, since my anxiety of "nobody is going to hire me" now had two companions named "who in their right mind would be hiring now?" and "i don't want to meet any new people" XD

Since jan or feb I've been getting up everyday at 5am to work on an assortment of private projects until I have to leave for my day-job at 9am. I love working on these projects, I used to play Overwatch a lot, but now my favorite pasttime is my non-day-job work.

I still would love to get rid of my day-job but just to commit even more time to my own projects.

However, none of these pay any bills, and so I toil away...

Oh yeah, and to top it off I meditate for 15 minutes in the car before I get in the office. Helps me alot against "the shit" that just wont stop coming.

[ghettoCoder]

May I suggest finding a cause you truly believe in and volunteering your tech skills. Most non-profits and advocacy groups have such a huge tech deficit that they could use someone like you.

[ensiferum]

But why would you do this passionate activity for someone else to profit from? Why not build it for yourself? And I don't mean necessarily starting your own business but if your day job is something else you put some amount of effort into that to accomplish whatever you've set as the minimum standard for meeting your work goals and then you put the rest of your energy doing what you ready want to do?

[ZephyrBlu]

I feel the same way. I don't see the point in wasting 40hrs of my life every week doing something I hate, I'd rather go all-in on something that interests me and have something to show for the hours I put in.

[AlgorithmicTime]

Have you tried finding fulfillment in having a family?

[oliv__]

I'm sorry if I'm taking this the wrong way but that sounds like settling for mediocrity to me.

Who said jobs can't be fulfilling?

[Sohcahtoa82]

> Who said jobs can't be fulfilling?

The person you're responding to did not claim that jobs can't be fulfilling.

They merely said that people shouldn't expect to work a fulfilling job. And they're totally right.

In fact, I'd argue that the extreme majority of jobs are not fulfilling for the majority of the people working them. Retail, fast food, call centers...nobody enjoys those jobs. And yet people work them because they have to, because they pay so little that trying to get out of them takes an incredible amount of work, which is hard to find the motivation to do when you're so beat down by how incredibly shit your job is combined with constantly being stressed about lack of money.

[Aeolun]

Of course they can be, but the problem is finding one that has some overlap between:

- Fulfilling

- Stable

- Decent salary

I find that it’s hard to get all of them in the same position.

[wolfgke]

> Who said jobs can't be fulfilling?

Life experience. ;-)

[oliv__]

Yours maybe

[2muchcoffeeman]

Are you telling me that if you had the financial freedom to work on any project you wanted, you’d choose what you’re doing right now?

[moron4hire]

I'm not there person you replied to, but I think I would probably stay at my current job if I was financially independent.

I work for a small company. The company does foreign language training. Most of the business is one-on-one classes between real teachers and students. My job is basically R&D to figure out ways we might use software to improve the teaching/leaning process. My primary focus is on virtual reality, but I'm also exploring a lot in teleconferencing.

For about a year, I was the only software developer on staff. Our company website and our student portal are all developed by a consulting firm. I got to hire another developer about a month ago. We will never be responsible for the website. We strictly work on these R&D projects.

It's been the best job I've ever had. Most money I've ever made. It helps that the company culture is strongly tilted towards "employee empowerment", and not just as a platitude. Nobody brow beats me over anything. Nobody asks me to justify any hardware purchases (though I still do, because I think it's an important part of developing and documenting the projects). When I say something will take X long, they believe me and that's that.

If you like your work, if you like to build things, try finding a small company that isn't a software company. Definitely avoid consulting companies. I spent 15 years in consulting across a variety of company sizes and it was universally soul sucking (though the smaller orgs were definitely less so, up to the best time I had as a consultant was as a freelancer. It still wasn't as good as my current job, though).

Edit: somehow my phone auto corrected 15 years to 25. I'm not quite that old.

[dev-ns8]

This is awesome man, truly happy for ya.

Your comment isn't the first time I have heard this advice, "Find a small non tech company and get involved" however I have previously written this advice off for w/e reason.

I now find myself in search of a new opportunity and am very much like many other commenters in this thread, highly unsatisfied with "rat race" type jobs, and if I'm not happy I don't perform up to my ability well.

I'm actually very interested in exploring your path, possibility finding a small non tech company and seeing where/ if I could add value to their organization with my software development experience.

All my previous jobs have been found via standard software development job boards though, StackOverflow, LinkedIn, homegrown software job boards, etc. Do you have any advice on finding a small non tech company that might be looking to add a software developer to their ranks?

Honestly I'd love to chat with ya personally. If you're comfortable shoot me an email otherwise any incite here would be wonderful. Email in my Bio

[2muchcoffeeman]

I’m genuinely happy for you! Few people will ever get this level of satisfaction.

[oliv__]

I enjoy doing what I do. I think it's possible to combine financial success with personal satisfaction. In fact I believe the greatest financial successes are the ones that are most intimately tied to their creator's personal satisfaction, enjoyment and alignment with what they do

[blaser-waffle]

> I enjoy doing what I do. I think it's possible to combine financial success with personal satisfaction.

That's supremely rare, mon ami. "Do what you love and you'll never work a day" doesn't apply to like 90% of the workforce. And even when you do cool stuff, there is often no shortage of BS to go with it.

You are very lucky to love your gig and be well compensated for it; most people are not well compensated and live lives full of endless drudgery.

[schwartzworld]

not the question that was asked

[2muchcoffeeman]

You don’t need the money. You’ve been given the financial freedom to do whatever you want. And you seriously will just plug away at your job? You can’t think of a better way to spend your time and talents? That’s a bit sad.

[chasd00]

bookmark this and come back in 20 years. your life should be fulfilling not your job.

[oliv__]

I honestly don't see how a life could be fulfilling if you hate or even just don't care for what you spend most of your time on (work)

[ninkendo]

You're not always in control of whether your job is fulfilling. Maybe you've been lucky so far, but it's unlikely to last forever.

A piece of advice: The moment it stops being fulfilling for you, you may get the urge to change jobs to something that you think will make you happier. You may change jobs several times trying to rediscover that initial feeling that made you satisfied with your work. But it may never come back. And if it's anything like my situation, in the end, the first job you left may have been the best of the bunch, and you come to the realization that the original satisfaction you had was a fluke and you may never find it again.

There's two ways you could go about fixing this. One is to keep job hopping until you get something that was as good as the first job. The other is to accept that it's just a job, and to try and not derive too much of your happiness purely from work. (Or, more generally, try to not derive too much of your happiness from anything you can't control.)

[rovr138]

Live close to work or remote. This reduces commute times and frees up time during your day. Take vacations and do things that excite you. If not remote, take advantage of days you can work from home and go for a long weekend somewhere. Or work from home for a week and go somewhere.

Work to live not the other way around. Clock out and do things.

[vonmoltke]

Many people like jobs that are not fulfilling.

[CloudNetworking]

You have answered your own question :-)

[heavyset_go]

> Who said jobs can't be fulfilling?

As a worker, a job will always have elements that are inherently stacked against you and are unfair, and those elements are enforced by the same laws that force you to accept such an arrangement otherwise you won't eat and your kid will never be able to see a doctor.

You give part a part of yourself you cannot get back, your time, a limited resource that you can't regain once spent. You often do this for little to no equity in the business you spend the majority of your waking time advancing, and you often have little to no say in how or where your time is spent. For the vast majority of people, they will never be paid enough to be able to live off of their assets, and their time will be spent building wealth for those whose income is derived from their assets.

Unsurprisingly, there are some people who aren't happy with such arrangements and have a lot to say about them.

[rini17]

Who said they must be?

[chownie]

You spend around half of your wakeful hours at your job, if it's unfulfilling you're trading misery in addition to time for money.

[WJW]

That's why they pay you money for it. If it was fun, people would do it for free (see the FOSS world and its endless discussions on how to monetize).

[chownie]

That answers a point I didn't make.

Everyone exchanges their time for money, if you work a job that's entirely unfulfilling you're trading happiness too. It's an exchange that no one wins.

[WJW]

The company might still win in that exchange, since they get the labor they paid for anyway. Whether you are happy or not is only important insomuch as it alters your productivity. Don't fall into the trap of thinking a company of FAANG size cares all that much about individual employees.

[rini17]

Well, you adapt yourself to find some fun/fullfillment in the work that is available.

To approach work with the mindset "it must be fun or else!" can lead to a lifetime of misery.

[underdeserver]

They pay you money because you bring them value. Not because it's fulfilling or not for you in any way.

[benhurmarcel]

> They pay you money because you bring them value

Not at all. They pay what it would cost to replace you. If someone accepted to do the same job for cheaper (or free), they'd take it, regardless of the value it generates.

[foldr]

They pay because you wouldn't bring them value if they didn't pay. Otherwise Facebook would be paying the developers of every open source project that they use.

[JSavageOne]

Not value, money. Every job centers around money because we're working for businesses. "Value" is just a side effect (and not a necessary one at that).

Some people find making money meaningful and fulfilling, many of us don't.

[andrewaylett]

My job brings me opportunities of scale that I'm unlikely to find elsewhere, and I genuinely enjoy the challenges, but I'd work on something else if they didn't pay me to do it.

It's not that it's not fun, but fun doesn't pay the bills. If it didn't _have_ to pay the bills, I'd probably still develop software but with a very different focus.

[throwaway98797]

Got to believe that it’s possible before you can find it.

[pharke]

If it was fun, it would be a sole proprietorship.

[itsmeamario]

welcome to the workforce! Where you receive money for doing a task you don't care to do.

[jasonmp85]

Marx?

[jfengel]

Marx was big on getting people to the place where they don't feel like their work is pointless. But in order to get there, you have to get rid of the social stratification of the current system, where some people do their labor and give it to somebody else to sell. That seller not only gets to keep the majority of the profit, but it also keeps the work from being very fulfilling since you're disconnected from the end product of your effort.

So Marx didn't say it was impossible. He just said that getting from here to there was going to require changes -- changes that could easily be unpleasant.

[andyjohnson0]

I agree. Don't look for personal fulfilment in work: that's not what it's for.

Work for money, and use it as one of the tools you have for seeking fulfilment, not as an end in itself. Life isn't short but it's not long either, and the only thing you really have is time.

[nihil75]

And that is how under-performing teams like OP describes are born.

[minimuffins]

Do you think like, high performing teams at a FAANG corporation is the meaning of life, or?

[roadbeats]

I would like to think like this but can't, may be some elaboration can help me and others who can't think this way.

For several times, I left a comfortable job for an adventure, and ended up wasting months (sometimes years) for no outcome actually.

If I only had an answer for this; how would we convince ourselves to not do more than we can and be satisfied with the reward of getting relatively better paid than the market ?

And what is out there outside the job that can fill the gap of doing nothing 40 hours a week for whole life ? Traveling the world ? Check. Getting scuba diving licenses? Check. Pottery workshops ? Check.

What would we head towards while getting used to the comfort of thick paychecks and not really growing on the other hand ? It feels like we're not in charge of our lives in that case and something can come up and take what we're given by those comfortable jobs. Isn't that a concern for anybody else ?

[kaiwren]

I think you are right, and that makes me sad.

[_y5hn]

There's much more to life than working a job. Work-life balance can be tricky, especially if you seek fulfillment, it may take years/decades to find what you seek, be fulfilled and then contribute from your own source.

This is a healthy thing, and one would do well to pay attention and focus on what matters.

[mwarkentin]

https://youtu.be/zgTRPjHVrFE

[gonzo41]

I think you're on the money with this answer. I would recommend to the OP to consider hiking, bike touring or some other multi-day slow consistent outdoor pursuit. Working inside all day is a special kind of hell.