[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?