[kadomony]

I think this soul crush only occurs if you take the stance that it's an issue. I.e., if you suddenly want to find fulfillment and meaning in work, sure, you'll feed bad.

I submit that you can counter this by using that free time to do things that interest yourself and help you progress in the areas you want to grow in.

I have a lot of free time as a designer maintaining an enterprise product, so I flex my downtime into acting as my team's de facto product manager. When I step back from this interest of mine, I can otherwise use the time to teach myself VR (not related at all to my company).

My biggest piece of advice to people is to not look for fulfillment in work, but rather to find fulfillment in your interests. The burnout happens when your interests don't align with a highly demanding job. The soul crush happens when you suddenly try to tie all of your interests back to your job. That'll never be feasible 99.99% of the time. There's a reason why "a job is just a job" is an adage.

If you're fortunate and your job doesn't demand a lot, don't look to it to fill the void of free time if it's not interesting. Use that time for yourself to the extent that your company will allow/overlook it (I suspect this is why so many FAANGs are anti-remote work).

As most people can agree, no one will ever be lying on their deathbed thinking "damn, I wish I'd clocked more time filing those TPS reports".