[tippytippytango]

It doesn't work like that. You have to be "on" even if you aren't working. That means you feel like you can't commit to anything substantial since you feel like you should be working. Fucking off on the internet is a coping mechanism to numb the pain of being in this limbo where you aren't working; but, feel like you should be working because you are getting paid a lot. In retrospect it's easy to see that there's this spare time available to do other things; but, when you are in it, it's not obvious where the boundary is between this extra time and where the work time should be. I know it sounds like a first world problem; but, it actually feels really awful to be in this spot because you can't even admit you are there to anyone without feeling like a slacker/loser/failure/time-thief, a torturous trap.

[ravenstine]

And even if you can manage to find things to do to occupy the time and appear busy, you'll be lucky if management considers the importance of your work and schedule it with the rest of your workload. One too many times have I had to find something to do and spend weeks or months on that thing only to have management tell me to immediately stop working on it even though that thing was actually important. This may not seem different from just being "on", but I find that having real work be tossed in the garbage is even more demoralizing than milling around and not really doing anything.

[Damogran6]

I'm on the part of my career journey where I've realized you're _JUST_ exchanging time for money. They want you to work on something that gets thrown away? It paid for the mortgage, it made a car payment, it's thrown away JUST like 99.9% of the stuff I did for the first 10 years of my career.

It's GOING to happen, best not to get too caught up in it.

Going into SIEM build #8 in my life....it's just another SIEM. I take my enjoyment in the people, the compensation is adequate, it's contributing to a retirement that's getting nearer and more comfortable all the time. I try not to get too hung up on the work product.

[scaramanga]

I really find interesting the juxtaposition here.

On the one hand, if the person is not given productive work to do and decides to just go for a jog then they must be racked by guilt for being a slacker, like GP.

But if our organisations are diverting people's productive energy into unproductive waste, they need not feel any guilt about it at all since it is absolutely self-evident that this is the best and most productive of all possible economic systems.

In the first case, you are maladjusted because you are performing self-punishment to appease feelings of guilt about failing to live up to your own ideals. Another way to think about it is that you are just experiencing the inability to reconcile your basic human need to be a productive member of your community with the reality that your community is dysfunctional and has no interest or ability to provide a healthy psychological environment for its members.

In the second case, you are well-adjusted because you recognise that the society is just a machine and you are using the machine to get whatever you can out of it. Okay, it's not providing for the health and wealth of the community and the emotional needs or psychological well-being of it's constituents is either a non-goal or a goal it fails to achieve. But it does pay money. And you definitely do need money because money can provide for your physical needs. And while it can help with your other needs, you've already traded off the majority of your time and energy so, at best, you can maybe balm some of the damage that's been done by having a huge part of your life voided out.

I sometimes wonder, if I were some alien species keeping humans as animals in a zoo, would I would want to view them in this condition, or would it be too disturbing to see animals being maintained in an environment that is so impoverished?

[netizen-936824]

>it is absolutely self-evident that this is the best and most productive of all possible economic systems.

It isn't very self-evident from my perspective, could you please explain how?

[62951413]

Isn't the main risk here not acquiring new production experience and so reducing your chances for finding the next gig? As in "adding new buzzwords to your resume" basically.

When they ask you in three years about how you have spent the time. If you convert XML requests to JSON messages for a living and not even with Spark.

[Damogran6]

Aspirationally, you should be getting to the point where you care less about the underlying technology (you're smart, you can pick up whatever tech they want to use this week), you're paid more because you have the scars and experience that can be better applied to the tech du jour.

[RJIb8RBYxzAMX9u]

> [...] having real work be tossed in the garbage is [...] demoralizing [...]

This happened to me a few years ago. I got assigned to work on a small greenfield project solo. I had virtually full creative control, and it would solve a real imminent problem for the team. Sounds like a dream project, right? And it was for the ~1 month or so I worked on it, got positive feedback from the team, etc. However, with a stroke of a (figurative) pen, the project's no longer needed and was scrapped. The manager found more money in the team's budget.

I can't say I disagreed with the decision: often it _is_ better to just throw money to make a problem go away. I felt bummed out nonetheless. _That_ I could live with, but getting dinged for "being unproductive for a month" during performance review, now that really stung.

My story might have a happy ending though. A few months ago the same problem resurfaced, this time due to a different, company-wide constraint. The lead dev solicited solutions, and I couldn't help but feel a bit smug inside when I said "um, remember that project I worked on a few years ago? I basically have your solution on a platter." We'll see: who knows maybe the manager will somehow carve out an exception for our team. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Aeolun]

> getting dinged for "being unproductive for a month" during performance review

I don’t think I could have lived with that if that was done to me. I’d either resign on the spot or shortly after.

[RJIb8RBYxzAMX9u]

Without divulging specifics, around the same time something happened in my personal life. I needed, and family members who depended on me needed, the money and stability.

A bruised ego is a small price to pay for the safety of my family and dependents, so I will learn to live with it. Because I can live with it. I can live with it. dang, erase that GP.[0]

[0] With apologies to _In The Pale Moonlight_

[Aeolun]

Yeah, that sucks. I’m in the position now where I’d likely be fine until I found a new position, so the equation changes a bit.

Either way, I don’t expect my current employer to do something like that :)

[delgaudm]

I find it helps to be cynical in these situations.

> I felt bummed out nonetheless.

Why? Don't get emotionally involved with work done for the company. They want to toss it? Why give moments care. Your time wasn't wasted. It was done doing what they asked in exchange for pay. That's it.

>_That_ I could live with, but getting dinged for "being unproductive for a month" during performance review, now that really stung.

And that's why, you shouldn't care or get emotionally involved in the work you create for the company. The company clearly, demonstrably doesn't care about you. They do not care about you. Why should you care deeply about work you create for them?

[ravenstine]

It's ultimately not good for the spirit. Yes, some people can tolerate the bullshit. Likewise, there are people who are willing to be poop divers for sewage treatment plants (though this is an imperfect analogy I want not to offend those who are fine doing far less meaningful work). This doesn't mean everyone can or should be poop divers.

Sure, everyone should be prepared to tolerate a level of meaningless and nonsense in the corporate world. I fully agree that one should not become too invested in work that ultimately serves the company.

Nevertheless, if humans were meant to live as sysipheans, by now we would have found more straight-forward ways of doing so, and we might even take pride in doing pointless work. Yet few if anyone is openly proud of doing nothing and still getting paid even when there's no social recourse. Naturally, when enough time passes and a person has yet to be able to actually contribute to the system, they are liable to be alienated. And why shouldn't they? If they can sit around for months or years being practically useless while still having to trade one's finite time for the privilege of food and shelter, there may be a breaking point where they can't make logical sense of the situation anymore. Where's the excitement? For many, we spend more hours at work than at home, especially if you discount sleep, and those hours are usually tired. That time at work had better mean at least something at some point; how is one then supposed to feel when they've reached senior status and... the situation is exactly the same or quite possibly worse?

It would be nice if humans could get more fulfillment out of their personal lives, but that usually doesn't come by default and rather requires considerable work on top of one's day job; family, friends, and social status all require work, and may of us don't even have adequate time for those. Is it reasonable to put a sapient mind through the anguish of being irrelevant in nearly every aspect of their lives for the promise of a distant retirement and expect them to not feel a sense of disengagement because the world is constructed in such a ridiculous fashion?

This isn't to say that you are entirely wrong, but I have to wonder if you believe that in every fiber of your being, because otherwise you could have been a burger flipper or a circus clown instead of the occupation that brings you to HN. I assume that you have a set of skills that came to you at least somewhat naturally, and that if you were unable to ever properly execute those skills that those skills (and thereby you) would seem worthless to yourself.

In my personal opinion, life is way too short to deal with meaninglessness for extended periods. If your job continues to be meaningless after years of experience, chances are you are doing the wrong thing and can benefit from a course correction.

[stank345]

What you're saying makes sense, but sentiment like this makes me long for a post-capitalist conception of work where everything's not purely transactional and we can do meaningful work that we feel proud of. I think artisans or craftspeople had that historically and it's something we require to feel fulfilled.

[wreath]

Someone here on HN once mentioned that they cleaned or worked on their deck or whatever while working and nobody cared. I did the same (well, no deck but other stuff) when i had long stretches of downtime or notice that nobody else cares as much as I do about the project. Same result, nobody gave a fuck really. I don't think it's sustainable, but whatever.

[quickthrower2]

Ideally the thing you spend time on should be something you can use outside the org. E.g. learn k8s.

[Juliate]

That’s if you’re not already frozen regarding the field.

I’m exactly in this spot right now. And yes, self-training on side quests like k8s or anything related to the field looks nice on the paper.

The problem comes from when 1/ you already associated all these training with the field you’re working in, and it feels helpless and boring, 2/ you still feel somehow disloyal to use your time like that.

[orzig]

Yeah, a good manager can fix that in 30 seconds (by giving you explicit permission to learn), but a surprising portion don’t think too.

[spookthesunset]

Last two years of my life was this. Sitting at home with nothing meaningful to do but still having to park my butt in my kids bedroom.

[pdimitar]

So why didn't you use your time better and invest in other skills you want to have?

[Damogran6]

"Why don't you just not be sad?"

[pdimitar]

I didn't say or even imply that and it's unfair to interpret it that way.

Distract yourself in a positive manner. Don't dwell on meaningless thoughts that you'll never defeat. Only way to win is to do something else with your time.

It's fine if you don't think that's the solution but straight up misrepresenting what has been said to you is not cool.

[SwSwinger]

I think the point is that this negative pitfall happens to people and multiple people concur. It's easy to say "fight this with positivity", most people on HN started with this philosophy. In practice, it's hard to do that consistently after the first 10 years, especially when you don't notice the slide until you're in a pit.

[pdimitar]

Hm, didn't occur to me to look at it that way so you're likely correct.

I am personally 41 and I've fought tooth and nail to not just sit at the computer for the sake of it, neither in an office nor at home. Nowadays when I sit at my desk, I have goals in mind and if I catch myself not working towards any of them in an hour, I just get up and go do something else and someplace else.

But I maintain that nowhere did I imply something as dismissive and shallow as "just don't be sad" or, not shallow but still far from what I meant, "fight this with positivity". It's not that at all, it was much more along the lines of: "find your own purpose and don't wait for others to impose theirs on you".

In my current job I am one of 3 recent hires (just recently hit the 4 months mark) and since we come from very different backgrounds compared to the company's culture, we often have 5 PRs just waiting on reviews and we find ourselves completely blocked on any further progress (can't even open other PRs since we still haven't received feedback on the current ones and that would severely change what code we should put in the new ones).

I have raised the problem multiple times, from squad leaders all the way to the CEO, but it seems that the people are cool with it and don't mind if you just twiddle your thumbs every now and then. So I started picking up more and more sysadmin skills which I need for my home NAS management and potentially other home servers in the future. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But maybe my comment up-thread was way too short and open for negative interpretation?

[granshaw]

I’d like to find contracts that are purely delivery based and not part of a team setting. And do value based pricing so if I finish quickly, I’m truly off the hook and have my own time back

[thematrixturtle]

Bingo. Working from home also exacerbates this, since there is no longer a physical division between "work" and "home", plus there is virtually no social pressure not to slack off.

[osigurdson]

I think that works both ways. If you want to work more, it is easier to do from home as there is less social (i.e. family) pressure to come home from the office. The key is to find a workable balance.

[pdimitar]

...And the problem is, what exactly?

[chasd00]

Lack of self discipline. If you’re going to wfh you have to be disciplined enough to work during work hours and not work during non work hours.

[pdimitar]

Well, it pays off to be aware of the issue at least, right?

I too have grappled with this for a while but I believe this struggle was for the better and it eventually led to reduced stress. Nowadays when I mentally proclaim "I am done for the day!" I know that I did my best and that I have put enough hours / effort to not feel guilty about not putting more.

So yeah, you are right. I just think people should go through this fight for discipline because it's ultimately better for their mental health when they learn to put boundaries.

[pdimitar]

So don't admit it to anyone. Work on it by yourself or by sharing it on HN / Reddit / etc.

It still reads too much as a very first world of a problem to me, admittedly. I recognize that us the people need to have a goal and a direction, otherwise we start feeling like aimless leaves on the wind -- but you can still do a ton of things at home (if you work remotely which you should) while checking your Slack and email every 15 minutes, no?

But if it really bothers you so much then you have to make a choice between (a) prestige / a lot of money / boredom and (b) enjoyment / medium money / purpose. Apparently in big corps you can't have both. Being stuck in a FOMO feedback loop and being unable to choose between either path is very toxic and produces a lot of internal pressure. At some point you have to choose for the sake of your mental well-being.

...Or, as other commenters alluded to, find a job that allows you to combine them. I do doubt that many other companies can give salaries in the $250K - $500K annual range though. But who knows.

As a general observation throughout my life, us the Homo Sapiens seem to suck super bad at picking a side and/or to leave a toxic relationship before it starts to poison us long-term. We must proactively work hard to periodically challenge our priorities and reassess our situation. So if you are up for an advice from a stranger: do that and do it often, something like 2-3 times a month, for whatever period of time, until you feel you finally are where you belong. We the people hold on to things for way too long. It seems to be our default mode of operation.

It also doesn't help at all that our current civilization seems to thrive on bombarding people with FOMO, sigh. But we gotta adapt and find our own way through it all regardless.

[granshaw]

You can take on a little more risk, esp if you have a spouse with employer health insurance, and be a contractor. Hitting the $300k annual ballpark is pretty doable even with giving yourself about 20 days off a year, even while working at startups and places where their employees don’t get near that

[anothernewdude]

I just got a second job. Keeps me busy rather than just spending time waiting all day.

[heurist]

Side gig/project is the answer here. If you're not doing 6-8 hours of active work per workday and no one is complaining you might as well use the rest for yourself. Make sure it's something where you can exercise creativity and/or learn.

[croh]

terrible time. you feel like losing the game, falling behind from all new cool-aid drinks. You feel like your friends and colleagues are working on something cool, and then suddenly re-org happens and you wonder is your career on right track ?