Comment by ptero | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ptero | Hacker News Reader

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> It seems to me that a lot of contemporary burnout stems from the extremely abstract nature of the modern economy

I think doing things in the real world that you believe to be useful can provide meaning (e.g., baker making bread that that you see people enjoy, or a doctor checking a kid and being thanked by parents). However, to me, it is orthogonal to working with physical objects. I am perfectly happy working with text on screen that produces plots and formulas as long as I convince myself that those could be useful for something I consider important.

The big problem I believe is the fact that many people know that what their work will be used for is useless to a society (or even mildly harmful). I suspect that people working on targeting ads to sell unneeded junk, hooking kids on time-wasting apps or winning in a zero-sum game of HFT know deep inside that their work is a waste at best.

This can be rationalized away for a while, but not being able to answer "what am I doing this for?" can eat one up long term. My 2c.

I suspect many/most engineer-types could be happy with only 1-2 of the following:

* Contributing to a project/mission that feels worthwhile.

* Practicing good craft/professionalism. (Which doesn't necessarily mean always being able to do the best code/architecture/process, but to work well within your constraints.)

* Being part of a good team.

Though ideally you have all three, and perhaps other things, as well.

I agree about abstract, and maybe that ties into feelings about contributing. For a while, I was working with only code related to aviation, and I felt good about my modest role in some good processes, but I don't actually like flying, so I hadn't been up-close with airplanes in a while. One day, it occurred to me that it would be a boost of inspiration to go see some of the real-world aircraft and activity. Aviation is really amazing concert of processes and technology, most of it not visible, but there's something to be said for tangible. Since I wasn't aware of anything like an observation window in my airport that (post-9/11) one could access without a ticket, I spent some time finding and printing photos of some of the aircraft I'd been working with, and decorated my office, which did give a boost.

Sounds like you're talking about "Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose".

I found this to be so true at a job I had in international development. Being on a small but respected team in the org and having input on how projects all over the world would be implemented was very fulfilling.

It can be even worse for some people stuck in the Corporate/IT world of endless projects spun up destined to failure because all the requirements are coming from the top of the organization with little insight on how to put it all together. People lose motivation quickly not because of a physical object at the end of the day, but autonomy over their work and some feeling that what they are doing will be USED by someone. Versus a year of work for a project that never gets off the ground, just to be moved to another project.

Agreed. I can put up with a lot of abstract drudgery trying to figure out how to work with stupid non-compliant "interop" implementations when I remind myself that my company's systems are involved in making health records more accessible for over 100 million people.

Very true regarding the advertising industry but I feel like this is easily extended to encompass almost all product driven commercial businessess.

On the one hand we're killing the earth, polluting and creating a nightmare existence for our children. On the other hand, buy more stuff! I don't understand how anyone can justify this to themselves and I believe the resultant self doubt is a key factor in burnout.

P.s. never mention this at work... It's the elephant in every meeting room.

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