Hacker News Reader

Comment by mindcrime | Hacker News Reader

Their value to google is high enough to keep them employed but the job is beneath their capabilities.

That's what we call "the perfect job." It pays the bills, but leaves you the maximum amount of (mental|emotional|psychological|spiritual|whatever) energy to work on the things that really interest you ... outside of work.

Of course different people will approach this differently, but I don't want my job to be interesting. I don't draw any sense of self-worth / self-satisfaction / joy-in-life / etc. from my job. My job is just a means to an end, where that end is to pay the rent, pay the electric bill, buy food etc. I have enough other ways to achieve those other things, and an "interesting" (and by extension, "demanding") job just gets in the way.

View on HN

For me personally, being bored at work actually leaves me more tired at home afterwards. I'm working on something so boring at work now and I can't handle it. It's just going to kill me very slowly over the course of the next month.

Now for your second point, I completely agree--I don't want to feel like my job is my worth or joy in life, and it isn't. But at the same time, I wouldn't take a job at an assembly line even if it paid $1M a year.

That's why you work on your side projects at work. I plan and design and write in a text editor my personal stuff all the time. It's just a text editor so it doesn't look suspect.

make sure it stays on personal accounts and equipment to avoid ownership issues but ianal

Or better work on gpl code, then it's s win win I think.

Agreed. Boring jobs leave me unhappy and increase the odds I'll quit and move on.

In fact, I've changed jobs roughly every 2 to 3 years precisely due to boredom.

It sounds nice to be able to get by day-to-day in a full job but it's not a good fit for me personally.

> but leaves you the maximum amount of (mental|emotional|psychological|spiritual|whatever) energy

That's probably not the case. It looks counterintuitive but being bored and feeling unmotivated at work can leave you at the end of the day with much less energy than an very intensive but interesting work.

Your 2nd paragraph makes sense for a person like you, but I'd guess that the OP is one of those different people, for who self-satisfaction at work is a key thing.

I actually agree with you on that. With the caveat that this is true if you do (by choice, or by inclination) really want your job to provide self-fulfillment / self-actualization / blah / etc.

What I'm not sure about, is whether or not that is a personality trait which is basically fixed and can't be changed, or whether this is something where you can make a conscious choice to change. I think it's the latter, because my own subjective experience has been that I used to be more of the "if my job is boring that leaves me feeling dis-spirited" or whatever, but over time I found that I cared less and less about the "day job" and more and more about what I chose to focus on outside. But I'll freely concede that this just one anecdote, and that what makes sense for me may not work for others.

Thanks for this follow up. Really got me thinking.

Pro-tip: don't tell or show this sentiment to a potential employer if you ever look to switch jobs. This is probably the worst possible mindset for an employee to have from employer's perspective.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com