Ask HN: Anyone have a realization to stop working so much at job? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Anyone have a realization to stop working so much at job?

47 pointschiefanon45 comments

I'm 27 at starting to realize it's not worth my time to work in excess for my current corporation.

I have a lot of fun ideas in my head and books I want to read that I feel deserve my time and health much more. I've been reading more philosophy lately and realize that our lives are finite and we should focus on breaking away from all this useless societal dogma.

Has anyone else gone from corporate grinder to zen learner? I'm starting to wonder if industry isn't for me and a more academic setting would be more suitable.

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It's the opposite for me. One day, I will be dead. I'll probably be a scattered mess of energy, unable to channel it into anything.

Work gives me something to channel energy towards. At a meeting, you can utilize the brainpower of someone who has lived 30 years in a different situation, and channel their experience towards a common goal.

I feel like you can actually get a lot out of work. Even if you were flipping burgers at minimum wage, you can enjoy the smell of a cooking burger, the crusting of a bun on the stove, the beauty of mise en place. It's like a relationship; you don't find a perfect person to love, you just pick someone and love them for who they are.

IMO the biggest waste of life is wishing that you're elsewhere. You end up wishing for a different present and future, then find that all your present is now the past.

> IMO the biggest waste of life is wishing that you're elsewhere. You end up wishing for a different present and future, then find that all your present is now the past.

A profound statement, and one I wish I could have heard when I was in my early 20s.

The biggest waste of life is regretting that you wished you were elsewhere. Wishing you were elsewhere can help your present moment by filling your head with positive feelings. Right now I wish I was on a beach.. and now that I wrote that it feels like a might be there for a second.

Wishing you are always on the beach is pretty much just about hedonic desire, like wishing you were always eating steak. I've never heard of anyone on their death bed who wished they ate one more steak or spent one more day on the beach in their twenties. People regret not building/maintaining important relationships which generally require real environmental stressors, more like the office but not with coworkers.

> Wishing you are always on the beach

Thats not what they said and you know it.

I've only heard deathbed confessions on tv where they were full of regret in real life. Most people are just happy to see people they loved. Real deathbed confessions are rarely shared.

"IMO the biggest waste of life is wishing that you're elsewhere. You end up wishing for a different present and future, then find that all your present is now the past."

Sounds like me. Although the answer might be to just be happy with what you have. For me, I need to just accept that I'll never make more money or get promoted, or do even half the stuff I'd like to do in my "free" time.

Buddy this is the most corporate bootlicking statement I've seen in a while. I think I see what I hope you're going for and would love to hear that this advice is oriented towards achieving your own goals and not the goals of someone you don't fundamentally agree with.

It was more a statement of learning to be happy in the present instead of always yearning for something greater.

Flipping burgers doesn’t equate to licking Ronald’s shiny red shoe for the man.

I originally drafted several paragraphs in defense, but I think it's a bit of a tangent and better addressed in a separate comment.

Csikszentmihalyi did a study on happiness, the results being the notion of flow. There's a book and papers, but basically the result is that you're happiest when you're completely absorbed in a challenging task that you are qualified for (state of flow). The inverse is that you're unhappy when you're not challenged and doing something that's low skill (apathy).

Csikszentmihalyi called it the paradox of work. The study showed that they have their most positive experience on the job, but even when they feel good, they'd report that motivation was low. They'd report surprisingly low moods during leisure, but keep on wishing for more leisure.

One theory is that they'd disregard the quality of immediate experience, and base motivation on the cultural stereotype of what work is like. Another is that the perception is based off their goals in relation to it - someone investing energy into achieving their own goals (e.g. finishing a season of a show) is more motivated than that energy being invested in achieving someone else's goals (making the boss rich).

So, the notion of achieving your own goals is probably getting the way of your own happiness. Perhaps the goals are wrong. Perhaps it's a culture problem.

I think there's lots of models missing in mainstream Western culture. There's alternate goals like becoming a shokunin - this endless goal to climb to a higher level of mastery, knowing you can never reach the top.

There's tawakkul, where you have absolute faith in God's goodwill; there's no need to rely on anyone or anything. You keep to a standard code of ethics and find a way to practice that. You're honest when you could be punished for honesty, forgive when a situation allows vengeance, charitable when you could use more money, and so on.

> It's like a relationship; you don't find a perfect person to love, you just pick someone and love them for who they are.

Real relationships are not like that. I'd love to hear where you got this absolutely tragic idea from...

A definition of love by Cornel West = unequivocal and unconditional commitment to the welfare of another, whoever or whatever it is

It can be dangerous. It can be used in destructive, manipulative, and abusive manners. And it often is - leaders who get you to die for your country, or employers who tell you they're "family".

But without love, you lose a lot from life. It needs courage, it needs some level of honesty. And you do have to filter before committing. But sometimes you don't get to filter. You love the in-laws, you love the kids, your neighbor.

The common definition is closer to sentimental love, wanting the luxury of the emotions without paying for it. The sentimentalist talks about good things but have no intention of following through. They take no risks. The cynic is the opposite, they actively choose not to commit. But they also deprive themselves of the luxury of the emotions.

Keep in mind that "you" is not defined via "your job". This is a trap, as what happens when you lose your job or, gasp, retire? You need to have a sense of self that is self-defined. Yes, you work and have skills that people want and all that good stuff, but that's just transactional.

This. Your life is your life, your job allows you to trade time for other things you need, it's not your life, or your life's work.

> it's not your life, or your life's work.

This is true for the vast majority of people, but, for some their work is a true vocation. Monastics are one example but so are Doctors Without Borders, many War Journalists, and those working to eliminate diseases common in the developing world are also all vocations.

Excellent point, and it is not my hope to downplay or disrespect those life choices at all. For some who make the choice, it is their life's work - much respect to them.

> You need to have a sense of self that is self-defined

So tie it to something else which might be equally out of your control? Why is that better though.

They mean to define it by your own means (hobbies, experiences, "taking the reigns", productivity elsewhere for other reasons), not because of an environment where you're more or less forced to exchange your pre-expiration time for money/being a desk jockey for pay.

> Has anyone else gone from corporate grinder to zen learner? I'm starting to wonder if industry isn't for me and a more academic setting would be more suitable.

I am 34 and at a fairly senior position in a corporation, and as such I have the immense luxury to decide how much I effort want to put into my job without being micromanaged. In the past couple of years my priorities changed (wife, chronic illness, old parents, etc.) and I have stopped putting the same amount of overtime that I used to. I was also lucky/happy to be influential enough in my company to institute a 4-day work week for the same pay for me and my team. That has definitely helped with all the other things I wanted to pursue.

With the overtime gone and one extra day, I found out that I have more energy, both mental and physical, to be doing other things, like reading books, exercise, spend time with the wife, etc.

Work productivity itself also hasn't suffered: I manage to achieve the same things that I did in the past, only without the additional stress. At least for me, it seems if I force myself beyond a certain point, I get only very diminishing returns for my efforts.

With that mindset, I could say that I moved from corpo grinder to a rather zen peace of mind without having to switch to a more academic setting. However, I am aware that most corporations don't work like that and there is the pressure to perform or at least to appear to perform by putting in overtime, so what worked for me might not work everywhere.

When I worked at my first startup, I worked probably 10-12 hour days. I would show up at 8am and and work until 8pm, with a 15-30 minute lunch break to one of the nearby restaurants. One day my boss put me on support engineer duties (I suppose I broke too many things and he wanted to teach me a lesson.) Every day, I would log into the system and see 20 tickets that I needed to address. I'd fix each bug, then report the fix to the Customer Support team, who would then notify the customer that their issue had been fixed. As the day went on, new bugs would come in, and I'd fix those as well. I always got to inbox zero every single day. I did this for about 6 months.

About halfway through that six month stint, I had -- wonder of wonders -- a date, and so one fateful Wednesday evening, I left at 6pm instead of 8pm, so I could get ready for my date. I was very anxious, because I still had 4 tickets left, and a fifth one just came in right as I was walking out the door. But... you know, date.

So I come back in the next morning, and I had 24 tickets on my plate, and I fixed them and more tickets came in, and I fixed those... And not a single person noticed that those four tickets were "late."

That's when I had my epiphany: nobody truly expects you to work outside 9-5. If a business partner or customer sends you an email at 5pm, they aren't expecting a response until the next business day. You don't need to respond to things at 8pm. On top of that, there's _always_ more work. You will never, ever, ever run out of work. There's always more to do.

I took that lesson and I ran with it. I started coming in at 8-ish and leaving around 6ish, and I started dating more and going to movies and enjoying my life more. Nobody noticed or even cared. Our customers were still happy, and my boss never said anything (in fact, I got promoted shortly after that 6 month stint, so I must have done something right!).

So my advice to you: work 9-5. Don't work any longer than that. It's just a job. If your job has a problem with you working only normal business hours, find another job. There are a million out there. It doesn't matter whether you're in academia or corporations, there are company that are totally fine with 9-5, and there are other companies that expect overtime. Just find the right ones for you.

Your analysis is absolutely correct: life is short. Go enjoy it.

I wish you the best of luck and that your life is fulfilling and joyful.

"That's when I had my epiphany: nobody truly expects you to work outside 9-5."

Nope, I've had the opposite. Most of my managers absolutely have expected extra hours for support, on-call, elevations, meeting deadlines, and even consistent extra work as a condition of a promotion.

These do not sound like good managers. I don't mind engineers who put in extra time in a pinch. My job as a manager is to minimize pinches as much as practical.

Well, I've had 19 managers over 10 year at the same company. Almost all want extra hours to promote people. The ones who didn't think that way couldn't make the promotions happen because their managers wouldn't agree without the extra hours.

Perhaps the toxic culture goes all the way to the top. If no one lasts in the role little more than 6 months, on average, that's a red flag.

They last in the role, just not on the same team. I've had two or three make it a year, and one for two years. They just move around and stuff. It's really frustrating since most don't stick around long enough to actually give me good advice, or even truly know my attributes. Anyways, I've quiet quit at this point.

I quit every job where that was expected. And ended up with a job I love. I highly recommend doing the same. And guess what: I am more productive when working regular hours.

I work regular hours, but I'll never get a good review or be promoted. It seems exceedingly rare that anywhere wouldn't require extra hours. I haven't been able to find anything.

I do 0 outside of 9-5, heck I try to do 0 inside of 9-5 as well!

https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...

This article changed my life. I realized I was working too hard and giving too much emotionally to work (that didn't give it back), so I coasted until I started my own company.

If you're going to work this hard, you should keep the rewards.

If you are my colleague, yes please stop being a workaholic, you have written so much over-engineered code for stupid simple shit that we now have to maintain if you ever leave.

I'm definitely not zen, but I found that they recently invented a term for what I've started doing - quiet quitting.

Hard work is not rewarded. The compensation model doesn't even make sense (like a promotion that means 13% increase of hours for a 7% raise). Management has screwed me over in the past, multiple times. I can't even put in extra hours due to my home responsibilities.

So now I just do the bare minimum.

It's not that industry isn't for you, it's that overwork isn't for you. I'd go so far as to say that overwork isn't for anyone but who am I to tell people how to live their lives!

Your "one wild and precious Life" (ref:Mary Oliver) is short and slips away quickly. Spend as much of it doing the things you want to do as you can. Don't let anyone talk you into overworking yourself: that's only to be done in an actual emergency situation.

I really hate managers that allow FREE overtime, in some times, my manager wanted that I worked overnight inside of my office, I don't even have a car, so I said to he that I will work from homeoffice, he was really disappointed.

I didn't know that overtime was a issue in USA too, I really think that Americans were less likely to accept it

Knowing some academics, I'm pretty sure my job in the corporate world is significantly more relaxed. Publish or perish! Not saying there aren't compensating factors (though compensation is not one of them), but you know, a word to the wise.

Yes, academia sounds extremely competitive and more stressful for much less pay.

Hey!

I have, after I had a deep talk with a friend about what’s really important in life.

I have since left the big and prestigious company I had been working at that time, joined a small startup in the healthcare industry, where I work less, but focused in what’s really important, and I earn much more money.

I am also working on a product on the side to eventually be able to break free from having to work for a company (nothing wrong about that).

It’s possible my friend!

>and I earn much more money

Do you think it'd be possible to pursue this if it was the opposite? Instead finding meaningful work but with much less money?

I'm feeling the same way as OP in my current position as the work I do feels very meaningless in the big picture.

I now view life as a sort of cosmic experience or simulation. What matters (to me) are the insight you get, the exchange you have with other people, the new perspective you acquire thru life experiences. The external is sort of a theatre (sets, characters, story) but it's the meaning behind the experiences that matters in the end.

So why are we living this experience of overworking?

Perhaps fear of not being good enough, fear of not being accepted as a new hire if we're not giving our 110% constantly, maybe ancient Judeo-Christians beliefs in the value of "hard working to earn one's place in heaven" or something.

Ultimately it's you job to protect your mental, physical and emotional energy/health.

The last couple years have popularized a name for this: quiet quitting. Meaning, you start fulfilling the contractual obligations of your employment and not an ounce more.

It recognizes that most employers want to have their cake and eat it too: treat employment transactionally from their end but have the employees consider it a higher calling.

Has the last few years popularized that name or has an article gone viral (and been a sponsored ad on the Firefox homepage) for the last couple days attempting to coin that exact phrase.

To complement "quiet quitting", a new phrase I learned is "acting your wage".

It means, you put in as much as work as you're getting paid to do, as much as what you think your labor is worth - no more.

Work less if you can manage it, though some people are afflicted by a sense of "fairness". Most companies do not care at all about fairness - in fact, they're designed to exploit you as much as you let them.

I worked in academia for the first 10 years of my career, writing software.

Way more laid back. They would let you learn stuff on your own or work on side projects when things weren't too busy.

Was a great experience.

I love my work. I think that’s the answer.

To all those saying they don’t put an ounce more than what they’re paid to: imagine being a good employer and urgently you need an extra effort from your team and everyone just clocks out when you need them most cause it’s 5pm. I would clean house the next day.

Sorry I'm not squaring the two parts of your statement

"I'm a good employer"

"I'm asking my employees to work unpaid overtime, and if they don't I will fire all of them"

I'm sure you'll have much more luck with your new batch of employees.

I went to the academia after 15 years in the industry. Much happier now.

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