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Comment by ErikAugust | Hacker News Reader

You should quit now, and try working a multitude of other jobs. Come back to us and see if your definition of 'trap' has changed, or expanded.

Software engineering is such an entitled world, it is ridiculous. As someone who has seen the world of menial work, I will never, ever leave it. I feel blessed. You should too. You just don't know it.

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I guess what I read into that is similar to how you can consider television a "trap". It's easy to get sucked into and not think about anything else. I know that I spend a lot of time thinking about different software related stuff, I love it, but I would suspect (and i could be wrong) that the cashier working at burger king doesn't think about how they can ring things up faster, move between the pickup window and the fries more efficiently while they're playing with their kids, I suspect they go home and thing about their family, not their job, and i think it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking about work much easier when your job is a "thought" job per se.... again I could be crazy though.... good luck if I am.

They may not actually be going home. They may be going to a second job or school, seeing their kids for an hour in the evening, and then going to bed worried about paying bills.

Low-wage jobs are their own cyclical trap, which can lead to not enough resources to improve your situation and apathy towards your day-to-day life. You can easily get stuck in a rut.

The low-wage thing was an example...

I don't think that neither the lawer nor the physician when they get home keep thinking about what their job...

For us coders is different, there was a question like: "What you think while you are coding ?" the majority of the answer was "nothing", the most part of my job is done when I am away from the keyboard, when I walk, dream, read, talk with other people...

I love it, but I am also scared that I am missing a whole word just because I am too focus on computer for a not even too long while...

Your view of the tech field sounds a little pompous. Medical and law are well known life-consuming professions.

I think any dedicated professional will have issues at some point unplugging themselves from their profession to pursue other facets of life.

I feel blessed too. I truly love what I do for a living and couldn't imagine it being any other way. And for that I feel extremely lucky.

I always say doing software beats working for a living.

I was a low level army grunt for several years before finishing college, and getting into R&D. I agree with your perspective 100%.

I am blessed and I do know it. I never said that other careers are more or less "trapping" than mine - I know that for the most part they are not. My advice to others is the same as yours - quit now and try working in another profession. But it is not to see if their definition of "trapped" will change, but to find out, before it is too late, if there is something they find more rewarding. I always interpreted my colleagues "trap" statement from long ago not to be about software being career/financially limiting but about satisfaction limiting. Am I coming/rationalizing when I say "I love my work"? I don't know.

Exactly. I worked in a mine to pay my way through university. Never again.

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