Life In 19x19

I work in technology. Some people are generally very happy working in technology ... I'm not one of them.

I'm not saying my job is hell. Quite the contrary, there's a lot of interesting aspects to my job. However, there are just too many things that I don't enjoy about my job that makes it highly stressful and takes away from the enjoyment.

MY role is a support/r&d role, so I deal primarily with customer issues that have found their way to the 3rd level of support. I work closely with the design team(s) to find solutions, whether that ends up as a coded solution or simply a configuration modification.

What I enjoy about my job: digging into puzzling issues, developing solutions

What I don't enjoy about my job: sitting in front of a computer (I'd like to be doing something more active), "flex" hours (can be useful, but more often means 5 to 10 hours a week unpaid (I'm salaried) that I work to keep up with the workload), insane workload (no intent to increase headcount, so we're running at full tilt a lot of the time), a lot of the same issues over and over again (boring and repetitive)

The reason I work in technology, when I think it's a horrible environment to work in: I'm good at it. It pays my bills.

Ultimately, I don't care about my job, so long as I can keep it. I will always do the best job I can, but I have no passion for it. I'm more focused on my family life, and much more passionate about providing for that than I am about the particulars of my job.

I don't enjoy working because I am lazy. To be honest, I don't hate my job but I cannot really say I like it either. But it's still fine because I have always believed that job should not necessarily be something enjoyable. I just do it for living.

I program video games, and overall I like my job a lot.

Things I like:

• Creating products that make people happy
• Reaching millions of people
• Working on really interesting programming problems
• Working on game design
• Working with really great people

The main thing I don't like is that things occasionally get really intense and stressful for weeks at a time. I'm not a Type A person at all.

entropi wrote:I don't enjoy working because I am lazy. To be honest, I don't hate my job but I cannot really say I like it either. But it's still fine because I have always believed that job should not necessarily be something enjoyable. I just do it for living.

That's too bad. Why should't a job be enjoyable? For the past 25 years - since I moved to France - I've had a number of jobs, changing every 5-10 years, and I've never been in a situation when I would wake up in the morning and not want to go to work.

at my age i dont complain about what i do.
i dont mind doing whatever they task me to do long as they pay me.
as an officer of the army...i dont think i ever had easier job than this.

kirkmc wrote:

entropi wrote:I don't enjoy working because I am lazy. To be honest, I don't hate my job but I cannot really say I like it either. But it's still fine because I have always believed that job should not necessarily be something enjoyable. I just do it for living.

That's too bad. Why should't a job be enjoyable? For the past 25 years - since I moved to France - I've had a number of jobs, changing every 5-10 years, and I've never been in a situation when I would wake up in the morning and not want to go to work.

I like to separare things. Job can be enjoyable in which case you are lucky. But if it is not really enjoyable even though you sill have to do it for living, then you have two options:
Either you try to convince yourself that it is not that bad and pretend to enjoy it; or you simply accept the fact that your job is part of your life that allows you to do enjoyable things (but is itself not enjoyable).

Unless it is a real torture, a job does not need to be fun for me, like homeworks at school. I don't remember the school times very much in detail but I don't think I have ever done a homework with a bigger enthusiasm than for playing outside with friends. Now it's similar, I never experience a weekend morning where I wish I would go to work

entropi wrote:

kirkmc wrote:

entropi wrote:I don't enjoy working because I am lazy. To be honest, I don't hate my job but I cannot really say I like it either. But it's still fine because I have always believed that job should not necessarily be something enjoyable. I just do it for living.

That's too bad. Why should't a job be enjoyable? For the past 25 years - since I moved to France - I've had a number of jobs, changing every 5-10 years, and I've never been in a situation when I would wake up in the morning and not want to go to work.

I like to separare things. Job can be enjoyable in which case you are lucky. But if it is not really enjoyable even though you sill have to do it for living, then you have two options:
Either you try to convince yourself that it is not that bad and pretend to enjoy it; or you simply accept the fact that your job is part of your life that allows you to do enjoyable things (but is itself not enjoyable).

Unless it is a real torture, a job does not need to be fun for me, like homeworks at school. I don't remember the school times very much in detail but I don't think I have ever done a homework with a bigger enthusiasm than for playing outside with friends. Now it's similar, I never experience a weekend morning where I wish I would go to work

If I don't enjoy doing something, it's not going to get done regardless whether or not it has to be done.

I like my job very much.

What do I like:
1) My boss isolates me from the politics external to the team, leaving me free to focus on technical issues.
2) Deadlines are driven by concrete business goals, like "we want to hit market in Q4".
3) Linux, c/c++, vim? yes please. Job content lines up with all my personal favorites.

What do I not like:
1) Did you guys know it's really hot in Las Vegas? Last year I read in the newspaper that some kid stole another kid's shoes on the playground. The story ends in the hospital with 3rd degree burns from the sidewalk...

entropi wrote:I like to separare things. Job can be enjoyable in which case you are lucky. But if it is not really enjoyable even though you sill have to do it for living, then you have two options:
Either you try to convince yourself that it is not that bad and pretend to enjoy it; or you simply accept the fact that your job is part of your life that allows you to do enjoyable things (but is itself not enjoyable).

I don't know, but I find that kind of sad. You seem resigned to the fact that nearly half of your waking life is doing something that you don't like...

kirkmc wrote:

entropi wrote:I like to separare things. Job can be enjoyable in which case you are lucky. But if it is not really enjoyable even though you sill have to do it for living, then you have two options:
Either you try to convince yourself that it is not that bad and pretend to enjoy it; or you simply accept the fact that your job is part of your life that allows you to do enjoyable things (but is itself not enjoyable).

I don't know, but I find that kind of sad. You seem resigned to the fact that nearly half of your waking life is doing something that you don't like...

Maybe it's sad, but what can you do about it?

Kirby wrote:

kirkmc wrote:

entropi wrote:I like to separare things. Job can be enjoyable in which case you are lucky. But if it is not really enjoyable even though you sill have to do it for living, then you have two options:
Either you try to convince yourself that it is not that bad and pretend to enjoy it; or you simply accept the fact that your job is part of your life that allows you to do enjoyable things (but is itself not enjoyable).

I don't know, but I find that kind of sad. You seem resigned to the fact that nearly half of your waking life is doing something that you don't like...

Maybe it's sad, but what can you do about it?

Find a new job? Train yourself in something different? Go back to school? Don't resign yourself to being unhappy?

It may not be easy to make changes like that, but if you're really unhappy in your work, every day you put off trying to change is another day of unhappiness.

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." Try not to be one of them.

How do you find something that would make you happy, though? Apart from something like moving to the islands and becoming a charter boat captain, to take tourists fishing, I've never really had anything sound appealing.

Chew Terr wrote:How do you find something that would make you happy, though? Apart from something like moving to the islands and becoming a charter boat captain, to take tourists fishing, I've never really had anything sound appealing.

To add to this, I think that I have a lot of mood swings. One day I can think that my job is not that bad, and that things are looking up. But then the next day, I can feel bored with it.

Maybe I could compare it to looking at a piece of artwork. Maybe it's a great piece of artwork, and I really like it one day. But if I have to look at it every day, it starts to get old.

Is it really possible to find a piece of artwork that you'll admire for the rest of your career?

kirkmc wrote:

entropi wrote:I like to separare things. Job can be enjoyable in which case you are lucky. But if it is not really enjoyable even though you sill have to do it for living, then you have two options:
Either you try to convince yourself that it is not that bad and pretend to enjoy it; or you simply accept the fact that your job is part of your life that allows you to do enjoyable things (but is itself not enjoyable).

I don't know, but I find that kind of sad. You seem resigned to the fact that nearly half of your waking life is doing something that you don't like...

I don't know. That's life. A job is mainly there to pay the bills. If it can be fun too, then, you're lucky. It's probably hell to do a job you hate completely. But there are always non enjoyables parts. You still got to do it. Because it damn well pays the bills. And after you've been unemployed for a year, you know the difference between a merely annoying work with a salary and no work at all.

And all in all, it's rare that a work is all fun, but's it's seldom 100% bad too.

When something becomes really too boring, I try to convince my boss to get some change in my daily routines by taking on something new. Having to learn how to do something usually distracts me for a while. When I have a really stupid thing to do and my mind is going so crazy with boredom I can't get over it, I try listening to music. It helps.

What I don't like:
- non-paid overtime work
- being away from home repeatedly because customers have a habit of being too far away
- boring stuff like documentation, long and repeated configuration tasks, and so on. Necessary, but I would so rather have someone else doing it...
- Commercials are, well, commercials. They sell stuff without asking you, then it's your problem to deliver on time and budget.
- Customers are, well, customers. They tell you afterwards "Yeah, nice, but no, I changed my mind. Can you please do it a different way for no money? Delivery tomorrow?"

What I like:
- Solving technical problems and making people happy by saving their day ^^
- Being good at what I'm doing. Feeling happy about yourself makes life so much more enjoyable (in comparison to, for example, being unemployed)
- Nice people to work with and laugh about said customers and commercials
- Learning new things

I'm in IT. Someone doubted it?

Kirby wrote:

Chew Terr wrote:How do you find something that would make you happy, though? Apart from something like moving to the islands and becoming a charter boat captain, to take tourists fishing, I've never really had anything sound appealing.

To add to this, I think that I have a lot of mood swings. One day I can think that my job is not that bad, and that things are looking up. But then the next day, I can feel bored with it.

Maybe I could compare it to looking at a piece of artwork. Maybe it's a great piece of artwork, and I really like it one day. But if I have to look at it every day, it starts to get old.

Is it really possible to find a piece of artwork that you'll admire for the rest of your career?

I don't think so. That's why, personally, I've changed careers several times in my life. I like to say that I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up.

I'm currently reflecting on my next career change...