How much does work matter to you?

[⋖ cørdion ⋗]

I've personally had a lackluster career so far thanks to unqualified parents not setting me up to succeed, so I've always been rather piqued/triggered by talks of jobbing, at least until I meet someone who'd rather ask 10 other questions before reaching education or work. This more or less led me to the inoffensive assumption that two kinds of people exist: Those who work the bare minimum to support the rest of their life, or those that use their job to justify the rest of their life absolutely sucking. Those who work 12 hours a week for free to save face in their suit-n-tie job in a leased car they can't afford.

Where do you fall on the scale? I'd like to think the healthiest approach is that work takes up 1/3 of your life so you spend 1/3 of your energy trying to better your work, but not in the sense it keeps you up at night but neither do you sleepwalk through a minimum wage job due to inaction. Half my coworkers are about to retire and all worked vastly more prestigious jobs; some with yacht company parties and such, but none of them seem to regret their 'fall', all because they've got partner, kids and grandkids. Job is a "doesn't have to suck too bad" to them, even though they obviously wish they had stuck in a better job.

I feel like my late-millennial generation is especially bad at romanticizing the hustle until they experience a death in the family and realize burning out in 3 years to make 11% more isn't all that, when they're already on course to own property and two cars.

 

[Joe Swanson]

You should be proud of the fruits of your labour and its effects on your local community. If you're working for globohomocorp getting underpayed while enriching the costal elites you should put in the bare minimum you need to survive comfortably, but if you're working for your community you should put in more effort as it benefits you

 

[Trump's Chosen]

I am profoundly lazy. I get by, but it's embarrassing to tell people the truth of what I do. As a result, I've stopped telling people what I do. I give vague or nonsense answers. People aren't that interested to begin with. Some assume I'm a drugdealer, but I've never done anything illegal as far as I know. I'll let them believe it though and play into it. People close to me know what I really do, obviously.

Not answering questions about what I do has been the most cost efficient way to deal with the embarrassment.

As for caring about work... I tried to give a fuck. I really did. Even did some therapy to figure out why I wasn't motivated. In the end it just gave me the certainty that I don't care at a very deep level.

 

[DefinitelyNotMe]

i would be bored to death without something to do
sure sometimes you crush on your couch with clothes on to nap for 2 hours right after work but even then i struggle to find something to do as i left alone with myself
i dont want to play video games anymore, i do draw and read but sometimes i feel like i need to switch my free time activity
if i had to deal with it all day everyday i would went completely nuts
im pretty sure why NEETs are as freaks as they are

 

[Pierre D'Olnique]

Very little. I do what's expected of me and don't go an inch beyond that. I'm fully capable of doing an entire month's worth of work in 4-5 days, but the employer doesn't need to know this.

 

[BradeRunna]

75-80% of alcoholism in the US is work related.

Nobody works for fun. That shit's for bored housewives. People work so they can pay their rent bills and buy food. No one says Gee I'm bored I might go get a job today for fun.

 

[Defensive Ella Purnell]

Not at all, I don't go above and beyond and as soon as I never take it home with me but even still I generally enjoy my job and the people I work with.

 

[Spud]

I've personally had a lackluster career so far thanks to unqualified parents not setting me up to succeed

So you're just gonna blame everyone else but yourself for the choices that you made rather than take any initiative to somewhat improve your life. You have the career you deserve.

 

[Soi Woh Jak]

I do support the maxim "a man has to work to eat" but the quality of the work, the meaning of the work, state of various industries have radically declined after the 2000s. I don't feel like I've learned much in my two years of IT work, I don't feel like I've made a difference to someone somewhere, it's like manual labour without the spiritual fulfillment or health benefits of manual labour, I'll be having orthopedic problems, eye problems, diet problems and whatever else by the time I'm 50. It's not even the cutting edge work done during the early days of computing, it's not calculated and efficient, it's all just endless bloat and documentation with no time for personal/private life, for learning or for hobbies. The industries are also heavily gatekept and you can't get through on pure skill, you have to engage in networking and nepotism to get in. All of these things and other issues combined together to rot the industrial world. Hopefully things change, hopefully there is some radical industry change across the service industries, this endless growth service model is poison. Personally, I think the only way things will improve for myself is a worldwide tech blackout or collapse, tech is too complex and too unstable, the layers of bloat complexity and abstraction in code is sickeningly disgusting. We need to go back to the basics, to ASM and compiler design and optimising for lower level hardware.

 

[Idiotron]

If you don't pursue something you want to do, a job is just a way to pay the bills and buy food.
It doesn't matter that much, it's only money, you shouldn't focus on it.
If you do manage to get a job you might not want but it pays well, invest your spare money, don't just buy 158 video games on Steam that you won't play anyway or fill your room with figurines.
Why? So that you can retire earlier and then you will need to do less work that you don't like.

Focusing on a career without anything else to drive you will make you wither away and die.
Find something else to be your focus.

 

[Trump's Chosen]

So you're just gonna blame everyone else but yourself for the choices that you made rather than take any initiative to somewhat improve your life. You have the career you deserve.

It's definitely true that the time to stop blaming your parents is the day you turn 18. Though it's also true that where you are at 18 can differ wildly in part due to your parents.

Elaborate @⋖ cørdion ⋗ . What's the real reason your career is lackluster? And you really even care that it is?

 

[CAPTAIN HAPPY]

As much as the need for money to live lol

 

[Dawdler]

It only brings shekels I can exchange for transport, housing or food. There's not much benefit otherwise

 

[UnfOrtuNatE BaskEtt]

If you are working for someone else/some company, well...we are all prostitutes, at some level: These are the things I will do for money.

Most of the managers I have had weren't fit to clean the fukn toilets, let alone review "My Performance"....worst managers are women. Worst women managers are black. The workplace is a place where stabbing someone in the back is OK. Female managers are all superiority, but when the shit hits the fan they will slink away from any responsibility. Some male managers can be the same.

Jobs/Employers etc...Use them, be mercenary, smile in their faces but give them nothing...they will use you and discard you like a used condom. Treat the workplace as enemy territory, and act as if you are being recored at all times - because you are, either by cameras, or by colleagues eager to hear you say something they can quote to others...and thereby damage your standing. Being professional often means simply being silent.

Invest in property (don't tell people at work) and let other people pay you for simply living in your property - passive income. You get your rent money income even if you stay in bed all month. Only truly work for yourself.

 

[Ravier Xavenblood]

I try when we do projects and whatnot, but I don't go out of my way to do extra stuff unless I'm super bored. I'm just not a "live to work" type of guy and I never will be, probably because I wasn't lobotomized as a kid. And don't even get me started on socializing with people in my department. Most of the time I got nothing to say and I don't really care about "muh wife muh kids muh car" but sometimes we have chats about technology or video games.


My job is decent, too. People in my specific role hardly ever work more than 40 hours a week, we get vacation and benefits, but I make BARELY enough to afford a studio apartment around here.

 

[urr13 account]

thanks to unqualified parents not setting me up to succeed

What an incredibly pathetic way to start what could have been an interesting thread.

 

[Napoleon Bonerfart]

If you want to get a job offer, look the interviewer squarely in the face and say "my loyalty is to delivering for the customer and I will burn your business down if necessary to achieve that."

 

[Lian Xing]

How much does work matter to you?

Just enough to not get fired, and even then, it is a struggle.

 

[⋖ cørdion ⋗]

It's definitely true that the time to stop blaming your parents is the day you turn 18. Though it's also true that where you are at 18 can differ wildly in part due to your parents.

Elaborate @⋖ cørdion ⋗ . What's the real reason your career is lackluster? And you really even care that it is?

I don't blame them at all, but I've lived long enough, seen enough people and had enough aspirations for my own parenthood to realize they didn't do the bare minimum. I've seen broke-ass families set aside $15 a month each and hand over 5 digits the day they turn 18. I don't subscribe to "the world is chaos and nothing is fair", so often I forget that other people had these things. I'll see someone say "my parents are both professors" and I realize that you could indeed simply be set up to succeed from having parents with such skills and interests, and I happened not to.

I see now that "broke ahh nigga becoming a lawyer" is not as easily done as I thought, seeing as I failed to do so myself. We've always been told to study as far as you can and when you hit the wall, consider your options. Sadly I made it too far and skipped over many feasible 2-3 year semi-blue collar jobs I'd be happy in. I really don't care for my master's as something to "use" nor does the measly funds invested matter to me. I just know that I'd be happier in an office job, for one at least not ruining my body, and it seems increasingly unlikely I'll make the transition. Even comp sci graduates have gone from 20 job offers to 1 internship upon graduating in a matter of 2-3 years.

Work matters to me exclusively because I moved 2 hours away from childhood and family to study. I've no friends, hobbies or social things going for me, so my immediate go-to in terms of life progress and quality is work. And the lack of advancements therein. I've worked this job for 1.5 years out of the 30-40 I'm going to, so it's lunacy to even be this doomer about it, yet I see people in this thread saying they work "bare minimum", likely making twice my rate. All I wanted in life is a dog and that don't require 6 digits.

What an incredibly pathetic way to start what could have been an interesting thread.

So what, you needed a proper start to get going? Sounds oddly relevant.

 

[YHWH's Strongest Soldier]

I really don't care for my master's as something to "use" nor does the measly funds invested matter to me.

A master's in law? Maybe start a law podcast and become an alcoholic or something, I hear there's a vacancy.