This adequately describes my life and job, except I stare at invoices all day entering similar information day in, day out, submittimg electronic data to a handful of government agencies for twelve and a half years now. I'm basically a piece of OCR software that's told to sit there, be quiet, be perfect, if you call in sick we're holding it against you, no you can't take time off that month is blacked out, no you don't need a cost of living raise, produce produce produce! I'll regularly just zone out for who knows how long, usually snapping back to the world when my head starts to dip or my eyes go unfocused enough to start to cause discomfort. Realizing, this is my 'life' and likely will be until I die.
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«????????»
"I Fall Asleep, Just Standing Like That"
and
"My Life’s Journey is Still Far from Complete"
hit way too close to home. You'd think my life would be drastically different in midwest America. I'm not standing at an assembly line, I didn't have to leave my home town to go far away to a factory, but I really am expected to be more machine than man. I'm expected to sit at a desk, not talk, limit my trips to the bathroom, limit getting up with the exception of the 2 daily parades of 2 laps around the office that are done as a group, if you're sick you're expected to be at work unless dying although every cold and flu season corporate stressed "if you're sick stay home" ha! Everything is about efficiency and production, merit-based increases rarely cover cost of living increases, I get 5 weeks of vacation a year but blocks of time get blacked out and we work any holiday that's on a weekday while local management (and most definitely corporate) is at home with their families.
I saw Office Space in theaters when I was 14. I thought it was satire. Oh how wrong I was. It is life. Actually, it's better than life.
While I enjoy the luxuries of sitting and, sometimes working HVAC (it was in the 80's in my office most of the summer), I do highly repetitive work that is effectively data entry that in 5, 10, 15 years OCR software will do the bulk of. Want to advance? Well, you better have a 4-6 year degree and be willing to move to other states multiple times to earn an extra 10-20%. Want to get sick? Do it on your own time. Want to take a vacation with your family? Ehhhh we'll see but don't count on it. Want to enjoy a holiday away from work? Hahahaha better be one of the few people that get drawn to have it off. Want a raise? Ok you can have a merit based increase once a year, if you were sick you get less, if you made a few errors each month while trying to make unrealistic production standards you get less, weren't cheerful enough based on your manager's arbitrary determination you get a little less...
I come on sites like HN, Reddit, even Facebook. I hear people talk about their jobs. I hear people bitch that the company retreat wasn't at some place cool this year, I hear people complain they only get 2 months of maternity/paternity leave, I hear them whine how oh boo hoo they have to work 4 more years at their job to be able to be FIRE (ha, I will have to work until the day I die, cry me a river), I hear that tens of thousands had the luxury of walking out of work to protest sexual harassment policy when I can't call in without a doctor's note or it counts against me and even with a doctor's note I know it's going to shave several tenths of a percent off of my MAYBE 2.6% merit-based increase on my annual review.
Damn Foxconn employees, I feel you. Oh how I feel you.
Thanks. I definitely don't live to work. As I said, definitely not a type-A, workaholic who loves office surveillance. I barely care about work at all. But I do have to spend most of my life doing it. And what it provides to me is routine and security. The routine part is almost more important to me than the financial security, just because of how my brain works. As I said, without the imperative to be somewhere during (most, preferably not all) regular days, I find it hard to hold it together, especially when I still have to motivate myself to do something as pointless as work for a corporation.
So yeah, I don't live to work. I couldn't care less. But I find it hard to find community at all. I try. I fail. The certainty that there is at least the people in the office keeps me going. I will continue to try.
## My Ideal Life
After racking my brains, I've tried my best to depict in my mind an ordinary day of my imagined life 5-6 years from now:
At 8 AM, I'm awakened by my phone alarm. I shout "Ah!" and open my eyes on the narrow single bed, throw off the covers, and quickly wash up before leaving my cheap room of less than 20 square meters. Then I take the subway to my company. The subway is crowded with office workers just like me.
After a struggle, I finally arrive at the company, clock in just on time, and start today's work under the supervisor's watchful eye. Sitting at my workstation, I see colleagues with increasingly thinning hair all around, rarely spotting any attractive sights. Then I bury myself in work (at least pretending to be very serious!). After a morning of "diligent" work (actually dozing off), the takeout lunch ordered with colleagues arrives. A few of us squat in a corner to solve our hunger problem and start chatting. After a short nap, another busy afternoon begins.
*The sun sets, though we might not be able to see it*, but the lights come on and we still haven't finished work. Recently, 996 (working 9 AM to 9 PM, 6 days a week) has become company policy, written in black and white, with reason and evidence, making it convincing. Finally, after finishing the last cup of coffee, we end our workday. A few of us go to a street stall for some skewers and beers before heading home separately. In bed, I open a dating app on my phone, checking for suitable candidates and arranging times to chat. Suddenly, my eyelids grow heavy, my vision blurs, getting darker and darker, and I fall asleep. In my dream, I see the boss doing arithmetic with my monthly salary of 10,000 yuan, which scares me so much that I cry out...
Or — In the morning, I wake up in my room in a third or fourth-tier small city. I do some warm-up exercises beside the bed, and after washing up, I ride my electric scooter to my workplace — a junior high school. I buy breakfast at a shop in front of the school gate, eating while pushing my scooter, occasionally greeting students or colleagues. Soon, I arrive at my office. Opening the door, I find not everyone has arrived, but those present are chatting, so I join in. When it's time for my Information Technology class, I go to the computer room to wait for the students. In class, I demonstrate the wonders and mysteries of computer science to the students, leading them into this world full of infinite mysteries, cultivating their interest. After work, I quickly ride my bike to pick up my girlfriend. She called to say she misses me (actually, she just wants me to accompany her shopping!). After dinner, we take a stroll, and she says she wants to get married. I immediately hold her hand, turn around, kneel on one knee, and put on the ring I've prepared for a long time, formally proposing...
I find all of this so hard to relate with. I’ve worked for a decade, have a high paying job and have been promoted multiple times but to me none of it is enjoyable. I don’t think I could ever be happy in a situation where I’m required to do something for 9 hours everyday. I can’t get around the idea that all of this a weak abstraction to make money and care very little for approval from authority figures.
Work isn’t life anymore. That’s where the serfdom analogy breaks down.
I am utterly subservient to those to whom I report. I obediently tug my forelock to HR all the way from 8am to 4:30pm but at that point I turn off my company devices and am my own person.
If you draw a $200k salary and work until bed-time in a shared flat with no garden then I suppose it’s a different story — one of the chattel post-grad SWE — but at least you have $300 a day on which to live.
Sounds like someone who's whole life revolves around their work. Of course, if your whole life is about work, then it will only be finalized by perishing.
Not an American, just a human being, but I was not brought into this world to work for 60 years in a job I only tolerate and then die. Forget that. That idea makes me sick to my stomach when I think about it. I am a human being and I am capable of so much more than I can even imagine. We all are. It’s a shame so much if us are forced to spend the best parts of our lives chained to a desk.
I'm the exact opposite. I enjoy the cushy FTE positions in European companies where I can automate my work away to the point where 1-2 hours of actual effort is all I need to put in. I don't find any satisfaction in doing a good job for a company not my own, and spend my focus and energy doing my hobbies, socialising, living my life in bliss. Most workaholics I knew my life were miserable people who hated their life and didn't sleep enough.
My work is my life's dream. I did it for years as a hobby making no $ (losing money really) and worked terrible tech jobs I hated until I could switch the two.
Now I work 80 hours per week but it feels like 5. So it's not work to me.
I know I am. I'm dreading living paycheck to paycheck being pushed into a specialism in which people only think I'm capable of doing that. Eventually, I'll be able to safe a bit, but it doesn't mean that I can take a break from work. It's nice to have 25 vacation days (yay Europe), but I'd prefer, hmm... 3 months? Not gonna happen? I get that, from an economic point of view, but from an "enjoy life" point of view, that would be where I'd want to be, or perhaps even 6 months. I'd work the other 6, that's how much I want to work.
Recently, I asked at a new job that I was about to start if I can work 4 days per week instead of 5. Now they're doubting to even hire me. Screw this. Contracts don't make sense, they claim you trade time for money, but that's a lie, otherwise I could work 20% less than what's normal.
When I did enjoy life, I was at university.
I didn't have those concerns and I studied whatever I felt like. I enjoyed life then. Also when I'm on vacation and know that I can take a break from worrying, then I also can enjoy life, or maybe it's simply that hiking with good friends is amazing.
It's easy to enjoy life given unconstrained resources. Unfortunately, I see that we're mostly resource starved. Rent? That's about a 2 week paycheck (otherwise 3).
With that said, it beats dying because you don't have access to medicine. It beats a lot of things that medieval people used to do. It's better.
Giving too much importance to work is stupid (IMHO) and its a highway to feeling your life was entire shit by the end of it whenever that is... I think this pandemic serves as the best example to how disposable you are to a company... Just one more replacable cog in the machine...
100% this. I had a government job, could have worked my way to a nice pension and everything... but I realized a few years in that my mental health probably would not survive the slog. Half the average day (easily) was totally eaten up by small talk, surfing the web and/or making personal journal entries. Another quarter of the day was meetings, often with snacks. I took long lunches.
There were days when I did probably less than hour of actual work. And all the while I kept thinking, "why was I happier when I had my nose to the grind in the private sector?"
Most people need to feel useful on some level or they lose motivation and their brains go sour. There are exceptions to this rule, and those people should definitely dedicate their lives to finding a cushy office job. I would literally rather drive rideshare, and I have. [Not since March 12th, though-- fortunately my S.O. is able to cover bills until I can go back to driving and/or try to find a software job worth showing up for again.]
And I dislike the trope of working being orthogonal to quality of life. Sitting in front of the computer working on my own thing is the ultimate enjoyment. That's what's giving me a quality life.
Our society has drilled into us that in order to be successful, we have to go to college, we need to make money, have money in our 401ks, fund our retirement accounts, take on mortgages, take on loans, use our credit cards, buy a new car every few years, have kids, all while realizing how much you're barely just breaking even to afford the lifestyle that you chose.
I fear the day when my reality sets in.. and I have no memories of anyone or anything I ever did because I was staring at a computer screen all day. I'm in the same boat: working for multiple companies as full-time to part-time to freelance to contract. I can't sleep because I don't feel productive. And the little sleep I get is enough that I'm okay to get up and get going again.
I do not even drink coffee. I try to swim at least an hour a day, and bike for at least a half hour to keep the muscles going and strong. Sitting at a desk all day and then coming home and sitting more... mentally and physically exhausting.
I am addicted to tech and the Internet and my addiction is fed by my skills to keep feeding my visions to life. Rick and Morty moment. Rick has no meaning as a scientist because he knows the truth about the universe and everything in it. Joker moment. When you're good at something, never do it for free. Do what you do best to live the life you want.
I know work is going to be boring sometimes. I know there is going to be drudgery and pain and monotony. Well aware of all of those facts. There's maybe somewhere between that regular boringness and pain we have to put into our work and me waking up for a job every day and thinking to myself "I'm wasting my life."
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.
--
«????????» "I Fall Asleep, Just Standing Like That"
and
"My Life’s Journey is Still Far from Complete"
hit way too close to home. You'd think my life would be drastically different in midwest America. I'm not standing at an assembly line, I didn't have to leave my home town to go far away to a factory, but I really am expected to be more machine than man. I'm expected to sit at a desk, not talk, limit my trips to the bathroom, limit getting up with the exception of the 2 daily parades of 2 laps around the office that are done as a group, if you're sick you're expected to be at work unless dying although every cold and flu season corporate stressed "if you're sick stay home" ha! Everything is about efficiency and production, merit-based increases rarely cover cost of living increases, I get 5 weeks of vacation a year but blocks of time get blacked out and we work any holiday that's on a weekday while local management (and most definitely corporate) is at home with their families.
I saw Office Space in theaters when I was 14. I thought it was satire. Oh how wrong I was. It is life. Actually, it's better than life.
While I enjoy the luxuries of sitting and, sometimes working HVAC (it was in the 80's in my office most of the summer), I do highly repetitive work that is effectively data entry that in 5, 10, 15 years OCR software will do the bulk of. Want to advance? Well, you better have a 4-6 year degree and be willing to move to other states multiple times to earn an extra 10-20%. Want to get sick? Do it on your own time. Want to take a vacation with your family? Ehhhh we'll see but don't count on it. Want to enjoy a holiday away from work? Hahahaha better be one of the few people that get drawn to have it off. Want a raise? Ok you can have a merit based increase once a year, if you were sick you get less, if you made a few errors each month while trying to make unrealistic production standards you get less, weren't cheerful enough based on your manager's arbitrary determination you get a little less...
I come on sites like HN, Reddit, even Facebook. I hear people talk about their jobs. I hear people bitch that the company retreat wasn't at some place cool this year, I hear people complain they only get 2 months of maternity/paternity leave, I hear them whine how oh boo hoo they have to work 4 more years at their job to be able to be FIRE (ha, I will have to work until the day I die, cry me a river), I hear that tens of thousands had the luxury of walking out of work to protest sexual harassment policy when I can't call in without a doctor's note or it counts against me and even with a doctor's note I know it's going to shave several tenths of a percent off of my MAYBE 2.6% merit-based increase on my annual review.
Damn Foxconn employees, I feel you. Oh how I feel you.
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