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Emotionally detaching. I was a workaholic from age 16 until 33 and this was my primary identity. I used to always be proud of the work I did, no matter how lame

Emotionally detaching. I was a workaholic from age 16 until 33 and this was my primary identity. I used to always be proud of the work I did, no matter how lame the company or how many times I was screwed over. Then one day my father died, and I was fired from a company who I truly believed in and for whom I had sacrificed. This sounds cynical, but it's really peaceful. With the emotional energy and sheer time saved I am able to cultivate strong relationships, passionate devote myself to music, be a better father/husband/son, discover new interests that have nothing to do with the internet. I frequently espouse the virtues of a "Fuck you, pay me" work attitude, and I recommend everybody examine their relationship with their careers and ask themselves if on their deathbed they will wish they had worked more.

peteridah 8y ago
This resonates with me so much. I am currently trying to do the same.
logronoide 8y ago
I was going to write exactly what you just published. You can’t imagine how I identify with you.
tobbe2064 8y ago
There was a deathbed survey where they asked everybody what they would do different and virtualy all of the correspondents answered that they would have spent more time with family and worked less
m_fayer 8y ago
It seems intuitive to me that the thing you pour your intellect, attention, and care into for 7-9 hours a day 5 days a week should be meaningful and fulfilling. On the other hand, hanging meaning and mission over one's head seems like a great way to manipulate and underpay them, and being susceptible to this seems like a great way to become a useful idiot. Squaring these two views is something I struggle with.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
  Not everybody can have a job doing something they find meaningful and fulfilling, best not to delude yourself into thinking yours is if it isn't.
  - brianwawok 8y ago
    The counter to this is one can find meaning and fulfillment in any task, by doing it well and to the best of ones ability.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
      But why do that if it only makes things worse for you in the end? Better to find meaning in things you don't have to delude yourself about and view your job as what it probably is: just a means to sustain your quality of life.
      - Vraxx 8y ago
        good point, I think GP's counter is a counter only if you accept as a premise that you must find fulfillment in your work. Otherwise this point undercuts it by attacking that implicit premise.
- ollerac 8y ago
  I think it's easier to cope with this tension if you embrace the other parts of your life that are meaningful, as OP is alluding to. It's a lot harder for a company to manipulate someone if they have alternate ways to derive meaning and emotional support. For me, this involves always having a side project that's fulfilling. I think this sincere desire for unexploitable meaning is why a lot of engineers try to start startups.
- koonsolo 8y ago
  I might have a solution for you: Look at yourself as an independent contractor, even if you are an employee. This way you can put out your best work & work on things that excite you, but are still protected from manipulation and underpay. Your customer is your employer. He's also the main person that needs to be pleased with your work. Companies try to push the "This company is all of us" mentality, but in some situations it becomes painfully clear that it wasn't.
Tistel 8y ago
I am trying to learn how to do this! Teach me!
- apohn 8y ago
  I think the sad truth is that most people learn this the hard way. You care too much until you feel badly betrayed by the company or get totally burned out. Then you realize one of the major causes was the emotional attachment and you need to let it go.
  - retiredcoder 8y ago
    After 10+ years in the industry, I let myself fall the “passion at work, coworkers are your friends, etc”. I don’t know why... I guess I was a bit tired to be always cynical and let my guards down. After quitting, I then realized that I was a fool and that hurted even more.
bungie4 8y ago
Yup. Hard lesson. The contract between employer and employee is a simple one. You trade skill and time for money [Period].
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
skaber 8y ago
I also adopted a similar work approach earlier this year. Worked crazy hard 16-33 y/o with extra non-paid hours. I now manage all work shoved on my plate as a priorized backlog and no longer allow people to drive the priorities given to me. I am somehow in a high level position with many teams to manage and avoid at all costs offloading tasks to others without these items being filtered through my lisl first. I always make sure that I won't interrupt someone else's current tasks. I also have discovered the power of requesting to people that they send me an email with all the detailed informations for a particular task. With IM such as slack these days, people tend to throw away their responsabilites on others cause it's just so easy to do. Overall, I think that being more calm and facing the truth than I no longer want to accomplish more than 40h a week as resulted in me working better without any comprises.
Gonzih 8y ago
I only realized and adopted this after 2 burnouts.
JustSomeNobody 8y ago
> I frequently espouse the virtues of a "Fuck you, pay me" work attitude... One can enjoy the company they work for, but at the end of the day, they're not family and the loyalty only goes one way. Employment is a business contract and business is about making money. A company is going to try and wring everything they can out of you, so you should absolutely do the same.
codingdave 8y ago
The deathbed perspective is highly effective at sorting out what really matters. I've struggled with health issues for a few years now, and I ask myself regularly, "If I were to die in 6 months, would I be satisfied with having spent the last 6 months of my life doing this work?" Often the answer is yes. A job is a good thing. Currently, I work for a company doing meaningful work, with a decent team, and a product that is heading the right direction. I get a decent paycheck to support my family and let us have some fun, and go home and see my family earlier than most. On the flip side, if the organization changes, the answer can flip to no and it becomes time to leave. Sticking with a place that used to be a "Yes" after it turns to "No" is a painful experience, and people frequently stick around too long because of how things used to be. This is where the emotional detachment matters -- It is critical to your well-being to recognize when that answer flips.
benmorris 8y ago
This was a hard lesson to learn for me as well. It is something I strive for now though even running my own business. I maintain boundaries like strict work hours and try to keep my work away from my life outside of work.
- CityYogi 8y ago
  I am halfway between quitting a job I have dedicated myself to in the last 5-6 years. Making this call is so hard
  - retiredcoder 8y ago
    After 5 jobs, I can tell you it will never be an easy call, even if you dont really like the job, company is sinking, bad management, etc. But like the initial commenter said, less attachment helps and time will perspective.
apohn 8y ago
IME another benefit of this is you can attract a more reasonable class of people at work. When you can be manipulated by guilt and "the VP wants this tomorrow, it's high visibility", the most manipulative people in your org are going to latch onto you and praise you. If you are emotionally detached from this type of behavior, other people who are emotionally detached will be more willing to associate with you because they do not fear getting sucked into projects created by those manipulative people. Note that emotionally detached does not equal lazy or bad worker. Some of the best people I know are emotionally invested in their work (e.g. being an awesome developer), but they are not emotionally attached to the manipulative drama you see in every office and being the knight in shining armor who comes running in to put out fires that somebody else created.
- rc_mob 8y ago
  Yeah, I'm not afraid to put in long hours here and there. But I refuse to make a habbit of it, and have clear lines in the sand of how much extra time I'll put it.
- sreyaNotfilc 8y ago
  That hits close to home for me recently. I was very attached to the company I work for that I sacrificed myself for it. I've, in a way, lost who I am as a person, and became more-or-less a tool that produces code. Not a human at all. About a month ago, I put in leave for the first time in 4 years. I rarely take the day off, so this was a big deal. And, I felt kinda guilty doing it. Even though the rest of the team took their time off, I felt I had to be the responsible one. Well, the week before the leave was to occur, we had an "important demo" to get ready for. This demo was something out of the blue, but I was asked to still work during my leave. I said "OK" an was really pissed. That night I couldn't sleep. I felt that I put in all my quality work, why can I not take my proper leave like everyone else? The next day, I put my leave back in and took a nice restful week off last week! The world didn't end. I'm still employed, and the demo (the all important demo) was canceled because other devs haven't even finished their work. It felt good to be detached emotionally. Never again will I sacrifice my personal time again at work. Its not worth it to yourself, and also to the company.
yifanl 8y ago
I've taken the attitude that I should be as dispassionate as possible to the work I do. Which doesn't mean don't care about the work I do, but there's a point where I become a perfectionist over the projects I truly care about. It was actually one of my managers who told me to get some perspective about it, it was very hard for me to realize that my work ultimately doesn't define me.
- Renee-Helten 8y ago
  That's great you even realized it and made changes in your attitude towards your work.
mywacaday 8y ago
The deathbed scenario is something I use regularly when faced with a difficult decision. Cuts a lot of BS out of decisions
rb808 8y ago
As a related note - why do employers prefer younger devs? Because they haven't learnt this lesson yet.
- wmeredith 8y ago
  Bingo. It’s the same reason marketers love the 15-34 demographic. They haven’t woken up to the bullshit yet.
- rb808 8y ago
  Actually I've noticed that many of the new grads recently all go home early and really dont care that much. I'm not sure if they're sensible, or maybe attracted to the industry because of the jobs and money and aren't really that interested in tech. Or just dont know what a tough job market looks like. But seems different now.
srinathkrishna 8y ago
This is something I struggle with every single day for the last year. I value how much I get out of work in terms of learning and improvement and have had a pretty ok last couple of stints with a lot of things happening outside of my control. I wish this could be easier.
gautamdivgi 8y ago
Totally agree. Also, in corporate environments a lot of times “work” is something done to make higher ups look good. Most “urgent” work also falls into this category. It’s usually optional nonsense that could wait.
grigjd3 8y ago
I would not use the same language you use, but certainly one should see a job for what it really is: an agreement to do work for money that will be kept up as long as it is in both parties best interest, aka a business arangement.
richpimp 8y ago
The crazy part about overworking in the software development industry is that, at least from where I am (TN, US), job opportunities are abundant. I could maybe slightly understand working the crazy hours if ours was an industry where jobs were scarce or competition was cutthroat, but I've never had issues getting work. Yeah, maybe I won't be working on the sexiest thing, or making as much as I'd like, but I'm going to land on my feet pretty well. My little bit of advice: save enough money for your emergency fund. I recommend at least six months worth of expenses. Not just for your primary bills, either, add up how much you actually spend in a month on everything and save 6 times that. That way, if you end up in a shitty situation, you can walk away and not have to worry about money, and you don't have to start eating ramen noodles everyday. I feel like money (or the lack thereof) is usually the reason why people put with so much crap. You don't need FU money, just enough to give you a comfortable runway to getting a new job. If you're even a halfway decent developer and you're in a decent market, six months should be plenty of time to get a new job.
- quickthrower2 8y ago
  The great thing about quitting before you find the next job is you are now full time job hunting, and can spend time prepping like you can never do when you have a job (especially a shitty one you are trying to escape). You are less likely to be desperate (as long as you have the money), so can be more fussy and pick a great job.
kerrsclyde 8y ago
Made this mistake too. When I started back in paid employment I set myself ground rules of working when I am work, no email/messaging outside of work, arrive on time, leave on time, no overtime paid or unpaid, not thinking about work when I am not there, no socialising with colleagues and keep personal chit-chat to a minimum. I found that this made me a better employee - focused on completing work quickly during the working day. Easier to set these ground rules when you start with a company, also easier to set when you are 40 than 20.
coaxial 8y ago
The people I know who have the approach you have now seem to have a harder time finding a job, because every employer expects their engineers to be passionate about whatever it is they're disrupting which signals that they'll work without counting their hours. What is your secret?
- Ellolo17 8y ago
  Its easy: Lie in your job interview ;) (not about how much you know or how much did you accomplished, but how naïve/hirable you are)
elindbe2 8y ago
It kind of blows my mind that people actually get attached to their work like that. I have friends to are like this but I just don't get it. Personally I just have never cared nor even been able to care about company problems beyond what I am asked to do to get paid in a narrow sense.

peteridah 8y ago

This resonates with me so much. I am currently trying to do the same.

logronoide 8y ago

I was going to write exactly what you just published. You can’t imagine how I identify with you.

tobbe2064 8y ago

There was a deathbed survey where they asked everybody what they would do different and virtualy all of the correspondents answered that they would have spent more time with family and worked less

m_fayer 8y ago

It seems intuitive to me that the thing you pour your intellect, attention, and care into for 7-9 hours a day 5 days a week should be meaningful and fulfilling. On the other hand, hanging meaning and mission over one's head seems like a great way to manipulate and underpay them, and being susceptible to this seems like a great way to become a useful idiot. Squaring these two views is something I struggle with.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
Not everybody can have a job doing something they find meaningful and fulfilling, best not to delude yourself into thinking yours is if it isn't.
- brianwawok 8y ago
  The counter to this is one can find meaning and fulfillment in any task, by doing it well and to the best of ones ability.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
    But why do that if it only makes things worse for you in the end? Better to find meaning in things you don't have to delude yourself about and view your job as what it probably is: just a means to sustain your quality of life.
    - Vraxx 8y ago
      good point, I think GP's counter is a counter only if you accept as a premise that you must find fulfillment in your work. Otherwise this point undercuts it by attacking that implicit premise.
ollerac 8y ago
I think it's easier to cope with this tension if you embrace the other parts of your life that are meaningful, as OP is alluding to. It's a lot harder for a company to manipulate someone if they have alternate ways to derive meaning and emotional support. For me, this involves always having a side project that's fulfilling. I think this sincere desire for unexploitable meaning is why a lot of engineers try to start startups.
koonsolo 8y ago
I might have a solution for you: Look at yourself as an independent contractor, even if you are an employee. This way you can put out your best work & work on things that excite you, but are still protected from manipulation and underpay. Your customer is your employer. He's also the main person that needs to be pleased with your work. Companies try to push the "This company is all of us" mentality, but in some situations it becomes painfully clear that it wasn't.

Tistel 8y ago

I am trying to learn how to do this! Teach me!

apohn 8y ago
I think the sad truth is that most people learn this the hard way. You care too much until you feel badly betrayed by the company or get totally burned out. Then you realize one of the major causes was the emotional attachment and you need to let it go.
- retiredcoder 8y ago
  After 10+ years in the industry, I let myself fall the “passion at work, coworkers are your friends, etc”. I don’t know why... I guess I was a bit tired to be always cynical and let my guards down. After quitting, I then realized that I was a fool and that hurted even more.

bungie4 8y ago

Yup. Hard lesson. The contract between employer and employee is a simple one. You trade skill and time for money [Period].

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

skaber 8y ago

I also adopted a similar work approach earlier this year. Worked crazy hard 16-33 y/o with extra non-paid hours. I now manage all work shoved on my plate as a priorized backlog and no longer allow people to drive the priorities given to me. I am somehow in a high level position with many teams to manage and avoid at all costs offloading tasks to others without these items being filtered through my lisl first. I always make sure that I won't interrupt someone else's current tasks. I also have discovered the power of requesting to people that they send me an email with all the detailed informations for a particular task. With IM such as slack these days, people tend to throw away their responsabilites on others cause it's just so easy to do. Overall, I think that being more calm and facing the truth than I no longer want to accomplish more than 40h a week as resulted in me working better without any comprises.

Gonzih 8y ago

I only realized and adopted this after 2 burnouts.

JustSomeNobody 8y ago

> I frequently espouse the virtues of a "Fuck you, pay me" work attitude... One can enjoy the company they work for, but at the end of the day, they're not family and the loyalty only goes one way. Employment is a business contract and business is about making money. A company is going to try and wring everything they can out of you, so you should absolutely do the same.

codingdave 8y ago

The deathbed perspective is highly effective at sorting out what really matters. I've struggled with health issues for a few years now, and I ask myself regularly, "If I were to die in 6 months, would I be satisfied with having spent the last 6 months of my life doing this work?" Often the answer is yes. A job is a good thing. Currently, I work for a company doing meaningful work, with a decent team, and a product that is heading the right direction. I get a decent paycheck to support my family and let us have some fun, and go home and see my family earlier than most. On the flip side, if the organization changes, the answer can flip to no and it becomes time to leave. Sticking with a place that used to be a "Yes" after it turns to "No" is a painful experience, and people frequently stick around too long because of how things used to be. This is where the emotional detachment matters -- It is critical to your well-being to recognize when that answer flips.

benmorris 8y ago

This was a hard lesson to learn for me as well. It is something I strive for now though even running my own business. I maintain boundaries like strict work hours and try to keep my work away from my life outside of work.

CityYogi 8y ago
I am halfway between quitting a job I have dedicated myself to in the last 5-6 years. Making this call is so hard
- retiredcoder 8y ago
  After 5 jobs, I can tell you it will never be an easy call, even if you dont really like the job, company is sinking, bad management, etc. But like the initial commenter said, less attachment helps and time will perspective.

apohn 8y ago

IME another benefit of this is you can attract a more reasonable class of people at work. When you can be manipulated by guilt and "the VP wants this tomorrow, it's high visibility", the most manipulative people in your org are going to latch onto you and praise you. If you are emotionally detached from this type of behavior, other people who are emotionally detached will be more willing to associate with you because they do not fear getting sucked into projects created by those manipulative people. Note that emotionally detached does not equal lazy or bad worker. Some of the best people I know are emotionally invested in their work (e.g. being an awesome developer), but they are not emotionally attached to the manipulative drama you see in every office and being the knight in shining armor who comes running in to put out fires that somebody else created.

rc_mob 8y ago
Yeah, I'm not afraid to put in long hours here and there. But I refuse to make a habbit of it, and have clear lines in the sand of how much extra time I'll put it.
sreyaNotfilc 8y ago
That hits close to home for me recently. I was very attached to the company I work for that I sacrificed myself for it. I've, in a way, lost who I am as a person, and became more-or-less a tool that produces code. Not a human at all. About a month ago, I put in leave for the first time in 4 years. I rarely take the day off, so this was a big deal. And, I felt kinda guilty doing it. Even though the rest of the team took their time off, I felt I had to be the responsible one. Well, the week before the leave was to occur, we had an "important demo" to get ready for. This demo was something out of the blue, but I was asked to still work during my leave. I said "OK" an was really pissed. That night I couldn't sleep. I felt that I put in all my quality work, why can I not take my proper leave like everyone else? The next day, I put my leave back in and took a nice restful week off last week! The world didn't end. I'm still employed, and the demo (the all important demo) was canceled because other devs haven't even finished their work. It felt good to be detached emotionally. Never again will I sacrifice my personal time again at work. Its not worth it to yourself, and also to the company.

yifanl 8y ago

I've taken the attitude that I should be as dispassionate as possible to the work I do. Which doesn't mean don't care about the work I do, but there's a point where I become a perfectionist over the projects I truly care about. It was actually one of my managers who told me to get some perspective about it, it was very hard for me to realize that my work ultimately doesn't define me.

Renee-Helten 8y ago
That's great you even realized it and made changes in your attitude towards your work.

mywacaday 8y ago

The deathbed scenario is something I use regularly when faced with a difficult decision. Cuts a lot of BS out of decisions

rb808 8y ago

As a related note - why do employers prefer younger devs? Because they haven't learnt this lesson yet.

wmeredith 8y ago
Bingo. It’s the same reason marketers love the 15-34 demographic. They haven’t woken up to the bullshit yet.
rb808 8y ago
Actually I've noticed that many of the new grads recently all go home early and really dont care that much. I'm not sure if they're sensible, or maybe attracted to the industry because of the jobs and money and aren't really that interested in tech. Or just dont know what a tough job market looks like. But seems different now.

srinathkrishna 8y ago

This is something I struggle with every single day for the last year. I value how much I get out of work in terms of learning and improvement and have had a pretty ok last couple of stints with a lot of things happening outside of my control. I wish this could be easier.

gautamdivgi 8y ago

Totally agree. Also, in corporate environments a lot of times “work” is something done to make higher ups look good. Most “urgent” work also falls into this category. It’s usually optional nonsense that could wait.

grigjd3 8y ago

I would not use the same language you use, but certainly one should see a job for what it really is: an agreement to do work for money that will be kept up as long as it is in both parties best interest, aka a business arangement.

richpimp 8y ago

The crazy part about overworking in the software development industry is that, at least from where I am (TN, US), job opportunities are abundant. I could maybe slightly understand working the crazy hours if ours was an industry where jobs were scarce or competition was cutthroat, but I've never had issues getting work. Yeah, maybe I won't be working on the sexiest thing, or making as much as I'd like, but I'm going to land on my feet pretty well. My little bit of advice: save enough money for your emergency fund. I recommend at least six months worth of expenses. Not just for your primary bills, either, add up how much you actually spend in a month on everything and save 6 times that. That way, if you end up in a shitty situation, you can walk away and not have to worry about money, and you don't have to start eating ramen noodles everyday. I feel like money (or the lack thereof) is usually the reason why people put with so much crap. You don't need FU money, just enough to give you a comfortable runway to getting a new job. If you're even a halfway decent developer and you're in a decent market, six months should be plenty of time to get a new job.

quickthrower2 8y ago
The great thing about quitting before you find the next job is you are now full time job hunting, and can spend time prepping like you can never do when you have a job (especially a shitty one you are trying to escape). You are less likely to be desperate (as long as you have the money), so can be more fussy and pick a great job.

kerrsclyde 8y ago

Made this mistake too. When I started back in paid employment I set myself ground rules of working when I am work, no email/messaging outside of work, arrive on time, leave on time, no overtime paid or unpaid, not thinking about work when I am not there, no socialising with colleagues and keep personal chit-chat to a minimum. I found that this made me a better employee - focused on completing work quickly during the working day. Easier to set these ground rules when you start with a company, also easier to set when you are 40 than 20.

coaxial 8y ago

The people I know who have the approach you have now seem to have a harder time finding a job, because every employer expects their engineers to be passionate about whatever it is they're disrupting which signals that they'll work without counting their hours. What is your secret?

Ellolo17 8y ago
Its easy: Lie in your job interview ;) (not about how much you know or how much did you accomplished, but how naïve/hirable you are)

elindbe2 8y ago

It kind of blows my mind that people actually get attached to their work like that. I have friends to are like this but I just don't get it. Personally I just have never cared nor even been able to care about company problems beyond what I am asked to do to get paid in a narrow sense.