terrbear.org

[Preface: There are at least 4 people who read this blog who could think this post is directed at them. Each of those 4 would be wrong. This post was spurred when a douche at ST told me I didn’t have a “startup mentality” and should be working more like 12 hour days. That wasn’t the reason I quit, but that was the kind of bullshit mentality at ST.]

This post has actually been a few weeks in the making, mostly because I’ve been slammed moving and working and parenting and husbanding and, yeah, for whatever fault you can think of, I can think of an excuse.

Anyways, funny enough, DHH posted pretty much the same idea here.

Finding a place you like to work is hard. There’s shitty jobs (working with .NET), there’s shitty people (in my case, companies I, V, and ST), there’s shitty circumstances (absurd traveling), and there’s bad pay (self-explanatory). For lots of people, especially in the tech industry, the answer is to either (1) just be content in a bad job, and tell people that you work so you can enjoy the rest of your life, or (2) sprint balls out at a startup and hope that it means you get to retire early and live rich.

I think (1) is a bad compromise, because it means you’re never going to get any solid enjoyment out of your work. You’re rarely going to come home and be looking for someone to say, “I did the coolest thing today!” When someone asks, “how was work?” You’ll just answer, “eh.”

That’s not good. It means you’re wasting at least 40 hours of your life, per week. Keep in mind that those are (for most of us) 40 *waking* hours. That’s easily over half the day. Almost every day. For probably 50-60 years (with longer life expectancies, us younger folk should look forward to later retirement).

I think (2) is a bad gamble. Most of the people I associate with are in their 20s or 30s. This is when you have the most energy, you’ll be most passionate, and you’ll come up with the best ideas. This is when people who love their work do great things. Unfortunately, somewhere along the last few decades in America, people have decided that to be great, you have to be first to the market, disruptive, and use AJAX. This means (1) you have to work a ton to beat everybody else out, (2) you’ll be negotiating ever changing requirements because disruptive isn’t easy or predictable, and (3) you’ll be debugging javascript.

So, in your 20s and 30s, when if you’re not married or dating you arguably should be, if you don’t have kids you’re hopefully thinking about them, if you do have kids you’re hopefully spending time with them, you’re making investments that will determine the rest of your financial life, and you’ve got enough energy to enjoy the beach and late night alcohol binges, do you want to be working at a place that asks for more like 60-80 hours of your week, demands 24/7 availability, and while paying you enough and promising future riches, doesn’t afford you an opportunity to enjoy your salary?

No. Thanks.

I think one route less traveled is to find a job you like. You know, one that pays well - at least what you’re worth. One that doesn’t demand tons of time during the week regularly. One that provides tons of vacation, and using it is strongly encouraged. One where you use tools and technologies you’re passionate about. One where you get to come home and brag to your wife (who doesn’t have any idea what you’re talking about, but you proceed anyway) about your beastly accomplishment earlier in the day.

I’m a self-admitted job hopper, because to this point I’ve flatly refused to deal with shitty working conditions for any extended period of time. I’ve been lucky enough to be in a market where there’s new jobs coming up all the time, and thus far I’ve picked the correct technologies and career paths to make myself more marketable each job change.

When I was at Company ST I came off like a hardcore family guy. That’s not entirely true. I love my family, but the reason I came off so strongly was because my job sucked donkey balls. At Company N, I’ve pretty much hit the jack pot as far as workload, salary, vacation, people, work, travel, etc. While it’s a startup, and some people do have stock options, I’m happy to just be working and having a good time, and then coming home and having a good time with the family with plenty of time to spare. While I wouldn’t turn down a few million dollars, I wouldn’t trade anything that I have now for a “we’re going to be really big - things are going to change, I can feel it” opportunity.

Oh, and if anything I described sounds fun to work with (Rails, great people, nice office, free drinks and snacks, better than competitive pay, 1month vacation/year, me), shoot me an email or ping me or leave a comment and I’ll be in touch.