
Am I Happy At Work? Analyzing my entire career - madjackwalker
https://www.trackinghappiness.com/happy-at-work/
======
guhcampos
I don't want to sound an asshole, but I will sound an assholle nevertheless.

I was damn happy as one can be at 3.5 years in my career. 10 years in, I feel
like my happiness and awesomeness has been slowly consumed by corporate
politics, unfair promotions and layoffs, bad work ethics and the such.

I still like my work. I really really enjoy it when it's productive, and I
still feel amazed to see the green checkmark on my CI after a long and
challenging git push - but after so many years and a couple companies it's
just work.

There are some real cool places and projects to work though, you just need to
dig through the "look we're cool let us enslave you" crap.

~~~
kilroy123
I feel exactly the same way and also just hit the 10-year mark. I'm literally
working at the worst place I have ever worked at in my career. Next Friday
will be my last day.

I'm seriously considering trying to get out of tech forever after this last
gig. I'm moving to Asia in a few weeks to try to work on bootstrapping a small
company.

~~~
oceanman888
Good for you and good luck!

just curious which Asian country?

~~~
kilroy123
Thailand first. Then maybe I'll roam around. Vietnam, Cambodia, etc.

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fallingfrog
They wouldn't call it work/life balance if work was really part of your life.
It's dead time, lost time. I've always felt that way anyhow. You can convince
yourself otherwise maybe, if you're a musician or something. For most people
though that's the truth of it.

~~~
mikekchar
I think you have it the other way around. People for whom work is dead, lost
time really need to get their work/life balance sorted out. If you view work
as part of your life, then it's a much less binary view of prioritisation.
This doesn't mean that you shouldn't prioritise. It just means that the
prioritisation is more nuanced than: do what I don't like for 8 hours and then
do what I _do_ like for the rest of the day.

In my way of thinking, there are a lot of things you have to do in your day
that you may not really want to do. For example, you've got to brush your
teeth. I don't have a "brush my teeth"/life balance. I brush my teeth because
I want my teeth brushed. Sometimes I enjoy brushing my teeth. Spending some
time to look after myself can be very rewarding. Most of the time, I'm
thinking about my other priorities.

The same goes for cleaning the house, doing your dishes, doing your laundry,
cooking, doing yard work, visiting your family, washing your car, fixing
things around the house, etc, etc. At various times, those tasks are the
highest priority even though you might not want to do them. You still have to
do them. But people who find a way to enjoy at least some of those tasks are
going to be a _lot_ happier overall than people who don't.

I think you are right that for most people that the binary point of view is
the truth of it, but to be perfectly frank, for most people their only free
time is being taken up by watching people being nasty to each other on reality
TV shows. Just because it is common, doesn't mean it's a good idea.

You've got 8 hours of your day being taken up by work. You've got lunch at
work. You've got your commute. You've got getting ready for work. You've got
unwinding from the stress of work. That's a _crap load_ of your life! You can
waste it being miserable if you like, but I really don't recommend it.

In any job there is _something_ you can find to enjoy. You may not enjoy it
every single day, but the more you succeed in getting into the enjoyment zone,
the better your life is going to be. Or at least, that's the way I look at it.

~~~
fallingfrog
Well I think my point is that it feels completely different when it's self
directed. I built a shed this summer with my brothers- and it didn't feel
anything like work does- it felt joyful, playful. I get some of the same
feelings when I'm working on my own programming projects. But at work? No, I'm
creating something for someone else, to make someone else richer, and if I
left tomorrow nobody would care.

You might be able fool yourself for a while with the power of positive
thinking but a happy servant is still a servant.

~~~
mikekchar
A happy servant is happier than a sad servant. Being happy or sad does not
change your status as a servant. Don't cut off your nose to spite your face,
is all I'm trying to say.

~~~
fallingfrog
Fair enough

------
scarface74
I was very unhappy with my job for the first 12 years between two jobs. Except
for one brief period of a year.

I had been a hobbyist hacker for 10 years, since 6th grade, including four
years in college. I then got my first job that I was greatly over qualified
for as a computer operator. But that was my best opportunity to get to a big
city because I had been an intern at the company the prior year.

I changed jobs 3 years later, got a nice 20K bump and another 10K bump over
the next year, learned a lot and I thought I was doing well. That year and the
next year was great.

Over the next 7 years, no growth in skills and only making $7K more over that
time with measly raises and bonuses being cut, I hated my job but I felt so
unqualified that I didn’t make a move and I was just miserable.

I finally woke up and changed companies and started back gaining new skills
and seeing a salary increase.

Over the next 10 years, I can honestly say I never hated my job for more than
a month. Once I started hating my job and I learned all I could, I had the
skill set and the optionally to jump ship. Even if I didn’t leave immediately,
I never felt “stuck”.

I guess that’s just a long winded way of saying that I only hate my job when I
don’t feel like I’m growing and/or have any optionality.

I also realized that I work next in small companies with little red tape.

~~~
projektir
> Over the next 10 years, I can honestly say I never hated my job for more
> than a month. Once I started hating my job and I learned all I could, I had
> the skill set and the optionally to jump ship. Even if I didn’t leave
> immediately, I never felt “stuck”.

How often did this happen? Did you have problems with being perceived as a job
hopper?

~~~
scarface74
Four.

It’s about having a story to tell and yes you do have to be able to have a
good explanation without sounding negative. It also helps that I have the CTO
of the first company as a reference and the hiring manager of the third
company as a reference who had the same issues I had.

1\. The company went out of business - that was an easy one.

2\. Large company hired fast to develop a new .net project but two years in
all of the business was on their legacy PHP product, no one wanted to do PHP.
There is no money in saying “I developed a PHP app”

3\. Cant go into details without doxing myself but it was highly political and
we working in a remote office away from the seats of power.

4\. It was a contract to perm and when they gave me a permanent offer they
told me up front that they didn’t want to be a software development shop but
they wanted me to lead two initiatives. I saw the writing on the wall.

There were other reasons for leaving the 2-4 one but that’s the story I tell
which are all true.

~~~
projektir
Hmm, these definitely seem more exciting than my case, which is usually more
"feeling uninspired and feel that others at work don't care about the
product".

~~~
scarface74
I’m much more cynical now. I don’t get my “inspiration” from my job. The only
reason I went to work up until my current job was to get a paycheck and learn
skills to get a larger paycheck. As long as that was happening, I was happy.

Now, things are different. I’ve come close to maxing our as an individual
contributor in my local market, I have no desire to be a manager, and a dev
lead position doesn’t pay enough more (about $10-$15K) to be worth the extra
headache (been there done that).

I am continuously learning to keep my options open in case something changes,
but I really like my job even though it can get crazy but its not because of
the people.

As much as I say in theory that you should always leave a job if you feel like
you’re stagnating, I’m not sure that I would have the discipline to leave a
job a like just for that reason as long as I’m making enough to live the
lifestyle I want and my compensation is not to out of whack with the market.

~~~
projektir
I think that's generally the part I don't like about most jobs. It seems
everyone is checked out and is just there to collect a paycheck and build
their resume.

My job is fine in terms of paycheck and learning, but it feels like I'd have
an easier time if I just ignored issues but that's not really the kind of
person I want to become.

~~~
scarface74
I wish I could say that attitude was in me and that’s the advice I would give
others. But, I’m at the point where either I either want to be a team lead at
a large company, be an architect by responsible if not title at a small
company where there isn’t too much red tape, or just a consultant.

------
foobiekr
He’s still very young. When I was his age and even for many years prior I
loved working, genuinely enjoyed it and was eager to be there, in the milieu,
in the flow, killing problems, etc.

Come back to me when you’ve been at it for 30 years. At year 5 or 6 of working
FT professionally, which came after ten years of working through college, I
started getting jaded, same thing, same stupid “mistakes” (choices really),
etc. Towards the end of my sixth year, I ended up getting a full, unfiltered
view of inequity and the brutal sausage making that is all sizable
organizations.

30 years in you realize that sitting all day and killing it to 2am takes a
huge toll on your body and even 8 hour stunts may not be all that good,
standing desk or no.

By the time you lose your youthful bliss, it’s too late to start saving. You
need to take it on faith that future you has seen more of the operational
realities of the world and this has not improved their existence.

The whole FIRE thing is a way to package and sell stuff; the dominant bloggers
In the community who are “retired” are doing between 40k and 500k a year in
web ad revenue. They mostly do not actually live the life they are suggesting:
they have not retired, they’ve changed to a higher risk career. (Exception:
earlyretirementnow.com ).

That said, like sites dedicated to exercise or eating well, the basic message
is a good one and not a new one (see The Richest Man In Babylon, Your Mobey Or
Your Life, etc.). So in that sense, anything that sells the mindset is a net
good.

------
plankers
In my (relatively short) life, I've always been far more happy in my periods
of unemployment than when I was "gainfully employed." Don't expect a single
person on HN to share this view, but there it is.

~~~
erobbins
I'm the same way. I took a year off once, and it was awesome. I regret not
being a lucky trust fund kid.

~~~
brokenmachine
I did the exact same thing. It was great.

I don't understand these people who can't find things to keep them occupied
outside work. I don't have enough hours in the day to do all the things I want
to do. Work is just 8 hours per day that I can't do those things.

~~~
plankers
I'm kind of the opposite, I just love laying around all day doing nothing but
reading. I spent most of my time at my last job doing this, but surrounded by
people, noise, and fluorescent lighting.

Plus, being able to attend events spontaneously and stay out as late as you
want is pretty great.

~~~
brokenmachine
Reading is one of the things I'd like to do that is prevented by that 8 hours
per day of work.

~~~
plankers
Well cheers to that, mate. Hope you find a way to get more of your time to
yourself.

------
zeus_hammer
This is great! I wish I'd started doing something like this long ago. The
closest thing I've found to this that I'm able to at least remind myself to
use regularly is this,
[https://daylio.webflow.io/](https://daylio.webflow.io/)

It'd be interesting to leverage something like this to decide when I should
take vacation... If my happiness is slowly decreasing and visualized like
this, it'd serve as a nice reminder to schedule some vacation. I'd also be
interested to see how long after vacations the "high" wears off

~~~
thomasahle
I just tried this one, (and another one, Journal which both seems to be Google
'editors choice'), but I found that both only had 5 possible moods (basically:
exstatic, good, meh, bad, terrible) , and I fear me data will just be 90%
"good".

Do you know if it can be configured to have more levels? Or if other apps have
more specificity?

~~~
no1ever
Try MoodDiary[1], it has a scale of 10 but also allows tracking multiple
metrics (e.g. I track 4 metrics: sleep, mood, energy level and overwhelmed vs.
undercontrol)

[1]
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.jonathansau...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.jonathansautter.stimmungstagebuch)

------
jcadam
Nope. Not happy. I make enough money now that salary is no longer a major
consideration when it comes to my job satisfaction. I move around every couple
of years, hoping to get more challenging assignments, more responsibility,
etc., which never materialize. It really is the same crap everywhere I go.
Office politics, PHBs, incompetent coworkers, etc.

I've decided I'm not a "cultural fit" for corporate environments. But I've
been working in corporate environments so long, everybody assumes I wouldn't
be fit for anything else.

------
bsmithers
Really interesting. It must take such discipline to collect this data for 3.5
years.

Trying to answer the question of "does work make me happy?" is much more
complex than comparing happiness levels between work and non-work days - they
are not independent. How much of your happiness of a non-work day is precisely
because it is a day off? An imperfect analogy would be the feeling of enjoying
a holiday but also being glad to be home at the end of it.

~~~
madjackwalker
You're right. It's much more complex. Comparing happiness levels between work
and non-work days was one way of trying to answer it. This method is still
distorted by a lot of things, like you mention. I'm open for any different
methods! If you have any ideas, I'd love to know :)

It takes me about 3 minutes every day to track happiness, and the advantages
go much further than just the collection of data. It's also a moment of self-
reflection and meditation in a way. It puts my mind at rest.

------
kinkora
Ctrl-f + "fire" in comments... Nothing??

The author mentioned FIRE (Financially Independent, Retired Early) which,
IMHO, a big factor in your happiness at work based on my own experience being
on both ends of having money and nothing.

Some background context - worked for a decade+, quit job to go travel for 6
months with sizable savings in bank account, came back almost broke, now back
in the workforce.

So I am one of the lucky ones in the world to absolutely love the industry I
am in hence never hated "work". Colleagues, office politics, etc is another
matter but "work" itself was always interesting thus I was happy in the sense
that I never hated doing my actual "work". What I noticed that contributed to
my happiness at "work" was how correlated it was to the savings in my bank
account. The more my bank account grew, the less I worried about the "other
things" (crazy bosses, stifling politics, strange colleagues, etc) and the
more I could relish enjoying the challenges of doing my actual "work".[1]

Fast forward a decade, I then quit my job to travel and it was absolute bliss
of happiness! Kind of a taste of retirement life. HOWEVER, while I had a huge
chunk of savings, it wasn't exactly FU forever money so as the bank account
started dwindling while traveling, I noticed my happiness was correlated again
and I started enjoying traveling less.

Once my bank account was down to an unacceptable level (for my own standards),
I made the decision to go back to work to replenish it and work again towards
my FIRE goal. I managed to get another job in an industry that I enjoyed doing
the "work" but I wasn't exactly feeling happy this time round due to the
constant worry about being laid off, having to pander to colleagues and/or
bosses, dealing with politics, etc. Doing the work was fine but a lot of my
unhappiness came from worrying about "everything else" at work due to me
depending on the paycheck.

Fast forward to today, my savings are back to healthy levels and once again,
I'm happy at "work" even though nothing has changed in terms of "everything
else". Makes me realise that anecdotally for me at least, _having FU money_ in
my bank account contributes A LOT to my happiness at work - assuming of course
with a caveat that you love doing what you are doing at work.

[1] I put apostrophes (") around the word work because I defined work in this
context as not the job/position as a whole but the actual thing that I do.
I.e. If work is Software Engineer at Google, I defined "work" as doing code
related stuff.

~~~
mancerayder
I can relate but it's a treacherous, rocky path to follow the pot of gold.
Sometimes it's a compass. And if you live in a very expensive part of the
world, it can quickly land you in a pressure cooker environment. Now, the
issue is that as you get older, you start to explore other paths. Ideally,
rather than travel for six months like you do, laudable in itself, I try to
use that money to invest in stuff for the future. One hopes then to have even
more relaxing six month adventures, if I still have the energy.

~~~
kinkora
I completely agree that some people pursuing FIRE can be too fanatical about
chasing the pot of goal and only waiting until old age to "enjoy". I kind of
skirt in the middle (i'm more of a FatFIRE) and think of FIRE more as a North
Star. :)

I should mention that I do live in an expensive part of the world (think SF
but not SF) and the bank account was just the liquid assets bit of the
portfolio. Been on the FIRE journey for 10 years now so I have some illiquid
assets (properties, stocks, etc) but I tend to not think of touching it ever.

~~~
mancerayder
Listen, I totally agree and would do the same thing. However what you've not
mentioned above in your 6-month-travel-til-cash-burnt-out story is the assets.
I noticed the plural on properties. :-)

------
patorjk
In principle it's an interesting idea, however, I'm not sure how meaningful
this kind of tracking is. Even the author seems to wonder about this - rating
a work day as an 8, but realizing it was the relaxing he did that day that
effected his happiness. And unless you're reflecting back weeks when making
your rating, this kind of tracking could be susceptible to the idea of
"boiling the frog".

~~~
eswat
Maybe compartmentalizing happiness scores to how one felt during work time,
during personal time and overall for the day would help mitigate this.

------
nathan_f77
I think I'd be happy in a job if I could have self-direction and work on
whatever I find interesting or important. That's a lot more important to me
than working remotely or having a flexible schedule. I really don't like being
told exactly what to work on and having all my ideas shot down.

I'm a solo founder of a small startup, and I really enjoy the freedom to work
on whatever I want. I'm making lots of mistakes and not growing as fast as I
could be, but I'm learning a lot and I enjoy almost everything that I'm
working on. I'm even enjoying the marketing, sales, and support, because it's
fun to talk to people and personally solve their problems.

I'm not sure if I ever want to bring on a co-founder or hire some people, but
I think it could be interesting to work with a small group of generalists
where everyone just works on whatever they think is important. There's a
famous quote from Steve Jobs: "It doesn't make sense to hire smart people and
tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do." I
don't think it's a very radical idea, but I don't know if many companies
actually put it into practice. I think that kind of decision-making is usually
reserved for cofounders or C-level executives, and it probably breaks down
after 10+ employees. But would be fun to try with a small team.

------
inertial
What's the trick to be happy & joyous (without any strings attached) ? How
does one train the mind to not be achievement driven (especially if you are on
HN everyday) ?

Can anyone recommend a course or a book to achieve that ? Something that makes
you happy naturally (not forced).

------
corpMaverick
Let me change the word "happy" to "satisfied".

I don't believe I can feel happy all the time or even most of the time. But
the feeling that I want to have at the end of the day is that I am being
productive and that I feel satisfied at the end of every day.

------
bargl
This is an awesome way to quantify the happiness you feel as a order of time.
I wish I did this on a daily basis so that I could see the things that
contribute and take away from my personal happiness. I tend to be a pretty
introspective guy so I think about this kind of stuff on a regular basis, but
I'd be curious to see if analyzing when I'm working out, vs playing videogames
has an affect on my real happiness VS the blah feeling that you get when you
are able to turn your brain off for a bit.

Kudos on this, and I assume there's a link to how you track your happiness in
there somewhere. I've got to dive deeper.

~~~
mrmikes
Yeah, agreed, it seems valuable to track your happiness and the factors that
contributed to (or detracted from) it. Looks like there are a few apps for
this like:
[https://www.trackyourhappiness.org/](https://www.trackyourhappiness.org/)

------
systematical
I enjoy my day when I am allowed to work uninterrupted. The task doesn't
generally matter, but some are not as "cool" as others. However, I can find
joy in reducing cyclomatic complexity of code, improving readability etc. of
whatever dumb fuck feature marketing thinks is important.

Today I changed how our promotions work. Do I think its a wise use of
resources? Nope. It was probably a waste of 2 hours of my time. Marketing will
probably ask me to switch it back in a few months because they have no idea
what they are doing. After stepping away from the task for 5 minutes and
ending the arguments in my head against the task. I hopped into the code. I
began enjoying figuring how to organize the code in a way that creating unit
tests would be easy. I refactored some small things here and there and checked
off the task. I was pleased with what I created despite being displeased with
the task. I then moved on to a more interesting and useful task.

What kills me. Is a bug that interrupts my flow. Each day I create a list of a
few work items I will accomplish. There may be a meeting, a few small tasks,
and then a piece of a larger project I am working on. When that gets thrown
off by some asshole trying to hijack the sprint or a critical bug it pretty
much shatters my day. I feel so unproductive. Resolving a must-fix-now bug is
both handling debt and incurring debt (through loss of time). It really
fucking kills me.

~~~
xab9
Heads up mate, last time I had been building an "intelligent banner system"
for two months, adding a one megabyte payload to the initial site load,
"because marketing".

When I feel grumpy because of popup bugs, asap tasks and really stupid
marketing/seo requests I usually tell my self that hey, I still get my
paycheck so if this is what makes them happy, then let's make them happy.

