
Ask HN: What to do if you hate working for someone else and arent an entrepreneur? - amiuba
Looking at the last five years of my career, I have come to realize I might hate working for someone else.<p>I resent spending 48 weeks a year in an office and stressing over issues that will only make the company&#x27;s owners richer but won&#x27;t change much for me. I say don&#x27;t change much because a 2-3% raise once in a while is nice, but it&#x27;s nothing in comparison to the thousands&#x2F;millions extra it will make the company, while the only result for me is that I get to keep my job and do more of that.<p>I also have a very hard time feeling any personal pride or accomplishment for helping the company&#x27;s bottom line. It&#x27;s not my company, and I really don&#x27;t feel anything whether they sell more or made a couple millions extra this year because employees worked (unpaid) overtime. My boss getting a new Tesla or yet another house from the extra profits doesn&#x27;t make me happy.<p>This thinking is hurting me though because it makes every job I ever had barely tolerable, slowly creeping towards miserable after enough time. I am aware of it but I can&#x27;t overcome it.
I&#x27;ve tried working at startups, and 150-300 people mid-sized companies.<p>On the other hand, I don&#x27;t think I&#x27;m the entrepreneur type either. I don&#x27;t have any idea that I&#x27;d like to pursue and start building a company around, going through that grind is not something that appeals to me.<p>Has anyone ever felt this way? What did you do about it and how do you cope with it?
======
RickS
I'm late to this thread, but I hope you read this:

If you go freelance, watch the fuck out.

This post reads like you're depressed with the direction of your life, and are
bucketing the causes into your workplace because it's intellectually easy to
do.

I don't mean that to be disparaging - I say it with authority because I do it
too, and your post reads _exactly_ like the monologue that runs through my
head every day.

I was a freelancer for many years. It's 85% pipeline management - networking,
lining up your next gigs months in advance, and tending to relationships with
existing customers to turn them into repeat customers. The actual "do the
work" part is trivially simple in comparison.

The personality types that write posts like these tend to do poorly with the
high-extroversion high-orderliness traits that make or break a successful
freelancing career.

Be extremely fearful of the scenario where you quit your job with spite in
ambition's clothing, and find yourself struggling to make money because you
thought that making money freelancing was about output, not network.

My advice? Talk to somebody professional and really do an insanely deep
autopsy on why you hate working the way you do. I think there are hard answers
to be unearthed.

Now if only I could take the advice I'm writing to myself as much as I am to
you...

------
paulmatthijs
There’s a thing between being entrepeneurship and working for a company:
freelancing. It’s for those that feel no attachment to a company, but do have
a very developed skill set or trade.

In our free market economy, there will always be a system where someone hires
you to create value, which costs less than it makes them, in the end. If you
want a bigger slice of that pie, you need to make it a viable business case.
Hiring a top freelancer to create value, without the hassle for the employer,
is worth a markup. Being scarce helps too.

To me, it sounds like your main issue is that you feel you don’t get enough of
that added value you bring. If normal compensation schemes don’t cut it for
you, you surely must be able to ask a major hourly rate as a freelancer, or a
royalty.

~~~
jcadam
Egads! I'm so ready to do this. I'm in my late 30s and have been a salaried
engineer my entire career. I'm sick of corporate culture and dealing with
dysfunctional petty politics. My current environment is particularly
depressing. You know the office from the first part of _Joe vs the Volcano_?
It's kind of like that :|

I'll admit, there's an element of risk aversion holding me back. That and I
simply can't afford to start at the bottom and work for peanuts in order to
'build a reputation' as a freelancer.

~~~
zackmorris
As another data point, I'm about the same age, live in Idaho and freelanced
around 2012 charging about $30-40 per hour and taking anything I could get on
Elance/oDesk (now Upwork). I flipped PowerPC iMacs with the blown capacitor
issue, took a local service call once or twice a month, and worked on
shareware. I eventually went broke, but I landed a $50/hr, 6 month contract in
a local office at the end doing backend web work.

I managed to save about $20,000 and freelanced the same way the next year or
so, but charging $50/hr. Money steadily dropped, but it was mostly due to
taking fixed-bid contracts, not tracking my time well, estimating done dates
and then failing to bill after the deadline. So try not to give time estimates
(which are often by by a factor of 3-10 or more), and if you do, be sure to
bill if you go over. They are paying for the time it takes you to solve a
problem, not your ability to guess at unknowns that can't be known until
you've done them.

After that, I got a great gig at a local agency. If I find myself being a
contractor again, I would charge 1.5-2x my desired hourly pay. In internet
tech now, that's probably $75-150k/yr, $35-75/hr, even in rural areas, so a
$75/hr freelance rate is probably a good minimum.

In other words, there's not an easy way that I could see to survive long as a
contractor by taking a pay cut from your current salary. It's better to think
in terms of charging twice as much as you're paid now, but finding work half
as often. Which is generally worth it because it gives you time to work on
your skills, do side projects, etc. I would not take other advice to
moonlight, because a programming job by itself generally tends towards
burnout.

------
jacknews
My boss arrived at work in a brand new lamborghini.

I said "Wow that's an amazing car!"

He replied "if you work hard, strive for excellence and hit your targets, l'll
get another one next year!"

~~~
amiuba
Haha yes, I love this joke. I've heard it before and that's how it feels.

~~~
CyberFonic
I thought the punch line was:

"I will get my mistress one too!"

~~~
jacknews
haha, yes that's even better.

------
gesman
Your words: "hate", "resent", "stressing", "hard time", etc... Change you
thinking pattern, start thinking about what you love. What do you love to do?
Then start doing it.

"Love" is a key.

You can start right now.

~~~
jressey
While I agree with this, it's really only easy to recognize this after you've
figured it out. I also want to emphasize I'm in a position now with equity do
not adhere to the philosophy below.

Focus on enjoying the people you work with and spend less energy thinking
about your work. Stressing over work is a fool's game unless you have skin in
it.

I had a pretty low point in my career and I simply changed my focus to
collecting as much money from the wealthy bosses as I could while providing as
little value as I could. After all, that's what they're trying to do on the
other side of the relationship.

Now again, what I have said is easy to grok and enact once you've had some
success. I don't advise this attitude for folks just entering the industry,
but after 5-10 years you'd be amazed at just how valuable you are, even when
not really working too hard.

~~~
amiuba
> changed my focus to collecting as much money from the wealthy bosses as I
> could while providing as little value as I could.

I thought about this and tried it this past year. It didn't go well and my
performance review was abysmal. Some of my colleagues hate my guts because
they feel like they're doing all the work and I'm not.

For example, I never do overtime especially when it's to meet unrealistic
arbitrary deadlines. But they do and we meet the deadline, and this is why we
keep having those deadlines: management knows they can keep doing it and
someone will roll over to make it happen. "attaboy, great job on giving your
life away this week, thank you for the new Porsche"

How do you pull it off without your colleagues hating you?

~~~
jressey
I think there's an art to it. First off, if you work in that type of
environment, yea you're gonna get shit from your colleagues. If that bothers
you, you might need to be working somewhere else to pull it off. I would
probably try to convince them to change to your philosophy.

To be honest, the real secret is to be everybody's friend. Focus on knowing
them personally and spend lots of time bullshitting with them. You also can't
flaunt what you're doing. Just make your estimates really long up front,
clearly state all of the potential blockers and how they will affect your
deadlines. Ask lots of questions in meetings. When confronted, product people,
leaders, whoever is in charge usually do not know what they want. Put it on
them to actually articulate their needs. You'll have them going back to the
drawing board over and over.

------
PaulRobinson
You might be conflating a few things here.

1\. Be careful not to confuse hating working for somebody else with what
sounds to me like the edges of depression. 2\. Entrepreneurship doesn't have
to be a grind 3\. You don't have to get your personal pride and accomplishment
through work

So you could talk to somebody about your feelings and might find some coping
strategies. Let's suppose this isn't clinical depression and in fact your job
is shit and you want to do something else.

Think about your hobbies: if you could do something around one of them for a
job, what would you do? Do you want to get a job in industry doing that, or
perhaps use your skills to build something yourself?

Now, don't think building something yourself has to involve raising money,
hiring staff or any of that jazz. Could you freelance? Could you produce a
product on your own? Something physical or a SaaS or app perhaps? Could you
start a blog or vlog? What about a book?

Most likely outcome is that this will _not_ make you enough cash to live off,
but now you're doing something that gives you pride and a sense of
accomplishment and in due course it _might_ make enough money for you to life
off. In either scenario it sounds like you're in a better place.

Good luck, godspeed, etc.

~~~
RickS
> 1\. Be careful not to confuse hating working for somebody else with what
> sounds to me like the edges of depression.

Exactly on point. Overindexing on the futility of the future while
simultaneously minimizing the plausibility of positive outcomes.

I have these same thoughts, and these same problems. The OP's post has left my
mouth many times. Strong odds it's depression.

It's not your job. No matter where you go, there you are.

------
DoreenMichele
I have mostly managed to avoid working a normal job. Here are some things I
have done:

College. It let me continue to live with parents and not get a job.

Military spouse and full time parent. It let me see the world, but when I got
divorced, starting a career from scratch was challenging. Also, my quality of
life went way up with getting a job and no longer being a homemakers.
Homemaking isn't exactly a profession that gets a lot of respect or pays
particularly well and the retirement plan tends to suck.

I have been doing freelance work in recent years.

I will recommend the book "How to survive without a salary" by Charles Long.
If you can pay off all your debts, pay cash for a cheap house somewhere with
low taxes, raise a garden, etc, you can get off the hamster wheel and do as
you choose to a large degree. But it takes a lot of time to arrange and most
folks don't actually want to make those sorts of sacrifices.

This is part of why so many people buy lottery tickets. Wanting an answer with
no down side is a popular desire.

(No I am absolutely not being snarky. This is reality. Finding one's "dream
job" and being jazzed to go to work every day is the exception, not the rule.)

------
jogjayr
Look into the financial independence/retire early (FIRE) communities.

Here's a good starting point.

[http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-
sim...](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math-
behind-early-retirement/)

It's important to note that (Mustachian) financial independence _isn 't_ about
making money so you can retire (despite the name). It's about designing a
lifestyle for yourself that makes you happy without the need to buy things or
experiences to sustain that feeling of happiness. The rest is just
bookkeeping. And (as a neat side-benefit) you generally become healthier and
fitter, gain more skills, and reduce your consumption levels, thereby helping
save the planet.

Knowing that you're building a future life for yourself makes the hard days at
work easier to take. Once you have the financial security of being FI/RE you
are free to take career risks or try things that interest you but may not have
much money-making potential.

~~~
amiuba
FI/RE is a tremendous idea, and that's the thing that motivates me. I've been
working on it for a few years now, but it's still far away.

But it feels like it's not enough, I don't know that I can keep eating sh*t
for another 7 years. We're saving about 55% of our net income after rent,
we're pretty frugal to begin with in a high col area (not in the US).

It's definitely part of the solution and I can't wait to quit working but it's
not enough to carry me on its own. If it were I wouldn't feel this way.

Do you have this sentiment too?

~~~
bigmanwalter
I briefly considered FI/RE but like you said, couldn't handle eating shit for
so long. Life is for living on your own terms.

~~~
amiuba
Aiming for FI only means that you'll eat the same shit but for much less time
(i.e. 10 years vs 40+ years)

~~~
bigmanwalter
Yes, exactly. But I can't postpone my dreams for so long. I still have my
health and I should take advantage of it. Why should my body atrophy away in a
chair throughout my 20's and 30's?

When the weather's nice and I'm stuck in my air conditioned office all week,
only to be too busy on the weekends with errands to enjoy going out, week
after week after week. That's not living.

With Freelancing, I'll need to do it for more years, but I can casually take
weekdays off whenever I like and this year I took 8 full weeks of vacation. I
don't know any full-time Software Engineers who are given that by their
employers.

Beyond bringing in a modicum of control over my schedule, I find switching
projects every few months keeps the job far more interesting. I'm learning
more every day just as it was in my Junior days :)

------
mattmcknight
Join a startup early enough where you get enough equity to feel like an owner.
Just search on Angelist or similar sites, such as the job postings on here.

Start a small services business- or freelance. If you're just worried about
unpaid overtime, an hourly bill rate gives you a little more freedom. You do
have to do a bit more sales work to find customers, but there are numerous
platforms to assist with that.

While both of these options have higher potential returns, they also have
higher risks. What it sounds like is that you are not factoring into your
analysis is the low-risk nature of what you are doing. You are trading off
"the grind" and that risk for a lower maximum payoff, but a higher minimum
payoff. If that's actually what you want, just keep job hopping every couple
of years as you get sick of things and ask for a 10% raise instead of 2-3%.

Maybe the real problem is presuming that what you are doing is bad when it is
really the path that is best for you. Not everyone is meant to find a place
they love and stay there forever. Even when people do find such a place, the
place changes as time passes, and they change as well, so what was once right
does not always stay that way. Not everyone is set up to take the stress of
having 95% of your net worth tied up in a venture that is likely to go to $0.
Hopefully, Model 3 production continues to ramp up, and you can get your Tesla
anyway.

------
matt_s
Oh yeah this sounds very familiar. Does it get to the point where you start
resenting people in upper management because you think they literally do
nothing and make more? I started having those thoughts when working at a
Fortune 500 - I'd see VP's at the office for insane hours and not sure really
what they did but they sure got their 5 figure bonuses, even when things
didn't go well it seemed.

I was an engineering manager and had to deal with upper management, bogus
policies like only 10% of people can get a good raise, meetings about
meetings, etc. Now I've gone back to software development without managing
people and it is a relief. Think of all the things people in those other roles
have to worry about: budgets, raises (or lack of), employee reviews, project
planning, sales, hiring, firing, etc. You said that going through that grind
of entrepreneurship isn't something that appeals to you.

Take pride in the work you do, software engineering can be fun if you enjoy
it. Sure it helps some rich person at the top, its the same everywhere though:
pilots, carpenters, plumbers, accountants, etc. Be relieved you don't have to
worry about all that other business stuff. If you find a place with good
work/life balance then you can pursue things you are interested on your own
time.

------
PerfectElement
Whenever I felt like that, I used a mental hack to make me feel better. I
would sit down and start to think (or write) about all the things I am
grateful for. Coming from a third world country, it was easy to see how good
it was to be highly employable and live in a relatively safe society. This
would instantly put me in a good mood and make me feel proud of my
achievements.

Being grateful doesn't mean you should accept your lot in life and stop
striving for improvements. It will just help you make peace with where you are
at right now, so you can focus on your next steps without the negative
pressure.

Today I run my own business and make more money than I ever expected, and I
still use this method whenever I'm having a bad day.

~~~
noir_lord
I do something very similar, I also take pride in my work, not the generic "of
course I take pride in my work" but the pride you get from knowing you did the
best that you could do given the constraints (whatever they may be) you had.

That way I'm comparing what I did against what was reasonably doable.

Sure there are things I'd love to do but management constraints/budget or
temporal constraints simply ruled them out, if I explained that to (former
bosses, current boss is a diamond) management clearly then who cares, I did my
job.

I can live with that for an above average salary and a 40 hour work week.

------
itamarst
Duplicating other points, to some extent:

1\. You can reduce your working hours. E.g. you can negotiate a 4-day
workweek. This means more time to do what you want.

2\. You can pursue early retirement. Reducing your spending gives you more in
the bank, and eventually you can not work. In the short term it improves your
negotiating position.

3\. You can find a job pursuing a goal you care about. E.g. work for a non-
profit, or a government agency, or a company where you care about the outcomes
separate from making money.

4\. You can start a business not based on a Great Idea, but based on research.
More likely to succeed, too
([https://stackingthebricks.com/](https://stackingthebricks.com/) has a bunch
of useful advice).

You can also pursue some or all of these at the same time.

Self-promotion: I've written a book about how you can reach a sane workweek,
whatever that means to _you_. You can read about and get a free excerpt here:
[https://codewithoutrules.com/saneworkweek/](https://codewithoutrules.com/saneworkweek/).

~~~
amiuba
Thanks, your blog has pretty good posts, I enjoy reading them.

------
dba7dba
You are preaching to the choir brother.

I am feeling the exact same sentiment more strongly every day.

In the past, working for a corporation meant some kind of loyalty in return,
resulting in pension or still keeping you on payroll even if company was doing
not so well.

Now, at the first sign of decrease in revenue, employees are cut. And I'm not
even talking about company in danger of going under or having a negative
revenue year. Employees are cut because revenue growth goes from say 5% to 2%
and the execs have to do something to look like they are trying.

You can be the only one that knows how to do a certain thing in a company to
ship that product or come up with a solution that saves the company millions,
but all you get in return is 'good job' (and the implicit understanding that
you should be thankful you have a job). And the owners/ceos walk away with
millions.

So what is the action plan? 1\. Do not wallow in bitterness. Do something
productive/positive about it instead.

2\. Do not think that you aren't an entrepreneur material. No such thing
exists.

3\. You don't have to run a tech company. Someone posted on HN that an ex-
coworker was making far more money with far more freedom running coin
laundries.

4\. Look into real estate?

5\. There are ways to start a company so you can be your own boss.

6\. If you are in tech, brush up some new techs and look for cofounder.

7\. How do you get the motivation to do all above? Channel your
anger/hatred/resentment for having to work for someone else (enriching that
person) into doing something for yourself.

8\. You may not be successful, but at least you can enjoy working for
yourself.

I'm only realizing this a little late in life, but better late than never.

------
chickenfries
I just started contracting in the public sector and I don't know if this
honeymoon will last but so far, it's amazing how much more I care about the
problems they are solving compared to working in the private sector. It's work
that I think needs to be done.

"He who has a Why? in life can tolerate almost any How?"

~~~
amiuba
How did you get the gig? It seems my local and national government (Canada)
only hires FTEs. I've applied before but was never successful.

~~~
chickenfries
Knew someone who was working as a contractor. I would try trying to find
people working in the public sector through the internet (they're on twitter,
meetup and linkedin too) and ask them if they have any openings. It's
definitely easier to get brought on as a contractor than an FTE, and it seems
to me that the FTE jobs go to contractors who have proven themselves first.

------
arximboldi
I felt similarly often, even though I was working for a great company with
great products and with a very humane way of working. At some point I just
could not stand the worker-owner fundamental power imbalance. There is a lot
of pretending in our industry that this conflict does not exist, which often
ends up in quite schizophrenic logic. I had to go. And Since I don't want to
inflict such pain in other people, become the typical entrepreneur (i.e. a
capitalist) was not an option either.

My solution for now is to freelance and consulting. It comes with a hole
different set of contradictions, but it is a good learning experience and
great way to experiment and explore what you want to do. It also buys me time
to do open-source and research, but it requires more self-motivation.

My long-term dream is to start a worker-owned coop with other people in the
future.

~~~
WaxProlix
I think I feel very similarly to you in a lot of ways. How did you get
started? How do you see a consulting co-operative working? I'd be interested
in hearing about your approach, what's worked and what hasn't, etc.

~~~
arximboldi
Hey! To you and Amiuba. I did get started into freelancing slowly. I had money
saved when I quit my job and I took things slowly. I don't use freelancing
websites. For marketing I use conferences, user-conferences and open-source. I
am still in a good relationship with my last employer and I do freelance work
for them too.

Wrt the coop, one of my motivations is this Spanish open-source coop which has
been running for quite a while and does excellent work:
[https://www.igalia.com/](https://www.igalia.com/)

When doing research on the topic I found this document you may find
interesting too "Technology freelancer's guide to starting worker
cooperative": [https://www.techworker.coop/resources/technology-
freelancers...](https://www.techworker.coop/resources/technology-freelancers-
guide-starting-worker-cooperative)

~~~
bigmanwalter
Hey, I'm a freelance developer based in Montreal, Canada who is also
incredibly interested in building out a freelancer/webdev co-op. Would love to
hear more about your ideas and what direction you're interested in taking it
:)

Also, any tips on how to find clients at conferences? I've been to a few but
never seem to meet anyone who's actually searching for a vendor.

Most of my clients have come through my extended friends/family network.

Happy to keep this discussion on HN so that others get benefit from it, but if
you want to take it private my email is e@ericwaldman.ca

~~~
arximboldi
Hi Eric!

W.r.t. the co-op, at the moment my ideas (or fantasies) are more about
organizational stuff than the content (what we would work on). I am just
gathering ideas, learning and keeping my eyes open waiting for all this to
crystalize...

My motivation is to be able to work with other people in a democratic and
(internally) non-capitalistic way. You are still playing in the market so
there are lots of contradictions that you would have to assume, but I think
there is a lot of progress one can make nontheless. For me Igalia, as I
mentioned, is a source of inspiration because they have been going for quite a
while and they are about ~50 people now and have a good business. They are
also very democratic and flat (e.g. everyone has equal pay, something shocking
but with very good rationale). They also do excellent technical work---for
example, they have been the ones implementing a lot of ES6 features inside V8
and SpiderMonkey. If you want to read about them, Andy Wingo (the person I
know from there) has 3-post series on the topic here:
[http://wingolog.org/archives/2013/06/05/no-
master](http://wingolog.org/archives/2013/06/05/no-master)

On a more political side, recently I read the Telekommunisten manifesto which
also touches on cooperative models as a way to do social change for real:
[http://telekommunisten.net/the-telekommunist-
manifesto/](http://telekommunisten.net/the-telekommunist-manifesto/)

In my student times I was very much into activism, but since I started working
I stopped "having time" for it. I was also burned out from the energy and
emotional sink that activism can be. I've realized with time that the
workplace though has not managed to make me more conservative, if anything, it
has made me more concerned about the issues of exploitation and alienation---
even in "well-off" industries where workers often feel privileged just because
of the (relatively) high salaries. My current thinking is that separating work
and politics is one of the things that leads to activism and work burn-out and
that, if anything, I should use the privilege of being an engineer to try
build a democratic workspace for myself and hopefully others too. In the best
scenario it could be an example and do some little good for the world, in the
worst case I would have tried and learnt something about how the world works.

W.r.t. finding clients at conferences, I am really no expert, I have actually
been freelancing less time than you :-) I don't consider myself an extrovert.
What has worked for me so far is doing talks about open-source projects. Last
summer, for example, I worked with a client that just watched the video of one
of my talks and contacted me. Last week I talked with a new potential client
that just some comment on Hackernews where I talked about some of that work.
Doing open-source work and talking about it is very time-consuming, so it is
not a silver-bullet for sure, but something worth trying if that scratches
some itch of yours.

I still feel that I have lots to learn and am making lots of mistakes, but I
guess this takes time... :-)

~~~
bigmanwalter
Thanks for the links!

I'm at a similar stage of gathering ideas. It seems that as software
developers, we're at a unique point in history where an individual owning
their own means of industrial-grade production is a possibility thanks to free
software.

I come from a different angle as I was incredibly Liberal throughout my
student years. But the working world shattered any illusions I had about
achieving self-fulfillment as your typical software engineer.

You might be intrested in looking into Enspiral. They are a huge tech
cooperative (~40 core members + ~100 associates) running out of New Zealand
[https://enspiral.com/](https://enspiral.com/) with some great ideas. They
started out of individual freelancers grouping together to form an insurance
fund and smooth out their incomes between contracts.

I've been thinking lately about how to initially build up a group's reputation
and client pipeline. If you start with too many members without their own
clients then I am not sure it would be sustainable. You could have initial
capital investments from each member, but I'm less comfortable with that idea
right now.

As for presenting, from time to time I will give web development workshops. I
agree that presenting requires a disproportionate amount of time and energy
but I find that it spices up my workload very nicely :)

------
johnnycarcin
This is great timing as I've been rolling this around in my head for about 6
months now, thanks for posting it. I have yet to find a good exit plan.

My issue isn't really the work itself, it is the risk that comes with stepping
out on your own when you have a family to support. I have seen firsthand what
a failed start-up/small company can do to a family (twice actually) and it
scares the shit out of me. That's one of the reasons I am so hesitant to live
off of savings while the work pipeline builds.

On top of that, my family and I have grown accustomed to our current income
level which I don't think I could keep up as a consultant/freelancer/etc, at
least for the first year or so.

For me the question is: is my full blown happiness, with my career, worth
potentially risking our future and current lifestyle? It is a really hard
question to answer...

------
wellboy
Yes, freelancing, but then you will probably feel dissatisfied that you're not
soing something meaningful and that the lack of socializing depresses you.

I believe the problem isn't the work, but inside of you. Have you tried
improving your own life? Getting a meaningful hobby, volunteering, building a
meaningful circle of friends, moving to the city that you love most, finding a
significant other that you love above anything else, starting a family. Those
things really fill your life with meaning.

Apart from that, if you don't want to be working at a company, you need to
build your freelancing agency and you need to be good at it, so that after a
few years, you have a client base that pays really well and other people do
the work for you, so that you only need to work 10-20h per week or less. Then
you can focus on the things above that really matter.

------
jventura
> This thinking is hurting me though because it makes every job I ever had
> barely tolerable, slowly creeping towards miserable after enough time.

Profound changes in life are not easy, and feeling miserable is a sign that
you probably have to change something.. Personally, I believe that people that
are willing to change their lifes when circunstances ask for it are
courageous. Most people will keep feeling miserable by inertia and fear of
change.

As a little bit of more practical advice, have you considered going freelance
or teaching? Something similar to what you're feeling now also happened to me,
then I went freelancing and am currently teaching. I'm immenselly happier and
get to learn lots of new things so I can be a better teacher..

Wish you good luck!

~~~
amiuba
I have considered freelancing, but I don't know where to start. The only place
I know of is fiver and elance which have pretty bad reputation and where I
couldn't charge enough for it to be viable.

Any insight on how to execute the shift and find your first customer?

------
d0m
Can be a freelancer. You're your own boss, you can pick who you want to work
with and you're in control of your time, but you don't need to risk it all on
a "risky big idea".

------
senko
I've never been able to work for someone else for too long (starts being
noticable after a year).

So I started freelancing / consulting. You don't have to be an entrepreneur
and build a product or a company. It's not a grind (or at least it doesn't
have to be - you can choose how much effort you want to spend).

But you do need to take business side of things - finding clients, making them
pay, making sure your financials are in order and other non-"tech" tasks.

------
volgo
Have you tried changing jobs? There’s a huge variety of companies out there
and some of them do really amazing things and have competent leaders. I used
to think every company is the same deadend desk job until I hit an amazing one
- let’s me work remote most of the week, insane compensation, managers who
don’t micromanage, and a sense of mission in all my teammates. Take your time
to find the right one, you’ll be glad you did

------
Kaka4
I had also thought about this so many times. Working for the man who doesn't
even care about his staff. One of my colleague has lost his job few weeks
back. I don't know what he wants for us. But one thing for sure, he is
arrogant and just care about himself and nobody else.

I just don't want to work here and I'm looking for some new place when the
right time is come. The day when I'll say enough is enough you jerk, I'm done
here.

I also have the fight yesterday with him and when I came home, I'm just
screaming at everyone in my house. But than I Cam myself down and listen to a
new song and I want to share with you here:
[http://www.lyricshawa.com/2017/12/bollywood-lyrics-
akhil/](http://www.lyricshawa.com/2017/12/bollywood-lyrics-akhil/)

Then I thought one day, I will muster some confidence to just quit this job
and find a better one. But one thought that always come in my mind is this,
What if that another organisation have the same boss like him. Haha.. I'm just
little bit confused right now.

------
erikb
Learn to work for someone else. Seriously there is no way out of it. Even a
CEO works for someone else (investors/customers/shareholders). The blog posts
that tell you otherwise are trying to bullshit the naive. Everybody is working
for someone. The king/dictator you heard about that lives such a good life
without considering others? He certainly considers his generals, and he
certainly considers whoever provides the money to pay for his generals.

You could basically decide if you want to decline ever taking responsibility
for other people and work in such a job where someone else will organize your
food and bed. But then again we can't really choose to have no responsibility
to other people (parents, friends) either. So in that case quite a few
important people in your life would consider you a dick for good reasons.

Therefore in the end, learn to accept it. This is part of life.

~~~
erikb
btw why does this downvoted? I was in the same situation when I was 20. Now
with 32 I got used to working for someone else, as much as one can get used to
it. I make more money, have a better office, better living area, more valuable
connections. It's totally worth it.

On the other hand one of my best friends, same age, totally struggles with the
concept, barely has any money, often doesn't even has a stable place to sleep.

One can fight against it, but life will fight back.

------
ninjavis
I was in the same situation as you a while back. I do have some
entrepreneurial spirit, and I'm working on my own project at the moment.

But something that I am doing on the side for a while now that pays 5x more
every month than I used to make at my web development job, is crypto mining
and lending.

I have been searching for highly reputable and transparent companies for a
while before I got on board.

I then found and am currently mining with Lifestyle Galaxy, and lending
trading with USI Tech.

Yes, it takes some money to start off with, but my initial capital has already
been paid back and every day's payouts are pure profit. These companies also
allow building networks as to grow your daily income even further. I'm making
around $250 per day so far.

If you'd like more information, don't hesitate to email ( ninjavis@gmail.com )
me and I'll send you some more information on how easy it is to get up and
running etc.

------
JauntTrooper
Consider a commissioned sales role. There are many companies out there with
commission-heavy 'eat-what-you kill' culture. If you're good at your job and
bring in revenue, you make a lot of money and probably get a lot of autonomy.
It's not my cup of tea, but it might fit with what you're looking for.

------
nikdaheratik
My work situation has been much less draining since moving to Australia. I
think the biggest difference is that 6-12 month contract work is more common
in tech jobs, and there are a lot more small companies where your contribution
is bigger and feels more valued. The flip side to that is your work probably
won't be seen outside of the small company unlike with huge corporations.

I don't know that they have the equivalent of casual/agency contract work for
developers in the U.S. I think the health insurance makes it a problem, but I
liked it better than working for bigger companies because there's less BS and
you can just take a month or so between gigs if you want. You're never going
to get rich though and there's always the possiblity of not having anything
for longer than you want.

------
JeanMarcS
Whatever you’ll do for work, you always end up working for someone. A boss,
clients, customers...

Being a freelancer ? Your clients will be the one you’ll work for. And as some
others said: they’ll make money on your work.

Being an employee ? That’s your case, you know how it works.

So entrepreneur ? You say you’re not comfortable with it. And at the end,
you’ll have to please your customers or else you will otherwise not earn
enough money.

So I guess you have to choose the less hurting path for you.

The good point is that if you want to change your situation, you can start
doing it without leaving your current job and see if it leads somewhere before
making a drastically decision which will impact your life.

Try a side project, or several. Start looking for what exists in freelancing
on your domain of expertise.

The first step is always the toughest one. You’ve got a paid job.

Try!

------
mchannon
This leaves you with a few options that haven't been brought up.

Have you considered working for a nonprofit or a governmental agency? The pay
probably isn't there, but some people wouldn't want to work anywhere else. It
can be tremendously rewarding fighting for your favorite causes rather than
your boss' latest second house, as you said.

Not all big company corporate cultures are created equal, either. A lot of
people love working for the big 5 and even though you're still making a boss
rich (as in, richer than anyone else in the history of time rich), these
bosses don't waste their time flaunting their wealth in front of you and
demoralizing you. Change the world, do interesting work, and get rich far
faster than an average startup.

------
strutteratlanta
I've spent the majority of my career feeling this way, OP, hopping jobs and
feeling like a crazy person. I've left plum gigs at coveted companies; I've
passed on opportunities that would have made me rich (could I have stuck with
it). I've read and studied a ton of things to try to deal with it.

At a high level, this article summarizes my angst. Maybe you'll benefit from
it. It's about moving into management, but the ideas of deliverables and
contributions might help you understand some things about you.

"I no longer operated in my personal sweet spot, where my sense of
accomplishment after closing a difficult sale or launching a new product was
contingent on my having had a concrete deliverable and the sense that my
efforts were integral to its success. Being a manager caused me to feel
disconnected from what career analyst Daniel Pink has identified as the three
primary motivators of behavior: autonomy, mastery and purpose. I had little
autonomy, little interest in gaining mastery as a manager (in spite of myriad
coaches), and felt dissociated from my true self."

[https://hbr.org/2012/12/what-if-you-dont-want-to-
be-a](https://hbr.org/2012/12/what-if-you-dont-want-to-be-a)

When I evaluate the jobs I've loved or hated using autonomy, mastery, and
purpose, I can clearly see why I've loved or hated them. We'll all fall in
different places on those three scales; what's right for me won't be right for
you. But I need high levels of all three (and mastery is the really tricky
one) or the job will slide towards the hated end of the continuum.

Some of the many great books that have shaped my thinking: So Good They Can't
Ignore You, Cal Newport Deep Work, Cal Newport Shop Class as Soulcraft,
Matthew B. Crawford (that last one, watch out. you might never go back to
work. But the chapter called "The Contradictions of the Cubicle" speaks
volumes to me).

There are many others, but I got the most benefit out of those three. Hope
this is helpful in some way.

------
somequixote
I have some experience with this feeling and for me it comes from mismatched
expectations. I believed that simply getting into the workforce was my goal,
the proper goal, and that would be a satisfying end.

At some point in the working life some people (you!) become acutely aware that
satisfaction and purpose matter. Now you have to reach outside of everything
you have tried and everything you were taught to find something you actually
care about.

Take up hobbies, personal projects, travel, and through trial and error find a
way to connect your talents with a meaningful end.

Most importantly, you will have to solve this yourself. Friends online can't
tell you what you want any better than your boss can!

------
techjuice
If you are not the type of person to run your own business then you would need
to get a job working for someone else. Now it seems the issue is not you
really working for someone else, but not properly being compensated for
performance.

Now, the good thing is until you have enough time, money and feel comfortable
taking the plunge into being your own boss you can work on gaining the skills
by working for someone else. If you are working at a company that does not
conduct additional compensation based on performance leave the company for one
that does. You owe nothing to a company that is not properly compensating you
for the value you provide, especially as your time increases there and you are
a top performer.

There are companies out there or should I say sections within companies (even
the big ones) that will normally do the following: Annual raise based on
performance, annual bonus based on performance, spot bonuses, quarterly
bonuses and increasing your base salary to keep competitive with the market
(i.e. if your showing mass improvement beyond what you were originally hired
for or your actions keep improving your coworkers productivity you could see
your base salary increased by 10 to 20 percent or more to better place your
skills and talents within the company and insure you are being properly
compensated).

A company that cares about attracting top talent, growing and retaining top
talent will properly compensate you to where you could technically become rich
within (within reason of their income and the value you bring to the table) a
few years of working there. As the good companies see that the value you bring
to the company increases their bottom line and will make sure to keep your
pockets filled with cash so you do not have to worry about it and can spend
time doing what you do and have fun doing it.

I would recommend you do some searching for areas near you and compare your
skills, talents and abilities to what the average household incomes are near
your next possible employer -
[https://www.incomebyzipcode.com/](https://www.incomebyzipcode.com/)

Insure that what you ask for in salary is a minimum of what the average
household income is for the zip code of your employer. Also ask about
compensation based on performance and how any bonuses, raises or salary
adjustments are calculated. If the potential employer looks at you funny and
doesn't know what your talking about move on to the next potential employer
until you find one that does not just pay a base salary and does raises but
also pays bonuses based on performance.

~~~
amiuba
I negotiated my initial salary well (from talking with other colleagues who
also shared their salary), but the only thing my company does is an annual
performance review and a raise based on that. The raise is a few percents and
that's it. No bonus or profit sharing.

I have yet to work somewhere that gives bonuses. Based on my experience, it
isn't that common here it seems (Canada). My current base salary is a tad more
than the median household income for my city.

You make a good point that while I'm employed, I'm getting paid to learn some
of the skills I'll need to become an independent developer. What I still don't
know is how to go from employee to independent: where do you get clients?

------
robot
You make yourself unhappy by focusing on what your boss or company owners are
doing. Don't think about them, they are external to you. Focus on what you
want or like to do.

You can try starting a consultancy business. Start as a freelance and grow
that. Anything you do you must work hard and create value for others. If you
do this consistently you will eventually move into a position where you are
comfortable. The best way is to start by doing what you like and engages you,
and at the same time the resulting work creates value for others. This doesn't
have to be a startup with a product, consulting is always easier to start.

~~~
amiuba
That's the thing though: how do you start? Where do you find clients? I
obviously can't go after any of my current employer's clients, I don't have
friends who studied CS and work at prestigious companies... How do you get
started?

~~~
robot
Identify who would need your service, learn and do sales. Make sure you
believe you have a great service. If not identify your greatest skill and
improve it. Books are generally great. Here is a great sales book:
[https://www.amazon.com/SPIN-Selling-Neil-
Rackham/dp/00705111...](https://www.amazon.com/SPIN-Selling-Neil-
Rackham/dp/0070511136/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1512949073&sr=8-1&keywords=spin+selling)

If doing sales sounds tough, it will start tough and then get easier. If
people ignore you just keep going.

Build something for someone for free (assuming you are in a programming or
similar field).

When selling the most important part is the immediate benefit you are
providing - will you reduce your customer's cost, improve their sales, solve
some problem they spend too much time?

RE: how do you find clients? What field are you in? Who would need your
service? Identify 1000 potential buyers and contact them. Contact them by
email, phone, use forums, go to conferences, talk to people one on one.
Introduce your benefit to them.. Make sure you contact people who seem to have
budget and good things going on. Build a website on wordpress that describes
your service. Hang out in places where your audience might be.

There is a lot to talk about but most importantly you "do" something
consistently, improve it and keep going if you get Nos. If you stop doing you
will never get there, and if you keep doing you will definitely get somewhere
good, then great.

------
SyneRyder
It seems that most of your objection is to the company and it's goals, but not
actually to working for other people. Have you considered working for a non-
profit or charity, or a company where the products / services align with your
values?

Maybe grab yourself a copy of Anita Roddick's "Business As Unusual", or "Ben &
Jerry's Double Dip" to read about businesses that use capitalism to also have
a social impact. On the not-for-profit side, Muhammad Yunus' "Banker To The
Poor". Then start thinking about the kinds of companies or organizations you
might like to work for.

------
liquidcool
You mention a couple times that your work has a significant impact on the
company's sales/revenue. If you can actually quantify the value of your work,
you are in a much stronger negotiating position with your employer and others.
It is rarely done by engineers and sets you apart.

In addition to fair compensation, you mention "stressing over issues." I've
noticed more than once that I've been stressed over problems my clients didn't
really care about. It's not easy, but it's important to keep your stress
levels in line with management's (or lower).

~~~
amiuba
Value provided to my employer is more or less known: they sell my time for
about 5x what they pay me (software consultancy).

The stress is over issues that the client is pressuring us to solve before a
deadline, that usually requires overtime. I always refuse to do overtime, and
try to work less rather than more. This creates a situation where my
colleagues resent me because it feels like I'm not doing my share since they
roll over and do whatever it takes to meet the deadline. And the client never
learns, expecting overtime.

As a result, my last performance review wasn't great because my employer would
prefer that I worked as much or more than my colleagues while only paying me
40h (clients are billed by the week, not by the hour.) I'm not in the top
performers at my job either, I'd say I'm average at best. I don't feel like my
bargaining position is particularly strong at the moment with this employer,
and I negotiated my initial salary well from what I gather from colleagues
I've discussed comp with.

~~~
liquidcool
Wow, 5X! I have a small consultancy and most engineers are surprised to learn
that 2X is typical. I do know some of the large management consulting firms
have very high margins, especially on junior programmers, which you're clearly
not. Specialist knowledge will also raise rates. But I suspect they have high
churn with abuse like that.

Do they have an awesome sales/marketing team, or are those rates typical for
your industry? If it's typical, you might consider freelancing. Or finding a
small consultancy that will treat you better and take care of sales for you.

I'll say I was once unhappy and asked to be laid off. They told me no,
essentially because I was a cash cow. You think your bargaining position is
tough, but if your utilization rate is 100% and their margin is 80%, if you
leave they are guaranteed to lose at least 160 billable hours (up to 480)
while they replace you. I'm assuming you're not in gaming or a glamour
industry where there is a line out the door to replace you.

~~~
amiuba
I'm far from an expert, I'd say intermediate. There are people I work with who
know far more than I do.

The company specializes in a couple of frameworks so yes they sell expertise
in that sense, and they've done a lot of work developing the brand.

But yes, there are more jobs than people to fill them, which is pretty much
any software development job that isn't gaming related or movie related. My
company always has open software dev positions and they can't fill them fast
enough despite being very well known in the industry.

What domain is your consultancy in?

~~~
liquidcool
Traditionally it's been Java web application development and ecommerce, and
I've subcontracted a few times when friends needed help.

But now I'm currently focusing more on staffing, since almost nobody technical
is in recruiting, hence I'm a no brainer to hiring managers. Long term, I'll
funnel recruiting revenue into products.

------
icedchai
You might make a good independent consultant. You don't need an idea, but you
do need to be able to find work, actually get stuff done reliably, and, oh
yeah, remember to send invoices.

~~~
amelius
Why is it so difficult to find a service that finds work for a consultant?

------
guywithaphone
I am in the same boat. As someone in IT, I find that most organizations don't
value my incredible achievements... this year, I made a decent sum of money
selling a seasonal product. My long term goal is to start one or more
businesses with the blueprint from "the 4 hour workweek".

I have started to become an entrepreneur because there a billion different
ways to make the world a better place (some are marketable) and in part
because I want to be rewarded for the value i produce instead of the time I
put in.

------
tyingq
You could try being a staff augmentation contractor, working mostly 6 to 12
month gigs. Search any job board looking for keywords like contract or 1099.

You'll end up working at big companies, but are generally exempted from a lot
of the bullshit. Things like company kool-aid meetings, non technical
training, performance reviews, etc.

It's sort of in between running your own company and being an employee.

The risk profile is higher. You might see significant downtime between gigs.
So you'll have to be disciplined about putting money aside.

~~~
shortoncash
Have you done this? The job board advertised rates seem a bit on the low side
in relation to the downtime risk. (I'm only asking because I'm curious, not
because your advice sounds bad or anything.)

~~~
tyingq
I have. Staff aug, regular employee, and run my own company.

------
contingencies
You can become an academic, monk or makerspace operator if you enjoy research
and teaching. You can also just take a break to recharge, eg. personally I
find bicycle touring to be great. You could find something creative that you
enjoy and just work on that until you find a way to channel it in to income,
for example through sales or teaching. You could also consider channeling your
frustrations in corporate profit allocation to creating new approaches to
transparent management practices.

------
golergka
Seems that you're unsatisfied with the risk/reward balance, but you're not yet
ready to go all the way to the other side.

What about working as early employee or a co-founder on a new venture? It
won't be as hard as being the founder and CEO, but you'll still exchange some
stability and guaranteed reward right now for a chance of greater reward in
the future - and you'll be able to see direct results of your actions on the
whole company and your stake in it.

------
fallingfrog
M C P C' M'

Seriously though revolutions have happened because of this feeling, so you're
far from alone. I've been struggling with this for all my life and yeah at
some point I'll go nuts if I don't own my own work. I'm not advocating
communism as the right solution for the disenchantment of having your labor
exploited- I am saying that I think the frustration of that lies beneath both
entrepreneurship and most anti capitalist movements.

------
ryanwaggoner
Public sector employee plus FIRE sounds like a great combo to try.

Maybe freelancing too but I think that’s closer to entrepreneurship than some
here are willing to admit.

~~~
amiuba
Can you do it though? Public sector men's that you're paid less, a third of
your pay is out away in a pension you cant touch until you turn 65 (if it's
still there then). I've always wondered about it because I'd rather work at
making people's life better and it feels like it's what most of government
jobs stand for.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Public sector can actually pay pretty well. It really depends on the job. Top
performers can do better in the private market, but money isn’t everything.
Maybe OP will need to take a paycut to feel better about life :)

------
aSockPuppeteer
I would advise against 1099 until you are thoroughly read up on the subject.

There are calculators out there and percentages for employee versus 1099 but
really it comes down to risk. You could be out of contract, injure yourself,
and need to find income in that state. If you can mitigate that risk then you
are ready.

In the meantime you may want to try a few courses in business or
entrepreneurial skills at a local college or online.

------
cellis
Well, unless you win the lottery or get an inheritance, you have to work for
someone else, in the US at least. There's no way around that. So in that case,
you should try to find a job that you loathe the _least_. I suppose there are
other options, like begging -- but that's still working to convince people to
give you money, or welfare / disability -- again, same issue. No matter what
the arrangement, until the end of your days you will have to justify your
consumption of resources to your fellow humans.

I'm reminded by 2 quotes that may be of use to you. The first, by Paul Graham,
who founded this forum:

"Startups are not magic. They don't change the laws of wealth creation. They
just represent a point at the far end of the curve. There is a conservation
law at work here: if you want to make a million dollars, you have to endure a
million dollars' worth of pain. For example, one way to make a million dollars
would be to work for the Post Office your whole life, and save every penny of
your salary. Imagine the stress of working for the Post Office for fifty
years. In a startup you compress all this stress into three or four years. You
do tend to get a certain bulk discount if you buy the economy-size pain, but
you can't evade the fundamental conservation law. If starting a startup were
easy, everyone would do it."

And the second, by Mr. Money Mustache:

"In real life (even New York City real life), you get paid for getting really
difficult shit done, better than anybody else can do it."

------
hawksy
Two things you can do:

1) You can opt for job roles where your perks are directly linked to your
efforts - eg: Sales, Marketing.

2) There are side projects which can get you really decent and increasing
revenues. You need not be a big visionary and build a company around it but
you with the help of some freelancers can manage it. I can help you with some
ideas if you want.

~~~
amiuba
> I can help you with some ideas if you want.

Sure, I'm always curious to hear ideas! Thanks

------
etdeagle
Try to switch your company and see it as your vehicle to navigate the cosmos.
Don't hesitate to ask your coworkers for the new things you want in your life
and see how it becomes business projects.

Like many people, managers are systems to be used to organize. Coworkers
organize your surroundings, managers organize your upper layers.

------
thirdworlds
Remote work has been my saviour — infinite travel possibilities, disconnected
from the 9–5 monotony, only need to fake enthusiasm for 5–60m a day max. Helps
to see the position as purely a means to an end — pays the bills and allows
for unbridled freedom.

~~~
pinchharmonic
How did you first take the jump to get into remote work?

------
cynusx
You seem very focussed on the money-side of the equation, however for most
people job satisfaction consists of more things like feeling part of a team,
being friends with colleagues and growing as an individual. e.g. some
companies enable you to solve problems you cannot do anywhere else, or allow
you responsibility that you wouldn't have anywhere else.

Maybe the easiest to identify what would make you more satisfied with a job is
to think what job you would sign up for if you suddenly have all your money
needs solved (aka win the lottery).

The high risk of becoming an entrepreneur is exactly why the labour market is
not allocating profits to employees, if it were very easy to build a
successful company that can employ others then a lot of people would go and do
just that. consequently, the war for talent would ensure profits go to the few
people willing to work for somebody else.

~~~
amiuba
That's the thing... I've worked at many different places (startups come and go
fast), and I've never worked on something that I felt very strongly about. I
was always solving someone else's problems while making someone else money.

If I had enough money to live, I would quit writing software for money
instantly. I have a few side projects in various states of neglect and I'd
much rather work on these for free than solving yet another meaningless
corporate or business problem.

But I can't do that yet, because I like sleeping in a bed under a roof and
eating food.

I get the risk/reward thing, but I think that one side has too much power and
reaps too much profit from it.

------
sunstone
Get a license. Medical, legal, electrician, teacher, plumber whatever tickles
your fancy. This typically gives you a secure occupation with a steady enough
income and quite a bit of workplace independence.

------
lumberjack
Have you tried working in the public sector or for a non-profit, like a
university? Also you could try, although this is extremely rare, but there
exist some cooperative software development firms.

------
d9k
You should consider to read books written by Peter Gelderloos about social
anarchism, for example "Anarchy works".

At least you will meet with thoughts of people who have the same frustration
as you have.

------
0x4f3759df
Definitely understand where you are coming from. Not sure about your
specifics, but you could try the Mr. Money Mustache route; spend less money,
then you wouldn't need to work as much

~~~
amiuba
Definitely doing this already, but there is still several years to go.

------
jstewartmobile
You're probably looking at the wrong thing here.

People who _enjoy_ what they're doing typically look past how mightily life,
the government, and the suits are screwing them. In my own business, I
absolutely _hate_ the admin tasks, but the people and the actual productive
work more than make up for it.

Try to find something that you actually enjoy doing. The rest will probably
take care of itself.

------
melsumner
1\. Take up kickboxing

2\. Consider that you probably can't change someone else but you can probably
change your own response. In other words, figure out how to quickly identify
the stuff that is total BS, actively choose not to stress about it, and train
yourself to focus on the parts of it that you genuinely enjoy.

3\. Know that you're not alone.

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matumba
Have you considered working for an NGO or charity or something?

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amelius
> Has anyone ever felt this way? What did you do about it and how do you cope
> with it?

Yes, same here. Good question!

------
martin1975
> I say don't change much because a 2-3% raise once in a

> while is nice, but it's nothing in comparison to the

> thousands/millions extra it will make the company, while the

> only result for me is that I get to keep my job and do more

> of that.

Have you considered moving into sales? With your technical background as an
engineer, you can certainly forage into sales with the right mentorship.

Sales is about the only type of 'job' that you will feel a proportionate
reward to the effort you put in, meaning, you get more if you sell more (e.g.
work longer/harder), whereas there's no financial incentive to work longer if
you are salaried.

Of course, with sales you pay a different price - time-wise. You may have to
be on the road a lot and work longer hours. But many people who are now
considered very well off got that way through sales (e.g. John Doerr, who was
one of Intel's greatest sales people).

Another way, and this is a tall order, is to find something your company (or
the company's customer rather) needs, and try to get something
started/prototyped before it becomes an actual project, then pitch that to
management/sales/marketing. This way, you create value that was going to be
created anyway on the company's dime, but you do this on your own time and
hopefully in time for the company to adopt it and transition into your product
idea. I know at least a few projects like this where I work, it's just that I
value family time above extra cash that isn't really going to make a massive
difference to my lifestyle.

I'm talking about software here mostly, as the barrier of entry to creating a
software prototype of something is usually lower than creating a hardware
prototype of something, depending on application of course.

Notice however, even if you do create something that's of value while working
for someone else - you still end up having to 'sell' it to stakeholders within
the company who can further give you a budget to polish it... or worst case,
you may have to kill it if they don't like it, or don't approve of your
methods- mostly because anytime you code something that involves using the
company's source code as a base, they get to claim ownership of the IP
(software). You read your employment contract, right?

This way, by putting above and beyond your 40 hr/week, you can most assuredly
extract promotions and/or additional equity, without taking on the massive
stress or risk of venturing out on your own. If you find it too time consuming
to code on your own time, there's always options to hire foreign talent from
countries with a lower standard of living to help you with coding - though
that has its risks too, it's most definitely a viable avenue. I've done that
for people who needed me to build simple websites for a lot cheaper than if I
had done the website myself as a US-based engineer and usually marked up their
rate by 20% or so. I've seen outfits mark up 100% or more... it all depends on
what's acceptable to the engineer you're hiring, your customer and ultimately
your take.

As you hopefully intuited, if you want the rewards to be proportionate to your
effort instead of salaried, it almost always involves some kind of
salesmanship in addition to being an astute coder/engineer/techie.

Yet another way is to becomes a serial start-up-eneur. Continue joining
startups until one of them hits it off. This is less risk, but many people
have gotten well off this way too.

I'm sure there are other ways, I just can't think of them now :)

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makotech222
Congratulations, you have discovered socialism. Most people find extreme
injustice in seeing the value of their labor being stolen by the capitalist
class. Socialism is an economic system that does away with the employer-
employee distinction and allows all workers to take ownership of their own
labor. In practice, this means the democratization of the workplace, and the
end to the autocratic workplace.

Edit: To actually answer your question, perhaps you should think about
politics, and fight for a future where no one should suffer like this.

~~~
outside1234
Anyone who thinks this is a great idea should take a trip to Cuba.

Seriously. I had the same affliction and about 8 days into Cuba I was totally
cured.

~~~
weirdstuff
Cuba is a cherry-picked example and is misleading.

Other socialist countries that are doing better: China; Denmark; Finland;
Netherlands; Canada; Sweden; Norway; Ireland.

Don't forget Cuba has been forced into economic isolation by the US. And
places like Venezuela and Detroit were overly dependent on too few industries
and are plagued by massive wealth inequality.

You can also find persistent systemic poverty in capitalism:
[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0185084916...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0185084916300330)

~~~
cc81
How do you define a socialist country?

~~~
dazc
By including China, I'd say, very broadly?

~~~
arcticbull
I agree, China doesn’t meet the criteria imo. It’s totalitarian, nationalist
and it does not provide socialized medicine - it has more in common with the
US than with the other examples, I believe. Over the years they’ve been moving
to privatize many industries - not all though.

Interestingly the Western leaning Taiwan usually portrayed as the capitalist
counterpart does provide socialized medicine, having quite recently de-
privatized the system with great results.

------
hateduser2
I don't know why people take it on its face that hating their job is something
that is fixed, and not changeable. What if rather than seek a different
lifestyle, you try to learn to love your job and be ok with working under
others? Why does everyone assume your feelings as they are are _ok_ , in the
sense that they shouldn't be worked on and navigated. Does everyone here just
work off their first impression, for instance, that they wouldn't consider
their feelings the problem on occasion?

