
I don't want to work very hard - flaneur
I've been a professional developer about ten years now and I don't want to do it any more. I don't mean developing, I love coding. I mean work.<p>At every workplace (big to small, profit and non-, startup to hegemony), I'm enthusiastic the first couple weeks but inevitably slide to keeping up appearances with 2-6 hours of actual work per week. Sometimes I like coworkers and projects, sometimes I haven't. In any case, after a year or so I'm completely frustrated and I leave, to happily live off savings for a few months.                                                                                                      Yeah, the million-dollar question from 'Office Space', find a way to make a career of whatever you'd do if you didn't have to have a career. It's possible, but it's the "career" part I hate. I fail to understand the Protestant Work Ethic. I don't see any reward in work, just lost time.<p>I've studied history some, things are great in America: abundant food, clean water, safe streets, no civil strife, no wars (yes, two occupations), effective medicine, efficient sanitation. It's not utopia, but there's no need to bust my ass to 'change the world'. The last 50 years are some of the best in history and the good times will likely keep rolling, so why waste them? Any if they're going to stop, why waste them?<p>Does anyone else feel like this?<p>I'm winding down on the best job I've ever had, two years at a small non-profit. It's taken longer, but I'm just as fed up with working. My plan is to take the money I've saved up and start a business. I think I've found a niche with a need, and if I can put enough in my pocket that I can buy insured and very low-risk securities to quietly live off a trickle of interest.<p>I've already done all the lifehack stuff, so I don't own or want to own much. I want my time, all of my time, to pursue my hobbies and relationships with friends and family. Consulting doesn't work, I'd have to charge hundreds per hour to work as little as I'd like, and that's before the client management/sales overhead. I've read 4 Hour Work Week and found the nuggets of good info in the fog of bad writing and hyperbole, but it basically comes down to becoming a manager. And if I was OK pushing pills I'd probably go hang out on the Digital Point forums to pick up some shady deals, but I have too much of a conscience.<p>I know it's not the PG startup plan, where you work like hell for a few years to make something people want. I just want to make a bankroll and get out. I'm not sure why I'm posting, except that hanging out here and reading about startups has made me think it's possible to break my frustrating cycle of work, and I'm curious to hear what folks think.
======
BigCanOfTuna
"The thought of having to expend my creative energy on things that make
practical everyday life more refined, with a bleak capital gain as the goal,
was unbearable to me. - Einstein

I think most people on HN could relate to this quote. Like it or not, as
professional developers, we rarely create, but simply refine. It was fun at
the start of my career, but now my professional life seems rather
unimaginative.

~~~
illumen
"Instead I decided to work on weapons that can kill LOTS of people... fuck
those guys who didn't get me in school." -- Bert.

~~~
nuclear_eclipse
The fact that his work was applied to the creation of nuclear weapons was one
of Eintstein's great regrets in life. The fact that those weapons were used on
cities full of civilians was his greatest.

~~~
illumen
Albert signed a letter urging for the creation of an atomic bomb.

If you think someone that intelligent could not have realized that an atomic
bomb would be used to actually kill people -- then you are sorely mistaken.

~~~
gambling8nt
In the letter he suggested that it might be used to cause significant damage
to a port. He had no idea that it would be (1) anywhere near as destructive as
it was, or (2) small enough or light enough to drop from aircraft rather than
only being used in either naval warfare (where death tolls would be much less)
or as a fixed weapon acting as a disincentive to invasion (building them along
some border so that an overland aggressor would surely be destroyed--
essentially, a much more powerful minefield).

~~~
tibix
That's right. Have you seen Copenhagen (a movie produced for TV)? It shows
Niels Bohr arguing with Heisenberg about the atomic bomb... it's a really good
movie about a meeting between them that nobody knows what was it about.

~~~
jimbokun
Saw the stage version, it was excellent.

------
zupatol
Have you tried working part-time?

I'm not sure this would help, because I don't really understand how you can
love coding and hate working at the same time. Here is what I do:

I have an arrangement with my employer that I will not work full-time for more
than 9 months straight. After 9 months I have a 6 months break. The
arrangement is tacit, it's not in a contract, but it has been working for the
last 3 years. It took me one year to find such a job. I turned down another
job where I could have worked 3 days a week, because they wanted me to first
work full-time for 1 year.

Work doesn't seem to turn me off as much as you, but then I only worked full-
time for one year, the year my first IT employer trained me as a developer. I
then worked 4 days a week and eventually quit because they wouldn't let me
work 3 days.

It's not that I don't like work, it's just that my extremely time-consuming
hobby is more important to me. One obvious downside is that I have less
professional opportunities, so if I worked more, my job might be more
interesting.

I am not sure I could afford this, or even have the courage to try it, if I
hadn't also inherited some money. On the other hand I haven't tried the
lifehack stuff.

I am in Switzerland, a country where unemployment tends to be low, but where
working part-time as a developer is uncommon enough for lots of people to
think it can't be done.

~~~
flaneur
Huh. Somehow it had not occurred to me to try to make this cycle explicit.
That's a really interesting idea, thank you.

~~~
davi
This reminds me of something I often forget: if I want something out of the
ordinary, it's very unlikely anyone will give it to me unless I ask.

~~~
delackner
Ask and ye shall receive.

~~~
villageidiot
Or not. But it's usually better to ask anyway.

------
ilamont
Several quotes came to mind when reading this:

"If you win the rat race, you're still a rat." \- Anna Quindlen, Harvard
Commencement speech

"No man on his deathbed ever said, 'I wish I had spent more time at the
office.'" \- The late Massachusetts Senator Paul Tsongas, speaking at another
Harvard Commencement

There's another quote that also springs to mind, but I can't remember who said
it. It is "time is the ultimate luxury." I think of this more often as the
years go by and more responsibilities land on my plate, and my personal and
family time suffer. I like what I do, but there are real sacrifices that come
with leading a career-driven life.

~~~
odimrof
> "No man on his deathbed ever said, 'I wish I had spent more time at the
> office.'" - The late Massachusetts Senator Paul Tsongas, speaking at another
> Harvard Commencement

No, but I bet a lot of men have said, at least to themselves if not out loud,
"I wish I'd had sex with a lot more gorgeous women." cf. Little Miss Sunshine.

Spending more time at the office is a fairly reliable way of upping your odds
when you're not at the office.

~~~
cousin_it
_Spending more time at the office is a fairly reliable way of upping your odds
when you're not at the office._

American cultural assumption? Because I don't want women to be attracted to my
money. Better ways to get women: learn to perform music, take up physical
exercise, practice your confidence game.

~~~
lallysingh
If the goal is quantity of gorgeous women, and only to the point of sleeping
with them, then who cares why they like you? :-)

~~~
cousin_it
Human beings are based on stimulus/response more than goal-seeking. My dealing
with women has no clear-cut goal, it's an interplay of many different
instincts some of which are frustrated at the thought of sex for money.

------
sidsavara
Dude, I could have written your post (with some minor changes) I feel the same
way quite often.

I think it happens after you have a certain level of expertise at your job -
you're not really learning anymore, you're just maintaining, putting in new
features, etc. I don't job hop TOO often, but I have worked on average 2 years
per job. Part of that also is geographic as well as career considerations, but
it was always about the right time to leave.

I too am into Lifehacking, loved the 4HWW etc. So I think I come from a
similar perspective. Unfortunately, I don't have an answer to the question, or
I would not be working at my current position. It is good, and the money is
good, people are awesome, etc - but it definitely feels like "work."

I think the bottom line is if your hobby can't make you money, you need to
make money somewhere, somehow, to trade for the things you need (food,
shelter, etc). Some of this can come from the government, depending on your
personal standard of living that you are accustomed to.

In my case, I am happy to give up a portion of my life for a relatively easy,
enjoyable job so that I can live comfortably, eat well, etc.

In the long run, I would definitely prefer to not trade my hours for cash
programming, and would prefer a website (or large conglomerate of websites)
that provided passive income, but I am not there yet.

If you would like to work together on something, you can contact me sid [at]
sidsavara [dot] com.

~~~
flaneur
Ah, I follow your blog. Tried out TimeSvr after your review. I'm going to
ponder my options for a few weeks. I may be in touch, but thanks for extending
an invitation in any case.

~~~
sidsavara
No problem. Someone else has contacted me after seeing my post here as well,
and it's an open invitation to anyone reading - if you want to join Lazy
Hackers, LLC, get in touch =)

sid@sidsavara.com (why not, have at it spammers, I have Google's spam filter
=P)

------
felixc
As much as I sympathize with your sentiment, I'd just like to point out that
the real benefit of a larger-than-necessary paycheque is being able to
actually save money for when you are too old or technically outdated to
continue working.

It's certainly enjoyable to switch on and off from work and live off savings,
but then you eventually get to the point where you can't find a job to switch
back on to, and your savings are all gone...

~~~
mhartl
_when you are too old or technically outdated to continue working_

I'd be willing to bet that, for the current generation at least, that will
never happen. (But I still max out my retirement account, just to be safe. :-)

~~~
jhancock
I'm confused by that statement. Do you really mean that IT gurus won't get too
old or burnt out on re-leanering new stuff every few years?

I am 40 and have been programming since I was 12; almost always on the
bleeding edge. I can assure you that there is a point of being "too old".

Unless you are quite a different person that I, I highly suggest you keep
maxing out that retirement account. ;)

~~~
mhartl
_IT gurus won't get too old or burnt out on re-learning new stuff every few
years_

I can't speak directly to the IT guru part, or to getting burnt out on new
stuff. I can tell you that my dad is almost 70 and has never enjoyed his work
more. I'm 35 and I'm still always itching to learn new things. And given the
rapid advance of technology, I'd be surprised if the usual 'grow old and die'
scenario remains 'usual' much longer. In the not-too-distant future I expect
longer lives and continual renewal to be the norm, and I for one am looking
forward to it.

------
peakok
I might be downmodded to hell with this message, but whatever... I feel about
the same.

Do you have some sort of nobility in your ancestorship (or in the army) ? I
noted that this feeling would be more frequent among descendants of
aristocrats. During the Aristocraty paradigm, work was despised more than
anything else. We are now living in a bourgeois world, where work is
sanctified as the alpha and omega.

I don't like work. The one thing I dislike more than work, are the people who
try to make me feel guilty for it. Usually, these are the same people who do
not know how to enjoy life outside their work. They are hypocrites, because
work is their escape route from boredom rather than a burden, and the truth is
that if you allowed them to quit, they wouldn't. Or not for long. Because the
true burden to them is exactly doing nothing special. They don't understand
people can be different and actually enjoys spending time doing nothing
special. As your nickname suggests it, we have a word in french for the
vertuous laziness : flanerie. While these people find it intolerable when they
don't work, we are pretty much the opposite. The zeitgeist is certainly on
their side for now.

I have a true respect for hard work, but no admiration. I am deeply
unimpressed by success stories and rich people who worked hard to climb to the
top of the ladder. This kind of satisfation is foreign to me. I don't ask for
your admiration, only for the respect of who I am whatever might be my
activity and my aspirations. I doubt I'll buy all your products, but I won't
harm your family or ask for your money, and I despise the nanny state as much
as you probably are.

Go in peace, my brother ;)

------
yters
Have you looked at living overseas? It looks possible to work for 5 years then
not need to work indefinitely. Though, depending on your friends and family,
this might not be what you want. Anyways, here's a little research I've done.
If I don't get married in the next couple years, I plan on following my own
advice.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=122341>

I have a friend who is very well travelled, and he agrees with the viability
of my take on financial independence. There is a lot more research I need to
do, but the general concept seems alright.

------
bufferout
Look, I appreciate your candor and all but I can't help but think if I was
your coworker then I'd be pissed at having to carry your sorry arse.

Shit or get off the pot.

~~~
ghshephard
Difficult to tell. Our most highly respected individual contributor in our
department comes in at 11:00, leaves at 5:00, and basically works on whatever
catches his fancy whenever he pleases (Which, thankfully, usually results in a
reduction in labor for our and other departments each time he releases some
new code/product)

When particular tasks are placed on his plate - he is so overwhelmingly
competent, that he simply nails them and moves onto the next task. The goal is
to get _very_ good at your job so you do _less_ work.

And he is easily the most popular member of the team. People love him to
pieces and I've never heard anyone suggest he isn't carrying twice the load of
everyone else.

As I tell my team - Our Goal in life is to become so proficient at our jobs
that we only need to come into work for an hour a day. If we develop our level
of excellence, or ability to automate, and our ability to deliver to that
level, I'm more than happy to have them in the office for as little time as is
required to complete the tasks of their position. (presuming that the median
person with those responsibilities would take 40 hours a week, of course)

As it turns out, with the exception of Director Level employees, the most
highly paid _contractor_ in our company works for precisely 2 hours, from 9:00
- 11:00, each day. They are available 24x7 for assistance, but, if they do
their job properly, they rarely are called in for help.

That is where I think we want to be. That should be our goal. Spend our time
with family, in nature, pursuing those objectives which bring us inner
happiness.

~~~
mickt
A laudable goal, but if you managed that do you really think your senior
management (or at least the mgt in most companies) would agree? They'd think
they're not getting value for money if your only "working" 2 hours a day.

~~~
ghshephard
Excellent point - thought somewhat distressing. Most companies place value on
the number of hours that you put in at the office (though a good portion of
them recognize your actual contribution with pay increases, stock
compensation, and promotions).

My position on this (and, I'm actually in a position to sign off on contractor
invoices) - wouldn't you rather your top people do the same amount of work in
_fewer_ hours, presuming they maintain the same level of quality?

What's the value of doing something in 40 hours/week versus 8 hours/week?

------
strlen
Have you considered that it's the lack of challenge and the fact you aren't
actually working much that's the issue? Have you tried to embrace a project
that involved a skill set that you didn't have?

On the issue of starting your own business:

There's a reason entrepreneurship is entrepreneurship: there is risk involved.
It may work, or it may not. You may build something people want and sell it,
cashing out - or you may fail or may only be able to get it into a state where
it brings profit - but not into a state where you can walk away from it,
wealthy. You can then move on and do something else (with higher chance of
success) but now that's eight years of working longer hours vs. four and so
on.

That's not to say you shouldn't start a business (I certainly want to start my
own at one point or another), you just can't hope that it will magically solve
your problems.

I've been reading Thoreau's Walden, where he mentions a Native American basket
salesman who would argue when selling his baskets: "if you don't buy my
basket, my people will starve"; Thoreau then argued that it isn't "how to
better sell a basket" that the salesman should worry about but how to avoid
relying on selling baskets not to starve.

Likewise, instead of thinking "how can I generate passive income for myself so
I don't have to work" start thinking "how can I structure my work/life that I
don't need a passive income to be happy and productive" (it could be reducing
your living standards down to the basics where only consulting/part-time work
is needed, it could be finding an area in which you're more excited to work -
and if you can't find a job in that area, create one for yourself).

------
webwright
"I think I've found a niche with a need, and if I can put enough in my pocket
that I can buy insured and very low-risk securities to quietly live off a
trickle of interest."

Markets are pretty efficient. It's pretty unlikely that you've found a niche
where you can make a good living without any work. If you do, it won't be long
before someone who wants to work hard comes around and blows your business out
of the water. But if you hit it right, you might be able to make a pile of
cash before it happens.

It's the startup equivalent of stock market timing, and I imagine you have
about as good a chance of success.

~~~
ggrot
Job markets are not as efficient as real markets where you buy and sell things
because jobs are not liquid. If I find a job paying $50/hour and someone else
is working doing the same job earning $30/hour, I can't exactly make any
profit arbitraging the market to efficiency.

For a pretty small investment in time and money, most grocery store cashiers
could learn to become plumbers. Plumbing routinely pays 4x a grocery store
cashier, but it is harder/nastier work and often deals with fecal matter.

~~~
kingnothing
Why can't you arbitrage people? That's effectively what consulting firms do.

~~~
paulgb
Recruiters also.

------
thomasmallen
Here's what you do:

1\. Work your ass off to have good savings if you don't already. This may take
a few years.

2\. Make sure that there are people in the US who would like to work with you
as an independent contractor so that you know you can make a buck when
necessary.

3\. Move to a foreign country with an advantageous exchange rate (Argentina
comes to mind).

4\. Buy some property in a place you like and relax! Your money will go very
far in such a place.

Living in the US and not working are fairly incompatible unless you're loaded.

~~~
kareemm
i ended up following this model exactly, tho haven't bought property yet. i am
writing this from buenos aires and am heading to cape town on sunday for 3w,
then india.

i was a developer at a couple of big media companies for 4y. ended up leaving
the last one to start my own company. left that 7m ago to travel because i was
burned out. this summer i spent 4m consulting in vancouver, where i was able
to spend time with a lot of great friends who i hadn't seen in years. that was
amazingly recharging.

left vancouver in oct to come to buenos aires. i spent 4-5 weeks of hanging
out in cafes, reading, visiting antarctica, hiking in nature, and
experimenting with ideas in an inspiring city. being away from the
distractions of everyday life was helpful to evaluate the best direction for
pursuing my calling (not a job, or a career - more here: <http://is.gd/b7h8>).
it has been friggin amazing and i'm totally recharged.

you know that fire in your belly that causes you to be obsessed with what
you're building? i haven't had that feeling in ages, but i've got it now. i
was lying awake in bed until 430a yesterday thinking about a feature, so i
said screw it - i got up and implemented it and was up until 630a. can't even
remember the last time i even _considered_ that.

i guess my point is that you can definitely get that fire back. my first
thought when reading your post was that you need to take time to chill and
figure out what your calling is. it won't feel like work when you do.

~~~
eddycole
I had that fire for a couple years and it was one of the most exciting and
rewarding times of my life. Working on getting it back right now and it's good
to have that feeling in my gut again.

Thanks for the brief but highly motivating post, kareemm.

------
Prrometheus
>I just want to make a bankroll and get out.

Life is hard, man. It's easy to find a way to waste your time and get by. But
there is no easy way to make a bankroll and get out. To make enough to live
off of for the rest of your life, you need to provide as much value to the
marketplace in a short period of time as an average man does over the course
of his whole life. You think that's easy?

------
nora
Marry a doctor or lawyer.

~~~
epi0Bauqu
And take care of the kids.

~~~
spydez
Taking care of kids is a lot of work...

~~~
zhyder
But kids can be a hobby too

~~~
mnemonik
The worst thing is when parents force themselves upon their children. It puts
so much stress on the child and causes stress like none other. Kahlil Gibran's
"The Prophet" is filled with a lot of corny ideas by an author that is
fantasizing about himself being a prophet, in my opinion, but what he has to
say about children is excellent.

 _"You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth."_

------
noodle
> Does anyone else feel like this?

yes. if only there were an easy answer.

i think the best one is to create a good product for which there is a need,
not necessarily an innovative one, and set it up to autopilot mode similar to
what was discussed in the 4HWW. except more tech-oriented. as an example, you
don't need many customers to pay you for shared hosting to have a decent level
of income.

if you don't have much in the way of personal wants/needs, it isn't really
that tough to get by in the 20k/yr range.

unfortunately for me, some of my hobbies are expensive, so i have to work a
real job. for now, at least.

~~~
flaneur
Yeah, my current expenses are a little under 20k/y. It's how I affored the
idleness between jobs, and I've stretched it as long as I can.

~~~
Retric
To make 20k/year safely for the next 60 years you need around 1/2 a million
invested well which you skim off 4% and use the rest to keep up with
inflation. (70% stocks 25% bonds, 5% cash or cash equivalents.)

Saving 1/2 a million is hard but if your willing to live off of 20k/year then
~7+ years at 120k and you can reach that (tax is your major problem). Max out
your 401k etc and dump the rest directly into savings. Now clearly you don't
really want to work 7 years strait at a high stress job so aim for 1.5 to 2
years, take 4 months off collecting unemployment if you can and ~10 years out
you can do it.

One way to get a major tax break is buying a home. (This is risky.) The market
is down, but will still probably fall for a while. Try and get a home with a
low interest rate tax deductible loan and you can funnel a lot of money into
savings fairly quickly. If you can find a home / location where you can rent
out your extra space to cover most of your overhead your golden. But watch out
for all the extra costs that go along with home ownership.

PS: Long term heath care will become a problem. Also try and get as many
quarters working to maximize the amount of SS you can get.

~~~
minsight
"70% stocks"

That might be the traditional wisdom from the last 20 years or so, but it
might not be so wise now or for the next (possibly long) while.

~~~
Retric
There is a slim possibility that buying stocks today is a bad idea, but the
"magic" of cost dollar averaging means you don't need to chose when to invest.
And the advantage to having 30% in something other than stocks is so you can
buy them when the market tanks. If you live to be 90 and start investing at 20
you have 70 years to ride out the swings in the market.

Edit: Ok, post retirement swings can be frightening but diversification and
the 30% that's not in stocks should give you 8+ years to ride out most bumps.
Anyway, once your nest egg is significantly larger than your draw down it
stops being important.

~~~
vlad
"The costly myth of dollar-cost averaging"

<http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/P104966.asp>

"When the market is studied over long periods, dollar-cost averaging almost
always produces lower returns than investing lump sums in diversified
portfolios, and almost never reduces risk meaningfully."

I think the best advice I have heard is to think of stocks as buying
companies. On the other hand, if one is putting in X dollars in a stock on a
regular schedule, then that person is clearly not thinking strategically about
stocks, but just sees the stock as a monthly expense that is better than
spending it outright because you'll likely have at least something in the
future remaining. This type of logic is used by financial professionals to get
you to do business with them.

~~~
Retric
If you have a lump sum to invest then waiting to invest it to use "cost dollar
averaging" is not really a great idea.

However, if you compare your rate of returns over 30 years with the best and
worst possible lump sum investments vs your rate of return from consistent
inflation adjusted investing over 30 years the peaks and overall risk is far
lower and the average expected return is higher.

No approach can consistently beat the market investing lots of money over the
long term. But some R/W profiles are better for small investors looking for a
safe retirement than others. I would suggest most people start young and aim
for a 98% chance to hit 90% of their inflation adjusted salary at 65. Getting
there sooner is great, but not getting their at all is really bad so trying to
time the market is not helping your odds.

------
tarkin2
I am starting out in the development world. I simply want a job that will push
me to the point where I'm confident with my programming and design skills.
After that I want to freelance, so as to give me more time to concentrate on
the mountain of things that interest me. Or work for two years, save up money,
then don't work for 6 months to a year (my living costs and needs are very
low) so, again, I can work on the mountain of things that interest me.

Ultimately I have decided I will to work to live, and hopefully not work too
much so I have to some time to live. Even if I succeed at creating a startup
it will only be a means to a financial end. I'd quite like to live like a
victorian gentleman, but filling my days with cognitive pursuits instead of
prancing around London.

------
jmtame
I want to say that you have a larger calling in life to do something bigger
than what you're doing now.

~~~
diN0bot
snap

------
peregrine
I agree and disagree. People here will crucify you for what your saying but it
sounds like your exactly like me. I'm not even out of school yet and I've been
working part time developer during the year and full time during
summer/breaks(pay the bills). Anyways I'm already starting to feel bored and
distracted.

May I suggest going to school? Getting a phd and then become a professor and
sit around most days grading papers and lecturing. Seems like the kind of
lifestyle you'd like.

~~~
maximilian
Grading is the worst job I can think of. It alone steers me away from most
teaching positions.

(shudder) I have to grade finals tomorrow. egh.

~~~
lallysingh
It's not so bad in CS, a lot of the courses I took (and the one I TA'd) used
automated grading systems.

My autograder was a CGI-perl script. Dead easy.

------
yason
I feel mostly the same way. I love coding but I don't like working, nor a
career, nor having a job. I've been working part-time for a couple of years
now which helps a little. I currently do 4-5 hours a day in the average, and
whenever I get excess money I take a week or two of unpaid time off.

I try to maximise the part I really love, coding in a flow and creating and
making stuff (which counts to most of the "productivity" anyway), and minimise
the rest of the stuff that would just get me more entangled and drowned in
work.

I spend little and I live a small life, giving me more leeway -- something
I've been very grateful for to myself. But I'm still not entirely happy
because I can see the potential in myself to do something that's great in
terms of where I feel I should be going in life.

I've considered starting a company as well because I might find a way of
working that gives me what I think I want. Something small, I intend to make a
small living, not a fortune -- given the amount of money associated with
programming and IT services, I might be able to do it with less hours.

I think that time is the wealth that separates the rich life from the poor
life. And you don't have to be rich to live a rich life. Few people can afford
time for their life these days.

------
tptacek
Yes. What you're looking for is a job in enterprise IT.

~~~
flaneur
I haven't been enterprise IT, but I have been an enterprise dev. That was the
place I got away with 2h per week.

The problem is that not all my hobbies are digital, so I couldn't pursue them
while 'at work'. And I just grew to resent the 38h sitting and 15h commuting
per week.

~~~
tptacek
I've seen many late-night infomercials promising exactly the position you're
looking for, with many exciting ground-floor sales opportunities.

------
drawkbox
With the 38 hours free at work... You really shouldn't waste these valuable
hours. Ideally you have a job that challenges you enough to fill your time...
but in any case. < < <<USE THAT TIME>> > >

\- Write a book about a cube dweller in your position that on lunches and in
down time he is saving the world with a team all controlled from his work PC
where he is doing "nothing". Apparently that might be an untapped market
judging by the response here.

\- Find a problem at work, solve it, sell that.

\- Create a community or site/product for one of your hobbies, even it is is
knitting.

\- ???

Morale of the story is, find a way to build something of value with this time.
That something might help you, your like minded peeps, or even your company
(although you might have to get reinforcement externally before you sell
anything internally, I find this route works best).

Just do it son! And don't feel too bad if you try to contribute and it is
knocked down. Have everything as dual purpose for your own and possibly your
company's good. But make sure it has some of your own in it.

You have the power to create value.

------
coliveira
You have to understand that, short of winning the lottery, you need to do some
work to make money. Since you hate any work, you should work only at something
that pays extremely well to justify the hassle. Maybe Wall Street (if it ever
recovers) would be an option. Or start an MBA.

Then, once you get the job that pays a lot, save money like crazy for a few
years.

You can also start a startup, but the problem there is that there is no
guarantee of making any money. You can get rich and quit work, as pg, but
otherwise you need to start again. And if you don't like work, this is the
worst scenario.

------
fallentimes
Working on your own without any bosses or superfluous meetings is a big
motivator. Especially when rent & grocieries are on the line.

------
givingtech
Perhaps I can help you.

I have a technology company that is focused on helping non-profit
organizations and it is VERY rewarding. I'm in need of a partner that is a
good coder that REALLY does want to do good for others. The person that helped
me get this off the ground is now too busy with a J.O.B.

I'm not looking for a volunteer but someone that wants to improve the tools
that we have already been created, help those that are using them and work
with new organizations as I add them for equity and immediate share in the
revenue.

We are about "Helping Others Help Others!" Too often a charity gets a donation
or hand from a kind volunteer. That's a mistake. It's like giving someone a
fish. You need to give them tools that are easy to use so they can do it
themselves. Our easy to use tools have helped raise over a million dollars by
just a few organizations.

I'm willing to give equity in the company to the right person. You can live
anywhere you want. You can code a few days a week. You can help shape the
company.

I want this people who do so much for others to have a great organization
behind them and I need help.

Want to know more?

Please check out <http://www.GivingTechnology.com> and contact me.

BTW.. Anyone else looking to do good? What are your skills? I need a Graphic
Artist and Marketing. Again, interested in sharing equity to get this out to
as many non-profit organizations as possible.

------
nihilocrat
I was about to post a non-sequitur "well do this" reply, but honestly, I just
haven't got a bulletproof answer, only one that reflects what I really want to
do and probably won't work for everyone.

You will probably come to the answer more quickly now that you've actually
seriously brought it up and posted it on a public forum.

In the meantime, I've found that at my company, work is much more bearable
(and I get more done) if I (politely) get into other peoples' business without
asking.

------
streblo
I feel the same way about college. I'm just finishing up my second-to-last
(baring a catastrophic fuck-up) finals week, and in looking back, what did I
learn? Not much.

~~~
bkovitz
Funny thing: the word "school" is actually the ancient Greek word for leisure.
The idea was, if you had the means to live a life of leisure, then of course
you'd spend it learning and talking about cool stuff with other similarly
well-off people.

Somewhere along the way, they turned school into just another form of work.
Unlike regular work, it doesn't produce anything. It has all the stress and
unpleasantness of regular work (more, even), except you can't use the most
efficient method to get it done (that would be delegating the work to someone
who likes it), and it consumes time and other resources without yielding
benefits. The theory is that learning happens as a side-effect, but the
reality is, it doesn't. Seriously, if you wanted to set up a business to help
people learn subjects to a high level of mastery, you wouldn't do it anything
like a (modern) college.

I wonder, though, if professors live (or at least can live) the kind of life
we want: they are basically paid to indulge their curiosity, and their only
measurable obligation is that they have to teach some classes. If you're a
cool professor, you might even find a way to make the classes worthwhile.

This is the route I've just started on. I'm now in my first semester of grad
school. I'm hoping to treat the experience as "school" in the ancient sense of
the word. In six or seven years, I plan to get a tenure-track job, indulging
my curiosity. I figure since that's play-time for me, I should be great at it
and enjoy it.

Results so far: terrible. Taking three grad-level classes at once (and
teaching one class) chewed up so much time, I had almost no time to think or
learn or sleep. Complicating factor: I had a headache that lasted six weeks,
and I _started_ the semester exhausted. Mid-semester, I was so exhausted, I
took a three-week break from homework. I got my ability to think back, but I
spent the rest of the semester hustling to catch up.

Plan for next semester: Get a lot of rest over the break, and put all the
creativity I can into finishing each day's "work" by 5:30 p.m. so I can follow
my whims in the evening.

If that doesn't work, then I'll quit. Or maybe not. I just can't see getting a
regular software job again. I've done that cycle of working hard and enjoying
it the first several months or a year, and then getting sick of it and barely
showing up. I think I am completely burnt out on just getting coding done. I
am particularly sick of debugging. Oh, damn, that reminds me, I have to debug
some Scheme code for one of those classes.

------
olefoo
So, if on average you were pushing an (hours worked/hours present) ratio of
between 0.5-.15 how much of the money paid to you would the hours you were
present but not engaged be worth to you?

I should mention that I too find the application of industrial age factory
schedules to intellectual production to be equally ludicrous, but have so far
found the transaction costs of alternative compensation structures to be too
expensive and or risky.

~~~
dmoney
_...but have so far found the transaction costs of alternative compensation
structures to be too expensive and or risky._

From an employer's or employee's perspective?

~~~
olefoo
I've actually experienced it from both sides; mostly as an employee though.

If you're a little on the shady side of unethical it's equally easy to game
the system from either direction. For every goldbricker like the OP there is
someone running a 'design competition' where the top prize is having your
entry fleshed out by vietnamese contractors working at 1/10th the going rate
of any of the contest entrants.

There are multiple problems with the social construction of what work is and
it's place in our lives, for one thing our society is constructed so that much
of what passes for work is in fact random noise, this is more pronounced at
large companies where the wastage of time, attention and psychological energy
are well worn clichés; but it exists at small companies, and solo acts as
well. For another, we are not for the most part able to work effectively;
somebody who can pull a reliable twenty minutes of productive flow out of a
day can be a miracle worker, especially in a shop where the standards are
already low.

------
Tichy
Someone told me this quote recently, allegedly by fashion designer Karl
Lagerfeld: "I haven't worked a minute in my life". He only amused himself...

------
sokoloff
If you really love coding (and are good at it), you should never have to
work(+) a day in your life.

+-Sure, you'll have to write code, but for me that's an enjoyable play/hobby
activity that companies are all too happy to pay me all too much for. "Work"
in the preceding PP is something that you don't like doing and would only do
in exchange for money.

Find the right role in the right company, and you could easily have your
"office hobby" that you use to pay the bills for your other hobbies and
leisure time.

Over the years, I'd say that I've been paid on average 4x what it would
actually have required to secure my services, and the minimum amount is really
driven by what it would cost me to eat, drink, sleep and be merry. (It turns
out however, that that "surplus" 3x has made my life considerably more
comfortable and, in some areas, extravagant. I hope my boss doesn't read this
until after he's decided on my raise and bonus for the year. ;) )

------
marglar
Im 17 just finished high school and can already tell that i am not willing to
be a slave for the man, but what the hell else is there within my reasonable
grasp to stop it from being so? To this point as far as my research has led me
there is no way out in sight. This is all that i can think about lately.

------
jwesley
Wait, you said you've read The 4 Hour Work Week, WTF else do you need to know?
Get some brain supplements and get out on them thar internets!

In all seriousness though, most businesses require a lot more work than a job.
If you don't want to work just find a super easy job (government maybe?) and
do as little as possible.

~~~
yason
The problem with super easy jobs is that anything you do should align with a
meaning in your life, otherwise it feels frustrating, stupid, and just plain
wrong.

A stereotypical government job where you spend all your day playing the Tower
of Hanoi with stacks of "important" papers isn't likely to hit that sweet spot
of yours.

What the right place is depends on what you desire but your work should
support the way of life that you can't help thinking about.

------
markessien
Make your hobbies your work. There is really no other way. I only ever worked
for 2 weeks in my life, the rest of the time I've just been playing around
with programming. It's not work, it's what I would be doing anyways!

------
babul
Without being passionate about what you do, you are unlikely to succeed in
your aims.

Build a portfolio of passive income assests.

Ideally you should have been doing this while you had those 38hours per week
"free", but it is not too late to start.

~~~
rlockerl
What kind of passive income assets would you recommend?

------
utnick
Curious what you mean by shady deals on the digital point forums.

What kind of deals are these?

~~~
flaneur
Just surf around... stuff like scraping and reposting blogs, domain parking,
spam, affiliate marketing. Not always outright evil, but they do make the
world a slightly worse place.

~~~
steveplace
that's why I like wickedfire. At least they admit that they're evil.

------
tome
I'm afraid the good times won't keep rolling.

Over the next fifty years, humanity is going to face the largest ever crises
amongst those that it has the ability to deal with: potential global
catastrophe from climate change, and certain global catastrophe unless we
develop and widely deploy effective non-fossil energy sources.

I say "it has the ability to deal with" because if people become aware of the
seriousness of the situation, and are prepared to put themselves through half
a century of much less comfort than we've been used to these last 25 years,
then we can pull it off.

~~~
thomasmallen
Other than pseudo-climatology alarmist bullshit, is your theory founded on
anything?

~~~
petercooper
Potentially the educated opinions of almost every significant national science
or geological organization in the world? See
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_c...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change)

~~~
thomasmallen
Evidence > Opinions.

But if you want to sling opinions, here's a juicy read that came out two days
ago: [http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/12/09/climate-
meetin...](http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/12/09/climate-meeting.html)

A few (650) more experts had something to say yesterday:
[http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.B...](http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=2158072e-802a-23ad-45f0-274616db87e6)
Like most gov't sites, its design is hideous.

The hubris of men never fails to surprise me as I study history. People
actually believed that we could change a _planet's_ climate catastrophically
based on thirty years' data?! When we had other data showing that the the
climate naturally shifts, often unexpectedly? Asteroids and Volcanoes: Yes,
they can drastically affect climate. Smokestacks? Not so much.

------
seriouslywtf
Not sure if you'll like this answer, but although you may be comfortable with
a low income now what about the following future life expenses?

* Marriage/Honeymoon * Kids/College * Retirement * Mortgage/House * Taking care of parents

I see your plan being tenable in a "no-dependents" scenario, but not so much
if you need to provide for others.

My personal opinion is that any job you have will have at least 20% of BS you
have to do in any role you have. Its the cost of working with people and
organizations. Aim to reach that 20% level an if you can find a job with less
BS stick with it.

------
ending234
what ever happened to survival of the fittest, now i.e: modern day, everything
is run by a human being, who wants controll over everything, little knowing
that we are as equivalent to an ant. yet they want to know about what was here
millions of years ago what is going to happen to the earth in a million years,
whats beyond the universe, look how simple a birds life is, the only problems
they have is where to get there next meal. yet somehow our species have manged
to make living in this planet so much more difficult. its mainly run by paper,
forms, money, letters, a government. a group of people who put them selves in
charge and enact laws in which thay can controll the whole of the race. you
need a passport a visa to travel across borders. yet birds do it for free, you
put a man behind bars for illegitimate reasons while hes rotting away in his
cell the prison guard goes home to his wife with a smile on his face. a ceo of
a large multinational company says he worked hard to where he got, no he didnt
he got lucky, yet the thousands of people who depend on the job they got
within the company have their lives resolve around the job. but the ceo doesnt
care. he/she needs to get a new massage chair for their mansion. and what
about the 'shes' females are all so niave and have become so equal within the
past century with men. and what is with feminists shaving their head to make a
statement. when i see a bald woman placing orders on a male it makes me want
to get a razer and shave the skin of her head right down to her skull. i cant
beleive we live our life by what other people made up and have now apparently
become official 'laws'. i dont like this! i want This world to end now
everyone including me every man woman baby bird lion giraffe horse cat monkey
should be wiped out there should be nothing here except a big ball of rock. I
am far beyond the term 'fed up' with this world!

------
tjic
Marry a trust fund millionaire and then run for the Senate, like Kerry (D) or
McCain (R).

Those guys haven't done anything productive in decades, and the paychecks keep
rolling in.

------
waddletron
Read ' Bob Black - The Abolition of Work ' I've never been the same since...
<http://www.zpub.com/notes/black-work.html> "No one should ever work. Work is
the source of nearly all the misery in the world. Almost any evil you'd care
to name comes from working or from living in a world designed for work. In
order to stop suffering, we have to stop working. "

------
anaphoric
While I am sure we can all relate to your viewpoint, I think it's basically
destructive to yourself and others.

You claim to "have too much of a conscience", but then you seem to be alright
with working 2-6 hours and being paid for 40. Now if you were spending the
remaining 34-38 hours doing something of value to others, society, etc. then I
might be able to accept your stance. Are you? What exactly are you doing while
you are getting paid?

------
lsc
I guess I also get pretty bored with jobs after a year or two. It's funny,
though, I have been running this business for quite a bit longer than that,
and it's not boring. I think the boring parts of the dayjob are the stupid
that I can't change. I mean, sure, there is stupid at my company, too-
sometimes a lot of stupid. but it's _my_ stupid, and I'm allowed to figure out
how to fix it.

I think most of us are working towards a point where we can choose what we
spend our time on. Me, I'm currently working a full-time contract gig for the
money, and then coming home, working on my book and my hosting company. The
book is winding down, and the hosting company, well, I might not be an awesome
manager, but I do seem to be pretty good at finding and hiring underemployed
people who turn out to be quite good. (as confirmed by the salaries they
command when they leave my company.) so I do have good help.

Obviously, I'm not to the point where I have less 'forced work' - in fact, I'm
doing the opposite. Right now, I'm working way more hours than would provide
maximum effectiveness (I think it's been more than a month since I've had a
week with less than 80 hours.) I keep my productivity from going negative by
switching tasks often and outsourcing many things normal people do themselves
(for example, I pay someone to clean out my house once a week. It costs me
$15/hr, and she's much faster than I am. Being as I bill out north of $70/hr
even in my current state, it's a good deal) but it's still completely
unsustainable, and there's one guy working for me that I lean on way too much.
If he quits before I expect him to (usually people stick with me for around a
year) I am so fucked.

I don't see these 80 hour weeks as a good thing; they are, in fact, really
stupid. I'd almost certainly get more done if I could cut it down to 60. But
the book needs to get out soon... the publisher is getting antsy, and already
Xen has changed so much we have to rewrite parts. And the hosting company,
well, that's kindof the point here. that's why I'm putting up with this other
crap, so I can't put it on hold.

I figure after the book is out (assuming the hosting company keeps improving
as it has been) I'll be able to cut my consulting hours, relying on the
credibility of being published to reduce some of the marketing effort.

If I had to do it over again, I would have set things up so that I could
support myself on a part time job, and grown the hosting company more slowly,
so it could also be supported by that part-time job.

But I do find work, even work for other people to be pretty interesting for
the first 6months or a year. This actually works out pretty well for me as a
contractor. I mean, if you want someone for longer than six or twelve months,
you shouldn't be using contractors anyhow, so nobody get's bent out of shape
if I want to leave around that time.

If I didn't have the entrepreneurial bug, I'd probably work as a contractor
for three to six months out of the year, and read (or write) the rest of the
time. Especially if you spent your working time in the bay area and your
relaxing time somewhere cheaper, you could live pretty nicely that way.

------
krschultz
What are your hobbies?

~~~
flaneur
Walking (hence the username), reading, languages (human or code), hacking
roguelikes and muds, knitting. Doesn't sound like much when I just list them,
but I can happily spend a roughly infinite amount of time on them.

~~~
Chocobean
hacking roguelikes and muds eh? Have you ever tried DwarfFortress? Toady does
it "full time" surviving on donations.

~~~
JabavuAdams
Oh no. Now he'll never work again...

------
NoBSWebDesign
You could rob a bank.

Other than that, I'm not sure I know of a surefire way to make money without
doing anything, except for the "work like hell for a few years" thing.

~~~
NoBSWebDesign
Wow, I really got downmodded for saying you have to work to make money?

------
jdavid
these people baffle me.

if you do what you love, you will be better at it, and you will work harder at
it.

this guy does not want to work because he wants to hang out with his friends,
when in reality if he had different people to entertain himself with, he might
actually get paid for it.

but like many people, he has written the rules in such a way that he will
fail.

------
transburgh
more work for me ;)

~~~
flaneur
Why would you want it? Can't you be happy without it?

~~~
grimoire
Some people love their work. Work is as interesting to them as any hobby they
might have. I count myself among those who love their work. My boss has a hard
time getting me to take my vacation time. Anything more than 4 days away from
work and I start to get fidgety. Sure, I have my other hobbies, but work is my
favorite.

~~~
juliend2
what is your job?

------
known
<http://www.whywork.org/>

------
utx00
this is the best post ever. you can move to a non-competitive place. somewhere
in the south maybe. you won't have to work long days, or even a lot.

good luck on your "travels".

------
epiphyte3
everyone here wondering how a programmer can get in this frame of my mind has
not been working for very long or has never worked for a lousy employer.

------
lallysingh
Find another career. Hack at home for fun.

------
mossplix
do what u love and u wont have to work a second of your life..

~~~
jbjohns
It's not that simple. If Da vinci would have been forced to sit in a pod all
day every day, having meetings every morning about how much progress he
thought he would make on some painting that he knew he would just be redoing
again in 6 months after a management change, he probably would have grown to
hate what he loved.

The thing I've personally found is that if you love coding it's probably best
to get a job that doesn't involve coding. Coding (like most art I would
imagine) is something you can really poor yourself into, take great pride in
success and really be crushed by failure. As a consequence, doing this 40+
hours per week takes out of you any desire to do it outside of work. And of
course that is problematic when you hope to use coding to become financially
independent.

------
ahoyhere
Have you considered that you might enjoy your own business more, thus making
the "hate working" part no longer so true?

I'm on a shorter time scale than you. I consulted from 14 to 20, when I had a
bit of a trainwreck of bad luck and choices all at once, then I held 3 jobs:
one for 3 mos, one for a year, and one for 15 mos. I quit each when I got to
the point you're describing. I've been consulting again since Sept 07,
thinking that charging the premium rates would help limit my exposure to bad
customers and boring work. It hasn't, really (I'm charging "hundreds" per hour
as you say).

But it has given me the flexibility to ship my first real product. And I'm
actually having a blast. And I'm not working balls-to-the-wall like the
expected YC work ethic. We built v1 in 3 mos, a couple days a week, and we've
already got a small stable of happy paying customers... with almost zero
promotion.

Even the boring and unsavory stuff (bug fixes, answering tickets!) is more fun
when it's something you're passionate about.

Maybe you're not anti-WORK, but anti-job?

That said, if you've learned a bunch doing what you were doing, why not try to
sell software or do low-commitment micro-consulting or write about it for a
subscription site?

~~~
eru
By the way: How do you get into (micro-) consulting?

~~~
ahoyhere
How do you get into anything else?

A. Research. B. Experiment. :)

------
time_management
If you're down to 2-6 hours of actual work, you've got plenty of time to put
into a startup.

 _The last 50 years are some of the best in history and the good times will
likely keep rolling, so why waste them? Any if they're going to stop, why
waste them?_

I agree with you. 75 percent of the "work" that is done could be lost with
almost no cost to society. It makes sense for the dedicated people to work 50+
hours per week, but it's an absolute waste that the average person has to put
in so much time on his job.

The traditional office model is utterly obsolete and, although it's taking a
while, people are finally getting it, though the process has been slow.

 _I just want to make a bankroll and get out. I'm not sure why I'm posting,
except that hanging out here and reading about startups has made me think it's
possible to break my frustrating cycle of work, and I'm curious to hear what
folks think._

You're probably not unambitious, work-averse, or lazy. Very few people truly
are; laziness is a byproduct of bad work situations. What you're describing
sounds like a bad case of burnout. Luckily, it's almost always temporary, so
long as you are able to learn from what your experience is telling you.

Although it's risky to have a gap on your resume, you might want to figure out
how to get your savings up to 2 years' living expenses and "mini-retire". I
left a super-stressful hedge fund job due to health problems in April. I
honestly had no desire to work ever again, didn't do any side projects, read a
lot, studied Buddhism and meditated, and spent a lot of time in the park.
About 3 months later, I was itching to get back in the career game (but in a
much better job, and my track record of quits, fires, and fails had given me a
strong sense of what to seek and what to avoid) and learn new things.

------
gills
You, sir, are an Oxygen Thief.

~~~
jodrellblank
Don't forget that for tens of thousands of years, all Man had to do to stay
alive was whatever it took to stay alive.

He never had to write a TPS report on his fishing trip or sell overpriced
shares in manioc root or feel guilty because he wasn't completing his TODO
list each day.

~~~
dhimes
...unless he was married! ;)

------
Chocobean
OP, you mentioned the "Protestant Work Ethic". I'm assuming you mean just the
general principle of the North American "doing the best-est one can do" and
not that you believe in protestant religion? But if you are
protestant/religious, do get in touch, there may be more at risk here than
mere loss time or homelessness/starvation/etc.

-best wishes,

~~~
davi
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_Sp...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_Spirit_of_Capitalism)

