
My Passion Was My Weak Spot - jacquesm
http://jacquesmattheij.com/my-passion-was-my-weak-spot
======
mootothemax
_We pay you peanuts but you have stock options so you 're part of the company
success_

The tricker one for me, personally, was a slight variation on this:

\- We pay you _decently enough_ \- below market rate but enough - and since
you have stock options...

Due solely to my own stupidity, it took nearly a decade of hard work before I
realised that gambling on other peoples' success wasn't the best long-term
option for me.

~~~
amelius
> I realised that gambling on other peoples' success wasn't the best long-term
> option for me.

Gambling on your own success is also not always a good idea. See many
startups.

~~~
themartorana
No, but at least you hold the reigns. Failure is your own, not someone else's.
Taking a bet on yourself is an honest gamble. Taking a bet on someone else is
a huge unknown.

If you're gonna take a bet, you might as well hold all the cards.

~~~
morgante
> If you're gonna take a bet, you might as well hold all the cards.

Is it inconceivable that you might think a bet on someone else is better, at
least in the current time?

I'd certainly value equity in a startup founded by a successful entrepreneur
with previous huge exits over equity in a startup which I don't even have a
good idea for.

Of course, you should still demand a good salary. Particularly because the
companies with the most valuable equity are _also_ the ones who can pay you
well. The startups paying peanuts are also, in general, useless.

~~~
nostrademons
It's certainly conceivable, and can often be pretty lucrative. I folded up my
first startup and joined Google because they knew what they were doing and I
didn't, and ended up making a _lot_ more money than many of my peers in the
startup world.

The thing is - if this is actually the situation, it'll usually be pretty
apparent. You'll get super excited just interviewing with them. If you feel
like you're "taking a bet" on working with someone, you probably are, and it
isn't likely to be a good bet.

~~~
morgante
Good point. The best "bets" don't even feel like bets.

------
estefan
I was working for a small business once and they owners patronisingly asked
"How much commitment do you think it'll take for this business to work? 110%.
We work all hours but you only do your contracted 9-5:30". I just looked at
them and replied "It's your business". They didn't give me any more bullshit
after that...

Surprisingly being paid bugger all + a tiny amount of equity wasn't actually
motivating me.

~~~
smileysteve
You should have replied with any number of studies that show that < 40 hours
is more productive.

Also, if they suggest you multi-task.

~~~
vacri
No, it was the right response. "I get paid for a 40 hour week. Nothing
substantial comes to me if I work more. If the company does very well, I might
get a relatively small bonus."

There isn't the same payoff for working nights as there is for the
entrepreneur. The entrepreneur's risk can pay off big time. The employee's
risk rarely pays off, and when it does, it's paltry in comparison.

~~~
smileysteve
> There isn't the same payoff for working nights as there is for the
> entrepreneur

My point is mostly in the studies that show that working more hours a week is
less productive. The brain gets tired, it makes more errors, it gets stuck in
a zone and does not choose the best way of doing things.

Yes, founders get more payoff if they are more successful, but most psychology
studies show that extra hours in most activities cause a massive drop in final
productivity.

More hours = poorly architected + more bugs + more frustration = less product.

Founder or Employee.

------
kdamken
It's so, so, so important to get paid for your work. Your work is valuable.
You are not a charity.

"Fuck you, pay me" is my personal, internal montra when it comes to business
and especially doing contract work. I'd highly recommend Mike Monteiro's talk
on this, it will save you from a lot of the pitfalls you will run into working
as a creative/developer - [https://creativemornings.com/talks/mike-monteiro--
2/1](https://creativemornings.com/talks/mike-monteiro--2/1)

~~~
cushychicken
I always get laughs when people see my Venmo picture.
([https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5266/5696508703_e440e761c8_z.j...](https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5266/5696508703_e440e761c8_z.jpg))
Little do they know I'm dead serious.

------
yeureka
The other problem with taking jobs for less than market value is that you are
affecting the salary of everybody else, not just yours.

You might not care because you don't need the income, but other people do and
they are not being greedy for asking enough to support a family.

I spent many years as a cheap developer and I will never go back if I can
avoid it.

It hurts more people than just me.

~~~
criddell
Market value?

There are lots of software development jobs that can be done remotely. A
person living in San Francisco that wants $75,000 / year is competing with
excellent developers from other countries with a cost of living an order of
magnitude less. Get used to it. I don't think global competitive pressures are
going to ease.

~~~
iolothebard
They tried that for 20 years, it never works (having been in Fortune 500
companies as a consultant, it's a fucking train wreck). By the time you handle
all the layers, the different time zones, the different cultures, the
different values/ethics, etc. It's not even a wash. Which is why H1b is so
"needed". When they're on site, it's easier to get the work done.

~~~
criddell
We've had pretty good success with particular types of jobs.

Jobs like porting from one framework or language to another usually succeed
because the original software acts as a complete specification.

Where I'm working now, we've spent quite a bit of time changing our processes
to be more remote-friendly and it has been well worth it (we were inspired by
Jason Fried a great deal).

------
saalweachter
"Passion" comes from the Latin word for "suffering"; the etymology comes
through "the passion of the Christ" (ie, the suffering of Jesus during the
crucifixion).

A modern definition that encapsulates the old definition might be, "your
passion is the thing you are willing to suffer for."

Something to think about when companies seize on "passion" as a buzzword.

~~~
jacquesm
Wow, thank you for that bit of data. I was totally unaware of that.

------
dfraser992
He missed one tactic the psychopaths use - "we're looking for money, but our
customers are paying us late, so we can't hire anyone to help you".

The conscientious (i.e. me) will end up doubling down and going into burnout
mode, trying to keep on top of all the work. This prevents one from thinking
at a higher meta-level about what is going on. I should have asked the sales
guys their view of things, and then I would have heard more company gossip and
the real picture would have been clearer (they were getting screwed, too, on
deals)

Live and learn. The people who control the money should _never_ be trusted.

~~~
the-dude
I like to say 'Always stay close to the cash register'.

------
golemotron
> This set me up for a series of relationships that - retrospectively - I can
> only classify as abusive. Passion is great, it is motivating force, a driver
> to learn and practice and hopefully eventually to excel at something. But at
> the same time it is an Achilles heel. It allows the unscrupulous to take
> advantage of you, it means you will work for compensation well below its
> actual value and it means that you will do so to your own detriment, up to
> and including your health.

There's a healthier way of looking at this. Here it is: you learned something
about yourself in this process and you were adequately compensated. You were
compensated by your passion. In consulting there's this school of thought that
you put a high price on work you don't want to do and a lower price on the
work you do want to do. That way you can target other goals, like experience
and passion, and still feel compensated (by money) for the work you aren't as
passionate about or won't learn as much from.

You can blame the people you struck deals with in the past, but that doesn't
help anything. It's better recognize that you learned something about yourself
and how you value your work. Once you "own that" you can make better decisions
going forward based on your convictions and values regardless of how other
people want to deal with you.

If they are lucky, everyone has experiences like this. Unlucky people get
locked into bad deals that cause them to lose time and money past the learning
experience. Music is an area where this happens all the time. Young musicians,
because of their passion, often end up in long term deals that are not in
their best interest.

Key life lesson - don't commit to long term contracts based on hope. Look for
opportunities to indulge your passions with minimal long-term complications.
That's a healthy learning cycle.

~~~
st3v3r
"Here it is: you learned something about yourself in this process and you were
adequately compensated. You were compensated by your passion."

Cool. Let me pay my landlord with passion. Let me pay that car repair bill
with passion. Let me buy food with passion.

~~~
golemotron
I don't recommend it. That's illegal most places.

------
unabst
Framing mistakes like this really bothers me.

Your passion was not your weak spot. Your weak spot was allowing others to
exploit it. Passion can be exploited just like anything else. Those who are
looking to exploit will exploit anything.

Clearly they were looking to cover their bases, which they did. You were free
to also, but you didn't. The mere willingness to take low paying jobs is
partially responsible for you not getting higher paying jobs. You made
yourself unavailable to better opportunities.

It's like saying, having 100M was my weak spot, after someone swindled you out
of it. Passion is that valuable. You want it and need it and are better off
for it. If your recent experiences made you lose it, you should try everything
you can to get it back. Those with passion have a distinct advantage over
those without, and you want that advantage.

If anything, you should have looked to work with those as passionate as you,
if not more. How could you tell? Well, for starters, if they are not willing
to share the risk and financial hardship with you, that is a sign they mean
business and not passion.

Anecdotally, opposite stories also exist. I'd be surprised if Jet.com and
Theranos don't fall under this. Exploitations happen every which way. It's up
to us to not find ourselves on the receiving end of it.

------
collyw
A more worrying one for me is the number of startups looking for an
experienced dev (I have over 13 years of computer based work on my CV), but
claim "we are a startup, we can't afford to give you much".

Not even an offer of equity.

~~~
pc86
I once got an offer to join a "startup" as nearly a cofounder (two folks had
an idea and a rough marketing plan, neither were technical) to handle all
technical design/implementation. The offer was no salary, 15% equity on a 2/5
vesting schedule.

We do not speak anymore :)

~~~
bottled_poe
> The offer was no salary, 15% equity

An offer of such a small percentage demonstrates poor judgement by the other
party. If they truly want their project to succeed, they should want me to be
fully invested in the outcome of the project. 15% in the early stages of a
startup is just a waste of time.

------
jannotti
Beware, asking for stock instead of options can be _worse_. If you are granted
stock, you are being given something of value, and you must pay taxes as if it
was income on the "fair value" (which, admittedly, may be low).

If you are given options, as long as the strike price is current value, you
are not on the hook for any taxes until/unless you exercise them at a higher
price. (ISO vs Non-qualified affects the details on that, but the point about
stock grants remains.)

------
rsp1984
Also beware of the "we need to work harder because we need thing XYZ by
yesterday -- and by the way I'll be 'WFH' for the rest of the week"-Co-
founder.

------
dataker
I always recommend people to look into hourly wages.

I ditched my last job (70K USD a year) for a $40/hour contract position (not
that great).

I work just as much (60 hours a week), but make almost twice as much.

~~~
agentgt
This is exactly how I eventually approached the "passion" problem. For the
most part it works but resentment can build up (on both parties).

Generally the person or entity has some idea of my abilities and so I say I'll
give a maximum of 40 hours a month and it will cost this much an hour. I find
the 40 hours a month thing good for both parties because they can compare it
with what the currently get done in a month to what I might be able to get
done in a week of man time. That is I'm shooting for roughly 4x. If I can't
get 3x or greater to whatever they currently are doing it isn't worth both
parties time. Consequently I charge more but they value my time more and I
value their relationship more.

------
ChuckMcM
If you go through various leadership events inevitably you will come across
some speaker who will say "Write down what your greatest strength is" and they
generally have other people in the group write down what _they_ think your
greatest strength is. And then once you have determined that, the speaker
drops the "bomb" "That is also your greatest weakness." The insight they are
going for of course is that your strength can be used against you, and if you
aren't careful it will be.

The thing I always remind myself is that if I die tomorrow I want to be sure I
was passionate about what I was doing today. But its also good to be fairly
compensated for what I'm working on :-)

------
rcarrigan87
I'd be curious to hear about profit sharing or bonus structure ideas that
still align the employee with the actual outcome of the business, but give
them a more direct benefit.

~~~
dhimes
I'm considering that as well. Peldi from Balsamic has written about it

[https://blogs.balsamiq.com/team/2011/09/12/profitsharing/](https://blogs.balsamiq.com/team/2011/09/12/profitsharing/)

Edit: I don't know about an update, but there was discussion on HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2986673](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2986673)

~~~
aub3bhat
That was posted in 2011, is there an update? In my opinion such structures
make it difficult to raise funding, and in highly fluid markets such as the
one Balsamiq operates in, a well funded competition can easily crush you. I
have seen several employee owned companies in Healthcare Policy/Research (E.g.
Mathematica Policy or SSS), where they are funded by a constant stream of
government contracts/grants which are intimately tied to the company and with
very low probability of a competitor winning them.

~~~
patio11
_a well funded competition can easily crush you_

Who crushed Balsamiq?

<spoiler>Nobody.</spoiler>

~~~
aub3bhat
Considering it is cash-positive small company, someone might be crushing them
and we would have no way to know. It seems the flurry of positive press that
they were getting seemingly ended in 2012 ~ 2013. Not that it reflects as an
evidence towards their impending demise, but there is little evidence to
contrary. Even with a company that has ideal/fair distribution of profit, the
inherent smaller size translates into a higher risk.

~~~
balsamiq
I think if someone would be crushing us, we'd find out pretty quickly, as our
sales would decline.

So far, they've done just the opposite. Here's my latest yearly status update:
[https://blogs.balsamiq.com/team/2016/02/05/looking-back-
at-2...](https://blogs.balsamiq.com/team/2016/02/05/looking-back-at-2015/) \-
with revenue charts! :)

~~~
justinclift
Reading through that, the "native HTML/JS editor" is welcome information.

The "We started the year by building a proof-of-concept application on
Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, and HTML/JS." is good for Linux support.

Any chance of BSD support as well? :)

------
77pt77
If you ever work for free with the prospect of further paid work never give
your work until the paid work is paid for or you get an advance.

EVER.

------
smoyer
Early in the article he references his machine tool start-up [1] as an example
of people taking advantage of you because you're really interested in the
technology. I've been through that ringer twice, so perhaps I don't learn as
fast as Jacques.

What's funniest to me is that one of those companies [2] was selling stepper
motor based machine conversion kits (I started with them in 1983) and had the
same lack of feedback as Jacques machines. That company learned from its
mistakes and is actually still in business though . I was just a kid and what
impressed me most is that the technical guys who started the business, learned
to run the business in the same manner as you'd debug any hardware or software
project.

[1] [http://jacquesmattheij.com/the-start-up-from-
hell](http://jacquesmattheij.com/the-start-up-from-hell)

[2]
[http://www.centroidcnc.com/index.html](http://www.centroidcnc.com/index.html)

~~~
jacquesm
Style is also still in business:

[http://www.stylecncmachines.com/](http://www.stylecncmachines.com/)

They got sold in a panic right after I left (asset sale iirc). The software
looks pretty much the way it did back in the day but it's been completely re-
written behind the scenes from what I can see.

------
bluefox
All this is true, and I would add that even if you're being paid well, once
things get bad enough to affect your health, you should consider change. There
are more cases of "should've left earlier" than "should've stayed longer";
usually the reward for staying, if any, is not worth the damage done.

------
gambiting
Heh, this is my problem. I love my job(work at a huge games studio, I'm part
of a fantastic team working on game that is and will be enjoyed by millions)
but I make terrible money, especially for a C++ programmer. On one hand,
compensation is shit, on the other, I do something that I absolutely love.

~~~
askafriend
You know what. You should leave and find more profitable work. Invest that
additional money into things you enjoy (which might still be gaming or
creating games).

Don't let an industry take advantage of your limited time on this planet like
that. It will end up not being worth it and you might not realize until it's
too late.

------
agentgt
The reality is everybody is an investor and its far easier to shoot for the
moon when you don't have financial troubles or obligations. As you can see
many investors do this when they have money (literally shoot for the moon...
or mars in some cases).

As an investor you need to act like a real investor and look past emotional
biases and constantly ask yourself... is this a good investment.

There are so many things you can invest in besides startup equity. For example
you could just make a decent salary at a company and buy affordable rental
property (I'm not saying its always a smart idea but there just so many things
to invest and any investor would say putting all your eggs in one basket..
etc.).

------
392c91e8165b
This seems like a good place for me to react to the dozens (hundreds?) of
comments I've viewed here over the years that value passion and cool coworkers
very highly.

I would prefer a job that pays X + $20K per year and is mostly boring and that
requires me to tolerate nasty behavior (within reason) to a job where the work
is so interesting that most work days, I lose track of time, I do not have to
apply self-discipline to start working, everyone is always nice, and I am paid
X.

If I had more financial security and didn't have a lot of health-care
expenses, that $20K per year would probably go up, but as long as I feel the
need for more financial security than I have, there would be some number of
dollars per year in additional income that would more than compensate for
nasty bosses and coworkers and boring stressful work -- as long as that work
and those people are not _so_ bad that they might cause my mental or physical
health to spiral out of control -- and AFAICT working conditions that bad are
rare where I live (namely, the US).

------
rasz_pl
Reminds me of Bill Mensch (PIA,6502,65816) life story:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne1ApyqSvm0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne1ApyqSvm0)

he also was very passionate which led to getting screwed by Motorola
management, some pointless fake consulting firm, and grand daddy of scammers
Jack Tramiel. He worked his whole life for other peoples success :(.

------
mirimir
I've had millionaires call me a greedy bastard ;)

~~~
amelius
Well, they are millionaires for a reason.

------
aub3bhat
One thing I don't understand is that the implicit, "us vs them" assumption in
these articles. There is nothing preventing you from starting a company or
becoming a "suit". Given the ample funding available over last few years, why
not strike out on your own. Frankly to me these articles seem like an attempt
to play to the risk averse crowd while blaming the market and painting a
picture of a fair fantasyland, where your paycheck magically reflects the true
value of your contribution.

~~~
mojuba
_There is nothing preventing you from starting a company or becoming a
"suit"._

This seems to be a prevailing view here on HN and it is actually sad. There
are a thousand reasons "preventing you from starting a company": family
circumstances, disability, mortgage/debt, no savings, good executor but not a
great businessman, etc. etc.

So dear HN, could you please stop repeating this useless, hypocrite mantra.

~~~
aub3bhat
This isn't hypocrisy but rather a genuine question, I do agree that (family
circumstances, disability) can be limiting. But at a certain level it does
seems counter-productive to proclaim that you are being oppressed by an
imaginary different class "suits". It drives an emotional response but offers
very little in terms of actual solutions. Finally at "Hacker" News ran by an
investment firm, how should not this hacker spirit be a prevailing opinion?

Mortgage/Debt/Lack of savings can be overcome. Regarding being good executor
and not being great businessman, you won't really find out before actually
having a business.

~~~
mojuba
Circumstances can put you "below" certain other people, some of whom would try
to abuse their status. Our response to that can be anywhere from obeying to
quitting and even suing. But this is life, we still live in a survivalist
world with social classes, things that are arbitrarily given to us (both
material and non-material) and those given to others.

> _Finally at "Hacker" News ran by an investment firm, how should not this
> hacker spirit be a prevailing opinion?_

True, but as the front page shows right now the interests here are pretty
diverse. Plus, purely motivational "Just do it" kind of posts are usually met
with disapproval. My impression is that people here want to know more specific
things about how to raise funds, how to run companies (the rules of the game),
what technologies to use.

> _Mortgage /Debt/Lack of savings can be overcome._

Uh-oh :)

------
vvanders
This is basically how the whole gamedev industry works.

Most positions you'll see pay ~40% less than traditional software engineering
jobs and have much longer hours on average.

~~~
lohengramm
Plus I consider gamedev to be significantly more complex than the traditional
software engineering job.

~~~
vvanders
Yup, there's some really effing bright people in that industry working for
peanuts.

------
mordrax
I think this post has less about passion than about youth and naievity.

If you truly enjoy what you do, the value you receive from that shouldn't just
be measured in dollar terms.

I'm passionate about what I do and I do it during work, after hours and on the
weekend. But during work, I get paid a sensible salary to support my family.
At home, I get to explore my interests.

Passion is fuel, wisdom is direction. Don't confuse the two.

~~~
dikdik
This may not be a problem in tech as salaries are higher than most industries.
But working in life sciences/healthcare without a professional certification
(MD, nurse, etc) and you can easily enjoy the 8-10 hours a day when you are at
work while the rest of your life sucks.

All the passion in the world does not make up for the stress of barely paying
off your student loans or still feeling guilty every time you go to the
grocery store when you are in your late 20's. The value you are not collecting
does not turn into rainbows, happiness, and sunshine, it just goes to your
boss or your boss's boss or into the shareholders pockets.

My experience in healthcare shows corporations will push the "look at all the
good things we are contributing to" mantra to their employees while they turn
around and fight laws that would reduce medicare reimbursements (it's possible
it is a sensible/good thing to do, but it wasn't even a conversation that was
allowed to be had).

------
timwaagh
when you're young and you have not done much, nobody is going to pay much
(unless you can fool people into thinking you're the next big thing). of
course, later we all think it was silly to do that. but was it? i now have an
average salary and a home and so many who were considered talented people are
still looking for jobs. so what if I volunteered to do some free stuff to get
there.

------
bpg_92
I was working with a company that sub contracted work from the US, the average
pay was reasonable for the living standar but they were charging 2x to 4x more
to the companies in US, thus making huge profit out of us. I felt bad for a
while and left because other factors, it would be nice to have something
written from that point of view.

------
erichmond
This is an extremely important post. Thanks for writing it. Lots of learnings
I wish the 22 year old me would have read. :)

------
edw519
_In the end it’s all the same story, you get nothing or very close to nothing
and meanwhile the owners of the company will get the product of your work and
will make bank on that._

Nice post (as usual) Jacques. My experience is similar but my conclusion is
the opposite.

Yes, I've been taken advantage of by almost everyone I've ever worked for and
they got the product of my work.

But I didn't get nothing. Far from it...

I became a better programmer. A much better programmer. In fact, I'd venture
to say that there was a direct correlation between how much I was taken
advantage of and how much I grew.

Funny, I grew much less on the projects where I earned the most.

I pretty much knew what was going on all those years. I didn't like it, but I
accepted it because I knew that in the long run, I'd be much better off.

They may have gotten the product of my work back then, but they didn't get the
product of all the great work I've done since, which is worth much, much more.

In life I really believe the greatest growth comes from the most suffering. I
believe the same thing is true with programming.

~~~
angersock
Sure, but who wants the highest StackOverflow rank in the psych ward?

That's where continually entering into abusive business relationships ends--
burnout.

------
50CNT
I know this might be a bit off-topic, but I haven't been able to access any of
his articles from China. Trying to ping the URL gives me "unknown host". Don't
think it's blocked though, is it?

~~~
icebraining
Apparently it is, a couple of sites that test connectivity from behind China
report failure to connect as well.

------
alexeyzab
So what happens when it's your first unpaid internship and you've been
struggling for a while to find an entry level job? Is it okay to work for free
under these circumstances?

~~~
CM30
Possibly. An internship can be a pretty good way to learn more about the kind
of role you want with actual mentoring rather than a bunch of online
tutorials. It certainly helped me when I was new to web development and was
looking for a job in the industry.

Just be warned that there are some companies which like the unpaid part of an
internship but not the 'actually offer a job at the end or offer any form of
help or mentoring' part.

------
SlySherZ
I'm the guy you were when you started.

I don't care how much do I get nor how much time I have to put into it as long
as I like doing it and have something to eat.

I don't care if suits call me stupid behind my back or take advantage of that.
They can keep their money, while I keep my passion: I think I get the better
end of the deal.

And I'll try to stay that way :)

~~~
amelius
This is not smart. The more money you make, the more freedom you have. Imagine
that one day you would like to work on something which has zero market value
(/open-source?). If you have some saved cash, that would be a possibility.
Also, what if you want to work on something that requires more investment
(like a GPU rig, e.g. for neural network training, or for ray tracing).
Wouldn't it be nice if you could buy one yourself?

~~~
5ilv3r
This is not true. You may be confusing freedom and power.

------
TurboHaskal
Serves you right.

I'm sick of this fake humble passionate developer persona.

There are some of us who actually have families and better things to do with
our free time than faking passion via putting hours on somebody else's product
or those useless Github projects that we all know are nothing but publicity
stunts to appeal to recruiters.

You are all damaging the industry.

Signed: 9to5 developer.

~~~
morgante
Here's a crazy notion: maybe some of us actually _like_ programming. I was
doing it long before I was paid for it, and would continue to do it even if
there was absolutely no market for my skill.

My open source contributions are for fun, not for recruiters. I don't think
they've ever had any impact on getting me a job.

Go back to your 9 to 5. Why are you wasting time on HN if you don't care about
programming?

~~~
TurboHaskal
I used to compete on archery events.

Not having time for that anymore doesn't mean I don't care about it.

~~~
morgante
Does that lead you to conclude that those who still _do_ compete in archery
events are "faking passion?"

If you don't have time to code outside work, that's fine. Just don't accuse
the rest of us of faking it.

~~~
parennoob
Both your and the grandparent comments have an imperfect analogy. No one gets
paid for doing professional archery as a daily wage-earning job in the modern
world.

I would say our position is more akin to professional car mechanic setting up
shop on weekends and offering something like "I'll fix your car for free and
teach you how to do it, but no guarantees!" Would professional mechanics
accuse him of devaluing their industry? Probably. Could he say "I like to fix
cars in my spare time, and I'm doing what I love. Buzz off!" Sure.

Here's the thing though -- auto mechanics, they have unions and certification,
and therefore are probably more aware about downward pressure on wages and
such. Which is why you won't find many qualified hobbyist auto mechanics on
the weekend like I described. (On the flip side, their flexibility is far more
limited than programmers'. So I'' still take the programmer job.)

~~~
morgante
Nobody is saying you should work for others for free.

Tons of car mechanics do in fact spend their weekends tinkering on cars for
fun. Some of them restore old cars, others work on custom modifications. It's
a whole part of car culture. Hobbyist auto mechanics absolutely are a thing.

Of course, nobody thinks they're devaluing the work of other mechanics by
scratching their own itch on weekends. Likewise, when I work on my own
personal projects it doesn't "destroy the industry." I'm not doing bespoke
work on other people's projects for free, I'm building stuff I personally find
fulfilling.

