
I Took a Pay Cut for a More Meaningful Job - oumua_don17
https://www.fastcompany.com/90308995/i-took-a-huge-paycut-for-a-more-meaningful-job
======
JSavageReal
The problem with trying to find meaningful work is that 1. the pay is
generally terrible, and hours will likely be long 2. if someone is paying you,
it's still a "job", with all the implications, responsibilities, and power
dynamics that go with that. You still take orders from a boss all day. And if
it were so damn fun, then they probably wouldn't be paying you for it.

The most fun internships/jobs I've ever had were all unpaid, because I could
come and go as I please, and literally work on whatever I wanted. The second
you're getting paid, your personal interests are thrown out the window, and
your job is now to take orders from your boss.

Of course there are exceptions. I'd imagine that being a tenured professor
would be pretty sweet (though getting a job like that these days is extremely
difficult and competitive), or if you're a doctor then helping save lives in
Africa or something would probably be extremely fulfilling. Being a politician
seems like it would feel meaningful, and they get paid solid six figure
salaries.

But overall, the search for a meaningful job that also pays decently and
doesn't require crazy hours is like searching for a unicorn, so for most
people with the talent/luck/opportunity of working high paying jobs, achieving
financial independence first before seeking meaningful work is probably the
smartest move.

~~~
s_Hogg
I don't think meaningful work has to be necessarily something with crap pay
and the workload of a donkey in the first world war.

The key is the word "meaningful". I know a lot of people (and I used to be
one), who would shift from job to job and leave when things weren't right any
more. But this typically seems to involve taking what you are as a person as
given, preferring instead to simply try and change one's circumstances to
match that.

It's much easier to find meaning in your work if you're prepared to allow what
you are as a person be up for negotiation somewhat, in addition to wanting to
exercise a degree of control over your working circumstances.

A reflection of this is pretty easy to see in the way some people frame their
decision-making when deciding whether to get a new job or not. They ask
themselves "is this really what I'll want?", as opposed to "is this what the
person I'll be after a few years of this will want?" or "will this turn me
into a person I want?". By unconsciously taking one's self-image as fixed in
that way, it becomes harder to find meaning in work and as a bonus also makes
it somewhat more likely that you'll make the wrong decision because your
potential future mental state isn't accounted for.

Not saying you do this at all, but that there are a lot of shades of grey
between being an intern and having to do what your bosses say slavishly. And a
lot of them are only really visible when you look inward at yourself rather
than outward at your environment.

I've got a job at the moment that's great because of this - it's not perfect,
but being able to work on what I am at the same time as shaping what this job
is makes the job of finding a happy means of existence drastically easier.

~~~
ldoughty
If the meaningful work you want to do is in education or environment... There
is basically no well paying jobs.

There's no business profit in clean water or air, so capitalism doesn't cover
the need. The fact there might be no customers in an area in 50 years is
outside the scope of economic patterns. In 40-45 years all the current
business leaders will have their pockets lined & be retired... and new leaders
will beg the government to fix "the problem no one saw coming"... Shifting
businesses profits today for taxpayer-funded fixes later for "economic
revitalization" or "environmental repairs"

On top of these issues... if you have bills, you often can't take a pay cut to
pull this off. I'd be willing to take a pay cut for meaningful work, but it
would still need to cover child care and rent. My wife looked at jobs with the
EPA, they offered $50k for masters degree and 8 years of experience. A single
family home on 1/5th acre is $500k+. If we both did meaningful work we could
not live there, let alone have kids ($1250/month child care).

We decided we just couldn't do meaningful work in the DC area and left. This
stinks because we really need to be worried about this stuff for our
children's future. But as long as private industry pays 50-75% more, the
rising costs of everything to accommodate those well paying jobs chokes out
teachers, environmental workers, and low-wage retail jobs (aside from kids
still living at home)

~~~
barry-cotter
> If the meaningful work you want to do is in education or environment...
> There is basically no well paying jobs.

Lambda School is an existence proof that you can do good and make money in
education. Minerva University looks pretty good too. Udacity and Coursera are
helping and have helped a ton of people as well. When I was a kindergarten
teacher I used Starfall.com all the time. Mathletics and ixl.com come highly
recommended by friends who teach primary school. Outschool.com are working on
a teacher student marketplace for classes. Baselang.com is the best place to
learn Spanish on the internet, hands down. Italki.com is a pretty good
marketplace for language lessons too.

You can’t do much with schools really because schools are run for the benefit
of teachers not students but if you want to help students there’s a lot to be
done in education, and plenty of people doing it.

------
hliyan
I did this in 2013. Went from working in a lucrative, stressful high frequency
trading systems development environment, into developing systems for
humanitarian organizations. Loved the work, the next two years were the
happiest and the most chilled out in my life. The negatives: burnt through a
lot of my savings. I'm back in a different industry now, and the return was a
bit painful, but looking back, it was one of the best decisions I've ever
made.

Advice:

1\. Have at least two years worth of savings, or an alternative source of
income that can cover all your basic expenses, or don't do it.

2\. Don't take a job that requires you to work harder than you did in your old
job. In the beginning, the change will be invigorating, but soon it'll start
to wear you down. During my "sabbatical", I worked only six hours a day at
most, saving plenty of time for family and personal pursuits.

~~~
einpoklum
But in your case there is also a moral dimension, not just self-fulfillment:
Financial speculation is parasitic and socially harmful without actually
providing anything of actual real value. So, IMHO that's a switch worth making
for essentially any decent job.

Also, about working harder - that depends on how hard your old job was; and
some of that hardship is sometimes due to working on something you would
rather not be doing.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
_Financial speculation is parasitic and socially harmful without actually
providing anything of actual real value._

Is it? Farmers hedging against crop failure are getting a useful service, it's
allowing them to invest in a crop without the risk of bankruptcy. The same
goes for airlines who hedge the price of fuel, not many people would run a
business that risked collapse if the price of oil goes up by 10%.

~~~
jnwatson
The futures market ran fine before the massive high frequency trading vampires
running around. Liquidity isn’t a moral good.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
_Liquidity isn’t a moral good_

It does make markets more price efficient though, as a small investor I prefer
this over being dependent on the whims of someone like Warren Buffet.

 _massive high frequency trading vampires_

It's a relatively small industry, profits in the US peaked at approx $5B in
2009 and have declined since. [1]

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-
frequency_trading](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-frequency_trading)

------
negamax
I will chime in here as I did something along these lines. It's not worth it.
If you/anyone wants to do meaningful work. Make lots of money, use the extra
money for things that matter to you. It's a hard learned lesson. But
everything improves when you are getting paid more. Your colleagues, the
opportunities, literally everything

~~~
mdorazio
"everything improves when you are getting paid more"

This is demonstrably not true, as shown by a slew of studies on happiness.
Past a certain point, more money does not meaningfully impact your life and
make things better. That point is different for different people in different
locations, but signing up for golden handcuffs is a fantastic way to make
yourself miserable.

If you've got a choice between 10% more pay to work with people who make
everything suck, and 10% less to work at a place with interesting projects and
people you like, take the pay cut. From personal experience, no amount of
hobby funding will make up for you hating your job.

~~~
1123581321
Often, the pay at the more meaningful job is under that happiness threshold.

~~~
mdorazio
Outside of the likely salaries for people on HN I would agree with you.
However, I'm fairly confident tech worker salaries start at or above the
threshold in most locations.

~~~
majewsky
Also, tech workers often have the luxury of working remotely, so there may be
the option of relocating to a place with lower cost of living (if the
meaningful workplace allows remote work).

------
2sk21
This is what the FIRE movement (Financial Independence and Retire Early) is
all about. I would highly recommend the book "Your money or your life" by
Vicki Robin. The best approach to switching to more meaningful work is to
start by getting your financial life in order. I speak with personal
experience: I realized earlier this year that I did not need to feel stuck in
a dead-end job and this gave me the courage to quit.

~~~
hos234
The Fire movement is pretty harmful imho. I think it benefits the authors and
podcasters much more than it helps actual people. It probably works for very
specific personality types. And really shouldn't be sold to anyone and
everyone.

I have friends in their 40s who retired early. And most of them are loosing
their minds. It's sad and frustrating to watch. They have nothing much to
focus on daily, and after a few years of it, you can see the cognitive decline
compared to the rest of the peer group. Their people skills keep degenerating,
from lack of constant challenges that the middle aged adult deals with at work
or home. And that mounts over time, making lot of things harder and harder.

I get all the frustrations people (rightly) have with institutions, govt and
corporate robot wonderland, but I have done more interesting and personally
satisfying things being within those structures, than I have done anything
outside them.

Financial independence is not just an emergency eject button when faced with
difficult choices. It a big asset in the corporate world while competing with
a cohort that is deep in debt (alimony/kids college/health
expense/mortgages/golf club membership etc etc). Sooner or later everyone in
any org knows who can be bought and who can't. Both kind of people have value
to the org and impact on the org. People who misunderstand that, end up
pushing the eject button prematurely.

~~~
mancerayder
Cognitive declines in their 40s because of not working professionally?

That's the first time I've ever read this, so I'm very skeptical.

But if it were me (and I'm working in that age range right now), I'd be
jumping on personal projects I've always desired. Writing, in particular. And
probably a little tech project stuff in areas that interest me.

May I offer that many of these wealthy people you know aren't intellectually-
minded? That's certainly true of most financially successful leaders I've come
to interact with.

~~~
jquery
This article and post is timely, because I "retired" last Friday (I'm 37). It
doesn't ring true _at all_ to me that retiring would necessarily be bad for
your cognitive skills. Maybe it depends on the type of person, but I'm
engrossed in personal cognitive pursuits, such as teaching myself machine
learning, putting together an app of my own for the first time, indulging my
writing hobby, and of course spending more time with my daughter. It is these
very pursuits which led to me retiring; I want to throw myself completely into
them instead of dabbling with them on the side. I don't see how someone would
"lose their mind" from retiring, unless retiring aggravated other vices such
as drinking or watching excessive television.

I've no doubt one's personality slowly changes when no longer chained to
authorities saying what to do and when to do it, and when no longer exposed to
corporate "culture". That's quite different than one's brain turning to goop.
After only a week, my brain feels clearer than ever as the cobwebs of work
stress slowly clear away (it still hasn't landed that I don't _have_ to work
ever again). Maybe his friends who are "losing their minds" are just seeing
the world a bit more clearly? Or perhaps they were uniquely unsuited to
retirement, lacking any intellectual pursuits?

I'll probably write an article on my experience in a year or two and let you
know if my brain has turned to goop, assuming I can still read/write when that
time comes!

Edit: as long as we’re throwing out competing anecdotes, the only person I
know personally who retired so early is wildly successful. Far more than he
was at work.

~~~
phpnode
> the only person I know personally who retired so early is wildly successful.
> Far more than he was at work.

If he's wildly successful, did he really retire?

~~~
jquery
Well, that's the rub, right? Anyway, what he did was get super into his
hobbies, one of which was "urban gymnastics" (or whatever it's called), and
eventually ended up on the Indonesian version of American Ninja Warrior, in
his 40s (!!), which I found pretty inspirational.

Not a lot of money in that, at least for most people, so I think it's fair to
call it retirement.

------
kazinator
> _Most Americans say they would give up a more lucrative job for a more
> meaningful job that pays less in a heartbeat._

{citation-needed}

Obviously, someone struggling to make ends meet and having little retirement
savings is hardy in that position.

Oh wait, we're only talking about what people _say_! Well, sure, people _say_
such things --- in an idle moment when thinking ramifications through is
temporarily off the table.

"Gee, I wish I had a more meaningful job, even if it paid less (just as long
as I could somehow maintain my current lifestyle). Also, I won't get into
numbers about _how much less_. Maybe just a few hundred dollars a year less,
that type of thing."

The key metric would be, how many people _act_ on this impulse. How many
Americans are actually switching to lower paid jobs that are more meaningful?
And are actually meaningful, that is, and where that is a choice: not being
forced to switch to a lower-paying job and then rationalizing it afterward as
being more meaningful.

I suspect plenty of people would also take a _less_ meaningful job for more
pay. What could be less meaningful then getting money for doing nothing? Yet,
that's what a lot of people want, such as anyone who buys a lottery ticket.

~~~
ben509
> Also, I won't get into numbers about how much less.

They get into numbers in the second paragraph; up to 23% of lifetime earnings.

> The key metric would be, how many people act on this impulse.

We can get a rough tally of how many are acting on it from labor stats[1]. And
I'm assuming all of these are what people view as "meaningful" work; I work in
finance and find it plenty meaningful but I imagine that's a minority view.

Quoth the BLS:

Total employment: 144,733,270

Community and social service: 2,171,820

Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media Occupations: 1,951,170

Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Occupations: 8,646,730

Healthcare Support Occupations: 4,117,450

Education, Training, and Library Occupations: 8,779,780

So if those broad areas hit the "meaningful" buttons, you're looking at about
17% of the workforce.

> What could be less meaningful then getting money for doing nothing?

Totally had that doing government contracting. The trouble is you realize it's
a trap: if you ever need a real job your lack of doing anything means you're
fucked.

> Yet, that's what a lot of people want, such as anyone who buys a lottery
> ticket.

More realistically, anyone who is investing passively. But that's not a job or
your profession, and when people talk about "meaning" they're asking "who am
I?" If you're a carpenter, your identity is wrapped up in the houses you
build, for instance.

What the article is missing is the classic dichotomy of work to live vs. live
to work.

If your profession is who you are, meaningful work is more important in
shaping your identity.

But if it's not, the "work to live" paradigm, you're making money to support
something else. If you're working to take care of your family, you're a father
or a mother first. If you're working to support your art or projects, you're
an artist or an engineer regardless of your paid job title.

[1]:
[https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm](https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm)

~~~
jquery
23% is remarkably little considering compound interest and the marginal
utility of money. It sounds a little bit like the old nugget, "how much money
do you need to retire?" and the answer is always "a little bit more than I
have".

------
marcinzm
Personally I disagree with both the article and most of the comments. I don't
particularly care about meaningful work, I enjoy solving problems that matter
and I'm good at it so I want to do that. Retirement, however, doesn't interest
me since most interesting impact-full problems are in industry. I actually
like having a boss who does all the boring things regarding running a company
so I don't have to. At the same time I will trade money for a less stressful
job (ie: less politics, better boss, less boring work, etc.).

~~~
erikpukinskis
Can you say more about the difference between impact and meaning? What would
be an example of meaningless impact that has value to you?

~~~
marcinzm
To me, meaningful would mean something like helping the poor or working for a
decent non-profit.

On the other hand, working for an ad-tech company and increasing revenue by
40% through some machine learning would have impact (on the company, clients,
users, etc.) but not be particularly meaningful.

~~~
bigwavedave
I don't see "meaningful" as referring to something like helping the poor, I
see it as referring to feeling fulfilled. If that involves helping the poor,
more power to you. Me, I took a $20k paycut to switch from writing node js all
day to pen testing at another firm and I could not be happier. It's been two
years since switching and I still look forward to waking up and going to work
each day instead of groaning and dying a little on the inside. Paying
$20k/year to be happy and feel fulfilled is a complete steal in my book.

Just my own anecdata though.

------
spodek
Nothing creates more meaning for you than to create the opportunities based on
knowing what you love. Since we're all different, different things create
meaning for us differently. Rarely will a job someone else creates push our
buttons best.

I created my course at NYU and wrote the book _Initiative_
[https://www.amazon.com/Initiative-Proven-Method-Bring-
Passio...](https://www.amazon.com/Initiative-Proven-Method-Bring-
Passions/dp/1733039902) to create a step-by-step process to unearth each
person's passions. I find that reflection alone or taking online quizzes
doesn't reveal passions like action does -- that is, taking initiative
(thoughtfully, with a process that works).

Recently, one person started blogging his results doing the exercises. As of
August 25, here's his latest:
[https://anthemoftheadventurer.com/2019/08/23/exercise-6-10-p...](https://anthemoftheadventurer.com/2019/08/23/exercise-6-10-people-
closer-to-my-field).

~~~
DSingularity
Thanks. I hope I can find ways to extract the essence of your method and
subtly incorporate it into CS education.

~~~
spodek
Let me know if I can help. I'm easy to find online.

------
sha_r_roh
I can add some perspective. One and a half years back I took a 80 percent pay
cut to join a 10 member startup. My salary now has improved to almost 60
percent of my previous company. I don't really regret that decision though and
here are few things I clearly thought about before making the decision.

1\. Learning and growth opportunities at the new place

2\. Autonomy around my work

3\. People

I think people derive meaning when they see that their ideas are appreciated
and users care about the product. I liked the people at my previous job,
however the first two items were somehow missing.

It also helped that one of the co-founders at the startup was a friend from
undergrad.

------
twblalock
Looks like some of the people interviewed in the article are unhappy with
their job change, and some are satisfied.

The bottom line is it's a big risk to take, and such a choice may mean having
a more fulfilling career but also having a lot less money in retirement. It
would be interesting to see how many of the happy people in the article will
still be happy when they are retired.

~~~
jawns
... and how many of them died before retirement and never got the enjoy the
fruits of their hard work.

... and how many of them find themselves with lots of money in retirement, but
discover that they have missed their window to spend quality time with the
people they love. Spouse has died, children have grown and moved away, etc.

So there are risks in the other direction as well.

~~~
jquery
My father retired "early" (at age 59) and was diagnosed with a brain tumor the
same year and passed away. It's so true that "waiting to retire" is a huge
risk if you're banking on indulging your hobbies then.

------
heyiforgotmypwd
Life is short. You can't take money with you. Do what you want to be doing
now, not later. Scrimp and live cheaply > hating a stressful life of
luxury/debt/peonage/agony.

------
coldtea
> _“I was eight months pregnant,” she says. “They escorted me to my desk with
> a box to collect my personal belongings, and that was it.”_

In many a European country the company would be illegal in doing this.

Employers only recently got the ability to fire pregnant/breastfeeding women
in the EU, and only as part of mass lay-offs.

~~~
throwawayjava
It's illegal in the US to fire someone _for_ being pregnant (FMLA).

~~~
asdff
unless you work at will

~~~
throwawayjava
AFAIK FMLA covers at-will employment (which is the vast majority of employment
in the US)

------
lazyjones
This confirms my belief that one should find a job they're good at and retire
early instead of attempting to improve work-life-balance by trying out "feel-
good" jobs. Success at what you're cut out to do makes you happier than
chasing the current mainstream moral agenda, saving the world and so on.

~~~
marble-drink
Absolutely. There's this popular sentiment today that says anyone can do/be
anything. It's certainly popular in tech, but I have limited knowledge of
other areas. Talent is becoming a bad word.

But I'm convinced that one of the keys to happiness is to live a life that
plays to your strengths. If you have a natural aptitude to problem solving etc
then you could become a really good engineer, or you could become a mediocre
violinist. Which is going to lead to a more fulfilling life?

People are born with natural talents. We should be encouraging people to do
what they're good at, not telling them they can do whatever they want to.

~~~
john_moscow
I think this comes from the fact that we have automated/formalized most of the
meaningful work. If you spend 10% of the time solving problems and 90% playing
petty office politics, it doesn't really matter how good of a problem-solver
you are. Especially if most of the problem-solving part comes down to
following clearly defined procedures.

The flip side is that the economic contribution of a single employee becomes
vanishingly small, affecting the salaries, or rather what you can buy from
them.

I agree with you that building your life on top of your natural strengths is
the most fulfilling way of spending it (having done so myself), but I think
these days it is extremely hard and is only possible if you manage to start
your own business and grow it to the point where it can pay your bills.

------
tempsy
I think the reality is, if we're talking about tech, that many companies
market their "mission-driven" culture to make it seem like what they do
somehow has more meaning than working at Google or Amazon but it's mostly just
a ploy to get people to do exactly this e.g. take a pay cut and feel OK about
it when, in reality, what they do is probably not any more "good" for the
world than what a big co is doing.

I recently went to a talk on "effective altruism" and came away feeling like
that was a better model for impact e.g. make a lot of money and give a lot of
it away to organizations and causes where the measurable ROI is the highest.

------
xwdv
Can’t see how encouraging people to take more “meaningful” jobs isn’t just
another form a vicious ladder kicking disguised as feel-good advice that will
stunt their financial growth for several years, and possibly make them unable
to ever catch up to their peers.

People who already have a fair amount of wealth independence are the ones who
can afford to take “meaningful” jobs. If that’s not you, there’s no shame in
being in service to a corporation and getting paid good money for it. Our
values of what is meaningful changes over time, and it’s not worth taking
paycuts to chase such mercurial ideals.

~~~
astrid88
I agree, sometimes you have wait and work for a guy you do not like in a job
you do not particularly enjoy. If you can stand it and it pays your bills it's
ok. I guess, the real problem is when people have the opportunity to change
their jobs for the one of their dreams but they are simply too scared to get
out of their comfort zone.

------
camgunz
I took a $40k pay cut to work in social good, and I can't recommend it enough.
I have an advantage in that I don't have a family or dependents though. Just
putting this out there in case any one's thinking about it but thinks it's too
crazy: it's a lot more crazy to spend the most productive hours of your life
on something you at best don't care about, and at worst actively despise.

------
coldtea
> _Katy Rey was running a large call center in Florida and working long hours
> when she heard about opportunities at Tesla’s solar panel division. Rey
> jumped at the chance to work for a company where she felt she could do
> something more meaningful, even though her salary would be slashed in half.
> “Everyone was taking pay cuts in the room,” she says of an early training in
> Vegas. “And the people they recruited were outstanding.” They could deal
> with the pay cut, Rey says, because they felt like they were “saving the
> world.”_

Well, Musk himself did not take any pay cut, so that should have been a
pointer...

> _Rey felt like the company found intelligent people and convinced them to
> push their limits. (...) Six months into the job, Rey was abruptly laid off
> over the phone_

When "changing the world", companies should start with how the treat their own
employees...

------
replyguy912
I think the question around performing meaningful work is largely rhetorical;
the challenge is where do you find meaningful work?

We tend to love the romantic notion of throwing away the high paying
meaningless (to us) job to follow your dream, but in reality it tends to be
more of a dream than the way things work.

I wish more people would put some deep thought into (1) defining what
meaningful work in their context would look like, and (2) building a strategy
for moving from their current state to the desire one that doesn't involve
essentially throwing away what they have to start over.

As far as trading money for meaning, I see this as an alternative view on the
well known limits of extrinsic motivators; you'll trade any money beyond your
personal level for deeper purpose. The key then is figuring out what this
amount is, then evolving into meaningfulness.

------
alexbanks
I took a pay cut to go to my last company. Every employee of the original
company was getting abused so badly by the founder that I really would've
taken anything. It just so happened that the company I was taking a pay cut to
go to had tremendous opportunity for growth, and what started as a medium
sized paycut turned into a huge pay increase. I'm glad it worked out that way,
but I'm certain that pattern is in no way common.

Now, I would probably take a small cut to do something I was excited about.
I've been working with my therapist to try and figure out specifically what
that would be, but I haven't had a ton of luck.

------
JDiculous
I'm also now kind of doing the same thing. I left a high-paying job in NYC/SF
and am now applying for remote jobs. The compensation for remote work looks
like it'll technically be a paycut from my NYC/SF salary, but I think the
freedom of being able to live where I want, work my own hours, and not have to
deal with office bullshit will made it worth it - not to mention the cost
savings from not giving away an extra #1-2k/month of your paycheck to NYC/SF
landlords.

------
dandigangi
I feel this on some level but at the same time, I've personally never had an
issue finding money to go along with meaningful work in our industry. Maybe
I'm just lucky though! A few of my friends work in public sectors, love the
work, and don't make much but they are definitely happy. Just can't see myself
not making good money over something I'm passionate and reasonably good at.
Especially for the level of effort and impact I'm making.

------
werber
I would be happy to take a pay cut to help people again, but I'm not willing
to take a big enough pay cut to be a realistic candidate in the non profit
world. The conflict between my real and ideal values tears me apart daily

------
yboris
Any discussion about a meaningful job will benefit from a look at 80,000 Hours
-- [https://80000hours.org](https://80000hours.org)

Making a positive difference in the world is a great thing to do.

------
Dumblydorr
Meaning is just a story that people tell themselves about their job. Its as
much about personality and framing as it is about the actual tasks and duties
performed.

------
exabrial
I did this once. Great life experience. I left two years later, but that was
after traveling the world on the company dime.

------
dzonga
as a developer, and software builder this is relevant. would you make more
writing in a code / framework you don't like. or take a small paycut but be
remote and write code in a language / framework you like ?

------
camillomiller
Honestly, there’s so many variables you can’t assess about a new job, that
unless you are 100% sure about it (or driven mad by your current job) you
shouldn’t make the jump for less money. You wanna be happier? Then make the
jump for a job that pays less because it requires you to WORK less. Try
working 4 days instead of five or 6 hours instead of 8. Now that’s a change.

~~~
travislane
You make a very good point. I think the biggest factors that can determine
happiness at work are the immediate boss and the immediate teammates, two
things that are very hard to assess until you have already joined the new
place. But the money is easy to assess and guaranteed because it is written on
paper and it is legally binding. A boss with a good attitude, however, isn't
guaranteed, no matter how rosy things look during the interviews. So it makes
sense to never take a pay cut unless there are other compensating factors that
are also guaranteed. Working 4 days instead of 5, or 6 instead of 8, seem like
those things that can be guaranteed by the contract and would be worth taking
a pay cut for.

This reminds me of a personal story when I interviewed for a very popular
startup in the valley. They boasted of working 12 hours every day. I had a
competing offer from a non-startup which required me to work about 7 hours
every day. The CTO of the startup agreed to pay me 20% more than the non-
startup. I politely explained the CTO that I could work for 12 hours every
day, however, I would need a 70% more pay than the non-startup's offer, so
that I feel I am being compensated commensurate to the time and effort I spend
on the company. The CTO, now visibly upset, said, "If you like working 7 hours
every day, please do join that other company!" while completing missing the
point that I am okay to work for 7 hours or 12 hours as long as the pay is
commensurate. Needless to say, I joined the other company for lesser pay and
lesser working hours, and I am quite happy about the decision because it
leaves with me a lot of time in the evenings to pursue my hobbies and also
pick up new fun technologies to learn.

~~~
chrisjshull
I think it was pretty nice of you to use a linear scale. If a company wanted
that much more of my time I would have quoted them a premium (just as an
hourly employee might make overtime in such a situation).

~~~
tschmi2
Exactly. The utility of income is not linear. The first 10,000 dollars are
much more useful than going from 190,000 to 200,000 a year. That's why the tax
system has a progressive structure. If you want me to work 10% more then you
need to pay me more than 10% more.

And that does not even consider that my free time is very limited. If I have
say 2h of completely free time everyday (24 hours minus work, commute, chores,
gym, household crap, etc) and I need to work just 1 hour per day longer, then
that cuts my free time per day in half. That is HUGE. You better pay me a lot
for that.

~~~
waqf
What the tax system doesn't respect is that my life _might_ be better and more
productive if I spent a year earning 200,000 and then took a year off, then if
I worked a 100,000/year job the entire time.

~~~
rory
You can get around this by taking the year off from July through June (I've
done September through March it worked well for me and my taxes) :)

~~~
waqf
I thought someone would say that :), that's a combinatorial optimization that
happens to work in the exact scenario I described, and assuming no further
constraints.

But you lose out if you instead want to do 2 years on 2 years off, or if your
one-year employer doesn't want you to work July to June, or if your year-off
plans don't work July to June, or any number of more complicated scenarios. My
point stands that the system isn't _designed_ to support this kind of
irregular high-income work.

------
mlthoughts2018
What part of the employment agreement guarantees you “meaningfulness”? I know
the parts that guarantee my pay & benefits.

