
How Much Is a Fun Job Worth? - LVB
http://ask.slashdot.org/story/12/09/12/2120229/ask-slashdot-how-much-is-a-fun-job-worth
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jmspring
This article hits a nerve right now. I get ping'd daily about opportunities.
In general, I politely decline. Why? Evaluating priorities.

I have a full time gig that allows me an insane amount of flexibility (60% at
home, flexible hours when in the office to avoid traffic). The time not
commuting and lack of stress allows me to work on personal projects. I like
the group I work with, the fact that we are a mix of product and research, and
that we all collaborate well through a mix of communication -- in person,
email, Skype, etc.

Recently, a company I previously interviewed with, liked, but turned down,
made a very generous offer -- probably 20-30% over my current situation at the
cost of flexibility and working at home. It was technically more interesting
and challenging than my current job. I thought about it and was going back and
forth.

My wife came to the point -- are you willing to give up your own projects and
6+ hours of commuting a week for the $ difference? Calculate the hourly rate
just based on how much more you are commuting.

She was right. Opportunities need to be weighed against what you want.
Sometimes having a third party for a bit of reason helps.

~~~
Tichy
Longer commute time is highly correlated with unhappiness. I think scientists
even determined a number for how much more you would have to earn to
compensate for extra commute hours.

~~~
pantaloons
Do you happen to have a link? I would be interested in reading that paper.

~~~
praptak
This article summarizes some of the research, unfortunately no direct links to
papers (should be google-able via researcher names):

[http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2011/05/your...](http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2011/05/your_commute_is_killing_you.html)

Found link to the commute-divorce paper, Erika Sandow Umeå University "On the
road. Social aspects of commuting long distances to work.": <http://umu.diva-
portal.org/smash/get/diva2:415050/FULLTEXT01>

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gadders
I may be in the minority here, and obviously no-one should continue to work in
a job that makes them unhappy or is abusive, but work is work and fun is fun.

Work is what you do to pay the morgage, feed your kids and put them through
school etc. It may suck, but (speaking as a husband and father) I have
responsibilities that trump whether I am enjoying every hour of my work day.

Fun is the stuff that you do voluntarily because you enjoy it.

If you can get the two to overlap, great, but I would say that is the vast
minority of people and for most probably unachievable. But, that's OK.

If work was that much fun, then they wouldn't need to pay you to do it.

~~~
Tichy
"But, that's OK."

What makes you say that? I don't think it is OK. I am also a father and soon
will be a husband. I'd say being a father makes work even worse, because it
prevents me from spending time with my child.

I suspect you think it is OK because most people have to work to sustain their
lives. Not all of them, though.

Would you still think it is OK having to work if you were the only one doing
it?

~~~
gadders
I think if you are only responsible for yourself, then you can absolutely
please yourself where you work and for how much.

I take the point that I think you are making though - I wouldn't take an extra
£X,000 if it meant I never got to see my daughter during the week because I
was working 20 hour days. I would say that is different to generally just not
enjoying your job though.

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orangethirty
Made me really think about what I'm doing. As a freelancer, I get _lot_ of
work. Plus I'm pretty good at marketing the practice and just shipped out 3
MVPs last month. Its an insane amount of work, but an insane amount of
financial gain too. Its fun, in a way. I get to meet new people every day, get
to manage my own business (I find that sort of fun), set my own hours and work
from my home. But I miss focusing on one thing, and making it fun for me. In
every past job Ive always found a way to make it fun. But in freelancing, the
conditions change every day, and its complex to do that. During the last few
days Ive been thinking (and talking to other developers) about looking for a
job that I can really enjoy and excel at. Sure, making MVPs is fun, and its
challenging because there is always some catch, but the enjoyment level is not
as a good as a job. I don't know. Maybe its the long hours ( I work for about
14 hours a day). But if someone came up to me and gave me a fair job offer, I
would really consider it. Not about money, but about quality of life. And for
me quality of life > money. Thats the reason I havent really stepped into the
whole startup thing.

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wccrawford
It's worth a _lot_. However, you don't necessarily have to give up a lot to
get one. The thing is, jobs like that tend to also offer good pay and
benefits, etc etc. The jobs that are horrors also tend to try to cheap out on
pay and benefits are hard to come by.

At least, this has been my experience. The culture on HN is a little
different, and startups certainly play by different rules.

I get a lot of job offers lately (even calls) and I tell them all the same
thing when they ask if I'm looking: "It'll have to be really compelling,
because my current job is really great." I've got good pay, I pick my hours,
they rarely bother me after work hours, and overtime is extremely rare. My
only complaint is that I don't find the work challenging enough, and that's an
important thing. Still, it leaves me free to enjoy my freetime more because
I'm not constantly burnt out from challenging myself 8 hours a day. So it's a
tradeoff. (Previously I was challenged, but I'd come home and do nothing
productive at all. I'd already satisfied that itch at work.)

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joshu
10% increase versus just the risk of taking a new job is probably not worth
it.

~~~
josephlord
I've upvoted in agreement but it does depend on whether you are ready to leave
(I seem to get itchy feet after about 5 years even with some internal
variation), are really happy where you are and what you see as the risk
profile of the existing job (cuts/relocation/new boss expected). So the
absolute figure needs to be flexible for non-financial considerations and may
go negative in some circumstances.

If the only reason to move is the money then for me it would take more like
30% to take the risk.

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andrewfelix
To me it's worth $30-40k per annum. That's approximately the pay cut I took to
run my own business. I get to spend more time with my wife, and work on things
I enjoy.

~~~
kayoone
Sounds like alot, but then again its totally different when you take a 40k cut
from 150k then it is from 70k ;) But sharing the percentage now after the
absolute number wouldnt make much sense if you want to keep it secret ;)

~~~
andrewfelix
$100k -> $60-70k

It's a lot. I live very differently now.

~~~
kzahel
after taxes I think both those numbers turn out to feel not all that
different!

~~~
cabacon
Yes, yes they do. After you get to deduct your 401(k) contributions, your FSA,
your mortgage interest, get deductions for having kids, you don't pay nearly
20-30% of your gross salary in taxes. It's probably closer to 10% when you're
at the 100K level, which means you're only nibbling off $3-4,000 of that
difference. That leaves about $25K difference per year, or $2K/mo. That's
certainly noticeable.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
Ummm... many people don't have those things to deduct. This is actually a
fairly good example of how crooked the tax code can be. When I rent, I don't
get to deduct _any_ of it.

You can say that owning a house is more socially desirable and thus
subsidized, but that's still not really fair to those of us simply too young
to have saved a down-payment.

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hoi
There isn't an easy way to assess unless you put values on it. What's it
worth? What's the difference in job satisfaction worth? What is the value of
the extra time from not commuting worth? This can be broken down into the
likely activities you would be doing e.g working on own projects, spending
time with famlly, leisure activities such as cinema or bar) What are the
values of any other work differences? (flexi-time, provided lunch, health
insurance cover, pension, time off etc.)

Sometimes attaching a monetary value to these things are difficult, but it's a
good exercise to do so that you understand what you value more and what you
are and willing to sacrifice for more $$$ (or less $$$ depending on the
opportunity).

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outside1234
I'm 40 as well, and have learned the hard way by making the wrong decisions:
always focus on the 'fun'. You'll never regret fun and it takes orders of
magnitude more money (not 10% but at least 2x) to make up for fun.

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cmdkeen
There's the potential to try and "grow the new group" into a fun and happy
place to work. As long as the regulatory guidelines don't turn out to be
actually restrictive.

People who enjoy the rewards (tangible and intangible) of leadership can find
building that up to be very rewarding. But you need to have a good feel on the
senior management to ensure they won't try and micromanage or make changes
that destroy what you're trying to build up.

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bbwharris
If you are making enough, and you are happy, then why did you look in the
first place? Often times just the act of dipping your toes in the water will
send you swimming.

Evaluate why you are even looking. If you are happy and the new thing is about
pay, tell your current employer. Chances are they will fight to keep you.

People move around in jobs a lot. What makes it fun right now might change.

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SonicSoul
a few points that come to mind. 1. 10% pay raise could probably be negotiated
in your current job so that shouldn't be a big factor. 2. is there a longer
term upside to the new position? that should be a bigger deciding factor than
initial pay bump 3. by leaving doesn't mean you can't return to the original
place. I've made the jump a few times, and almost always ended up working
again with people i left behind. I stil seem to have a open invitation to come
back to some of the places. 4. i like that i've developed new friends in each
place, and do best i can to keep the relationships i've developed over the
years. Some good people to be found in every place!

in the end, you're taking a risk by leaving a good thing.. I have overstayed
my welcome in one place once because of this reason as well :)

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dllthomas
It depends on where the margin is. A fun job is worth spending a good chunk of
your discretionary income on, but you have to meet basic needs - particularly
if you have responsibilities to family/etc.

With caveats, however, I'd say "A bit more than you expect, but not as much as
a short commute".

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bane
Wow, this is incredibly timely. I'm in the middle of series of interviews with
a number of companies and this has already come up. Just two days ago I turned
down a senior position that was about a 30% pay bump from where I am now
because I felt like the job would not only be not fun+, but so restrictive and
stressful that I left the interview sweating just thinking about it! I called
them back that afternoon and let them know that regardless of what they
decide, I simply didn't want to work in that position.

Yesterday I had a really positive interview with a company that I think would
be fun, but would represent a 20-30% pay reduction. You know what? I've pretty
much settled on the fact that if they like me, I'll probably say yes to it.

I've spent the last 15 years bouncing around between large and small
companies, large meaning 30,000, 40,000 and 125,000 employees, and small
meaning 15, 6, 4, 30, 16 and 2 employees. I was always moving up in salary and
building a career and so never really gave much thought to if I was having fun
or not. But looking back, and particularly after that last 3 very stressful
years trying to turn around a distressed startup, I would much rather go back
to working at the companies I had more fun with, even taking my original
salary to do so.

The stress, overwork, aggravation and frustration and sleepless nights is just
simply not worth it. I've spent significant portions over the last 3 years ill
from problems that are probably stress related. I've gained weight, lost
fitness and my work-life balance has gotten terribly out of whack. I just
realized earlier in the week that my license expires next week and I literally
have so many meetings scheduled that I simply won't be able to make it to the
DMV in time. I've even had to cancel my vacation for the later part of this
year.

I realized this year that of the three major parts of my day, with 1/3
sleeping and 1/3 working, I'm so miserable that the 1/3 I should have as free
time is simply wasted either over working, or coping with stress. And
realistically I'm not even getting my 1/3 sleeping time either.

My advice is, if you are happy with where you are at with your career, and can
reasonably afford to take a pay hit, there's no amount of pay that can make up
for poor health, constant stress, loss of weekends and time with friends and
family. I'm fortunate enough to be in a position where I can conceive of a
50-60% delta from my current earning potential to consider a position where I
think I might enjoy my time there. I recognize that not everybody is in the
same position. But try and be more judicious in what positions you end up in
than I've been. And when you work for a place and the fun stops, start to look
for the next gig.

+fun defined as a rewarding and challenging job where I'm free to work on
interesting problems and focus on the customer. Something I look forward to
coming back to day after day and not something I have to will my way through.

~~~
vonmoltke
_The stress, overwork, aggravation and frustration and sleepless nights is
just simply not worth it. I've spent significant portions over the last 3
years ill from problems that are probably stress related. I've gained weight,
lost fitness and my work-life balance has gotten terribly out of whack. I just
realized earlier in the week that my license expires next week and I literally
have so many meetings scheduled that I simply won't be able to make it to the
DMV in time. I've even had to cancel my vacation for the later part of this
year.

I realized this year that of the three major parts of my day, with 1/3
sleeping and 1/3 working, I'm so miserable that the 1/3 I should have as free
time is simply wasted either over working, or coping with stress. And
realistically I'm not even getting my 1/3 sleeping time either._

That was my situation up until 5 months ago, and the pay cut I took to get out
of it (about 10%) was worth every penny. People have told me since then that I
now seem like a completely different person.

In my situation, the mental load got so bad that it actually started hampering
my ability to find another position[1]. I started approaching every nibble
with desperation and likely underperformed on multiple interviews due to the
self-imposed pressure to get them right so I could get out of my miserable
situation. I worried about actually having time for interviews with the
schedule I was working. My failure to find something else then fed back and
made the problems related to the job worse by injecting hopelessness. I
finally managed to break that cycle long enough to find a position at a very
small local company.

[1] As a bit of background to put this and the following statements in
context, I live in Dallas and spent almost 10 years at a major defense
contractor here. I also have some issues with explaining my experience in
detail, particularly confusion over my "systems engineer" title[2] and not
being able to talk about the good stuff I did.

[2] Aerospace/defense systems engineers are not what most of you probably
think of when you hear that title:
<http://www.incose.org/practice/whatissystemseng.aspx>

