Phoning it in at work is bad for you in the long term. That’s not balance, it’s wasted years. Either find a way you can do meaningful work at work, leave to do your own thing, or leave to find more meaningful work. Just my opinion.
My default mode is to phone it in at work. Been doing this for years, and I've been at my most happy when I have phoned it in. This is usually after some holiday or other personal life moment that gave me perspective on how little value my work really has to me. Occasionally I slip, get serious, 10X it, and get burnout. Somehow I don't seem to learn from this.
Also consider the insecurity that our system creates for people. Losing a job can snowball into something much larger. There goes your healthcare, mortgage payment, retirement contributions, ability to find another job (depending on the current state of the market), etc.
If your mortgage payment and overall living expenses are so high that you can only get by with a high paying job then you've shackled yourself to your org and should fear being fired
If you live well below your means you'll have a large savings buffer and won't care so much
> The philosopher Diogenes was eating bread and lentils for supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king. Said Aristippus, "If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils."
> Said Diogenes, "Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king."
Personally I am lucky and privileged enough to be on a FIRE path, but not everyone is able to do so. And not everyone is shackled to high paying jobs. Some people are working 3 jobs and very much need each one of them.
The audience here largely aren't working 3 minimum wage jobs struggling to get by. I wouldn't leave the same comment on a forum for people in heavy debt
That's all true, but the average comment might cut the opposite way. New construction is skewed towards larger expensive homes, which does tell us a bit about the supply issues of smaller starter homes in general.
Most of the issue preference. There are foreclosed homes that are <$100k, but they are in areas people don't want to live, or can't due to lack of job options.
You're not automatically a "parasitic drain" by not constantly going above and beyond. It's okay to pace yourself in order to give a consistent, reliable output. If it avoids catastrophic burnout, that's better for the company because they get to keep you, and don't have to hire and train your replacement.
Exactly! One's worth is a direct function of how much they contribute to the organization's productivity. The same goes for civil rights - the more aligned you are to the success of the state, the more rights and liberties one should have. /s
Because you become what you do. Actions and habits are shaping one’s mind in the long run. This has little to do with work ethics, it’s about spending one’s life doing things that are meaningful to oneself.
I've worked at various tech jobs and have not really gotten meaning out of them. Coding, committing, pushing, and deploying gave some dopamine hits, but not long term meaningfulness. And now AI agents are doing those things anyway.
If people have found meaning while pushing bits around, I'd love to hear about it. I think working to improve other's lives directly (healthcare, charity work, community involvement, etc.) can provide the most meaning to people.
People certainly differ in what they find meaningful. I chose my profession based on what is meaningful to me, and was lucky in that it also pays reasonably well.
Perhaps shocking to most of Silicon Valley, but you can do things outside of work, which have nothing to do with work, with no social connections to people at work.
It takes years to build the habit of being able to be present at work and give it your best, no matter how much you “care” about the actual work. People are relying on you either way, and those habits and mindsets carry into other areas of your life. You may as well give it an honest effort, and be proud knowing you’re someone who shows up and can be relied on.
It closes future doors for you. Who gets assigned to the interesting new project? Not the guy who's phoning it in. Who gets first crack at the limited pool of raises? Not the guy who's phoning it in. So, even if all you want out of work is money, phoning it in is bad for you. If you want more, if you want interesting, fulfilling work, it's bad for you there, too.
More than that, phoning it in is bad for your character. That assumes you share a certain moral framework or outlook, though. If you're a moral nihilist, then it's really hard to make such an argument make sense to you. But let me at least try to make it make sense.
I want to be part of something, part of a team, not just a cog in a machine. I want relationships, not just for all of life to be transactional. But, see, wherever I go, I take me. The "me" that I take to my marriage or to hanging out with my buddies is the same "me" that goes to work. When I make one part of my life purely transactional, it's hard to keep that from leaking out into other areas that definitely should not be transactional.
Now, you're going to say that companies take advantage of that, and you'll be right. They do. They try to sell you on "we're all a big team!" and such. But the fact is that some places do actually try to live that out, and some places purely use it to try to extract the maximum effort from suckers. And the second group tends to be corrosive to your character, too, even if you don't phone it in, partly because such places tend to have lots of people who are phoning it in, but more because the company is phoning it in in how they relate to you. But the answer is not to phone it in in return. The answer is to start looking for somewhere better.
It kills any and all potential career progression, will annoy your coworkers if it’s bad enough they have to carry you (which will make the 40 hours a week you show up at the office less pleasant for you) and will put you at the top of the list to go if and when your company eventually hits a rough spot.
"Bad" is subjective, but as I stated, it's my opinion. It's not about work ethic at all; it's about your own values.
To simplify:
1. Reinforced behaviors become stronger, while others get weaker. Ultimately, I'm a behaviorist (ACT).
2. Work is a big part of your waking life.
3. If you spend that much of your life going through the motions, you're strengthening behaviors that may not be constructive.
4. When your situation changes, and you need those more constructive skills and behaviors, you may find them much more difficult to access.
That's a very functional lens. However, there's a deeper lens you can apply. I believe people feel most fulfilled when they're routinely acting in alignment with their core values (what they truly care about).
Phoning it in at work may actually be "workable" from an ACT standpoint if your personal life lights up all your values, and you are feeling completely fulfilled by friends, family, hobbies, etc.
However, I would venture that most people also want to feel that their work is giving them some feeling of intrinsic satisfaction, not just a paycheck. You can call it Purpose, Mission, Self-Efficacy, whatever you want. In my framing, people don't want to live in conflict with their values 8 hours/day.
But there's an even more basic argument that I would make: Life is incredibly short. You are hurtling toward death. If you're phoning it in, you're giving away your most precious resource for a small amount of financial security (and you still might get fired). You may find that when you hit 45 (or 65) you look back and weep for the decades you poured into something that you didn't care about, or even held in contempt.
You have to do what's right for you, but it's never too late. As someone who has admittedly phoned it in previously, I'm violently on the other side now. Regardless of how you feel about your job, I strongly recommend finding a way to give a shit, or getting out by any means necessary.
Sure, if you consider "work" to be the end-all-be-all. I "phoned it in at work" for a while and it was one of the best things I did for myself. But the reason was mostly that my evenings were spent working on learning data analysis and working on bunches of civics-oriented projects and FOIA litigation. I did eventually leave to find more meaningful work in a different career. But "phoning it in" is what enabled me to eventually leave.
I'm not going to get too much into the discussion of it being directly bad for you, but nothing builds resentment like a coworker making your life harder by not actually doing their own.
If you start phoning it in, don't be surprised if you start becoming isolated. And that can definitely be bad for you in the long term.
Yeah. The myth of meaningful work does more harm than good.
Plenty of people find meaning in work. They enjoy it and would do it even if they won the lottery. If that's you, then that's great.
But that will never be the cade for me. I serve organizations with missions I am proud to support. I work with reasonably smart, dedicated people. I am paid a decent amount. The work is sometimes challenging and fun. I am a consultant, so I can set my own hours.
But on any given day, I would rather do anything other than work. Go for a walk. Watch TV. Read a book. See friends.
The meaning is not in the work—it's in you. You can always find ways to connect more to things you value while at work. That makes it personally meaningful. If "creativity" is a core value for you, but your job is not "creative" on paper, there are countless ways to pivot toward creativity. You can draw illustrations for a presentation. You can redesign a document template with good typography. You can split a complex spreadsheet into clear tabs. Whatever you do, there's a way to do more of what matters to you.
This. You can have pride in doing things right, but it still won't make it any more meaningful. It will be just you deluding yourself. Some things needs to be done, but I don't think anyone would be surprised how little of it is actually needed.
It's only wasted years if work is an important part of your character. For most of us, it's an obligation we reluctantly do so we can pay bills and actually live our life.
