That said, how you react, internalize your interactions, and feel at the end of the day is completely within your control. Not to say you shouldn’t abandon everything and go for the quiet life, but that should come from a place of genuine desire, not because you are tired of a shitty work environment. I struggle with this too and sometimes need to reflect if I’m making a particular decision because of external pressures or because I really want to pursue it.
the Gervais principle is an all too often true framing but with organizations getting bigger and bigger, more massive conglomerates taking the lions share of business, the distance grows. and i personally think more people are awakening to the ridiculousness of the situation. Adam Curtis calls this having to accept & pretend while seeing the slow motion catastrophe "Hyper Normalization."
personally i want to think enabling smaller group empowerment is helpful, as is creating a more dynamic less static set of pairings for people. putting people on multiple groups may alao help. all this goea against the managerial desire for certainty, predictability, the push to de-risk. personally i'd like some orgs to show the bravery to try something, anything else.
In practice, they'll start automating/building/designing new things after a few weeks. It's not a mindset that you can easily escape. They'll build a greenhouse and think about how cool it would be to setup automated watering, controlled airflow, autofeeders, etc... These things are doable for cheap. They absolutely won't stop being engineers, they'll just be engineers working on a different set of problems.
I am not saying that you can't take a break and do stuff that has nothing to do with problem solving. My point is that once you've built that mindset of system thinking and automating tasks, combined with skills that allow you to actually implement the routines needed for a given task, you will find it hard to not optimize daily toil.
I am not saying that this applies to everyone, but it most definitely applies to everyone I know that decided to "give up and live on a farm".
Bought the farm. Wanted a house but not enough money, so i got a job framing. within 6 months i hired a guy i was working with and started a business framing houses just this january.
Its a lot of kinesthetic learning (and i was never in good shape let alone an athlete) which was a total 180 from what ive done my whole life.
And im now in the best shape of my life, went from hypertensive 130/80 and 80-90 pulse to 121/71 with a resting bp in the high 50s. and i started doing strength training, which is necessary to excel.
i guess it was time for a change of pace. and to round myself out. im going for the whole Renaissance man thing. Ive picked up so many skills and hobbies since i left the industry.
i still code for fun, and looking to automate some processes on the farm one day soon. namely watering.
cf, "Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work" by M. Crawford
But I also consider Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance pretty mediocre, while others consider it life changing, so not sure how valid my opinion is.
Humans need to be around other humans, and not just their family. At my work we are trying to get team meetups scheduled for roughly April/May. I was worried people aren't ready, but turns out they are actually hungry for it.
Competence, or lack thereof is easier to hide or write off now. People aren’t always reactive or reachable.
As for being around other humans, I love that. But not colleagues. I have separate friends. You need the context switch away.
Please don't assume there is one universal truth that needs to be forced on others
From Soul of A New Machine (1981). Personal opinion, but would that we have a little (lot) more collectivism, find more ways to work together towards ends, versus saving up enough to fuck off & start our own gardens.
It was surreal. It was like everyone was walking around in a dreamstate, unaware they would die, of the mortality of life. I'll never forget that sensation, how everyday life and consumption and entertainment and routine lull you, distract you, from the inevitabilities of life.
COVID was a fundamental disruption to life. ALmost a million Americans are dead. Not a lot by historical standards of plague, but still... a threat. And now the cold war rears its head and nuclear armageddon.
As I offhanded remarked once in a bathroom in bar that for some reason had an attendant who was discussing moving apartments, "Ah, moving is a time for reflection".
And that has been what the last couple years has been: times for reflection. A collective illusion shattered, or at least disrupted.
My $0.02: people are at least 60% of what makes your day job good or bad, given adequate compensation that is. Maybe try companies that are not in tech but need your talent? Go where you're celebrated, not tolerated and all that. Good boss+Coworkers+environment+pay = doesn't matter that much what you're actually doing.
Also, I was like you and others in my 20's. New career, new country, new state. Maybe become a hermit in antarctica? You get the sentiment, but I no longer feel that way, I started accepting wherever you go, not a whole lot changes that matters. Alwayd gotta take in the good with the bad. The grass is greener on the other side, but maybe unlike the current grass it is itchy when you try to walk or picnic on it.
Aye, there's the problem.
Almost like supporting the lavish lifestyles and endless waste of worthless middlemen sucks whether you're on a tractor, behind a lathe, or sitting at a keyboard
Personally, the smartest engineers I know are eating an Envy apple. They’re also a bit sleepy. They will wake up at seven tomorrow.
