I worked for others in a corporate environment and it was often a joy, but the problem is you don't always get that lucky and even if you do, the environment can change around you from year to year and a perfect job can turn into hell. And corporate engineering jobs have become so filled with stupid bullshit that the career I had and thrived in may not even be possible anymore.
I'm not set up to work for myself, my ideal is for others to worry about the business, and give me projects I can work on with freedom.
Agree. In 25ish years I've been part of 3 mergers, 1 divestiture, 1 IPO, and N CEO/senior leadership changes. Each of them has changed my job in some way, usually for the worse. I've been told to relocate or quit, I've had customer-facing travel policy change (told to be on the road 100%), I've been put on-call (even when traveling 100%), and I've had internal culture change the point of hating life. There were some positive ones too, but those stand out because generally it caused me to leave (or get laid-off).
I’ve worked at a few startups and one big company in Silicon Valley. Over the last 7 years I’ve had periods where I’m really excited to get to work in the morning when I’m going to sleep. I’ve had stretches of time where I realize how lucky I am and that others would be incredibly jealous if they understood how good I had it.
I also had periods of time where a job was making me miserable. Ruining my time outside of work. Making me question everything.
Some white-collar professionals enjoy continuing their work past retirement age. It can be stimulating, high-leverage, and I have often seen them contributing at key moments without spending much time at the office. The accumulated wisdom and political capital of many decades at the wheel makes a difference. I've also seen blue-collar workers keep at it past retirement age because of their finances or some other compulsion despite arthritis, weakness, bad sight etc and rue every moment. Let's make sure we understand that not every craft is heaven and not every corporation is a hellscape.
I definitely would have kept my software engineering career longer if I could have found a decent job like I used to have. But what it means to be and what's expected of a professional software engineer today is so different from how I spent my career and how I like/need to work. So I've retired rather than continue fighting it.
My father had an 84yo boss that he marvelled at because the dude never got sick, only took a handful of vacations because his (ironically) japanese wife insisted, and basically lived in that office - he didn't need the money , he exited for like $10M aaages ago and all his children were executives (besides 1).
My father also remarked, he was the greediest man he had ever seen. Some people are so intertwined with their "hungry ghosts", work becomes the addiction, and stopping work is like telling an hardcore addict to anything to go cold turkey. To quit and retire would be the withdrawal that kills them rather than the work itself.
I too had a boss in his 80s who was the patriarch of the company, he had one son who was a partner when I was there. By staying involved, he could live like gentry alongside his clients, going on interesting trips, and participating in interesting ventures, and being invited to many parties to mingle with the local high status. I don't think pouring his own nest egg into similar ventures would be the same. It was the difference between upper class rich and middle class rich.
His son developed his own upper-class tastes but had no interest in mingling business and pleasure. He had an interest in making international big game hunting trips frequently. Whereas the father's extracurriculars always involved the business, generating leads, etc.; his adult son's extracurriculars were just burning money as a demonstration of status.
Those are the two reasons why he would not step away.
That job was insightful but also depressing because I could recognize my own inadequacy. I want to go home after an 8 hour workday. Not a calendar of dinner with one city council member a week, a second dinner per week with a bank president or similar ilk, going to lunch with various other people, outings, parties, hearings, conferences, etc. It's both exhausting and anxiety-inducing cause of FOMO. I'm sure that's a third reason of why he would not step down.
Everyone’s job is a part of their identity. How big and how important varies. Some people fall apart when they don’t have it.
I’ve heard half a dozen stories of people who retire and die weeks later. Loss of routine, loss of structure. Work provides a lot of the framework of our lives, and to some degree our personalities and behaviors.
Working in a craft for yourself at your own pace is a joy.
Working for others in a corporate environment is hell and will kill you.
Let's make sure people understand that difference.
I worked for others in a corporate environment and it was often a joy, but the problem is you don't always get that lucky and even if you do, the environment can change around you from year to year and a perfect job can turn into hell. And corporate engineering jobs have become so filled with stupid bullshit that the career I had and thrived in may not even be possible anymore.
I'm not set up to work for myself, my ideal is for others to worry about the business, and give me projects I can work on with freedom.
Agree. In 25ish years I've been part of 3 mergers, 1 divestiture, 1 IPO, and N CEO/senior leadership changes. Each of them has changed my job in some way, usually for the worse. I've been told to relocate or quit, I've had customer-facing travel policy change (told to be on the road 100%), I've been put on-call (even when traveling 100%), and I've had internal culture change the point of hating life. There were some positive ones too, but those stand out because generally it caused me to leave (or get laid-off).
I’ve worked at a few startups and one big company in Silicon Valley. Over the last 7 years I’ve had periods where I’m really excited to get to work in the morning when I’m going to sleep. I’ve had stretches of time where I realize how lucky I am and that others would be incredibly jealous if they understood how good I had it.
I also had periods of time where a job was making me miserable. Ruining my time outside of work. Making me question everything.
Some white-collar professionals enjoy continuing their work past retirement age. It can be stimulating, high-leverage, and I have often seen them contributing at key moments without spending much time at the office. The accumulated wisdom and political capital of many decades at the wheel makes a difference. I've also seen blue-collar workers keep at it past retirement age because of their finances or some other compulsion despite arthritis, weakness, bad sight etc and rue every moment. Let's make sure we understand that not every craft is heaven and not every corporation is a hellscape.
I definitely would have kept my software engineering career longer if I could have found a decent job like I used to have. But what it means to be and what's expected of a professional software engineer today is so different from how I spent my career and how I like/need to work. So I've retired rather than continue fighting it.
There’s plenty companies around who are doing more or less what they did 20 years ago. Enterprise ERP systems is where you want to look.
If you're making money from that craft it means you have customers. And bad customers are their own kind of hell.
But in most crafts they are easier to avoid or mitigate.
My father had an 84yo boss that he marvelled at because the dude never got sick, only took a handful of vacations because his (ironically) japanese wife insisted, and basically lived in that office - he didn't need the money , he exited for like $10M aaages ago and all his children were executives (besides 1).
My father also remarked, he was the greediest man he had ever seen. Some people are so intertwined with their "hungry ghosts", work becomes the addiction, and stopping work is like telling an hardcore addict to anything to go cold turkey. To quit and retire would be the withdrawal that kills them rather than the work itself.
I too had a boss in his 80s who was the patriarch of the company, he had one son who was a partner when I was there. By staying involved, he could live like gentry alongside his clients, going on interesting trips, and participating in interesting ventures, and being invited to many parties to mingle with the local high status. I don't think pouring his own nest egg into similar ventures would be the same. It was the difference between upper class rich and middle class rich.
His son developed his own upper-class tastes but had no interest in mingling business and pleasure. He had an interest in making international big game hunting trips frequently. Whereas the father's extracurriculars always involved the business, generating leads, etc.; his adult son's extracurriculars were just burning money as a demonstration of status.
Those are the two reasons why he would not step away.
That job was insightful but also depressing because I could recognize my own inadequacy. I want to go home after an 8 hour workday. Not a calendar of dinner with one city council member a week, a second dinner per week with a bank president or similar ilk, going to lunch with various other people, outings, parties, hearings, conferences, etc. It's both exhausting and anxiety-inducing cause of FOMO. I'm sure that's a third reason of why he would not step down.
https://archive.ph/kHS90
Everyone’s job is a part of their identity. How big and how important varies. Some people fall apart when they don’t have it. I’ve heard half a dozen stories of people who retire and die weeks later. Loss of routine, loss of structure. Work provides a lot of the framework of our lives, and to some degree our personalities and behaviors.