[yarcob]

> much of my job satisfaction came from the sense of comradery of working on a team

I think this is a seriously undervalued factor and something I was completely unaware of.

I used to always judge job opportunities either by how well they pay, or how interesting the work is. But in reality, the social factor is just as important.

So some time ago, I was trying to hire my first employee. I paid a lot of money for job ads, and got very little applications. I offered the same salary as the other tech companies in my city, and I really tried my best to attract people.

I couldn't understand why people instead only applied to work for boring consultancies or even for an online gambling company -- why would people prefer such mind numbing or even morally questionable jobs?

I realized that the social situation at work is really important. When I met people who worked at the online gambling website, they weren't talking about the actual work; they just told me about their awesome boss, and how they had fun with their team mates, etc. It didn't matter how interesting my project was, nobody wanted to sit all day in an office just alone with me.

[timthorn]

Consultancy might have a boring image, but the work can be extremely varied. I was at one of the big names and got to go behind the scenes at a major theme park, spend a night with police officers on blue light calls, watch open heart surgery in person, meet a lunar astronaut and eat lunch in a tv studio watching a live broadcast.

[aikinai]

Wow, that sounds way more interesting that I've been led to believe! Did you just get lucky? What was your role?

[pfranz]

Years ago, I remember someone talking about working in film. Ideally, you work on three movies a year; one for the pay, one for the script, and one for the people you work with. I've tried to keep this in mind when looking for full-time work and I think it lines up with what you're saying.

[nodejs_rulez_1]

I think the OPs point was that the past employer effectively leveraged the social aspect to underpay. Now that there is a hobby outside of work, the latter is suddenly not a center of life anymore. The pay raise is the ironic reality of employers catching up with the real cost of labour.

[gambiting]

That assumes that these social aspects are valued at zero. Money isn't everything in a job. Your compensation consists of the money, yes, but also everything else in the job. Good social aspect at work takes effort to build and maintain, so maybe, actually, those employers weren't underpaying at all. Again, money isn't everything.