"The experience was physically taxing, he was diagnosed with tendonitis after moving hundreds of boxes a day, but it pulled him out of his depression and helped him gain perspective and a deeper sense of meaning".......
I have mixed feelings about this. What this has proven is working at amazon warehouse sucks, and is not sustainable.
I've had many physical shitty jobs in my 20's. Then, I had some health issue and could no longer keep doing that to my body, so I went back to school and got a CS degree.
I sometimes get depressed and miss physical work, but then I remember how shit it was and how an injury would prevent me from working. As a dev I think I'm going to be able to earn money as long as I'm alive and have a functioning brain.
I guess once you have enough money then maybe someone might find that work fun? Obviously it helped the writer with depression. However, if he ever gets permanently hurt and it affects his daily life I have a feeling depression will come back in full swing. Office work is much much safer.
There are ways to help people through tech and have much bigger affect then moving boxes for a shitty company.
Edit: What helps my depression is connecting with people outside of work, helping people in my community, doing projects around my house and spending time with my son. Additionally, I try to make good choices when spending my money and limit my spending on stuff I don't need, as I dislike excessive spending.
Edit2: Some great comments below. This is very much poverty/shit job tourism, which the writer can escape at any moment. This is some BlackMirror type of content. Guy makes it big in tech, retires, now works shit job people are trying to escape to cure his depression. He then writes about it on a blog. Now, other non-aware devs might be reading it contemplating leaving their jobs to do a REAL job.
I read the article, and... I get it. But something about this just seems weird to me. I grew up mostly on a family farm, worked every day of my life in some capacity since I was 9 or 10 years old, and did shit jobs to pay for college (which I eventually dropped out of right before graduation). I don't think my route into tech is that different from many of the other folks I've worked with... this guy lived a /very/ charmed and privileged existence compared to the average American tech worker, and going to work at an Amazon warehouse to get a reality check seems... patronizing somehow. I am glad he got a reality check, but I feel like there's another way to do this, or at least how to write about it.
I think part of that feeling is coming from how we've been socialized in the middle/upper classes to perceive people with lower incomes working more physical jobs than us.
It's no longer acceptable to be snooty towards people in these positions, but we haven't dropped the stigma totally, and now the acceptable way to view + interact with them is to act (in the performative sense, because many of us don't actually know) with deference, assuming that their lives are truly miserable and their dignity is on the line every day they work such jobs. The expectation is that we must feel sorry for them and treat them better than other people because of it, or treat them with kid gloves.
When you adopt such a stance, the idea of someone willingly going and doing one of these terrible no good jobs does seem patronizing -- it's masochistic even, and so is viewed as suspect and "touristy". When someone does such a thing they are "disrespecting themselves" by people with this view. If anyone ever tries to provide and alternative view and tell us that most people's lives in these positions aren't so bad by going and experiencing it themselves, however partially, we heap scorn on them. "They don't know what it's really like, it's horrible what these people have to do." "They have millions of dollars in the bank so their experience can be dismissed." Etc.
> this guy lived a /very/ charmed and privileged existence
His experience in tech doesn't sound so charmed to me. He was obsessed with climbing the corporate ladder. He slept in the office and woke up early every morning to start grinding again. He worked so much he didn't even have time to play a game with his son.
He tried another kind of work to see how it compared, and he learned stuff. There's nothing patronizing about that.
Life is fundamentally unpleasant and once you have your basic daily needs met you have time to develop mental issues. In the west basically everyone including the homeless don't have to worry about being eaten, murdered, starving or dying from exposure. This leaves a lot of leeway for everyone to think how bad they have it while historically being in the top 1%.
It's rather hard to have empathy for someone who has it better than you. But I've found it helps to also remind yourself that the majority of people who ever lived will feel the same way about you.
Why deny his experience, though? Not everything needs to be viewed through a lens of privilege. I hope the author gained an appreciation for those less fortunate or less ambitious. At least they have experienced the "other side," so to speak.
Maybe it's less patronising, and more just blindingly obvious to those of us who have had crap jobs in the past?
Having grown up adjacent to upper-middle class people (I'm arguably entering that sphere now, but I definitely didn't start there), I think a bunch of them could benefit from hearing this story from one of their peers.
> I had what I would stereotype as a traditional Chinese upbringing in America, which meant my parents very much expected straight A's. Anytime a B happened, something had gone wrong. The explanation was never like you lack the talent or whatever, but that you didn’t work hard enough.
It sounds like the author never got a chance to figure out the intersection between what he liked to do and what he was actually good at. Instead, he was trained to respond to the approval of authority figures. So the true north of his internal compass pointed to whatever the person in charge at the time thought of him.
Fast forward to 2021:
> I think most people who dream of retirement think that it's going to be awesome. And it was—for about a month. I skied on weekdays, shopped at Target at 11am with nobody there, and played video games. But after several months of pursuing various hobbies as my whims and interests—all the things which people who aspire to retire young might look upon with envy—I felt unfulfilled. I became unmoored, set adrift in a sea of theoretical possibility only to drown in unbounded optionality. Novelty and excitement turned into a spiraling vortex of depression as I began to wake up sometimes at noon, sometimes 2pm, and on the rare occasion even getting out of bed at 6pm.
With no authority figure to send the positive vibes he craved, the author felt adrift. This is where the gig at Amazon comes in. Authority figures galore and a clear sense of what a job well done meant.
Some are chalking this up to poverty tourism. Maybe it's something else.
> It sounds like the author never got a chance to figure out the intersection between what he liked to do and what he was actually good at. Instead, he was trained to respond to the approval of authority figures.
I also read that section and thought it unfortunate the author missed that realization as being the likely root cause. External validation seems to be a major driver of his unhappiness. There's nothing wrong with finding solace in structured work but I think if he returns to his old job he's likely to reach burn out unless he can identify this as a root cause.
I made that connection for myself as I've had a strangely similar recent experience to his, albeit without the Amazon warehouse job. I burned out, took multiple months off of work, didn't implement any lasting structures, and became depressed. But I did spend a ton of time in therapy to evaluate my mental health and what drove me to burn out. Practicing self-awareness and emotional awareness has made me more optimistic about finding routines and habits which will bring more fulfillment.
This person seems like they are suffering from typical tech bubble non-awareness disease. They always strive to make the world a better place as… a director of Facebook. Debatable. Early retirement is such a nightmare for me that.. I became an Amazon Warehouse Associate out of boredom? I’m not sure how any of this narcissism is making the world a better place.
Did you actually read the article? He's probably the one person in tech that is directly aware of what it's like to work at a warehouse because he actually did it for real. He's not claiming to be "making the world a better place" by working at Facebook. He's telling the story of how he got burned out from that world and sought out a real "honest labor" job that he'd heard a ton about in the media to snap out of it and get real.
What more could someone possibly do to wave off the label of "tech bubble non-awareness disease," in your opinion?
How dare he find meaning in things that are different from you. Congratulations on figuring out how to find fulfillment and a balanced life before the rest of us. Philip's journey toward that is clearly different from yours.
But it's not just a tech bubble thing; it's more of a 6-figure yuppie thing. I knew a doctor making $500k/year in L.A. who insisted on taking vacations in disaster zones, etc., as a tourist (not with Doctors w/o Borders) so he could "experience human suffering" and "become empathetic" to his fellow men through their "shared suffering" of being in the same approximate location as people who were starving or seriously wounded.
He doesn't actually do anything with this "increased empathy." He just feels like it makes his EQ super high or something silly like that.
Yep, the guy never reflects on his privilege not needing this job. Bad on the blogger too for not prompting them on this - it could have been an interesting article..
I left devops behind to go back to an IT help desk. Around a 20% paycut but I never even have to have email on my phones, no on call, no weekends, I barely have to think much. Good benefits and still above average pay for my area and I can return to grad school part time. I realized I just dont deal well with stress and it easily spills over into my personal life, my stress started effecting my spouse so I had to go.
My parents post-retirement after not working for 10+ years both found roles at an Amazon Fulfillment Center - one at the ship dock and the other in returns. They are both in their 70s and built a nice nest for themselves, neither need it for the money. In fact, my dad was a machine learning professor, multiple publications, and they ran a small medium sized business for 20+ years (at their peak they were running 80M USD annual revenue). They both do it for the mental health and for the physical exercise. They meet a lot of people just like them, some of the workers are living in 3M+ USD homes - although most are not, it’s mostly kids that went to state schools and climb the FC ladder.
Working in a warehouse for 6 weeks is gruelling, and from the interview it sounds like he got a taste of that experience, but I think there's a marked difference between working for the novelty of it and working because you're living paycheck to paycheck.
Saying that though I think he's right in the sense that having experience of working in an environment like that does give you the appreciation for the relative comforts of a tech job.
I've worked retail jobs when younger, and sitting on your butt all day writing code is way easier...
The worst of poverty tourism is when it is done impersonally without recognition of the inescapable circumstances of others. Do see how real people live and work, connect with them to their faces. Recount your difficult escape from a low-income origin.
But: don’t think that you are one of them and able to advocate as a representative if you aren’t, a la Pulp’s Common People.
We should encourage resilience, but be sympathetic about its absence. Everyone should choose to learn to shake off a punch to the face, but that doesn’t negate the real trauma of someone getting assaulted who didn’t have that lesson.
I did the other way round. After 5 years in Tesco warehouse somewhere in the UK, I went back to Poland to learn web development. Picking jobs are cruel, I'd advise anyone against taking it and trying hardest they can to avoid it. It gives you problems with your back, your legs, gets you bored about life. You get back home physically tired and mentally numb each freaking day, that's because you wear your arse out there forced to ignore any safety rules just to get on time with all tasks and you still get some angry manager calling you every now and then because his managers always push him to achieve more 'picks/hour'.
If you see warehouse job ad - run.
BTW, a highly disturbed sleep like he is describing is a common sign of burnout/depression/anxiety disorder. Do not ignore it! There are drugs and therapy, it is worth it. It is double worth it if you have the money to stay unemployed or have other ways of getting some extended rest, at least 3 months. BTW, there is even some chemical signalling pathway explanation for that connection. Or maybe it is hypothesized? IDK, it's above my knowledge level. But the correlation surely is real and strong.
Sorry for the double comment, but I think you may be wrong about burnout. There's reasons to think that long pauses won't help with burnout. Once people return to the original conditions, they often wind up right back where they started.
You bring up financial means, but the issue that it puts you into a lower caste of citizen, entitled to fewer rights. This position may be temporary, mitigable, or you may be in a position talent / career wise where it doesn't matter.
The fact remains that in the eyes of our society you have become less valuable as a person. Lots of people can't take that hit.
OP here. Decided to share this on HN because it seemed relevant given the earlier article on seeking structure. A lot of folks responded to my comment about Philip sharing that they too have experienced a yearning for physical labor.
> For me, a lot of my meaning comes from two things. One is doing something in the world that feels like it's actually making things a little better somehow. And so contributing to society in some meaningful way.
> But the other thing is socialization with my coworkers is a huge part of my daily satisfaction in a job. You might be free Monday through Friday but all of your friends are working when you want to grab coffee.
I can't relate to many of the author's life experiences, but this quote really hit home. I think we're all wired to want to (a) make something better and (b) share our life and experiences with other people.
How (a) and (b) manifest varies greatly depending on life background and opportunities, but I can say most of the mental healthy difficulties I've had previously in life can be related to those two points.
I came here to say the same thing and was glad to see someone else already did. So I simply upvoted you.
I might add that also he was looking for two more things that some times also are rejuvenating:
(c) physical exercise
(d) a relief from decision fatigue: "I did not want to be asked to make a lot of decisions everyday. . . . I wanted literally to be told what to do every day and I wanted that structure to be rigorous." This can get old after a while too, but routine can be a nice change for a while, if every day you at your old job you had to be a creative or always solve new problems, like if you were a designer, director, etc.
There are a lot of people who have given up on a) and instead spend all their time trying to tear the stuff other people build down because they got bored.
interesting that he's so programmed to work that just relaxing for a bit made him depressed. hard to see how working 11 hours a day is going to make it easier for him to still not have to put his kids on the calendar.
on a side note, i wonder if the actual therapy was just doing something physical. sitting down not moving for hours and hours is not what we were built to do. i always found working out, brazilian jiu jitsu, hiking, anything physical to be very therapeutic if i've been inside an office all day.
More than just doing something physical, something group/team/class based like BJJ would also give the camaraderie and socialization that satisfied him.
I hear a lot of retired people say "I miss working", but when probed, they'll say things like "I miss the routine", "I miss the people I saw all the time", "I miss the structure". Work is not the only place you get these! Going to BJJ, kickboxing, clay studios, adult sports leagues, walking groups, some volunteer opportunities, etc., all fit the bill. I think some people put so much of their life/identity into work that they can't even imagine something else...
I think this is partly a story of retiring without having enough in your life to replace work. I understand how that's possible, as full days of work leave me not wanting to do much in the evenings (I don't have kids, so I can't imagine where parents find the energy) - that said, it's probably important for your mental health post-retirement to find things outside of work to engage in well before your retirement date comes.
I work in FAANG and enjoy Costco. Sometimes in the food court I day-dream of working there. You know what you are doing, you use your body, you go home and don't think about it.
I told my friend. He thought it sounded a lot like larping.
If you work in a FAANG (presumably as some sort of knowledge worker) you have a unique opportunity to never have to work again within just a few years of saving.
There were many times in my programming career when I wanted to take a mental break and just do some kind of menial job for a few months. There are many routine jobs that don't require much training so it should be easy to do one for 6 months. The problem is generally that most people's career paths do not allow for this kind of thing. It looks bad on your resume to have 'truck driver' or 'shelf stocker' in-between tech jobs.
I solved this by simply getting hobbies that involve manual labor. You get the physical exertion and the ability to see the results of the work of your hands--without the drudgery of a job and the pressure of having your livelihood depend on not wrecking your body. If you're not feeling up to it today, just don't go out to the garage. Need extra zen time to forget your JIRA queue? Spend a few extra hours hobbying.
Started with auto mechanics, learned basic maintenance, moved on to minor, then major auto repairs. Then tried woodworking, built a few pieces of furniture for the house, then moved on to sheet metal. Finally ended up building a two-seat airplane. Physical hobbies are both satisfying AND low-pressure. Plus, you shouldn't have to quit your tech job to get a hobby.
Genuine question, why does it look bad? I don't think this would be a problem at all where I live (Australia). Worst case you could just leave it off your resume.
Working in an Amazon warehouse can be refreshing and restorative when you can quit after 10 weeks and have millions of dollars in the bank. Not so much when you get tendonitis after 6 weeks but have to stare down another 30 years of this and still won’t have any savings.
Yes and we are all aware of that. Are you saying that his experience and blog cause harm to those people who have to do it?
There's been countless posts about Amazon warehouse conditions on Hackernews and other news sources.
I have a sense of guilt when I compare myself to my high school friends who have to work longer, work harder, and get paid significantly less. They are just as smart, they just made different choices. And this sense of guilt and of feeling like I don't deserve it just compounds the imposter syndrome to the point I can't even enjoy what I have because I think that at any moment I'll be "discovered" and lose everything. I think it stems from my inability to appreciate what I have because I have this instinctive belief that if I let myself, then something will happen for whatever reason.
Now that I wrote this I realize it has little to do with the original article (which I read, both parts actually), but hopefully someone has some good advice, so I don't have to resort to quitting and going to an Amazon FC to feel better about myself.
Worked in different big tech for 7y, and took a sabbatical because I could, and so why not?
Well after a year of travelling and working on my own ideas and a bit of contract work, I entered a complete pit of depression. I mean contemplating ending it all to stop the pain. Instead big daddy Bezos was handing out tech jobs like candy so I took one begrudgingly just to have someone else to be accountable to, because I found it completely impossible to live with only my own expectations.
It helped. I'm halfway good again (or perhaps just a different, darker normal), with a different outlook on what and why I do things. But goodness.. I will never retire again. Not without kids to raise, or something/someone else to be accountable to.
[+] [-] avgDev|3 years ago|reply
I have mixed feelings about this. What this has proven is working at amazon warehouse sucks, and is not sustainable.
I've had many physical shitty jobs in my 20's. Then, I had some health issue and could no longer keep doing that to my body, so I went back to school and got a CS degree.
I sometimes get depressed and miss physical work, but then I remember how shit it was and how an injury would prevent me from working. As a dev I think I'm going to be able to earn money as long as I'm alive and have a functioning brain.
I guess once you have enough money then maybe someone might find that work fun? Obviously it helped the writer with depression. However, if he ever gets permanently hurt and it affects his daily life I have a feeling depression will come back in full swing. Office work is much much safer.
There are ways to help people through tech and have much bigger affect then moving boxes for a shitty company.
Edit: What helps my depression is connecting with people outside of work, helping people in my community, doing projects around my house and spending time with my son. Additionally, I try to make good choices when spending my money and limit my spending on stuff I don't need, as I dislike excessive spending.
Edit2: Some great comments below. This is very much poverty/shit job tourism, which the writer can escape at any moment. This is some BlackMirror type of content. Guy makes it big in tech, retires, now works shit job people are trying to escape to cure his depression. He then writes about it on a blog. Now, other non-aware devs might be reading it contemplating leaving their jobs to do a REAL job.
[+] [-] tristor|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dnissley|3 years ago|reply
It's no longer acceptable to be snooty towards people in these positions, but we haven't dropped the stigma totally, and now the acceptable way to view + interact with them is to act (in the performative sense, because many of us don't actually know) with deference, assuming that their lives are truly miserable and their dignity is on the line every day they work such jobs. The expectation is that we must feel sorry for them and treat them better than other people because of it, or treat them with kid gloves.
When you adopt such a stance, the idea of someone willingly going and doing one of these terrible no good jobs does seem patronizing -- it's masochistic even, and so is viewed as suspect and "touristy". When someone does such a thing they are "disrespecting themselves" by people with this view. If anyone ever tries to provide and alternative view and tell us that most people's lives in these positions aren't so bad by going and experiencing it themselves, however partially, we heap scorn on them. "They don't know what it's really like, it's horrible what these people have to do." "They have millions of dollars in the bank so their experience can be dismissed." Etc.
[+] [-] brushfoot|3 years ago|reply
His experience in tech doesn't sound so charmed to me. He was obsessed with climbing the corporate ladder. He slept in the office and woke up early every morning to start grinding again. He worked so much he didn't even have time to play a game with his son.
He tried another kind of work to see how it compared, and he learned stuff. There's nothing patronizing about that.
[+] [-] thrown_22|3 years ago|reply
It's rather hard to have empathy for someone who has it better than you. But I've found it helps to also remind yourself that the majority of people who ever lived will feel the same way about you.
[+] [-] Balgair|3 years ago|reply
The word you're looking for is : slumming
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/slum...
[+] [-] nathanaldensr|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] solraph|3 years ago|reply
Having grown up adjacent to upper-middle class people (I'm arguably entering that sphere now, but I definitely didn't start there), I think a bunch of them could benefit from hearing this story from one of their peers.
[+] [-] cheeze|3 years ago|reply
Hard to explain, but I get what you mean.
[+] [-] SevenNation|3 years ago|reply
It sounds like the author never got a chance to figure out the intersection between what he liked to do and what he was actually good at. Instead, he was trained to respond to the approval of authority figures. So the true north of his internal compass pointed to whatever the person in charge at the time thought of him.
Fast forward to 2021:
> I think most people who dream of retirement think that it's going to be awesome. And it was—for about a month. I skied on weekdays, shopped at Target at 11am with nobody there, and played video games. But after several months of pursuing various hobbies as my whims and interests—all the things which people who aspire to retire young might look upon with envy—I felt unfulfilled. I became unmoored, set adrift in a sea of theoretical possibility only to drown in unbounded optionality. Novelty and excitement turned into a spiraling vortex of depression as I began to wake up sometimes at noon, sometimes 2pm, and on the rare occasion even getting out of bed at 6pm.
With no authority figure to send the positive vibes he craved, the author felt adrift. This is where the gig at Amazon comes in. Authority figures galore and a clear sense of what a job well done meant.
Some are chalking this up to poverty tourism. Maybe it's something else.
[+] [-] forsythe_|3 years ago|reply
I also read that section and thought it unfortunate the author missed that realization as being the likely root cause. External validation seems to be a major driver of his unhappiness. There's nothing wrong with finding solace in structured work but I think if he returns to his old job he's likely to reach burn out unless he can identify this as a root cause.
I made that connection for myself as I've had a strangely similar recent experience to his, albeit without the Amazon warehouse job. I burned out, took multiple months off of work, didn't implement any lasting structures, and became depressed. But I did spend a ton of time in therapy to evaluate my mental health and what drove me to burn out. Practicing self-awareness and emotional awareness has made me more optimistic about finding routines and habits which will bring more fulfillment.
[+] [-] svnt|3 years ago|reply
I’m going with ”yes/and.” He could have taken up martial arts.
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] spacemadness|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] carlosdp|3 years ago|reply
What more could someone possibly do to wave off the label of "tech bubble non-awareness disease," in your opinion?
[+] [-] jbm|3 years ago|reply
Re-contextualizing into a class struggle style comment, just because he shared his experience, is not very interesting.
All blogging is narcissism if you redefine narcissism to be the most bland shade of the word's meaning.
[+] [-] yuliyp|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] avgDev|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gamblor956|3 years ago|reply
But it's not just a tech bubble thing; it's more of a 6-figure yuppie thing. I knew a doctor making $500k/year in L.A. who insisted on taking vacations in disaster zones, etc., as a tourist (not with Doctors w/o Borders) so he could "experience human suffering" and "become empathetic" to his fellow men through their "shared suffering" of being in the same approximate location as people who were starving or seriously wounded.
He doesn't actually do anything with this "increased empathy." He just feels like it makes his EQ super high or something silly like that.
[+] [-] CoffeeOnWrite|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] quickthrower2|3 years ago|reply
Are you sure that is the motive?
[+] [-] barbariangrunge|3 years ago|reply
It just doesn’t pay enough to retire off of. Can’t easily build savings. Can’t easily pay for the dentist or other emergencies
Being a lead programmer pays a ton better. I just wish I wasn’t as stressful as it is
[+] [-] notesinthefield|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bxtt|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] djhworld|3 years ago|reply
Saying that though I think he's right in the sense that having experience of working in an environment like that does give you the appreciation for the relative comforts of a tech job.
I've worked retail jobs when younger, and sitting on your butt all day writing code is way easier...
[+] [-] WesternWind|3 years ago|reply
I've read that the rate of injury at amazon jobs is incredibly high, which is not good practice in my view.
Article says amazon rate of serious injury 80% higher than competitors https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57332390
[+] [-] antiterra|3 years ago|reply
But: don’t think that you are one of them and able to advocate as a representative if you aren’t, a la Pulp’s Common People.
We should encourage resilience, but be sympathetic about its absence. Everyone should choose to learn to shake off a punch to the face, but that doesn’t negate the real trauma of someone getting assaulted who didn’t have that lesson.
[+] [-] jarek83|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fffobar|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] P_I_Staker|3 years ago|reply
You bring up financial means, but the issue that it puts you into a lower caste of citizen, entitled to fewer rights. This position may be temporary, mitigable, or you may be in a position talent / career wise where it doesn't matter.
The fact remains that in the eyes of our society you have become less valuable as a person. Lots of people can't take that hit.
[+] [-] P_I_Staker|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kirbys-memeteam|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jasonshen|3 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33070986
Life takes all of us in different directions, I thought HN readers would find this path instructive.
[+] [-] helen___keller|3 years ago|reply
> But the other thing is socialization with my coworkers is a huge part of my daily satisfaction in a job. You might be free Monday through Friday but all of your friends are working when you want to grab coffee.
I can't relate to many of the author's life experiences, but this quote really hit home. I think we're all wired to want to (a) make something better and (b) share our life and experiences with other people.
How (a) and (b) manifest varies greatly depending on life background and opportunities, but I can say most of the mental healthy difficulties I've had previously in life can be related to those two points.
[+] [-] combatentropy|3 years ago|reply
I might add that also he was looking for two more things that some times also are rejuvenating:
(c) physical exercise
(d) a relief from decision fatigue: "I did not want to be asked to make a lot of decisions everyday. . . . I wanted literally to be told what to do every day and I wanted that structure to be rigorous." This can get old after a while too, but routine can be a nice change for a while, if every day you at your old job you had to be a creative or always solve new problems, like if you were a designer, director, etc.
[+] [-] fjfbsufhdvfy|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] darod|3 years ago|reply
on a side note, i wonder if the actual therapy was just doing something physical. sitting down not moving for hours and hours is not what we were built to do. i always found working out, brazilian jiu jitsu, hiking, anything physical to be very therapeutic if i've been inside an office all day.
[+] [-] dfxm12|3 years ago|reply
I hear a lot of retired people say "I miss working", but when probed, they'll say things like "I miss the routine", "I miss the people I saw all the time", "I miss the structure". Work is not the only place you get these! Going to BJJ, kickboxing, clay studios, adult sports leagues, walking groups, some volunteer opportunities, etc., all fit the bill. I think some people put so much of their life/identity into work that they can't even imagine something else...
[+] [-] smallerfish|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oldsklgdfth|3 years ago|reply
I told my friend. He thought it sounded a lot like larping.
[+] [-] Bakary|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] didgetmaster|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryandrake|3 years ago|reply
Started with auto mechanics, learned basic maintenance, moved on to minor, then major auto repairs. Then tried woodworking, built a few pieces of furniture for the house, then moved on to sheet metal. Finally ended up building a two-seat airplane. Physical hobbies are both satisfying AND low-pressure. Plus, you shouldn't have to quit your tech job to get a hobby.
[+] [-] octodog|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spoonjim|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] themitigating|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gnrlst|3 years ago|reply
Now that I wrote this I realize it has little to do with the original article (which I read, both parts actually), but hopefully someone has some good advice, so I don't have to resort to quitting and going to an Amazon FC to feel better about myself.
[+] [-] wnolens|3 years ago|reply
Worked in different big tech for 7y, and took a sabbatical because I could, and so why not?
Well after a year of travelling and working on my own ideas and a bit of contract work, I entered a complete pit of depression. I mean contemplating ending it all to stop the pain. Instead big daddy Bezos was handing out tech jobs like candy so I took one begrudgingly just to have someone else to be accountable to, because I found it completely impossible to live with only my own expectations.
It helped. I'm halfway good again (or perhaps just a different, darker normal), with a different outlook on what and why I do things. But goodness.. I will never retire again. Not without kids to raise, or something/someone else to be accountable to.