Making Excuses for Stressful, Unrewarding, and Immoral Jobs
I'm nearly in my mid-40s, so I've had time to hear all sorts of excuses for difficult and/or barely-rewarding jobs*.
Haven't we all heard these before?
"I'll have time to enjoy life when I retire..."
"I don't know if I can get paid the same elsewhere..."
"Everyone is doing some bad things in their job..."
"I am not going to burn out, I can survive this another X years..."
"Maybe I will be promoted one day..."
"I have to feed the kids..."
In the area of technology, where historically (not so much anymore) the salaries were well above the median, the very common excuse or catch-all excuse was a variant of "delayed gratification", i.e. "I will suffer a bit now, one day things will get better" (or not).
Stress leads to a lack of sleep and bad sleep leads to expensive health conditions, even death. That alone leads to more stress, hence it is a sort of cycle that feeds into itself (a loop). Then employers discard older (worn out) employees, only to replace them with fresh and hungry (cheaper) graduates.
Assumptions break down, as few people in their 20s can envision the perils of old age (it's more than just wrinkles).
I know a lot of people who quit tech altogether and feel a lot better for it. Even if their jobs/activity/ies do not match prior income levels they compensate for it some other way (e.g. time with family, exercise, travel).
People in tech must not be evaluated (or have their "worth" assessed) based on remuneration, not only because there's a lot more to life than a bank balance but because in the Free software movement we learn to value sharing or assess the value of people not in monetary terms/currencies. A lot of people out there envy RMS not because he is a "tech billionaire" but because he is widely respected for actual accomplishments. █
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* In recent years (or decades) the term "compensation" was increasingly used to say wage or salary. In what other domain in life do we use the term "compensation" to describe a positive (on the surface) thing?
Image source: Seaside Shoots