I honestly think that free time in office isn't free at all, it's fucking suffocating. You can't work, but you can't have fun either, i.e, have a beer and watch a movie, play videogames (the games on the company playstation are at least a decade old) , hang out with your girlfriend, go for an actual vacation. It's like you're stuck in limbo. You can't do anything productive or fun.
I can definitely attest to refreshing HN and Reddit too often to the point it was causing anxiety....
I don't know why I do it? I keep refreshing the page for some new comment and keep tabs on my karma points....
- I think it depends on how people are wired (if you have something personal you deeply want to do, you can avoid the useless negative factor into a "i have free funding for my project"). I used to be like that.
- I really wonder how much work = having the satisfaction to feel needed and help someone by your skills/knowledge/care.
After like a year of doing nothing, like around the 9th month mark, it starts to take a toll. Since my manager was constantly telling me there's not much I need to do other than explain lines of code and what they do in business terms. Often I would prepare something because I'm so fucking bored and then it would be brushed off as "cool but yeah no need".
The reason is that it feels too much like unemployment. Checking reddit, HN, github, eating company snack and getting fat, starts to develop impulsive gambling/day trading....
basically I was spending money to escape the fact how bored I was...it's really fucked up....I'm not sure what the dynamics are but honestly, it sure beats doing manual labor.
the lack of product market fit was painfully obvious by the volume of opportunities we were getting.