Often times, the most exploited workers are the ones who love their job. Because of that, they don't ask for raises, seek workers rights, or diversify their lifestyle. They sleep in their car in the parking lot making the boss millions of dollars a year on entry level salary because "they love the job". The boss then gets to laugh all the way to the bank.

Its not that liking your job is bad, its treating employment in the traditional sense - salaried or hourly - as if being charitable with your time or ability to your employer because you like doing it so much is a virtue. It isn't, its just giving those with power more power out of laziness. Because its lazy to just give yourself away like that. It takes courage and strength and effort to fight for fair compensation and a balanced lifestyle that doesn't revolve around making someone else filthy rich.

This is very true. Every time I talk to my game industry friends I just shudder at how exploited they are.

> The boss then gets to laugh all the way to the bank.

I don’t know whether it is true that such bosses expertly manipulate passionate workers into slavery. Based on experience, I have an alternative theory: those kinds of bosses have an “ambitious” personality (for the lack of a better word). They are never happy no matter how much they achieve, and so they demand more and more from others. It may very well be that in the end they end up with a lot of wealth, but in their minds they failed because they’re comparing themselves with even more successful people. So it’s more a case of “crying all the way to the bank even thiugh the account is filled”.

How do you fight for this? What leverage do you have? There's another kid that can do the job just as well, directly behind you. I am possibly wrong, but I would really like an answer about how to fight for more compensation, it seems that we are expendable ...

If you are expendable expect to be exploited. Its why so many programmers go out of their way to become needed - if you are the only one who properly understands critical code in your business, you have leverage. If they can replace you with a week of onboarding you are going to be treated like dirt most places.

Sometimes that means not going out of your way to explain how you implemented a feature. If your company is going to treat you like an expendable money sink treat them like a hostile actor too.

Makes getting a job very difficult in the first place.

I'll go on even to say this. A lot of people who actually love their work aren't posting a post/story on instagram every Monday #hustle.

It's almost the same as a lot of people who actually go to gym regularly won't post on instagram about their work outs compared to people who go once in a blue moon or only go for 2 weeks and then stop who will post "hustle never stops/keep grinding everyday"

I'm sure they believe some people love what they do, it's just unlikely that the majority of the people grinding away as office drones do.

I am not so sure. People tend to adapt to things they can't change. They put their hopes and dreams into it and end up loving the idea. I know people who "love" their apartment, but it is just an average apartment with a huge mortgage.

The question as always is of course whether it is real love. Chances are a lot of people will be disappointed at one point.

Interesting point. I love my wife and children in the sense that seeing them thrive makes me happy and I'm willing to sacrifice my own comfort (and probably even wellbeing) in order to increase theirs. Some people seem to have a similar relationship with their employer, which baffles me.

I think you're getting the sentiment mixed up. People aren't sacrificing their own wellbeing in order to increase their company's, but rather, they find the work they do personally sayisfying and rewarding.

For instance, I enjoy my job, I don't dread Mondays. I like my coworkers and the work atmosphere, I enjoy creating tangible value and I find the success of my work projects intrinsically satisfies me. But at the same time, I don't work weekends, I don't work outside my ~40 hours, and I don't sacrifice my wellbeing for my job. So I work hard because of the personal satisfaction, I don't do it to make already rich people even richer. I don't know how it is for others, but personally if I didn't get some level of internal satisfaction and motivation from how I spent the working time of the best years of my life I would be quite depressed.

People are definitely depressed, especially relative to how things should be. You don't see it much on hacker news, but you do on other forums. 20 year olds who are relatively well educated who see no future.

I don't want to take anything away from you. If you are enjoying your job and your life, that is truly great. But I would encourage you to take care of your future. Make sure you have progression, or something else, to show for it. You wouldn't be the first one to change perspective when life, or work, changes.

"85% of People Hate Their Jobs, Gallup Poll Says"

https://news.gallup.com/opinion/chairman/212045/world-broken...

I'm sure I heard a much higher figure recently but 2000 UK employees surveyed gives 40% looking to change job this year - https://www.thehrdirector.com/business-news/jobseekers/chang.... That doesn't necessarily mean they don't love their work, most dissatisfaction is with bosses usually in these surveys, but it's certainly an indicator. Loving your work and not loving your job also leaves you more likely unhappy too, or at least malcontent.

What's your explanation for the mechanism behind this?

Jobs are universally good and bad, and most unlucky people just have to do the bad ones? Do we really need as many "office drones" as we have?

Alternative mechanisms:

People pick (or are guided into) their career path when they're young and don't know any better, and by the time they figure out what they really want to do, they have obligations and can't make a big change. People don't know what other jobs are available to them in the world, and don't realize that they might enjoy something else far more than what they're doing.

I wish there were a "Dirty Jobs" show for all kinds of careers, not just physically messy jobs. School (all levels) did a terrible job of informing me of what is involved in various careers.

Do you think that’s true for more than a small minority of people?

The author isn’t incredulous that anyone could find joy in doing something. Of course some people love their work. The author is contending that a lot of people don’t, but feel like they have to pretend that they do for cultural reasons.

> The author is contending that a lot of people don’t, but feel like they have to pretend that they do for cultural reasons.

How does the author know that they're pretending? That seems rather presumptuous.

Are you claiming none of them are?

But would you turn up to your work on Monday morning if it didn't pay you a salary?

Even people that "love" work usually know that it isn't the thing they would most want to spend their time doing if they had the choice.

> But would you turn up to your work on Monday morning if it didn't pay you a salary?

I literally did while doing my PhD! And I quit a previous paying job to do it even.

I couldn’t literally do it for free now as I have commitments and dependents of course.

At Google and other recent tech giants, you'll find thousands of people who could live comfortably without working a day for the rest of their lives. They're clearly not doing it for the salary.

This is pretty unfathomable to me. Similar to how youth is wasted on the young, wealth is too often wasted on the wealthy. Don’t these people have any hobbies or ability to entertain themselves? Is going in to work their favorite thing to do or simply the only thing they know?

> Don’t these people have any hobbies or ability to entertain themselves? Is going in to work their favorite thing to do or simply the only thing they know?

Why are you so snide towards them? What's wrong with them enjoying their work as a hobby and entertainment? Why is building whatever at Google invalid as a joyful activity someone might chose to do, but building a model aeroplane or anything else outside work would be a valid hobby instead?

Have you considered that maybe their work is their hobby, and a huge part of their life and purpose?

I work somewhere where a lot of my coworkers and management are incredibly dedicated and passionate about what we do. They will show up and go apeshit on a project for 12+ hours a day for a month at a time because they're excited about the challenge and the outcomes. Even when they're not working on such a schedule, they often go home and work on personal projects that parallel what they do in their work. There are plenty of days where I can't wait to get to work; all issues outside of it take the backseat. No matter how bad those issues are, I have no choice but to get over them, because my work is never finished.

I'd imagine that some jobs would be grating, but there's a lot of them that would never get old for some people.

Yeah, I guess as someone with a purposeless life it’s hard to understand how somebody could feel their life has purpose.

It's not an accident... Success people are successful in part because they like doing these things.

I see it all the time here and on Reddit: people eschew giving a shit about what they do, then turn around and complain that they can't get ahead. News flash: people that care about things are better at those things. I don't think this should be a surprise to anyone, but it sometimes feels like it is...

I’m not complaining about not getting ahead. I know I’m a lazy loser with no ambition and even less follow-through.

It’s just a foreign concept to me that someone with enough money to do whatever they want chooses to keep earning more money for their boss.

> chooses to keep earning more money for their boss

But they aren't choosing to keep earning money for their boss. They're choosing to keep doing what they enjoy. That happens to earn their company money as well - why's that an issue?

Would you say the same thing about A-list actors or pro athletes? After a couple of successful movies or seasons, they could afford to retire too, but most choose to continue working as long as they possibly can.

Yeah, I don’t get that either.

I wouldn't work at Google for free if I was a junior or mid-level engineer doing something boring like maintaining an old codebase or trying to keep servers online. But some of these employees get to work on truly interesting projects with some of the best engineers in the world. Especially if they are inventing new products or researching and discovering new things. I imagine that the AI researchers earning millions per year probably love their work and would do it for free.

My hobby is essentially the same as my work, except I have way more resources (equipment) at work.

I'm pretty sure I would. I derive a lot of satisfaction from the things I'm making in software and if it wasn't my job then I'd definitely do that as a hobby (as I did in the past, when my job at the time didn't involve development, I was active developer in different open source projects). Software engineering is a very satisfying activity that I wish more people would have a chance to experience.

It is _because_ my job already takes care of all my software development "needs", that I don't feel the need to do that anymore when I get home and instead pursue other passions.

That could be a good test of whether someone is being truthful in this claim. In my case, yes, I volunteer my time doing this, too.

This is the real test. If money was taken care of, I'd probably be doing something else with my time. In my case, I've found the most fulfillment volunteering in very remote areas. My job is good, but I'm under no illusion that I love it or that it loves me.

If money was already taken care of, I would absolutely be building software (and playing music). I just wouldn't be doing it at my current job (the software part...my music would be frowned upon at work).

I love the work your lab does, but you are seriously lucky no matter how hard you worked to get there. There are only so many positions like yours in the world. The vast majority of the people didn't and don't have the opportunities you had.

This comes off like a humble brag. I don't think you feel sorry.

Meh, I am an utterly replaceable software writer at a SF company, and feel like the OP wrote down what I was feeling.

It's fairly easy to find out where I work, and I think you'd agree that I'm not curing cancer or anything. I do wake up Monday mornings excited about work (and try to change teams/companies when that stops being true)

Before I went into research I used to have a previous career that was hard, dirty, dangerous, and poorly paid, and I took as much joy in Monday mornings then as well.

Really missing the point of the article here my dude

> But I do love my work. I'm not pretending

The article is about people who are glorifying the striving, not the work. It's about the hustle, not the doing. It's specifically humourless, not fun.

It's important for the author of this article and those who think like him that you're lying to yourself, because that way they're not the ones with the problem.

There's a good book[0] I continually recommend which traces why people really do love their jobs, and especially the transition between the concept of work in earlier capitalism to the concept we have today. In short, companies (directly or not) put a lot of effort into making sure that your desire aligns with theirs, past the desire to materially sustain ourselves which Marx theorised originally.

A summary of the book:

>Why do people work for other people? This seemingly naïve question is at the heart of Lordon’s argument. To complement Marx’s partial answers, especially in the face of the disconcerting spectacle of the engaged, enthusiastic employee, Lordon brings to bear a “Spinozist anthropology” that reveals the fundamental role of affects and passions in the employment relationship

It is provocative and refreshing to even unsympathetic readers.

[0] Frederick Lordon - *Willing Slaves of Capital: Spinoza and Marx on Desire" https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/228873/willing-slav...

It seems to be a trend in media to try to convince people that fulfillment must be found in life - but not in work. Anywhere but work. Work is supposed to be mindless drudgery which you only do because you’re forced to, and if you think otherwise you’ve been taken in by the evil capitalists.

We must consume different media; I'd honestly have placed it the other way, that media in general preaches that fulfilment should be found in work and that those who haven't found it there, and aren't rich and successful in a job they love, are themselves the problem.

That said you can enjoy your work but still be being used as a peon for a greedy capitalist; they're pretty orthogonal.

You're projecting! The author did not strike me as being incredulous. I think your own comment, your reading of the article, and your insistence (nobody is arguing with you) that you love your work -- this is the phenomenon being examined in the article.

Edit: sorry to see this downvoted. Guess it's a little on the nose.

I think the author is the one projecting. They don’t like work, they don’t want to feel anyone else does either because that would mean they’re missing out on something, and they’re so convinced that they think everyone who does must be lying.

Perhaps we're both right, in a way?