I worked for a telecom company for ten years. The first few, everything was good, but we were struggling and raises and bonuses were non-existent and layoffs were frequent. Eventually I realized I was making a lower salary from when I started so I just started working less. Toward the end I was working less than four hours a week, getting positive feedback from my manager and skip-manager.

It hurt my career staying at a dead-end job but it gave me years of free time doing pretty much whatever I wanted.