It is now internalised, a strong demotivation happens each time something abstract comes my way, no matter how technically exciting the task is. Something else wroth mentioning, the whole remote work somewhat becomes also a factor against content to be part of a labor community. It's not an issue the first few years, but total remote work for over 5 years has started to make me value proximity to business circles. proximity with my colleagues and proximity with who use whatever we make. there is a sort of guilt that builds up when benefiting from the hard work of the local community to provide physical services (coffee shops, organic food markets, drivers, etc) and have our time spent online contributing to solutions with colleagues and paying users residing thousands of miles away, who only appear to exist as email addresses and occasional faces/voices spit out by a laptop.
Re:I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now
by hirako2000 on Thursday January 13, 2022 @12:46AM
(#29917271)
I've come to this realisation as well. there is a tipping point where the impact we have starts to become a critical factor. when i started in the industry I'm in, I apparently had absolutely no problem being entirely detached from the people I impact. Even not knowing what exactly my value to society was didn't scratch my curiosity. 8y later, I'm desperate for any initiative no matter how small that I get to know who it's helping.
I think most people of working age now have been part of the individualism movement, which leaves us pretty ill-prepared to deal with the feelings of discontent when we finally succeed at "getting ours" and realize it wasn't all that fulfilling. Solving problems that matter to the community you live in, or the greater society you're part of, has so much more intrinsic reward.