After 30 years in the job, I say that the poster you're responding to is just realistic. I love my job. I love what I do, but it's worth remembering that it's just a job. There is so much more to life.

Amen to that. Work to live, don't live to work.

I am passionate about the things I'm interested in, not all the unnecessary fluff around them :)

Not everyone needs to be passionate about the day job. Being present, competent, and reliable is enough. I’d personally go on to say that it’s risky to put too much emotional investment into something you don’t own/control.

I prefer to invest my passion in things outside of my day job. Working is fine, but it’s a means to an end to fuel more meaningful things. We don’t live to work.

"I’d personally go on to say that it’s risky to put too much emotional investment into something you don’t own/control." Bingo! This is exactly what happened to me.

What I learned is that, even in a great environment where there was a ton of latitude to have ownership of technical details and even product details, it's still contained within the broader context of a business. That business has interest in the thing you're working on while it's a factor in creating value, and when it becomes time to change focus onto other things, it will generally do that without much hesitation.

I've been burned by this multiple times. Eventually it clicked for me in the way you phrased it. So I show up and do what I can, bring my expertise as much as I can, gauge where the limits of what I can provide are, and keep a healthy distance mentally otherwise.

One other note - you can still be passionate about software and not one specific day job. You can still work on other projects and explore ideas as much as you want. It's just that that's a separate thing from work. Dedicate time and space separately for that IMO.

> One other note - you can still be passionate about software and not one specific day job. You can still work on other projects and explore ideas as much as you want. It's just that that's a separate thing from work. Dedicate time and space separately for that IMO.

This is what I was trying to get at and you've phrased it beautifully. Thank you.

To say it's "personality" is a little passive aggressively degrading. These opportunities are not accessible or sensible to everyone all the time.

I think you misread my intent. I was saying it could be personality of cynicism (which is fine) and nothing to do with the job.

> There is a world you could be working in a place where you are more passionate and less cynical.

The idea that if you're passionate about something you won't have any complaints about it or enjoy it 100% of the time is unhealthy. Most people realize that there's always an element of 'grind' to any task. You could be the most passionate person in the world, but I can guarantee that something about your passion will annoy you slightly. That's just being human

I don’t disagree. Sorry I feel people have misread a lot more malice into my comment than I intended.

I felt sympathy for the OP not superiority.