This is me, Bub! I have finally found work here where I don’t have to get caught up in backstabbing, politics, etc. I meet good coworkers, work, meet my metrics and go home. I do mostly the same thing each day at the office. If the work doesn’t finish by my end of shift, the next shift takes over. (and not we can’t skip bad orders, we are filmed on our desktops)
There’s a lot of policing, and many folks left, but I’m fine the way it is, I don’t have to take any work home, my evenings are free and pick up my paychecks.
Oh, god yes. Sometimes I wonder if my imagination is a bit unrealistic in all the potential disasters I dream up… but as you say, I don’t want to perform that experiment. I neither work myself to the bone nor deprive myself of all luxuries, but whenever I make a financial decision, I’m thinking of the cost 40 years down the line (and assuming the worst when it comes to Social Security, etc.).
So yeah, it keeps me motivated. Which turns out to be a good thing in and of itself, because I do have a natural tendency to seek the lowest energy state.
My father worked his ass off and held jobs with enough income to leave my mother with a monthly income that many women with her work non-history would kill for (or at least yell very loudly for), but my brothers and I are still looking forward to a couple decades of refusing to provide financial support to She Who Has A Hole In Her Hand.
He didn’t do it to leave her with a good pension, mind you: he did it because that was how he swung. Other people don’t swing that way, and many people who don’t actually manage to have good retirements - whether someone can take the future into account when thinking of “living comfortably” or not is independent of whether their comfort involves running or walking. Myself, I’m a running kind of person, but the directions in which I run aren’t necessarily those other people approve of.
Oh, I can think of places where I’d like go go but I don’t want to go by myself. There’s also the financial aspect in that, more often than not, I can’t afford to go any further than, say, a 20-mile radius from my own house. What kind of vacation is that?
In the past I’ve visited out-of-state friends. We’ve lost track of each other in the past few years, though
I tell people they’re going to have to drag my dead body out of the place
Of course there is room, and you have just explained why!
To address the OP - add me to the chorus of “not unusual”. Although I want to do well at my job, and increase my pay in future, I’m not prepared to work 60 hours a week for it.
You just described my attitude towards work. I work at a university library and enjoy what I do. Very content, no complaints, no need to “move ahead” or get promoted.
I have been with the same company for about 15 years (although not quite in the same position the entire time.) I am content with my salary and responsibilities, but not really excited by either. It’s fine.
The only thing that bothers me is when people are hired off the street at a starting salary that is significantly higher than mine. It seems unfair that existing employees get shafted with max 2% raises every year; you’ll never catch up to the market. You have to threaten to quit (and actually be prepared to quit) for them to even take a look at your salary.
I don’t know if this is specific to my company but it seems pretty common throughout corporate America.
If they have been chronically homeless for a long period of time chances are that they are mumbling some completely incomprehensible gibberish on their death bed; sad but somewhat true.
I think a factor here is how people deal with structured vs unstructured time.
I am not good at unstructured time. I’ve had times in my life with vast amount of unstructured time, and I’ve almost always failed to use it well. When left to my own devices, I tend to default to stasis, and it doesn’t make me happy.
But I am AWESOME at structured time. Give me a computer I have to sit at for whatever hours, a few people to bounce ideas around with, and someone to show results to and I’ll have a great time.
Personally the ‘work-to-live’ philosophy kind of underwhelms me. Assuming you are awake 16 hours per day, you are easily spending more than a third of your waking hours working full time and getting to and from work.
Even assuming that you’re spending the remaining chunk of your time living life to the fullest on your salary, it is kind of worrisome to spend such a large chunk of your waking hours in a completely mercenary lifestyle. Do you guys just stay on autopilot for 8 hours a day waiting to escape back into the ‘real world’ at 5 o’clock?
Anyway, there’s a huge spectrum between ‘work to live’ and ‘live to work’. Just because my viewpoint isn’t completely bohemian doesn’t mean that I feel I’m in a miserable rat race, as the OP seems to be implying about his friends. My ideal concept of work is finding a job where I’m actually excited about getting ahead. At least that makes me feel like those 8 hours a day aren’t some sort of penance for living my life otherwise.
I don’t mind working a little harder and having a little more stress in the 8 hours a day that I have to be at work in order to get to the next level and more pay. However, I will under no circumstances work at a job that consistently requires me to work longer than 40 hours a week even if it meant a huge raise.
I’m not sure how you’re getting this from what I wrote - I thought I was pretty clear about being content; that is nothing like living a mercenary or doing penance.
I’m not implying anything about my friends - I am just describing their life as it is and what they tell me.
Not being excited about getting ahead can mean many things; for me it just means I’m exciting about where I am at and am satisfied. I don’t live anything like a bohemian lifestyle.
It is absolutely commonplace and has been for decades. The reason is that starting salaries have to be competitive or you lose good candidates, while most people (like you) will stay put even with crap raises.
Either be a super-star, get promoted, or leave. And that means leave, not threaten to leave, because even if they give you a good raise to keep you you might not get another for a while.
