<story><title>How some people stay motivated at work when they don’t love their jobs</title><url>https://qz.com/999209/how-some-people-stay-motivated-and-energized-at-work-even-when-they-dont-love-their-jobs/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>creepydata</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m absolutely dumbfounded this is some sort of revelation to the author. It must be a new thing? Perhaps a product of the &amp;quot;self esteem&amp;#x2F;entitled generation?&amp;quot; Whenever I hear people (including job ads) talk about &amp;quot;passion&amp;quot; at work I have to roll my eyes. I &lt;i&gt;never&lt;/i&gt; though of work as a means to some sort of personal fulfillment, it&amp;#x27;s a job, it&amp;#x27;s purpose is to provide you money. That is it! If you get personal satisfaction out of your work that&amp;#x27;s a nice bonus. Those &amp;quot;passion&amp;quot; people are going to become very dissatisfied with work and life - there&amp;#x27;s very, very few jobs that have the ability to provide that. We should probably be looking at things in a more practical manner to avoid this.&lt;p&gt;I always thought jobs advertising that they are looking for someone with &amp;quot;passion&amp;quot; as a ploy to trick the bright eyed and naïve young into overworking before they become disillusioned.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve actually enjoyed most of the &amp;quot;menial&amp;quot; jobs I&amp;#x27;ve worked. The only unenjoyable job I worked was only unenjoyable due to piss poor management. Now I enjoy working as a software engineer, I like what I do, but it&amp;#x27;s still just a job, just a way to earn a living.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m reminded of Office Space on career advice: &amp;quot;[The question from a guidance counselor of what you would do if you had a million dollars] is bullshit to begin with. If everyone listened to her there would be no janitors because because nobody would clean up shit if they had a million dollars.&amp;quot;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>test1235</author><text>The most fun job I ever had was at a shitty nightclub over summers in-between uni.&lt;p&gt;The pay was crap, and hours were 9pm to 5am, but I loved the people I worked with, and the physical&amp;#x2F;manual labour was more satisfying than cranking out some requirements for an app noone cares about.&lt;p&gt;Back in my single days, I actually applied to do some warehouse work outside of my 9-5 programming day job &amp;#x27;cos I found it so boring and unsatisfying. (Turns out you&amp;#x27;re not allowed to work so many hours for health and safety reasons)&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t mind coding for a living - it&amp;#x27;s easy: I sit at a desk and browse the internet for most part, but it&amp;#x27;s hardly the peak of job satisfaction. I think if I was mad rich, I wouldn&amp;#x27;t mind doing something poorly paid but outdoorsy and invigorating.</text></comment>
<story><title>How some people stay motivated at work when they don’t love their jobs</title><url>https://qz.com/999209/how-some-people-stay-motivated-and-energized-at-work-even-when-they-dont-love-their-jobs/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>creepydata</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m absolutely dumbfounded this is some sort of revelation to the author. It must be a new thing? Perhaps a product of the &amp;quot;self esteem&amp;#x2F;entitled generation?&amp;quot; Whenever I hear people (including job ads) talk about &amp;quot;passion&amp;quot; at work I have to roll my eyes. I &lt;i&gt;never&lt;/i&gt; though of work as a means to some sort of personal fulfillment, it&amp;#x27;s a job, it&amp;#x27;s purpose is to provide you money. That is it! If you get personal satisfaction out of your work that&amp;#x27;s a nice bonus. Those &amp;quot;passion&amp;quot; people are going to become very dissatisfied with work and life - there&amp;#x27;s very, very few jobs that have the ability to provide that. We should probably be looking at things in a more practical manner to avoid this.&lt;p&gt;I always thought jobs advertising that they are looking for someone with &amp;quot;passion&amp;quot; as a ploy to trick the bright eyed and naïve young into overworking before they become disillusioned.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve actually enjoyed most of the &amp;quot;menial&amp;quot; jobs I&amp;#x27;ve worked. The only unenjoyable job I worked was only unenjoyable due to piss poor management. Now I enjoy working as a software engineer, I like what I do, but it&amp;#x27;s still just a job, just a way to earn a living.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m reminded of Office Space on career advice: &amp;quot;[The question from a guidance counselor of what you would do if you had a million dollars] is bullshit to begin with. If everyone listened to her there would be no janitors because because nobody would clean up shit if they had a million dollars.&amp;quot;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>k-mcgrady</author><text>&amp;gt;&amp;gt; Those &amp;quot;passion&amp;quot; people are going to become very dissatisfied with work and life - there&amp;#x27;s very, very few jobs that have the ability to provide that.&lt;p&gt;Maybe that&amp;#x27;s a good thing. If there&amp;#x27;s enough of them the entire concept will have to be reexamined (UBI for example or digital nomads, etc.). I think a lot more people are just starting to realise that owning a house and a car and having a few kids and a couple of ex-wives and a mountain of &amp;#x27;stuff&amp;#x27; isn&amp;#x27;t necessary.&lt;p&gt;There are lots of jobs that will provide fulfilment. Most of them, of course, won&amp;#x27;t pay anywhere as near as well as your average office work - they pay enough though for someone who doesn&amp;#x27;t want the things I mentioned above.&lt;p&gt;Edit: Claiming having lots of money and &amp;#x27;stuff&amp;#x27; isn&amp;#x27;t important apparently gets you lots of down votes now...strange.</text></comment>