You Have to Feel It

> You have to feel it.

The corporate machine does not feel it.

It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop... ever, until you are dead.

Plenty of people work at large corporations and enjoy their work.

“Enjoy their paycheck”, there - fixed it for you

It seems like you're trying to tell me that I don't actually enjoy my work? That seems observably untrue from my perspective? If you don't enjoy your work, that's fine, but trying to tell people who do that they actually don't doesn't make any sense to me.

Whenever someone claims to enjoy or love their job, I'm extremely suspicious. Usually it's some form of cope, because without it how could you stand having to work 8+ hours a day for 40 years? Easier to tell yourself you actually love it. I'm sure you enjoy aspects of your work. But I would guess if you won $100m you wouldn't keep going. If you truly enjoyed it, you would do it for free.

> Whenever someone claims to enjoy or love their job, I'm extremely suspicious. Usually it's some form of cope, because without it how could you stand having to work 8+ hours a day for 40 years?

But you are not doing the exact same thing for 40 years. Since I started my career, there have been so many new projects, new ideas, new things to create and so many new ways to do it. But underneath it all is the common denominator of enjoyment and love of programming.

I'm not sure why that is so unfathomable. Sure, I have plenty of not-so-great days when nothing works or the project I'm working on is uninspiring. But that is just the nature of life. I would wager that your beloved partner isn't an enjoyable company 100% of the time. But you enjoy being with them most of the time because they make you feel great - that's sort of an important requirement. Programming makes me feel great most of the time I'm doing it.

> I'm sure you enjoy aspects of your work. But I would guess if you won $100m you wouldn't keep going. If you truly enjoyed it, you would do it for free.

I'll be able to set the balance of when I want to program and when I want to go watch a movie - we are not one dimensional creatures after all. Of course all of us need to eat but I don't see what getting paid for it has to do with my love for it. Plenty of people love stuff that doesn't pay at all.

Programming makes me feel good too, but there are very few programming jobs I would do for no pay, if any. I would work on my own projects though. But that's what I'm saying, I'm sure you can enjoy or even love some aspects of a job, but the totality of it? That's probably very rare, and most who say they love their job are doing it as a form of cope or because it's provides some sort of social status to love your job.