Working Past 100? In Japan, Some People Never Quit

I worked for others in a corporate environment and it was often a joy, but the problem is you don't always get that lucky and even if you do, the environment can change around you from year to year and a perfect job can turn into hell. And corporate engineering jobs have become so filled with stupid bullshit that the career I had and thrived in may not even be possible anymore.

I'm not set up to work for myself, my ideal is for others to worry about the business, and give me projects I can work on with freedom.

Agree. In 25ish years I've been part of 3 mergers, 1 divestiture, 1 IPO, and N CEO/senior leadership changes. Each of them has changed my job in some way, usually for the worse. I've been told to relocate or quit, I've had customer-facing travel policy change (told to be on the road 100%), I've been put on-call (even when traveling 100%), and I've had internal culture change the point of hating life. There were some positive ones too, but those stand out because generally it caused me to leave (or get laid-off).

I’ve worked at a few startups and one big company in Silicon Valley. Over the last 7 years I’ve had periods where I’m really excited to get to work in the morning when I’m going to sleep. I’ve had stretches of time where I realize how lucky I am and that others would be incredibly jealous if they understood how good I had it.

I also had periods of time where a job was making me miserable. Ruining my time outside of work. Making me question everything.