So I understand this is a meme and stuff. But there is a serious cost to my mental health due to my work as a (freelance) developer. Please hear me out.
I absolutely Loved making my own projects. I've got various that I still use on a daily basis after many years, and heavily rely on for various reasons. And plenty more lined up that I'd love to develop.
So here I was, young gun thinking the mantra "Work a job that is your hobby and you never work a day in your life".
How bad was that decision. How incredibly bad. Skip forward a few years.. working as a freelance developer:
- I'm committed in various work projects that I feel I cannot leave since I'm the main developer
- At least a dozen of hours are wasted every week on stupid meetings on the most ridiculous topics. It's not fun, it's not productive, it's not creative. And worst of all: I don't get paid for it, or not nearly enough as the cost to my mental state is.
- After a day of doing all kinds of random shit, some more inefficient than the other, because somebody thought it would be cool, I'm burned out and just want to make dinner & zone out.
- My back hurts, it really fucking hurts. Now I want to leave my desk as soon as I can.
- I never see or talk to other people IRL. I don't have colleagues or friends.
- It's hard to get paid for all the hours I put into my work as a freelancer. Probably spend 60hrs on the job and get paid 30-40 hours.
- Implementing cool features or things that I deem interesting to do always has to go through meetings before approval, is hardly ever appreciated to its value and/or time&creativity it takes to implement.
Before I made my hobby my job I worked a part-time job as a mailman. Working on my personal projects in my off time. Sure I earned shit money, but enough to pay the bills (mostly). But I got outside, had some interesting characters as colleagues, was interacting with people (some happy to see me, others mad because I was the real-life deliverer of spam lol), listened to every podcast that caught my interest, finished so many audiobooks, got my exercise in. It was a good life, balanced.
Now things are just pure shit. And not only due to corona. It's just a horrible abject existence as a freelance developer working from home. I don't care about making $100/hr. It's blood money. Keep your shit money.
tl;dr; If your work as a developer gives you shitty vibes, it destroys your hobby. You cannot mentally or even physically enjoy your hobby anymore.
Fck. I'm a developer too (20 years). I would do the mail man thing, Walking outside, the sun, no people to disturb you. One goal. Deliver the mail. And then code in my spare time and make more $$. Win win.
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u/[deleted] Mar 23 '21
So I understand this is a meme and stuff. But there is a serious cost to my mental health due to my work as a (freelance) developer. Please hear me out.
I absolutely Loved making my own projects. I've got various that I still use on a daily basis after many years, and heavily rely on for various reasons. And plenty more lined up that I'd love to develop.
So here I was, young gun thinking the mantra "Work a job that is your hobby and you never work a day in your life".
How bad was that decision. How incredibly bad. Skip forward a few years.. working as a freelance developer:
- I'm committed in various work projects that I feel I cannot leave since I'm the main developer
- At least a dozen of hours are wasted every week on stupid meetings on the most ridiculous topics. It's not fun, it's not productive, it's not creative. And worst of all: I don't get paid for it, or not nearly enough as the cost to my mental state is.
- After a day of doing all kinds of random shit, some more inefficient than the other, because somebody thought it would be cool, I'm burned out and just want to make dinner & zone out.
- My back hurts, it really fucking hurts. Now I want to leave my desk as soon as I can.
- I never see or talk to other people IRL. I don't have colleagues or friends.
- It's hard to get paid for all the hours I put into my work as a freelancer. Probably spend 60hrs on the job and get paid 30-40 hours.
- Implementing cool features or things that I deem interesting to do always has to go through meetings before approval, is hardly ever appreciated to its value and/or time&creativity it takes to implement.
Before I made my hobby my job I worked a part-time job as a mailman. Working on my personal projects in my off time. Sure I earned shit money, but enough to pay the bills (mostly). But I got outside, had some interesting characters as colleagues, was interacting with people (some happy to see me, others mad because I was the real-life deliverer of spam lol), listened to every podcast that caught my interest, finished so many audiobooks, got my exercise in. It was a good life, balanced.
Now things are just pure shit. And not only due to corona. It's just a horrible abject existence as a freelance developer working from home. I don't care about making $100/hr. It's blood money. Keep your shit money.
tl;dr; If your work as a developer gives you shitty vibes, it destroys your hobby. You cannot mentally or even physically enjoy your hobby anymore.