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Vaniver comments on Open thread, Dec. 8 - Dec. 15, 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion

6 Post author: Gondolinian 08 December 2014 12:06AM

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Comment author: MathiasZaman 08 December 2014 11:41:36AM 8 points [-]

In the spirit of asking personal questions on Less Wrong I'd be pleased if some of the community's brainpower could be directed in my direction. (It's a minor problem.)

After about a year of being unemployed, I found a job (hooray), but it's not a job I want to do for a long time. This means looking for a new job, but due to the long and unpredictable hours of my current job I'm left without time to look for a new job. The time away from the job is spend, in decreasing order: sleeping, quality time with girlfriend, internet, food and personal entertainment/projects. As it stands, I don't feel like I can touch either of the non-work activities without going insane, or at least not to an extent where I can shave of an hour to allocate to looking for a new job (I know from previous experience that doing it for less than an hour doesn't result in anything) without going insane.

Current options (I can see):

  • Find a way to create time (probably by spending less time faffing about on the internet). The risk here is that I'll stop having enough fun things in my life and lose productivity due to lying on the floor crying (which is a real possibility, going by previous experience).
  • Stick with the job and enroll as a working student at something to do with IT (I know what courses I want to take, I just can't translate it properly). This would take at least three years, which means being stuck in a job I don't like and missing classes due to the aforementioned unpredictable working hours.
  • Slack at work and use that time to look for a new job. The downsite here is being caught and losing the job I kinda need.

Ideas, recommendations or "third options" I failed to see?

Comment author: Vaniver 08 December 2014 04:31:08PM 8 points [-]

After about a year of being unemployed, I found a job (hooray), but it's not a job I want to do for a long time.

In So Good They Can't Ignore You, Cal Newport argues that the path to enjoying a job goes primarily through being good at that job, not liking the job when first starting it. I suspect there is much to be gained by devoting yourself to your current job and getting good at it. Even if you transition to another job, the self-control and emotional maturity you learn by doing this is likely to transfer.

(He also argues that it's better to be in a field where quality is detectable and valuable; if you're doing commodity work, than being especially good is unlikely to get you far. But I think there's a psychological component as well: it is highly likely your coworkers and employers can detect a shift from disliking the job to liking the job, and you might be surprised at how much that transition will get you in terms of respect and power on the job.)

Comment author: MathiasZaman 13 December 2014 03:45:31PM 1 point [-]

Sounds like reasonable advice, but my reasons for not wanting the stick with the job have less to do with my enjoyment of it and more with it it not being something I'm talented at/uses the skills I'm good at, it isn't a direction I want to go with nor is it very high-paying. I like the job just fine and want to do it properly (to an extent), I'd just enjoy doing something else more.

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