Comment by Buttons840

I've identified 4 distinct attitudes I've had towards work, and I'm constantly fighting not to slip into full psychopathy:

1) I have a meaningful job where I work towards a goal that is personally meaningful. I would do this work even without being paid, although I probably couldn't spend 40-hours a week doing it.

2) I have a job where I work towards making the company money. I may not be personally invested in the business, but I can work with a team of good people towards the mutual goal of making the company profitable.

3) I have a job where I can't identify any logical reasons behind decisions and what I'm being asked to do. The only logic (or lack thereof) seems to be towards making those with the power to fire me happy. Any attempts at finding a higher purpose fail because the company is taking actions contrary to those higher purposes.

4) My job is just a source of money, there is no purpose or logic. This encourages a full-psychopath mercenary approach to work and power--like study "48 Laws of Power" and use them--screw anyone over for a buck.

Obviously #1 is the ideal, and the hard part is I'm always quite close to it, because I love programming, even in my spare time.

I see #2 mentioned on HN fairly often as a supposedly clear-eyed view of work. I would be relatively happy to remain at #2, but corporate infighting and other stupid decisions quickly break it down. It's also hard to maintain #2 because society itself isn't the meritocracy that #2 pretends it is.

I'm usually going back and forth between #3 and #4, both of which are miserable--layers of hell. I'm not a bad person so I have a hard time remaining at #4, but #3 is miserable in-between land.

What level are you?