Is everybody just phoning it in for a boss that just needs you to do busy work?
I would encourage anyone who is interested in this concept to do a little more reading on the concept. Ikigai is a lot more than just fulfillment with employment- which is closer to the concept known as hatarakigai. I appreciate you sharing this meme though- it was how I was first introduced to the concept.
Could you recommend something to read?
There’s a free app called Kinnu that has a learning pathway on the subject. You can also read some of the articles for free here: https://kinnu.xyz/kinnuverse/philosophy/ikigai/
Some of the material is based on “The Little Book of Ikigai” by Ken Mogi, if you prefer books.
Thanks, I’ll have a look at both.
No, I don’t feel like my job is full filling. Would I switch though? No. Why?
- The people I work with are awesome
- The companies culture is overall great
- I feel valued and supported
So why is the job not full filling? Because I dislike and borderline hate the industry we are in: Marketing/Ads. Probably only next to fossil fuels the reason why the world we live in today sucks.
Could I go elsewhere with my skillset? Certainly. But having had terrible employers with whos’ products I could somewhat identify with before, I came to the conclusion that it’s not necessarily most important what you do but with who.
I really appreciate this take. Sounds like you’ve found a good situation. I’m sure there’s not really a perfect job so you’ll always have to compromise on something.
- I like what I do
- I get to travel and see the world
- I’m paid handsomely
- It’s a niche skill set that is hard to find
- plenty of job security
- I like my coworkers
…so yeah, I’d say it’s fulfilling
EDIT: To give a vague privacy friendly answer as to what I do, it’s a particular kind of IT, and it involves highly specialized purpose-built server clusters that spend most of their time on the backdeck of ships.
a little bit like you…
- I like what I do (software developer)
- I WFH 95% of the time
- I’m well paid
- I’m a consultant so jump from contract to contract, always have job
May I ask what you do? Or at least what industry you’re working in?
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Damn now you gotta reveal what job it is!
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You don’t have to confirm or deny, but it sounds like you work for the navy.
I do not. Nor any other military branch.
I work to live.
My career is fulfilling. My current employer is trying to make sure this specific job is not.
That’s extremely poetic. I might use it
Why would they do that? Personal vendetta?
I like what I do now. 80% work from home in a smallish company without enterprise bullshit. :) We have no standups and no agile shit which is amazing.
yeah I’m currently surrounded by that enterprise bs you talk about…the job itself would be perfect otherwise, its just infuriating
Yeah I just can’t take it anymore. And I can’t believe some people take it seriously. People nodding along like npc zombies.
Thankfully, yes. I grew to hate my previous job because of shitty leadership. I was cut when there were two rounds of downsizing because I was the best-paid on my team. They did me a favor. I was only half-heartedly looking for a new job because doing so is challenging when your morale is blasted from working a shit job.
The new job is far higher stakes, but also far easier 95% of the time. I’m reading books during my downtime between putting out fires. I’m uniquely qualified for the role. I can also walk to work in ten minutes. And I absolutely love my boss. It’ll be six months tomorrow. Wooooha!
They killed my job and gave me a huge win.
Edit: OP, how about you?
Sort of? I’m on Peace Corps service for now and in some ways it’s really awesome, but at the end of the day the actual work is with the government and it feels like actually doing anything out here is like trying to run with a ball and chain.
I appreciate you for trying to make a difference.
Eh, I’m trying to travel. Don’t get me wrong I give my best effort to PC’s missions but we’re not really set up to do that which the general public might imagine we do.
Meanwhile I have about 7 months before I return to the US and the idea of finding a real job is so terrifying I thought to turn to askLemmy for inspiration lol
I’ve worked on an ambulance for 37+ years. Still enjoy work. I’d be happy to reach 50 years. We’ll see…
It has its moments. The opportunity to figure out a tough problem or create an innovative solution can be very rewarding.
What busy work there is I can work at my own pace, so long as I meet deadlines.
I work from home, have a fair amount of autonomy and responsibility and have no one looking over my shoulder.
I recognize I’m very fortunate.
Yes! Self-employed, four-day work weeks, 4-6 hours a day. Enough money to be comfortable and to put some away for later. I have to clean the place by myself on that weekday off, but that’s fine. Cathartic even.
May I ask what you do?
I’m an ESL instructor in South Korea. My situation did not happen overnight. I’d worked in quite a few different private and public schools before this opportunity presented itself.
Ah, cool. Thank you for sharing. I hope your situation continues for as long as you like/need it to. 🙂👍
Teaching is very rewarding, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that some days I really want to never see a child again.
Same thing being a parent, in all honesty.
My work is important and is sometimes in the news. And if I really screw up, it will definitely be in the news!
Yep, I fix problems that affect millions of people, downstream of me and end use customers.
I also manage a team of people and find helping them build a team they’re satisfied with is in turn very satisfying for me. Big win the other week: one went on vacation for an entire week and did not need to answer emails or phone. Another team member was assigned to cover and had the information and resources she needed. I’ve been the manager for less than six months and working hard on cross training and access and workload balancing. Compare this to the last four years where I was a part of the group but not manager; anyone out of office for more than a day could expect to be interrupted on vacation. I was once out for three days bereavement and had my phone silenced in my car during the funeral. Now as the manager, I want that to never happen to one of my employees.
I’m between jobs for the first time in my adult life at the moment. My last gig lasted nearly 10 years and it was a wild ride. I found it fulfilling for a time, but I eventually got promoted to a position I wasn’t wholly satisfied with.
I started off at the very bottom rung, doing tech support for customers on the phone/chat/email. I was great at it and got promoted quickly to higher ranks of support, and eventually wound up managing the floor of tech support agents. Those were some of the best days of my life. Halcyon days.
Every day was like a really low-stakes episode of House, where in the course of helping agents solve technical issues for customers, eventually we’d encounter one really inexplicable, difficult, borderline impossible problem that nobody had ever seen before, so me and my team’s brightest would walk and talk while hypothesizing and figuring out our next move.
After a year or two of managing the floor, I got promoted to a position where I was ultimately a code monkey. Then Covid happened, and my job became fully remote for 4 years straight. Which was great! It allowed me to do my work and also spend way, way more time with my infant son during his early formative years. I got incredibly lucky in spite of the pandemic. But over time, the burnout grew to the point where I knew I needed to find something else to do with my career.
I’m lucky enough to have enough in savings that I can take a bit of time to reflect and think about what I might want to do going forward with my admittedly limited credentials.
Nope.
At the moment I am intensely bored at work. The job is not challenging and most of my stress comes from dealing with broken software, useless vendors or a few business units that vacillate on requirements. But:
- Most of my internal customers are very nice
- My team is eccentric but tolerable.
- I am compensated well.
But I’m still looking for a new position because I feel my brain is melting by staying here.
