First, a little tease. After five years of working as a Software Engineer in Big Tech, I unclipped the shackles, dusted my big boy boots and left. Yesterday was the beginning of my half-year career break. I’ll be resting, travelling, running experiments and exploring other ideas of work.
Love the fact that you went back in time and highlighted the evolution of our current mindsets. That has so much context hidden in it, and allows us to question the validity of the current assumptions of work fulfillment and purpose. I am also on the path of self-employment, disillusioned with corporate work yet struggling to find alignment with self work, and I can deeply relate to all these stories for I tell those to myself every day.
I’ve always been confused with the idea of putting all of our effort and attention into our career. It’s something that we unfortunately have to spend most of our time on to live here so it should be something we care about, but in American culture especially it is considered the first priority. This doesn’t make any sense, as we are more than our careers or the way we make money. The hard truth is that we are all replaceable in the eyes of our employers and if we were to die tomorrow, they would have a job listing immediately posted and life would go on. It’s insane to me that most people don’t realize this and I wish we could transform our work culture in this way.
I came across your substack from the Office Hours thread. I run a literary zine in the form of a newsletter on substack called The Abandoned Dreams Collective. I'm currently looking for other writers who are looking to expand their reach through collaborations and cross posting.
Though this may not be what you're writing here on this newsletter, I really enjoyed and connected with your writing voice and think it would be a great fit for what I'm doing. Would love to collaborate if you're interested
Hey Tobi! Found this from the Small Bets community and really enjoyed it. I'm also a tech worker and wrote about a similar concept: https://open.substack.com/pub/gameofone/p/8-the-stories-we-tell-ourselves?r=5l8k&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Love the fact that you went back in time and highlighted the evolution of our current mindsets. That has so much context hidden in it, and allows us to question the validity of the current assumptions of work fulfillment and purpose. I am also on the path of self-employment, disillusioned with corporate work yet struggling to find alignment with self work, and I can deeply relate to all these stories for I tell those to myself every day.
I’ve always been confused with the idea of putting all of our effort and attention into our career. It’s something that we unfortunately have to spend most of our time on to live here so it should be something we care about, but in American culture especially it is considered the first priority. This doesn’t make any sense, as we are more than our careers or the way we make money. The hard truth is that we are all replaceable in the eyes of our employers and if we were to die tomorrow, they would have a job listing immediately posted and life would go on. It’s insane to me that most people don’t realize this and I wish we could transform our work culture in this way.
Hi Tobi!
I came across your substack from the Office Hours thread. I run a literary zine in the form of a newsletter on substack called The Abandoned Dreams Collective. I'm currently looking for other writers who are looking to expand their reach through collaborations and cross posting.
Though this may not be what you're writing here on this newsletter, I really enjoyed and connected with your writing voice and think it would be a great fit for what I'm doing. Would love to collaborate if you're interested