How is the FIRE movement doing?

[guitarplayer]

Hehehe I see what you mean. I add that wherever you have a workplace in which R is spoken to its computers, you tend to get folk gravitating towards transparency, science and environment / ecology with a smidge of decadence (though ymmv)

[jacob]

Seriously though, I might be useful to create a list of various part-time/flexible workplaces according to its predominant culture. It's not as obvious as it sounds.

[loutfard]

Seriously though, I might be useful to create a list of various part-time/flexible workplaces according to its predominant culture. It's not as obvious as it sounds.

I do wonder what benefits would you hope such a list bring?

[daylen]

Crudely, going from killers to achievers to explorers to socializers (red-ish to orange-ish to green-ish to blue-ish) or (anti-social to pro-social). At roughly one level above particular gigs with some aid from ChatGPT:

Killers - sales, security, (e)sports

Achievers - mentoring, management, entrepreneurship

Explorers - guide(*), curator, researcher

Socializers - hospitality, coordination, outreach

(*) physical, digital, or even spiritual

[daylen]

A little lower level with the recursive help of ChatGPT:

Sales - direct, retail, real estate, tele-representative, auctioneer
Security - guard, event staff, residential officer, personal security detail, cybersecurity
[E]sports - tournaments, staked games

Mentoring - teaching, tutoring, coaching, training
Management - project, property, interim, startup advisory, angel investing, non-profit, franchise,
Entrepreneurship - e-commerce, dropshipping, digital products and services, apps, content creation, affiliate marketing, subscription box service

Guide - tour guide, adventure guide, online course, life coach, yoga instructor
Curator - museums, websites, social media, private collections, DJ or playlist creation
Researcher - see mountainFrugal's journal for DIY tenure

Hospitality - event planning and catering, hotel and accommodations, restaurant and cafe scene, leisure and recreational services, airbnb hosting or co-hosting
Coordination - events, projects, administration, social media, logistics
Outreach - local and global politics, environmental studies, corporate responsibility

In relation to iterated prisoners' dilemmas: killers usually defect, achievers are near the edge of cooperation, explorers are near the edge of defection, socializers usually cooperate

[jacob]

I do wonder what benefits would you hope such a list bring?

It would be the equivalent of a career guide for post-career activities. Individual talents and preferences matters a lot in terms of personal satisfaction between what people actually do and what they like to do (an optimization problem between expectations and most likely outcomes => happy).

People often don't know what they prefer themselves, nor do they now what their friends, family, or underlings prefer. Yet they give advise anyway based on "I liked it, so you might like it too" (or worse "everybody likes this, so you better too") with people trying out ill-advised solutions because they read about it on the interwebs or was recommended by a trusted family member.

[daylen]

Builders could also be included in-between achievers and explorers for construction, coding, architecture, and engineering heavy roles. Hunters can also be substituted for killers for more generalizability.

[guitarplayer]

DW and I are a team and already three times we applied for jobs at the same place with a clear message that it would be either us both employed there or none and we got the jobs each of the three times. I get that with a corporate HR system of bigger organisations this is perhaps not that much possible to send that sort of message across. But the general approach like such can be interesting. I definitely feel like I have a little ere community the past few years, though currently more because both DW and I work from home so it is literally almost like we work at the same workplace even thought we don't, but we hang around together much of the time so it feels like it.

I know you get something like this with people who go to plant trees in the north of Canada (or @theanimal was doing somethings similar too and wrote here about camaraderie at that workplace). Or some summer gigs, remember people from my school would go each summer to the same place in groups.

Sort of like when in the past you would be a ship captain and recruiting a crew for going on a mission to find riches (so net positive, not like crew for racing).

[Western Red Cedar]

My question is could I be doing something 1) slightly more interesting or 2) (and this seems more likely) for more money and location independent with roughly the same amount of hours (i.e. not that many).

If yes, what jobs fit this qualification, what would be the best way to break into this kind of work and where is the best place to find out about it?

@WRC: I occasionally apply for jobs I'm interested in. They are usually full-time with pay commensurate to what I make now part-time. I assume I would actually be working 40 or possibly more hours a week in these roles and they'd only be WFH if I get lucky. I.e. what I'm talking about above is how to maximize WFH plus hourly wage from the man plus still working part-time (which is what people are describing with these cushy WFH gigs) and what I'm describing in this response to you is work that would actually engage me, where the money is secondary.

Also for those who don't know this about me, I am semi-ERE with very low expenditures aka with enough money and autonomy to roll some dice and end up fine pretty much no matter what the outcome.

It sounds like you are looking for a unicorn. Engaging work, with relatively high pay and low hours in a new field? Typically WFH arrangements correlate with some level of seniority/experience. From what I've heard, US tech companies are shedding some of the excess positions they acquired during the pandemic.

I don't fully understand why you'd even be chasing money at this point considering your desired lifestyle and current assets. Wouldn't you rather work on something meaningful that fits in the WOG? Even if that means putting in a full 40 hours per week?

I think the notion of working a few hours a day and phoning it in at work is a psychological trap. @AE has discussed this in their journal, and how that mentality tends to permeate into other areas of ones life.

[Western Red Cedar]

For some context to that article, the person they interviewed is Gwen, author of the FIREy millennial blog. A while ago, she quit salaryman work with $200k saved to do the whole "get rich by blogging about FIRE" thing was popular circa 2017 and also try to become a stained glass artist. Neither panned out so she went back to work. I've seen her cruising around various FIRE podcasts now talking about "quitting FIRE" to the point it feels like she's cashing in on the post-peak FIRE popular sentiment to get her name out there. I'm not sure she's representative of much outside of the fact doing something without a real plan does not mean it's magically going to pan out.

She co-hosted a podcast with another woman named Julie from Seattle (FireDrill podcast). I used to listen to it five or six years ago.

Her experiment with "BaristaFire" was a pretty strong cautionary tale. It reminded me of some of the stories @Jacob has mentioned in terms of younger people pulling the trigger too quickly without a solid financial plan. She owned a SFH rental which ended up being a nightmare. I think there were drug addicts or something that resulted in an expensive eviction. Her stained glass sales didn't net her much money once she quit her job. Almost all of her nest egg was in a 401k, so she didn't have access to that money. She ultimately went back to work in a new city and found a better professional fit. Found more purpose in her work.

In my mind, she is one of many examples that shows you shouldn't grind it out in an unpleasant work situation. It is important to enjoy the journey to financial independence. There are plenty of jobs out there and FU money provides an immense about of power in improving both your personal and professional situation.

I think I mentioned this upthread, but this is the general message that I've seen from younger writers/YouTubers in the finance space. They understand FIRE and many were attracted to it, but they think a better model is to find some type of work they enjoy that also provides flexibility and creativity.

[AnalyticalEngine]

I think the notion of working a few hours a day and phoning it in at work is a psychological trap. @AE has discussed this in their journal, and how that mentality tends to permeate into other areas of ones life.

+100 to this. In fact, even though I have a cushy, high paying, WFH job, I am still considering making a move to something else because it just frankly feels bad half-assing work, even if I am passing all my performance reviews and making time for all my other many hobbies.

In retrospect, I could have played the career game better, and frankly did not because I come from a lower class background and didn't realize how to play the game. Stuff like networking is important, but you can do it in a way that doesn't kill your soul or your wallet. For example, going out for drinks anyway but only ordering water or ordering the cheapest thing on the menu or bringing your packed lunch out with everyone else while they go to a restaurant. These are all 20/20 hindsight lessons.

The biggest issue, imo, is that many opportunities to do interesting things are locked inside the employment system, and you can't really get access to them any other way. The example I always use is that if you want to ride around on an aircraft carrier, you need to join the navy. A better approach to work, and the one I am trying to implement now despite not always succeeding, is be clear what you are looking for and be smart in how you pursue it. Obviously, being a workhorse for corporate BS work is a mistake in the same way phoning it in for years while you play video games is also a mistake: both involve not really navigating the situation you're in.

The real challenge is to have your own goals AND your own way of pursuing those goals while not getting caught up in false stories about goals/life that either you tell yourself, others tell you, or society tells you. It requires throwing away assumptions about most things and being flexible/present in any situation you find yourself in, as well as being extremely honest with yourself about why you're doing shit like over or under working.

[7Wannabe5]

as well as being extremely honest with yourself about why you're doing shit like over or under working.

Yeah, this is key, and it never ends, even if you are largely in charge of your own time. Why I keep questioning myself on the way I am just "phoning it in" on my grad school work currently.

[AnalyticalEngine]

Being in charge of your own time just makes it worse because then you just run out of excuses for your own behavior.

This perspective is not for everyone, but the way I try to look at things now is that reality is infinitely complex and really only occurs in the present moment. Any ideology, theory, past memory, or future expectation is all just a story inside my head. So conclusions I draw about these things often say more about my psychology and my problems than actual reality, which is far too complex for me to accurately grok. The key for me has been to be extremely mindful of any narrative I get caught up inside because getting caught up in anything, be this FIRE/underwork/overwork, usually just means I am trading a lived, real experience for an inaccurate story. So the real key is to just be present in your lived moment and react skillfully to challenges in your life.

Of course, I am but human, so this is much easier said than done, but it has helped me unlearn/manage the chronically low expectations that constantly phoning in causes while not getting caught up in anything else that's equally unhelpful.

[7Wannabe5]

So the real key is to just be present in your lived moment and react skillfully to challenges in your life.

I know you are expressing something more subtle here than has ever been manifested through my mildly-cuckoo-bananas practices, but I found that the downside of adopting a "just do the work in front of me" mantra was that I literally found myself doing activities that could roughly be categorized as either house-work or personal-care pretty much all the time due to infinite regress of possibilities. For example, when I was going through this phase, I re-upholstered my second "husband''s collection of living room furnishings without even making use of a sewing machine, and I developed the habit of re-French-braiding my hair several times/day. However, I would say that the upside/insight of going through this phase was the full realization that there are very few necessary challenges in modern life for someone like me. IOW, I wouldn't even need a strategy to survive waking up totally broke in a homeless shelter or public park. I could just start doing the work in front of me and eventually find myself back in a middle-class lifestyle.

[jacob]

I think I mentioned this upthread, but this is the general message that I've seen from younger writers/YouTubers in the finance space. They understand FIRE and many were attracted to it, but they think a better model is to find some type of work they enjoy that also provides flexibility and creativity.

Plus ca change. "Just find your passion so it no longer feels like work" remains the proverbial slogan of the 20something. It's possible that reality is coming around to actually deliver on those promises (see cozy WFH). Otherwise, it's but sneaky way to extract effort from recently graduated naive noobs.

[Seppia]

Oh yes
The fabulous “do what inspires you”
Well, I love scuba diving and listening to black metal, but both aren’t going to take me very far in life*

Do something you’re GOOD at. Chances are you’ll grow not to dislike it and you can grow faster in your career (and hence have FU money/FIRE/whatever earlier).
Understand not everybody is interested in having a career, but I sometimes fail to realize why there is almost ZERO focus on making more money in the FIRE sphere.

*scuba diving as a actual job (and not a side gig/something to do after FIRE to supplement income) is almost totally incompatible with having a family.

[Jin+Guice]

@WRC: I may be looking for a unicorn, but I do so from the position of not really needing it. I've already got a cushy meaningless job that I don't have to put much effort into and only need to go to 5-20 hours a week. So what I'm looking for is a job that is an improvement on that. Maybe it doesn't exist, but you never know if you don't look.

I think I still need to log a few more years in a relatively high paying job before I can just do whatever I want (also there are no attractive low-paying jobs catching my eye rn). The question is if I could improve my station/ shorten my working time through higher money. If the answer is "no" so be it, but WFH a few hours a day to collect double my salary (and I could potentially do this work at my current job) sounds too attractive to not at least ask "how and where?"




I think the trap of meaningless work is actually more pertinent to the FIRE discussion where people who have cushy WFH jobs and don't pursue FI are going to end up burnt out and having crisis of meaning somewhere down the line. This is the danger of getting trapped at WL5 bc one is optimized for only money. It's exciting to beat the game everyone else is playing, but not that meaningful once you live it for a few years.

[AnalyticalEngine]

I know you are expressing something more subtle here than has ever been manifested through my mildly-cuckoo-bananas practices, but I found that the downside of adopting a "just do the work in front of me" mantra was that I literally found myself doing activities that could roughly be categorized as either house-work or personal-care pretty much all the time due to infinite regress of possibilities.

This is a definite risk. While it's true that reality is infinitely complex and only occurs in this present moment, you don't want to get stuck there because you lose the ability to make meaningful decisions. It's more helpful to be able to pick a paradigm and use it for a specific problem, and sometimes this "accept the moment" paradigm is the paradigm of last resort for emotions you can't control (depression, anxiety, trapped in prison in solitary, whatever). At other times, direction action might work better.

For example, I just got off a one-on-one/therapy call with my manager where I pointed out that upper management is not acting significantly different than how things were ran in the Soviet Union, thus leading to a perpetual state of Uzbek cotton scandal-level bullshit at work, of which my manager agreed with. Under conditions like this, it's extremely easy to coast and absorb the fat off the inefficiency because you are literally basically punished for caring or doing a good job due to how convoluted the bureaucracy can be inside corporate America. Is this a symptom of the metacrisis? Late stage capitalism? Declining oil reserves? Am I simply inside a dysfunctional work environment? Is it better to just skim fat off the bullshit or try to change things/push a boulder uphill? All of these paradigms have an element of truth, so picking the correct one isn't easy. This is what I mean by "skillful" problem resolution. It's not at all trivial to understand not only your own personal issues, but how to best respond to the environment.

[Jin+Guice]

@AE: Interesting. In many ways I see coasting for 15ish hours a week as an ideal ERE/ artist job. I could basically do anything for 15 hours a week as long as it wasn't actively harming me. Is it psychologically actively harming you if you just take the attitude that your work doesn't really matter?

Maybe I benefit from the fact that I am actively engaged at work for about 4 of the 15 hours I am there and maybe 1 of those hours involves me doing something that actually matters (if I don't think beyond the goal of the day or examine the system I am caught in).

[AnalyticalEngine]

@J+G - The issue, as I see it, has three components.

First: one becomes what s/he does repeatedly. If what you do repeatedly is skim fat off a ridiculously stupid system for personal gain, that's what you become. You become good at it. And then you start subconsciously doing this shit in situations where it isn't called for because you've learned such wonderful skills such as bullshitting and saying one thing but doing another and planning out everyone else's psychological states and reactions 10 levels down. Worse, your brain starts to learn "we don't put energy into X" and then when you actually do have to put energy into X, it's fucking impossible to make yourself do X.

The second one isn't really an issue but it is a disconnect between our culture and the environment. Ecologically speaking, there will always be species who take advantage of waste. This is pretty natural and normal. But in our culture, doing so gets you labeled a freeloader or lazy or bad or negative or what have you. We have this disconnect between social/ecological conditions that produce a fuckton of waste and sometimes no way to fulfill needs except skim waste, and a culture that values the protestant work ethic. So when I get in the habit of acting this way, I just tend to feel bad about myself most of the time for occupying an ecological niche that society doesn't want me to occupy but incentivized me to occupy anyway.

Probably the biggest issue though is you aren't learning skills at the rate of your peer group and so slowly fall behind your career then eventually get to the point where you might be fucked. I'm at this point now where I will need to put in actual effort if I want to get promoted. Hence why I say you will need an eventual exit strategy because it's not sustainable. Not producing results DOES get you noticed.

(Note in my case, I do actually produce at the average rate, just not the above average rate, so it's never been an issue outside of not really getting promoted. I fix this problem by job hopping to promotions.)