Reddit Advice on Coping with Salaryman Work

[ertyu]

link to reddit comment

you can literally see the consumerism happen as a coping strategy, deepening and deepening the trap

bringing this comment to the attention of the community because (1) there are a couple of people here, me included, that are deeply depressed about working, maybe it will be validation that nothing's wrong with any of us, it simply do be like that sometimes, and (2) just to see the survival advice salarymen give to each other. It was on r/bestof and all.

"2 more years dad" my heart goes out to them :/

[mathiverse]

Some people like the commenter seem like they would benefit from doing all the exercises in Your Money or Your Life. In particular, it may lead to the realization that they are spending a lot of extra money on trips, gifts, toys, and other items in order to cope with their job. They'd see how little they are really making after these "work expenses" are accounted for.

[ertyu]

no, they realize they're doing all this additional spending to cope with their jobs. in fact, they're deliberately developing consumerism in themselves as a coping strategy (someone else in the comments encouraged OP that it takes a while to develop this mindset of focusing on the next "carrot" in front of the hamster wheel, but to persevere). They're teaching it to their children as a way to survive. "Just two more years dad" broke my fucking heart :/

So they do realize they do it to cope with their jobs -- they don't think there's any other way to survive but to do that. So deeply sad.

ETA: the way this plays out in my own life, in case any of the other fellow drones want to use me as a negative example for the sake of illumination, is I have fallen into this unconscious pattern where it's a bit easier to get myself to work when I have the intermediate stop of, "stop at [Starbucks or other such]" -- getting out of the house focusing on that dopamine hit im going to get from caffeine-and-a-muffin, rather than getting out of the house "to go to work." Or, in the middle of the work day: "only [X] to go and when I'm done I can pass by [other source of consumable dopamine that inevitably hurts my health and demands cash]"

I also share with the reddit drones the background belief that financial independence isn't really possible (or if it's possible, it's for other people) and i have to keep working anyway. One thing that is notable in that reddit post is that the person never considers that they might not work to traditional retirement age. In spite of being on a forum full of people who are a living example that a different life is possible, I too don't believe it deep down.

[AnalyticalEngine]

That was incredibly depressing.

Many working adults seem to realize the majority of jobs are structurally unfulfilling but, lacking any meaningful way to escape it, tend to cope with it via consumer distractions, or else try to desperately hustle for the 10% of jobs that promise fulfillment. This very likely happens due to insane economic and cultural forces herding people toward paid employment as the only form of adult existence, and because both money and meaning in life are locked behind the doors of paid employment. It is incredibly difficult to resist this because the realization that you have to fight basically every facet of contemporary society on a structural level to go against it is so daunting that it's a lot easier for many people to simply cope by consuming distractions and not shaking the boat.

[ertyu]

For me it's raw terror for my survival (quite possibly this is the effect of "the transition to market economy" on my parents and thus on me). I'm fine with not conforming as such, including when this means others have a low opinion of me etc.

[Sclass]

@ertyu

Reminded me of this. This movie made a big impression on me as a kid.

“Quite an experience to live in fear. That’s what it is to be a slave”. -Rutger Hauer in Blade Runner.

That’s a horrible way to live. I’ve been there. Yuck.

[loutfard]

For me it's raw terror for my survival (quite possibly this is the effect of "the transition to market economy" on my parents and thus on me). I'm fine with not conforming as such, including when this means others have a low opinion of me etc.

My awesome grandmother-in-law went through a few dare I say even rougher transitions. I'll focus on the macro ones out of respect for her privacy. Suffice to say there were also micro ones:
- 1930's: born in a small independent and prosperous country
- 1940.06: occupation and annexation by the USSR
- 1941.03: transition to the USSR ruble; parents' savings went poof
- 1941.06:
- occupation and annexation by Nazi Germany
- triple circulation of USSR ruble, German Reichsmark, and special notes
- whatever savings left went poof again
- 1945:
- occupation and re-annexation by the USSR
- transition to planned economy
- forced to the other side of the country
- re-introduction of the USSR ruble
- 1990.05: renewed independence
- 1992:
- 1000% inflation made savings go poof
- introduction of a transitional national currency
- 1993: transition to national currency; savings left went poof
- 199x: often >6 month late salary payments, if at all
- 2004: retirement, lowest pension in the EU
- 2014.01: transition to euro

She's turning 84 this year and still going strong, taking things firmly into her own hands. I admire and study the sheer resilience of this old lady, and her joy in life. My experience with her is an important reason FIRE sounds a bit hollow to me. ERE is so much more about resilience.

[IlliniDave]

I guess having my salaryman days behind gives me a certain perspective. I only read the OP in that reddit thread, but I thought it was spot on. I worked around a lot of salarypersons. Seemed like for about 60% of them, some modicum of success in the working world plus a decent pay check was enough for them to be content and satisfied. I wouldn't have been completely content in their shoes, but that doesn't invalidate their happiness, it's not something I get to choose for them. About 30% were like me, sort of free spirits/dreamers who saw work as an efficient part of a process to achieve bigger goals: food on the table, roof overhead, brought in resources to raise a family, and in time became a springboard for bigger dreams. And about 10% didn't belong in the environment, most often because they didn't want to work to receive the rewards.

I think the reddit OP's dad gave great advice. Without a purpose (north star) effort generally isn't worthwhile. There were some nuances to it, but I transitioned from my north star being family to my north star being a cabin in the woods and early retirement pretty readily, so I always had a good motive to roll my eyes at the nonsense and not let it distract me from keeping my eye on the ball. Interestingly, it was finding communities like this one that really solidified my home stretch north star while at the same time was the environment where I've found the most contempt for the media through which I was arguably successful. I wouldn't say work was ever fun though most of it was pleasant enough when I was mindful of it being a means to an end rather than an end itself. Maybe being a rather incorrigible introvert helped filter out some of the potential interpersonal stuff, or maybe consistently looking towards the horizon caused me not to take things personally.

The real trap is heading into a job expecting it to provide broad-based life fulfillment. Borrowing from the Japanese, purpose comes from: what you love, what you're good at, what you can be paid for, and what the community around you needs. I think it's quite rare to find one occupation that checks all four. My salaryman gig checked two of them (something I was good at, something I could be paid for). The other two I was on my own to envision and pursue but it wasn't hard to see how the salaryman gig could be made to support them.

[7Wannabe5]

Interestingly, it was finding communities like this one that really solidified my home stretch north star while at the same time was the environment where I've found the most contempt for the media through which I was arguably successful.

I fret that I may be guilty of exuding contempt for salaryman option. It's really more of a frustrating argument I am having with myself along the lines of "There have to be some other solutions! Show me some other solutions, people, 'cause I am running out of creativity!" On a perhaps too personal note, I would mention that I admire your ability to divorce your shopaholic wife towards better financial boundary formation. My dear departed father who was the classic salaryman-dreaming-of-sailboat was never able to successfully draw such a boundary with my bi-polar-shopaholic-mother and my sisters and I are still dealing with it in her old age. I've recently been binge-watching "Desperate Housewives" which on some level is the dysfunctional complement to the desperate salaryman. The actresses in that show are around my age, and that might have been the dying era for having such an occupational designation. Kind of funny note would be that my husband-at-the-time the show was originally broadcast basically forbade me from watching it (but, definitely not because he feared I might mimic their shopping behavior )

Anyways, during my relatively brief career as salaryman, I was definitely guilty of the dysfunctional "3 Donut Commute." I was fairly successful-by-osmosis as a corporate employee, but I Mommy-tracked myself when my boss who was grooming me to take his job told me "This is the level where people will yell at you. " and I was like "I already have to put up with being forbidden to watch "Desperate Housewives" at home, and now I'm going to have to put up with being "yelled at" at work? Thanks, but no thanks." However, one of the Laws of the Universe is that the only way to not have to put up with assholes is that you have to be your own asshole, and some of us struggle with that.

Borrowing from the Japanese, purpose comes from: what you love, what you're good at, what you can be paid for, and what the community around you needs.

I agree, but would add 5th aspect being in alignment with the note you made about finding the activity at least reasonably "pleasant" or "enjoyable. What you described is what lifestyle designers such as Barbara Sher or Lobenstein (The Renaissance Soul) describe as getting a J.O.B. to support your passion(s.) However, if/when "getting paid" is the only benefit, then the situation degrades to Pimp/Prostitute/John and Moneylender to the PImp-> pick a role. So, the sort of salaryman who is essentially degraded to prostitute, like many prostitutes, will turn to some kind of drug to be able to cope with the situation (or vice-versa, because the John/Drug-Addict/Mindless-Compulsive-Consumer are essentially in the same role. And the analogy is readily completed by noting that the Pimp is also often in the role of being the Drug-Dealer to the Prostitute. (I should note here that this analogy is not to imply that sex workers never find purpose or enjoyment in their work. Some regard it to be like unto nursing or working with the autistic or being the waitress who chats a bit with the old guys who comes into the diner every day. )

OTOH, part of my problem is that in recent years my Northstar has become Permaculture, and the weird thing is that the more money you throw at a Permaculture Project, the inerently crappier you are at the task.

[AnalyticalEngine]

Salaryman work is an interesting example of multiple, often contradictory paradigms, that one can use to explain the same phenomena.

I have worked in paid employment since I was 16, but all through high school and college, the money was exciting enough that I didn't mind the work. My consumer entertainments at that age were cheap enough, and the fact I was eventually going to graduate was enough of a north star that the work didn't bother me. But when I graduated, that all changed about 6 months into my first real job where I suddenly realized this whole working for a living thing was repetitive and consumed my entire life. I believe the transition from student, where you have time and friends and cheap needs, to salaryman, where all your peers disappear and everyone seems to be dying on the inside, is a particularly rough time in life.

In typical AE-fashion, I "coped" with this by reading a lot of Marxism, which actually made the problem worse because now I was focusing on how work was exploitative because my employer was making more than they paid me and capitalism had bought out all of society and how I was doomed to be a wageslave forever, etc etc.

I eventually started to "cope" with work by ignoring it as much as possible and focusing on "hobbies," which often were just distractions from the suck. For example, I got really invested in drawing comics, which in and of itself is a good hobby, but the way I was doing it was a form of escapism that was just as much a distraction as buying donuts.

The issue is, once the idea that "work doesn't have to suck as much as it does" enters your head, you are doomed. This creates cognitive dissonance where you keep hoping for an ideal world that doesn't suck while missing opportunities in the here and now to actually enjoy your life. You may be a wageslave, but at least you can take your kids camping. This is absolutely a cope, but having a cope IS important because the alternative is just falling into depression and despair over something you can't change (the nature of the economy).

So I just stopped thinking about it and tried to focus on other things. This did help me, but I feel like it also institutionalized me and now I need to unlearn the complacency.

[7Wannabe5]

The issue is, once the idea that "work doesn't have to suck as much as it does" enters your head, you are doomed.

Absolutely true. And during the years I was able to support myself with my own lifestyle business it was the case that my work didn't suck. I mean, there were still minor aspects of it that sucked, like how you might still have to get annoyed picking up his socks again in a very good marriage, but mostly it didn't. So, now I am well and truly stuck, because I was out of the cave, but now I am slowly sliding back in, and maybe it would almost be better if I had never seen the light at all , because now I am semi-hopelessly gone feral.

[chenda]

@7w5 - 'If I hadn't seen such riches I could live with being poor'.

For many years I left cards scattered around the office entitled 'Work will blight your existence' and other factoids. HR got involved and said they were harming team morale. I felt that only highlighted the problem further.

[7Wannabe5]

@chenda: lol

One small bright note might be that it has been my experience on the slow-slide-down-gripping-for-every-rock-and-stump-along-the-way from successful self-employment to the cave that 16 hours or so of W2 employment is pretty much lifestyle neutral. Kind of like how having a not ideal f*ck-buddy situation can still be fun, but a bad 24/7 monogamous committed relationship will definitely send you back to 6 donut per day habit.

[Western Red Cedar]

I also share with the reddit drones the background belief that financial independence isn't really possible (or if it's possible, it's for other people) and i have to keep working anyway. One thing that is notable in that reddit post is that the person never considers that they might not work to traditional retirement age. In spite of being on a forum full of people who are a living example that a different life is possible, I too don't believe it deep down.

Can you elaborate on this? Is there some kind of cognitive bias here?

I've noticed this in a couple of your other posts, and it seems quite strange considering the context of the forum and the pile of evidence in opposition to these beliefs.

[chenda]

@7w5 - Absolutely. My current cushy WFH job is technically full time but only takes 2-3 hrs of mostly not very challenging self directed work per day. Any more than that becomes something all together more interminable.

@loutfard - Folk were tougher in them days...

[AnalyticalEngine]

@chenda, @7W5 - I do think coming up with all the reasons work sucks, of which there are many, and then getting stuck there without a way to move forward is the road to unhappiness. This is probably why most people just decide to ignore the problem and focus on consumer distractions. Focusing endlessly on a problem you can't solve is a mistake, and escaping work is an unsolvable problem for most people. Hence why the "mature" thing to do is accept it and focus on something else, much like how one eventually reacts to their own inevitable death.

This is an interesting example of how an adaptive behavior in one context is a sabotaging behavior in another. Complacent salaryman consumer behavior makes work less difficult but also makes escaping work much harder due to the lack of skills, vision, and resources.

[chenda]

I think Jacob noted that ERE has never being picked up in Asian countries (except very westernised Singapore) I wonder how much western individualism plays into this idea that working for someone else is an abomination. Selling your time for money as wage slavery. Obligations to parents and collectivism are said to be very ingrained in Asian society.

Although there has been a lot of western media coverage of the horrendous 996 working pattern in China and how young Chinese are 'laying flat' or something along those lines so I don't know...

[AnalyticalEngine]

@chenda - I've thought about that as well, and it's an astute observation. I've wondered if it's the pressure to go "live your own authentic best life" that exists in Western culture that does not exist elsewhere that does it. Fulfilling your social role well is enough to have personal esteem in other places, but in the West, the ideal is to "hustle" and "leave your mark on the world." When that cultural ideal clashes with the reality that most people are just stuck in jobs they have no control over, it creates cognitive dissonance.

Although I do wonder if there's some ERE-equivalent that exists in those countries but we're not readily exposed to due to the culture/language barrier.

[7Wannabe5]

I wonder how much western individualism plays into this idea that working for someone else is an abomination. Selling your time for money as wage slavery.

I think it also relates to the sort of shifting image that had Henry Ford claiming that he paid relativley high wage to his workers so they could afford to buy automobile themselves vs. something I read that claimed that he had to pay his early factory workers high wages because they were previously relatively independent muliple-skilled farmers who found factory work demeaning.

IOW, very hard work isn't a new thing in the East, but the de-humanizing aspects of high efficiency oriented factory and office work is a new-ish thing in the East. No matter how fast you work the candy keeps coming down the conveyor belt towards you ever faster.

I've been reading about growing trends towards consciously re-integrating efficiency and resilience at different levels of society and with particular consciousness of place. When you are a peasant working very hard for your family or your village, your work will be much more vividly associated with resilience, because you will literally be creating stock piles that you can see that will help you/y'all survive. This is probably why the YMOYL "trick" of making a very big chart on wall exhibiting your growing net worth is an effective tactic towards achieving FI. The barn is stocked with hay, the apples are in the cellar, the door is shut tight against the blizzard- Now I can rest.

[zbigi]

Salaryman work is an interesting example of multiple, often contradictory paradigms, that one can use to explain the same phenomena.

I have worked in paid employment since I was 16, but all through high school and college, the money was exciting enough that I didn't mind the work. My consumer entertainments at that age were cheap enough, and the fact I was eventually going to graduate was enough of a north star that the work didn't bother me. But when I graduated, that all changed about 6 months into my first real job where I suddenly realized this whole working for a living thing was repetitive and consumed my entire life. I believe the transition from student, where you have time and friends and cheap needs, to salaryman, where all your peers disappear and everyone seems to be dying on the inside, is a particularly rough time in life.

Exactly the same impressions here. After graduating and leaving to a new city for a job, I started feeling despair and dread very quickly. I coped with it via drinking, eating sweets and changing jobs and positions often - I essentially spedran the career tree (went through coder, manager, analyst, architect) in a couple of years, to keep myself engaged and possibly find something I like. After mere 4 years of this, I was done and was desperately looking for a way out. I started toying with poker bots, and saving a runway for myself. Eventually, I saved up 18 months 'worth of cheap living expenses (with SR of about 75%, it didn't take that long), and quit my job with intention of making a killer poker bot that willl make me rich. The naivety of the youth Ultimately, the bot was actually profitable, and making around $500-$1000 per poker site per identity (I'd need to talk to some homeless people to get more than one identity though), but I didn't see it lasting for more than a couple of years, so I got back to work. Via a stroke of luck and negotiation from a position of strength I guess (I sort of made a name for myself in my super small niche already, and hated work enough to really negotiate hard for maximum amount of money), upon return, I got more than double the salary that I had before the bot making break. Even still, I lasted only around 8 months in that job, as the super high SR quickly allowed me to bum around for another many months. And that's how it all started... With a bad taste for working from almost the very beginning