Reddit Advice on Coping with Salaryman Work

[AnalyticalEngine]

I'd add that Marxism[1] too had/has a pretty strong ideological influence in non-Western regions, and ideologically speaking, Marxism is pro-collectivist, anti-work-for-capitalist, but very much pro-work-in-factory-comrade. It also gained a hold in countries like Russia/China by being anti-feudalism, which is anti-"small farmer," because it argued that the Church was keeping peasants illiterate and toiling in the fields to make monarchs money. This is pretty different than the American "homestead" legacy, as many American farmers were never toiling under feudalism, and as such, that lifestyle has a glossier reputation under American Rugged Individualism.

The main issue with "working for a living" in a Western context is, therefore, not that you have to work or even that you have to work for someone else. It's that you're forced into the system and have very little autonomy over how you work or what you produce. And because work is so time and energy consuming, this endless void of obligation that you have no control over, feels exploitative, and seems to be making the world worse is forcibly shoved into the center of your life. So you spend 60 hours/week selling carcinogens to babies and fall into existential despair.

But per the human ability to accept anything, no matter how crappy, most people just get used to this because employers (or government benefits) have to pay enough to sustain society in some capacity. Thus you are taught to tolerate your job because Shiny BMW or LifeScript will make it "meaningful." It is also noteworthy that humans will accept almost any baseline as normal, and therefore work IS something of a mental mindfuck game. If you think of work as "not that bad" because of "camping trips," then it isn't. If you instead imagine a perfect world where you aren't selling carcinogens to babies, a world which has arguably never existed, then the existing strain of work will continue to wear you out. This is why it is a legitimate life cope to focus on the camping trips and not the babies with cancer. ERE is powerful because it points out that maybe eating 8 donuts to cope is making you fat and keeping you trapped, but because escaping is not that easy, it can cause legitimate mental anguish until one manages the cognitive dissonance.

I do think being a WFH software engineer is a lifehack here because it's such a low energy requirement, but it's only really a lifehack because market conditions favor software developers. If there wasn't such ridiculous demand for the job, employers would cut back on how nice and cushy the job is, which is what you are seeing a bit now with the software recession. This is also probably why even FIRE seems impossible for most people because it requires time and money that non-tech bros tend not to have.

[1] - I want to clarify lest people misunderstand my post that I am not communist/Marxist, nor am I saying China/USSR Did Nothing Wrong, but find it interesting to view how modern economic systems other than American capitalism operated.

[7Wannabe5]

So you spend 60 hours/week selling carcinogens to babies and fall into existential despair.

Or you spend 20 hours/week teaching valuable life skills to underprivileged babies and fall into literal poverty.

I guess if you have to be some kind of pimp (or moneylender to pimp) in order to survive, maybe the best, most energizing, way to do it would be to target some repulsive old silver-back pimp to take down by stealing his customers, his workers, or his profits. Thereby toppling top-heavy monopoly and bringing light to the forest of free trade. For instance, if I had your skill set, I might try to invent a way to arbitrage-hack Amazon.

[Lemur]

@erytu - That was a depressing thread...Redditors tend to have a lot of learned helplessness. One of the reasons I don't engage on that website anymore (just occasionally browse) is so I don't ingrain pessimistic thinking habits.

I don't know if I've useful advice after reading through this thread. I've mastered the art of salaryman coping though. Usually I've some sort of event to look forward to just about every weekend (watching UFC 285 this weekend with my siblings) and I've several books from the library in rotation. Rabbit hole for March is Ethics (Peter Singer, Julia Driver, etc.), and dabbling in cosmology/astrophysics. This does the job because I've the attention span of a chipmunk so the books take me forever.

So I would say I still do consuming but not directly with money but with experiences (typical millennial I suppose), events, learning new things, etc. Also I've gratitude for the little things like caffeine in the morning and every lunch I do a 30-1 hour walk with my Spouse. I look forward to that routine everyday.

My job as a data analyst is excellent though with great benefits and pay...I'm absolutely spoiled compared to previous work. Right now I just have a script compiling which will take about an hour or so ... so I'm just browsing ERE. I hardly get any emails or messages. Just have to do my status update once a week.

My attitude would be a lot different if I was micromanaged, had to come into the office, had heavier responsibilities, lower benefits, etc...I consider myself very lucky. Occasionally my job gets boring but I embraced that as I know the other side of the grass gives me an allergic reaction.

Hard to give advice as I've a problem of relating nowadays.... Like giving advice to my poor grad student brother. "Step 1 is don't be poor."
But I've been at the hoarding money thing since 2012. So 11 years of 60% minimum savings rate with decent wages.

So maybe just time....and patience.

[loutfard]

ertyu, I go to free city-sponsored organ concerts sixteen Friday noons a year. Ten minute walk. One hour concert. Immediate distance from any turbulences in my life. Simple happiness.

[chenda]

@7w5 - yeah one notable thing about the industrial revolutions in Asia is just how rapid they've been. You could be born in 1980s China living a subsistence lifestyle little changed for 1000 years (with vivid family memories of famine) and spend your 20s working as a middle class middle manager in Shanghai. In that context you'd probably be more than willing to put up with a 996 on the basis you get to enjoy clean running water and enough food to get fat. I recall seeing some middle aged Chinese women genuinely smitten that nowadays they got to wear clothes of their choosing rather than Chairman Mao's mandated workers outfit. Their children on the other hand might not be...

@AH Right, the ideal of a nation of independent Yeoman farmers, free and equal is a longstanding theme in Anglo-American history. To some extent it actually existed in the US, albeit partly based on slavery and removal of indigenous people. But nonetheless its an appealing idea and finds echos in 19th century anarcho-syndicalism and 20th century libertarian communism.

[ertyu]

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.

Basically, lately I have been realizing that I might rationally agree with a certain set of ideas but that this hasn't stopped me from unconsciously being "ran" by an entire other set of beliefs. Rationally, it makes sense to me that if one lives frugally and aims to find out how one can live a good life without relying on the consumer market, savings will be a byproduct, and these savings will eventually result in income on their own right. Also rationally, it makes sense that sources of income should be diversified - by which we mean actually diversified rather than 4 different hustles that all depend on a certain set of economic conditions never changing. Rationally, it also makes sense to consciously aim for behaviors which are homeotelic on the one hand, and which contribute to more than one overarching goal on the other (e.g. how fitness can contribute to health and wellbeing, reduced medical bills, ability to access fulfilling activities such as hiking etc, and possibly a social aspect where one can bond with people into the same sport. (for the sake of completion, we should throw in "mating success" for the people who are into that). One also escapes the prejudices that fat and unattractive people suffer. And so forth.

All of the above makes rational sense. Yet, in spite of what I rationally believe or know to be true, my lived experience is inherently irrational. Furthermore, rational beliefs do not help. For instance, I have periods when going to work on a daily basis is intensely miserable and this cannot be resolved by the rational knowledge that I have chosen this, that the current choice makes sense in a broader framework, or that the current choice is one of the least bad possible outcomes. The intense bad feeling is still there in spite of being "talked to."

Another irrational experience: I will not extend my current contract at this job. I decided I wouldn't because I felt that another year at this place would not contribute to my personal growth in any meaningful way, and because I knew I could probably make more elsewhere. Rationally, this choice makes sense. I have 200k euro saved, 220k by the end of this year (Inshallah), so even if I have to take a year off to the tune of -10-15k depending, I will not die. In fact, at that level of savings, even though FI is not achieved, it makes sense to take sabbaticals between contracts or to pursue employment opportunities at different locations etcetera.

This rational knowledge did very little to prevent quite a lot of fear from arising once I quit. I regretted my decision to leave a comparatively good, sure thing. I was - and am - terrified of not being attached to salaryman income. The 220k savings feel like they can evaporate at any moment. This fear was, until now, mostly unconscious, but it still impacted how I came across at interviews (insecure and desperate), and it still drove me to overeat neurotically and to be driven to panic-apply to and panic-accept jobs which are objectively bad just so I have some job. Once I let myself sit with it and connect with it, I realized how much fear was there, and that this fear was there regardless of and independent of any "rational" considerations -- and that it still "ran" me.

So, on the one hand, there is fear of not working. On the other hand, there is dear of working: the expectation that work will at some point become as unbearable as it always was -- this is an icky paralyzing awful-feeling tightness in my chest, a desperate desire to escape and an inability to get myself to do basic tasks. Or, my brain would blank out my schedule in a very Freudian fashion: "yay, I'm done for the day!" it would say, but I am not done, my brain just blanked out my responsibilities because of how much it wishes it were done (this has resulted in me being fired once). There is also the ineffective, heterotelic, health-and-cash-ruining coping strategies which are required to persist in this state. I am not into consumer products but I very definitely consume to cope, it's just that it's caffeine and highly palatable industrial chemistry packaged as food rather than a watch or another gadget.

When I said that deep down I seem to believe that "financial independence is for other people" I am referring to this dissonance. There is a very clear difference between what is objectively rational and what my brain seems to think is applicable to me. So, it might make sense for "other people" to consider their 200k stash a sufficient reason to take a year off of work, but when it comes to me, the fact that I don't have a job lined up elicits raw terror. I should probably be in therapy for all of the above batshittery but thus far, DIY self-adinistered EMDR, focusing (as per Eugene Gendlin), EK (as per AH), and other such have helped more than any formal therapy I've had (in the US through my school). But generally, I have found that the fear needs to be sat with and engaged with on its own right, and that trying to rationalize it away only pushes it back down into the unconscious -- which doesn't mean it runs me any less.

So that's the sense in which if I was giving advice to someone else or if I was building a coherent rational thesis about how to design a good life etc, I would come up with one thing -- while my lizard brain appears to concurrently operate on a whole other separate premise.

[Frita]

Hm…this all sounds like addictive behavior. Work and buying things/experiences are both process addictions producing dopamine. Stress/fear/excitement are chemical addictions producing norepinephrine, cortisol, and adrenaline.

Stages shaping into addiction:
1. Exposure feels pleasurable.
2. Need an increasing level of exposure to produce a similar effect (tolerance).
3. Exposure no longer produces pleasure but is necessary not to feel bad.
4. Continued exposure creates and maintains/exasperates problems.

And then consider one’s conditioning…”normal” may have been quite dysfunctional resulting in these “softer” addictions developing simultaneously with talking, walking, toileting, etc. (I want to branch into attachment here but will resist.)

And then society/culture normalizes these addictive loops and evens deems them “success.”

Leaving the cave, reparenting, whatever metaphor one uses is the solution. Easy but hard. (Very challenging when built on trauma.)

[Western Red Cedar]

while my lizard brain appears to concurrently operate on a whole other separate premise.

@ertyu - this all makes a lot of sense. Thanks for taking the time to explain it. You are incredibly self-aware and have a lot to offer the world. I've been using compassionate curiosity to explore a lot of my lizard brain reactions over the last few months. It has helped ease my natural inclination towards self-judgment about some of the "non-rational" thoughts and behaviors.

[zbigi]

All of the above makes rational sense. Yet, in spite of what I rationally believe or know to be true, my lived experience is inherently irrational. Furthermore, rational beliefs do not help. For instance, I have periods when going to work on a daily basis is intensely miserable and this cannot be resolved by the rational knowledge that I have chosen this, that the current choice makes sense in a broader framework, or that the current choice is one of the least bad possible outcomes. The intense bad feeling is still there in spite of being "talked to."

I belive this might be your inner self telling you that your solution is not "good enough", i.e. the cost you're paying is too high. Imagine someone gave you $10 million dollars to hold your hand on a hot stove for a minute. This would instantly solve all your money problems, and yet, just upon touching the stove, the hand jumps away with pain - no matter how much talking to you're doing. I think being very depressed in a job might be the same mechanism - some safety valve inside you might be telling you that you're cruelly treating yourself as a slave to produce x amount of dollars for your future self, and your current inner self is screaming at you that it's not okay.

[ertyu]

Stress/fear/excitement are chemical addictions producing norepinephrine, cortisol, and adrenaline.

(I want to branch into attachment here but will resist.)

I think you just made my head explode -- shitty jobs as process addictions in and of themselves??

Also, are you drawing a parallel to abusive relationships?

Very interesting.

[ertyu]

I belive this might be your inner self telling you that your solution is not "good enough", i.e. the cost you're paying is too high. Imagine someone gave you $10 million dollars to hold your hand on a hot stove for a minute. This would instantly solve all your money problems, and yet, just upon touching the stove, the hand jumps away with pain - no matter how much talking to you're doing. I think being very depressed in a job might be the same mechanism - some safety valve inside you might be telling you that you're cruelly treating yourself as a slave to produce x amount of dollars for your future self, and your current inner self is screaming at you that it's not okay.

Wise analogy. Thank you

[fingeek]

I belive this might be your inner self telling you that your solution is not "good enough", i.e. the cost you're paying is too high. Imagine someone gave you $10 million dollars to hold your hand on a hot stove for a minute. This would instantly solve all your money problems, and yet, just upon touching the stove, the hand jumps away with pain - no matter how much talking to you're doing. I think being very depressed in a job might be the same mechanism - some safety valve inside you might be telling you that you're cruelly treating yourself as a slave to produce x amount of dollars for your future self, and your current inner self is screaming at you that it's not okay.

and @ertyu I would suggest this is more of a case of competing values. In Dr John Demartini speak, we all have a number of "highest values" that guide our lives. In cases where we are seemingly acting at odds to what we think we want, it's helpful to introspect further and really figure out what those driving highest values are.

You say here that your behaviour is "I'm not going to extend the contract". You have rationalised (or rather, you are living to one specific value - which you suggest is personal growth) and yet you are terrified (perhaps pushing you back towards being in a contract/job) -> What is the driving value that's triggering that behaviour?

This all resonates closely with me, as I have a few highest values, the top two being: 1/ Personal security/freedom 2/ Personal growth/challenge/learning. Now, these are often at odds, in that if I really wanted to go for personal growth/challenge/learning, then I'd have quit my job and go and start a new business or learn a new thing. But, my highest value of Personal security is what's currently keeping me in a job, and OneMoreYear syndrome. So in the last year or two, I've instead focused on job crafting and life crafting in a way that's in harmony and acknowledgement to my top 5 values... That brings a significant amount of harmony and peace, even though there continues to be (healthy, needed, constant) friction between these values.

I hope this frame of reference helps a bit

[Frita]

I think you just made my head explode -- shitty jobs as process addictions in and of themselves??

Also, are you drawing a parallel to abusive relationships?

Very interesting.

I hope your head is recovering. Work can be a process addiction and/or neurochemical addition. Yes, relationships can work the same way as can eating.

Edited to finish sentences (weather-related, wonky internet)

[WFJ]

"North Star" is a very baby-boomer answer. Gen X "follow your passion" younger maybe "save the planet". Greatest generation or older would laugh in your face or give you a binky to suck on if you whined about spending 40 hours a week in a climate controlled room typing a few hundred words an hour on a typewriter. Ancestors from 200+ years ago might brand you a witch and kill you for being such a panzi.

Never in human history has it been easier to learn a completely different skill and find a better job than today, but more people seem to complain about their "struggle" with TPS reports and action plans.

[ertyu]

@WFJ: I mean, yes -- you are watching humanity climb maslow's ladder. As more "basic" needs are met - for food security, shelter, peace, etc - people start trying to figure out how to fulfill their connectedness and relational needs (the "north star" of family; "work-life balance") and how to self-actualize (the "whiners" - no one said everyone figures out how to meet their self-actuallization needs skillfully from the get-go). Nothing wrong with this pattern, imo. In fact, it's how it should be.

[7Wannabe5]

The average Greatest Generation salaryman or working stiff had a full-time housewife to support him. Since I have been a full-time housewife myself, I understand how this contributes to quality of life and success in the workplace for the salaryman/working stiff. That's why 1958 was peak happiness in the U.S., but not peak spending by consumer. That's why my post-feminist, polyamorous, Lentil Baby scheme works; it mixes the 1958 traditionalist model with the uber-modern model where all of the previous tasks of the housewife are professionally outsourced on the market. Unfortunately, the structure of the workplace and career ladder is still such that it is more difficult for a working couple to each put in approximately 20 hours/ week workplace and 20 hours/week in the homeplace. One of my advanced middle-aged sisters, who previously spent much of her time actualizing through endeavors such as being in a 90's Death Metal band, is now making a high income at full-time job for the first time in her life, and she recently asked me, "Where is the younger man Vegan chef who will provide me with meals and help take care of my dogs?"

[Western Red Cedar]

One of my advanced middle-aged sisters, who previously spent much of her time actualizing through endeavors such as being in a 90's Death Metal band, is now making a high income at full-time job for the first time in her life, and she recently asked me, "Where is the younger man Vegan chef who will provide me with meals and help take care of my dogs?"

I'm pretty sure he lives in Portland

[jacob]

A quick skim didn't reveal what I think is the main cause: Unmet expectations.

If you grew up [orange/green] and was told that "you can be anything you want to be", it is disappointing to realize that this is not the case and that employment will force you to settle as your art history degree turns out to be worthless and your astronomy degree is more suited for selling software. As a bonus, it may even be doubly disappointing to realize that the world is not converging on the utopia you were led to believe with "good jobs available for everyone and everything". For the first time in the past 200 years, important indicators are either stagnating or falling. It is not entirely impossible that newborns will live shorter and unhealthier lives than their parents.

If you grew up [orange] and was told you'd have a good career as long as applied yourself and worked hard; well, then you may also be disappointed from the apparently lack of growth and promotion as boomers keep occupying their management positions delaying promotions by 10-20 years compared to prior generations while telling you it's necessary training. OTOH, if you come from a poorer class and are the first in your family to actually learn how to dress for an interview and have a steady job, you're probably still the envy of not only your family but also yourself. Doubly so if the [blue] value of "taking care of a family" was ingrained in you.

The mentality of "getting ahead" is also guaranteed to create bad feelings. If the main source of happiness in a[n orange] population is each person not being truly satisfied before they belong to the 66%+ percentile, then 2/3 of the population is bound to be unhappy. Worse since this is an ever moving target. It's no longer enough to live in a 1000sqft house when everybody else lives in houses that are 1200sqft. Then seeing that 1200sqft becomes 1400sqft, and so on. Same reason why the most sold car in the US is now about the same length as a Sherman tank (and traffic death rates are increasing again).

The only way out is to have a narrative that is absolute and not tied to relative job performance. Note how previous value systems did not compete on being the best worker or best anything. Being a hard worker was good enough for some and being a worker was good enough for the rest.

[chenda]

@Jacob - It's basically the same problem as the Stakhanovite movement.

[7Wannabe5]

@jacob:

Even peacocks and deer compete on relative terms. And this is one of the realities that must be interwoven at Level Yellow. I have suggested polyamory as solution, because given an average of 3 partners, competition can take place along more than one relative dimension; for instance, intelligence, kindness, hawtness. This can also apply to the world of work/avocation. For instance, you can be in 80th percentile for your non-lucrative avocation of ping-pong championship tour, 50th percentile making money helping with tax forms, and 30th percentile at cooking/gardening for yourself. If you spend 40 hours/week doing only one thing then you are pretty much stuck with that being your only realm in which to possibly excel.