Peeve Farm

g r o t t o 1 1

Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets

  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
     A stream-of-consciousness Web journal, containing
     links, commentary, and pointless drivel.

On My Blog Menu:

InstaPundit
USS Clueless
James Lileks
Little Green Footballs
As the Apple Turns
Entropicana
Cold Fury
Capitalist Lion
Red Letter Day
Eric S. Raymond
Tal G in Jerusalem
Secular Islam
Aziz Poonawalla
Corsair the Rational Pirate
.clue

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Tuesday, January 22, 2002
21:06 - Silicon Valley Turns Into A Regular Place	(top)
At lunch today we were discussing the fortunes of friends who had been hopping from job to job over the past several years, putting up with really terrible employment conditions (wearing pagers and being on duty 24/7, being flown all over the country without regard to prior plans, losing perks and privileges right and left) purely because of the elusive phantom of Getting Rich. You know-- the idea that if you just put up with enough years of hell, it would all pay off in the end. I had a mental flash of exactly what that implied: namely, that you'd be sitting there, putting up with your irksome, often miserable job, and one day someone in a suit and with his tie unkempt would come running breathlessly through your department: "Hey! Everybody! Guess what... we just announced breakout profits! We're suddenly an unbelievable success! Everybody's stock options are now worth hundreds of dollars each! We're all millionaires!" And he would trip and fall, roll over giggling, pick himself up, and zoom off to another department to pop champagne corks and shriek in hysterical glee. ....No. Not gonna happen. No company becomes an overnight success, especially companies that have been in years-long slumps, or that lost all their value in the dot-bomb crash. Employees who are doggedly hanging on to such jobs because they're being promised huge rewards if they just put up with it long enough... well, they're just signing up for the sacrifice of more years of their mid-20s onto the bonfire of workaday drudgery. The most likely outcome, just like in Office Space, is that they will end up laid-off in thanks for all their trouble and faith and misery. It's trite to say this, I know-- but it really needs to be said: You have to find a job that you can enjoy. Never endure a job that makes you miserable, if you have any choice whatsoever in the matter. No monetary reward when you're 30 is worth spending your 20s in pain. Instead, if you enjoy working, no matter what it is you do, you will be happy over an extended period of time, and you'll be able to look back at a time of your life that you truly were glad to have lived. And then, if you end up getting rich-- hey, it's a bonus! I know it's easy for me to say this because I enjoy my job. Well, yes... but look at it this way. I would have even less credibility if I had gotten rich in the dot-com boom, right? I am an example of a person who was well on his way to reaping the rewards of the Internet Gold Rush, but had it deflate... but as luck would have it, I backed a good horse: I enjoy my job anyway. And I can say with certainty that it is entirely possible, no matter what the economic conditions, to find a job that you can enjoy. If you do, by God, take it. Don't cheat yourself, don't fool yourself... give yourself a gift. Allow yourself to enjoy life. Because that's what this time of life is for.