When people (specifically, engineers) find out that I don’t plan on being a software engineer for the rest of my working life, that I don’t love engineering as much as they do, they usually tell me that I should find another job, one that I love doing. (Sometimes, they hurl nasty insults at me, but usually people are more reasonable.) Sure, having a job doing something you love is ideal. But, the truth of the matter is, it’s not practical, as I’ve said before.
I’ve come to realize that there are three major desirable qualities of a job:
- Enjoyability
- Low stress
- High pay
In reality, getting all three in a job is extremely difficult, if not impossible. You’d have to enjoy something that you can turn into a high-paying, but low-stress job, and also be lucky enough to land such a job. Getting two of the three, while not quite fulfilling the third quality, is, I think, pretty good.
Personally, I think I have two of the three: (fairly) low stress and (fairly) high pay, at least for the amount of work I do and the skill set that I have. And while I don’t enjoy my job enough to say that I love it, I also don’t hate my job. I’m pretty happy where I am, to have a job that pays me well to allow me the freedom to do things in my life I enjoy, which inevitably require money, but without giving me too much stress. It would be hard to find a job that paid better without stressing myself out or going through a lot more education.
So it puzzles me when people seem to have an issue with this. I was at a happy hour with various people involved in tech startups recently, and when they discovered that I’m in my current job for reasons other than the love of the work, they seemed to feel the need to push me in a different direction. As if they were offended by the fact that I don’t enjoy building technology like they do. As if I were some sort of intruder in their society of people who do what they love for a living.
I think it’s because people, in general, tend to take issue with others who make choices different from their own. The techies can’t understand why I’d stay in the industry when I don’t love it as much as they do. But how else am I supposed to pay the bills, while I figure out what it is I want to do for the rest of my life? To me, it doesn’t seem like such a bad place to be in.