I’m lucky that I can say yes. That said, I still wouldnt do it for free. What about you, how do you feel about your job/career/field in general?
No, I don’t. The company I work for, likes to make it seem like it is important. But, we’re a generation away to a point where all and every stores will be so autonomously ran, that we’re all just disposable at that expense.
I’m unemployed!
It’s important that someone is unemployed. Who else will politicians have to point at as an example of a failure?
I’m proud to be unemployed and alive. It sure does suck when you get judged as being a useless piece of shit by virtually everyone, even though the number of bullshit jobs grows.
I do maintenance at a telescope and occasionally fill in as telescope operator. It doesn’t pay great but the work has been fulfilling. A telescope operator recently quit and they implemented a temp salary (removing my overtime) without discussing the numbers first and ended up putting me at the bottom of a lower pay scale. I thought I was stuck but eventually complained and got reverted back to hourly, but they screwed me out of 200+ hours of overtime because “I didn’t complain soon enough and therefore that is the same as me accepting that salary”. I’m going to quit soon because I don’t work for free.
That’s a neat job. Do you work for a university or something?
I started a new role this week and I feel like my job is too important. A lot of self-doubt this week.
I have faith that I’ll handle things, though.
However, I am concerned that my job is morphing into something less than what I care for. It feels like we’re moving to a low-code solution, but personally, I want to get technical.
I set orthopedic patients up with a piece of equipment that prevents scar tissue buildup. While this is helpful to their recovery, what I find most important is the way I can help some patients with their anxiety about their surgery through soft skills I didn’t know I had prior to this job.
What they don’t realize is how much helping them helps me. It gives me a sense of purpose and meaningfulness. I get to help people get their mobility back. Mobility is freedom. After watching my dad slowly lose his mobility later in life, this allows me to help other people in a way that I could never help my dad. I know what that means for them even if my patients don’t fully.
If I won the lottery, I’d still want to do this job or something like it that allows me to feel this way.
My dad is a long retired school superintendent. He was able to convince a small community to greatly upgrade their education system.
After he retired he worked (for almost nothing) to help school boards from poorer counties do the same.
He helped lot of people.
I am a locksmith and I would say my job is somewhat important and I’m somewhat proud to do it. The world would continue to run without me specifically at my job but having people who can manage large key systems and mechanical security is important. It also gives me enough satisfaction to feel good about what I do. When I am able to repair things and prevent things from ending up being thrown out is when I feel most proud of what I do. When I feel least proud is when we do work for companies that are involved in making weapons for the US military but that’s rare and I am not in a position at my company to decide who we do and don’t do business with.
My job is unimportant. I manage a bakery that I do not own. But I can’t do it poorly. Like even though I literally do not care if the building burns to the ground, I still act like Customer Service Barbie as soon as I’m clocked in.
Yes, many local businesses depend on me on a daily basis
I’m a crane operator, if we still got the wages people would get 15 years ago and all the required paperwork it would feel important.
But now it’s just a: “hey guy, go try it out…see how it goes” and if it goes well you get to stay…for the same wage and no official paperwork to prove you’re capable and as such no opportunity to do the same at a new employer and maybe build up your wage.
It’s a bit if a run on ramble, but yeah… that’s how I feel, after 30 years of trying to save money, increase my skills and wage, not owning a car to save on costs and doing everything on a bicycle up to 40km a day and still not being able to buy a house…I’m ready to throw in the towel
I don’t think my job is particularly inportant, but I’m definitely proud to do it. I work in repair at a small model train electronics producer. I fix the electronics for customers and also do a bit of customer support.
Unlike a lot of companies where you just get crappy outsourced call center support and if your thing’s broken you just get a new one (with all your settings reset of course), my company actually fixes people’s stuff. I love that I get to do that, and individually help people. It’s also stimulating because customers manage the weirdest things sometimes, and I get to figure out what, why, and how.
I definitely do. The companies’ key product for the last decade was developed by me.
I’m in tech sales as a SE. So it’s definitely not important. I’ve been in this job for almost a decade and as an engineer I hate the sales process. I have been skating by for a vast majority of my time in the job simply doing what I need to to “answer the mail.” My customers like me and know I’ll do what they need when they need it, but I’m not banging on doors to make the sale. The account has been successful the entire time I’ve been working it and my company pays me buckets of money. I think I’m proud of my work-to-income ratio but not of anything I actually do as part of the job.
I answer some emails, sit on calls while playing video games, and point people at other people to get answers. It’s mindless and boring and I’ll do it as long as they’ll let me.
I have a great job, I’m reaching the end of a successful career and I’m very happy with the choices I’ve made in my professional life.
But my job is NOT important and I’m not proud of it. I’m only proud of having the honesty to do what I’m paid to do well. Beyond that, my job is a means to an end: supporting my loved ones. They are what’s important. Nobody goes to their grave reflecting on what they did for a living.
Same. I write software for a company that nobody would miss if it never existed. I’d like to be more useful to society, but first I’ll make sure I have something saved up for my retirement.
Thats an interesting perspective, thank you.
Fire fighters, medical, teachers…
Military folks, scientists, artists…
One of these things is not like the others lmao
Open source developer.
I’d say it’s relatively unimportant in the greater scheme of things; nobody dies and the world would keep going even if I stopped.
But I’m mostly proud to do it and I enjoy working in the non-profit sector, especially since I don’t have an asshole boss or corporate interests to worry about.
On the flip side, I make less money than I would in the corporate space. But I suppose I value the freedom more than the money
The world needs more open-source software. Keep your head up king.
How did you get into this? I’ve been thinking about finding a different job but haven’t put real effort into it (yet). I’m currently a “senior” developer according to my boss, and I’m bored and annoyed by the commercial culture. Something open source sounds great if I also get paid but I highly doubt that that “senior” standard translates well.
I got into it by just committing to some projects in my free time. I built a relationship with the project, traveled to a few international sprints, and then eventually started working part time and gradually increased my involvement. I’m not sure how widely reproducible it is, to be honest, but it all starts with just getting into open source development and, like basically anything else, making personal connections in that scene. It’s highly dependent on the funding of the project, and unfortunately fundraising is the hard part of open source software development…
Plus, if you’re a senior developer, especially in the US, then you’ll probably be looking at decrease in pay to something around Euro developer rates. It’s hard to know if the long term prospects of this career are good, but I’m happy enough for now and I have a lot of agency. And it does feel good to know that you’re writing FOSS code for everyone to use. I would treat it like a passion-driven vocation of sorts.





