> getting dinged for "being unproductive for a month" during performance review

I don’t think I could have lived with that if that was done to me. I’d either resign on the spot or shortly after.

Without divulging specifics, around the same time something happened in my personal life. I needed, and family members who depended on me needed, the money and stability.

A bruised ego is a small price to pay for the safety of my family and dependents, so I will learn to live with it. Because I can live with it. I can live with it. dang, erase that GP.[0]

[0] With apologies to _In The Pale Moonlight_

Yeah, that sucks. I’m in the position now where I’d likely be fine until I found a new position, so the equation changes a bit.

Either way, I don’t expect my current employer to do something like that :)

I find it helps to be cynical in these situations.

> I felt bummed out nonetheless.

Why? Don't get emotionally involved with work done for the company. They want to toss it? Why give moments care. Your time wasn't wasted. It was done doing what they asked in exchange for pay. That's it.

>_That_ I could live with, but getting dinged for "being unproductive for a month" during performance review, now that really stung.

And that's why, you shouldn't care or get emotionally involved in the work you create for the company. The company clearly, demonstrably doesn't care about you. They do not care about you. Why should you care deeply about work you create for them?

It's ultimately not good for the spirit. Yes, some people can tolerate the bullshit. Likewise, there are people who are willing to be poop divers for sewage treatment plants (though this is an imperfect analogy I want not to offend those who are fine doing far less meaningful work). This doesn't mean everyone can or should be poop divers.

Sure, everyone should be prepared to tolerate a level of meaningless and nonsense in the corporate world. I fully agree that one should not become too invested in work that ultimately serves the company.

Nevertheless, if humans were meant to live as sysipheans, by now we would have found more straight-forward ways of doing so, and we might even take pride in doing pointless work. Yet few if anyone is openly proud of doing nothing and still getting paid even when there's no social recourse. Naturally, when enough time passes and a person has yet to be able to actually contribute to the system, they are liable to be alienated. And why shouldn't they? If they can sit around for months or years being practically useless while still having to trade one's finite time for the privilege of food and shelter, there may be a breaking point where they can't make logical sense of the situation anymore. Where's the excitement? For many, we spend more hours at work than at home, especially if you discount sleep, and those hours are usually tired. That time at work had better mean at least something at some point; how is one then supposed to feel when they've reached senior status and... the situation is exactly the same or quite possibly worse?

It would be nice if humans could get more fulfillment out of their personal lives, but that usually doesn't come by default and rather requires considerable work on top of one's day job; family, friends, and social status all require work, and may of us don't even have adequate time for those. Is it reasonable to put a sapient mind through the anguish of being irrelevant in nearly every aspect of their lives for the promise of a distant retirement and expect them to not feel a sense of disengagement because the world is constructed in such a ridiculous fashion?

This isn't to say that you are entirely wrong, but I have to wonder if you believe that in every fiber of your being, because otherwise you could have been a burger flipper or a circus clown instead of the occupation that brings you to HN. I assume that you have a set of skills that came to you at least somewhat naturally, and that if you were unable to ever properly execute those skills that those skills (and thereby you) would seem worthless to yourself.

In my personal opinion, life is way too short to deal with meaninglessness for extended periods. If your job continues to be meaningless after years of experience, chances are you are doing the wrong thing and can benefit from a course correction.

What you're saying makes sense, but sentiment like this makes me long for a post-capitalist conception of work where everything's not purely transactional and we can do meaningful work that we feel proud of. I think artisans or craftspeople had that historically and it's something we require to feel fulfilled.