I found a nice quiet job in a lab that’s like this. No one fucks with me, some days I’m completely by myself, but the one drawback I’ve discovered is I find myself getting stuck in my own head a lot. Sometimes I have to go find something or someone to distract me.
Buddy of mine was a night janitor during college. I had to help him a few times, and it wasn’t a bad gig, run around and vacuum, mop some stuff, take out the trash. Dude listened to music the whole time and basically never saw anyone. Sometimes I kinda want to quit doing software just to do night janitoring.
And you can! Chase the dream!
While it was kinda fun “mindless” work, I just bought a house and need my software developer pay to keep the house.
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Why did you need to help him?
He was one of 2 people that would clean like 4 buildings. Sometimes the other person wouldn’t show up (or one time his boss was arrested and given 22 years) and sometimes he’d call me to be the other janitor (sometimes he’d just do the job solo and keep the extra cash).
My bro is a dishie and never changed jobs once. I always used to try and push him to study or get into a career and would bang on about having a ‘respectable job’ - now im fantasising about listening to music while washing dishes all day
Yeah, at times just having a nice simpler job sounds nice. Not needing to deal with stupid error messages and poorly documented libraries.
Never wanted to climb the ladder, but it was the only way I could really get better pay.
The higher I go, the more I can’t stand the conversations. Being straightforward is a career killer. Competing with folks that talk big without knowledge, knowing I need to carefully balance working with them while making sure my ass is documented and covered for any blame when they screw up and want to throw someone under the bus.
I have generally still loved talking to the “grunts” and customers. People who have real problems and doing real stuff without so much office politic crap going on. Not people trying to write blog posts to try to sound smart without actually doing anything or actually knowing the material.
I dunno I thought I wanted this and took a job at a datacenter
Some days I don’t even interact with another human
5 years into this and it’s completely killed my social skills and therefore social life, im thinking about moving on for this reason actually
I had the job shelving books. I’d show up in a button-up shirt and slacks and I could shove all day with no problem at all. No one would bother me. I’d show up in ripped jeans, a Metallica t-shirt, and 4 years since my last haircut and people would ask me for help every moment of the day. Libraries are weird.
Good example of outfits sending signals.
Slacks and a button-up probably made you look like management just out picking up slack, and people subconsciously left you alone - “oh, they’re probably really busy with management stuff and also had to go shelve books… I’ll leave them alone”
Casual clothes in contrast would have signalled “worker” - “I’ll just go ask that person, it’s not like they’re doing anything important, they’re just shelving books!”
It probably didn’t help that I was a 17-year-old that looked like I was in my late twenties.
I’ve climbed the corporate ladder and traveled all over the world until I got near the top where the nepotism is thick. Said ‘fuck that’ and bailed out early.
New plan: “Work for myself.” Took me a decade to get here because of little things like health care and capital.
Been on my own for almost 2 years now and it is glorious.
The job you are looking for at 38 is Page but like every job within the library system. It pays worse than teaching for the no-exceptions required-education
Have a colleague who went from over $300k/year to like a $50k/year job. Basically something to vaguely keep the lights on while his savings took care of itself. Way too young to retire, but he figures he can be ok with his savings and bonuses he had over his high paying career.
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almost all my friends dream of this. ideally, communes start with a community buying land and building infrastructure, which gets pricier each day 😌 I’ll settle for an RV at this point
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I’m 40 and getting my massage therapy license out of nowhere. Similar line of thinking.
I actually started climbing the ladder and to be honest, I fucking hate it and am looking for a way out. I have never dealt with so many people that are willing to sacrifice their own dignity to be a sycophant for the sake of money.

Get your library science degree now, there are only a few accredited programs. I thought about doing this earlier this year and was surprised at how complicated it actually was to become a librarian.
I’m guessing this is a common thought or feeling for most in a dissonant corporate world.
Yeah, feel the same since the great slopification of the internet and also my job…
You could go check for bugs in tea shipments…






