----- Original Message ----- From: "Bob Blick" To: "Microcontroller discussion list - Public." Sent: Monday, May 10, 2010 4:16 AM Subject: Re: [OT] Job satisfaction or money? > On Mon, 10 May 2010 03:27:54 +0100, "Oli Glaser" said: >> Feeling of fufillment/achievement? To take an extreme example - If >> someone >> offered you a tech job on the forthcoming mission to mars(*insert dream >> job >> as appropriate) but told you it would earn you 30% less than your current >> job at supermarket x, that (IMHO) would be worth a pay cut. For me, music >> is/has been one of my main earners and the money (honestly) was never >> very >> important because I loved the job so much, the whole experience was the >> driving factor. In the end of the day what we enjoy or are satisfied by > > Interesting. I don't think working on someone elses projects would ever > qualify as my dream job. It would essentially be working on someone > elses dream. > > It doesn't matter if I am "creative" in the job or not, if I'm working > on my own projects it is fulfilling. If it's someone elses "dream", it's > not mine. > > I've been a working musician, too, same thing. Unless it's my music, > it's not as fun. In fact, it sort of ruins it. Think how unfulfilled > George Harrison felt after all those years of only getting one song per > album. And he was in the Beatles. > > So would I take a 30% cut if I got to do my own stuff? Yes. Otherwise, > no. > I'm completely with you on that one Bob. For me, it would also have to be my own "dream", but that wouldn't exclude sharing a common dream with others. This is exactly why I am self employed, so I can have full control over my own projects and I know exactly who's to blame when it doesn't work, a kind of "if you want something doing properly do it yourself" approach. It's not that I can't work with others, in fact I enjoy it, but that "business" often gets in the way of creativity and corporate environments can be mind-numbing places, and the level of detachment in most companies nowadays completely obliterates any idea of personal project or achievement. Indeed, sometimes you may not even know what the finished "product" will be. I think Marx hit a few nails on the head in his Theory of Alienation (although Chaplin in Modern Times didn't do a bad job either :-) With the music I always did my own stuff, the thought of anything else was alien to me. I suppose the furthest I got down the other road was session work and teaching. On the Beatles front, the one song per album George Harrison wrote was usually pretty good though, so maybe he felt fulfilled in that respect - at least he wasn't Ringo :-) My main point was that it's different people, different aspirations, different outlook etc, so I don't think there are any hard and fast rules to go by. -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist