What I Want to Pursue in Work

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Although I have written about work in my Annual Review since 2022, the last article dedicated to work and career reflection was this one: Reviewing My First Three Years as a Software Engineer. I suddenly realized that another three years have passed, which is a good timing to write again.

Recently, the days of cutting pumpkins every day in Australia have been almost two months. The initial freshness has faded, and the passage of time has become slow after getting used to the process. The fatigue and damage caused by long-term high-intensity labor also began to accumulate. The thumb, index finger and middle finger of my hands are now in a state of numbness and pain at any time. Even typing on the keyboard feels like being electrocuted by tiny currents.

Although the body is tired, the psychological pressure is much less. After all, every day I just go to work to cut pumpkins or process other fruits and vegetables, following the orders and supervisor's arrangement. After work, I don't need to think about work at all.

The salary is not low either. After deducting daily expenses and going out on weekends, I can still save more money than in Taiwan. Part of it is also because I don't buy too many things here, fearing that I can't take them away when leave.

My mentality tends to be comfortable, thinking that work is doing repetitive things day after day. From a general direction, maybe work is like this, but assembly line work is still too boring for me, and the growth curve and replaceability are also too high.

This is also true for most backpackers here, so everyone is working here just to get the visa qualification for the second or third year like me.

After staying for three months to get the second-year visa qualification, I will leave this factory. These three months are a short break and experience for me (spiritually only, because cutting pumpkins is really tiring).

Visa and Identity

The first point is also the most unpretentious point, "Visa and Identity".

I still want to work in Japan. Under this major premise, other items described later have to be ranked behind. This is also one reason why I could hold on as a software engineer before, but the software industry environment continues to be in a cold winter, and I need to continue to explore other opportunities that may get a work visa.

In Australia (or most countries), due to the recent policy shift towards anti-immigration, employer sponsorship has become difficult, and work visas are becoming harder and harder to issue.

Money

Money is not the most important but also the second most important part of work. When I first entered the society, I was deceived by words like "learning", "accumulating experience" and "sense of mission". Now I know that most jobs that don't pay enough are just shitty jobs. Unless it is to start a business together or there is really a strong relevance, one should not waste one's life to wrong oneself to achieve others' careers.

Then how much money is needed? Of course, the more the better, but reality will not always be satisfactory. Salary growth will definitely stagnate. After that, the effort required for a raise will be very much, but I am not sure to what extent my future life status and career choices will make me willing to work hard.

Thinking back to the previous pursuit of higher salary, rather than improving my life, it was more like not wanting to lose to others. Out of self-esteem or comparison mentality, I didn't allow my salary to be lower than a certain number, but actually it was quite meaningless.

"What is self-esteem! It's just self and esteem!" ── From "A Cheerful Gang Turns the Earth" by Kotaro Isaka

Isaka mentioned self-esteem many times in this novel, mainly describing a character who is very good at apologizing. later, roughly used this sentence to end the discussion on self-esteem. It's a bit nonsensical but I quite like it.

Compared to how much you earn, how much you can save is real.

Working as a software engineer in Taiwan, I feel that the pressure and anxiety brought by work made me have a lot of unnecessary expenses. Now cutting pumpkins in Australia, my mood is quite calm, and actually I don't want to spend money when I have nothing to do.

Of course, there are no concerts, pop-up stores or other things that induce me to consume here is also a reason why I can save more money, but I found that I don't need them as much as before to support me to continue working.

The relationship between work and money, I quite like the current state. hope that after ending these two years of working holiday life, my next full-time job can also continue to maintain it.

Finally, regarding thinking about money, I also want to recommend Huli's thinking on money in Currently oscillating 29. It may not give an answer, but the thinking process is very enjoyable to watch.

Great Connections

When I switched from insurance sales to programming before, I wrote "I like contact with people, but I don't want contact with people at work", but after these years, I found that I still like the feeling of working with people.

The companies I stayed in these years didn't have many colleagues. The last one had more, but due to the result of merging multiple companies, felt there was still some tension between colleagues belonging to different subsidiaries.

When I was job hunting, I asked headhunters many times to find companies with more people, but maybe due to salary requirements, own ability and environment, the teams were quite exquisite. This time coming to the factory and suddenly working with a bunch of backpackers, only then did I realize how much I like working with a bunch of people.

I thought so when I was a salesperson before, I think it was just a side effect of "selling insurance", not that I really hate interacting with people at work.

In past work experience, although the team was not big, I also often coordinated the relationship between colleagues in the team, helped ease the tension between more senior engineers and PMs, and also went to know BD, sales, marketing, PR and other roles related to the product I was developing, hoping everyone wouldn't have too much friction in the process of software product development. (I consider myself a software engineer who is easy to communicate with, and very willing to understand the difficulties of each position and find ways to discuss with the supervisor and reflect on the product. If I feel too good about myself, I apologize to the partners I have worked with before)

Realizing again how important people are to me is quite a novel discovery. I don't like relationships where we don't know each other after work. After all, work takes up a large part of life, and we are almost together on weekdays (unless working from home, but I usually don't want to be alone at home so run to a cafe to work).

However, there will definitely not only be colleagues who get along well in the workplace. No matter how small the workplace is, there will still be people who don't get along. Like now I am in the pumpkin room, usually four people, there is also a Japanese and a teenager who make me very uncomfortable when I work, but besides that, there are still other great colleagues supporting my daily work.

Can only say that having people you hate makes people you like exist. If you like everyone and hate no one, then maybe you haven't figured out what you like at all.

Peace of Mind

Many software I have developed seem to have little value to me, so if I get high income from it, I often feel very uneasy. Someone willing to pay me this money is good, I also want to make money easily, but I also know that many people are making hard money, sometimes I still feel why me.

I have also posted many times on social media saying that I look down on the chaos of online courses in Taiwan, and many software engineers or people from nowhere are opening some programming courses that are obviously cutting leeks, making some mentor programs that are out of touch with the industry, or selling desire for digital nomads like direct sales.

Online courses, mentor programs and digital nomads can all be great things, but I see many people are just targeting newcomers in the industry, those hesitant novices, providing flashy but impractical things. I really look down on them. Although can make a sum of money, I feel I can't do it with peace of mind.

As a result, just this week, Vibe Coder, who can't write code but teaches everyone to write code, exploded. He didn't figure out Token and directly opened the tool written by Google AI Studio for him, letting everyone use his AI tool and the result was deducted from his account. Seeing many industry insiders laughing and crying at the same time, also felt a bit sad, after all, quite a few people took his course.

In contrast, the labor work of cutting pumpkins now makes me feel very at ease with the money I earn, because it is really hard and tired. I feel I am worthy of every penny I earn.

However, I didn't want to specially choose this kind of work that is tired enough to doubt life. Just besides money, I hope what I can earn at work is also peace of mind.

Influence

In my 2022→2023 annual review Written at the end: Why should exert own influence, posting Irene's sentence again here:

Exerting one's influence is attempting to build the compound interest of one's ideal world. The biggest punishment for people who only care about themselves is getting more and more terrible people (in their own values).

This is also a paragraph that allows me to insist on writing newsletters and outputting.

Just a while ago I also read the article written by Vincent "Influence: An Infinite Game Worth Pursuing in Life", felt it was written too well. Beg everyone to read the full text. Directly quoting his conclusion here:

If one day you replace a certain framework in my article with your color and tone, and influence another group of people, then even if I just lie on the sofa at home drinking beer and watching Netflix after retirement, I will laugh out loud happily. This chain of influencing life with life is the infinite game I am willing to play for a lifetime.

Finally adding a little story. When I finally finished the Ministry of Science and Technology's college student research project thesis in the year of delayed graduation, due to career planning, I couldn't continue to study sociology. At that time, I said a bit childishly to Professor Gao of Sociology who guided me at that time: "I want to change the world". He first asked me which world I wanted to change, and then told me just start from the people around me first. The people around me will then influence others, so that something will slowly change.

Conclusion: Become Strong

This article is what the current me hopes to pursue in future work. I still have a long, long time to work. Thoughts deemed to change. Writing this article is also to let future me come back and see how I used to view work.

I really like what Ya-Xuan shared on Twitter "A dream without action is not a real dream, just a wish." (Original source: lazy ambitious. the worst kind of stuck.)

What I said so far may be a bit too idealistic. If I am too comfortable and don't continue to explore or act, those will eventually be just "wishes".

If want to be able to pursue these at work, I also have to be strong enough. Just like when I wrote Expectations for 2024 before, "Making yourself strong is the only way to solve problems". Having ideals but no power to realize them is more uncomfortable than having no ideals.

At least visa, money, influence, etc. all need strong work ability to support.

Future work may not be as monotonous and with a short growth curve as the fruit and vegetable factory, but it will also be day after day. Quite like the excerpt of 《Face it: you're a crazy person》 shared in ExplainThis "When something you do is bitter for others, but neither bitter nor ever boring for you, investing in this thing will allow you to gradually accumulate advantages in that field that others cannot reach." And cited doctors constantly operating for thirty or forty years, and teachers constantly explaining similar textbook contents for thirty or forty years as examples.

I am not sure if software engineer is that thing for me. Currently think it brings me too much bitterness, but in these two years perhaps may also feel that software engineer is already relatively not bitter. I didn't know how lucky I was before.

I also have a target job that has been in my heart for many years, but I didn't execute it with high intensity like work, and I couldn't get a work visa and succeed or die trying, so I am also continuing to fight and walk, and try it out while I have a little margin in these two years.

Finally, if anyone thinks of articles, books or videos about "work" written by others that are very good, please recommend them to me!