This is a complex of questions on the theme of ‘did you actually enjoy your job, and is this important?’
When you were earning to give, did you enjoy your day-to-day work and find it motivating and meaningful, even if you expected your largest impact to be from your donations? If not, was that difficult, and how did you deal with it? Is your impression that other EtG-ers had/have a similar experience? In general, is it important for EtG-ers to feel positive about their work, or can one compensate for a less good working life by focusing on the positive impact of one’s donations?
When you were earning to give, did you enjoy your day-to-day work and find it motivating and meaningful, even if you expected your largest impact to be from your donations?
Yes, I enjoyed it a lot. I like solving problems and doing good work, and in my various technical positions there’s been a lot of that.
Is your impression that other EtG-ers had/have a similar experience?
AGB: “I like my work. I get to work with incredibly sharp and motivated people. I get to work on a diverse array of intellectual challenges. Most of all, I’ve managed to land a career that bears an uncanny resemblance to what I do with my spare time; playing games, looking for inconsistencies in others’ beliefs, and exploiting that to win.”
I think people who don’t like their work should generally be thinking about whether there’s something else they’d like more—there are so many things you can do with your life that there’s probably something you’d like better.
[I’m married to Jeff.] As a counterpoint, around the same time Jeff was figuring out some of this earning to give stuff, I was having a crisis about whether I should also go into earning to give. I just couldn’t think of any high-earning career I thought I would be ~happy in, so I stuck with social work. And then it turned out that my skills were a lot more useful in EA community work than I had anticipated.
This is a complex of questions on the theme of ‘did you actually enjoy your job, and is this important?’
When you were earning to give, did you enjoy your day-to-day work and find it motivating and meaningful, even if you expected your largest impact to be from your donations? If not, was that difficult, and how did you deal with it? Is your impression that other EtG-ers had/have a similar experience? In general, is it important for EtG-ers to feel positive about their work, or can one compensate for a less good working life by focusing on the positive impact of one’s donations?
Yes, I enjoyed it a lot. I like solving problems and doing good work, and in my various technical positions there’s been a lot of that.
I do think that’s a common experience; ex:
I think people who don’t like their work should generally be thinking about whether there’s something else they’d like more—there are so many things you can do with your life that there’s probably something you’d like better.
[I’m married to Jeff.] As a counterpoint, around the same time Jeff was figuring out some of this earning to give stuff, I was having a crisis about whether I should also go into earning to give. I just couldn’t think of any high-earning career I thought I would be ~happy in, so I stuck with social work. And then it turned out that my skills were a lot more useful in EA community work than I had anticipated.