Age check!

About 10 years ago, when I realized that automating my job just means I get more work (when I share my automations). Now a days, I still share some of my automations, but I wrote and hoard scripts to make me look good (and also lets me write more scripts since it takes probably about as long as my mid-level coworkers).

Upside is I can look like an absolute wizard when I want to.

A professional is consistent and manages expectations. I believe my performance is much more liked because I’m incredibly consistent, smoothing out the highly productive days and blending them with the less productive ones.
This is it. You cant give it your all every day. Youll be filled to capacity every day and be miserable. Then those days / weeks where your work load increase, you turn it up to 11, hit all your deliverables, and look like a champ
I recorded a vim macro the other day that made me feel like a wizard

When I was about ten. Washed my uncle's Corvette without negotiating a price. I finished and the fucker didn't pay because "I didn't set a price before I started" or something to that effect. 10. Years. Old. I'm now almost 60 and still haven't forgot that. Hopefully I haven't turned into the ass he can be

People like that will do shit like that and then genuinely think "I thought them a valuable lesson." Like... no, arsehole, you just traumatised a kid for absolutely no reason and taught them that hard work doesn't pay.
- "Fuck you I got my single free car wash"
  Hope it was worth destroying his nephew's trust in him for life
I would throw mud on his car every time i saw him until he paid up.
Turns out "teaching someone a lesson" can go both ways.

Coming in from a European perspective. During my first real job, I wanted to impress my supervisor. I was working some overtime (much less than I did as a student). My supervisor started passing by my office between 4pm and 5pm, letting me know it was time to go home, there was no need to overdo it. He was great… often telling me how I was exceeding expectations, and that was great as long as I was keeping a good work life balance.

Socialised protections are amazing… I still work overtime at times, but only when I feel like it (and I still never report it), I only taken on the amount of work I feel I can reasonably do. I strive for efficiency, not overburdening myself.

eh.. havent figured it out yet tbh

Me 2. Read about it but something inside me still resists against really accepting this.
- Amen. Why should I be less good just because lots of other people suck?
- i refuse to accept a nihilistic stance on this tbh, i will keep doing me and if life wants to be a bitch about it she is free to give me her worst :p we shan’t buckle

As a person with ADHD. It feels like I always knew that working hard wouldn't get automatic rewards. Because no matter how hard I worked, I was never like the rst of the kids, and was always told I needed to try hardrr.

It’s honestly just who I am, I don’t understand moderation. I’m from the US and moved to Germany, and it’s exploited a lot less, which is nice, but I either give everything or nothing.

In a better world, being highly motivated to contribute to your neighborhood's well-being and improvement would result in... a nicer neighborhood with happier, healthier people living in it.
But now we're all just miners, digging up gold nuggets and hoping it means we get paid a fraction of their worth, with no regard to what this giant strip mine will do to the land we live in or our successors inherit.
Do you manage to get by with English or have you learnt German?
- I’d already learned German, but I did begin as an adult and I’ve got C2 German, so it’s not impossible.

16, 21, 27, 32, and 37. I just keep forgetting for some reason.

Still be really nice. It’s usually not too much effort, but is always appreciated, especially by those who need that niceness the most.

Doesn't it cost a dollar to be nice now?
- as if hating isn't free too 😂(j/k)

In school when I realized that the people who copied homework and cheated in exams could get the same grades as me with a quarter of the effort + everyone else gave you shit if you told on them and the teacher still didn’t change their grade because you have no proof.

School taught me how to be lazy. I had no idea or motivation to be lazy before I saw how much effort I was wasting.
I taught myself how to read before going to school and the reward was being placed in an empty classroom to read by myself when everyone else was learning how to spell. Unsupervised. Alone. "Sit here and read" Bitch I could do that at home wtf am I here for

Idk, doing all of that is how I went from a customer service agent to a senior IT engineer within 5 years.

You just have to know when to do that stuff and when to coast.

It's doable still. To be fair it was never automatic. But I would like to recognize that it's harder than it used to be.
__

I've known this on some level for decades, but it only really got through to me a few months ago. It was my 10 year anniversary at work, and no one even mentioned or acknowledged it. While it hurt at first, I've come to be deeply grateful for it. It really freed me of the last vestiges of magical thinking like in OP. Now, I do the absolute minimum and if they fire me, fine by me too. So freeing.

I’m not nice for someone else, I’m nice for myself. I like being nice to people, it makes me feel good, and that’s why I do it.

I’ve got a parent who’s incredibly selfish, narcissistic and evil. After processing the years of trauma he’s inflicted, I’ve realized all I want to be is a nice and genuine person. I want people to experience warmth and happiness, cause a life without it is not worth it.

It's nice to be nice!
I don't even like being mean in roleplaying games lol
- aren't we all roleplaying in the stage that is real life?

I don’t expect rewards for being nice. I just want to be nice.

I’m bad at it though, but at least I’m trying my best.

Preteens. My mom worked her ass off and we lived in poverty.

Half a year ago years old. I'm doing over 20 years in software engineering now. And apparently will have to repeat the lesson eventually.

I was always told asking makes you seem entitled and you should do the work without complaint. Now I believe that yeah I am entitled to something. Still don’t say though and just grumble under my breath

insight is the first step to progress. congratulations :)

The right people will recognize and appreciate your efforts. Of course there are those that will try to take advantage of you, so you need to either learn to say “no” or pace your work to appear busy when they ask for more.

If I continue to be nice and work hard, it’s because I hold myself to certain standards and won’t let ungrateful people worsen me.

I'm 42 and it has worked out pretty well so far, honestly.

I joined the military, got good reviews (called "marks" for us), and tested well when I tried. Now I make good money, have the support of a lot of people in different departments and largely able to work on the projects I want, have gotten my #1 pick for station every time I have had to transfer, and will be retiring in 4 years with a bunch of ties to the community to keep me involved with things I enjoy after.

I get a lot of this is luck, and privilege (e.g. not everybody can join the military), and other factors. And regardless how hard I worked, many things ended up being popularity contests, so I missed some opportunties that way. But at no point did I feel like being nice and hardworking worked anything but in my own favor.

Most work places aren't as socialized as the military, but your experience is still valid.
Yeah, I don't know if it was my time in or what, but I came to the conclusion one day that we should just do a good job for the sake of doing a good job, and stop expecting people to fellate you for it. And I'm saying this having benefitted time and again from just doing a good job. There are times I did and times I didn't, but I'm at a point where I won't feel satisfied if I don't do it right. Maybe I'm just old now.
Somewhat similar for me. I get my choice of positions at work because I can do every single one better than most everyone else. I play nice(but not too nice) so they're willing to be flexible. Of course, sometimes management tries some shit, but that's what the union is for.
But overall, I get more hours (which I want) because I work hard, and the positions I want. I'm aware it's luck with my management team, but it's still great

19 as an army conscript. Never volunteer, never be first, but also never be last. Never let your friends or colleagues do your work tho', always lift your share. Always have your friends back, never trow blame aroud out loud, nd never trust those who are willing to stab others in the back. Lost honor and trust can never be fully regained.

30ish. Working for a company that wouldn't let me move to their QA department because they "needed me more where I was" even though the manager of QA wanted me. The QA department didn't have anyone that knew how my department worked so they had never done any QA checks on us. Would have been a pay bump and no after hours support rotation. I got another job and they asked what they could do to avoid my leaving, and I said if they had done it then I wouldn't be leaving.

Narrator: and they didn't learn they lesson...

Career wise? The two metrics that matter is how well liked you are and how valuable you are perceived to be. Actually working hard and being nice can contribute to being well liked at work, and sometimes can increase one's own perceived value to the employer. But being nice and working hard aren't going to be rewarded in themselves.

I'm nice to people because it's the right thing to do. But it also has generally made me well liked my whole life. So I've never had trouble negotiating above-market pay for my jobs.

And I used to work hard when the situation called for it. Which isn't all situations. Most of my jobs had clients or customers, so doing right by them was usually more important to me than doing something right for the employer actually paying my salary.

But I also advocated for myself, made sure that a significant chunk of the "working hard" I did was towards actually documenting my value, or getting recognized for current contributions, and building my reputation for having the right skillsets and problem solving ability for future assignments.

Plus luck always plays a big role. Similarly situated workers at a booming/growing company paying out a bunch of bonuses, versus a failing company choosing which workers to lay off, are going to see very different results even if they're equally perceived. Much of my own success is simple luck of timing, right place/right time type stuff. If I were born 5 years earlier or 5 years later, or simply 500 miles away from my place of birth, I think I would've been struggling a lot more.

Perception is so huge. Pre-pandemic, just looking around I assumed I was layoff-proof, but I got the axe anyway.
Last I heard there are two engineers and one manager sharing my old duties. 🙃
- So many people got hit by a layoff during the pandemic it bet it opened lots of eyes. Mine included.
  I was recruited to an ISP for my knowledge but my metrics were against new customer activations. I specialized in trouble calls so customer satisfaction. I bet I was one of the first to cut when they needed to tighten the belt.
  One thing thst are me feel better is half the managers got cut too.

I was working 80-100 hour weeks and they refused to give me a raise or promote me.

I never figured it out, I just burned out so hard that I burned my bridges with the people who were abusing my time and willingness to help.

It's a shame they were also paying me, but at least now my mental health is slowly recovering.

But you do get rewarded!......with more work.

A kid. Probably around 10 or so. I don't ever remember planning that, in fact my goals were to have a good work life balance and trying to be myself as much as possible, even if that meant being a bitch to people. Within reason of course, not taking advantage of others.

Ok honestly I never worked hard, because I couldn't ever work harder than possible. So birth?

I always take on much more than I should because thats apparently at least 2 things. So 34

But being really nice just feels better. So when I die.

Something like twelve. I saw how miserable everyone around me was and knew it was a crock of shit.

Around 4 years into my working life. By then I was 2 years into my second job. That’s when I realized I should be working the equivalent of what I was being paid, not more.

Edit: I remember the exact moment now! Someone in HR fucked up and emailed a spreadsheet of everyone’s salaries to the entire company. Seeing my pay compared to other people was the eye opener.

I had the good fortune to be influenced by the slackers of the preceding generation, so my plan was always to do the minimum amount of work and take on as little as possible.

Praise Bob Dobbs

About 15 years ago when I went to work for a small company that promised me the ability to earn ownership shares but they never delivered.

I have since figured out a better approach that I wish I could discuss openly without making people mad at me.

edit: I'm still trying to be a good person and participate in community and not be a shithead to people. I just don't play the same capitalism eat-your-young game anymore.

this post has enlightened me 🗿🤯🌀✨🪬

40s. Very naive. Thought businesses cared about their employees. Now i realize they need little excuse snd milk the workers and never take a loss in favor of employees. Losses or lack of leadership ends up with golden parachutes and raising prices. Honesty is out the window in the world we live in today.

Honesty is out the window in the world we live in today
be the change you want to see in the world

Basically never had that. I’m nice because why wouldn’t I be? And I don’t overwork myself because on the occasions that I did it only ever hurt me while some manager who underpaid me already got all the benefits. I do put in a lot of effort when I helping a friend or something and they really needed it and that was its own reward(but still take care of yourself, you can’t help others if you’re broken).

I don’t think it’s a brag, I think it’s just the AuDHD making it so I spend more time than most asking questions that authorities don’t like and my parents, especially my mom, were pretty decent about not being dictators who might send me the other direction toward a trauma response(which is valid and I have great sympathy for those that got put on that path).

There are ways out of it, but we gotta keep pushing and people who are lucky to be like myself need to make sure we stick up for those who don’t have this automatic response. It’s a privilege and using it just for ourselves will not only not fix anything but it will also, if you need a selfish reason, continue the trend of abuse that bad, defensive managers and the like will dump on us for just asking questions at our jobs.

I'm almost there. Everything I've worked hard has blown up in my face so far. It's getting harder and harder to convince myself that there's light at the end of the tunnel, especially since society is about to collapse

As in work wise? I am aware for as long as I could remember to not always put in more than one hundred percent into a workplace. I have always heard of stories of companies and employers abusing their employees, despite said employees having done more than they were asked for. Twenty years service is not always rewarded well. Many senior workers are intentionally sidelined or underpaid to make them to quit; because it is cheaper for employers to hire new, cheaper workers than keep those with decades of experience.

More often, going the extra mile is not even about getting recognition for some individuals. Some people are workaholic to distract themselves from their personal issues outside of work.

There must be places where that behaviour is rewarded. The question is how to find them.

I was really fortunate to be raised by parents who knew that was bullshit brainwash propaganda. Thanks mom and dad! You aren't perfect but hey nobody is. Love you both!

Um, I began falling apart about 11 years ago, but it got really bad over the past few years. I can specifically remember being in therapy over the holidays and coming to this exact realization. Like, I knew it before that, but that was the day that I, like, really felt it. I'm in my early forties.

Early 20s. Almost 40 now.

Wage disparity is getting worse and it's getting harder to get those companies to give those upgrades. They're doing the opposite and just firing people to shed money for reports that make record numbers.

Decent companies that reward people for hard work still exist. But they're no longer the default. You're not going to get this in a cafe or in a fast food job or anything like that, It's going to have to be a skilled labor job in a corporation run by someone who's not a greedy monster which can be kind of a hard find these days.

You're going to need to be pleasant to be around, You might need to brown nose a little bit. Your may you need to point out to your boss that you're doing a good job, don't be afraid to point out your accomplishments.

If you put in the hours and work hard and can't get anywhere change jobs. When your interviewing for new jobs openly point out that you work hard and you're looking for compensation for that. If that hiring manager smirks or makes a face you don't want to work there. Remember your interviewing them maybe even more so than their interviewing you if you already have a job.

10, maybe 12.

Same here, guess my puberty revolt was about me not getting rewarded for doing my best and being nice all the time. Fuck you world, you suck. Good thing I eventually came to see you have to be the good you want to see if you want to be ok with living in in this world.

About 8 maybe 10 at the latest

Middle-school. Not even joking. There are some really shitty people out there. Did a speed run of that life lesson.

Mid-thirties. But I played it cool until I finished grad school. Then moved out to start my new life.

Ive done some form of construction off and on since 12 now I'm in tech, but,working for a cable company we had 90 min including drive time to perform a 75 point quality check/fix, and fix the problem the customer has plus fix the last techs work. Became clear the name of the game was to get in and get out, make it as good as possible and don't get caught with the things you didnt do. They don't care about any of us, the customer or the employee. Just help the customer as well as you can.

don't know, I am still nice to people, want to work really hard and sometimes take more than enough work, But now I have clear boundaries & expectations, don't put up with some people's bullshit and plan well.