Comment by apt-apt-apt-apt
13 hours ago
OP sounds like the ideal employee who works 8 hours, then spends 4 more hours/weekends learning and working at home.
For people who like doing other things, work already takes up most of their time and energy 5/7 days, and there doesn't seem to be much time for much else.
> OP sounds like the ideal employee who works 8 hours, then spends 4 more hours/weekends learning and working at home.
Be careful of calling this an ideal employee.
I, for example, tend to have a little bit of such a schedule, but what I work on at home is so much more exciting, making the job much more frustrating in comparison. Also, one is typically not allowed (or it is not possible) to apply all the really good ideas that one tested/implemented for the home projects at work.
Thus, the kind of employees who apply such a pattern are often very, very passionate about programming - but this kind of passion often makes them
- more frustrated at work (i.e. they might be cynical),
- less subservient (they often know better - from their "night work" - that a requirement makes no sense, and may be vocal about it),
- very opinionated about their "technological taste", not necessarily fitting the technological taste that the employer would love to see in the work (they have seen a lot more programming techniques).
Wow, this sounds familiar. The quality of work that can be done at home is often not realistic at work... and vice versa. I've learned to separate work and play pretty well and have enjoyed both worlds.
The next step is keeping the homelab at arm's length from stuff you actually depend on. My pfsense router Just Works with tons of cool stuff on it but if I get the itch to push it a bit further... walk away and make a VM in the shed!
Yeah ideal employee indeed. Learning things at home to add value to the employer.
But the skill and experience stick with you for lifetime.
One thing I've learned: We all give the same execuse, "Not enough time". The two biggest I hear is working out and meditation.
You have all the time in the world, what you don't have is priorities.
One can deprioritise health but what does it bring long time? I know it sounds cliche, so I will add that sometimes sacrificing health a little bit is worth pondering.
Yes, but also no.
I have a prioritised list, it's simply that not everything fits inside the list, because my time is limited.
Instead of "Not enough time" we could say "This is not high enough a priority".