you-fired.jpgWarning! This is another long personal rant about having a full time job. Browse away now if you don’t want to be hit be torrents of negativity, complaints and my dissatisfaction.

1. Trading time for money is stupid

That’s what I’m doing day in, day out. Giving my time to a company in exchange for money is plain stupid. I’ve been doing this for more than 10 years. That’s 10 years of my life sold to the highest bidder.

2. Experience? What experience?
I used to argue (to convince myself) that the longer I work in the tech industry the more experience I gain. The more experience I gain, the more marketable I become. The more marketable I become, the higher the salary I can demand. However, the tech industry is always changing. For example, I used to be quite proficient in COBOL (COmmon Business Oriented Language). I found debugging and fixing COBOL problems easily. That knowledge is almost obsolete by today’s standard as only certain banks and finance institute are still using it. So, I had to learn newer languages such as Visual Basic, Delphi, C++ and Java. All that knowledge went out the window as I became a PHP programmer which is yet another programming language that I had to learn. I have programmed in PHP for more than 6 years and have now reached the same profieciency as my original COBOL programming skills. Of course, certain foundations in programming languages are the same so learning a new language for an old programmer like me is a little easier. But in the end, I see all my programming ‘experience’ as useless. For example, right now, my PHP skills will be again wasted when I have to be relearn another ‘hot’ language - Java.

You can gain experience in life just by doing anything long enough. Whether that experience is useful or not is another matter. What life skills is improved by becoming a programmer expert? I’d rather be experienced and skilled in ‘debugging’ life’s problem instead of debugging someone else’s registration form that’s not cross browser compatible. Sure, when I’m 60 years old and gray I’m sure my Java skill will come in handy.

3. No time for family
I made the mistake of not taking time off work to visit my maternal grandmother when she was ill. I had work deadlines and told myself if I work hard enough and get a raise I can go back to my hometown in good conscience to see my grandmother. But unfortunately, she passed away. I took the leave from work anyway … to attend her funeral. I wished so hard now that I took the leave early to see her one last time. What’s worse is some time back, my paternal grandmother got diagnosed with cancer but she was in Australia. The plane ticket there was expensive I didn’t have enough money, so my father went instead to see her.

Again I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye. It hurts because after all these years of working I didn’t have enough in my savings to buy a plane ticket there to see my grandmother. That’s simply pathethic.

Sure, I got a raise a few months after that, and if it was today, I can afford to get that plane ticket. But an extra RM 300 increment is a sad replacement for lost opportunity to see my grandma one last time.

You can understand why finding alternatives to a full time job like getting passive income via websites has become such an obsession to me. I want to earn money 24/7. I want to have enough money for my family in case of emergencies. I want to make and save enough money to have a secure future.

4. Full time job is a prison
I look around my office and I all I see are prisoners. You get disciplined for bad behaviour. Coming in late for work gets you warning letters. Not meeting sales target and you are under the threat of getting fired. 9 am you come in to work and do hard labour. Instead of breaking rock, you are hacking away at bugs in some stupid code written by some other programmer. There’s someone holding a whip to ensure you are motivated to finish your work on time. It is stressful but as a prisoner you get used to it. Come 6 pm and there is finally relief! You get to punch out, stop work, and go back to your “cell” or house to rest. You are too tired to really have quality time with your family. You have dinner and watch a bit of TV - then fall asleep. This goes on 5 days a week. I have a wife but I’m not spending enough time with her. Because of my preoccupation with learning new programming languages and spending overtime (without getting paid) in the office, I fear I WILL actually lose her one day. You can’t keep a wife when you are in prison.

And … oh.. Boss, if you are reading this, do me a favour

PLEASE FIRE ME!!

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