I Treat This Job as a Hobby
Disclaimer — In my previous post, I portrayed myself as a model family man who manages his emotions for the sake of his loved ones. However, I honestly cannot live like a saint every single day. In this chapter, I would like to share a slightly twisted and secret imagination of mine. This might not be my actual story. It might just be a self-hypnosis protocol I execute every morning in front of the mirror. I will leave the judgment to you, but please remember that this is a work of fiction.
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In the office pantry, a colleague sighs deeply as if the ground is about to swallow him. He asks how I stay so calm and worries that our team might fall apart if this project fails. I stir my instant coffee exactly 17 times. This is a necessary ritual to reduce the entropy of my mind. I answer him with a beaming smile and say that I just come to this company as a hobby.
My colleague’s eyes widen. He probably wonders if I am secretly rich or if I hit the jackpot with crypto.
That is a complete misunderstanding. The protagonist of this fiction does not own a house in Seoul, and the deadline for my credit line is fast approaching. My monthly paycheck barely grazes my bank account before vanishing. If you look at my balance sheet, I am a subsistence-level wage slave who needs this job more desperately than anyone else.
Even so, I brazenly declare that this company is my sophisticated hobby.
This is not just a bluff or a hollow mental victory. It is a highly advanced virtualization technology. It is designed to prevent my life’s operating system from being devoured by the massive system known as Capitalism.
The logic is simple. A hobby is something you pay to do. You pay 50 dollars a month to lift weights at the gym and hundreds to hit balls at a golf course. Because you are the one paying, the initiative belongs entirely to you.
But this hobby called "Company" is quite bizarre. I play a game called Business and toy around with vast capital and infrastructure, and I actually get paid for it. I use the company’s high-performance MacBook as if it were my own. I enjoy the powerful air conditioning and charge my phone with the company’s electricity. They even let me go on gourmet tours with the corporate card during lunch.
At this point, I wonder if the company is really an employer paying me a salary. It feels more like a gullible service provider begging me to come and play while handing me cash to do so.
There is a development concept called Dependency Injection.
When System A requires System B to function, we say A depends on B. Many office workers heavily inject the dependency of the [Job] object into their [Self-Esteem] object. Because of this, their ego collapses when the company shakes. Their boss's evaluation becomes their own personal value. This is a Tight Coupling state, and it is a very dangerous and fragile structure.
I decided to sever this dependency.
The moment I think I have no choice but to work for the money, I degrade into a Resource of the system. Fear dominates me, and I walk on eggshells to avoid being fired. Because I only make safe choices, my performance actually drops, and I become an unappealing spare part.
On the other hand, the structure of Permission flips if I define work as my hobby.
A hobby is something I do because I like it. This means the initiative is mine. I log into this massive Sandbox called the company to learn business with other people’s money. I experiment with massive capital and infrastructure with other people’s money and even fail with other people’s money. The salary is not compensation for labor. Instead, it is a Daily Login Reward just for connecting to the game.
Amazing things happen when you install this hobby mindset.
1. You stop fearing failure and bugs. You write code with trembling hands if you think your livelihood depends on it. However, you commit code boldly if you think of it as a hobby game. Telling the team lead that a plan is boring and suggesting to flip it entirely shows a certain confidence. Paradoxically, the most innovative results come from those who feel they have nothing to lose. It is the Infinite Coin mentality. If you ruin it, you just try again. Companies actually want people who aren't scared.
2. Cool communication becomes possible. A boss's reprimand is a nightmare to a subsistence-level employee. But to a hobbyist like me, the boss is just an NPC in the game. When the director turns red and screams, I marvel at the immersion of this VR game. I admire the voice acting and the rendering of the sweat on his forehead. Answering calmly that his tone is too high and asking him to retransmit makes me look different. It proves I am not just holding onto a meal ticket. I am holding Root Access to my own life. That confidence makes me an irreplaceable character.
3. Stress turns into a Quest. A rude client is not a villain tormenting me. They are a Boss Monster I need to defeat to level up. Overtime is not labor exploitation. It is just extra Farming time to reach the maximum level.
Of course, it is still tough. However, the hormones released by the brain are different when you are dragged against your will versus when you immerse yourself to clear a game. You get dopamine for achievement instead of cortisol for stress.
Reality is cold. It is a fact that I would struggle if my salary were cut off. But facts do not have to decide my attitude. Whether I will be a slave to the system or a Player who toys with it depends on how I Define this work.
Today, I go to work again with a light step to play a fun round of a game. I whistle while touching the most dangerous code while others struggle desperately. I tell myself that if it doesn't work, I will just quit. It is just a hobby, after all.
The scariest part is that when the protagonist of this fiction actually worked like this, his salary went up and his promotions came faster.
This is the fatal Bug in the capitalist system that I have discovered.