22 Years On, I May Be Done With White-Collar Work

It’s increasingly so meaningless — and it feels like a lot of it is going to get automated year-by-year anyway.

I’ve been mostly freelance since 2015, with a couple of “full-time” jobs in there, and even a few multiple-full-time-jobs-at-once periods. Mostly I’ve disliked it. Contract work is hard — you’re always hustling for new income — and even full-time work is hard, but not in the sense that most people frame it. It can be busy and lead to burnout, absolutely. The bigger problem with a lot of full-time jobs, especially white-collar ones, is/are:

• Bad managers
• Unclear priorities
• Expectations beyond job role without increase in compensation
• You’re expected to answer any fire drill for someone who outranks you
• Constant pivots on strategy, execution, and who owns what silos

It’s honestly exhausting and a giant circle of meaninglessness at some level. Plus: in the last 10 years, we moved away from actually iterating in these companies, and now most people exist just to have meetings and “jump on calls.”