I know people like to say "work to live, don't live to work" but I find it quite depressing to work with people who aren't interested in their job and make no serious effort to improve.
This is an ongoing conundrum for me. I feel incredibly fortunate to have a career doing something I enjoy doing and feel a natural compulsion to do the best I can in. But I also view work conceptually as a means to an end that takes up far too much of the years we are most able to make the most of our time on earth.
The square I can’t circle is my belief that it’s fine to make a living how you can without needing personal investment in your work, combined with the absolutely horrid effects that can have on the people who do care. I can’t in good conscience expect my colleagues to be as interested in software as I am, but jesus a lot of the time I wish the average level of interest was a lot higher than it seems to be.
We meet again! And yes, I try to keep the reading to 9-5, at least on technical topics. My team is free to read as much as they want when they're benched, and we tend to read in pairs so that we have discussion partners.
Although since we don't know if the businesses is successful yet, we'll see if that's economically rational!
