Play and Work

[Cognisant]

What is the difference between play and work, they're both effort intensive activities so what mays play fun and work miserable?

How do we make work more like play or is the problem that our play is already too much like work, are we doing ourselves a disservice by playing games that trivialize success and accomplishment?

 

[Kormak]

What is the difference between play and work, they're both effort intensive activities so what mays play fun and work miserable?

From my perspective they are the same thig. I certainly have trouble working and produce only average results / do minimal work with the least amount of effort if I don't enjoy it.

Example would be building an air heater out of beer cans that I mount on the rooftop. Its a fun project, it is productive and I have a lot of fun implementing it. Or when i get to have my way with the internal network at work and the boss isn't around to ruin my day. redesigning the layout of the vineyard, more roots, plant and sun relation, irrigation system. Its all productive fun for me.

On the other hand I'm under contractual agreement with the company I work for. They expect a certain level of competency and dedication, which i reach and minimally exceed, so i receive a bonus and a raise every year or at least have received for the past 8 years I have been working there. It is by no means fun, but it would be if i wouldn't have to deal with my STJ boss. She is a real buerochratic monster of a nutjob that drains the fun out of the entire experience and every december i want to quit this god forsaken job soleley because of her. Other people in my experience ruin the fun quite often, freedom is better than being another entitie's bitch.

Case in point this youtuber (who loves making his content) here being fucked by the very system he relies on to make a living. When it stops being fun the quality goes down the toilet. Limitations, berochracy, other people's garbage. Fuck all that imo. Be free, do your own thing, have fun, get payed.

How do we make work more like play or is the problem that our play is already too much like work, are we doing ourselves a disservice by playing games that trivialize success and accomplishment?

You can only do that if you are self employed. Being employed by someone else makes you their tool/bitch. Even if you love your work it won't compensate for the office politics and corporate abuse.

What games are those?

 

[Rebis]

What is the difference between play and work, they're both effort intensive activities so what mays play fun and work miserable?

How do we make work more like play or is the problem that our play is already too much like work, are we doing ourselves a disservice by playing games that trivialize success and accomplishment?

There's actually a book based on this idea of Homo-ludens (Playing man) that work can be percieved as a game that you're roleplaying for:

Homo Ludens - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

We have to be entertained to be engaged, I don't think corporate can institute universal games. As well I'd gather the more complicated the profession is the more complex the games are, silicon valley has slides (which is cool and practical), probably a bean pool here and there but these things I would consider destressing rather than them lining up and going down the slide, climbing up in repeat.

To make a game of something is to entertain the mind in a boring task.

 

[Cognisant]

I think games are cyclical, granted the work week is cyclical but games are more immediately cyclical, in an FPS game much of what the player is doing is a cycle of seeking and destroying with variations on those two activities, like the vehicular segments in the Halo games. Note that cyclical isn't the same as repetitive, it's entirely possible to design a Halo level that's boring and repetitive by having the player do the same thing in the same way over and over like fighting off endless waves of identical enemies from a single location with a single weapon type.

A cyclical workplace would be one where you have a list of tasks which each progress into the next task and even though the specifics of each task may change the list of tasks itself is simply repeated over and over. I work in an IT helpdesk and we have tickets which are logged by clients in the business to solve this or that IT related issue and I actually quite enjoy that aspect of my job, a day where I get a lot of tickets resolved is a good day for me, I go home happy.

Unfortunately a lot of my tickets are held up because it's an error with some SaaS package like MYOB or some Adobe piece of shit and even if I find some online guide for how to solve the issue I can never be quite sure if I fixed the problem or just disabled the error message.

 

[Rebis]

Just put on a joker costume and say "You wanna play a game?" Look all scary and stuff.

Sent from my H3113 using Tapatalk

 

[Cognisant]

I grew a goatee when I worked in retail to ward off stupid people, remarkably effective.

Spoiler: A literal goatee not the jowl beard people call a goatee

These days I have a full beard and often wear a full suit to look respectable so people don't get the idea that because I'm in a support role that they can treat me like shit.

 

[Rebis]

A goatee? Never could get behind managed facial hair, I clean shave but that's fine. Facial hair irritates the skin, I'm sure there's some oil I could get but high maintenance it seems.

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[Ex-User (14663)]

the basic problems i face at work is that people don't understand that something that might sound conceptually simple can be very difficult and/or very time consuming to implement in real life. which means I have the additional problem of explaining to people what the hell this stuff actually entails, and that its conceivable that the problem doesn't even have a solution and that this will only become apparent after a lot of trial and error. that's what, for me, distinguishes it from play. I might work on similar problems outside of work, but in that case it follows a natural path without any external expectations and demands, which makes it a much more pleasant endeavor.

a goatee sounds to me like something which would attract stupid people, as opposed to ward them off?

 

[Cognisant]

By stupid people I mean soccer moms, I worked in an inner-city store so the stupid people were the judgemental type whereas if I had worked in a suburban store you're right would have attracted the more derro type of dumbass.

 

[Rebis]

I watched a video of Robert Downey Jr, he has a goatee and is in the media limelight and the previous big daddy of the MCU. Based on Robert alone, there is much more to goatees than meets the eye. @Cognisant tapped into the hidden potential of facial prowess.

 

[Cognisant]

@Rebis please go click on the spoiler in the #6 post of this thread.

Actually no better yet:

Spoiler

Ahh now I feel old and lame.

Anyway I've been thinking a lot lately about pursuing opportunities in the private sector, maybe find a small business with growth potential and offering my services and those of other IT guys I know on a casual basis with the possibility of forming a contractual arrangement as their business grows (with our help). That seems like it would be a lot more fun, especially since I wouldn't just be doing what I'm told to do I'd be actively looking for ways to grow their business.

 

[Rebis]

The OGs GG: The Original Goat's Goatin Goatee!

Is #11 you or your Goatarian friend?

The new song from the pakistani mountains, inspired by beyonce:

"If you like it then you should exchange a goat for it"