Looking at the last five years of my career, I have come to realize I might hate working for someone else.
I resent spending 48 weeks a year in an office and stressing over issues that will only make the company's owners richer but won't change much for me. I say don't change much because a 2-3% raise once in a while is nice, but it's nothing in comparison to the thousands/millions extra it will make the company, while the only result for me is that I get to keep my job and do more of that.
I also have a very hard time feeling any personal pride or accomplishment for helping the company's bottom line. It's not my company, and I really don't feel anything whether they sell more or made a couple millions extra this year because employees worked (unpaid) overtime. My boss getting a new Tesla or yet another house from the extra profits doesn't make me happy.
This thinking is hurting me though because it makes every job I ever had barely tolerable, slowly creeping towards miserable after enough time. I am aware of it but I can't overcome it.
I've tried working at startups, and 150-300 people mid-sized companies.
On the other hand, I don't think I'm the entrepreneur type either. I don't have any idea that I'd like to pursue and start building a company around, going through that grind is not something that appeals to me.
Has anyone ever felt this way? What did you do about it and how do you cope with it?
If you go freelance, watch the fuck out.
This post reads like you're depressed with the direction of your life, and are bucketing the causes into your workplace because it's intellectually easy to do.
I don't mean that to be disparaging - I say it with authority because I do it too, and your post reads exactly like the monologue that runs through my head every day.
I was a freelancer for many years. It's 85% pipeline management - networking, lining up your next gigs months in advance, and tending to relationships with existing customers to turn them into repeat customers. The actual "do the work" part is trivially simple in comparison.
The personality types that write posts like these tend to do poorly with the high-extroversion high-orderliness traits that make or break a successful freelancing career.
Be extremely fearful of the scenario where you quit your job with spite in ambition's clothing, and find yourself struggling to make money because you thought that making money freelancing was about output, not network.
My advice? Talk to somebody professional and really do an insanely deep autopsy on why you hate working the way you do. I think there are hard answers to be unearthed.
Now if only I could take the advice I'm writing to myself as much as I am to you...