I know for me, there are times and projects where I really do love my job. The other day I got to code in C for the first time in a long time; I mean, it was something that would have been far more efficiently done in a regex against the output of a shell program, but the boss wanted it done using the API, so C it was. and... there's something really satisfying about writing something that works in C. That, and the novelty of writing something in C. Novelty is big for me.<p>There are other times where, as they say, "that's why they call it work" where I have to visualize that paycheck to get me through the day. Hell, today I had to reboot like ten servers and change bios settings by hand. Oh my god, it's like the attention deficit disorder tests the shrink gives you. "Press Delete or F12 when the screen tells you to press delete or F12, but not before it tells you, or else you have to start over and wait an additional 180 seconds." - and ten is so few that it didn't justify busting out expect and writing a script. (I mean, if I was feeling my oats, that's what I would have done, and it would have been really fun, but I haven't touched expect in years and it would have taken rather longer to come back up to speed than to just do it.)<p>Now, obviously, if I have too much of the latter, I start thinking about changing things, but I think it's not realistic to think that you'll love your job all the time.<p>In general, I think how much I enjoy it has as much to do with me and how I think about it as it has to do with the work. - Certainly, I'm not saying it's got nothing to do with the work, the work is part of it; but how you approach that work, how long you've been doing that work, and what your perceived alternatives are all have a big part to play in your level of satisfaction, in my experience.<p>You can mostly ignore the people who crow too much about "passion" - Most of the time, if the job ad talks more about passion than about qualifications, that actually means they want to pay you intern salary and just don't want to tell you up front. If that's your thing, go for it... but the big corporate jobs that actually let you operate at scale and/or actually pay decently are going to be more concerned with qualifications than with "passion"<p>I'll show up and do the job. And yes, sometimes I will enjoy it. but I'm not in sales; I don't have to pretend like I'm always happy- and if that's what you want out of your employees? I thank you for letting me know ahead of time so that we don't waste oneanother's time.