I'm including small corporations and startups in this, not just the faceless megacorp. You still have an employer and it's still a corporation even if it's just a half dozen guys who all enjoy each others' company, code up some great stuff, and go out for beers together after the workday.
You have to know yourself well enough to understand what type of environment you want to work in. Some people perform better in startups; some in big multinational corps; some in small mom & pop shops. Some would even do better as independent contractors, although if you're smart you're still an employee of an LLC that you own to shield your professional liability from your personal assets. The dysfunction I'm referring to is in not making a choice, or not having enough definition of the types of work available to understand that you could be very happy at some places but miserable at others.
> You have to know yourself well enough to understand what type of environment you want to work in. Some people perform better in startups; some in big multinational corps; some in small mom & pop shops.
This really is a huge factor, and one that is REALLY personal to me. I went from "can barely get out of bed to do the small amount of part-time work I could get" to "enthusiastically hammering out 50+ hour weeks" once I got into the startup environment, which was stunning to me. If I hadn't stumbled into that world, I'd never have known the version of me that exists today was even possible.
You have to know yourself well enough to understand what type of environment you want to work in. Some people perform better in startups; some in big multinational corps; some in small mom & pop shops. Some would even do better as independent contractors, although if you're smart you're still an employee of an LLC that you own to shield your professional liability from your personal assets. The dysfunction I'm referring to is in not making a choice, or not having enough definition of the types of work available to understand that you could be very happy at some places but miserable at others.