Not necessarily. Plenty of people on these forums love their work. They may not like having to do it every day though, or for the rest of their lives. Our society seems to enforce this one-career-per-life thing where you only exercise one aspect of your skills for a very long time. I was curious to learn/re-learn a bit about our founding fathers in the US recently, and realized many of them had multiple types of work/businesses they dabbled in, in addition to starting a revolution and creating the US system. Patents, technologies, farmers, etc. It seems like many of the day had to wear multiple hats. Maybe it made life more interesting...I don't know.
I'm nearing the end of my paid career in software. I never really loved it, I guess, but there have been some fun times. I like to dabble in creative stuff and there is some of that in software.
I have about a year or two left for my desired FIRE number and just recently cut a lot of expenses with a house sale and move, so I am constantly doing FIRE calculations in my head.
I had a one-on-one meeting with my new manager today. I got moved to a coding position again after working in architecture for a while. A lot of reorgs at my company. It wasn't my decision, but I thought it would be a good way to brush up on coding skills anyways, so I will try to make the best of it. My manager just came into the group as well, although he has worked at the company for about 15 years. I've known him for a long time.
So he's sitting across from me and telling me about all of the training I'd have to catch up on, how he has done it sometimes when his kids go to bed...and I start looking at him like he's sprouted two heads. I do not plan on reading this on my own time. I couldn't believe he was doing all of that on his own time.
As I'm sitting there and starting to dread my new reality, I am quietly calculating my FIRE numbers again in my head and can't wait to get back to my cube and open up the FIRE spreadsheet one more time to get reassurance. I quietly nod at his suggestions.
Then he asks me for some feedback on him because the last group meeting got a little wild with people complaining about stuff. He trusts me because we go way back. So I start telling him the truth about how people are feeling. I seriously felt like Peter in Office Space and he was one of the Bobs. It was great fun. He told me to keep letting him know how he is doing.
So I don't totally hate my job, but I am starting to get more "done" with this industry after about 24 years in it. Time to move on to my other interests soon, I hope. ;-)