I'm one of those people that really doesn't make a very good employee. Although I was considered talented and was prized for my technical abilities and interdisciplinary knowledge (and I say that not out of immodesty, but simply because I was told so in no uncertain terms numerous times), and was cut some slack in situations where a less able person might've been sent packing because they just can't get their shit together, I had - and have - the problem of it being damn near impossible to get me to do something I'm not interested in. Just impossible. I'll do it, somehow, but in a time frame and workflow that emits kicking and screaming in all the nonauditory ways.

It's not really a conscious protestation. I'm just mentally spoiled because I grew up developing whimsically, and for fun. Put me in situations where getting it done and accomplishing the objective is a thousand times more important than what it actually is and how it works, and I just don't thrive. I'll do well enough to not be fired, but nothing stellar. I have enormous productivity potential when I apply myself in enormous marathon spurts toward something I am motivated to do for one reason or another, but whereas some people have a consistent base line of performance even in things they don't care about, mine is pretty disappointingly low.

I want to emphasise how unconscious this sabotage of the task is; it's not because I'm whining inside my head. I'll just unconsciously structure my priorities in such a way that something I don't care much for will be extremely starved for timeslices, and that's that.

I think a lot of "creative" folks are that way.

Anyway, point is, I think there's a corollary to this tendency that expresses itself in the more general fact of unconscious sabotage. As I progressed through the employment world, it came to be more and more the case that if I just didn't want to be somewhere, I'd mentally sabotage it so as to get closer and closer to being fired or, at the very least, given a very stern talking-to. The last two jobs before the ultimate one weren't very pretty, either, it's just that the employers were a lot more progressive and tolerant of my work habits and lack of punctuality in exchange for getting what they considered to be a very high caliber of output. If they were as demanding as my last employer, I would've been fired even sooner.