hahaha well, no, not really, I guess it’s to be expected, I enjoy tinkering on my instruments while at work it’s just hard to find the motivation to work on them at home so I was curious if people who work on bikes for a living experience something similar.

I was a bike tech in a touring shop (1980's) and commuted by bike to work. My bike was a decent quality sport tourer (not "top of the line") but it was a source of pride to keep it in top shape. I always enjoyed trying new "bits" as they came on the market (if I could afford them or they were samples). It would drive me crazy to ride a bike 20km (12 miles) a day that was not mechanically excellent. My boss was excellent in giving me bits of shop time to work on it. I never worked on it at home.
Riding was my hobby to unwind.

“Paid well” doesn’t describe working in a bicycle shop.

This! When i had my shop during the 7 months of good cash flow I paid my couple of lead workers more than I paid myself. But this doesn't say much as I depended on the bike industry norm to be able to stay in the business, a smart and well paid spouse.

I've had many coworkers and employees that have moved on from the industry. I have applauded their decision each time. Andy.

Yes, I married well. 5-foot-10 blonde with a Master’s in Computer Science. I tell people “She’s the smart one. I’m cheap labor.”

I started in life as a carpenter building houses from the foundation up. Then moved to automotive stuff and worked as a mechanic, then to bike mechanics during the early 1970's. I still have 50k in mechanics tools, but moved on from being a bike mechanic kind of as a way of not competing with my friends in the industry. I became a Golf Professional and have made a pretty good living at it, but still come back to the bike stuff as a hobby. I still maintain my auto skills kind of out of habit and just plain being cheap. I have the respect of plenty of auto mechs, and bike mechs, and golf folks, however I still think of my bike stuff as a hobby. Golf is still the main work and it dominated during coaching season. I have about two weeks left and I have to go back to coaching golf. But there is always the line between work and hobby. Smiles, MH

I lucked out and went down the computer programming path. Prior to retirement I coded all day and then did it at night. I also played computer games late into the night. I basically lived computers. When I retired I was looking forward to writing code for myself or just writing iPhone/Android applications. Well, when my neighbor heard I had retired he came over and ask if I wanted to ride a bicycle with him(he had retired a while back). I said I do not have a bicycle. He said I have one for you and loaned me a starter bicycle that I used for a year until I purchased my own. It has now been over ten years since I retired and I have pivoted to riding a bicycle and maintaining it. I stopped programing completely and only play computer games on the side. Bicycle maintenance and riding is my passion now and I am amazed how this happened. "Bike Forums" has been a large part of the maintaining part also.

No it does not. But my hobby since the late 70's was computers and networks. Imagine my luck when in 1997 everyone was looking to move off Mainframe computers and SNA to open systems and IP due to the Y2K issue.

I will say working on bikes now has a lot less joy in my off time but prior to owning my own shop I had more time and less stress and didn't have the responsibilities of ownership. I still enjoy bikes and working on them but once I go home I really don't want to think about it too much at least not having to deal with my own stuff.