Some resources you may find of interest:

* "Have Fun at Work" by William L. Livingston -- Livingston provide examples of how organizations are often incapable of hiring the people who might help them most.

* "The Murdering of My Years: Artists and Activists Making Ends Meet" by Mickey Z. -- This book is more in the category of seeing how bad so many creative people have it (until perhaps we get a basic income some day, Star Trek replicators for subsistence, a gift economy, and/or better government planning).

* "Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us" by Dan Pink: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive:_The_Surprising_Truth_Ab...

* "Punished by Rewards" by Alfie Kohn: http://www.alfiekohn.org/punished-rewards/

* "The Abolition of Work" by Bob Black (which reflects your point in another comment on "giving in to a job"): https://web.archive.org/web/20161031034600/http://whywork.or...
"Only a small and diminishing fraction of work serves any useful purpose independent of the defense and reproduction of the work-system and its political and legal appendages. Twenty years ago, Paul and Percival Goodman estimated that just five percent of the work then being done -- presumably the figure, if accurate, is lower now -- would satisfy our minimal needs for food, clothing and shelter. Theirs was only an educated guess but the main point is quite clear: directly or indirectly, most work serves the unproductive purposes of commerce or social control. Right off the bat we can liberate tens of millions of salesmen, soldiers, managers, cops, stockbrokers, clergymen, bankers, lawyers, teachers, landlords, security guards, ad-men and everyone who works for them. There is a snowball effect since every time you idle some bigshot you liberate his flunkies and underlings also. Thus the economy implodes."

Contrast with notions of "full employment". Or, sadly, also most of what Silicon Valley is up to these days...

About a decade ago, I sent that last link to an Apple recruiter who contacted me -- never heard back. :-) Not that I am a "Steve Jobs" or would want to be one, but, as with Livingston's point, would Apple hire a Steve Jobs as an employee? Almost certainly not. See: http://careerfuel.net/2013/06/if-apple-wouldnt-hire-steve-jo...

Though for balance, on the value of working together with others even in difficult circumstances, see "Buddhist Economics" by E.F. Schumacher: http://www.centerforneweconomics.org/buddhist-economics
"The Buddhist point of view takes the function of work to be at least threefold: to give man a chance to utilise and develop his faculties; to enable him to overcome his ego-centredness by joining with other people in a common task; and to bring forth the goods and services needed for a becoming existence. Again, the consequences that flow from this view are endless. To organise work in such a manner that it becomes meaningless, boring, stultifying, or nerve-racking for the worker would be little short of criminal; it would indicate a greater concern with goods than with people, an evil lack of compassion and a soul-destroying degree of attachment to the most primitive side of this worldly existence. Equally, to strive for leisure as an alternative to work would be considered a complete misunderstanding of one of the basic truths of human existence, namely that work and leisure are complementary parts of the same living process and cannot be separated without destroying the joy of work and the bliss of leisure."

I've collected some more ideas on making workplaces better here: https://github.com/pdfernhout/High-Performance-Organizations...

From what you describe, if you can't find a direct match to what you would like to do, you may want to consider being frugal and then earning what money you need to live in a low-stress part-time occupation with the rest of your time then available for what you really want to do. Have you ever considered, say, cleaning carpets to make ends meet? https://web.archive.org/web/20030807105050/http://www.unconv...
"More than a few people agree the best career would be one which provides challenge, intellectual stimulation, and rewards for quality work. Many however, would be surprised to discover they can have all of those benefits and more in some of the unlikeliest of careers. Case in point: I'm a professional carpet cleaner. Some people think this is a second-rate career. I don't agree with them. Carpet cleaning gives me challenges, intellectual stimulation, and many other rewards. To prove this, permit me to walk you through one of my work days. ..."

If instead you focus on "selling [yourself] to contract shops", you may find this book Aaron Erickson useful: "The Nomadic Developer: Surviving and Thriving in the World of Technology Consulting".