Seems like your sample size here is 2 people?
What we do is awesome! Yes there can be some late hours, yes someone might call your design silly, superfluous, weird, or ugly and you may have to defend it in an articulate and convincing manner. Yes it can be a hard job… And yes it is incredibly fulfilling, exciting, and ultimately rewarding if you play the cards right. It isn’t predictable, it isn’t accounting.