Maybe you should do less 'work'(johnwhiles.com)
johnwhiles.com
Maybe you should do less 'work'
https://www.johnwhiles.com/posts/work.html
419 comments
Some companies have flexible work policies that give employees the option of switching to part time. My current employer (megacorp, not tech) has such a policy documented internally, not really widely advertised. I read about it, discussed it with manager, I framed it as "it doesn't make sense for me to work full time any more. I'm still open to doing part time. Can we switch to part time, per company policy?". Manager agreed, I negotiated with managers of project I was allocated to, to let them lock in the 3 days a week they wanted me at work, provided it left me with a contiguous 4 day weekend.
I've been part time for over a year now, 4 day weekends every week. It is pretty great. I don't do anything much productive with my days off, but that's okay. I worked full time for about a decade prior to this point.
Perhaps part of this is having negotiating power to frame the switch to part time not as a request, but instead implicitly framing it as "we need to figure out a part time arrangement or I'll need to find another employer that does", rather than requesting a switch to part time. Part of the negotiating power is being good enough at what you do for your skills to be in demand, and having resources or alternatives to fall back on if company is not willing to agree to a part time arrangement.
I've been part time for over a year now, 4 day weekends every week. It is pretty great. I don't do anything much productive with my days off, but that's okay. I worked full time for about a decade prior to this point.
Perhaps part of this is having negotiating power to frame the switch to part time not as a request, but instead implicitly framing it as "we need to figure out a part time arrangement or I'll need to find another employer that does", rather than requesting a switch to part time. Part of the negotiating power is being good enough at what you do for your skills to be in demand, and having resources or alternatives to fall back on if company is not willing to agree to a part time arrangement.
I appreciate that you acknowledge the negotiating power required to make that kind of a move.
That sounds like a great move for you, and I'm really curious about your experience. Do you find that you're more "out of the loop"? Naively, I would expect you to become a lot more of a satellite employee, less involved in any decisionmaking. How has that gone?
That sounds like a great move for you, and I'm really curious about your experience. Do you find that you're more "out of the loop"? Naively, I would expect you to become a lot more of a satellite employee, less involved in any decisionmaking. How has that gone?
> Do you find that you're more "out of the loop"? Naively, I would expect you to become a lot more of a satellite employee, less involved in any decisionmaking
yes. more decisions will be made without your ability to influence them. if everyone else is full time then projects won't wait for you!
there are some ways to mitigate this, that perhaps also overlap with ways to organise decision making more effectively. if your company or team has a culture of drafting and circulating written docs (e.g. engineering design docs) before making a decision, then you can somewhat influence decisions by submitting written feedback and recommendations in advance, even if you cannot attend the meeting on the day when the decision will be made. also, if there is some written record of the decision -- written up in the company wiki, or emailed, or broadcast into the project slack channel -- then you can catch up over morning coffee and review how the entire strategy has changed since last week.
similarly, avoid becoming a bottleneck for your full-time colleagues. if i leave a code review on a colleague's pull request that we're not able to close off before my week ends, i tell them they don't need to wait for me to "approve" the pull request & ask them to merge it when they feel they've sufficiently addressed review feedback, or get a colleague to review it instead.
yes. more decisions will be made without your ability to influence them. if everyone else is full time then projects won't wait for you!
there are some ways to mitigate this, that perhaps also overlap with ways to organise decision making more effectively. if your company or team has a culture of drafting and circulating written docs (e.g. engineering design docs) before making a decision, then you can somewhat influence decisions by submitting written feedback and recommendations in advance, even if you cannot attend the meeting on the day when the decision will be made. also, if there is some written record of the decision -- written up in the company wiki, or emailed, or broadcast into the project slack channel -- then you can catch up over morning coffee and review how the entire strategy has changed since last week.
similarly, avoid becoming a bottleneck for your full-time colleagues. if i leave a code review on a colleague's pull request that we're not able to close off before my week ends, i tell them they don't need to wait for me to "approve" the pull request & ask them to merge it when they feel they've sufficiently addressed review feedback, or get a colleague to review it instead.
>Part of the negotiating power is being good enough at what you do for your skills to be in demand, and having resources or alternatives to fall back on if company is not willing to agree to a part time arrangement.
but that's the thing: there aren't many jobs past entry level that even give such an option for part time. Consulting is the closest factor but even than can have some strict time requirements (too strict at times).
So for (I wager) 90+% of people, the only fallback is "I can quit and never work a day in my life again" sorts of situations. That or you are playing some high stakes career haggling should the employer decide to try and train a replacement that will work full tim.
but that's the thing: there aren't many jobs past entry level that even give such an option for part time. Consulting is the closest factor but even than can have some strict time requirements (too strict at times).
So for (I wager) 90+% of people, the only fallback is "I can quit and never work a day in my life again" sorts of situations. That or you are playing some high stakes career haggling should the employer decide to try and train a replacement that will work full tim.
> Working less than 40 is nice but once you get down to 20 you have whole DAYS where you can do whatever you want
I spent around 10 years working about 20 hours a week doing freelance work.
It's good until it's not. Basically, yes you do have a lot of time and often times you can decide to be done at noon if you'd like. Taking entire days off is also possible unless it's expected to do something in a timely fashion such as meet with someone or produce results by XYZ day. I found in practice it wasn't possible to really drop off the grid for continuous 4 day weekends.
I came to the conclusion this lifestyle is only really worth it when you have more money than you would likely ever have if you worked this schedule for a long time. For example, if you only worked 3 days a week but had millions of dollars then this would be super interesting because you could go and do fun things all the time. Having $5,000 a month to spend guilt free to do whatever would be amazing if it didn't cut into any type of retirement fund because you're already set.
But if you're working for half a salary chances are you don't have millions of dollars tucked away unless remarkable things have happened to you. So what you really end up doing is finishing at noon some days and then procrastinating on everything while you do nothing productive or fun because you've done everything you could with your budget 100 times over after years of this lifestyle. At least that's what happened to me. Your mileage may vary.
I realized I'm happier when I feel like I'm maximizing my time. That doesn't mean always working but it means feeling like I'm making enough to where when I want to take off 2 weeks a few times a year to do something really fun it's fully enjoyed. Then I fill in the gaps between trips doing assorted fun but not crazy things. With 40 hours of payments this becomes less of a financial burden. Only problem now is having less time to do them.
I spent around 10 years working about 20 hours a week doing freelance work.
It's good until it's not. Basically, yes you do have a lot of time and often times you can decide to be done at noon if you'd like. Taking entire days off is also possible unless it's expected to do something in a timely fashion such as meet with someone or produce results by XYZ day. I found in practice it wasn't possible to really drop off the grid for continuous 4 day weekends.
I came to the conclusion this lifestyle is only really worth it when you have more money than you would likely ever have if you worked this schedule for a long time. For example, if you only worked 3 days a week but had millions of dollars then this would be super interesting because you could go and do fun things all the time. Having $5,000 a month to spend guilt free to do whatever would be amazing if it didn't cut into any type of retirement fund because you're already set.
But if you're working for half a salary chances are you don't have millions of dollars tucked away unless remarkable things have happened to you. So what you really end up doing is finishing at noon some days and then procrastinating on everything while you do nothing productive or fun because you've done everything you could with your budget 100 times over after years of this lifestyle. At least that's what happened to me. Your mileage may vary.
I realized I'm happier when I feel like I'm maximizing my time. That doesn't mean always working but it means feeling like I'm making enough to where when I want to take off 2 weeks a few times a year to do something really fun it's fully enjoyed. Then I fill in the gaps between trips doing assorted fun but not crazy things. With 40 hours of payments this becomes less of a financial burden. Only problem now is having less time to do them.
> So what you really end up doing is finishing at noon some days and then procrastinating on everything while you do nothing productive or fun because you've done everything you could with your budget 100 times over after years of this lifestyle.
This indicates that you are tying "free time" closely with "spending money" by doing some costly activity. Perhaps that's the issue right there.
Just sitting in the sunshine at a lake with a book, or with a cappuccino in a cozy coffee place downtown chatting with friends, neither costs significant money. Or go running or biking or swimming or rock climbing. Or hack a cool side project in Haskell, whatever floats your boat.
I'm not sure what you are aiming for to do with your free time, but if anything that doesn't cost significant money you book as "just procrastinating" instead of enjoying the free time, then that's the issue here.
This indicates that you are tying "free time" closely with "spending money" by doing some costly activity. Perhaps that's the issue right there.
Just sitting in the sunshine at a lake with a book, or with a cappuccino in a cozy coffee place downtown chatting with friends, neither costs significant money. Or go running or biking or swimming or rock climbing. Or hack a cool side project in Haskell, whatever floats your boat.
I'm not sure what you are aiming for to do with your free time, but if anything that doesn't cost significant money you book as "just procrastinating" instead of enjoying the free time, then that's the issue here.
> This indicates that you are tying "free time" closely with "spending money" by doing some costly activity. Perhaps that's the issue right there.
I'm kind of the total opposite really. I can have fun and enjoy myself without spending "real" money but guilt free money IMO make things more enjoyable when you're talking about keeping yourself occupied for spans of years.
For example I do walk a few miles every day, totally disconnected. I really like this. I've been doing this for a bunch of years on both a 20 and 40 work week schedule. I usually walk around my neighborhood but there's a couple of spots within a 10 mile radius that are nice to mix it up by going through trails, etc.
But when you finish work every day at noon those walks are going to fill up an hour or 2 of time. The same goes for reading for an hour or so. There's still a ton of time left.
Everyone is different but even as someone who can keep themselves fairly self entertained walking + reading + coding gets tedious if you're doing this every single day for 4-5 hours for ~10 years straight. It's not that they become boring but it leaves you wanting to do more things. I still do find legit joy in walking and occasional reading but when that's done my idea of procrastinating is basically looping HN, Reddit and YouTube while thinking "why are you doing this, wouldn't it be better to just work 40 hours and save more money so you have better options later?" or "yeah, go do something else but wait that's $75 bucks -- are you sure it's worth it?".
One thing I would like to try is moving somewhere new every 3-4 months. I think that could fill a gap of boredom because I find exploring new areas by foot really fun.
I'm kind of the total opposite really. I can have fun and enjoy myself without spending "real" money but guilt free money IMO make things more enjoyable when you're talking about keeping yourself occupied for spans of years.
For example I do walk a few miles every day, totally disconnected. I really like this. I've been doing this for a bunch of years on both a 20 and 40 work week schedule. I usually walk around my neighborhood but there's a couple of spots within a 10 mile radius that are nice to mix it up by going through trails, etc.
But when you finish work every day at noon those walks are going to fill up an hour or 2 of time. The same goes for reading for an hour or so. There's still a ton of time left.
Everyone is different but even as someone who can keep themselves fairly self entertained walking + reading + coding gets tedious if you're doing this every single day for 4-5 hours for ~10 years straight. It's not that they become boring but it leaves you wanting to do more things. I still do find legit joy in walking and occasional reading but when that's done my idea of procrastinating is basically looping HN, Reddit and YouTube while thinking "why are you doing this, wouldn't it be better to just work 40 hours and save more money so you have better options later?" or "yeah, go do something else but wait that's $75 bucks -- are you sure it's worth it?".
One thing I would like to try is moving somewhere new every 3-4 months. I think that could fill a gap of boredom because I find exploring new areas by foot really fun.
> Taking entire days off is also possible unless it's expected to do something in a timely fashion such as meet with someone or produce results by XYZ day. I found in practice it wasn't possible to really drop off the grid for continuous 4 day weekends.
I've tried to hire part-time employees or 4-day workweek employees in the past. You described essentially the #1 roadblock.
It actually works okay as long as you have a steady stream of non-urgent, totally isolated, async-okay work for them to do. Most companies run out of that type of work fairly quickly and prefer full-time employees who can work together with their teammates. It actually becomes a constant annoyance for the rest of the team if the 1 person working part-time is only sporadically available, so they now have to shape their workweeks around that person's availability.
> For example, if you only worked 3 days a week but had millions of dollars then this would be super interesting because you could go and do fun things all the time. Having $5,000 a month to spend guilt free to do whatever would be amazing if it didn't cut into any type of retirement fund because you're already set.
Without going into too many details, I can actually speak to this. It's another scenario that's amazing at first, but (I really hate to say this) gets old over time.
The problem for me was that few other people were available to do things during the week. I grew close to some friends with similarly erratic schedules (professional nurses often work 3x12 schedules, for example), but it's a small population. I enjoy doing a lot of things alone, but being able to do them with friends would be more fun.
I also started feeling like I was missing out on interesting engineering problems that my friends were working on. Once you have the means to be selective about the jobs you take and money can be a secondary concern (to a degree) you have the option of joining a lot of very interesting companies and working with very interesting people.
I've tried to hire part-time employees or 4-day workweek employees in the past. You described essentially the #1 roadblock.
It actually works okay as long as you have a steady stream of non-urgent, totally isolated, async-okay work for them to do. Most companies run out of that type of work fairly quickly and prefer full-time employees who can work together with their teammates. It actually becomes a constant annoyance for the rest of the team if the 1 person working part-time is only sporadically available, so they now have to shape their workweeks around that person's availability.
> For example, if you only worked 3 days a week but had millions of dollars then this would be super interesting because you could go and do fun things all the time. Having $5,000 a month to spend guilt free to do whatever would be amazing if it didn't cut into any type of retirement fund because you're already set.
Without going into too many details, I can actually speak to this. It's another scenario that's amazing at first, but (I really hate to say this) gets old over time.
The problem for me was that few other people were available to do things during the week. I grew close to some friends with similarly erratic schedules (professional nurses often work 3x12 schedules, for example), but it's a small population. I enjoy doing a lot of things alone, but being able to do them with friends would be more fun.
I also started feeling like I was missing out on interesting engineering problems that my friends were working on. Once you have the means to be selective about the jobs you take and money can be a secondary concern (to a degree) you have the option of joining a lot of very interesting companies and working with very interesting people.
>The problem for me was that few other people were available to do things during the week.
This describes what I felt after a few months of "not working". Most people I knew, and probably most people in US, are in a 5/2 schedule. Work 5 days then you get Friday night and whole weekend off. If you add 5 more days to that schedule it all mixes and after a while it got old, too. your millage may vary :)
This describes what I felt after a few months of "not working". Most people I knew, and probably most people in US, are in a 5/2 schedule. Work 5 days then you get Friday night and whole weekend off. If you add 5 more days to that schedule it all mixes and after a while it got old, too. your millage may vary :)
maybe the problem is the 4day workweek. I worked 30h for some months and 32h for half a year in between always fulltime. People want to shovel one day free and then add a weekend but that creates all those sync issues and makes them just less productive.
But instead work 6h every day in intelligence jobs like programming. When I did that I had zero sync issues because in core time I was always there, I had no downtime during work. Effectively I got just as much if not more done than fulltime but still everyday felt like I had half the day to myself (going swimming ...). It is a worlds difference in quality of life (unless you have to fill the free time with other family work or waste your life on Netflix).
If I was an employer in IT, I would only hire 6h day workers (full pay). No breaks but no more than 6h 5 days a week. I can do 6h concentrated work almost any day with an afternoon/evening of other things. 8 or 12h only works occasionally on average when I work 8h I add more than the 2 extra hours of time wasting, because less satisfied/concentrated/happy.
If I was an employer in IT, I would only hire 6h day workers (full pay). No breaks but no more than 6h 5 days a week. I can do 6h concentrated work almost any day with an afternoon/evening of other things. 8 or 12h only works occasionally on average when I work 8h I add more than the 2 extra hours of time wasting, because less satisfied/concentrated/happy.
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Totally understood that someone not being available is an inconvenience, especially if that someone is the only one.
I'm curious though how that's really so different from other situations than "4 day work week guy". I'd say that it could shape up as much of the same, depending on how you define "4 day work week". If that means someone is always unavailable for an entire Friday or Monday or Wednesday for example and everyone else works nine-to-five in the same office, that can seriously change some things, sure. Not a fun situation. Heck, being the "remote only guy" during the exact same 5 day work week when everyone else is in the exact same team room in the office together is not great.
How about having teams made up only of people on 4 day work weeks? Suddenly it's not an issue any longer I would say and that is something I think the pandemic has taught us can be done. Not without some rules and not without some adjustments. I do think that those adjustments made permanent are well worth it for both sides. You gotta align when people work their 4 days at least a bit so that there is a chance to have some synchronous communication.
I can think of a few examples of this actually. One would be a team that is not co-located but instead spread over multiple timezones. Say some people in London (GMT), some in New York (EST) and some in Los Angeles (PDT). There's a short period of overlap in a "normal workday". If we limit the 4 day work week such that everyone has to work during each weekday's overlap period but is free to choose when to work (during Mon-Fri "normal workdays", I would argue this is totally workable. Another example would be (mostly freelancers) that travel from their home town to work on Monday morning and leave for home on Friday afternoon. They will arrive at work around mid-day Monday and leave for home when everyone else goes for lunch on Friday and work a little longer than everyone else in the evenings Mon-Thu. Works perfectly well from my experience tbh.
So what about "4 day" guy being that last example? He starts work Monday after lunch and is gone at lunch on Friday. Just no commute? Instead of working late the rest of the week he just doesn't. Should work just fine if you ask me without most of the effects that being off for an entire whole day (whichever it is) would have. Add in a few timezones across the team and you won't really notice the difference with a bit of planning of when someone will be available.
Now one thing that is left are "urgent matters". I think that is not really an issue either. You gotta plan properly anyway. The fact that many C-levels (and some lower levels) can't plan and just "need to get this done by EOD" is completely irrelevant to me. They just gotta learn to plan instead of just making people bend to their will because they're utterly bad at even the tiniest bit of planning ahead. For everything else there's "on-call" or "tomorrow", because it's either really important and you pay for it or it's not that important.
I'm curious though how that's really so different from other situations than "4 day work week guy". I'd say that it could shape up as much of the same, depending on how you define "4 day work week". If that means someone is always unavailable for an entire Friday or Monday or Wednesday for example and everyone else works nine-to-five in the same office, that can seriously change some things, sure. Not a fun situation. Heck, being the "remote only guy" during the exact same 5 day work week when everyone else is in the exact same team room in the office together is not great.
How about having teams made up only of people on 4 day work weeks? Suddenly it's not an issue any longer I would say and that is something I think the pandemic has taught us can be done. Not without some rules and not without some adjustments. I do think that those adjustments made permanent are well worth it for both sides. You gotta align when people work their 4 days at least a bit so that there is a chance to have some synchronous communication.
I can think of a few examples of this actually. One would be a team that is not co-located but instead spread over multiple timezones. Say some people in London (GMT), some in New York (EST) and some in Los Angeles (PDT). There's a short period of overlap in a "normal workday". If we limit the 4 day work week such that everyone has to work during each weekday's overlap period but is free to choose when to work (during Mon-Fri "normal workdays", I would argue this is totally workable. Another example would be (mostly freelancers) that travel from their home town to work on Monday morning and leave for home on Friday afternoon. They will arrive at work around mid-day Monday and leave for home when everyone else goes for lunch on Friday and work a little longer than everyone else in the evenings Mon-Thu. Works perfectly well from my experience tbh.
So what about "4 day" guy being that last example? He starts work Monday after lunch and is gone at lunch on Friday. Just no commute? Instead of working late the rest of the week he just doesn't. Should work just fine if you ask me without most of the effects that being off for an entire whole day (whichever it is) would have. Add in a few timezones across the team and you won't really notice the difference with a bit of planning of when someone will be available.
Now one thing that is left are "urgent matters". I think that is not really an issue either. You gotta plan properly anyway. The fact that many C-levels (and some lower levels) can't plan and just "need to get this done by EOD" is completely irrelevant to me. They just gotta learn to plan instead of just making people bend to their will because they're utterly bad at even the tiniest bit of planning ahead. For everything else there's "on-call" or "tomorrow", because it's either really important and you pay for it or it's not that important.
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> made me really want to find a job that was less pay but also that low in hours
This was a very large factor in why I quit - old job wouldn't let me cut back hours, even at reduced pay, even framing it as "leave without pay", so I had no choice but to quit to get my time back, and I had enough money.
As it is, I'm content staying in that "learning and broadening" mode, even though I'm 20-ish years in on my career.
I don't think I'll go back, unless I absolutely have to, or a project catches my interest, but even then, no amount of money is going to convince me to work so many hours or ever in an office again (another reason I quit was they wanted us back in the office, despite my being much more effective working from home).
This was a very large factor in why I quit - old job wouldn't let me cut back hours, even at reduced pay, even framing it as "leave without pay", so I had no choice but to quit to get my time back, and I had enough money.
As it is, I'm content staying in that "learning and broadening" mode, even though I'm 20-ish years in on my career.
I don't think I'll go back, unless I absolutely have to, or a project catches my interest, but even then, no amount of money is going to convince me to work so many hours or ever in an office again (another reason I quit was they wanted us back in the office, despite my being much more effective working from home).
> old job wouldn't let me cut back hours, even at reduced pay, even framing it as "leave without pay",
I was curious what your role was, at what the incentives might have been for your old job to refuse this.
In your about page I see:
> Previously a programmer in the DoD world
speculation: were you working for a contractor that needed to bill your time out by the hour to the government? So if you weren't working maximum billable hours, they weren't making maximum profit margin on your hours, compared to someone else who would?
I was curious what your role was, at what the incentives might have been for your old job to refuse this.
In your about page I see:
> Previously a programmer in the DoD world
speculation: were you working for a contractor that needed to bill your time out by the hour to the government? So if you weren't working maximum billable hours, they weren't making maximum profit margin on your hours, compared to someone else who would?
No, I was in civil service. Something I've had explained to me since is that even if my boss wanted to (he didn't; very old-school thinking), they couldn't because my position wasn't "coded" for part time.
This was a problem I also bumped up against quite often as someone who has been doing "DevOps" things since before that term was coined, but the government very much wants to pigeonhole people and couldn't wrap it's head around someone with IT experience who was also a software engineer. Even with certs that I basically earned blindfolded, they wouldn't grant me a sysadmin letter, and I didn't want to re-code to IT/IM because I saw how burned out sysadmins got. The turnover in government IT was insane.
If I really wanted, I could go be a government contractor, but I've seen they still want even contractors on-site, and it's completely unnecessary. For now, I'm just "re-tooling" to tech stacks that have piqued my interest, exploring my options (eg, my brother the designer wants to build games with me).
Honestly, I'm not the first, and from people I've kept in touch with, I'm far from the last. Government agencies need a serious kick in the pants if they want to keep good talent. It's not so much about the money, that's always going to be below market rate due to the tradeoff in stability and benefits (and even benefits are dwindling), it's more about recognizing that WFH is a right, not a privilege, and being flexible in hours and horizontal job duty changes. I've watched many a better engineer than myself leave for greener pastures (Micron, Blue Origin, etc), and middle management is still in denial because they've been in the same role for 30+ years and think "nothing has changed", or if they do adopt business practices, it's always the worst ones (open floor plans, etc). FFS, I couldn't get the last project I worked on to enable CI on their GitLab instance.
This was a problem I also bumped up against quite often as someone who has been doing "DevOps" things since before that term was coined, but the government very much wants to pigeonhole people and couldn't wrap it's head around someone with IT experience who was also a software engineer. Even with certs that I basically earned blindfolded, they wouldn't grant me a sysadmin letter, and I didn't want to re-code to IT/IM because I saw how burned out sysadmins got. The turnover in government IT was insane.
If I really wanted, I could go be a government contractor, but I've seen they still want even contractors on-site, and it's completely unnecessary. For now, I'm just "re-tooling" to tech stacks that have piqued my interest, exploring my options (eg, my brother the designer wants to build games with me).
Honestly, I'm not the first, and from people I've kept in touch with, I'm far from the last. Government agencies need a serious kick in the pants if they want to keep good talent. It's not so much about the money, that's always going to be below market rate due to the tradeoff in stability and benefits (and even benefits are dwindling), it's more about recognizing that WFH is a right, not a privilege, and being flexible in hours and horizontal job duty changes. I've watched many a better engineer than myself leave for greener pastures (Micron, Blue Origin, etc), and middle management is still in denial because they've been in the same role for 30+ years and think "nothing has changed", or if they do adopt business practices, it's always the worst ones (open floor plans, etc). FFS, I couldn't get the last project I worked on to enable CI on their GitLab instance.
This sounds great. Ideally for me is that I am able to choose stretches of the year where I work 50% and stretches where I work 100%, and small number of weeks where I work 150%.
Getting my task completed at my own pace makes me feel good. Often that is fast and on time. In my heart, when I touch the keyboard, I feel like a greyhound dog with a little Bob Ross afro - it can be a race, a competition, but it is also an expression of my art.
This article makes me feel bad because in the authors world, people like me are relegated to worker bee monkies trying to please the bossman due to pathology or some such delusion. I work this way because it pleases me. Doing my tasks diligently and in a timely manner affords me more time to relax, review what I have created, and enjoy it rather than drag myself to the next task.
A bit off topic but as of late there is this creeping normalization of intentionally subpar or less optimized results I'm noticing in our industry but also general society.
When did we become so not only complacent but also discouraging of any genuine effort? It is as if everyone is so aloof that if you show any effort or appreciation of your craft that you're societally acknowledging your own serfdom or that you're serving "the man".
This article makes me feel bad because in the authors world, people like me are relegated to worker bee monkies trying to please the bossman due to pathology or some such delusion. I work this way because it pleases me. Doing my tasks diligently and in a timely manner affords me more time to relax, review what I have created, and enjoy it rather than drag myself to the next task.
A bit off topic but as of late there is this creeping normalization of intentionally subpar or less optimized results I'm noticing in our industry but also general society.
When did we become so not only complacent but also discouraging of any genuine effort? It is as if everyone is so aloof that if you show any effort or appreciation of your craft that you're societally acknowledging your own serfdom or that you're serving "the man".
That is not at all what the article was about! It was never stated that you should be late or take too much time in doing tasks… it was about using more wisely your time (if the sizing claimed the task needed 5 days to be done and you are done in 2 maybe you could have spent more time thinking about the design or if everything is ok try to using the extra time to generate value in other ways instead of rushing towards the next task)
Who establishes that sizing? I’ve yet to see anyone who can accurately estimate their own tasks let alone someone who can estimate that for others.
In agile, I think a great time for reflection is between sprints.
Also, I’m super fast but I’ll instead take frequent small breaks in the middle of work (read hacker news, write up documentation etc). There are other times to reflect than between tasks.
In agile, I think a great time for reflection is between sprints.
Also, I’m super fast but I’ll instead take frequent small breaks in the middle of work (read hacker news, write up documentation etc). There are other times to reflect than between tasks.
on this topic, I would like to add this:
The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition (2nd Edition)
by Frederick P. Brooks
ISBN 13: 9780201835953
ISBN 10: 0201835959
https://www.biblio.com/9780201835953
The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition (2nd Edition)
by Frederick P. Brooks
ISBN 13: 9780201835953
ISBN 10: 0201835959
https://www.biblio.com/9780201835953
I read that twenty years ago, and it is still relevant.
Just curious, do you have any other recommendations that are more or less timeless?
https://archive.org/download/the-unwritten-laws-of-engineeri...
I had a colleague that can be considered brilliant engineer and I believe could be doing all kinds of exciting hard projects and work in the top tier companies. When our manager decided to leave the company, he went along, for a job which in my view is nowhere near his maximum abilities (although he might argue otherwise), quoting the 'Be as particular as you can in the selection of your supervisor.' rule from the above book (which is relevant to the other thread in this topic).
I had a colleague that can be considered brilliant engineer and I believe could be doing all kinds of exciting hard projects and work in the top tier companies. When our manager decided to leave the company, he went along, for a job which in my view is nowhere near his maximum abilities (although he might argue otherwise), quoting the 'Be as particular as you can in the selection of your supervisor.' rule from the above book (which is relevant to the other thread in this topic).
SYSTEMANTICS. THE SYSTEMS BIBLE / How Systems Work and Especially How They Fail
Writing documentation is work, taking small breaks is normal, not cheating.
In the office coffee, smoke, chat breaks were the norm, now people feel the need to justify 5 minutes of YouTube.
In the office coffee, smoke, chat breaks were the norm, now people feel the need to justify 5 minutes of YouTube.
You decide as a team.
Concepts like story points and processes like agile sprints are intended to create a more realistic estimate of the work a team can deliver. The process comes with tradeoffs; it won’t work for everyone. So then it’s up to them to bring it up during retrospectives and decide to either change the process or… not.
It’s important to understand that working on a team means that you just don’t get to have all the nice things that you would working individually. You gotta approach it with that mindset.
Concepts like story points and processes like agile sprints are intended to create a more realistic estimate of the work a team can deliver. The process comes with tradeoffs; it won’t work for everyone. So then it’s up to them to bring it up during retrospectives and decide to either change the process or… not.
It’s important to understand that working on a team means that you just don’t get to have all the nice things that you would working individually. You gotta approach it with that mindset.
And you ask the "stakeholders" you are producing for.
If you still want some perfection, ration it out on an easier schedule and use incremental perfection as "treat" for the stakeholders over time while you get something for it at each incremental delivery.
If you still want some perfection, ration it out on an easier schedule and use incremental perfection as "treat" for the stakeholders over time while you get something for it at each incremental delivery.
Outsourcing task estimation to the team still doesn't solve the estimates are broken issue. I've not seen estimates get meaningfully better in an environment where the team collaborates on establishing the expected time for a task.
It’s not perfect, and importantly doesn’t claim to be. It’s something in the absence of other ways of estimation. Use whatever works best for your team.
Nit: It’s not “outsourcing” in any meaningful definition of the term to have the team responsible for executing a task come up with estimates.
Nit: It’s not “outsourcing” in any meaningful definition of the term to have the team responsible for executing a task come up with estimates.
yahn00(1)
> This article makes me feel bad because in the authors world, people like me are relegated to worker bee monkies trying to please the bossman due to pathology or some such delusion.
Is this a new kind of brag? Maybe an “offense brag”? This article makes me, a very conscientious and productive person, feel offended because it tells me that I should chill out a little. (Except that’s not what it says; more on that later.)
> Doing my tasks diligently and in a timely manner affords me more time to relax, review what I have created, and enjoy it rather than drag myself to the next task.
From the article:
> If you can meet these expectations in fewer hours than you are supposed to work, then you shouldn't just find more to do. Instead you should do something different.
Completing tasks in a speedy manner makes it so that you don’t have to rush to the next task. Seems in line with the article.
> When did we become so not only complacent but also discouraging of any genuine effort?
From the article:
""" If you optimally fill your time at work doing 'work' work, then this means that you are likely:
- Not developing other skills
- Not building your network inside the company as well as you could
- Probably working less efficiently than you could
- Unable to respond to new or changing demands without working longer hours or stopping something else that you think you need to do. See the ongoing supply chain crisis for why you should have some slack in your system. """
Two of those points are about working on other things than whatever narrow task that you are assigned. So apparently it’s not about being complacent at all.
Don’t fret. This is HN. We are all A-type, elite white collar workers at this place.
Is this a new kind of brag? Maybe an “offense brag”? This article makes me, a very conscientious and productive person, feel offended because it tells me that I should chill out a little. (Except that’s not what it says; more on that later.)
> Doing my tasks diligently and in a timely manner affords me more time to relax, review what I have created, and enjoy it rather than drag myself to the next task.
From the article:
> If you can meet these expectations in fewer hours than you are supposed to work, then you shouldn't just find more to do. Instead you should do something different.
Completing tasks in a speedy manner makes it so that you don’t have to rush to the next task. Seems in line with the article.
> When did we become so not only complacent but also discouraging of any genuine effort?
From the article:
""" If you optimally fill your time at work doing 'work' work, then this means that you are likely:
- Not developing other skills
- Not building your network inside the company as well as you could
- Probably working less efficiently than you could
- Unable to respond to new or changing demands without working longer hours or stopping something else that you think you need to do. See the ongoing supply chain crisis for why you should have some slack in your system. """
Two of those points are about working on other things than whatever narrow task that you are assigned. So apparently it’s not about being complacent at all.
Don’t fret. This is HN. We are all A-type, elite white collar workers at this place.
> Doing my tasks diligently and in a timely manner affords me more time to relax, review what I have created, and enjoy it rather than drag myself to the next task.
This looks like what exactly the author says in the article to me
This looks like what exactly the author says in the article to me
To a high performer the tone of this article is a shot across the bow.
You read it wrong then.
> affords me more time to relax, review what I have created, and enjoy it rather than drag myself to the next task
This is exactly what the author is promoting. A hypothetical so-called "worker bee" would indeed be moving on to the next task at the fastest possible clip.
> affords me more time to relax, review what I have created, and enjoy it rather than drag myself to the next task
This is exactly what the author is promoting. A hypothetical so-called "worker bee" would indeed be moving on to the next task at the fastest possible clip.
It also says
> You should try and spend your time in ways that will benefit you and your employer.
Which is hardly antagonizing their boss, or slacking.
> You should try and spend your time in ways that will benefit you and your employer.
Which is hardly antagonizing their boss, or slacking.
Depends on your definition of high performer.
If you prize delivering short-term value by chugging through the task pile faster than other people can, then sure this article is not aligned with your ideals.
That is not what I would call high performance; I would much rather be someone who can take a razor/lawnmower to that pile of tasks and do exactly the subset (down to potentially none at all) which delivers the most marginal value for the units of time I think are warranted for the project as a whole - then repeat until the goals are met.
If you prize delivering short-term value by chugging through the task pile faster than other people can, then sure this article is not aligned with your ideals.
That is not what I would call high performance; I would much rather be someone who can take a razor/lawnmower to that pile of tasks and do exactly the subset (down to potentially none at all) which delivers the most marginal value for the units of time I think are warranted for the project as a whole - then repeat until the goals are met.
Sometimes I want to stop and smell the roses, but mostly I want to smell the roses along the way while accomplishing other things too.
> When did we become so not only complacent but also discouraging of any genuine effort? It is as if everyone is so aloof that if you show any effort or appreciation of your craft that you're societally acknowledging your own serfdom or that you're serving "the man".
People perceive (perception being more important than reality in this case) growing inequality, and see that society as a whole isn't moving toward any goals they care about, so they just grift as be they can, coast and collect their paychecks. Society used to dream of a future of abundance and robot house-maids, now we picture the future being scarcity and catastrophic climate change and nuclear fallout. Am I wrong? Please tell me I'm wrong. I want to hear what future dreams society is persuing other than moving money around and making investment portfolios grow.
People perceive (perception being more important than reality in this case) growing inequality, and see that society as a whole isn't moving toward any goals they care about, so they just grift as be they can, coast and collect their paychecks. Society used to dream of a future of abundance and robot house-maids, now we picture the future being scarcity and catastrophic climate change and nuclear fallout. Am I wrong? Please tell me I'm wrong. I want to hear what future dreams society is persuing other than moving money around and making investment portfolios grow.
You're wrong. These concerns, in many forms, have been present for years, however we were once instilled with the instinct to overcome, but now frailty is more valued because even in failure you can not criticize those who are less able. Those appearing less able while still managing to overcome, even when due to random chance, results in more peer accolades and ironic fanfare in the face of adversity or some other disadvantage. The privilege industrial complex continues.
Am I kidding? Please tell me I'm kidding.
Am I kidding? Please tell me I'm kidding.
> These concerns, in many forms, have been present for years, however we were once instilled with the instinct to overcome, but now frailty is more valued because even in failure you can not criticize those who are less able.
Actually I think you are totally off base here. I know in my cohort of age 30+ millennials there is a strong sense of doom. Many people have the attitude of "why should I have kids when they'll be born into a hellscape" or "why bother trying to save for retirement when the world will probably collapse before I reach 70." These are very real and very pervasive thought patterns I have seen in younger people in particular. It has nothing to do with frailty and your take smacks of boomerisms.
Actually I think you are totally off base here. I know in my cohort of age 30+ millennials there is a strong sense of doom. Many people have the attitude of "why should I have kids when they'll be born into a hellscape" or "why bother trying to save for retirement when the world will probably collapse before I reach 70." These are very real and very pervasive thought patterns I have seen in younger people in particular. It has nothing to do with frailty and your take smacks of boomerisms.
My 10 year old feels this way. His depiction of the future is far more pessimistic than mine was at his age, and the conditions under which I grew up were objectively worse compared to his present circumstances (he has his own room, multiple electronic devices, gaming consoles, etc. etc., typical middle-class). There seems to be a persistent message saying “buckle your belts, things are going to get worse” across all social groups, from school to friends to popular media.
There seems to be concerted effort to prepare these kids to expect less than previous generations. Parents can only do so much to block these influences.
There seems to be concerted effort to prepare these kids to expect less than previous generations. Parents can only do so much to block these influences.
Even getting past climate change gloom, present economic situations don’t inspire much confidence. College admissions seem much more stringent than they were a decade or two ago, never mind the rising tuitions, the debt obligations, and so on. Housing prices continue to climb. A lot has happened since the Great Recession.
You realize this has been going on for at least a century, right? At one point we literally confiscated all of the gold by order of government. Whether the overton window is shifting or not, this stuff has been going on since time immemorial.
I’m talking about specifically concerns that the youth would have. And the Overton Window does not refer to things getting worse, nor does it mean things were inevitably getting worse for an American audience until living memory. Certainly ‘90s kids can point at a solid decade of optimism, until it all abruptly ended. To children growing up today, this must all feel like a step back compared to those earlier eras.
The reference to the end of the gold standard is a complete non sequitur.
The reference to the end of the gold standard is a complete non sequitur.
Globally shocking threats of all kinds which you are powerless to adequately cope with are well, globally shocking.
And some generations are more affected and/or more sensitive, or even more numerous with the shock spread out further.
The threat of further shock can have quite a dampening effect.
For a great many boomers when they were young men struggling to stay in college before student loans became widespread, otherwise facing being drafted for Vietnam service, it was not as comfortable as people sometimes imagine.
Nuclear proliferation was ongoing their whole lives with threats only increasing from a baseline higher than what most living people have had to endure now. It wasn't only the young men who couldn't be so sure anything would be here when 1970 came around. Or if they would reach that milestone themselves regardless.
You could just feel that things were going to get worse before they got better.
Good catch about the gold standard ending in 1971, of course it wouldn't have been possible if gold hadn't been confiscated in 1933, basically two generations earlier.
How did they get away with saying the confiscation was a "continuation" of the gold standard (after the "necessary devaluation of the dollar" was accomplished) anyway?
These were both global financial shocks to two different and separate generations each of whose members had various vulnerabilities.
A lot of the gloom preceding, then manifesting with, events like this, or worse world wars, has got a lot of similarity to the way some people feel worsening insecurity for the future right now.
And some generations are more affected and/or more sensitive, or even more numerous with the shock spread out further.
The threat of further shock can have quite a dampening effect.
For a great many boomers when they were young men struggling to stay in college before student loans became widespread, otherwise facing being drafted for Vietnam service, it was not as comfortable as people sometimes imagine.
Nuclear proliferation was ongoing their whole lives with threats only increasing from a baseline higher than what most living people have had to endure now. It wasn't only the young men who couldn't be so sure anything would be here when 1970 came around. Or if they would reach that milestone themselves regardless.
You could just feel that things were going to get worse before they got better.
Good catch about the gold standard ending in 1971, of course it wouldn't have been possible if gold hadn't been confiscated in 1933, basically two generations earlier.
How did they get away with saying the confiscation was a "continuation" of the gold standard (after the "necessary devaluation of the dollar" was accomplished) anyway?
These were both global financial shocks to two different and separate generations each of whose members had various vulnerabilities.
A lot of the gloom preceding, then manifesting with, events like this, or worse world wars, has got a lot of similarity to the way some people feel worsening insecurity for the future right now.
Except in ancient egypt and for a short period when Bracteates were used as currency.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracteate#Early_medieval_bract...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracteate#Early_medieval_bract...
I mean, we've been hearing crisis warnings for decades. When I was a kid, it was acid rain, then styrofoam cups, smog, leaded gasoline, ozone holes. Each, it was promised, would surely destroy the environment for good. And when one didn't cause Armageddon, the next one would definitely destroy the environment any day now. Today, it's climate change, next decade maybe something else. It's the same song, just a different verse. Somehow, my generation mostly escaped the pessimism the next ones somehow got. Not sure what changed--maybe the persuasion tactics are more mature and effective these days, or they're just starting kids on it younger, I don't know.
Ha - those examples are all environmental nightmares that were dealt with because of “songs” that accurately explained the danger we were in as a society. See: Y2K as a non-environmental example.
Agree that it’s the same song and somehow the generations feel it differently … maybe because they really are the first generation to have lower life expectancy compared to their parents. Or maybe because climate change is so much harder than acid rain due to the full-civilizational scale of it…
Agree that it’s the same song and somehow the generations feel it differently … maybe because they really are the first generation to have lower life expectancy compared to their parents. Or maybe because climate change is so much harder than acid rain due to the full-civilizational scale of it…
Well, it definitely feels hotter. And those massive wildfires don't help.
If it's not a big deal then do something about it.
> There seems to be concerted effort to prepare these kids to expect less than previous generations.
There is no concerned effort. It is reality.
> Parents can only do so much to block these influences.
Maybe parents should not be in denial and block reality.
There is no concerned effort. It is reality.
> Parents can only do so much to block these influences.
Maybe parents should not be in denial and block reality.
> boomerisms
Kind of ironic, given that "boomers" lived under the 4 decades long threat of total nuclear war. Frankly, as an instance of those "age 30+ millenials", that would instill a far stronger sense of doom in me than the rather gradual, rather benign (compared to WW3 between the US and the USSR) effects of climate change.
Kind of ironic, given that "boomers" lived under the 4 decades long threat of total nuclear war. Frankly, as an instance of those "age 30+ millenials", that would instill a far stronger sense of doom in me than the rather gradual, rather benign (compared to WW3 between the US and the USSR) effects of climate change.
Nuclear armaggedon is avoidable with some luck and enough safeguards. Catastrophic climate change is inevitable at our current trajectory.
Climate change can be mitigated by technological solutions. Sure, you also need political action, but it's a marathon, not a sprint: a chain of bad decisions will make matters worse, but you'll still have a chance to recover. During the cold war, a chain of bad decisions could have led to immediate, full-scale disaster. That you had to depend on "some luck" to prevent the collapse of civilization as we know is terrifying.
Your argument makes no sense.
Lots of people have to push lots of buttons they’ve never pushed before for nuclear war to occur.
Lots of people have to change their entire lives to prevent climate change.
Do you see the difference?
Lots of people have to push lots of buttons they’ve never pushed before for nuclear war to occur.
Lots of people have to change their entire lives to prevent climate change.
Do you see the difference?
The thing about climate change is that it is 100% avoidable yet nothing is being done. Everyone just says "we can fix it afterwards with twice the effort".
Climate change is not comparatively benign. Unpredictable localized calamities can quickly spiral into unpredictable geopolitical conflagrations. There’s no red phone to deescalate the drought that motivated the Syrian Civil War.
> Kind of ironic, given that "boomers" lived under the 4 decades long threat of total nuclear war.
We still live under that same threat, almost nothing has changed... Other than public perception [1] of the dangers.
All the same failure modes that lead to nuclear war that were in place in 1980 are still here, today. [2] All the same kinds of people are in still in charge.
[1] Just because the news has gotten bored of writing about a subject doesn't mean the subject has gone away.
[2] Also, India/Pakistan/North Korea are now nuclear powers, but as someone who doesn't live in Asia, I'm far more concerned about the Russia/US dynamic than any of that. Neither of those three parties can 'end the world' in the same way the latter two can.
We still live under that same threat, almost nothing has changed... Other than public perception [1] of the dangers.
All the same failure modes that lead to nuclear war that were in place in 1980 are still here, today. [2] All the same kinds of people are in still in charge.
[1] Just because the news has gotten bored of writing about a subject doesn't mean the subject has gone away.
[2] Also, India/Pakistan/North Korea are now nuclear powers, but as someone who doesn't live in Asia, I'm far more concerned about the Russia/US dynamic than any of that. Neither of those three parties can 'end the world' in the same way the latter two can.
>All the same kinds of people are in still in charge.
Very true.
However the quality of those kinds of people has declined further while it has become easier for complete non-leaders to attain leadership positions around the world.
The political & financial leadership shortcomings across-the-board are more disappointing through time since it doesn't seem like there is enough sophistication to avoid war as well and preserve what prosperity there is.
So this is all basically threatening peace & prosperity, that's what really gets people worried.
The pandemic certainly didn't help, why work so hard if you may not even be around tomorrow.
Very true.
However the quality of those kinds of people has declined further while it has become easier for complete non-leaders to attain leadership positions around the world.
The political & financial leadership shortcomings across-the-board are more disappointing through time since it doesn't seem like there is enough sophistication to avoid war as well and preserve what prosperity there is.
So this is all basically threatening peace & prosperity, that's what really gets people worried.
The pandemic certainly didn't help, why work so hard if you may not even be around tomorrow.
I'm pretty sure I would be more terrified if there was a planned schedule of sending 1 nuke per year and then 2 nukes per year and then 3 nukes per year and so on than if you sent them all at once even though the first scenario is unlikely to kill me any time soon. It's far more benign yet it is scarier.
>rather benign (compared to WW3 between the US and the USSR) effects of climate change.
There's nothing benign coming of the acidity/temperature/luminosity levels of oceans going so out of whack that planktons start dying.
Changing nuclear Armageddon for food scarcity Armageddon doesn't make it any less of an existential threat.
Last I heard Mr Putin was playing games with the nuclear shitshow a few days ago, to boot.
There's nothing benign coming of the acidity/temperature/luminosity levels of oceans going so out of whack that planktons start dying.
Changing nuclear Armageddon for food scarcity Armageddon doesn't make it any less of an existential threat.
Last I heard Mr Putin was playing games with the nuclear shitshow a few days ago, to boot.
> boomerisms
I think we are done here, have a great day
I think we are done here, have a great day
> When did we become so not only complacent but also discouraging of any genuine effort?
Overcorrection for burnout and other consequences of poor WLB. And because WFH has distilled many white collar remote jobs to their essence shorn of the trappings of the office, causing people to reflect on what work really means.
Overcorrection for burnout and other consequences of poor WLB. And because WFH has distilled many white collar remote jobs to their essence shorn of the trappings of the office, causing people to reflect on what work really means.
Curious if there would be a book about this in the future when some time has passed
Given your reading comprehension of the OP, I’m not sure you’d get much out of such a book, seeing as how you missed the point of the article is essentially “work smarter, not harder” and to use excess time at work for career development and continuous learning.
Bless your heart, I hope your day gets better.
Thanks, you too! Maybe yours will become better too after you try rereading the article and getting past its clickbait title and provocative framing.
[deleted]
I did not read the article how you read it. It seems to me you are doing exactly what the author is suggesting. You are doing your work and then taking time to do other things.
The author isnt saying dont give a shit. They are saying when you finish your work you don't have to ding a bell and say, "NEXT TASK PLEASE" right away. There are other aspects of work that are important too.
The author isnt saying dont give a shit. They are saying when you finish your work you don't have to ding a bell and say, "NEXT TASK PLEASE" right away. There are other aspects of work that are important too.
> A bit off topic but as of late there is this creeping normalization of intentionally subpar or less optimized results I'm noticing in our industry but also general society.
> When did we become so not only complacent but also discouraging of any genuine effort?
And these same people are going to expect nothing short of the best of the best from surgeons / plane pilots / car manufacturers / etc.
So they can slack of... But doctors are expected to do the work!
> When did we become so not only complacent but also discouraging of any genuine effort?
And these same people are going to expect nothing short of the best of the best from surgeons / plane pilots / car manufacturers / etc.
So they can slack of... But doctors are expected to do the work!
> surgeons / plane pilots
All of whom have downtime and at least one (if not more) backup. Software developers typically don't (strict adherents to pair programming aside). They also spend company hours getting better at their craft, building professional ties. Just like the article suggests software developers do.
All of whom have downtime and at least one (if not more) backup. Software developers typically don't (strict adherents to pair programming aside). They also spend company hours getting better at their craft, building professional ties. Just like the article suggests software developers do.
>And these same people are going to expect nothing short of the best of the best from surgeons / plane pilots / car manufacturers / etc.
Going under the knife of a surgeon at the end of a 12 hour shift would worry me. I'd like think the pilot of any plane I was on was well rested as well.
Going under the knife of a surgeon at the end of a 12 hour shift would worry me. I'd like think the pilot of any plane I was on was well rested as well.
Sure but most engineers aren't working on anything with near that level of importance.
Like sorry but another bugfix on Youtube or the Uber app really pales in comparison to a Triple Bypass or safely landing a plane with 200 passengers during a high crosswind for example.
Like sorry but another bugfix on Youtube or the Uber app really pales in comparison to a Triple Bypass or safely landing a plane with 200 passengers during a high crosswind for example.
[deleted]
You obviously didn’t read the article since the author’s point is to work better/smarter, not to work less. For example to improve your skillset rather than to frantically jump from task to task.
Not very conscientious of you to comment without having read the submission.
Not very conscientious of you to comment without having read the submission.
The theme of the article is not that you should be less productive, it's that stepping back and slowing down can make you more productive. For example you could have saved yourself some offense if you had taken the time to consider the author's point before reacting.
The artistic side of programming is very often put aside. To the point I felt like a narcissistic alien.
I wonder how prevalent this notion is in the industry. It often feels we're cogs in a pipeline.
I wonder how prevalent this notion is in the industry. It often feels we're cogs in a pipeline.
It sounds like you're misinterpreting the article or you did not read it.
> When did we become so not only complacent but also discouraging of any genuine effort? It is as if everyone is so aloof that if you show any effort or appreciation of your craft that you're societally[sic] acknowledging your own serfdom or that you're serving "the man".
In my decades long experience in corporate programming, when people accuse everyone around them of not putting in enough effort one of two things are happening.
The first, which is very rare, is that you are truly in a dead end job with a toxic work environment. If this is the environment you're in and you aren't looking for the first exit and interviewing constantly, frankly, you deserve to stay there and suffer. You may succeed in the short term but only because you'd have to dig 6 feet into the ground to find the bar. Your managers only see you as a resource to exploit before you burn out and fall to the same level as your co-workers.
The second, and this is the most common, is that you are sprinting constantly and have yet to develop any sense of work/life balance. In essence, you're convinced the world itself is insane and you are the only one truly "working". You are on the path to burnout and the people who are "aloof" are actually trying to help you find a path to long term work over decades.
Mind you, maybe you just work in bursts. You find a high pay/high pressure cooker of a job, throw yourself into it till you just can't, and then take a year long sabbatical. I don't know you, but I've seen these sentences so many times and 90% of the time it's the same unawareness and inexperience with maintaining a sustainable level of work.
I'm not trying to attack you here. I am trying to impress upon you that I was once of the same opinion as you. Through the years I've become more open to the idea that that Good Work Ethic is mostly a product of Capitalist Propagandizing (TM) starting as early as primary school.
Even though I maintain and am praised consistently for my "work ethic", I am keenly aware of the constant pressure to produce more value for a vanishingly smaller share of that value. That awareness makes me able to make better decisions about how much and for how long to disturb the equilibrium of work/not-work, and how much time a task takes at both a sustainable pace and at a "crunch" pace.
Burn out and the more obvious visible symptoms take years to set in, and then it takes almost as long to counteract, if you can at all. Some people burn out permanently and never truly recover. It's just better to not get to that point at all.
The ways around this are individual, because what is sustainable is individual. One co-worker works roughly 4 10 hour days and is available-but-not-working on Fridays. Another is very strict about having a 3 day weekend every month. One often works lightly during the week and then works Saturday when they can have more heads down time.
TL;DR: If you feel that everyone around you is telling you you're working too hard, you probably need to assess the sustainability of your level of work. You may or may not need to make changes, but (again, in my experience across tens of years and companies) you almost certainly need to put in place long term plans if you're running net-negative on your burn out battery.
> When did we become so not only complacent but also discouraging of any genuine effort? It is as if everyone is so aloof that if you show any effort or appreciation of your craft that you're societally[sic] acknowledging your own serfdom or that you're serving "the man".
In my decades long experience in corporate programming, when people accuse everyone around them of not putting in enough effort one of two things are happening.
The first, which is very rare, is that you are truly in a dead end job with a toxic work environment. If this is the environment you're in and you aren't looking for the first exit and interviewing constantly, frankly, you deserve to stay there and suffer. You may succeed in the short term but only because you'd have to dig 6 feet into the ground to find the bar. Your managers only see you as a resource to exploit before you burn out and fall to the same level as your co-workers.
The second, and this is the most common, is that you are sprinting constantly and have yet to develop any sense of work/life balance. In essence, you're convinced the world itself is insane and you are the only one truly "working". You are on the path to burnout and the people who are "aloof" are actually trying to help you find a path to long term work over decades.
Mind you, maybe you just work in bursts. You find a high pay/high pressure cooker of a job, throw yourself into it till you just can't, and then take a year long sabbatical. I don't know you, but I've seen these sentences so many times and 90% of the time it's the same unawareness and inexperience with maintaining a sustainable level of work.
I'm not trying to attack you here. I am trying to impress upon you that I was once of the same opinion as you. Through the years I've become more open to the idea that that Good Work Ethic is mostly a product of Capitalist Propagandizing (TM) starting as early as primary school.
Even though I maintain and am praised consistently for my "work ethic", I am keenly aware of the constant pressure to produce more value for a vanishingly smaller share of that value. That awareness makes me able to make better decisions about how much and for how long to disturb the equilibrium of work/not-work, and how much time a task takes at both a sustainable pace and at a "crunch" pace.
Burn out and the more obvious visible symptoms take years to set in, and then it takes almost as long to counteract, if you can at all. Some people burn out permanently and never truly recover. It's just better to not get to that point at all.
The ways around this are individual, because what is sustainable is individual. One co-worker works roughly 4 10 hour days and is available-but-not-working on Fridays. Another is very strict about having a 3 day weekend every month. One often works lightly during the week and then works Saturday when they can have more heads down time.
TL;DR: If you feel that everyone around you is telling you you're working too hard, you probably need to assess the sustainability of your level of work. You may or may not need to make changes, but (again, in my experience across tens of years and companies) you almost certainly need to put in place long term plans if you're running net-negative on your burn out battery.
On the other hand, there truly are people who can sustainably work 60+ hours weeks for decades. Some of the Internet celebrity developers, like John Carmack or Jon Blow, are like that. However, they mostly work on their own thing, which must help a lot with sustaining motivation.
It really does! Startup compensation is heavily built around employees having a stake in the company for this reason. A sense of ownership really does increase your capacity.
Unfortunately, with corporations being so blatantly "mask off" recently, you've really seen that sense tank outside of small startups. It's just much more in the employees faces now. It could explain the trend, but I still stand by my stance that a vast portion of American-style Work Ethic is really just propaganda to keep workers undervaluing their labor and mental health.
Unfortunately, with corporations being so blatantly "mask off" recently, you've really seen that sense tank outside of small startups. It's just much more in the employees faces now. It could explain the trend, but I still stand by my stance that a vast portion of American-style Work Ethic is really just propaganda to keep workers undervaluing their labor and mental health.
There is always more to these stories than first meets the eye. Especially so when it is self reported. I remember people lionising Thatcher because she only slept four hours a night. It turned out that she took many naps during the day.
Beyond those arguments, it's also important to remind that we should work between 20 or 30 hours per week, not more.
It's about health, being able to rest, do leisure, physical activity, see friends, date, etc.
There are things to learn about the antiwork mentality. Not saying everyone should quit their job, but still, it would be nice if everyone could be able to negotiate with their employees.
I have often been called a parasite, and honestly, it comforts me in realizing that I should not compete with people who turn work into a competition. Those people will generate enough taxes and labor for lazy people like me, and it's okay.
It's about health, being able to rest, do leisure, physical activity, see friends, date, etc.
There are things to learn about the antiwork mentality. Not saying everyone should quit their job, but still, it would be nice if everyone could be able to negotiate with their employees.
I have often been called a parasite, and honestly, it comforts me in realizing that I should not compete with people who turn work into a competition. Those people will generate enough taxes and labor for lazy people like me, and it's okay.
While I'll likely continue working my whole life, one thing I would like is some time off to think about my relationship with work and where I should be focusing my energy. Some kind of UBI or other anti-work outcome seems like it could actually provide space for that. I haven't had more than a 2 week lapse in work for 2 decades... and if I did I'd probably be extremely anxious the whole time.
When health insurance and housing rely so heavily on work (speaking from the perspective of an American), not working feels terrifying.
When health insurance and housing rely so heavily on work (speaking from the perspective of an American), not working feels terrifying.
> When health insurance and housing rely so heavily on work (speaking from the perspective of an American), not working feels terrifying.
It seems as though the American system is intentionally setup so that we feel this way. We go through some cycles where capital is in greater control (the Gilded Age, and our current age from about the 80s till Covid)) and then the pendulum swings the other direction for a while and labor gets more of an upper hand - The Progressive era in the early 20th Century, During the Great Depression, COVID (referring to the Great Resignation and the rise in wages that has accompanied it). Let's hope we can continue with labor having a seat at the table again, but given our electoral college system and how our Senate work (Wyoming's less than 1 million population gets the same representation as CAs 39 million + filibuster) I'm not optimistic that this will last long.
It seems as though the American system is intentionally setup so that we feel this way. We go through some cycles where capital is in greater control (the Gilded Age, and our current age from about the 80s till Covid)) and then the pendulum swings the other direction for a while and labor gets more of an upper hand - The Progressive era in the early 20th Century, During the Great Depression, COVID (referring to the Great Resignation and the rise in wages that has accompanied it). Let's hope we can continue with labor having a seat at the table again, but given our electoral college system and how our Senate work (Wyoming's less than 1 million population gets the same representation as CAs 39 million + filibuster) I'm not optimistic that this will last long.
If you can find space for it then I recommend it. It let me restructure my relationship with work internally, and it doesn't necessarily matter what my job is now, I have a healthier outlook on how I should approach it.
That's particularly helpful in the times where you don't like your job, but want to be happy anyway. Unfortunately I think that's a personal journey, so I can't really offer any advice on how that could work for you except to say, you need the time to figure it out.
That's particularly helpful in the times where you don't like your job, but want to be happy anyway. Unfortunately I think that's a personal journey, so I can't really offer any advice on how that could work for you except to say, you need the time to figure it out.
> Those people will generate enough taxes and labor for lazy people like me, and it's okay.
Feels odd to me to make a statement like this. Is it in jest?
In my view everyone should pull the same minimum. Not have some people work more to offset other people working less.
Feels odd to me to make a statement like this. Is it in jest?
In my view everyone should pull the same minimum. Not have some people work more to offset other people working less.
Do you think everyone pulling the same minimum will ever happen? I don't, and it might be important to come to terms with that concept... otherwise I imagine you'd harbor some malice towards people who don't.
> Do you think everyone pulling the same minimum will ever happen? I don't, and it might be important to come to terms with that concept...
Well i read the parent comment as if it was referring to a hypothetical "less work" society. With better work-life balance. Of which i agree with.
What i don't agree with, is balancing this society on the fact that some are required to work more than others. Ie just because some people are addicted, or even healthily-like to work more, that they would be required to work 40h/w where as perhaps the parent comment would only be required to work 20h/w.
"Required" in this context would be for society to stay afloat due to taxes or whatever hypothetical reason. It's pretty loose, i'm inferring a lot from the parent comment of "Those people will generate enough taxes and labor for lazy people like me, and it's okay".
Well i read the parent comment as if it was referring to a hypothetical "less work" society. With better work-life balance. Of which i agree with.
What i don't agree with, is balancing this society on the fact that some are required to work more than others. Ie just because some people are addicted, or even healthily-like to work more, that they would be required to work 40h/w where as perhaps the parent comment would only be required to work 20h/w.
"Required" in this context would be for society to stay afloat due to taxes or whatever hypothetical reason. It's pretty loose, i'm inferring a lot from the parent comment of "Those people will generate enough taxes and labor for lazy people like me, and it's okay".
Do you think we should have some cap on wages as well, to keep things fare on the other side of the equation?
If you are pretty good at your work that minimum might only take 20 hours?
Well i'm not talking hours, to be clear. Just some idea that we're all equal.
Ie, if a hypothetical society depends on addicts working more than "lazy people" (in the parents words) then it feels to me we're set up for failure.
Ie, if a hypothetical society depends on addicts working more than "lazy people" (in the parents words) then it feels to me we're set up for failure.
If you're after parasites, lazy software developers aren't the low hanging fruit. People who pull in multiple thousands a month plus from dividends, bonds, rental and stock portfolios are where the real fat is.
Weirdly American culture has twisted these people into paragons of success while the people who do all the really tough and necessary work are paid poor wages, made to feel like shit about it at the same time and tricked and cheated when they try to unionize.
Weirdly American culture has twisted these people into paragons of success while the people who do all the really tough and necessary work are paid poor wages, made to feel like shit about it at the same time and tricked and cheated when they try to unionize.
> People who pull in multiple thousands a month plus from dividends, bonds, rental and stock portfolios are where the real fat is.
those people risked capital to obtain that income. There's this idea that capital is "lazy" and people who risk it doesn't deserve the rewards that come with such risks.
those people risked capital to obtain that income. There's this idea that capital is "lazy" and people who risk it doesn't deserve the rewards that come with such risks.
> There's this idea that capital is "lazy" and people who risk it doesn't deserve the rewards that come with such risks.
No, you are confusing capital with work: you can tell by looking at which of the two is subjected to much higher taxation, which is the concrete evidence that society judges the people doing it as less deserving of retaining the rewards that come with it than the less-taxed activity.
No, you are confusing capital with work: you can tell by looking at which of the two is subjected to much higher taxation, which is the concrete evidence that society judges the people doing it as less deserving of retaining the rewards that come with it than the less-taxed activity.
In my opinion people should only be able to earn money through work. After all, if everyone stopped working and started living off their investments, there wouldn't be any capital gains.
The problem isn't that capital is lazy, it's that the interest rate can't actually reach 0% and the capital market can't actually reach an equilibrium so it is stuck at some low interest rate floor instead of going all the way to 0%.
The idea that your net worth should grow based on how much you own is absurd. You should instead be paid more for your work and then get to increase your net worth that way. That's better for everyone involved except for those who don't want to work at all.
The problem isn't that capital is lazy, it's that the interest rate can't actually reach 0% and the capital market can't actually reach an equilibrium so it is stuck at some low interest rate floor instead of going all the way to 0%.
The idea that your net worth should grow based on how much you own is absurd. You should instead be paid more for your work and then get to increase your net worth that way. That's better for everyone involved except for those who don't want to work at all.
I'm not after parasites.
I'm after not building our ideal utopia of work-life balance on the backs of others who, for whatever reason, don't get to have a work-life balance.
Seems a pretty slippery slope.
I'm after not building our ideal utopia of work-life balance on the backs of others who, for whatever reason, don't get to have a work-life balance.
Seems a pretty slippery slope.
How does one avoid the inequality, though? One could be working 60 hours a week at fast food joints and not make anywhere close to a part time software developer. As a result, the “lazy” developer is generating more tax revenue. There are too many possibilities to make it “fair”, unless we get rid of the income tax. Even if everyone paid the same amount, it wouldn’t be fair, unless everyone made the same amount of money. Which also doesn’t seem fair.
It's not a complete avoidance. Rather, i'm just advocating that we don't build the idea of less work on the shoulders of people who work more. That seems to me to almost codify the need for some people working more, and that seems a slippery slope for _some_ people getting good work-life balances and others not.
My argument is that we _all_ should qualify for a work-life balance. Not depend on some people not getting a good work-life balance.
My argument is that we _all_ should qualify for a work-life balance. Not depend on some people not getting a good work-life balance.
I agree that the original commenter's last paragraph was a bit unnecessary, but let's not kid ourselves either: if everyone put in a solid 2 hours a day doing good, essential work all good, essential work would be done in 6 months. Most of our time at work is spent doing things which are either pointless or downright damaging.
I can .. somewhat agree with that.
Not to disagree with your general direction though, but i don't honestly think i could boil what i do down into 2 hours. On paper? possibly. In practice i spend far more time thinking about problems, taking breaks from problems, etc - than i do actually writing the solutions. But i'm not claiming i'm any good heh, just that it often takes me hours and hours.
Your assertion is generally correct i think in efficiency sake. Ie when i put in 14h days, i'm exponentially paying a higher tax on my efficiency by putting in extra hours - i'm over worked and tired, i'm far from my best. But i still think i can more work done in those 14h than i do in 8, or especially 4/etc.
Not to disagree with your general direction though, but i don't honestly think i could boil what i do down into 2 hours. On paper? possibly. In practice i spend far more time thinking about problems, taking breaks from problems, etc - than i do actually writing the solutions. But i'm not claiming i'm any good heh, just that it often takes me hours and hours.
Your assertion is generally correct i think in efficiency sake. Ie when i put in 14h days, i'm exponentially paying a higher tax on my efficiency by putting in extra hours - i'm over worked and tired, i'm far from my best. But i still think i can more work done in those 14h than i do in 8, or especially 4/etc.
Moreso I'd say your hours might be very good and productive but you are counterbalanced by 10 other people doing absolute shit jobs.
How many people work as prison guards watching over people on harmless drug offenses in the US? How many soldiers are stationed or fighting in pointless wars? How many loggers work in the Amazon, or how many poachers? I'd much prefer they take some of your work instead.
How many people work as prison guards watching over people on harmless drug offenses in the US? How many soldiers are stationed or fighting in pointless wars? How many loggers work in the Amazon, or how many poachers? I'd much prefer they take some of your work instead.
Unless there is an universal income, and unless entry jobs can be better paid with 20 hours, that's how it is going to be.
Employers have this mentality of workers either work 40 hours or are not hired, it's all-or-nothing.
So if workers CONSENT to do all the work and get all the money, it's only fair that a fraction of that money is sent to those who have no work and no money.
Workers have a better chance of negotiating their work time than the unemployed. And if they can't because they will be replaced by somebody else who will work 40 hours, then it's a political problem that needs fixing.
But meanwhile, I'd rather get welfare than suffer at work. It's not like capitalist society has a sense of "community", so I don't feel like there is a need to participate.
Employers have this mentality of workers either work 40 hours or are not hired, it's all-or-nothing.
So if workers CONSENT to do all the work and get all the money, it's only fair that a fraction of that money is sent to those who have no work and no money.
Workers have a better chance of negotiating their work time than the unemployed. And if they can't because they will be replaced by somebody else who will work 40 hours, then it's a political problem that needs fixing.
But meanwhile, I'd rather get welfare than suffer at work. It's not like capitalist society has a sense of "community", so I don't feel like there is a need to participate.
In that case, you're probably not living off of welfare.
Others will always excel or do more because they feel that's valuable, so though I agree with you, I don't think it could ever work that way.
Some people work harder because they want to see their team succeed, some people do it because it's a status game to them, some people do it because they've got nothing better to do.
Some people work harder because they want to see their team succeed, some people do it because it's a status game to them, some people do it because they've got nothing better to do.
“Should”? Based on what? This phrasing implies some law of nature like diffraction of light or the nitrogen cycle, but it’s just an opinion that you don’t even bother to try to justify. It’s feel-good nonsense with no basis in reality, or for that matter, history.
> Those people will generate enough taxes and labor for lazy people like me, and it's okay.
Sorry, but it's definitely not ok.
Sorry, but it's definitely not ok.
Actually it is, and only a very strict and damaging protestant work ethic would tell you otherwise.
Oh, you meant that those poor workaholics shouldn't exhaust themselves by overexerting over too much work? With that I can agree. But taxing those producing the most so as not to leave behind those who have received fewer gifts, inheritance or good contacts? That's how you build a civilization. If only because those producing the most are also those receiving the most from their peers upfront.
Oh, you meant that those poor workaholics shouldn't exhaust themselves by overexerting over too much work? With that I can agree. But taxing those producing the most so as not to leave behind those who have received fewer gifts, inheritance or good contacts? That's how you build a civilization. If only because those producing the most are also those receiving the most from their peers upfront.
Implicit in your position is a lack of agency. The high producers only produce highly because of receiving gifts from their peers. And the low producers are those who have not received enough gifts.
You leave no room for agency, competency, motivation. OP explicitly mentions that he just wants to be lazy....
You leave no room for agency, competency, motivation. OP explicitly mentions that he just wants to be lazy....
I linked elsewhere to an essay showing how 'lazy' or 'idle' aren't insults, but mere synonyms for 'efficient' and 'purposeful'.
I don't get how you deduce that there's no room for agency. You seem to confound that with the different amounts of leverage that people with widely different origins get; those coming from a more resourceful starting point will produce more, regardless of the actual effort they put in.
I don't get how you deduce that there's no room for agency. You seem to confound that with the different amounts of leverage that people with widely different origins get; those coming from a more resourceful starting point will produce more, regardless of the actual effort they put in.
Why not? Everyone has to be maximally productive at all times?
No, but I should not have to subsidize your laziness. I don't care if you want to lay on the couch all day, but it is not okay to steal money from me to do so.
He says everyone should work 20-30 hours, not more. How do you equate that with laying on the couch all day?
He's taking it to the limit to illustrate that even if you are minimally productive, he wouldn't care as long as you don't ask him to support you.
He actually edited his post and the wording of his last sentence has a different meaning now.
You're just making things up now. They said they want to work 20-30 hours a week, not lay on the couch all day. How would someone else working 10-20 hours less than you equate to them stealing money from you?
Eh, I think the point is that there are some who are so far gone into the "live to work" mentality that there's really no point in trying to convince them otherwise. The only option is radical acceptance and taking as a silver lining that they will probably produce higher than average output which benefits you ever so marginally.
More taxes are a result of earning more and not really from working more although they are usually related, so they still get compensated for that "extra" work.
>More taxes are a result of earning more and not really from working more although they are usually related
Even the mythical 10x engineer is not really getting paid 10x more than their same level peers so no not really.
So this even furthers the argument. Why bother having 10x the output if you only see a smidge of that productivity as increased income?
Even the mythical 10x engineer is not really getting paid 10x more than their same level peers so no not really.
So this even furthers the argument. Why bother having 10x the output if you only see a smidge of that productivity as increased income?
We're not talking about being more productive in the same number of hours. If you earn $2000 you pay more taxes than if you earn $1000, even if you work double the hours to earn $2000. So you still get rewarded for your extra time.
That's not how most jobs work, you get paid a salary, some people still work 60hr weeks and do not get paid more than their peers.
I refer you to my GP comment, where this is covered.
I disagree that earning more and working more are usually related. It can be related, but I don't think it's the norm. I think the norm is working more than you're getting paid for, and that pay not differing from those who are working less than you. Just look at people wringing themselves out in the hospitality and services industries, they're not getting paid more than everyone else.
The important part is earning more leads to paying more taxes. If you work the same job you'll earn more money while working 40hrs than working 20hrs. Where 40hrs is the standard, so in a general sense people working normal hours will pay more taxes than people working reduced hours.
Ah, I think we were just talking past eachother then. That makes sense to me. I was imagining the situations where the same two employees are paid 40hrs/week but one works 40 and one works 60. It sounds like you were thinking of people working part time versus people working full time, in which case definitely, the latter correlates to more income and more taxes.
It's not that uncommon for one software engineer to outearn another by 10x, assuming a little job hopping.
I agree but I think it's more relevant to compare the same levels at the same org. I would be pretty shocked to hear that there is any 10x delta in total comp across L5s at Google lets say.
The 10x delta exists. You just have to compare the L5 engineer from the lowest paying region with the L5 from the highest paying one. And for the same effort and output.
I don't think that counts as all else being equal. L5 in India vs L5 in SFBay Area isn't an interesting comparison.
A 10x difference between 2 L5 engineers in Mountain View is what I really meant.
A 10x difference between 2 L5 engineers in Mountain View is what I really meant.
Personal experience has taught me that there is a MAXIMUM amount of COMP that you will receive as an employee, no matter how much hard work you put into your company.
So basically what is happening, is that you are working hard for some achievements, that someone else is going to benefit off.
So basically what is happening, is that you are working hard for some achievements, that someone else is going to benefit off.
Yes. Compensation is best measured as hourly rate: $/h. Working too hard just decreases that ratio because work hours increase while money stays constant.
> Working too hard just decreases that ratio because work hours increase while money stays constant
I assume this may hold for the US, but not for many other countries. For example in my country the hourly rate for overtime hours is higher by law. Your hourly compensation decrease while working longer would only decrease if you were an external contractor paid a fixed amount of money for completion of a specific task.
I assume this may hold for the US, but not for many other countries. For example in my country the hourly rate for overtime hours is higher by law. Your hourly compensation decrease while working longer would only decrease if you were an external contractor paid a fixed amount of money for completion of a specific task.
We aren't really talking about overtime though, which also exists in the US, but the amount of output during a normal 8 hour day. You might get paid somewhat more than a peer for putting out 2x the output but there are massive diminishing returns.
What I was responding to literally talked about "work hours increase". I don't see how you can have "work hours increase" and simultaneously keep the same "normal 8 hour day". That sounds contradictory to me.
Even for salaried employees it is not rational to work too hard. You may spend 8 hours at work but you don't spend every minute of that time actually working. You could optimize that if you wanted but you're not going to be rewarded proportionally if at all. Returns diminish quickly and that's if your efforts are even noticed. Burning oneself out to finish something quickly can even backfire since managers can always just find more work that needs to be done.
In the USA we have this but not for salaried positions, and most engineers are salaried - hence why they are incentivized to work less.
And that max level is specific to each individual based largely on things out of their control, like politics.
Edit: why downvote?
Edit: why downvote?
> Personal experience has taught me that there is a MAXIMUM amount of COMP that you will receive as an employee, no matter how much hard work you put into your company.
Sure, but putting more craft and care and study in your tasks benefits you a lot too.
e.g. I have spent two weeks on an airbnb-like image gallery, could've completed the task in four days, used the time to become black belt in images in the browser, which makes ME a considerably better and more prepared professional. The way I see it I'm getting paid for educating and specializing myself. AND it benefits my current employer and our customers.
Meanwhile my colleagues rush into the next task don't rip any of these benefits.
Sure, but putting more craft and care and study in your tasks benefits you a lot too.
e.g. I have spent two weeks on an airbnb-like image gallery, could've completed the task in four days, used the time to become black belt in images in the browser, which makes ME a considerably better and more prepared professional. The way I see it I'm getting paid for educating and specializing myself. AND it benefits my current employer and our customers.
Meanwhile my colleagues rush into the next task don't rip any of these benefits.
The % of value that you create which you keep as COMP decreases as your value creation increases.
I'm glad they talk a good bit about perceptions. That's really what it comes down to at the end of the day. Who cares if you're doing a lot of work or a little work if nobody sees it.
I don't know what's expected of me, at least not in an objective way. They apparently want me to go faster. One thing they are looking at is if I'm finishing early and asking for more work. So they are using that as an indicator, which is contrary to this article's advice.
I wish I had time to learn new skills. The work is so disjointed that you can never become an expert in one technology. Just constantly bouncing between systems, stacks, and languages. It's a mess. I have no desire to learn a new technology right now just because I know I will never get the chance to use it or become good with it.
I don't know what's expected of me, at least not in an objective way. They apparently want me to go faster. One thing they are looking at is if I'm finishing early and asking for more work. So they are using that as an indicator, which is contrary to this article's advice.
I wish I had time to learn new skills. The work is so disjointed that you can never become an expert in one technology. Just constantly bouncing between systems, stacks, and languages. It's a mess. I have no desire to learn a new technology right now just because I know I will never get the chance to use it or become good with it.
Sounds like you need a vacation : )
I have a toddler - vacations don't really exist at this stage of life.
Plus the past two years have seen me using most of that time for family medical issues. This year I'll be using about 1/4 of my time off for my wife to go on vacations.
Plus the past two years have seen me using most of that time for family medical issues. This year I'll be using about 1/4 of my time off for my wife to go on vacations.
Your story is similar to mine.
Expectations at work are unrealistic, bordering on complete fiction.
We have 3 young children and my wife is still on disability and recovering from childbirth 6 months ago.
A vacation would be great but it isn't happening anytime soon.
Vacations at this point in my life just means I work even harder than I do for my day job. Vacations are when the daycare is closed, which is actually more often than I can believe (especially contrasted against the exorbitant price of child care...).
It sounds bad but it isn't that bad, I've definitely had worse periods in my life and that was before marriage with children. I wouldn't do anything differently, except maybe finding a different job before kid number 3 came along...
Expectations at work are unrealistic, bordering on complete fiction.
We have 3 young children and my wife is still on disability and recovering from childbirth 6 months ago.
A vacation would be great but it isn't happening anytime soon.
Vacations at this point in my life just means I work even harder than I do for my day job. Vacations are when the daycare is closed, which is actually more often than I can believe (especially contrasted against the exorbitant price of child care...).
It sounds bad but it isn't that bad, I've definitely had worse periods in my life and that was before marriage with children. I wouldn't do anything differently, except maybe finding a different job before kid number 3 came along...
My travel addicted friends went twice to vacations with 6 and 12 months old no problem.
This is very solid advice. Once you become so productive that you don't need all of your working hours to do your job, you should spend that time on skill acquisition - either learning about something adjacent that you don't do daily or learn something that will be required for the next level (if that is your goal)
This is the only sane way I have found to progress in a tech career. The daily and weekly learning really adds up too - in my experience this is the difference someone who has 10 years of experience and someone who has "2 years repeated 5 times"
This is the only sane way I have found to progress in a tech career. The daily and weekly learning really adds up too - in my experience this is the difference someone who has 10 years of experience and someone who has "2 years repeated 5 times"
>This is the only sane way I have found to progress in a tech career. The daily and weekly learning really adds up too - in my experience this is the difference someone who has 10 years of experience and someone who has "2 years repeated 5 times"
I agree. Thankfully, my culture does not shun 2-3 year job spells on your resume. Typically, this is what I do. When I learn enough to do my boss's job, I leave. I am now at a point of running my own, small consultancy service. Only need a few more clients to finally quit my day job for good.
I agree. Thankfully, my culture does not shun 2-3 year job spells on your resume. Typically, this is what I do. When I learn enough to do my boss's job, I leave. I am now at a point of running my own, small consultancy service. Only need a few more clients to finally quit my day job for good.
This is why I roll my eyes out of their sockets when I hear a recruiter or job description that mentions years of experience as a qualification.
This reads a bit like deliberately aiming for Parkinson's law. "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion."
However, I agree to some extent. I'm especially opposed to the concept that there should be 8 productive hours in a day. I sincerely believe that this is for most people not possible in creative knowledge work, which includes software engineering. So, if you have 5 productive hours of engineering and finished your goal and are in line with expectations, there shouldn't be a need to drain yourself to keep going, but rather spending your extra time on something else like job-related learning is a great way to prevent mental fatigue.
This is especially true as there can be very different "energy distribution" between people. One person can achieve in 4 productive hours what another can in 8. But one works in productive bursts and the other in sustained effort. The first can't just sustain or expand that burst to 8 hours.
However, I agree to some extent. I'm especially opposed to the concept that there should be 8 productive hours in a day. I sincerely believe that this is for most people not possible in creative knowledge work, which includes software engineering. So, if you have 5 productive hours of engineering and finished your goal and are in line with expectations, there shouldn't be a need to drain yourself to keep going, but rather spending your extra time on something else like job-related learning is a great way to prevent mental fatigue.
This is especially true as there can be very different "energy distribution" between people. One person can achieve in 4 productive hours what another can in 8. But one works in productive bursts and the other in sustained effort. The first can't just sustain or expand that burst to 8 hours.
Honestly I feel like we could take it a step further. Most people are not going to put in five real hours of work every day either. Which makes the eight hour workday in some ways all the more ridiculous.
20 hours a week is pretty much the ceiling in my experience beyond big crunch times, special events, etc. If people really stepped back and thought about how much time they spend screwing around at work I think they’d be surprised, like how many people were surprised to discover how many hours they spend on social media apps when screen time tracking was introduced in phones.
I worked in the film industry for several years on the Hollywood side before switching over to commercial. 12 to 14 hour workdays were pretty much the norm. When I flipped over to the more commercial side, our workdays typically ended at 8 to 10 hours. And let me tell you, the commercial productions were exponentially more efficient. We got more done per day by a large margin, no matter the scale or complexity compared to the films I worked on. When you know there is less of a threat threat of the company extending the hours, you tend to get things done in the time allotted.
20 hours a week is pretty much the ceiling in my experience beyond big crunch times, special events, etc. If people really stepped back and thought about how much time they spend screwing around at work I think they’d be surprised, like how many people were surprised to discover how many hours they spend on social media apps when screen time tracking was introduced in phones.
I worked in the film industry for several years on the Hollywood side before switching over to commercial. 12 to 14 hour workdays were pretty much the norm. When I flipped over to the more commercial side, our workdays typically ended at 8 to 10 hours. And let me tell you, the commercial productions were exponentially more efficient. We got more done per day by a large margin, no matter the scale or complexity compared to the films I worked on. When you know there is less of a threat threat of the company extending the hours, you tend to get things done in the time allotted.
I think the norm of an 8 hour workday for salaried employees has more to do with excluding the possibility of your salaried “executives” taking on second jobs than it has to do with productivity.
In other words I think that the 40 hour work week is often structured more as a kind of quasi-indentured servitude than as a factory production shift.
In other words I think that the 40 hour work week is often structured more as a kind of quasi-indentured servitude than as a factory production shift.
There is also the alignment of schedules requirement for meetings, especially at higher levels. 8 hrs of productive work may not be required but calendar availability is to a certain extent, especially for higher-level roles.
100% agree.
Let’s be clear though: you may need 4 hrs but sometimes you may need 12. Creative professions can be that way. Reaching an understanding that both can happen and accepting that fact is important.
To a certain extent, it’s just recognizing the reality of what actually happens today anyway, rather than trying to fit into the 8hour workday concept.
Let’s be clear though: you may need 4 hrs but sometimes you may need 12. Creative professions can be that way. Reaching an understanding that both can happen and accepting that fact is important.
To a certain extent, it’s just recognizing the reality of what actually happens today anyway, rather than trying to fit into the 8hour workday concept.
> rather spending your extra time on something else like job-related learning is a great way to prevent mental fatigue.
Learning be as draining (or more) as work! Figuring out and internalising new stuff takes a lot of mental power. I don't know why people propose it as some lightweight way to fill the time.
Learning be as draining (or more) as work! Figuring out and internalising new stuff takes a lot of mental power. I don't know why people propose it as some lightweight way to fill the time.
I’d rather learn something useful that keeps me sharp then pretend I’m working.
Can confirm this will not get you promoted, it will just get you more work. You are more valuable as a peon than management if you are this good at your job. Always act dumber than your boss.
I worked pretty hard at getting promoted at my last job which unfortunately didn't happen. In the end I did the cost/benefit analysis of the amount of extra work I was doing compared to the 15% raise that I would get from being promoted.
In the end I moved companies and got a raise of about 35%. I'm back to doing the same amount of work I was doing before I tried to get promoted.
In the end I moved companies and got a raise of about 35%. I'm back to doing the same amount of work I was doing before I tried to get promoted.
This is honestly a really big sickness within our industry and it seems to be everywhere.
I don't think I will ever work towards a promotion again.
I don't think I will ever work towards a promotion again.
Working towards a promotion is not just about productivity. You have to display leadership qualities.
But here's the key. Not all managers want leaders. It an be viewed as a threat. When the time is right, you can show off your leadership skills.
But here's the key. Not all managers want leaders. It an be viewed as a threat. When the time is right, you can show off your leadership skills.
Don't forget politics. You can display leadership qualities all you want but politics play into whether your project will ultimately suceeed, be deprioritized, and who gets credit for what.
> Can confirm this will not get you promoted, it will just get you more work. You are more valuable as a peon than management if you are this good at your job. Always act dumber than your boss
I've been promoted at every job I've had by working both smart and hard, but never exceeding 40 hours except in very rare exceptional circumstances. Devs have higher IC roles to fill so that helps. But now I get to be miserable as a manager. Be careful what you wish for. And please, be smarter than me so I feel good about you taking my place when I leave.
That said, I don't think many people are productive for more than 20 hours a week for sustained periods and we should all work less.
I've been promoted at every job I've had by working both smart and hard, but never exceeding 40 hours except in very rare exceptional circumstances. Devs have higher IC roles to fill so that helps. But now I get to be miserable as a manager. Be careful what you wish for. And please, be smarter than me so I feel good about you taking my place when I leave.
That said, I don't think many people are productive for more than 20 hours a week for sustained periods and we should all work less.
See also: 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene, highly recommended.
I work at a software consultancy, and here are my hot tips around this:
- Take breaks between tasks. Your flow should mostly allow 5-10 minute breaks often (like once an hour or so) without anything or anybody blowing up.
- It's healthy that your client (or bosses) will always want more work, especially if you and your team do good work.
- Always instill in your client (or bosses) that work will get done when it's done. They are paying you to know how long something _should_ take, and to identify obstacles that could make something take longer, as well as the time you need to plan/prepare to keep you and your team sane.
- Your best working state is when you're relaxed. People have told me they work best under pressure, and I really refuse this to ever be true. You can certainly work under pressure, and even work fast, but I honestly believe your best work is the work that you enjoy and care for, not just the work you spit out fast.
- You can have fun doing just about any task if it's not stressful. Sure, there are a lot boring tasks in software, like waiting for compiles, or doing slow-moving dev-ops work, but if there is a clear path with no major obstacles, it really won't be that bad.
The biggest thing for me is having me and my team take breaks often. It's a good time to reflect on the work that's been done, think about a problem, or just take your mind off a larger problem for a few minutes. Depending on the industry, your client, your boss, etc., your mileage is going to vary, but as a software consultant, it is your job to advise on what time you need to get something done right.
So I guess I agree with the article. Not that you shouldn't regularly give 100%, but you should always be buffered so in high stress, high stakes, you and your team have capacity to go above and beyond the usual, but your average work load isn't maxing you out all the time.
- Take breaks between tasks. Your flow should mostly allow 5-10 minute breaks often (like once an hour or so) without anything or anybody blowing up.
- It's healthy that your client (or bosses) will always want more work, especially if you and your team do good work.
- Always instill in your client (or bosses) that work will get done when it's done. They are paying you to know how long something _should_ take, and to identify obstacles that could make something take longer, as well as the time you need to plan/prepare to keep you and your team sane.
- Your best working state is when you're relaxed. People have told me they work best under pressure, and I really refuse this to ever be true. You can certainly work under pressure, and even work fast, but I honestly believe your best work is the work that you enjoy and care for, not just the work you spit out fast.
- You can have fun doing just about any task if it's not stressful. Sure, there are a lot boring tasks in software, like waiting for compiles, or doing slow-moving dev-ops work, but if there is a clear path with no major obstacles, it really won't be that bad.
The biggest thing for me is having me and my team take breaks often. It's a good time to reflect on the work that's been done, think about a problem, or just take your mind off a larger problem for a few minutes. Depending on the industry, your client, your boss, etc., your mileage is going to vary, but as a software consultant, it is your job to advise on what time you need to get something done right.
So I guess I agree with the article. Not that you shouldn't regularly give 100%, but you should always be buffered so in high stress, high stakes, you and your team have capacity to go above and beyond the usual, but your average work load isn't maxing you out all the time.
"People have told me they work best under pressure"
What I have learned about this phrase is "I work best when I am hyper focused on a singular <event, issue, project, task> and that is usually associated with being "under pressure" that causes us to slide into a state of hyper focused thinking.
What I have learned about this phrase is "I work best when I am hyper focused on a singular <event, issue, project, task> and that is usually associated with being "under pressure" that causes us to slide into a state of hyper focused thinking.
This is common in people with ADHD. Focus is an issue unless there's a stimulus provided: either joy or fear. Which is why those of us with ADHD will either hyper-focus on only what they enjoy unless there's the pressure of a deadline to kick-start the motivation to focus.
You are the boss of a company of one. Your company sells labor to the labor market, it makes investments in assets, it borrows funds, etc.
It’s your job to decide how that company is run. It’s your job to decide what investments that company needs to make to get good returns.
It’s also your job to interpret the contracts your company enters into and decide what is acceptable, and to appropriately risk-manage legal hazard, reputational hazard, etc.
There is nobody else to run this company. It does not have a right to a good outcome. A lot of companies fail. Your company of one WILL fail if you make poor decisions.
When you truly internalise that last fact is when you become an adult.
(Edit: clarified that the last paragraph refers to the previous one specifically)
It’s your job to decide how that company is run. It’s your job to decide what investments that company needs to make to get good returns.
It’s also your job to interpret the contracts your company enters into and decide what is acceptable, and to appropriately risk-manage legal hazard, reputational hazard, etc.
There is nobody else to run this company. It does not have a right to a good outcome. A lot of companies fail. Your company of one WILL fail if you make poor decisions.
When you truly internalise that last fact is when you become an adult.
(Edit: clarified that the last paragraph refers to the previous one specifically)
From a certain extreme perspective, there is some truth to what you're saying, but wow, this is so one-sided, extreme, partial and damaging. What decades of neo liberal brainwashing has done to people.
This is so sad, really. We are NOT companies, we're not robots only driven by free will, we don't live in an economy. We are hardcore social animals with huge biological & affective needs, this is scientifically proven.
I hope young people don't read this and blindly believe it.
This is so sad, really. We are NOT companies, we're not robots only driven by free will, we don't live in an economy. We are hardcore social animals with huge biological & affective needs, this is scientifically proven.
I hope young people don't read this and blindly believe it.
> We are hardcore social animals with huge biological & affective needs, this is scientifically proven.
Totally agree.
> We are NOT companies
Actually, we are humans. However, when it comes to our economic activity, we are also a company. Both things can be true at once.
> this is so one-sided, extreme, partial and damaging. What decades of neo liberal brainwashing has done to people.
Woah. Anything you specifically disagree with?
I put it in economic terms to address the article, but if you replace “company of one” with “life” and “returns” with “outcomes”, the message is largely the same..
Edit:
I think you disagreed so hard because you think I’m saying “you’re only an adult if you think everything is about money and personal gain.”
But what I was trying to say was “you’re an adult once you realise you’re it; you can fail; and it’s nobody else’s job to make sure you don’t” - which I didn’t think was such a controversial point..
Totally agree.
> We are NOT companies
Actually, we are humans. However, when it comes to our economic activity, we are also a company. Both things can be true at once.
> this is so one-sided, extreme, partial and damaging. What decades of neo liberal brainwashing has done to people.
Woah. Anything you specifically disagree with?
I put it in economic terms to address the article, but if you replace “company of one” with “life” and “returns” with “outcomes”, the message is largely the same..
Edit:
I think you disagreed so hard because you think I’m saying “you’re only an adult if you think everything is about money and personal gain.”
But what I was trying to say was “you’re an adult once you realise you’re it; you can fail; and it’s nobody else’s job to make sure you don’t” - which I didn’t think was such a controversial point..
What set me off (not the one you're responding to) about your comment was the bit about not having a right to a good outcome.
Depending on what one means by "good", that one doesn't have a right to it is a fairly strong statement of political opinion, but it was presented as a universal truth.
I also think it's very important that people are allowed to enter risky ventures and "fail" while still being secure of a somewhat good outcome. Anything else puts a lid on innovation. (As they say, if you don't fail a lot, you aren't running bold enough experiments.)
----
You may have meant it descriptively ("I have observed that most societies don't allow for individual failure") and not prescriptively ("societies shouldn't allow for individual failure") but the rest of your comment was written in a prescriptive tone so it was hard to pick up on.
Either way, congrats on writing a popular and controversial comment!
Depending on what one means by "good", that one doesn't have a right to it is a fairly strong statement of political opinion, but it was presented as a universal truth.
I also think it's very important that people are allowed to enter risky ventures and "fail" while still being secure of a somewhat good outcome. Anything else puts a lid on innovation. (As they say, if you don't fail a lot, you aren't running bold enough experiments.)
----
You may have meant it descriptively ("I have observed that most societies don't allow for individual failure") and not prescriptively ("societies shouldn't allow for individual failure") but the rest of your comment was written in a prescriptive tone so it was hard to pick up on.
Either way, congrats on writing a popular and controversial comment!
How is it political opinion to realize a fact of the universe, which is that living beings need to take care of themselves and make good decisions for themselves or else "they fail". Barring the simplification, what you're responding to sounded like just a descriptive statement rather than a political stand.
But it is not an axiom of the human condition that everyone must take care of themselves or fail. Taken literally that means no infant could survive, and then we'd have no adults either.
From that point of view it's probably more defining of humanity as a species that we take care of others, not that we survive personally at all costs. There are thousands or millions of species on this planet that only do the latter, and they don't write books and invent recipes and create startups.
From that point of view it's probably more defining of humanity as a species that we take care of others, not that we survive personally at all costs. There are thousands or millions of species on this planet that only do the latter, and they don't write books and invent recipes and create startups.
This is a common pattern in social science discourse. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is–ought_problem
>What set me off (not the one you're responding to) about your comment was the bit about not having a right to a good outcome.
Depending on what one means by "good", that one doesn't have a right to it is a fairly strong statement of political opinion, but it was presented as a universal truth.
I think this is a really important thing to highlight in what I think is a real contradiction that is exposing its self and largely driving our global political narrative. Does one have the right to a "good life"? It looks like oop edited his original phrasing, but I'd like to take a moment and step into this question, because to me, it seems like its one that is still working itself out in real time. Its a question that for me, the US declaration of independence and framers were trying to address (for their identity, not necessarily for others).
Does one have an inalienable right to a "good life"? Do rights exist if we aren't will to fight, tooth and claw, to maintain them?
I think there is a real divide out in the wild about ones right to a 'good life', and a lot of people are being swindled by failing to think through and understand where the right to a 'good life' is borne. So many on one side argue that
Oop is getting a ton of flack for their framing, however, for me, it was once I adopted an almost identical framing that I started getting my worth at my place of employment. I started understanding that I was responsible for and being paid for or paying for all of my time. I may not like the game, but I didn't make it and playing ignorant to its rules wasn't going to help me.
There's clearly a lot of hate for neoliberalism in the responses to OOP's comment. I despise neoliberalism as much, and likely more than most of those respondents. But you can't fight something you don't understand. Sometimes its important to think through and understand how another group might frame something. Just because a belief happens in your mind doesn't mean you are that thought. Its ok to look at things from other perspectives, especially those you disagree with.
I think this is a really important thing to highlight in what I think is a real contradiction that is exposing its self and largely driving our global political narrative. Does one have the right to a "good life"? It looks like oop edited his original phrasing, but I'd like to take a moment and step into this question, because to me, it seems like its one that is still working itself out in real time. Its a question that for me, the US declaration of independence and framers were trying to address (for their identity, not necessarily for others).
Does one have an inalienable right to a "good life"? Do rights exist if we aren't will to fight, tooth and claw, to maintain them?
I think there is a real divide out in the wild about ones right to a 'good life', and a lot of people are being swindled by failing to think through and understand where the right to a 'good life' is borne. So many on one side argue that
Oop is getting a ton of flack for their framing, however, for me, it was once I adopted an almost identical framing that I started getting my worth at my place of employment. I started understanding that I was responsible for and being paid for or paying for all of my time. I may not like the game, but I didn't make it and playing ignorant to its rules wasn't going to help me.
There's clearly a lot of hate for neoliberalism in the responses to OOP's comment. I despise neoliberalism as much, and likely more than most of those respondents. But you can't fight something you don't understand. Sometimes its important to think through and understand how another group might frame something. Just because a belief happens in your mind doesn't mean you are that thought. Its ok to look at things from other perspectives, especially those you disagree with.
> “you’re an adult once you realise you’re it; you can fail; and it’s nobody else’s job to make sure you don’t”
There's an embedded ambiguity in your sentence in that there are two kinds of failure. One is a failure of endeavor where one don't get what one necessarily wants but who has the basics. Two is a catastrophic type failure with some combination of deprivation, insecurity, and health problems as a result.
Most people would agree with your statement when it comes to one. When it comes to two I don't think such a consensus exists.
My interpretation of the disagreement you are replying to is that possibly differing definitions of failure are being used.
There's an embedded ambiguity in your sentence in that there are two kinds of failure. One is a failure of endeavor where one don't get what one necessarily wants but who has the basics. Two is a catastrophic type failure with some combination of deprivation, insecurity, and health problems as a result.
Most people would agree with your statement when it comes to one. When it comes to two I don't think such a consensus exists.
My interpretation of the disagreement you are replying to is that possibly differing definitions of failure are being used.
> There's an embedded ambiguity in your sentence in that there are two kinds of failure.
Fair enough.
In 2008 somebody asked me if I wanted to try cocaine. I didn’t. He eventually moved on to heroine and his life is now utterly “failed.” in the worst sense. My life is good.
In 2013 somebody told me I need to buy as much bitcoin as I can. I didn’t. That guy is now a billionaire and I’m still an average dude.
Personally I see those two situations as basically the same: decision -> outcome.
There is a continuum of outcomes and the “fail” end could be really catastrophic, for you, your finances, your life, loved ones, possibly even the whole planet in the extreme.
Fair enough.
In 2008 somebody asked me if I wanted to try cocaine. I didn’t. He eventually moved on to heroine and his life is now utterly “failed.” in the worst sense. My life is good.
In 2013 somebody told me I need to buy as much bitcoin as I can. I didn’t. That guy is now a billionaire and I’m still an average dude.
Personally I see those two situations as basically the same: decision -> outcome.
There is a continuum of outcomes and the “fail” end could be really catastrophic, for you, your finances, your life, loved ones, possibly even the whole planet in the extreme.
What you wrote sounds extremely biased towards turning life into economical transactions on the labor market, while I think there's already too much of this mindset, and people need to be reminded that there is much more to life than economic theory.
It’s the other way around.. a company act as a legal person.
Companies are people. (natural person vs legal person in Dutch)
Maybe "people" in a "legal entity" sense, but companies are definitely not people, and shouldn't ever be.
Despite enjoying Smurfs, a show about hardcore social animals, as a kid, I still hope young people believe they can fail.
Being a parent, you get a sense for what young people believe, and why. It comes from you, but also from friends at school, and of course media - books, tv, movies, games. IMHO the 'ability to fail' message is quite poor, overall, from media. Mr. Rogers being the (usual) exception. That said, failure occurs often in real life, desired goals always exceed capability, hopefully you can give them iterated games they can experience failure, adaptation, and success at their own pace. Often they will invent their own games, which we too often call "misbehavior".
But yes, entertainment obsession in kids (on-demand media plus working single parent works out quite badly for the kids), media emphasis on those who are unaccountably good at a thing, means media portrays failing far less often than is realistic, and when it does it's a Rocky style training montage. Plus no-one really wants to write the manual for kids on how to give up on your dreams.
But yes, entertainment obsession in kids (on-demand media plus working single parent works out quite badly for the kids), media emphasis on those who are unaccountably good at a thing, means media portrays failing far less often than is realistic, and when it does it's a Rocky style training montage. Plus no-one really wants to write the manual for kids on how to give up on your dreams.
I think you're severely misreading the original comment, and to be frank, your interpretation is pretty juvenile. Nowhere does the person say that we are robots.
the parent is critiquing the argument that we are all homo economicus - an agent whose primary function is to operate within the market at maximum efficiency to optimise for profit. The counterargument is that no, we aren't, and optimising for market exploitation is both an effort in frustration and anathema to human wellbeing. The GP is encouraging us to act like robots by living our lives in accordance with market calculations, not human actualisation and need-fulfilment.
It's an ideological position, and a harmful one at that. We aren't all totally independent actors competing in a ruthless market to maximise profits.
It's an ideological position, and a harmful one at that. We aren't all totally independent actors competing in a ruthless market to maximise profits.
I'm not sure if this is a new trend, or if I've only just begun noticing it over the last decade. People seem to have completely lost the ability to infer the meaning of words if it lies beyond face value. What a trite, shallow interpretation.
Watch older movies to see this in action. A older movie might say "The terrorists will get their hands on uranium!" and leave it at that, the audience understanding the implications. A movie from the early 2000's goes as far as "The terrorists will get uranium and make a bomb!", expecting less than the audiences from before. Now it's "The terrorists will get uranium, make a bomb, and blow up San Francisco, killing millions of people, including women and children!" and repeat that statement 4 - 5 times so that the lowest common denominator in the focus group gets it.
People are always playing the "I Never Actually Said" gotcha-game these days. Someone says A, B, and C, which strongly, and obviously imply D, but when you push back against D, the retort is "Ha! I never actually said D... You're putting words in my mouth!" This often happens when D is some abhorrent viewpoint, but A, B, and C are benign when taken strictly at face value.
Not saying there was anything abhorrent in this thread, but I agree with you that I'm seeing this pattern more and more in today's hyper-sensitive climate.
Not saying there was anything abhorrent in this thread, but I agree with you that I'm seeing this pattern more and more in today's hyper-sensitive climate.
Yeah but that's not what my comment was, was it? If anything, I might have been reading inferences that weren't intended by the author.
Why do you feel the need to be so condescending? Someone disagrees with your perspective and its because they are the least intelligent person in the room?
Why do you feel the need to be so condescending? Someone disagrees with your perspective and its because they are the least intelligent person in the room?
my point is that we should oppose the system that forces everybody to be in market competition with each other. I understand the position being forwarded, but I think it's describing a system that's antithetical to human values and thus should not be just accepted as a fact like gravity.
Perhaps it is you who is being shallow and trite, not understanding the actual objection I have. I know that what the OP is saying is a description of how to optimise your economic standing - I've done it plenty myself because optimisation comes naturally to me; I'm saying that's a shite way to live and invest your time and energy.
Perhaps it is you who is being shallow and trite, not understanding the actual objection I have. I know that what the OP is saying is a description of how to optimise your economic standing - I've done it plenty myself because optimisation comes naturally to me; I'm saying that's a shite way to live and invest your time and energy.
Markets can behave in ways that are either competitive (my tomatoes are better than your tomatoes) or co-operative (my tomatoes are a perfect complement to your cheese). And sometimes they morph from one mode into the other.
Maybe this is a definitional argument, but I'd say the latter would be complementary, not cooperative. A cooperative model is one where people work together to achieve an outcome, like two kids working together on a school assignment.
Outside an individual company, competition is favoured over cooperation, except when companies work together on e.g. supply chains.
Outside an individual company, competition is favoured over cooperation, except when companies work together on e.g. supply chains.
Yep, you're correct about that terminology, thanks. I'll leave my comment as-is because it'll be less confusing for anyone reading yours.
It's possible that companies (knowingly or unwittingly) co-operate under some circumstances, though - even if competition is generally the {expected/favoured} model.
It's possible that companies (knowingly or unwittingly) co-operate under some circumstances, though - even if competition is generally the {expected/favoured} model.
This has always been the case, but you notice it more and more over time due to your own continually deepening perspective.
> The counterargument is that no, we aren't, and optimising for market exploitation is both an effort in frustration and anathema to human wellbeing
I don't see how an argument that agrees with the parent is counter argument. They literally said we all need to look out for our own well being, and a part of that is managing our participation in voluntary exchange.
> We aren't all totally independent actors competing in a ruthless market to maximise profits.
I missed the part where the parent said that. Where was it?
I don't see how an argument that agrees with the parent is counter argument. They literally said we all need to look out for our own well being, and a part of that is managing our participation in voluntary exchange.
> We aren't all totally independent actors competing in a ruthless market to maximise profits.
I missed the part where the parent said that. Where was it?
The model that the parent is positing is that we are all totally independent actors competing in a labour market and our primary goal should be to optimise our behaviour in said market.
While that's an accurate description of neoliberal economics, I'm arguing that it's neither natural, nor necessarily productive, nor conducive to human wellbeing to mould one's behaviour to fit that system. Or to be more concrete: you're wasting your life studying the labour market for opportunities, learning new disciplines to increase your wage, reading through employment contracts looking for advantages (obviously you should check for big fuck-you statements in contracts, just for self-protection). Not only is the market irrational, such that behaviour based on a rational model of the market is a poor guarantee of positive outcomes, but that living such a life based on market rationality is pretty immiserating and misaligned with what actually makes people happy.
While that's an accurate description of neoliberal economics, I'm arguing that it's neither natural, nor necessarily productive, nor conducive to human wellbeing to mould one's behaviour to fit that system. Or to be more concrete: you're wasting your life studying the labour market for opportunities, learning new disciplines to increase your wage, reading through employment contracts looking for advantages (obviously you should check for big fuck-you statements in contracts, just for self-protection). Not only is the market irrational, such that behaviour based on a rational model of the market is a poor guarantee of positive outcomes, but that living such a life based on market rationality is pretty immiserating and misaligned with what actually makes people happy.
> The model that the parent is positing is that we are all totally independent actors competing in a labour market and our primary goal should be to optimise our behaviour in said market.
Parent never said totally independent, just that the assumption is the most useful operating mode. "Don't jump in a pool expecting a life guard" is good advice whether there is a tower nearby or not.
They also never said optimizing our participation should be a primary goal, but that our participation needs to be managed with our actual goals in mind. It's like he told everyone they should exercise and the counter argument is "Not everyone should quit their jobs to be a fitness model". It's nonsense.
Parent never said totally independent, just that the assumption is the most useful operating mode. "Don't jump in a pool expecting a life guard" is good advice whether there is a tower nearby or not.
They also never said optimizing our participation should be a primary goal, but that our participation needs to be managed with our actual goals in mind. It's like he told everyone they should exercise and the counter argument is "Not everyone should quit their jobs to be a fitness model". It's nonsense.
I think it's a matter of differing interpretations. When I hear "you are a company of one, and it's your job to manage your labour in the market and your investments to get the returns you want", it sounds to me like the commenter is saying that you should view yourself as a company operating in the marketplace and act accordingly. How do companies act in the market? They optimise for profit, they interact transactionally as opposed to through social and communal relations, and they hire specialised labour (or in the analogy, develop specialised skills) to fulfill their fiduciary and legal requirements. Your interpretation may differ, but that's the nature of perspectives.
The entire comment is him explaining exactly how to interpret the you are a company statement, elaborating on the ways in which he intends the metaphor to be used. Extending it with your own biases and arguing against those biases is reactionary and not super useful.
You could have phrased much of your statement as "this should not be extended to mean...", or "If you are also implying X then Y", and it would have been totally valid. The counter argument framing is the issue, because it's just not a counter argument.
You could have phrased much of your statement as "this should not be extended to mean...", or "If you are also implying X then Y", and it would have been totally valid. The counter argument framing is the issue, because it's just not a counter argument.
I just went back and reread it to see if I missed something, but aside from the profit-centered angle (which I've already conceded was a misreading on my part), nope, it still appears to be entirely market focused. I couldn't say if that was intended or if the author just over-extended the analogy (obviously I inferred the former), but the whole comment was framed around operating effectively within the market economy. That's explicitly what it says.
> but the whole comment was framed around operating effectively within the market economy. That's explicitly what it says.
Exactly. So where does all of this other stuff about being a robot and only optimizing for profit come in? The topic is work, and he's telling you how to think about work, not how to think about relationships with colleagues, hobbies, life goals, etc.
Exactly. So where does all of this other stuff about being a robot and only optimizing for profit come in? The topic is work, and he's telling you how to think about work, not how to think about relationships with colleagues, hobbies, life goals, etc.
Well I didn't make the robot comment, but I think it's valid to say that promoting people trying to operate rationally in the market can be pretty robotic if that's your primary motivation. However, given I withdrew that contention, having realised the OP was not talking about making market optimisation and profiteering your primary goal but just talking about how the labour market works, of course the robot thing isn't relevant anymore either.
OP did not say that you have to optimize for profit. However, they said that we have to optimize for something. In other words, there's opportunity cost to everything we do.
> You are the boss of a company of one. Your company sells labor to the labor market, it makes investments in assets, it borrows funds, etc.
It’s your job to decide how that company is run. It’s your job to decide what investments that company needs to make to get good returns.
> It’s also your job to interpret the contracts your company enters into and decide what is acceptable, and to appropriately risk-manage legal hazard, reputational hazard, etc.
This is an argument that you have the responsibility alone to optimise your behaviour in the market. Yes, your utility function could be oriented towards something other than profit, but OP specifically oriented their argument towards getting "good returns".
While this is the direction that neoliberal capitalism pushes you in, what with the social alienation and commodification of everything in life, but that's because it's not aligned with human wellbeing. Your self-image should not be one of a company optimising its market behaviour; this precludes socialising, spending time in nature, exercising for reasons beyond increased economic productivity. It reduces human existence down to rational behaviour in a market.
To present an alternative, because criticism in a vacuum isn't very effective: I personally think that you should optimise your involvement in the economy, so that you are minimally involved in the economy, so that you can spend your precious little time on earth doing things that actually matter to you - whether that's social relationships, hobbies, communities, whatever. The market is something to be avoided, not exploited. To do this effectively you have to understand the market, sure, but it's the same way an accountant for an enterprise company has to deeply understand tax law in order to avoid paying taxes.
If that's also what OP was arguing for then that's a whole other thing, but that's not the impression I got at all with the whole "you are a company, start acting like one" spiel.
> It’s also your job to interpret the contracts your company enters into and decide what is acceptable, and to appropriately risk-manage legal hazard, reputational hazard, etc.
This is an argument that you have the responsibility alone to optimise your behaviour in the market. Yes, your utility function could be oriented towards something other than profit, but OP specifically oriented their argument towards getting "good returns".
While this is the direction that neoliberal capitalism pushes you in, what with the social alienation and commodification of everything in life, but that's because it's not aligned with human wellbeing. Your self-image should not be one of a company optimising its market behaviour; this precludes socialising, spending time in nature, exercising for reasons beyond increased economic productivity. It reduces human existence down to rational behaviour in a market.
To present an alternative, because criticism in a vacuum isn't very effective: I personally think that you should optimise your involvement in the economy, so that you are minimally involved in the economy, so that you can spend your precious little time on earth doing things that actually matter to you - whether that's social relationships, hobbies, communities, whatever. The market is something to be avoided, not exploited. To do this effectively you have to understand the market, sure, but it's the same way an accountant for an enterprise company has to deeply understand tax law in order to avoid paying taxes.
If that's also what OP was arguing for then that's a whole other thing, but that's not the impression I got at all with the whole "you are a company, start acting like one" spiel.
"Good returns" are what you'll make of your time that's worthwhile to you. The interpretation that this means only money is entirely your interpretation.
Caffeine doesn't say that anywhere, though. Quite the opposite.
The parent is critiquing an argument that the OP did not make.
Yeah, I took it as rather the opposite of saying that we are robots. Ultimately, being responsible for one's self is a choice, which is something robots can't do.
Right. I didn't even take it as disagreeing with the piece - there's enough nuance there to see harmony between the post and the comment.
Different perspectives for looking at the same thing provide different benefits, and they can be held simultaneously. For example, getting married to someone involves love and commitment and all that jazz, but I also like to advise also looking at it as a business, especially if you have or are going to have children. It is no different in that the two parents (and maybe even other adults in a multi family household) need to manage tasks, inventory, money, etc.
That does not mean you should treat your family or yourself exactly as a business, but there are some aspects that are beneficial if managed in that manner.
That does not mean you should treat your family or yourself exactly as a business, but there are some aspects that are beneficial if managed in that manner.
Yes, the idea that you can't hold "the neoliberal view" of your household, and "the communist view" and the "romantic view", and the "spiritual view" all together for all their benefits and tradeoffs seems worse to me than even subscribing to one holistically without this imperative.
I've had this called out as absolutely faux pas if not totally asinine by people who are deep into philosophy, but I'm doing great, a lot better than some of them born with silver spoons.
I've had this called out as absolutely faux pas if not totally asinine by people who are deep into philosophy, but I'm doing great, a lot better than some of them born with silver spoons.
> faux pas if not totally asinine
These people are embarrassed that you can think for yourself.
Life has such a high fractal dimension. It's highly unlikely that a single theory, expressed in a serial language, can be a very good description of life, at all.
But it feels good to believe one thing strongly. It feels so, so good. And it feels good to hate people who believe the other thing, and to think they're wrong.
But the right way really is to believe in all the things at once. It's weird, schizoid, scary, and completely logical.
I'd like to put something together to help people understand this. I think the quickest way to get there is:
* math doesn't work the way you think: see Wittgenstein
* space and time don't work the way you think: see Einstein
* matter doesn't work the way you think: see the double slit experiment
* rationality doesn't work the way you think: see tons of psychology
Given the above, do you think anything could possibly work the way you think it works? The best way forward is to just be incredibly weird. (And yet, somehow, be incredibly normal at the same time).
These people are embarrassed that you can think for yourself.
Life has such a high fractal dimension. It's highly unlikely that a single theory, expressed in a serial language, can be a very good description of life, at all.
But it feels good to believe one thing strongly. It feels so, so good. And it feels good to hate people who believe the other thing, and to think they're wrong.
But the right way really is to believe in all the things at once. It's weird, schizoid, scary, and completely logical.
I'd like to put something together to help people understand this. I think the quickest way to get there is:
* math doesn't work the way you think: see Wittgenstein
* space and time don't work the way you think: see Einstein
* matter doesn't work the way you think: see the double slit experiment
* rationality doesn't work the way you think: see tons of psychology
Given the above, do you think anything could possibly work the way you think it works? The best way forward is to just be incredibly weird. (And yet, somehow, be incredibly normal at the same time).
I like where you're coming from, but I think you're stopping too soon. You can learn how math works (well, that's the most general one, least likely to be mastered by a single brain, and it's not clear how meaningful that accomplishment would be). Spacetime theories can be mastered. Quantum theories can be mastered. You can become acquainted with psychological theories and even psychological practice. Moreover, you can do most of this within a single lifetime. So, why not get a physics degree and at least cross two things off your list?
But yes it's hard to describe life, because of that fractal complexity you mention. So the best we can do is go over and over it again and again with different lenses, at different scales, different rates, and get a feel for the thing that way. (Then you must sample all of that, cut it together with music, and release a Terrance Malick movie).
But yes it's hard to describe life, because of that fractal complexity you mention. So the best we can do is go over and over it again and again with different lenses, at different scales, different rates, and get a feel for the thing that way. (Then you must sample all of that, cut it together with music, and release a Terrance Malick movie).
> We are NOT companies, we're not robots only driven by free will, we don't live in an economy. We are hardcore social animals with huge biological & affective needs, this is scientifically proven.
We are companies. You can be a company of one and not a robot. Being a company of one doesn't imply giving up free will or somehow not being meat and bone. That's nothing to do with the statement he's making.
I hope every young person reads it and take it seriously, because it's reality. No one can manage your time, your money, your mental health, like you. No one will.
We are companies. You can be a company of one and not a robot. Being a company of one doesn't imply giving up free will or somehow not being meat and bone. That's nothing to do with the statement he's making.
I hope every young person reads it and take it seriously, because it's reality. No one can manage your time, your money, your mental health, like you. No one will.
The parent comment didn't say that the "company of one" is all that you are. It is a useful concept for the part of a person's life that entails their career, and it's also critical to recognize that a career is only one of a number of the important facets of a life.
So I agree with you that it's a very partial treatment, but I didn't read it as attempting to be totalizing.
So I agree with you that it's a very partial treatment, but I didn't read it as attempting to be totalizing.
> This is so sad, really. We are NOT companies
That's true, although, in a way, I think it's reasonable for the parent commentor to want to identify as a corporation if that's what they feel like.
Are there preferred pronouns for corporate identities? Perhaps people would display a personal stock ticker symbol instead?
That's true, although, in a way, I think it's reasonable for the parent commentor to want to identify as a corporation if that's what they feel like.
Are there preferred pronouns for corporate identities? Perhaps people would display a personal stock ticker symbol instead?
Hah! I hadn’t intended that at all but this is hilarious.
I wonder if the IRS would play along: “I identify as a corporation so you may only tax me on my profits not my income”
I wonder if the IRS would play along: “I identify as a corporation so you may only tax me on my profits not my income”
Well, without agreeing or disagreeing yet: if corporate personhood is considered valid, then perhaps personal corporatehood should be as well.
(in practice: there are probably a lot of reasons why it's a terrible idea)
(in practice: there are probably a lot of reasons why it's a terrible idea)
It’s actually harsher than that. A company that fails typically doesn’t kill the owners.
But as the CEO of you, you can easily get yourself killed in a couple of minutes of bad calls.
The laws of physics are the only laws.
But as the CEO of you, you can easily get yourself killed in a couple of minutes of bad calls.
The laws of physics are the only laws.
It's harsh, but the conclusion of what he's saying is also very liberating, namely, that in your interactions with your employer, there is no "social animal" on the other side of the table caring about your needs, so learn its language to protect yourself and take responsibility over preserving your own humanity.
> This is so sad, really. We are NOT companies, we're not robots only driven by free will, we don't live in an economy. We are hardcore social animals with huge biological & affective needs, this is scientifically proven.
I think you're taking the OP's comments out of context. They did not say that we are not social animals, etc. they made an allegorical comparison likening a person and their value in the marketplace to a company. That does not mean a person does not have value as a human being, as a member of the community, as a friend, partner, parent etc.
I think the comparison is apt when weighing up our careers - which is what the actual article is about - that is of course my own humble opinion, but you're implying meaning which I don't see in the OP's comment.
I think you're taking the OP's comments out of context. They did not say that we are not social animals, etc. they made an allegorical comparison likening a person and their value in the marketplace to a company. That does not mean a person does not have value as a human being, as a member of the community, as a friend, partner, parent etc.
I think the comparison is apt when weighing up our careers - which is what the actual article is about - that is of course my own humble opinion, but you're implying meaning which I don't see in the OP's comment.
This comment is a very emotional, irrational response to a very logical analysis. What a contrast.
The kind of response is also very childish (, not in the sense I am insulting you as childish, but actually just some kind of reaction that would comes from a child. Eg emotion and incoherent thoughts.)
Eg
The “decades of brainwashing” comes out of nowhere and essentially projecting a political view to a logical argument. If you think the argument is wrong, argue with facts not branding it as something and attract that thing in general.
“We are NOT companies”. Again sounds like an argument made by a poor politician (I mean good politician wouldn’t fall into this kind of fallacy.) Clearly it was an analogy to illustrate a fact. I mean what’s this argument arguing against? What’s “are” means in this context? In Chinese there’s an idiom 白馬非馬 comes from a similar fallacy: is black horse a horse? Is white horse a black horse? Therefore white horse is not a horse.
“We don’t live in an economy”: what? What kind of brainwashing would results in that conclusion?
“We are … social animals” and then quote “scientifically proven”. What’s the point? “We are just a bunch of carbon and stuffs worth collectively not more than a few bucks.” This is scientifically proven too. We should all quote random facts to argues against some view we don’t like.
This is so sad, really. I hope any people would exercise more logic and stops politicize things and argue based on hatred, not on HN at least.
The kind of response is also very childish (, not in the sense I am insulting you as childish, but actually just some kind of reaction that would comes from a child. Eg emotion and incoherent thoughts.)
Eg
The “decades of brainwashing” comes out of nowhere and essentially projecting a political view to a logical argument. If you think the argument is wrong, argue with facts not branding it as something and attract that thing in general.
“We are NOT companies”. Again sounds like an argument made by a poor politician (I mean good politician wouldn’t fall into this kind of fallacy.) Clearly it was an analogy to illustrate a fact. I mean what’s this argument arguing against? What’s “are” means in this context? In Chinese there’s an idiom 白馬非馬 comes from a similar fallacy: is black horse a horse? Is white horse a black horse? Therefore white horse is not a horse.
“We don’t live in an economy”: what? What kind of brainwashing would results in that conclusion?
“We are … social animals” and then quote “scientifically proven”. What’s the point? “We are just a bunch of carbon and stuffs worth collectively not more than a few bucks.” This is scientifically proven too. We should all quote random facts to argues against some view we don’t like.
This is so sad, really. I hope any people would exercise more logic and stops politicize things and argue based on hatred, not on HN at least.
Do you have kids?
This makes no sense from my perspective.
I could literally put myself through anything that I needed to, if it meant the safety or well-being of my children. It's not a company, it's a primal force from thousands of years of primordial reinforcement. I'd manage with less capital, so that my kids have a chance at college. I'd manage with less chance of promotion, so that my kids can have my presence at important functions. I'd manage with anything that arose, if it meant something better for them.
I think it's important to understand, and deeply internalize the personal responsibility that adult life brings and the extent to which our decisions influence the things that end up happening, but this analogy of yours borders on psychosis if taken to it's literal end.
A little deeper still, and I think what you're really pointing at is the boundary that decisions can't cross, that certain things are out of our control. Risk management can come into play, but ultimately risk can never be negated. You can only shift it. You can evade the risk of being run over by a bus by never leaving home, but maybe that raises the risk of dying in a house fire, or by being poisoned by lead paint, etc. These aren't "company decisions" they're just a byproduct of life in the natural realm.
I sincerely hope that you don't actually conduct this thinking deep into your lifestyle, perceiving things as though one big company spreadsheet of assets and liabilities.
Much love, friend.
This makes no sense from my perspective.
I could literally put myself through anything that I needed to, if it meant the safety or well-being of my children. It's not a company, it's a primal force from thousands of years of primordial reinforcement. I'd manage with less capital, so that my kids have a chance at college. I'd manage with less chance of promotion, so that my kids can have my presence at important functions. I'd manage with anything that arose, if it meant something better for them.
I think it's important to understand, and deeply internalize the personal responsibility that adult life brings and the extent to which our decisions influence the things that end up happening, but this analogy of yours borders on psychosis if taken to it's literal end.
A little deeper still, and I think what you're really pointing at is the boundary that decisions can't cross, that certain things are out of our control. Risk management can come into play, but ultimately risk can never be negated. You can only shift it. You can evade the risk of being run over by a bus by never leaving home, but maybe that raises the risk of dying in a house fire, or by being poisoned by lead paint, etc. These aren't "company decisions" they're just a byproduct of life in the natural realm.
I sincerely hope that you don't actually conduct this thinking deep into your lifestyle, perceiving things as though one big company spreadsheet of assets and liabilities.
Much love, friend.
It's the same calculus, it's just the kids need to figure into it once you have them.
I made a number of choices differently once I had kids. I folded up a startup and took steady employment at a company with good work/life balance. I bought a house in a good school district rather than renting and taking the risk that rising rents would force them away from their grandparents. I make a choice to drop the work at 4:30 so I can go walk to pick the older one up from pre-school rather than get an extra 20 minutes of work in.
But all of these are still choices - they're weighing the things important to me and deciding that I'm going to allocate my labor and capital in different ways. Once you start getting into the economics of pricelessness, when you must do this for your kids or you're a bad parent, bad things often happen. You lose the ability to make rational trade-offs, and your kids often sense that and never learn the ability to make rational trade-offs.
I made a number of choices differently once I had kids. I folded up a startup and took steady employment at a company with good work/life balance. I bought a house in a good school district rather than renting and taking the risk that rising rents would force them away from their grandparents. I make a choice to drop the work at 4:30 so I can go walk to pick the older one up from pre-school rather than get an extra 20 minutes of work in.
But all of these are still choices - they're weighing the things important to me and deciding that I'm going to allocate my labor and capital in different ways. Once you start getting into the economics of pricelessness, when you must do this for your kids or you're a bad parent, bad things often happen. You lose the ability to make rational trade-offs, and your kids often sense that and never learn the ability to make rational trade-offs.
It's metaphor about how to manage your career, nothing more.
The point of the metaphor is to not depend upon your current employer to manage your career for you. If you do, they will inevitably manage your career to suit their own interests, not yours.
I follow the parent poster's advice in part because I have kids. I manage my career to serve my personal success so that I can care for those who depend upon me.
Not all of life is one big spreadsheet of assets and liabilities; just those things that are relevant to my career growth.
The point of the metaphor is to not depend upon your current employer to manage your career for you. If you do, they will inevitably manage your career to suit their own interests, not yours.
I follow the parent poster's advice in part because I have kids. I manage my career to serve my personal success so that I can care for those who depend upon me.
Not all of life is one big spreadsheet of assets and liabilities; just those things that are relevant to my career growth.
> Do you have kids?
Yes.
> I sincerely hope that you don't actually conduct this thinking deep into your lifestyle
I think what I said holds true about your economic decisions (which the article I’m commenting on is about).
I don’t believe you have to (or even really can) view your entire life through an economic lens. I didn’t mean to imply you are ONLY a company and nothing else.
I did mean the last bit that nobody else is going to make sure you don’t have a bad outcome as applying to life generally.
Yes.
> I sincerely hope that you don't actually conduct this thinking deep into your lifestyle
I think what I said holds true about your economic decisions (which the article I’m commenting on is about).
I don’t believe you have to (or even really can) view your entire life through an economic lens. I didn’t mean to imply you are ONLY a company and nothing else.
I did mean the last bit that nobody else is going to make sure you don’t have a bad outcome as applying to life generally.
completely off topic - user:adenozine replied to user:caffeine. What a coincidence lol. (Caffeine keeps us alert and awake because it blocks adenosine)
Having kids enhances his analogy, as it increases the need for your "company" to make good decisions. Ultimately the GP's message is an empowering one. You have value, you have agency, you can leverage these things to improve your situation (and by extension your family's situation). People are getting stuck on taking the post literally.
> I'd manage with anything that arose, if it meant something better for them.
You had me up until this one. It is not (in my view) necessary to optimize monotonically toward anything that makes life better for my children. All the stuff you said before that, I would certainly do if the alternative was deprivation for my children, but having secured their basic well-being, making things even better for them is only one consideration among others. As an extreme, if I had enough money in the bank to secure them shelter, food, education, and enjoyment, I would not then take or continue in a job I hate in order to pad out a big trust fund.
I fear this is a pedantic point I'm making as I suspect this sort of going above and beyond is not what you meant, but it was my reaction to the end of that first paragraph.
You had me up until this one. It is not (in my view) necessary to optimize monotonically toward anything that makes life better for my children. All the stuff you said before that, I would certainly do if the alternative was deprivation for my children, but having secured their basic well-being, making things even better for them is only one consideration among others. As an extreme, if I had enough money in the bank to secure them shelter, food, education, and enjoyment, I would not then take or continue in a job I hate in order to pad out a big trust fund.
I fear this is a pedantic point I'm making as I suspect this sort of going above and beyond is not what you meant, but it was my reaction to the end of that first paragraph.
> I could literally put myself through anything that I needed to, if it meant the safety or well-being of my children
Right, the main difference is that nepotism is bad in a regular company but in a personal company it is the opposite, not practicing nepotism makes you look bad.
Aside from this the difference isn't that big.
Right, the main difference is that nepotism is bad in a regular company but in a personal company it is the opposite, not practicing nepotism makes you look bad.
Aside from this the difference isn't that big.
I don't see how changing the perspective of selling labor to ...selling labor really jumps the gap into psychosis.
Your children (they're human beings btw) are not extensions of your "inner company" is the point I was making. It's not rational to reduce children to that sort of algebra problem thinking. That's a huge red flag for someone's mental state. If you're not able to recognize that you can only solve human problems with human solutions that incorporate human needs and wants, then you start down the path of psychosis and anti-social behaviors. It's small animal torture, fire-setting, bed-wetting, and then it's full-blown serial killer.
I'm obviously exaggerating, but not THAT much.
You can't just paint over that with an analogy. Maybe I just treat my kids different, but there's literally nothing about work that I care about even remote as much as my childrens' well-being. I'd burn my inner company to the ground if it meant they get a chance at a decent life. I believe it's a biological imperative to remain willing to self-sacrifice to any necessary extent for the betterment of the offspring.
I'm obviously exaggerating, but not THAT much.
You can't just paint over that with an analogy. Maybe I just treat my kids different, but there's literally nothing about work that I care about even remote as much as my childrens' well-being. I'd burn my inner company to the ground if it meant they get a chance at a decent life. I believe it's a biological imperative to remain willing to self-sacrifice to any necessary extent for the betterment of the offspring.
The etymology of economics is household management. Children are dependents of your household.
I'm not really sure what your objection to this analogy is.... Choosing to work more so you can send your kids to an elite private school is one action that somebody can take. Choosing to work less so that you can be more involved in your children's lives is another. All the analogy is asking is that you be intentional about how you are managing yourself and your household.
I'm not really sure what your objection to this analogy is.... Choosing to work more so you can send your kids to an elite private school is one action that somebody can take. Choosing to work less so that you can be more involved in your children's lives is another. All the analogy is asking is that you be intentional about how you are managing yourself and your household.
I wet the bed and played with fire as a child. I don't believe I've become a serial killer.
To expand the analogy further, your children are the shareholders of course and your partner is the board (:
I dare not imagine my wife's response if I were to say this to her.
"You're fired"
The amount of bad faith interpretation and just missing the point in response to this solid bit of career advice is just astounding.
It's pretty incredible that such a benign statement caused so much ruckus! The misunderstanding is palpable.
There'd probably be a lot less bad faith interpretation if it didn't end with a double-zinger of 'And once you reduce your life to a neo-liberal economic model, is when you will finally grow up and become an adult'.
That last part in particular poisons the rest. Sure, it could be interpreted in good faith, but as it's so damn condescending - why put the work in?
That last part in particular poisons the rest. Sure, it could be interpreted in good faith, but as it's so damn condescending - why put the work in?
I don't get these knee-jerk reactions, clearly a lot of people here are putting their wishful statements into his mouth/keyboard - where I see none.
Take ownership of your life, nobody else will. Set priorities straight, nobody else will. Beware of far-reaching mistakes, you can screw up your life irreparably, nobody is going to magically save you like in Hollywood stories.
What the heck? These are some solid life advises. They are crystal clear to any adults, yet so many people fail with those, often badly, and their lives are ruins.
Were you told these things at least once when growing up in a manner that actually sticked with you? I didn't and for sure I wish I did (I ended up all right but I believe I had more luck than average and sometimes risked way too much)
Take ownership of your life, nobody else will. Set priorities straight, nobody else will. Beware of far-reaching mistakes, you can screw up your life irreparably, nobody is going to magically save you like in Hollywood stories.
What the heck? These are some solid life advises. They are crystal clear to any adults, yet so many people fail with those, often badly, and their lives are ruins.
Were you told these things at least once when growing up in a manner that actually sticked with you? I didn't and for sure I wish I did (I ended up all right but I believe I had more luck than average and sometimes risked way too much)
> 'And once you reduce your life to a neo-liberal economic model, is when you will finally grow up and become an adult'
Case in point. You use quotes, and some of the words are the same, but what the author actually said and what you think the author said are just different things.
It's not even about giving the benefit of the doubt for something that was poorly worded. I just don't think you understand what was actually written.
Case in point. You use quotes, and some of the words are the same, but what the author actually said and what you think the author said are just different things.
It's not even about giving the benefit of the doubt for something that was poorly worded. I just don't think you understand what was actually written.
> And once you reduce your life to a neo-liberal economic model, is when you will finally grow up and become an adult
I apologise. It’s not what I meant, in two different ways:
1. You’re not JUST a company.
2. The adult realisation isn’t that you’re a company - it’s that you’re responsible, and your decisions have Real Consequences.
I wish I could write more clearly. I made an edit to try to address this.
Thanks.
I apologise. It’s not what I meant, in two different ways:
1. You’re not JUST a company.
2. The adult realisation isn’t that you’re a company - it’s that you’re responsible, and your decisions have Real Consequences.
I wish I could write more clearly. I made an edit to try to address this.
Thanks.
> 2. The adult realisation isn’t that you’re a company - it’s that you’re responsible, and your decisions have Real Consequences.
More specifically, would it be fair to say that you shouldn't depend upon or expect other people (such as your employer) to manage your career for you?
More specifically, would it be fair to say that you shouldn't depend upon or expect other people (such as your employer) to manage your career for you?
I'm equally wary of the hubris in declaring one has defined all of the required variables for living well.
A review of ages of history would tell that nobody ever nails it down that fully. Everything has its price, including a bank account that never goes red.
A review of ages of history would tell that nobody ever nails it down that fully. Everything has its price, including a bank account that never goes red.
That has nothing to do with what caffeine actually said.
What I said had to do with what you said. OP set out a prescription (quite literally defined adulthood for everyone), it was questioned and you criticized the questioners. I'm questioning the criticizing of the questioners.
Why assume bad faith in the other comments? Try a different perspective while reading OP's comment.
That is to say, the industrial-entrepreneurial worldview is a valid one. But there are many other valid ones besides.
Why assume bad faith in the other comments? Try a different perspective while reading OP's comment.
That is to say, the industrial-entrepreneurial worldview is a valid one. But there are many other valid ones besides.
> What I said had to do with what you said. OP set out a prescription (quite literally defined adulthood for everyone), it was questioned and you criticized the questioners. I'm questioning the criticizing of the questioners.
I'm correctly critiquing yourself and others for not actually understanding what caffeine said. It seems that you still don't.
> Why assume bad faith in the other comments? Try a different perspective while reading OP's comment.
I'm inferring bad faith on the basis that people seem to use caffeine's comment as a spring-board to engage in anti-capitalist rants, rather than actually engage with the quite reasonable career advice it was.
> That is to say, the industrial-entrepreneurial worldview is a valid one. But there are many other valid ones besides.
No one said it was the only one. Only that it is an important perspective to have on managing one's career.
I'm correctly critiquing yourself and others for not actually understanding what caffeine said. It seems that you still don't.
> Why assume bad faith in the other comments? Try a different perspective while reading OP's comment.
I'm inferring bad faith on the basis that people seem to use caffeine's comment as a spring-board to engage in anti-capitalist rants, rather than actually engage with the quite reasonable career advice it was.
> That is to say, the industrial-entrepreneurial worldview is a valid one. But there are many other valid ones besides.
No one said it was the only one. Only that it is an important perspective to have on managing one's career.
Making the fundamental assumptions that everyone shares the same perspective on success in a career.
Other world-views may take other positions. That doesn't make them wrong, or acting in bad faith.
Other world-views may take other positions. That doesn't make them wrong, or acting in bad faith.
Honestly, what do you think the OP is saying? Because I still don't think you've corrected your misconceptions.
I wasn't commenting on OP's comment. I was commenting on yours.
Shouldn't assume people are acting in bad faith simply because you disagree. If OP's advice is as sound as you think, then it should stand up to scrutiny, not shrink from it.
Shouldn't assume people are acting in bad faith simply because you disagree. If OP's advice is as sound as you think, then it should stand up to scrutiny, not shrink from it.
I think this is a great way to look at things and would just like to add that when you have a spouse and children, aka additional stakeholders, it's not exactly a business of one.
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>You are the boss of a company of one.
This is a poor analogy and and an analogy that isn't needed (what exactly have you simplified for the reader here -- the concept of self-determination?). Not sure why you think that every person is basically a temporarily embarrassed CEO of a minuscule company and then to grandstand on that as if anyone who doesn't subscribe hasn't hit the same threshold of maturity.
This is a poor analogy and and an analogy that isn't needed (what exactly have you simplified for the reader here -- the concept of self-determination?). Not sure why you think that every person is basically a temporarily embarrassed CEO of a minuscule company and then to grandstand on that as if anyone who doesn't subscribe hasn't hit the same threshold of maturity.
I think it's a great analogy. It's a shift in mindset, don't take it literally, the point isn't that you're a temporarily embarrassed CEO.. the point is that for example when you interview for a position, don't think about it in terms of getting a job, but in terms of a business transaction (ie you also interview the company) or, when you're constantly in crunch mode, ask yourself whether or not your 'company' is being taken for a ride under an unfair contract.
You trade time, health, mental energy for money and health insurance (and/or reputation or whatever you get from your job). That's pretty much it. We (well, most of us) live in free countries, so if the business transaction does not benefit you, you're free to take your 'business' elsewhere.
You trade time, health, mental energy for money and health insurance (and/or reputation or whatever you get from your job). That's pretty much it. We (well, most of us) live in free countries, so if the business transaction does not benefit you, you're free to take your 'business' elsewhere.
> every person is basically a temporarily embarrassed CEO
That wasn't the point. The point is that businesses are people, so people are businesses. And while regular businesses can be run by a separate CEO, the business of your own person can only be run by yourself, so you got to learn to think like a real CEO to run the business of your person, even though this business will never have more than one member.
That wasn't the point. The point is that businesses are people, so people are businesses. And while regular businesses can be run by a separate CEO, the business of your own person can only be run by yourself, so you got to learn to think like a real CEO to run the business of your person, even though this business will never have more than one member.
And the counterpoint being made here is that: you can tell yourself that, but it's not true.
Why? Because bussinesses aren't people, rather businesses are made up of people. People aren't businesses, people do business.
You can tell yourself "you got to learn to think like a real CEO to run the business of your person" and "make good decisions" or else "you will fail".
Or you can tell yourself "I am my own man (CEO), I can decide what my goals are, and what's considered success/failure. And I have decided that I don't actually want nor have to work so hard". The day you can do that, is the day you hold a huge component to being happy.
Why? Because bussinesses aren't people, rather businesses are made up of people. People aren't businesses, people do business.
You can tell yourself "you got to learn to think like a real CEO to run the business of your person" and "make good decisions" or else "you will fail".
Or you can tell yourself "I am my own man (CEO), I can decide what my goals are, and what's considered success/failure. And I have decided that I don't actually want nor have to work so hard". The day you can do that, is the day you hold a huge component to being happy.
>the concept of self-determination
The concept of opportunity cost.
The concept of opportunity cost.
Not sure why it helps to think like a CEO to understand that concept.
Adages like: You can't have your bun and your penny. Or 'you can't have your cake and eat it' describe such a situation.
Whats happening here reminds me of an old git/hacker news joke: "Git gets easier once you understand branches are homeomorphic endofunctors mapping submanifolds of a Hilbert space"
Think like a CEO and making where you apply for work and delegate your time descicions even easier!
Want more money -- just think like a sequoia investor!
Adages like: You can't have your bun and your penny. Or 'you can't have your cake and eat it' describe such a situation.
Whats happening here reminds me of an old git/hacker news joke: "Git gets easier once you understand branches are homeomorphic endofunctors mapping submanifolds of a Hilbert space"
Think like a CEO and making where you apply for work and delegate your time descicions even easier!
Want more money -- just think like a sequoia investor!
There is are 2 assumptions here, that needs to stated more loudly.
1: "Companies maximize profits. Humans maximize utility. Profits != utility"
2: "Profits are absolute. Utility is perceived."
Utility is an under-defined combination of components on Maslow's pyramid. Even more vexing, is the realization that these components vary from concrete (health, food, shelter) to hedonistically moving targets (social acclaim, money, material wants) to merely perceived (self-actualization). The term: "under-defined combination" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Because some utilities are uncomparable. 'Time spent with your children' cannot be quantified in corresponding wealth or social acclaim. Till date, I am yet to find a better compact representation (meme) of the human condition than Maslow's pyramid.
However, to a more technical audience I prefer the 'RL agent' analogy. A human is an RL agent in a weakly observed universe. The utility function it weakly defined, expected outcomes vary from true outcomes and you can only control your action space. As any RL researcher will tell you; an agent tries to maximize their utility. However, they must periodically update the utility function itself and the manner in which the world is observed. This directly applies to humans. Every once in a while, use previous experiences to re-evaluate your perception of the world. Reflect on the very foundational drivers of your goals with this new perception in mind. Find new goals. In between these iterations, a person focuses on reaching whatever their current perception of the goal is, until the next iteration.
This RL model is incredibly effective. If each iteration leads to massive changes in goals, then 'regularize' or use 'RMSE' on your utility function. If each iteration sees too little change and your utility isn't good enough; then you're stuck in a local minima. Increase your learning rate and lean more on exploration (try something new) instead of exploitation (staying your course).
1: "Companies maximize profits. Humans maximize utility. Profits != utility"
2: "Profits are absolute. Utility is perceived."
Utility is an under-defined combination of components on Maslow's pyramid. Even more vexing, is the realization that these components vary from concrete (health, food, shelter) to hedonistically moving targets (social acclaim, money, material wants) to merely perceived (self-actualization). The term: "under-defined combination" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Because some utilities are uncomparable. 'Time spent with your children' cannot be quantified in corresponding wealth or social acclaim. Till date, I am yet to find a better compact representation (meme) of the human condition than Maslow's pyramid.
However, to a more technical audience I prefer the 'RL agent' analogy. A human is an RL agent in a weakly observed universe. The utility function it weakly defined, expected outcomes vary from true outcomes and you can only control your action space. As any RL researcher will tell you; an agent tries to maximize their utility. However, they must periodically update the utility function itself and the manner in which the world is observed. This directly applies to humans. Every once in a while, use previous experiences to re-evaluate your perception of the world. Reflect on the very foundational drivers of your goals with this new perception in mind. Find new goals. In between these iterations, a person focuses on reaching whatever their current perception of the goal is, until the next iteration.
This RL model is incredibly effective. If each iteration leads to massive changes in goals, then 'regularize' or use 'RMSE' on your utility function. If each iteration sees too little change and your utility isn't good enough; then you're stuck in a local minima. Increase your learning rate and lean more on exploration (try something new) instead of exploitation (staying your course).
Wow people are not liking this for some reason. This way of thinking about selling your labour in a market is exactly why it's called the labour market. People selling labour need to understand how the market works in order to participate in the most advantageous way for their own situationq. Nothing said here detracts from the fact that the calculus of how you go about this changes with your priorities, for example having children might lower your risk tolerance when deciding where to sell your labour, so maybe the 'company of one' way of naming it doesn't fit, but the concept is solid. It isn't meant to gut you of your humanity, just provide a thought framework to make sure you are competing in the market fairly.
ffs.
Humans have lived on the planet for 200000 years. This way of organizing people as a company interacting with the labor market with assets & investments & risk management...is at best a 100 years old. Its like a drop in the ocean of time.
That said, when I was taking courses in Finance as a young 20 something, I came up with this same exact analogy & took it to its logical end - I conceived a stock exchange called the Human Stock Exchange, where every human being was a human stock ticker, and if you liked the performance of your colleagues you would buy their human stock so their human stock price would go up. You could sell short the poorly performing colleagues on your team...its a pretty toxic concept, if you think through it.
Ofcourse, since its such a toxic idea, given the extremely virtuous nature of our benign species, this toxic idea must already exist & thrive. See for instance Will Smith's stock taking a beating after what happened yesterday - https://www.hsx.com/security/view/WSMIT
Humans have lived on the planet for 200000 years. This way of organizing people as a company interacting with the labor market with assets & investments & risk management...is at best a 100 years old. Its like a drop in the ocean of time.
That said, when I was taking courses in Finance as a young 20 something, I came up with this same exact analogy & took it to its logical end - I conceived a stock exchange called the Human Stock Exchange, where every human being was a human stock ticker, and if you liked the performance of your colleagues you would buy their human stock so their human stock price would go up. You could sell short the poorly performing colleagues on your team...its a pretty toxic concept, if you think through it.
Ofcourse, since its such a toxic idea, given the extremely virtuous nature of our benign species, this toxic idea must already exist & thrive. See for instance Will Smith's stock taking a beating after what happened yesterday - https://www.hsx.com/security/view/WSMIT
What is your idea of how people were living for most of that history?
You think being human stock ticker is worse than:
living on average 25 years, starving most of your life, having high chance of being literal slave not figurative, being ostracized and killed for any silly reason by local community, being dumped into trash or simply killed if local community found you were not useful or weak
So if you take it into perspective of 200000 years - being human ticker is actually really nice and comfortable.
You think being human stock ticker is worse than:
living on average 25 years, starving most of your life, having high chance of being literal slave not figurative, being ostracized and killed for any silly reason by local community, being dumped into trash or simply killed if local community found you were not useful or weak
So if you take it into perspective of 200000 years - being human ticker is actually really nice and comfortable.
> living on average 25 years, starving most of your life, having high chance of being literal slave not figurative, being ostracized and killed for any silly reason by local community, being dumped into trash or simply killed if local community found you were not useful or weak
This is all outdated colonial myth. You should turn on your educational updates.
This is all outdated colonial myth. You should turn on your educational updates.
I agree average lifespan of 25 is a bit unfair as that was mostly because of infant death rates.
But I still think hunter-gatherer that broke his leg had maybe couple of months to live.
Peasants in middle ages in Europe that were not able to "simply" change jobs or move out to live wherever they want. That would have to put up with abuse from land owners and other "nobles".
The same hell if one would be a woman in past times - not just no ability to vote - just daily abuse as in rape and violence.
I would like to see some real arguments for "life was better back then, now we are mindless drones".
But I still think hunter-gatherer that broke his leg had maybe couple of months to live.
Peasants in middle ages in Europe that were not able to "simply" change jobs or move out to live wherever they want. That would have to put up with abuse from land owners and other "nobles".
The same hell if one would be a woman in past times - not just no ability to vote - just daily abuse as in rape and violence.
I would like to see some real arguments for "life was better back then, now we are mindless drones".
> I conceived a stock exchange called the Human Stock Exchange, where every human being was a human stock ticker,
I've had a very vague (somewhat similar) idea that I'm stil trying to articulate well.
something like what you said but the stock is run on a blockchain
then every person can emit their own stock which can get traded around.
at some point, the emitter person must (somehow) be made to respond for what they emitted.
naturally, some people will be reliable (and their emited credits will have high value) and others will constantly flop and default so nobody will be interested in having lots of their credit.
so far, this "idea" (which is just barely a sketch) poses more problems than solutions (maybe it's a bit of a barely-baked idea looking for a problem?) but it's fun to think about what else we could possibly do that nobody's thoght to do yet.
I've had a very vague (somewhat similar) idea that I'm stil trying to articulate well.
something like what you said but the stock is run on a blockchain
then every person can emit their own stock which can get traded around.
at some point, the emitter person must (somehow) be made to respond for what they emitted.
naturally, some people will be reliable (and their emited credits will have high value) and others will constantly flop and default so nobody will be interested in having lots of their credit.
so far, this "idea" (which is just barely a sketch) poses more problems than solutions (maybe it's a bit of a barely-baked idea looking for a problem?) but it's fun to think about what else we could possibly do that nobody's thoght to do yet.
Ha it’s actually sort of already happening with NFTs. If your celebrity status goes up your NFT value does too.
> When truly internalise that fact is when you become an adult.
Implying that everyone who runs a company is mature and makes responsible decisions, which is not true.
Implying that everyone who runs a company is mature and makes responsible decisions, which is not true.
Not all companies survive. Some companies, like people survive despite odd choices due to corruption, etc.
We live in societies that find it unacceptable for people to fail, to varying degrees depending on where in the world you are, and at least personally, that's a difference between companies and people that I'd like to maintain and even strengthen.
> You are the boss of a company of one
Nitpick, but companies have limited liability, natural persons do not. It's for that reason that I would probably never get hired if I actually was an employee of a "company of one" (formed me for example). Companies would obviously prefer to contract with me directly, not my company.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_liability
Nitpick, but companies have limited liability, natural persons do not. It's for that reason that I would probably never get hired if I actually was an employee of a "company of one" (formed me for example). Companies would obviously prefer to contract with me directly, not my company.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_liability
I notice you forgot to mention mutually beneficial collaborations, soft skills, and "intangibles". Through unofficial back channel communication between my company and yours I would like to suggest you work on refining your metaphor to include these things more prominently.
Also maybe don't focus so much on _"Personal Responsibility"_.
Also maybe don't focus so much on _"Personal Responsibility"_.
I was trying to disagree with you on the point of becoming an adult, and I couldn’t come up with one.
> When you truly internalise that fact is when you become an adult.
When you truly internalise that life is about making money, that you need to make a good return for your stakeholders (aka family), etc is the day when you have been fully assimilated into the borg.
When you truly internalise that life is about making money, that you need to make a good return for your stakeholders (aka family), etc is the day when you have been fully assimilated into the borg.
Or as Jay-Z puts it "I'm not a business man. I'm a business, man."
Wait, I can think of myself as a company selling my labor power on the labor market? Interesting thought experiment, let's see where it goes.
I sell this commodity on the market, to whom? Business owners, I guess. And this is a weird one: I actually have to sell this commodity on the market, if I want to eat and live and all. So does almost everyone else. But the buyers have other options, so I guess everyone on the sell side basically has to undercut each other til there's no more profit left on our side. What does it mean if I'm not profiting, I sell my labor at the cost of production? Best I can hope for is find an inefficiency and hope to eke out a little bit myself until I can afford to be a buyer? Maybe the whole thing doesn't quite work.
Yeah, I'd say internalizing the, uh, implications of this setup is pretty much a requirement for being a grown adult.
I sell this commodity on the market, to whom? Business owners, I guess. And this is a weird one: I actually have to sell this commodity on the market, if I want to eat and live and all. So does almost everyone else. But the buyers have other options, so I guess everyone on the sell side basically has to undercut each other til there's no more profit left on our side. What does it mean if I'm not profiting, I sell my labor at the cost of production? Best I can hope for is find an inefficiency and hope to eke out a little bit myself until I can afford to be a buyer? Maybe the whole thing doesn't quite work.
Yeah, I'd say internalizing the, uh, implications of this setup is pretty much a requirement for being a grown adult.
> But the buyers have other options
That's not always an assumption that holds. Many "buyers of labor" in the tech sector right now are very limited on their options, whereas the "labor sellers" have many options.
> Best I can hope for is find an inefficiency and hope to eke out a little bit myself until I can afford to be a buyer?
You will always be a buyer of some things and a seller of others. "Spending" your time to invest in rare and valuable skills that you can "sell" on the labor market can net you very nice returns.
That's not always an assumption that holds. Many "buyers of labor" in the tech sector right now are very limited on their options, whereas the "labor sellers" have many options.
> Best I can hope for is find an inefficiency and hope to eke out a little bit myself until I can afford to be a buyer?
You will always be a buyer of some things and a seller of others. "Spending" your time to invest in rare and valuable skills that you can "sell" on the labor market can net you very nice returns.
>When you truly internalise that last fact is when you become an adult.
When you truly internalise that last fact is when you truly internalize capitalism. Congratulations. There will be no prize.
When you truly internalise that last fact is when you truly internalize capitalism. Congratulations. There will be no prize.
Companies === People. People === Companies. Understood.
people aren't perfectly rational individualistic economic agents. no one operates like this and expecting anyone to do so is psychotic and dehumanizing
this reads like a teenager, or ironically someone who never mentally moved past the point of being a teenager, who just read Atlas Shrugged for the first time
this reads like a teenager, or ironically someone who never mentally moved past the point of being a teenager, who just read Atlas Shrugged for the first time
I think most engineers who always search for tasks and work long hours are dealing with some form of anxiety or imposter syndrome.
If management hasn’t brought up any performance issues and you’re anxious about your job you need to talk to someone. You’re on the road to burnout.
If management hasn’t brought up any performance issues and you’re anxious about your job you need to talk to someone. You’re on the road to burnout.
A note on burnout: once you have had one burnout, the next one comes on faster and with less triggers needed.
Managers and senior engineers should be responsible for making them feel better in these situations. Having a support group of peers is also really helpful.
If you reach Senior level ranks and continue to suffer from these feelings though…
If you reach Senior level ranks and continue to suffer from these feelings though…
> If you reach Senior level ranks and continue to suffer from these feelings though…
They need to consult a therapist because they’re likely dealing with anxiety disorder.
If someone truly enjoys working 12 hours a day and weekends constantly then I suppose it’s fine.
They need to consult a therapist because they’re likely dealing with anxiety disorder.
If someone truly enjoys working 12 hours a day and weekends constantly then I suppose it’s fine.
This is quite correct. Never assume YOU KNOW what people expect of you WITHOUT EXPLICITLY ASKING for details.
For me, when I was a young buck, I assumed they wanted the perfection that I EXPECTED. Turns out 99% of the time, I was grossly overestimated what and how much others expected or wanted from my efforts. So I developed the habit of asking lots of questions about what would satisfy them (boss, customers, peers, employees, etc.) for just about any task, project, effort, etc. It also meant (often) that I had to work far less and with less stress.
NEVER ASSUME. Always ask what would be sufficient and then ONLY do what is sufficient. The advantage is they get what they want and you can get schedules, deliverables, etc. right and on-time which makes everyone happier than overdelivering and being late at the same time.
For me, when I was a young buck, I assumed they wanted the perfection that I EXPECTED. Turns out 99% of the time, I was grossly overestimated what and how much others expected or wanted from my efforts. So I developed the habit of asking lots of questions about what would satisfy them (boss, customers, peers, employees, etc.) for just about any task, project, effort, etc. It also meant (often) that I had to work far less and with less stress.
NEVER ASSUME. Always ask what would be sufficient and then ONLY do what is sufficient. The advantage is they get what they want and you can get schedules, deliverables, etc. right and on-time which makes everyone happier than overdelivering and being late at the same time.
Maybe the most important reason: If you are a salaried employee, the more work you do only cheapens your labor. And it cheapens the labor f your fellow employees.
The short term reward of feeling good about completing a feature or fixing a bug is intoxicating. Even learning a new skill can quickly make you feel better about yourself. It's easy to justify that spending excess time on things like this because it has a clear ROI - you become a better developer, you get paid more, you feel smarter.
Just be careful to also invest in things that have a more distant ROI. Family, kids, health, friends, community service, mental health, spirituality - whatever it is that you value.
If you are unfamiliar with what else there is out there that can bring happiness, I'd suggest reading "How will you measure your life?" by Clayton Christensen. He's the same guy that wrote the "Innovators Dilemma".
Just be careful to also invest in things that have a more distant ROI. Family, kids, health, friends, community service, mental health, spirituality - whatever it is that you value.
If you are unfamiliar with what else there is out there that can bring happiness, I'd suggest reading "How will you measure your life?" by Clayton Christensen. He's the same guy that wrote the "Innovators Dilemma".
100% hard agree.
One thing that I'd like to add as well. If you're an employee, getting 120% of the same job done will 99% of the time NOT get you promoted faster.
The folks who get promoted typically do because they're visible in several places.
Do 100% of your job, and then do 20% of something else. Blog, Mentor, do POCs, network, .... Find your own way.
It's maybe unfair, I know, but I've seen so many frustrated folks seeing other get promoted while "they were the ones going the extra mile for their project".
Plus, if you do things visible outside, you can sell that much easier to whoever employer comes next than "I've pushed out more features than my colleagues".
One thing that I'd like to add as well. If you're an employee, getting 120% of the same job done will 99% of the time NOT get you promoted faster.
The folks who get promoted typically do because they're visible in several places.
Do 100% of your job, and then do 20% of something else. Blog, Mentor, do POCs, network, .... Find your own way.
It's maybe unfair, I know, but I've seen so many frustrated folks seeing other get promoted while "they were the ones going the extra mile for their project".
Plus, if you do things visible outside, you can sell that much easier to whoever employer comes next than "I've pushed out more features than my colleagues".
I think the main point this article is missing is that having to work extremely hard (10-12 hrs+) usually implies there is something structurally wrong with the team. Your team is criminally understaffed, you aren't getting enough time to fix tech debt, etc. While understaffed, there are times that you just have to work hard to keep things together, but if you don't surface these issues up the chain then you will for sure burn out.
The key is doing visible work. This is why being a frontend dev is so rewarding at times. I can spend weeks cranking out some heavy algorithmic/data structure code that does some incredibly important data manipulation that our app fundamentally relies on, but it won't get as much kudos as a 10 line, 5 minute CSS fix that made someone's workflow easier.
Lately I have been using the metaphor of "keeping the temperature low" at work to describe how I am approaching my work.
You see, in the past, I would work on all cylinders constantly worried about how I was performing and trying to get work done as fast as possible.
I would let the temperature rise and rise until I was boiling over.
And I would get a lot of work done! However:
1. This is unsustainable. It stressed me out and left no slack room for me to take on additional work.
2. It was annoying to work with me because I was constantly stressed out about nothing.
I was judging myself for not working hard enough, while working harder than anyone else around me. And what comes naturally from judging yourself is judging others. And it was a viscous cycle.
Any more my priority is to take regular breaks, meditate, create space for myself to find compassion and love for the people around me, and overall just try and be a positive calming force in the company.
And people love it! I am complemented for my maturity and sensitivity and leadership abilities.
You see, in the past, I would work on all cylinders constantly worried about how I was performing and trying to get work done as fast as possible.
I would let the temperature rise and rise until I was boiling over.
And I would get a lot of work done! However:
1. This is unsustainable. It stressed me out and left no slack room for me to take on additional work.
2. It was annoying to work with me because I was constantly stressed out about nothing.
I was judging myself for not working hard enough, while working harder than anyone else around me. And what comes naturally from judging yourself is judging others. And it was a viscous cycle.
Any more my priority is to take regular breaks, meditate, create space for myself to find compassion and love for the people around me, and overall just try and be a positive calming force in the company.
And people love it! I am complemented for my maturity and sensitivity and leadership abilities.
"Any more my priority is to take regular breaks, meditate, create space for myself to find compassion and love for the people around me, and overall just try and be a positive calming force in the company"
This is great, and very wise too. Great for you and great for everyone around you. People who generate peaceful relations and harmonious cohesion within a team (or society) are like force multipliers for the quality of that team or society. I work on a team where this is somewhat the case and where I try to embody this (imperfectly... but I try!) and it makes for a productive team, harmonious and strong communication and general happiness.
This is great, and very wise too. Great for you and great for everyone around you. People who generate peaceful relations and harmonious cohesion within a team (or society) are like force multipliers for the quality of that team or society. I work on a team where this is somewhat the case and where I try to embody this (imperfectly... but I try!) and it makes for a productive team, harmonious and strong communication and general happiness.
I'd like to rewrite this as "Why you should maybe not work so hard for
someone else". Intrinsically motivated people (you'll know what I mean
is you are one too) know no bounds to the ecstasy of work. Struggling
toward a self-defined end is like flying in the clouds. In "flow",
work is no longer work at all.
It is labour relations within a late-capitalist system of dehumanising exploitation, over-systematisation and rampant financialisation that turns life's greatest joy of having skills and purpose into farcical performance art, into an inefficient, resentment-fuelled spectacle of self-harm.
It is labour relations within a late-capitalist system of dehumanising exploitation, over-systematisation and rampant financialisation that turns life's greatest joy of having skills and purpose into farcical performance art, into an inefficient, resentment-fuelled spectacle of self-harm.
I am self-employed and I love doing what I get paid to do but there are many other things I like to do as well. I work hard enough to pay my bills and really not much harder.
That "zero surplus" living sounds like a nice balance. As I get older,
and especially with kids around, it's what I aspire to more.
I've been in jobs where was less was expected of me than I was capable of delivering and, more often than not, jobs where more was expected of me than I was capable of delivering, at least for any considerable length of time without burnout.
Both were difficult. I like to think that if I had one of the lower effort needed jobs now that I would find other useful things to do like the author mentioned. At the time I mostly read books or played video games with other staff when I was done with my work. It was nice but a bit frustrating because I would go home and feel like I had already read and/or played video games so I didnt have fun things to do after work.
Absolutely a problem from the top of the hierarchy of needs but still a problem.
Both were difficult. I like to think that if I had one of the lower effort needed jobs now that I would find other useful things to do like the author mentioned. At the time I mostly read books or played video games with other staff when I was done with my work. It was nice but a bit frustrating because I would go home and feel like I had already read and/or played video games so I didnt have fun things to do after work.
Absolutely a problem from the top of the hierarchy of needs but still a problem.
I like to think that I "sell" myself assuming 80% capacity, in order to avoid spending too much time operating at the bleeding edge with all pistons engaged. Nobody can deliver at 100% for an extended period of time without suffering some consequence.
So long as I have just as many 60% days as I do 100%, and average out near the benchmark of 80%, then I have fulfilled the expectations that have been set, and I can be comfortable shutting the lid of my laptop at 1700 sharp.
I'm currently working in downtime(which I expect to continue for some more time), and have been spending my time trying to build something for internal use that also counts for my self-education goals. There's definitely a temptation to goof off and read, play games, or watch movies, but I'd rather be 5% efficient at figuring out how to get Azure to cooperate than 'opt out' and take unofficial personal time. I want to be able to show that I can independently produce value, and increase the value of my 80% for when raises come around.
So long as I have just as many 60% days as I do 100%, and average out near the benchmark of 80%, then I have fulfilled the expectations that have been set, and I can be comfortable shutting the lid of my laptop at 1700 sharp.
I'm currently working in downtime(which I expect to continue for some more time), and have been spending my time trying to build something for internal use that also counts for my self-education goals. There's definitely a temptation to goof off and read, play games, or watch movies, but I'd rather be 5% efficient at figuring out how to get Azure to cooperate than 'opt out' and take unofficial personal time. I want to be able to show that I can independently produce value, and increase the value of my 80% for when raises come around.
I cannot disagree with the author given that modern companies are little more than an aggregation of short-term individuals each with her own agenda many of whom would happily backstab you in order to advance it.
"And that's why money isn't nearly as important as SLACK. You can print or burn money, but you can't manufacture SLACK. It is The Final Commodity. So They want it _all_."
The Book p. 94
The Book p. 94
https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2017/09/30/slack/
> Slack. The absence of binding constraints on behavior.
> Poor is the person without Slack. Lack of Slack compounds and traps. > Slack means margin for error. You can relax. > Slack allows pursuing opportunities. You can explore. You can trade. > Slack prevents desperation. You can avoid bad trades and wait for better spots. You can be efficient. > Slack permits planning for the long term. You can invest. > Slack enables doing things for your own amusement. You can play games. You can have fun.
> Slack. The absence of binding constraints on behavior.
> Poor is the person without Slack. Lack of Slack compounds and traps. > Slack means margin for error. You can relax. > Slack allows pursuing opportunities. You can explore. You can trade. > Slack prevents desperation. You can avoid bad trades and wait for better spots. You can be efficient. > Slack permits planning for the long term. You can invest. > Slack enables doing things for your own amusement. You can play games. You can have fun.
I really resonate with this post; I don't want to say I there's something I "struggle" with but I do feel the need to be able to balance my time a bit more.
I'm often a very productive member of my team, I love challenges, and I love digging into things and coming out the other side and feeling accomplished; My manager gets me onto things and asks when they might be done by, and I feel complied to deliver more in shorter time frames.
It's not so much that I feel "pressured" by expectations; but more I feel "involved" - my failures are the teams failures, my success is the team's success. and I want my team/product/company to succeed, so I spend my effort contributing to that.
However, this does swamp out time for my personal things that I want to do; I am wanting to learn lisp, and have some of my own personal projects that I want to play around with, in a multitude of technologies; I don't have spare time outside of work, so it's really on work time that I want to be able to experiment with these things. as the author puts it - "it doesn't offer any immediate value to me or the company, ... but I think generally made me fitter smarter and more productive"..
So for me, the balancing act, is to assert time to reflect/recharge in other spheres of technology, while also feeling the communal duty of our team to get the company going.
I'm often a very productive member of my team, I love challenges, and I love digging into things and coming out the other side and feeling accomplished; My manager gets me onto things and asks when they might be done by, and I feel complied to deliver more in shorter time frames.
It's not so much that I feel "pressured" by expectations; but more I feel "involved" - my failures are the teams failures, my success is the team's success. and I want my team/product/company to succeed, so I spend my effort contributing to that.
However, this does swamp out time for my personal things that I want to do; I am wanting to learn lisp, and have some of my own personal projects that I want to play around with, in a multitude of technologies; I don't have spare time outside of work, so it's really on work time that I want to be able to experiment with these things. as the author puts it - "it doesn't offer any immediate value to me or the company, ... but I think generally made me fitter smarter and more productive"..
So for me, the balancing act, is to assert time to reflect/recharge in other spheres of technology, while also feeling the communal duty of our team to get the company going.
The point IMVHO should, must be: did you work to live or did you live to work? Work is needed, not just because of the actual society but because even with the most advanced automation we need countless of thing that demand manual/brain work, that's is. But we live to live, not to work.
So we should and must work to obtain what we need and want, a certain safety etc, more than that is illogical. Some might like their work so doing it is a pleasure and for them work hard means being satisfied and that's perfectly fine, however there is still a need to craft a life, because while we live in a society we need a family, friends, kids etc not just colleagues and services.
The above, at philosophical level for the whole society have issues, for instance since we have evolved enough to reduce natural selection by a big extent we need to learn to regulate our reproduction to satisfy both individual desire and social needs in resources terms, like avoiding being too much to been able to live or too little to make the species on the brink of extinction but that's an a bit loose thing for individuals, just well studied incentives or disincentives likely suffice leaving individuals with significant willingness free to decide. Family and friend however are still a need, arriving at 80 alone at home and then go to a old people's home is not that nice for most, for instance. Being able to organize a party with people we like is part of our life, we are social animals and reduce themselves to "make a neighbor party" it's not good either. The rest is life.
So we should and must work to obtain what we need and want, a certain safety etc, more than that is illogical. Some might like their work so doing it is a pleasure and for them work hard means being satisfied and that's perfectly fine, however there is still a need to craft a life, because while we live in a society we need a family, friends, kids etc not just colleagues and services.
The above, at philosophical level for the whole society have issues, for instance since we have evolved enough to reduce natural selection by a big extent we need to learn to regulate our reproduction to satisfy both individual desire and social needs in resources terms, like avoiding being too much to been able to live or too little to make the species on the brink of extinction but that's an a bit loose thing for individuals, just well studied incentives or disincentives likely suffice leaving individuals with significant willingness free to decide. Family and friend however are still a need, arriving at 80 alone at home and then go to a old people's home is not that nice for most, for instance. Being able to organize a party with people we like is part of our life, we are social animals and reduce themselves to "make a neighbor party" it's not good either. The rest is life.
>If you can meet these expectations in fewer hours than you are supposed to work, then you shouldn't just find more to do. Instead you should do something different.
This one really struck home for me. I will often quickly finish a task like refactoring a class heirarchy, then I will spend another 3 hours looking at it and the surrounding code to check for any unoptimal usages. But it always turns out to be a waste of time, because we have much bigger things on the backlog. Thanks for reminding me.
This one really struck home for me. I will often quickly finish a task like refactoring a class heirarchy, then I will spend another 3 hours looking at it and the surrounding code to check for any unoptimal usages. But it always turns out to be a waste of time, because we have much bigger things on the backlog. Thanks for reminding me.
From my read, the title doesn't seem accurate at all.
>You should try and spend your time in ways that will benefit you and your employer.
The title says to do less work, but in reality seems you're still doing as much work but rather developing those other skills. Really just improving yourself.
My 2 previous jobs were MSP. Like all MSPs, you wont control your schedule. someone else decides that you only need 30 minutes of your time to work on ticket X. It doesn't matter if that ticket requires you to drive 45 minutes away and then 45 minutes back. You will get chewed out for not completing the work in the allotted time.
You will be required to do all the self-improvement on your own time and own dime.
My current job though is awesome. I have been afforded the time during work to work on open source python projects that are beneficial to the team.
For example, I had recommended we get solarwinds. less than a year later the solarwinds supply chain thing dropped. we dropped solarwinds. I decided screw it. I rebuilt the functionality we wanted in django. Prior to this job I didnt know python. Now I have multiple useful python projects.
I can certainly confirm that this approach has been much better.
>You should try and spend your time in ways that will benefit you and your employer.
The title says to do less work, but in reality seems you're still doing as much work but rather developing those other skills. Really just improving yourself.
My 2 previous jobs were MSP. Like all MSPs, you wont control your schedule. someone else decides that you only need 30 minutes of your time to work on ticket X. It doesn't matter if that ticket requires you to drive 45 minutes away and then 45 minutes back. You will get chewed out for not completing the work in the allotted time.
You will be required to do all the self-improvement on your own time and own dime.
My current job though is awesome. I have been afforded the time during work to work on open source python projects that are beneficial to the team.
For example, I had recommended we get solarwinds. less than a year later the solarwinds supply chain thing dropped. we dropped solarwinds. I decided screw it. I rebuilt the functionality we wanted in django. Prior to this job I didnt know python. Now I have multiple useful python projects.
I can certainly confirm that this approach has been much better.
> Obviously I don't practise any of what I talk about here, and diligently ensure that I spend all my time at work delivering business value.
Obviously!
;)
Obviously!
;)
I'm convinced that the only people who actually make what they are worth (at least in my industry) are people who either contract or start their own business. During my grad school years, my PI contracted with other companies for a minimum of $300 an hour, but I've seen others in the industry with higher rates. The higher up you go in our company go from being able to reimburse a couple thousand dollars in travel, to capping out at over 8 figures. The way I see it, being self employed is the only way for most people to achieve these types of numbers. Now I don't have aspirations to ever work at those levels, I'm more focused on being debt free in the next ten years so I don't have to work such a high powered job, and I can retire early. But when I see compensation numbers like that, it certainly makes me think twice about picking up more than my fare share of work just to generate good will within the company.
Most business owners earn about the same as if they worked for someone else. It's only the top decile where the numbers start to differ.
http://reactionwheel.net/2019/01/schumpeter-on-strategy.html
http://reactionwheel.net/2019/01/schumpeter-on-strategy.html
Um, because life is more important than work?
Because your kids will only be young once and they don't give a sh*t about your CV?
Because you could be dead tomorrow?
Because there is lots apart from work that gives you love, satisfaction and pleasure?
Because you don't need to be insanely wealthy?
...and a gazillion other reasons.
> What do I mean by working as hard as possible? I mean someone who can finish all the work that is expected of them in less than the total time that they are meant to spend working and then asks for more, similar, work to do.
I was surprised the author didn't use the term 'workaholic' but I'm older so maybe it's an older term. Google trends does show a steady decline in the use of the term [1]
Oxford defines a workaholic as "a person who compulsively works hard and long hours." There are too many reasons for this compulsion to go into in a comment...
[1] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=w...
I was surprised the author didn't use the term 'workaholic' but I'm older so maybe it's an older term. Google trends does show a steady decline in the use of the term [1]
Oxford defines a workaholic as "a person who compulsively works hard and long hours." There are too many reasons for this compulsion to go into in a comment...
[1] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=w...
100% this, but let me add the why:
Most people don't want to do good work, they just want to get paid and fuck off. It is really hard to grok this because it is just so disappointing and demotivating.
Most people lie constantly, to appear as if they want to do work, as if they give a fuck - they are lying to your face.
Once you realize this much, once you come to terms with what most people are - the rest will fall into place.
Until you grok this, these sorts of posts will seem like cynical takes, like someone who doesn't want to work hard, who wants to be a free loader. No, these sorts of posts are cautionary tales that society is filled with free loaders and liars, so you need to tread with caution and know how to deal with these 'people'.
Most people don't want to do good work, they just want to get paid and fuck off. It is really hard to grok this because it is just so disappointing and demotivating.
Most people lie constantly, to appear as if they want to do work, as if they give a fuck - they are lying to your face.
Once you realize this much, once you come to terms with what most people are - the rest will fall into place.
Until you grok this, these sorts of posts will seem like cynical takes, like someone who doesn't want to work hard, who wants to be a free loader. No, these sorts of posts are cautionary tales that society is filled with free loaders and liars, so you need to tread with caution and know how to deal with these 'people'.
From the other side of the coin. Your employer is free loading off of you. You are paid a fraction of the amount of money that your work actually generates. If your work generates 100 dollars... you're paid 10.
So essentially your employer is fucking you and any other attitude other than to treat the situation for what it is, is delusional.
Don't call us 'people'. You're the one that doesn't get it.
Now I'm not saying you need to freeload. But I do what I'm paid to do because this is a business transaction that favors the employer. After I'm paid, I fuck off, because I just got shafted by my employer and I owe him nothing until he can pay me again. My work is only good to the point where my employer is willing to continue paying me.
So essentially your employer is fucking you and any other attitude other than to treat the situation for what it is, is delusional.
Don't call us 'people'. You're the one that doesn't get it.
Now I'm not saying you need to freeload. But I do what I'm paid to do because this is a business transaction that favors the employer. After I'm paid, I fuck off, because I just got shafted by my employer and I owe him nothing until he can pay me again. My work is only good to the point where my employer is willing to continue paying me.
I don't employ anyone. I'm not coming from a place of a disgruntled employer complaining about the workers being 'lazy' or whatever.
I'm coming from a place of what the blog talks about - someone who came in starry eyed doing good work, only to find out you won't get paid 3x for doing 3x the work relative to everyone else, but instead they'll try to get you to do 4x the work for a 10% yearly bonus, until you drop dead of exhaustion.
Oh, and your co-workers will hate your guts and try to undermine you. Nice system, right?
That's the dynamic I'm addressing - if you're enthusiastic and starry eyed and think people are out there wanting to change the world for the better or at least take a modicum of pride in their work - be very careful, the real world is not like that, at all.
I'm coming from a place of what the blog talks about - someone who came in starry eyed doing good work, only to find out you won't get paid 3x for doing 3x the work relative to everyone else, but instead they'll try to get you to do 4x the work for a 10% yearly bonus, until you drop dead of exhaustion.
Oh, and your co-workers will hate your guts and try to undermine you. Nice system, right?
That's the dynamic I'm addressing - if you're enthusiastic and starry eyed and think people are out there wanting to change the world for the better or at least take a modicum of pride in their work - be very careful, the real world is not like that, at all.
For what it's worth I've only experienced this long term in corporations. Small companies that are actually still in the prime of producing and growth can't afford that with everyone and expect to survive. If it's systemic the startup just fails after meandering for a little bit. I derive a little satisfaction from that fact.
It starts to tilt after you've gotten a couple hundred employees and people can hide more.
It starts to tilt after you've gotten a couple hundred employees and people can hide more.
Small companies have a different problem.
I figure there are about 1 in 10,000, if not 100,000 software devs that have the brains and fortitude to eat shit for 4-5 years, solving hard problems.
Not only do start-ups normally not have 4-5 years, but they don't even try to solve hard problems - they mostly just try to solve some trivial bullshit to exploit a legal loophole or insert themselves as middlemen in a corporate/legal swamp.
I figure there are about 1 in 10,000, if not 100,000 software devs that have the brains and fortitude to eat shit for 4-5 years, solving hard problems.
Not only do start-ups normally not have 4-5 years, but they don't even try to solve hard problems - they mostly just try to solve some trivial bullshit to exploit a legal loophole or insert themselves as middlemen in a corporate/legal swamp.
> Not only do start-ups normally not have 4-5 years, but they don't even try to solve hard problems - they mostly just try to solve some trivial bullshit to exploit a legal loophole or insert themselves as middlemen in a corporate/legal swamp.
I don't really agree with that, the time horizon on a successful startup, one that's acquired or goes public, is 7-10 years. I also don't agree with the class of problems. Like everything there's tiers. C tier player get's a C tier company with C tier problems. Naturally there's more C tier people than A tier, but that's not an indictment specific or by any stretch unique to startups.
Edit: Honestly, the prevalence of easy capital means bullshit like you say stands out more but I'm not sure if a lot of companies like that are the winning bet for another like Google or whatever. They're over pronounced for sure but the moment venture capital stops having so much money floating around they'll die out imo. It does mean you have to do a little more work to find the interesting ones though.
I don't really agree with that, the time horizon on a successful startup, one that's acquired or goes public, is 7-10 years. I also don't agree with the class of problems. Like everything there's tiers. C tier player get's a C tier company with C tier problems. Naturally there's more C tier people than A tier, but that's not an indictment specific or by any stretch unique to startups.
Edit: Honestly, the prevalence of easy capital means bullshit like you say stands out more but I'm not sure if a lot of companies like that are the winning bet for another like Google or whatever. They're over pronounced for sure but the moment venture capital stops having so much money floating around they'll die out imo. It does mean you have to do a little more work to find the interesting ones though.
I thought about it a bit more - I was unfair to start-ups. It's not that start-ups largely solve trivial problems - it's that humans largely solve trivial problems.
There are factors that make start-ups more likely to solve trivial problems vs say, a research institute, but it almost doesn't matter in the scheme of things.
There are exceptions - they come once every few decades, per industry, give or take. Then the millions of regular people take it and do what they can't help but do :)
There are factors that make start-ups more likely to solve trivial problems vs say, a research institute, but it almost doesn't matter in the scheme of things.
There are exceptions - they come once every few decades, per industry, give or take. Then the millions of regular people take it and do what they can't help but do :)
Yes I think I now largely agree with you. Most humans do mundane work and solve trivial problems. It's how the system keeps working though. If that stopped we'd be too busy sifting through the wreckage to produce the few exceptions where most of our value (not necessarily monetary) comes from.
I think I misinterpreted your post. We're talking about the same thing.
> You are paid a fraction of the amount of money that your work actually generates
There are organizations that don't do this. They are called nonprofits. Why don't people just work for nonprofits all the time? Because they are less stable and there is less upward mobility. So there's something that is actually bought by this extractive capitalism, and we sign up for it when we sign up to work at for-profit companies.
It's hard to call it freeloading off of me, when I benefit from this arrangement.
There are organizations that don't do this. They are called nonprofits. Why don't people just work for nonprofits all the time? Because they are less stable and there is less upward mobility. So there's something that is actually bought by this extractive capitalism, and we sign up for it when we sign up to work at for-profit companies.
It's hard to call it freeloading off of me, when I benefit from this arrangement.
Nobody is promoting communism here. But capitalism is imperfect in the sense that it's unfair. The unfairness motivates productivity. It's the best system but it is still highly flawed. Wealth inequality is one of the major consequences of capitalism that we haven't quite figured out how to tame.
It is freeloading in every sense of the word. You pay a slave a dime for work that generates you hundreds of dollars the slave still benefits, but you are still freeloading even if the slave is benefiting by a ten cents.
It's how things are, I'm not calling for a better system. But I'm not so stupid as to sell 100% of my loyalty to a company that in the end is shafting me.
It is freeloading in every sense of the word. You pay a slave a dime for work that generates you hundreds of dollars the slave still benefits, but you are still freeloading even if the slave is benefiting by a ten cents.
It's how things are, I'm not calling for a better system. But I'm not so stupid as to sell 100% of my loyalty to a company that in the end is shafting me.
You have a very different definition of freeloading. The slave situation is totally incomparable on account of how the slave cannot quit aside from by dying.
> It is freeloading in every sense of the word.
Every sense, except the dictionary definition, is what you meant, I take it? "Freeload - take advantage of other people's generosity without giving anything in return." Giving ten cents is not the same thing as not giving anything. And if an employer gave me ten cents for a day of work, I would quit and go elsewhere as would every other free person in America.
As for capitalism being unfair, that's basically the point of capitalism, in the essence that "unfair" means "not everyone is compensated the same."
> It is freeloading in every sense of the word.
Every sense, except the dictionary definition, is what you meant, I take it? "Freeload - take advantage of other people's generosity without giving anything in return." Giving ten cents is not the same thing as not giving anything. And if an employer gave me ten cents for a day of work, I would quit and go elsewhere as would every other free person in America.
As for capitalism being unfair, that's basically the point of capitalism, in the essence that "unfair" means "not everyone is compensated the same."
Oh my bad. Throw a penny at the employees face and it's no longer freeloading. This isn't freeloading. Maybe a better term is "fucking over".
Employers fuck people over, they don't freeload off of them. My bad.
>As for capitalism being unfair, that's basically the point of capitalism, in the essence that "unfair" means "not everyone is compensated the same."
Why you're repeating something I stated is beyond me. I said capitalism is unfair. You say that being unfair is the "point" of capitalism. We're saying the same thing. Does the word "point" change the nature of what I'm saying? No.
Employers fuck people over, they don't freeload off of them. My bad.
>As for capitalism being unfair, that's basically the point of capitalism, in the essence that "unfair" means "not everyone is compensated the same."
Why you're repeating something I stated is beyond me. I said capitalism is unfair. You say that being unfair is the "point" of capitalism. We're saying the same thing. Does the word "point" change the nature of what I'm saying? No.
> Why you're repeating something I stated is beyond me. I said capitalism is unfair.
You said that as a means of supporting your larger point which is that capitalism is flawed. I am arguing that unfairness (as I defined it) is the whole essence of capitalism, which is very different from saying it's an unwanted byproduct of it. We want unfairness.
If you instead want fairness, there are other systems for that in use by other countries. You can move to one of those countries if you prefer that system. But there are good reasons that capitalist countries are the most prosperous.
> Employers fuck people over, they don't freeload off of them.
It's equally possible for employees to fuck over employers, we just tend not to do it (for good reasons).
You said that as a means of supporting your larger point which is that capitalism is flawed. I am arguing that unfairness (as I defined it) is the whole essence of capitalism, which is very different from saying it's an unwanted byproduct of it. We want unfairness.
If you instead want fairness, there are other systems for that in use by other countries. You can move to one of those countries if you prefer that system. But there are good reasons that capitalist countries are the most prosperous.
> Employers fuck people over, they don't freeload off of them.
It's equally possible for employees to fuck over employers, we just tend not to do it (for good reasons).
>You said that as a means of supporting your larger point which is that capitalism is flawed. I am arguing that unfairness (as I defined it) is the whole essence of capitalism, which is very different from saying it's an unwanted byproduct of it. We want unfairness.
Thank you for the clarification. No we don't want unfairness. Wealth inequality is universally a very bad thing. Nobody wants this, you'd have to be insane to want it. That is unless you're the one doing the fucking.
Let me make one thing absolutely clear. I never said I prefer another system. I just said the current system is flawed. Please don't tell me to move to another country.
Also you obviously don't understand capitalism. Adam Smith originally conceived of the invisible hand that would influence market forces to distribute wealth fairly. This was the intent, the outcome is clearly not the case. Wealth is distributed unfairly with people who contribute the most to GDP not getting the most wealth.
The people who get the most wealth are owners of capital, not the people who generate or increase capital. The idea of capitalism started with the idea that wealth was fairly distributed. Modern economics now is fully aware that this is not the case and that there are huge flaws within capitalism even though there is currently no known superior system.
>It's equally possible for employees to fuck over employers, we just tend not to do it (for good reasons).
So? The problem here is every employee under a capitalist system is getting fucked over. So if I'm getting fucked over then of course I owe the employer nothing beyond stated business obligations.
Thank you for the clarification. No we don't want unfairness. Wealth inequality is universally a very bad thing. Nobody wants this, you'd have to be insane to want it. That is unless you're the one doing the fucking.
Let me make one thing absolutely clear. I never said I prefer another system. I just said the current system is flawed. Please don't tell me to move to another country.
Also you obviously don't understand capitalism. Adam Smith originally conceived of the invisible hand that would influence market forces to distribute wealth fairly. This was the intent, the outcome is clearly not the case. Wealth is distributed unfairly with people who contribute the most to GDP not getting the most wealth.
The people who get the most wealth are owners of capital, not the people who generate or increase capital. The idea of capitalism started with the idea that wealth was fairly distributed. Modern economics now is fully aware that this is not the case and that there are huge flaws within capitalism even though there is currently no known superior system.
>It's equally possible for employees to fuck over employers, we just tend not to do it (for good reasons).
So? The problem here is every employee under a capitalist system is getting fucked over. So if I'm getting fucked over then of course I owe the employer nothing beyond stated business obligations.
> Wealth inequality is universally a very bad thing.
This is a moral absolutist take. We clearly don't agree on "bad" vs. "good" because some of the best (from my perspective) things were/are done in capitalist countries, such as the creation of NASA, rollercoasters, the Internet, innovative surgeries, and life-saving medical treatments for chronic conditions.
> Wealth is distributed unfairly with people who contribute the most to GDP not getting the most wealth.
Measuring contributions is not a trivial task, even philosophically. How much does my CEO contribute versus the work of us workers? That isn't something that can be measured, so any conception of the answer to that is going to be a matter of opinion. So I'm going to say "[citation needed]" on that one, and arguably there's a "[philosophical justification needed]" as well.
> every employee under a capitalist system is getting fucked over
First, that definitely is not true, especially if you believe that a portion of people in the system are overpaid. But secondly, if you are getting "fucked over," you should leave and join a different company that does not fuck you over. If enough people do this, either the economy will grind to a halt (forcing companies to raise wages) or the wages will be raised without grinding the economy to a halt. There is absolutely nothing in capitalism that prohibits this. In fact, the prospect of higher wages means it is encouraged.
> The people who get the most wealth are owners of capital, not the people who generate or increase capital.
You are again stating this as though it's supposed to be taken as a given that it's bad. Acquiring capital and growing capital are two totally different roles and it's impossible to compare their true value to society. We need both, and it's not clear that acquiring capital (providing it) is less valuable.
This is a moral absolutist take. We clearly don't agree on "bad" vs. "good" because some of the best (from my perspective) things were/are done in capitalist countries, such as the creation of NASA, rollercoasters, the Internet, innovative surgeries, and life-saving medical treatments for chronic conditions.
> Wealth is distributed unfairly with people who contribute the most to GDP not getting the most wealth.
Measuring contributions is not a trivial task, even philosophically. How much does my CEO contribute versus the work of us workers? That isn't something that can be measured, so any conception of the answer to that is going to be a matter of opinion. So I'm going to say "[citation needed]" on that one, and arguably there's a "[philosophical justification needed]" as well.
> every employee under a capitalist system is getting fucked over
First, that definitely is not true, especially if you believe that a portion of people in the system are overpaid. But secondly, if you are getting "fucked over," you should leave and join a different company that does not fuck you over. If enough people do this, either the economy will grind to a halt (forcing companies to raise wages) or the wages will be raised without grinding the economy to a halt. There is absolutely nothing in capitalism that prohibits this. In fact, the prospect of higher wages means it is encouraged.
> The people who get the most wealth are owners of capital, not the people who generate or increase capital.
You are again stating this as though it's supposed to be taken as a given that it's bad. Acquiring capital and growing capital are two totally different roles and it's impossible to compare their true value to society. We need both, and it's not clear that acquiring capital (providing it) is less valuable.
>This is a moral absolutist take.
No it's the take by vote. You ask a normal person whether they think it's good they will give you a normal answer. You ask a billionaire, the billionaire will give you the same answer but secretly lobby against you.
It's not moral absolutist. Every economist thinks it's bad. Generally they are okay with a little bit as a necessity but the level at where it's at now is too much.
>Measuring contributions is not a trivial task, even philosophically. How much does my CEO contribute versus the work of us workers? That isn't something that can be measured, so any conception of the answer to that is going to be a matter of opinion. So I'm going to say "[citation needed]" on that one, and arguably there's a "[philosophical justification needed]" as well.
I never said it was trivial nor did I say it could be easily measured. But on a grand scale we know it's occurring. It's very trivial to see. Most CEO's don't deserve the salary they get, this is also trivial to see.
>First, that definitely is not true, especially if you believe that a portion of people in the system are overpaid.
You're way too pedantic. Of course I'm referring to a generality. 99% of people are fucked over. Very few people are overpaid.
>But secondly, if you are getting "fucked over," you should leave and join a different company that does not fuck you over.
All companies try to fuck you over. I just join the company that fucks me the least. I'm still getting fucked. That's what typically occurs. What you're referring to is different.
You're referring to Baumol's cost disease for wage competition, which is typically not what occurs. No overall economy is governed by this but you do see it happening in small bubbles or certain industries. I would say software in the bay area has this phenomenon occurring in the slight. Wages here are higher then the rest of the world BUT wages are generally not high enough to the point where most engineers aren't getting fucked.
>You are again stating this as though it's supposed to be taken as a given that it's bad. Acquiring capital and growing capital are two totally different roles and it's impossible to compare their true value to society. We need both, and it's not clear that acquiring capital (providing it) is less valuable.
It is bad, but let me clarify, ownership of human capital or other things that own human capital by proxy is the thing that is bad.
Just because things are hard to quantify doesn't mean we can't use our intuition to make a judgement. It should be self evident and obvious that ownership of human capital is bad but a necessary evil.
No it's the take by vote. You ask a normal person whether they think it's good they will give you a normal answer. You ask a billionaire, the billionaire will give you the same answer but secretly lobby against you.
It's not moral absolutist. Every economist thinks it's bad. Generally they are okay with a little bit as a necessity but the level at where it's at now is too much.
>Measuring contributions is not a trivial task, even philosophically. How much does my CEO contribute versus the work of us workers? That isn't something that can be measured, so any conception of the answer to that is going to be a matter of opinion. So I'm going to say "[citation needed]" on that one, and arguably there's a "[philosophical justification needed]" as well.
I never said it was trivial nor did I say it could be easily measured. But on a grand scale we know it's occurring. It's very trivial to see. Most CEO's don't deserve the salary they get, this is also trivial to see.
>First, that definitely is not true, especially if you believe that a portion of people in the system are overpaid.
You're way too pedantic. Of course I'm referring to a generality. 99% of people are fucked over. Very few people are overpaid.
>But secondly, if you are getting "fucked over," you should leave and join a different company that does not fuck you over.
All companies try to fuck you over. I just join the company that fucks me the least. I'm still getting fucked. That's what typically occurs. What you're referring to is different.
You're referring to Baumol's cost disease for wage competition, which is typically not what occurs. No overall economy is governed by this but you do see it happening in small bubbles or certain industries. I would say software in the bay area has this phenomenon occurring in the slight. Wages here are higher then the rest of the world BUT wages are generally not high enough to the point where most engineers aren't getting fucked.
>You are again stating this as though it's supposed to be taken as a given that it's bad. Acquiring capital and growing capital are two totally different roles and it's impossible to compare their true value to society. We need both, and it's not clear that acquiring capital (providing it) is less valuable.
It is bad, but let me clarify, ownership of human capital or other things that own human capital by proxy is the thing that is bad.
Just because things are hard to quantify doesn't mean we can't use our intuition to make a judgement. It should be self evident and obvious that ownership of human capital is bad but a necessary evil.
You should really relax your moral rigidity. You believe your intuition is correct, but there's nothing saying it is. Our intuition comes from culture, which is the result of centuries of Judeo-Christian influence, which I hazard to guess most of HN is not OK with taking as a source of knowledge, even an implicit, squishy kind of knowledge.
Instead we should be foundational about this. "Every economist" doesn't believe anything, as there is widespread disagreement about almost every topic in science, and furthermore every economist believing something doesn't make it true, as economists are subject to groupthink same as the rest of us.
To the extent that employees are being taken advantage of by for-profit corporations, employees are accepting of this situation, because alternatives are available. There is nothing that says you must work for a for-profit corporation. There is also nothing that says you can't join a co-op. There are distinct benefits to working for a for-profit corporation; those are what I am choosing when I choose to allow myself to be "fucked over" as you say. In reality, what is happening is I am allowing some of my value to be captured by the organization and invested into its long-term stability, productivity, and desirability. If I wished for none of this, there is nothing stopping me from starting my own company of one person, correct?
Instead we should be foundational about this. "Every economist" doesn't believe anything, as there is widespread disagreement about almost every topic in science, and furthermore every economist believing something doesn't make it true, as economists are subject to groupthink same as the rest of us.
To the extent that employees are being taken advantage of by for-profit corporations, employees are accepting of this situation, because alternatives are available. There is nothing that says you must work for a for-profit corporation. There is also nothing that says you can't join a co-op. There are distinct benefits to working for a for-profit corporation; those are what I am choosing when I choose to allow myself to be "fucked over" as you say. In reality, what is happening is I am allowing some of my value to be captured by the organization and invested into its long-term stability, productivity, and desirability. If I wished for none of this, there is nothing stopping me from starting my own company of one person, correct?
You are bartering your value to the organization and getting less in return. That's the definition of getting fucked.
If you want to start your own company then you are fucking other people. In either situation, somebody is getting fucked.
If you want to start your own company then you are fucking other people. In either situation, somebody is getting fucked.
One should definitely not be working hard. You need to minimize work and maximize income. The more you work, the less you actually make per-hour invested, if the income does not grow proportionally to surpass the current ratio. Unless you're in a good strategic position which ensures you will get huge benefits by working hard (think large stake in the company), working hard is a losing game.
A company will pay you the bare minimum it can get away with, taking into considerations all sort of parameters (such as risk of attrition) so naturally, your optimal behavior should be to work as little as possible to not get fired. Use the extra time to invest in yourself or just enjoy life.
A company will pay you the bare minimum it can get away with, taking into considerations all sort of parameters (such as risk of attrition) so naturally, your optimal behavior should be to work as little as possible to not get fired. Use the extra time to invest in yourself or just enjoy life.
"You should try and spend your time in ways that will benefit you and your employer."
This doesn't mean to work 4h a day on a 40h week contract and playing gets.the rest of it.
And I think people doing that, are blocking their own carriers.
I make double what I made 6 years ago and can cut back to 50% with a still good salary.
If I would not have used my te properly I would be stuck in a job I probably don't like because I'm not really contributing or really feeling appreciated because for what?
Is my boss happy enough with me can't feel good.
Getting kudos because your stuff makes it easier for others or adds value or runs smoothly gives confidence and pride.
At least I like my work and tx to my attitude and skills I have more freedom not less.
This doesn't mean to work 4h a day on a 40h week contract and playing gets.the rest of it.
And I think people doing that, are blocking their own carriers.
I make double what I made 6 years ago and can cut back to 50% with a still good salary.
If I would not have used my te properly I would be stuck in a job I probably don't like because I'm not really contributing or really feeling appreciated because for what?
Is my boss happy enough with me can't feel good.
Getting kudos because your stuff makes it easier for others or adds value or runs smoothly gives confidence and pride.
At least I like my work and tx to my attitude and skills I have more freedom not less.
Leverage, as a principle, is so important. I always try to keep the 80/20 rule in mind. But perhaps most simply put, if you're working harder and harder and not seeing results, then you're probably focusing on the wrong things. There's a natural up-and-down to projects where you'll feel like things are going great, then terrible, then ok... But then there's times where it doesn't matter how much effort you put in, that boulder just isn't gonna budge. It's vital to step back and figure out whether your efforts should be refocused. Otherwise, it's a recipe for burnout.
I haven’t figured out how to not work all the time, but I’d like to. More likely though I’m just going to quit without a job lined up long enough to recover from burnout and go back to things I love, until I need to work again.
I think having other commitments is the only real way to work less. Make evening plans and weekend plans with other people for example.
I think for people who don’t agree with the article, perhaps seeking jobs that are outcome based are ideal. For those that are output based, I think it’s totally reasonable to cut back strategically.
It's funny, ever since I dedicated the morning to normal duties and afternoons to growth and development, I deliver results faster. Could be that I only use 4 hours to do all my work so I plan better and action faster.
Yeah exactly. Knowledge work is much less about the actual work we do. We're regularly on the clock having our brains work whether we like it or not. This focused and diffused time is crucial to be effective.
Why the difference? Most places that talk about outcomes are really measuring outputs, just with more secret sauce in how it's measured (still based on the perception of the bosses).
Most places that measure outputs are not driving business results, they are measuring the wrong things and even promoting the wrong people.
Outputs = Productivity. How much stuff you do.
Outcomes = Efficiency. How much useful stuff you do.
Don't aim to get more stuff done (productivity), rather aim to have less stuff to do (focus / efficiency). Do more with less. Frequent activity & context switching is hardly tied to achievement.
Outputs = Productivity. How much stuff you do.
Outcomes = Efficiency. How much useful stuff you do.
Don't aim to get more stuff done (productivity), rather aim to have less stuff to do (focus / efficiency). Do more with less. Frequent activity & context switching is hardly tied to achievement.
I'm aiming to keep my job. So until the bosses actually start measuring outcome, I'm stuck with output.
Being in tech has the advantage of me being knowledgeable enough to pursue tools and languages of interest that will benefit both my business and day job.
That is what I did. I learned web development and used those skills to do projects at work and for my clients on weekends.
Later on, I learned project management. Used those skills at my day job and made a consultancy killing as a PM for hire.
I feel privleged to have been in this position. So, yes, I do advocate for spending time increasing your value at work. But that time should also work for you outside of that day job.
That is what I did. I learned web development and used those skills to do projects at work and for my clients on weekends.
Later on, I learned project management. Used those skills at my day job and made a consultancy killing as a PM for hire.
I feel privleged to have been in this position. So, yes, I do advocate for spending time increasing your value at work. But that time should also work for you outside of that day job.
If you want to work hard because it’s some kind of virtue, pick up a second job in tech. Juggling two full time remote jobs will give you all the work you need for twice the income.
Ok. Great. You have established you're exceptionally talented and can do it all. Now the question is whether you should do it all, and only you can answer that question. :)
(a) You should you whatever makes you happy. If that's work then ok, but see (b)
(b) If doing "work" is what makes you happy, then when you are doing work on your own time, I'd suggest trying to stretch yourself. Try to do something which seems difficult, or radical. Allow yourself to fantasize that you're going to become famous by doing this thing whatever it is.
(b) If doing "work" is what makes you happy, then when you are doing work on your own time, I'd suggest trying to stretch yourself. Try to do something which seems difficult, or radical. Allow yourself to fantasize that you're going to become famous by doing this thing whatever it is.
Work addicts will have a hard time following this advice unless they get the same dopamine boost from other tasks like networking. Unlikely to happen until they accept they have a problem.
The problem is that this changes dynamically in function of opportunity and ambition, or its composed form: opportunity to expand ambition.
"You didn't tell him how long it would really take, did you?" - Montgomery Scott
Most people work within some kind of incorporated structure, as employees or contractors on hourly wages or salaries. Unless they're also invested in the corporate structure, i.e. they're the providers of capital, they'll see no real benefit from the success of the business other than avoiding losing their job when the business crashes.
The solution is pretty obvious, and is fairly common in Germany at least: employees and investors must be viewed as equivalent stakeholders. This means worker organizations should have as many voting seats on corporate boards as the investor organizations providing the capital do. It's not one or the other - generally speaking, no workers means no business, and no capital also means no business. The result would be that profits get distributed equally to workers (as bonuses on top of wages/salary) and investors.
Otherwise it's the same problem as communist countries had: why work hard and be productive if you get the same reward for it as someone who sits around doing little or nothing? In response upper management will trot out lines like 'we're all a family here' and 'you should enjoy the pride and satisfaction of a job well done' and similar nonsense.
The solution is pretty obvious, and is fairly common in Germany at least: employees and investors must be viewed as equivalent stakeholders. This means worker organizations should have as many voting seats on corporate boards as the investor organizations providing the capital do. It's not one or the other - generally speaking, no workers means no business, and no capital also means no business. The result would be that profits get distributed equally to workers (as bonuses on top of wages/salary) and investors.
Otherwise it's the same problem as communist countries had: why work hard and be productive if you get the same reward for it as someone who sits around doing little or nothing? In response upper management will trot out lines like 'we're all a family here' and 'you should enjoy the pride and satisfaction of a job well done' and similar nonsense.
i've always believed: avoid doing work on computers, use computers to do work instead.
my father's generation called this: work smarter, not harder.
wise computer people call this: be lazy.
industrialization of software work runs counter to this, it's your real job to defeat it.
my father's generation called this: work smarter, not harder.
wise computer people call this: be lazy.
industrialization of software work runs counter to this, it's your real job to defeat it.
>> *Obviously I don't practise any of what I talk about here*Don't need to read the article just the headline I'm on it already !
One problem with this argument is of course that what is really expected of you, ultimately, is at least what the other guys are delivering, not just a certain amount of work a week.
And the worst part of this is that it winds up being a popularity contest. If your manager doesn't like you, they won't weigh your productivity the same way they weigh their favorite's.
Even if you are delivering as much or more than others, you also have to be liked.
Even if you are delivering as much or more than others, you also have to be liked.
Enter the prisoner's dilemma
LOL, I'm not sure that actual game theory game applies directly, but the name is perhaps apt, a bit like how "salary" is similar to "slavery".
There are times at which developers must give 110% effort in order to address critical business needs, unexpected outages, emergency pivots, etc… But in order for people to rise to such occasions, they must have some excess capacity from which to pull.
TL;DR - If you run the engine at redline all the time, you’re destined for a blowout.
TL;DR - If you run the engine at redline all the time, you’re destined for a blowout.
I agree with the content of the article, but I don’t agree with the premise that these things aren’t also “work”.
Engineers tend to obsess over, “focused work” like it’s the only way to be productive, and anything that’s not “focused work” is wasted time. That is a surefire way to burn out.
Instead, finding ways to “riff” on your job by doing work with longer time horizons of payoff keeps your job fun.
It’s all “work”. Maybe the title ought to be, “Stop obsessing over focused work.”
Engineers tend to obsess over, “focused work” like it’s the only way to be productive, and anything that’s not “focused work” is wasted time. That is a surefire way to burn out.
Instead, finding ways to “riff” on your job by doing work with longer time horizons of payoff keeps your job fun.
It’s all “work”. Maybe the title ought to be, “Stop obsessing over focused work.”
For me, I think it was related to conflating my value as am employee to being able to efficiently and effectively complete tasks to a high standard in a short amount of time. It felt like if I wasn't producing enough tangible results fast enough, I wasn't doing a "good enough job". It didn't really matter if it was a day/week/month where I was absolutely crushing it, or a time period where I was having a hard time focusing; the end goal was the same. The internal satisfaction, if you can call it that, was accomplishing tasks. It wasn't (usually) to the point of overwork or burnout.
But the problem was, I never considered my own growth. It never felt like a good use of time to take on more challenging projects because I wouldn't get the same sense of accomplishment. It would be hard, I wouldn't have much to show for myself for a few weeks, and so on.
Obviously this is all subconscious, you don't realize you're choosing things you're good at, or an expert on. Expertise feels nice! And, to be fair, not everyone's employers give them the freedom to choose/learn/grow that many of us enjoy.
But the problem was, I never considered my own growth. It never felt like a good use of time to take on more challenging projects because I wouldn't get the same sense of accomplishment. It would be hard, I wouldn't have much to show for myself for a few weeks, and so on.
Obviously this is all subconscious, you don't realize you're choosing things you're good at, or an expert on. Expertise feels nice! And, to be fair, not everyone's employers give them the freedom to choose/learn/grow that many of us enjoy.
This is very relatable to me. Since you’re using the past tense, would you be happy to share what helped you get out of that mindset?
Still working on it! I'd say the biggie was finding myself at a not-quite-FAANG-tier SV company where suddenly I'm surrounded by people who are all amazing. Where you have to prove your accomplishments to get promoted rather than just being handed promotions because you're "good at your job". Some mentorship. Some reading. Being encouraged to look farther down the road (which implies it's okay to not 'get things done' between standups). Honestly, lots of self-reflection and looking around. FWIW I'd say I have about 25 years in the industry, so, it didn't come to me quickly or early.
I think the article author agrees with you. That's why they put 'work' in quotes.
It is useful for their argument to split 'work' and 'not work' along these lines because they are trying to reach readers that honestly do believe that any time not actively writing code for a jira ticket isn't work.
It is useful for their argument to split 'work' and 'not work' along these lines because they are trying to reach readers that honestly do believe that any time not actively writing code for a jira ticket isn't work.
Well, the bosses usually only care about work the helps produce value. They might like the fact that you know some new tech that they can use in their latest assignment, but they weren't giving you credit while you were learning it the year before just for fun.
"Learn about new tech" is only one of a great many other things.
Cultivating your relationships professionally is also "work", as is talking to your customers, reviewing and discussing code, writing about and showing others what you've built, keeping your resume and interview skills sharp, staring up at the ceiling and thinking about work, etc.
Cultivating your relationships professionally is also "work", as is talking to your customers, reviewing and discussing code, writing about and showing others what you've built, keeping your resume and interview skills sharp, staring up at the ceiling and thinking about work, etc.
Yeah, and most of that similarly doesn't count when it's time for the chips to fall.
I wonder if the same is true for other professions as well? Athletes must have to design their entire lives around a few minutes of competition. Surgeons need to train for years, and all that is evaluated is the patient outcome in the operating room. Lawyers need to train, study, and prepare, and only the court outcome matters.
Maybe this is an unfair parallel, but I cannot see why.
Maybe this is an unfair parallel, but I cannot see why.
Very few lawyers, proportionally, ever enter a courtroom. The vast majority of "lawyer" work never sees a courtroom at all.
Maybe that is a fair comparison for IT as a profit center. If seems that wouldn't work so well for IT as a cost center.
My point is it absolutely does "count"; what your boss values is not what's best for your career. That's extremely short-term thinking.
I guess I've only ever had a job and never a career.
Find better bosses and employers. They are out there.
I've had great bosses, all the way up the chain... but they were all held captive to the "efficiency" measures of the time-tracking system. Everywhere I've ever worked has implemented a methodology that, regardless of what they called it (XP, Scrum, Kanban, whatever) boiled down to: write down everything you're going to do, write down how long it's going to take, and I'm going to measure how accurately you predicted how long it was going to take. And then they start clamping down on the "what you're going to do" part and make sure that everything you're "going to do" aligns with the business goals (that is, has a direct, immediate path to more money). Obviously reading an entire book would never fly under this regime.
It's doubly frustrating because it's always there, and drives so much inefficiency _in the name of_ efficiency.
It's doubly frustrating because it's always there, and drives so much inefficiency _in the name of_ efficiency.
> but they were all held captive to the "efficiency" measures of the time-tracking system
Were you working at an agency or consultancy that billed hours to clients?
I've never seen a good engineering organization use time tracking software on their engineers.
I'd go so far as to take it as a major negative sign against the company if your time is being tracked like that. Exceptions of course to any business that is billing hours, which obviously must be tracked. However, even those organizations are smart enough to know that writing code isn't the only productive activity.
Were you working at an agency or consultancy that billed hours to clients?
I've never seen a good engineering organization use time tracking software on their engineers.
I'd go so far as to take it as a major negative sign against the company if your time is being tracked like that. Exceptions of course to any business that is billing hours, which obviously must be tracked. However, even those organizations are smart enough to know that writing code isn't the only productive activity.
Not parent poster but I've seen more and more startups setting up their jiras with whatever the folks who invented "safe" (scaled agile framework) say, while obsessing over measuring and predicting delivery metrics, all in order to have hard data to backup roadmap claims.
You're performing a local optimization rather than a global one. The reason predictability of delivery matters is that the rest of the company needs to do a bunch of work for the set of features you're delivering. Support needs training, marketing needs to send some emails, the sales team needs to update their demos, etc.
For what it's worth, I've been doing this for 10+ years, being a lead, a manager, and I never worked anywhere that tried to have "efficiency" measurements of devs.
Agreed. Agile needs to be for developers first and foremost, not the management.
At least, in Scrum, from my experience so far: pointing is about measuring the uncertainty to delivery, but should healthily include learning, tech debt refactors,testing, q/a, even unexpected stuff like dev churn (i.e shoot under always, over estimate slightly).
But if individual performance is measured by velocity and points, you will just get devs badly cutting corners and gaming it while project & product will never get accurate measurements they can tie time based business outcomes to (especially as you get further out and short term corner cutting starts to rear it's head as brutal Tech Debt and time sinks)
At least, in Scrum, from my experience so far: pointing is about measuring the uncertainty to delivery, but should healthily include learning, tech debt refactors,testing, q/a, even unexpected stuff like dev churn (i.e shoot under always, over estimate slightly).
But if individual performance is measured by velocity and points, you will just get devs badly cutting corners and gaming it while project & product will never get accurate measurements they can tie time based business outcomes to (especially as you get further out and short term corner cutting starts to rear it's head as brutal Tech Debt and time sinks)
I have different advice. Focus less on what your bosses want and more on what you want. Doing what your boss wants is a cost you pay, do as little of that as possible so that you can do the things that you want.
This is an exchange in a market. If Best Buy wants $500 for that new TV, would you go in and offer them $750 for it? If Wal-Mart will sell you the same TV for $400, consider going there isntead.
This is an exchange in a market. If Best Buy wants $500 for that new TV, would you go in and offer them $750 for it? If Wal-Mart will sell you the same TV for $400, consider going there isntead.
I agree.
A fun side story is when I got a new manager a while back. In our first one-on-one, he told me that he has connections through the company and can use them to get me promoted to another team if I make him happy. I get that making the boss happy is part of a job, but that should be accomplished by doing good work. This direct proposition just felt too quid pro quo and had a stink to it, in my opinion.
A fun side story is when I got a new manager a while back. In our first one-on-one, he told me that he has connections through the company and can use them to get me promoted to another team if I make him happy. I get that making the boss happy is part of a job, but that should be accomplished by doing good work. This direct proposition just felt too quid pro quo and had a stink to it, in my opinion.
At the end of the day, even the best bosses care about making money, because that’s what _their_ bosses (i.e. investors) care about.
So even if you find a boss/employer that is supportive of “the fun stuff” for a season, that will eventually come to an end.
So even if you find a boss/employer that is supportive of “the fun stuff” for a season, that will eventually come to an end.
Honestly that's what anyone employed to a company should care about. Your aim should be delivering value, which sometimes means making long term investments that improve the development environment.
You also should spend a portion time learning as it enables you to create more value over time.
And yes you should take time to get to know your colleagues, take breaks, play ping pong, etc. This helps you refresh yourself and avoid running out of steam.
But the work is meant to create value, hence why you are rewarding with currency you can exchange for things you value.
Manage a positive work life balance and and do the "fun" stuff outside of work. Life is not all work and work is not all of life.
You also should spend a portion time learning as it enables you to create more value over time.
And yes you should take time to get to know your colleagues, take breaks, play ping pong, etc. This helps you refresh yourself and avoid running out of steam.
But the work is meant to create value, hence why you are rewarding with currency you can exchange for things you value.
Manage a positive work life balance and and do the "fun" stuff outside of work. Life is not all work and work is not all of life.
"Your aim should be delivering value, which sometimes means making long term investments that improve the development environment."
That makes sense as long as it also matches the employee's goal of being paid for the work they do. If you work at a place like my job, you will never be promoted if you do this necessary behind the scenes stuff. It's as if the motto is "if the business user doesn't see it, it never happened". Sucks if you're spending a lot time on things that are supposed to be invisible to a user, like security or availability.
That makes sense as long as it also matches the employee's goal of being paid for the work they do. If you work at a place like my job, you will never be promoted if you do this necessary behind the scenes stuff. It's as if the motto is "if the business user doesn't see it, it never happened". Sucks if you're spending a lot time on things that are supposed to be invisible to a user, like security or availability.
I had a boss who became a friend that borrowed me $30k on 24 hours notice, made me a partner at their startup, and was the best man at my wedding. n=1
Rare? Absolutely, but so is finding good people in general. Gather whatever signal you can, and keep rolling the dice, just as you would with friendships and romantic relationships.
Rare? Absolutely, but so is finding good people in general. Gather whatever signal you can, and keep rolling the dice, just as you would with friendships and romantic relationships.
Companies invest in all sorts of things that don't have an immediately tangible impact.
In terms of developer productivity, it all depends on management's assumptions built into their labor model. If you are paying top of market for "A players" who do "10x," the company might need the few engineers it has to do a huge/unsustainable amount of "focused work"
If management's model depends on high-potential team members upskilling on the job, "the fun stuff" might just be priced in.
The above are absolutely reductive and do not cover all cases.
In terms of developer productivity, it all depends on management's assumptions built into their labor model. If you are paying top of market for "A players" who do "10x," the company might need the few engineers it has to do a huge/unsustainable amount of "focused work"
If management's model depends on high-potential team members upskilling on the job, "the fun stuff" might just be priced in.
The above are absolutely reductive and do not cover all cases.
How does one go about this?
You interview your boss in the interview process and get a feel for what type of preson he is and then go with that gut feeling yes/no
when your current boss leaves and you get a new boss that you don't like. Quit and go back to step 1.
Does anyone operate like this? doesn't seem very practical or foolproof.
You interview your boss in the interview process and get a feel for what type of preson he is and then go with that gut feeling yes/no
when your current boss leaves and you get a new boss that you don't like. Quit and go back to step 1.
Does anyone operate like this? doesn't seem very practical or foolproof.
Smaller companies are more culturally homogeneous. With smaller companies, managers are usually a reflection of the company's cultural values.
If you accept the above as true, then you can start to reach out to team members at the company and ask them what the work environment is like.
If the work environment lines up with your values, then you'll probably be fine, even when the hiring manager moves on to greener pastures.
If you accept the above as true, then you can start to reach out to team members at the company and ask them what the work environment is like.
If the work environment lines up with your values, then you'll probably be fine, even when the hiring manager moves on to greener pastures.
> ask them what the work environment is like.
I've been asked this when i interviewed ppl but i never gave them the truth and I've never gotten any honest truth when i was on the other side also.
I've been asked this when i interviewed ppl but i never gave them the truth and I've never gotten any honest truth when i was on the other side also.
I find there's generally a hidden truth in how they answer it, but not in the answer itself. Stuff like hesitation, over the top praise, indirect answers, etc. If it sounds like they're telling me what I want to hear (or sounds like a sales pitch), then the BS meter starts clicking.
Reach out to people who aren't interviewing you
People in the interview are under scrutiny and don't want to be responsible for driving away candidates
People in the interview are under scrutiny and don't want to be responsible for driving away candidates
Anybody you reach out to, no matter hiring responsibility or not, has the interest of getting good people into the company, irrespective of how happy they themselves are at the workplace.
Really good people are hard to come by in this market (need to be not just smart but also easy to work with, communicate etc), so you better don't express dissatisfaction, otherwise they go to a competitor.
It's really hard to get honest opinions before accepting an offer. You have mostly gut feeling to go by, maybe join a team for a coffee break, this kind of thing. A direct question "what do you like least about your job?" could work too (it's kinda "what's your biggest weakness?" in reverse), but often times that's also just used to upsell or BS you, e.g. "the food here is too good, I'm getting fat". But you can try to read between the lines of course.
Really good people are hard to come by in this market (need to be not just smart but also easy to work with, communicate etc), so you better don't express dissatisfaction, otherwise they go to a competitor.
It's really hard to get honest opinions before accepting an offer. You have mostly gut feeling to go by, maybe join a team for a coffee break, this kind of thing. A direct question "what do you like least about your job?" could work too (it's kinda "what's your biggest weakness?" in reverse), but often times that's also just used to upsell or BS you, e.g. "the food here is too good, I'm getting fat". But you can try to read between the lines of course.
This doesn't match my experience, but your mileage might vary
Not for me. I get a new boss on average every 9 months, just because they rotate/transfer so frequently.
I have looked but haven't found any.
I think for going from junior to senior, this is true, but for going from senior beyond, it’s the opposite.
Lord, not my last boss. Basically was dividing salary by # of Jira tickets to measure productivity even for architects and directors. I got out of their asap.
Just open tickets for those things then. "Read Xyz book", "catch up on C++17", "brush up on advanced git concepts", "have coffee with Jim from product management", "play pingpong this week with Jack and Julia from my team". Tons of ticket opportunities, and soon enough you'll be underpaid in the pay-per-ticket metric.
I wish I could say this surprised me.
There are a lot of things you can learn that do both?
That might be true for what your direct boss writes on your annual performance review but what do his peers and his bosses think? What do other potential collaborators, bosses, and investors in your local area or your industry think?
I think engineers can become obsessed with MinMaxing the wrong, purely local optimum without thinking: "what work-adjacent things might lead to a CTO role in five years?" and this is often quite a different question than "what makes Mr Shankly happy in this quarter's performance review?". Yeah, if your immediate boss thinks you're useless and sacks you then your overall profile might not help much but being an invisible cog in the their team will only improve the esteem that they hold you in and not your larger professional reputation.
Did "the bosses" reach their own positions by closing the most tickets every month? I kind of doubt it and it is worth distinguishing what makes you useful to them vs puts you on the path to join them. If that seems overly careerist, well fire up Jira and get another bug sorted after dinner.
I think engineers can become obsessed with MinMaxing the wrong, purely local optimum without thinking: "what work-adjacent things might lead to a CTO role in five years?" and this is often quite a different question than "what makes Mr Shankly happy in this quarter's performance review?". Yeah, if your immediate boss thinks you're useless and sacks you then your overall profile might not help much but being an invisible cog in the their team will only improve the esteem that they hold you in and not your larger professional reputation.
Did "the bosses" reach their own positions by closing the most tickets every month? I kind of doubt it and it is worth distinguishing what makes you useful to them vs puts you on the path to join them. If that seems overly careerist, well fire up Jira and get another bug sorted after dinner.
> That is a surefire way to burn out.
Any source on that? I agree with the assessment about engineers (althought it's a generalization), but I always thought it was because their "focused work" is what they actually like doing. In my experience work was most stressful when it strayed the most from focused work.
Any source on that? I agree with the assessment about engineers (althought it's a generalization), but I always thought it was because their "focused work" is what they actually like doing. In my experience work was most stressful when it strayed the most from focused work.
Can you elaborate a bit on what kind of "source" you'd like to see? I'm trying to imagine what could possibly satisfy this request and I'm coming up blank.
Generally, slapping "Source?" in a reply to a comment is a lot less helpful and productive than you might initially think.
Generally, slapping "Source?" in a reply to a comment is a lot less helpful and productive than you might initially think.
If you can maintain a state of focus and actively like your work, you are likely near peak productivity and quite far from possible burnout. Just don't push beyond your reasonable limits or you might end up giving yourself a heart attack.
Extra credit at school means something tangible. Extra credit at work rarely does.
I think this message applies especially to people working in big tech and/or people working primarily on salary, not equity.
When you have equity in a startup though, each person doing more of their best work can actually make a massive difference to the trajectory of the business. And if you're working on a promising business, working better and faster is the highest ROI thing that can be done.
So it all depends.
I think this message applies especially to people working in big tech and/or people working primarily on salary, not equity.
When you have equity in a startup though, each person doing more of their best work can actually make a massive difference to the trajectory of the business. And if you're working on a promising business, working better and faster is the highest ROI thing that can be done.
So it all depends.
The problem is, the idiot who pushes himself to 100% sets a standard that the rest become expected to follow.
Except you like your work
Honestly it was amazing - made me really want to find a job that was less pay but also that low in hours. Working less than 40 is nice but once you get down to 20 you have whole DAYS where you can do whatever you want. You sometimes start work at noon or end at noon and then have the remainder of your weekday to yourself or in the company of others. It was an odd experience seeing my neighbours and friends going through so much stress and pandemic related BS while I was (temporarily at least) having revelations about how much I wanted to work in life. Fortunately and unfortunately it was very short lived.