I got lucky and stumbled upon a company that sells an inovative and effective service that has potential to improve humanity. The fact that the companies success is aligned with human success is a huge motivator to get up and work 8 hours each day. However even with the money being decent, and the HR policies and benefits being amazing, i still struggle with the 40 hour grind. I can't imagine finding a better company to work for; I can only concluded that a fulltime job work will never "feel right". I think 20 or 30 hours would be much more ideal, as it would afford me more time to focus on life/family/nature/body/community/learning/creativity
Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?
161–170 of 214 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
*Solutions that nobody anywhere has ever implemented successfully.
All of human history was workers controlling the means of their production until about 10,000 years ago, when class society was introduced in parts of the world, with one class who worked, and an idle class that did not, expropriating surplus labor time from those who worked. Unexplained labor still exists deep in the Amazon and elsewhere, but mining companies finding new traces of valuable minerals are extinguishing…
Ok, so you want a pre-literate hunter-gatherer society.
I say give it your best shot!
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?
#163100% true. I am blessed to have a relatively stable position but I am not nearly doing all I could with my abilities.
The saddest part isn’t that I think my abilities are useless. Rather, it seems that the people above me who control where the money flows seem very short-sighted with their investments.
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?
#164I watched Good Will Hunting recently and was struck by this scene ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKQBHkzOYvw ), particularly these lines: WILL What do you mean "cop out?" I mean, w-w-what's wrong with layin' brick? SEAN Nothing. WILL There's nothing wrong---That's some-- That's somebody's home I'm building. SEAN Right. My dad laid brick. Okay? Busted his ass so I could have an education. WILL Exactly. That's an ho…
Well, you might be building inventory systems for lumber yards or scheduling software for transit companies. It might be more abstract and not as direct, but I would still take pride in those tasks.
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
Worker ownership of the means of production ( i.e. democracy at work) is an alternative and that's most certainly not what you lived through, nor did you live through a stateless, classless and moneyless society. What you lived through was fascism with red flags. If you check the sidebar of that subreddit you'll find anarchism and mutualism as the solutions to the problems it identifies.
*Solutions that nobody anywhere has ever implemented successfully.
It's almost as if there's a class of people who own most of the world's resources and entire heavily armed states who have an interest in ensuring that failure at all costs, you might say.
Then again, it's been tried plenty of times. That's what cooperatives are, family farms are, what you owning your laptop as a programmer are. We just cut down on the coup d'etats and union busting and expand that kind of democratization of the work week to everyone.
It's also a silly argument considering you could have said the same before agriculture and before capitalism succeeded.
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?
#166I haven't reached there yet, but I believe that it is possible to do meaningful work, and to have a meaningful life away from work, both at the same time. And looking at most HN comments, I see people who consider "work is work" so I get a bit demotivated since I am just starting out in my career.
I think that one doesn't have to choose between being a nerd, and being a normie. I realized this when I met people who were really nerdy and did meaningful work at small tech companies, and at the same time they were really social people who were fun to be around and did all the normie stuff afk.
I hope to find meaningful work, rather than stop working all together. And I don't think that doing meaningful work is going to affect other aspects of my life negatively as long as I keep boundaries.
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?
#167”web3 solves this”
for real tho, it might
404krel at gmail dot com if you want some guidance
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you feel the need to tell people that they are suffering from depression online? Did you fill out the HAM-D questionnaire in your head based off his post?
Well, the poster asked how people work a job without offing themselves. Saying someone who is considering suicide might instead consider talking to their doctor doesn’t seem all that controversial to me?
> Saying someone who is considering suicide might instead consider talking to their doctor doesn’t seem all that controversial to me?
It doesn't, and if they said that, I wouldn't have replied that way.
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?
#169A meaningful job is only a part of building a meaningful life. The questions your asking may be a sign your placing too much existential weight on a job instead of actively working to have a meaningful life in every aspect. Are you actively building meaningful relationships, maintaining the old ones and seeking out new ones? Are you involved in communities around shared values? Do you invest in personal goals outside…
> A meaningful job is only a part of building a meaningful life. Yeah, but an important part, often close to 1/2 of your waking life (minus commute and chores and such). A well-balanced life can only be achieved with a satisfactory job that is meaningful. You don't want to tell your grandchildren that what you did in this world is make people click more ads, regardless of how juicy the tech was at that time.
Agree work is important; A bad job can really suck the life out of you like nothing else, totally true. I'm definitely not advocating staying in jobs you hate!
>> A well-balanced life can only be achieved with a satisfactory job that is meaningful.
I partially agree but add the bigger question is *what is meaningful*? No job is inherently meaningful. A BS job might be fine for a time if it fulfills a bigger goal. A great job could be pointless if you have no direction in your life.
>> You don't want to tell your grandchildren that what you did in this world is make people click more ads, regardless of how juicy the tech was at that time.
I see what your getting at, but I still think it's a framing problem. Seeing "what you did in the world" as the outcome of your job is exactly what I mean by placing too much existential weight on your job. I'm fine telling my grandkids I slung ads if it satisfied my goal of intellectual development and funded the lifestyle I wanted for myself and my family
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?
#170In my opinion, If you ask too many ‘why’ almost every business will start to sound useless. There is no immediate need for most of the products where the majority of the funding goes. But it is the capitalistic vehicle on which the economy booms, and a booming economy funds a lot of useful projects and elevates the living standard for everyone.
Since, by this definition all businesses are useless, corresponding jobs will sound pointless too. But you can always find something interesting to work on while on a job. Don’t forget you are in-charge of your career and there is plenty of time to shape it the way you want.