Toxic personalities and flakes.
The former are easier to spot, the latter much harder especially if they are extroverts and radiate a sheen of confidence or capability.
Ask HN: What to avoid in life?
31–40 of 90 posts
Re: Ask HN: What to avoid in life?
#32Bad managers. A bad manager will make or break your experience at a company. Doesn’t matter how great the project is, or the people you’re working with. Do your due diligence, ask around, and if you get even a hint of shenanigans run for the hills. Similarly if you find yourself with one plan an exit asap. The priority order when you find a team is: 1- manager, 2- team and 3- how closely the project as is aligns with…
"people don't leave jobs, they leave managers"
Re: Ask HN: What to avoid in life?
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not borrowing money is bad advice. The best way to become rich is leveraged investment. A mortgage is simply a 5X leveraged investment in real estate. With interest rates around 3% on a 30-year fixed, tax deductible, you’re actually winding up borrowing at below inflation. Then you’re building principal too, yours and not your landlords. I wish I’d realized this sooner. When you’re young you could even consider borro…
Like I said borrowing for business is a bit different, so yes you can borrow to invest. However, a personal 30-year loan if you have nothing else but a mediocre salary may not be such a great idea. Essentially you will be tied to one place for up to 30 years or less if you are lucky.
Not really, for 3-4 years maybe, at that point you’d break even on a resale taking into account broker fees. At that point you could always rent it out, too, yielding potentially free cash flow.
Re: Ask HN: What to avoid in life?
#34Student loans. I understand it’s difficult, especially when you’re conditioned to get one since the conversation about college starts when you’re young, but I took one look at it. Saw it was going to be six figure sums, and said no way. Much to the horror of my siblings, parents, friends etc. Got a job doing help desk and within a year taught myself programming in spare time and landed a well paying job as a develope…
I loved learning math and physics with motivated peers and experts to guide us. I'm quite sure I would not have been able to learn the things I did on my own. I'm not sure what I would have done if I lived in a country with education as expensive as you describe.
I hope that the US can find a way to help bright and motivated young people have a similar experience without taking on crippling debt.
Re: Ask HN: What to avoid in life?
#35Cults. Learn to see what they are early on, learn what groups are considered to be cults, read Lifton's "Thought Reform and the Ideology of Totalism" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_Reform_and_the_Psychol... ), stay away.
Agreed, another good work on the subject is The True Believer (https://www.harpercollins.com/9780060505912/the-true-believe...).
Re: Ask HN: What to avoid in life?
#36- Avoid borrowing money, be it in the form of credit cards or even worse, mortgage. I know this is not something you want to hear if you are on a mortgage deal already. But borrowing can limit your freedom in ways that are not immediately obvious. You trade your freedom for illusory prosperity. That said, a business loan for your business may not be such a bad idea. - If your plan is to become an entrepreneur, start…
Not borrowing money is bad advice. The best way to become rich is leveraged investment. A mortgage is simply a 5X leveraged investment in real estate. With interest rates around 3% on a 30-year fixed, tax deductible, you’re actually winding up borrowing at below inflation. Then you’re building principal too, yours and not your landlords. I wish I’d realized this sooner. When you’re young you could even consider borro…
If these investments of yours were as much of a sure bet (or adequately sure bet) as you're suggesting, banks would simply cut out the middle-person (i.e. the borrower) and invest in these things directly.
Re: Ask HN: What to avoid in life?
#37Student loans. I understand it’s difficult, especially when you’re conditioned to get one since the conversation about college starts when you’re young, but I took one look at it. Saw it was going to be six figure sums, and said no way. Much to the horror of my siblings, parents, friends etc. Got a job doing help desk and within a year taught myself programming in spare time and landed a well paying job as a develope…
I submitted this earlier today. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22211654 Lots of misconceptions about student loans out there. Half of all debt out there is for graduate school, and most of those students don't have too much trouble paying it off.
Yes, you can make a lot of money without a degree, but not for every profession. And not everyone can teach themselves do to the thing they want to do. You're not going to be able to become a veterinarian, or a psychologist, or an economist without going to college and probably incurring some debt.
Edit: I personally never had any student loans, and while I am a developer now, I didn't study that seriously in school (I took one CS course that I did poorly in). I still think college has made me a better engineer.
Re: Ask HN: What to avoid in life?
#38High risk (as in life-changing) situations that can be avoided: driving drunk, unsafe sex etc. Most other bad stuff can be handled with money and/or time.
Re: Ask HN: What to avoid in life?
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
To take this a step further, you really want to find great managers and avoid average ones. Managers who take the time to get to know you, know what motivates you, run teams that are collaborative, shield you from nonsense but provide visibility for you, believe in work/life balance, are fair and challenge you and your team. Without this you may do okay but you won’t grow as quickly as you might otherwise and may fin…
To me, 90% of a managers job is to act as a shit shield from above.
That's probably true, unless you are the kind of person who has trouble finding motivation. I had a great manager who worked with me to overcome motivation and procrastination problems early on in my career, and it's had a very positive effect on my life.
Re: Ask HN: What to avoid in life?
#40Comparing yourself with others.