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Ask HN: Tricks to enjoy your job more?

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Re: Ask HN: Tricks to enjoy your job more?

#31

Post by kazinator »

djha-skin wrote: post #5
sys_64738 wrote: post #3

Try to inject something new into what you're doing. It might be mundane and repetitive but try to figure out something new which you can inject as a learning experience.

Write it in Lisp and don't tell the boss! I wonder if anyone has ever gotten this to work. I sure hope so.

I've not secretly added Lisp code to the actual product, but I regularly do supporting work in Lisp: everything from personal tooling that doesn't affect everyone else to research items: prototyping, data analysis and whatnot. Mostly, I use TXR Lisp; a Lisp dialect I made myself that's good for this sort of use.

Re: Ask HN: Tricks to enjoy your job more?

#32

Post by jacquesm »

batter wrote: post #30
jacquesm wrote: post #8

Change jobs! Seriously. Nothing more invigorating than to face new challenges, tools and codebases and to get to know new people and new ways of working. It also costs energy but usually it makes you feel better at the end of a day rather than worse.

After my last change things got even worse. Well... except $$$. But it was promising in the beginning.

Letting go of a high paying job can be really hard. Those golden handcuffs really work. I know a few Googlers that would love to 'break free' but their life style won't let them.

Re: Ask HN: Tricks to enjoy your job more?

#33

Post by jacquesm »

ARandomerDude wrote: post #24
djha-skin wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Write it in Lisp and don't tell the boss! I wonder if anyone has ever gotten this to work. I sure hope so.

Did it. Wrote some Clojure in a large Java shop about 10 years ago. Took about 4 months before I got a slap on the wrist.

Ah, clever, targeting the JVM they never knew what they had on board. Code review failure though :)

Re: Ask HN: Tricks to enjoy your job more?

#34

Post by uptownfunk »

Some tricks:

1. See this job as a stepping stone to the next great opportunity and so you’re not working but taking this as an opportunity to learn a new skill

2. Not enjoying job can mean anxiety about the job, exercise / weights is good to kill the anxiety.

3. Try and get good at what you do and broaden and deepen your skill set so if this job falls through you can easily get the next one

Re: Ask HN: Tricks to enjoy your job more?

#36

Post by kazinator »

kazinator wrote: post #31
djha-skin wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Write it in Lisp and don't tell the boss! I wonder if anyone has ever gotten this to work. I sure hope so.

I've not secretly added Lisp code to the actual product, but I regularly do supporting work in Lisp: everything from personal tooling that doesn't affect everyone else to research items: prototyping, data analysis and whatnot. Mostly, I use TXR Lisp; a Lisp dialect I made myself that's good for this sort of use.

Here is a recent example: a program which uses the Gerrit web API to extract comments from review items and turn them into output that looks like compiler diagnostics. I can feed that to my editor to navigate through the code and fix the commented issues. It is called ger2err:

https://www.kylheku.com/cgit/ger2err/about/

Re: Ask HN: Tricks to enjoy your job more?

#37

Post by weakfortress »

29athrowaway wrote: post #27
weakfortress wrote: post #22

Work sucks. Unless you're a shot caller you're destined to be ground down to the bone via attrition. Work politics, non-sense meetings, code you have no passion for. Developers are still cost centers to be minimized. Professional code is rarely important, meaningful, or enlightening. Neither are the people you work with. Promotions rarely pay commensurate to the responsibility. The trick is to stop caring so damn muc…

This happens once there's a cash cow product with a decent market share. Once that happens, it's marketing and sales who call the shots.

Indeed. In every company developers have a very thick glass ceiling. The only way up is to make it to VP/CTO/etc. If you're not in sales (marketing...maybe) you aren't going to ever make the big bucks. Your pay will never be commensurate to your suffering.

So, just stop caring. It's weird how 3 words can be so hard to execute on. But after being one of the morons in the 20% I mentioned earlier I suddenly attained enlightenment after a very deep depression. It's truly a lesson that you seem to only learn once you're beaten into the ground despite doing everything right.

Re: Ask HN: Tricks to enjoy your job more?

#38

Post by p0d »

Identify where you are the problem. Most of us are oversensitive. I adopted an internal paradigm after many years of, "I am doing the best work I can here, if it isn't good enough, sack me". Give yourself a break, and make sure you aren't making yourself weary in part.

The other trick that helped me through the most difficult times was working with my hands outdoors. Over a 7 year period I landscaped my garden and built two sheds in my spare time. I'm pretty sure this was an antidote to looking after a saas.

Re: Ask HN: Tricks to enjoy your job more?

#40

Post by quickthrower2 »

ARandomerDude wrote: post #24
djha-skin wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Write it in Lisp and don't tell the boss! I wonder if anyone has ever gotten this to work. I sure hope so.

Did it. Wrote some Clojure in a large Java shop about 10 years ago. Took about 4 months before I got a slap on the wrist.

Ironic. Thread about being fed up at work. Advice given: make it new! Reply to that “yeah did that and they punished me”

Goes full circle to … work sucks!

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