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Ask HN: What tech job would let me get away with the least real work possible?

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Re: Ask HN: What tech job would let me get away with the least real work possible?

#391

Post by totalminimalist »

foxhop wrote: post #325
elyobo wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Partner choice and choice whether to have children are other critical considerations in cost control.

Kids are not that expensive. You do not have to send them to college, you just have to love them, teach them, care for them. Sure you will have to buy more food, and you might need a bigger house/apartment.

Agreed with not sending them to college. My wife and I are not paying for college. I have a daughter who is getting close to graduating HS. She has two choices: get a local job and attend the local university or go in the military and have Uncle Sam pay for it. I did the latter many moons ago and I'm glad I did. These days, if you are disciplined, you can go in the Air Force, for example, and get your degree in less than 4 years almost free. If you hate it after four years, you leave debt free, have veteran status and hiring preferences, and you paid nothing for your medical/dental/lodging/food. If you like it, go back in as an officer and still not pay for anything other than a tiny officer housing sum for single officers. If you marry an officer and do 20 years, you can salt away some serious cash and still be young enough at retirememt (39-40 yo) to get a second gig. If the government doesn't ruin Social Security, you'll get that, too. All the while not paying for medical or dental, two things which out in the civilian world are costly. Just my 0.02.

Editing to say that kids are not too expensive if they're healthy. If you have children who have medical conditions, then all bets are off. What really pisses me off is the local school district always begging for money. I pay those thieves almost over $5000 year in property tax, since we live in an area with ridiculous property taxes. Whenever I've visited the school and my children have also seen this, they beg for school supplies, but the closets in all of my kid's classrooms are brimming with supplies. They spend more on sports than they do on education, which really irks me. Sports may be important, but nowhere near as education. 1% of 1% go on to play pro sports, but here they act as if sports are more important. Classes are let out early to watch games, yet the school district where we live is a poor performer academically. My own children are fine, but that's because we watch and are involved.

Re: Ask HN: What tech job would let me get away with the least real work possible?

#392

Post by dannyw »

pbronez wrote: post #293
GordonS wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another vote for Scrum Master here. It's only in the past 5 years or so that I've personally seen it as a job in itself - previously, I'd seen Scrum Master as part of the role of one of the developers or similar. But now in large corps, Scrum Master exists as a distinct job, which appears to require doing very, very little - chairing most of the regular scrum-related meetings (daily standup, planning, demo, and the m…

Why on earth would you have a Scrum Master AND a Project Manager? Makes sense to have a dedicated less-technical person to manage schedules, coordinate with clients and keep people honest on commitments... but dear god why would you ever start splitting that role up into multiple people

Because sometimes projects are complicated and require lots of business knowledge, and the project manager may be managing multiple projects.

The idea of a "secretary" is not a bad one for high performing teams.

Re: Ask HN: What tech job would let me get away with the least real work possible?

#393

Post by OnlyOneCannolo »

tylerlarson wrote: post #339

I have no interest in telling you what to do as an individual but this thread and all of the people that seem on board with this is what drives me crazy about most of the places I've worked. I have the hardest time getting anything done because of the sea of people trying to find ways not to do any work. Is this not abuse of privilege? Do you all not hear the stories of people working multiple jobs and still not bein…

> It doesn't feel good to deceive people

Are you putting words in OP's mouth? There's a big difference between slacking off and having an inherently slow job.

Re: Ask HN: What tech job would let me get away with the least real work possible?

#394

Post by AlwaysRock »

tylerlarson wrote: post #339

I have no interest in telling you what to do as an individual but this thread and all of the people that seem on board with this is what drives me crazy about most of the places I've worked. I have the hardest time getting anything done because of the sea of people trying to find ways not to do any work. Is this not abuse of privilege? Do you all not hear the stories of people working multiple jobs and still not bein…

Boo. You're mad that someone wants a lowish paying tech job where they can finish their work quickly then not be bothered? There are a lot of those jobs. Most mildly successful companies that have 20+ year devs working at the same place in the same role for about the same pay are those jobs. That is the backbone of the dev world.

Don't be upset because someone rejects the idea of spending countless hours of their life building software.

Re: Ask HN: What tech job would let me get away with the least real work possible?

#395

Post by GoodJokes »

tylerlarson wrote: post #339

I have no interest in telling you what to do as an individual but this thread and all of the people that seem on board with this is what drives me crazy about most of the places I've worked. I have the hardest time getting anything done because of the sea of people trying to find ways not to do any work. Is this not abuse of privilege? Do you all not hear the stories of people working multiple jobs and still not bein…

Thank you saying this. This board has become a cesspool of blind privilege, pedantry without ethics and morality, and humblebrags about compensation. Honestly, I bet 75% of the people on Amazon threads saying it should die work there as the ideal slacker this OP wants to be.

Re: Ask HN: What tech job would let me get away with the least real work possible?

#396

Post by ibrahimsow1 »

MartinMcGirk wrote: post #67

I can think of two possible routes that would fulfil this criteria in different ways. The first is to get an IT job at a government organisation that isn't heavily IT focussed, but needs someone on staff "just in case". I once interviewed for a job at a National Library for a 35,000 GBP/year role (with 20% pension). They had a system where someone could book a room to read old manuscripts, and there was a C# program…

Would also like to know!

Re: Ask HN: What tech job would let me get away with the least real work possible?

#397

Post by kjjjjjjjjjjjjjj »

I can respect this opinion and as I get older I realize how little I actually care about work. I am not really passionate about tech, security, etc, I just know a lot about it. I basically never talk about it with anyone, I have absolutely no interest in meetups, and I don't care about the news (past the minimum needed to keep up to date for my job)

The only thing I care about is money, and making more money. I don't care about your company mission, I don't care about D&I initiatives, I don't care about culture, just money. I will do an excellent job, better than anyone else, if you pay me well. Even though I don't have any passion for the work, I still do an amazing job because I know it will directly lead to more money.

I don't think its a big deal to want to skate by as long as you actually get work done. Just find an SE job in a company that doesn't harp about its culture.

IME the more they talk about D&I, the more annoying the company will be about brainwashing everyone to drink the corporate koolaid.

Stay far away from any SaaS companies as they usually want devs to do support or be on call for their shitass app. I don't know what skills you have but most lower-level programming is much easier in terms of not dealing with BS. Anything involving JS nonsense (frontend or backend) will involve a lot of product and people.

Re: Ask HN: What tech job would let me get away with the least real work possible?

#398

Post by amarant »

A wise woman once told me to figure out what my passion was, and work with that.

While that's not always possible, in sure you can find some kind of job that is at least moderately interesting to you, and that you won't mind actually putting in the work for.

I kinda get where you're coming from, but I think you have the wrong solution. You don't care about the product you're working on, so find one that you do care about! Slacking off at some lame job you don't like is the way to depression, steer clear of it!

Re: Ask HN: What tech job would let me get away with the least real work possible?

#400

Post by jrsj »

tylerlarson wrote: post #339

I have no interest in telling you what to do as an individual but this thread and all of the people that seem on board with this is what drives me crazy about most of the places I've worked. I have the hardest time getting anything done because of the sea of people trying to find ways not to do any work. Is this not abuse of privilege? Do you all not hear the stories of people working multiple jobs and still not bein…

How would it be entitlement for me to do this but not for my boss to expect me to work my ass off for a small share of the profit he’ll get for my work? Hell, in most cases I won’t even get credit for what I did, my manager will! Especially when the end product is either entirely useless or actively harmful for society (displacing low skill jobs disproportionately held by the same underrepresented groups corporate HR claims to want to help etc), why make personal sacrifices to help build that?
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