Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#511

Post by tayo42 » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 5:28 AM UTC

dash2 wrote: post #13

It's sad and revealing to see the other comments here. Many of them say, don't seek fulfillment in your job, just keep on cruising. What a change from the exciting atmosphere of the 2000s. Seems like software engineering has become a safe, dull career nowadays. Don't listen to them. Your 20s are the time to learn, push yourself and discover who you are. Autopilot is for middle age.

> Your 20s are the time to learn, push yourself and discover who you are.

I agree with this, but it's not going to happen with any job. You'll never discover yourself sitting in an office. If you look at jobs as a means to an end to let you live you're real life I think your better off.

At this point in my life, an "exciting" software job is for suckers

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#512

Post by X6S1x6Okd1st » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 5:29 AM UTC

glangdale wrote: post #494

cantrevealname wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> make the most of it by progressing deliberately in your social life Ironically the Bay Area is among the worst places on Earth for improving your social life if you're straight and male. I noticed that you don't live in the Bay Area, you're married, you probably meant a much broader meaning of "social life", so your experiences are likely very different. But the typical clean cut, well-spoken, hard working, respect…

I like how a guy earning a fairly unremarkable-when-we-adjust-for-cost-of-living salary with a bunch of fairly unimpressive table-stakes credentials: "clean cut, well-spoken, hard working, respectful" (whaddaya want? a cookie?) is meant to be a Amazing Pussy Magnet. One of the major factors - aside from the gender ratio - behind tech guys not finding partners is this weird expectation that if they shave, clip their f…

Totally agree. Being interesting as a human and working on yourself is so much better than trying to get credit for being "respectful". That's like saying: "look I shower every day!"

Be interesting.

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#513

Post by guelo » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 5:31 AM UTC

Gaming is chewing up a generation of young men. Gaming is addictive mental masturbation. Stop gaming and you'll have time to become a interesting, interested human being. You only have one shot at this life, do something with it.

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#514

Post by keiferski » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 5:35 AM UTC

OOPMan wrote: post #426

narrator wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be like a friend of mine in Argentina who works remote on U.S jobs. He's from the U.S and moved there, so he speaks perfect English, and Spanish but he make enough in a month to live for the whole year. He bought a house, has a nice smart girlfriend much younger than him. He's doing very well.

Yeah...as someone who recently relocated from a third-world country (South Africa) to a first-world country (Canada) I'm just going to go ahead and tell you that while the costs of living and property in third-world countries sound great there are a lot of negatives that don't make up for it.

Argentina is not a third world country.

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#515

Post by X6S1x6Okd1st » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 5:39 AM UTC

NeverFade wrote: post #417

whack wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been away from the bay for a while, but it's amazing how bad the dating scene is, for exactly the reasons you described. I'm currently engaged to an amazing woman who has only ever lived in working-class suburbs and smaller cities. Her exes and her friends' husbands are shockingly anti-intellectual, didn't attend college, have some substance abuse issues, and/or make well under 6 figures. She keeps telling me ho…

> Engineers in places like SFBA severely underestimate how attractive they would be anywhere else in the country/world. I agree completely. > Her exes and her friends' husbands are shockingly anti-intellectual, didn't attend college, have some substance abuse issues, and/or make well under 6 figures. Here's what happened: Guys who are intellectual, attended college, have good discipline, and stayed away from substanc…

> If you pitched a date as an "intellectual, college-educated man with a good life and a six-figure job" she'd literally laugh in your face.

That literally says nothing about what makes that person interesting or fun to be around.

Thinking that people boil down to salary and education level will make you only able to display those things.

Find a hobby that you like, enrich yourself in ways that aren't measured by the IRS.

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#516

Post by twblalock » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 5:42 AM UTC

s1artibartfast wrote: post #318

twblalock wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The failing for google is not providing this person a path to do more or at least understanding their ambition to do more. That's not a failure of Google. People need to be self-driven. People who want to do more should talk to their manager about it, or pursue other opportunities within the company, or leave. Google and all the other big tech companies offer plenty of things to do for ambitious people if they expr…

Google and the OP are failing in different ways. Google is failing to identify and extract more valuable labor from OP. OP failing to manage their emotional engagement is a separate criticism.

> Google is failing to identify and extract more valuable labor from OP.

Google is doing a pretty good job extracting labor value in general. If they miss a specific individual who doesn't seem very motivated (to the extent of being a self-described slacker), I wouldn't view that as a failing. Ambitious people generally make themselves noticed, and trying to extract ambition from every slacker in the company is probably not very rewarding.

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#517

Post by throw_me_2020 » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 5:43 AM UTC

Knowing more or specific technologies isn't what makes someone a good engineer.

Practice identifying problems, taking full ownership of them and fully thinking through and delivering solutions.

This is way easier if you find a problem that you're interested in.

If you're not able to sink your teeth into any good problems, at least pay attention to people around you who do this well so you can copy them in the future.

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#518

Post by United857 » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 5:49 AM UTC

atarian wrote: post #430

peteretep wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Move to South East Asia instead. Burgeoning tech scene, some incredible nature, dating is considerably easier, both with locals and other expats, health care is first-rate and a couple of orders of magnitude cheaper ... "a rural state" sounds like all the worst bits of living in the US.

I've visited a few countries in SE Asia and could never see the appeal of living there longterm, at least in the metropolitan areas. The food and living costs are cheap but in return you get terrible air quality and lack of clean tap water.

You don't have to live in the cities. A luxury villa in e.g. Phuket with views of the ocean and water purification system and other international-standard amenities can be bought for what you'd pay for a small condo in SF or Palo Alto.

I'm strongly thinking of doing this with the family when I retire as well.

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#519

Post by glangdale » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 5:49 AM UTC

look_lookatme wrote: post #510

glangdale wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like how a guy earning a fairly unremarkable-when-we-adjust-for-cost-of-living salary with a bunch of fairly unimpressive table-stakes credentials: "clean cut, well-spoken, hard working, respectful" (whaddaya want? a cookie?) is meant to be a Amazing Pussy Magnet. One of the major factors - aside from the gender ratio - behind tech guys not finding partners is this weird expectation that if they shave, clip their f…

You doing ok glangdale?

Username checks out. Did you have a point, or are you just here to offer content-free snark?

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#520

Post by asdff » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 5:51 AM UTC

jama211 wrote: post #412

lovehashbrowns wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me personally, being bored at work actually leaves me more tired at home afterwards. I'm working on something so boring at work now and I can't handle it. It's just going to kill me very slowly over the course of the next month. Now for your second point, I completely agree--I don't want to feel like my job is my worth or joy in life, and it isn't. But at the same time, I wouldn't take a job at an assembly line e…

That's why you work on your side projects at work. I plan and design and write in a text editor my personal stuff all the time. It's just a text editor so it doesn't look suspect.

make sure it stays on personal accounts and equipment to avoid ownership issues but ianal