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

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

#571

Post by yaitsyaboi »

HashThis wrote: post #153
throwaway_googl wrote: post #48

I have three friends at Google who are nice, smart people, but terrible employees. All three of them seem to be doing just fine in their Google careers. One is very smart, but he's been telling me literally for years that he has zero motivation, to the point where he sometimes won't actually start working until 6PM. He's moved around within Google trying to find something he's interested in, but it's just the same th…

I know companies that won't hire Google employees because of this reputation.

Is this serious? I replied to another person in the thread with a similar take. I agree that large tech companies are not the heavenly place that people depict them to be where everyone is a super genius, but I just don't find what you're saying to be consistent with my experience.

I joined Amazon as a new grad and spent 3 years there. I went from a 0% callback rate on cold applications to like 60%. I've been at Google for 2 years, and I am approaching 80% callback. A third of the time, I get to skip phone screens entirely and go directly onsite.

I don't think that the vibe irl is the same as on HN. I never get the impression that people are weary of Googlers. Maybe my Amazon experience is the difference maker? I think if anything, sometimes I get the impression that the person interviewing me is a bit defensive at the beginning of interviews as they feel me out.

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

#572

Post by swyx »

JohnBooty wrote: post #497
chii wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> fostering the web tracking industry because consumers don't want to pay for anything. It's easier to extract private data, and sell that to a corporation for a lot of money, than to extract a small premium from each user (which is like squeezing blood from stone).

Yep. This battle was lost way, way back in the 90s when we collectively decided that everything on the Internet should be free. I think it's one of the great lost opportunities in human history. I don't know what the "correct" course of action would have been, instead of making everything ad-supported and mostly terrible. Some kind of very very seamless micropayments? Maybe there was no "correct choice." Maybe "free,…

marc andreesen refers to this as “the original sin of the internet” https://podcastnotes.org/2019/08/31/andreessen-crypto/

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

#573

Post by jsinai »

NeverFade wrote: post #429
wpietri wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I've only lived in the bay area 20 years, but this strikes me as quite dramatic. I know literally dozens of men in tech happily raising families in the Bay Area. It's true the male/female ratios are worse (although we should certainly adjust for the large gay male population). But when I talk to friends who are dating, it's the women who seem to be struggling to find anybody decent, not the men. Perhaps the p…

> It's true the male/female ratios are worse The fact that there are way more men than women in the Bay is a statistical reality, which you admit yourself. Then you bring an opinion blog-post by a single woman as counter-evidence. Ironically, all these complaints about "guys there that have a disgusting sense of entitlement" just go to show how picky she is, and can afford to be, in San Francisco. Nothing in GP's pos…

>Ironically, all these complaints about "guys there that have a disgusting sense of entitlement" just go to show how picky she is, and can afford to be, in San Francisco

It’s not a matter of being picky. It’s a matter of self respect.

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

#574

Post by barry-cotter »

ikeyany wrote: post #560
kqr wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of those you list as doing something meaningful can multiply their efforts if only there's a good software developer upstream from them. Software developers invent the tools and environments that enable other people to do more efficient work. Sometimes it enables entire classes of meaning work that weren't possible before. How can that not be meaningful? For better or worse, everything is driven by software these…

Many jobs in our society enable others to do efficient work. From the bus drivers that get Google employees to work to the teachers that work 60 hour days educating future doctors and lawyers--it's hard to say that engineers are particularly special in this regard.

Teachers do not work 60 hours a week. Bureau of Labor Statistics time use studies find that the only age group of teachers that work more than forty hours a week are those over 50.

https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2008/03/art4full.pdf

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

#575

Post by NeverFade »

X6S1x6Okd1st wrote: post #512
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…

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.

Totally! According to census data, there are 155 single men in Santa Clara County for every 100 single women. Once each of these men would "work on themselves" and "be more interesting", then a suitable single woman would materialize out of thin air to date them!

Or maybe it's Santa who brings a woman for every man who "worked on himself" that year?

Either way, this demographic fact is clearly those men's fault!

* https://www.reddit.com/r/bayarea/comments/a2xcst/malefemale_...

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

#576

Post by dirktheman »

I'm staggered by the mysogyny in this thread. A good relationship isn't based on how attractive you are, how much money you make or whether you behave arrogant or not. This implies that women are helpless, will-less creatures that just flock to the peacock with the biggest feathers. A good relationship is based on mutual respect and love.

If you think that your paycheck is a factor in finding a woman I have news for you: you get the women you deserve.

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

#577

Post by franze »

md5wasp wrote: post #162

Hi there, I did the exact same thing as you (at Google Sydney), before eventually deciding that I must strike out into the wilderness. In the few years since I left; I worked as a solutions architect managing a team, a team lead, a remote dev, and now in a startup. Front-end, back-end, flip-side, all the ends. So I've been deliberately trying different angles of my career to see what suits. I'd describe this process…

> If you stay at Google, make the most of it by progressing deliberately in your social life. If I'd've stayed, I could have comfortably raised some kids with my wife by now - but that's still on the todo list.

Uh oh. Unseen Risk Fallacy

Just because you don't experience risk, doesn't mean it does not exist. The company just hides risk from you, but it's still there, culminating without feedback.

As raising a child is a 19+ year project and the OP has already a few years of not stellar performance and risk - if not dealt with - grows exponentially (risk factors attrackt more risk factors).

So the stay in place is actually a very risky proposition. One huge bet, without much feedback.

As the OP is Young and doesn't have kids or other major spendings a much safer strategy would be to try different gigs. With his resume then (Google, lots of other gigs) he can prop. return to a low maintenance job at a big company at one point anyway.

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

#578

Post by mozey »

philosopher1234 wrote: post #561
X6S1x6Okd1st wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What do you personally do to be interesting?

I like traveling to experience different cultures and personalities, getting out of your comfort zone can be very rewarding. If you have the means, organizing social events in a safe space for other people to join is great for creating connections and making friends. Host a potluck dinner, or go on a roadtrip, invite random people. Who do you find interesting? Try to be that person

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

#579

Post by NeverFade »

clomond wrote: post #570
philosopher1234 wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you personally do to be interesting?

Become a multi-deminsional, multi-faceted person. Starting with exploring genuine interests which have maybe not been 'listened to'. Being a bit adventurous (determine if things you've been curious about you actually care about), and trying new things (discover and identify new areas that exist) which could end up being interesting to you. From what I've seen, the key to being interesting is weirdly being more of "yo…

> Become a multi-deminsional, multi-faceted person.

According to census statistics, there are 1.63 single men for every 1 woman in Marin County. 1.34 single men per single woman in San Mateo County. 1.55 single men per single woman in Santa Clara County.

So I really like your advice; if every man in the Bay became a "multi-deminsional, multi-faceted person", they would transcend the boundaries of plain arithmetic so there would be enough single women to date every one of them!

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

#580

Post by zozbot234 »

jsinai wrote: post #573
NeverFade wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's true the male/female ratios are worse The fact that there are way more men than women in the Bay is a statistical reality, which you admit yourself. Then you bring an opinion blog-post by a single woman as counter-evidence. Ironically, all these complaints about "guys there that have a disgusting sense of entitlement" just go to show how picky she is, and can afford to be, in San Francisco. Nothing in GP's pos…

>Ironically, all these complaints about "guys there that have a disgusting sense of entitlement" just go to show how picky she is, and can afford to be, in San Francisco It’s not a matter of being picky. It’s a matter of self respect.

One person's "self-respect" is another's "disgusting sense of entitlement". That's just the way it is.
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