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?

#591

Post by _jgdh » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 8:04 AM UTC

apatters wrote: post #569

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…

I suspect most of them were told (by their mothers, continuously for the first 20 years of their lives) that this was in fact the way to land a good woman. Be a nice clean cut guy and earn $120K a year. If you know so much then what's your prescription for them?

I’m going to guess they won’t have an answer to your question of how single men in the Bay Area working on themselves and “becoming interesting” will suddenly make tens of thousands of single women materialise in the Bay Area.

It was merely a rant about how they felt people shouldn’t feel entitled to anything and that expecting to be able to date if you’ve got your life in order is too much entitlement.

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

#592

Post by Apocryphon » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 8:06 AM UTC

NeverFade wrote: post #575

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.

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! * ht…

If those men are transplants, isn’t the demographic skew partially their fault?

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

#593

Post by NeverFade » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 8:06 AM UTC

chrisco255 wrote: post #493

NeverFade wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. If that appeals to you, you're welcome to move to the Bay. You'll dodge so many bullets, that you'll forget what a date with a woman is ;-) More seriously, while we'd love to impose moral views on reality, the simple fact is that when people can afford to be picky, they will be. I don't know what you value in a romantic partner, but for simplicity, let's assume it's looks. If you arrived at some magical island…

Maybe. If they were better at fishing than anyone else.

If hundreds of supermodels are competing for your attention, I'm sure many of them would become amazing at fishing, modern dancing, pottery-making, or whatever other random skill you find attractive.

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

#594

Post by atoav » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 8:08 AM UTC

I haven’t been there so.I have no idea, but you certainly sound like you hate the current state of affairs.

My advice: try to find the root cause of your slack-off mentality and adress it. If you figure out that you need to place yourself beyond a point of no return in order to get going, do it.

This however could potentially all happen while still staying at google. The mind is a powerful thing and just a change in perspective can change a lot in your life.

I always enjoyed building things — but they have to have some sort of meaning to me. Do the things you build have any meaning to you? If not, which things would?

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

#595

Post by NeverFade » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 8:09 AM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #592

NeverFade wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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! * ht…

If those men are transplants, isn’t the demographic skew partially their fault?

Yes, if you move to an area that's known to have dating demographics badly skewed against you, don't be surprised when your dating life there is disappointing.

However, when we have a discussion about Bay Area dating, and most comments blame men for "not being interesting" and completely ignore, deny, or fail to even mention the gender imbalance, I don't think it helps men to make informed choices.

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

#596

Post by Apocryphon » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 8:10 AM UTC

NeverFade wrote: post #583

Zenbit_UX wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of all the women I know, not one of them aspires to be "a millionaire's wife".

Funny coincidence, I never met such a woman either! I did meet plenty who just happened to only date men who make high six to seven figures. It was a serial coincidence!

Sounds like a self-selection situation

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

#597

Post by ikeyany » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 8:10 AM UTC

barry-cotter wrote: post #574

ikeyany wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It looks like those statistics have summer months included. That changes things from "60 hour work weeks when school is in session" to "60 hour work weeks amortized over a year".

In addition that study notes that teachers are more likely to work a second job, something a Google engineer wouldn't need to do to make a decent wage.

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

#598

Post by duelingjello » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 8:13 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…

Lifestyle design and the wider world is stereotypically antithetical to most engineers. If you’re not one of those, and even if you are, you should often deflect the “so what do you do? (how much do you make?)” question with a humorous contradictory “title.”

I know a guy who makes $350k and has a security clearance but wears white socks, is overweight, eats with his mouth open and is super awkward. That’s not a “catch,” in women’s eyes, unless he owns it without the usual creepy awkwardness, shame and/or insecurities.

Sense of humor, directness, interests outside tech, goals in life, socioemotional self-awareness and demonstrated relentlessly-resourceful go-getterness is what makes women run. And don’t be so damn predictable.

PS: skip Tinder unless you’re a 19-year-old sports player or an 20-/30-something model.

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

#599

Post by leni536 » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 8:13 AM UTC

NeverFade wrote: post #579

clomond wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The advice is for an individual, not all men collectively. But yeah the advice is not "be interesting", it's "be more interesting than a typical man in your area". The issue you describe is very real though.

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

#600

Post by nikhilbagde » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 8:17 AM UTC

Grass is always greener on the other side. I work in Deloitte as a Java developer and I feel the same that I'm not using my knowledge what we learnt in Masters. But you work at Google. Guys like me are still trying to get out of this rut and try to get offer at companies like Google. But People like me are so into this routine life that it's hard to again go back and brush up skills. I just got married and I'm planning to change company. And I'm scared but optimistic that I can catch up. It's very confusion from where to start. There is so much to learn nowdays. JavaScript, node, angular, react, aws, Dockers. Then again problem singing skills for that again algorithms. There is so much to learn.

Then what about AI machine learning.

Life looks so difficult now.