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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?

#681

Post by dunkelheit »

darkerside wrote: post #463
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…

> guys who would be considered attractive and desirable in most other locations Your conception of what women are looking for in a man might not hew as closely to reality as you think.

You write like "what women are looking for in a man" is some absolute thing, but it is decidedly not! It is highly context-dependent. As an extreme example, there are some places on Earth where simply not being an alcoholic can make you a desirable mate.

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

#682

Post by m0zg »

kungtotte wrote: post #567
m0zg wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> You mention 40/80k per year being pitiful? This kind of remuneration puts you in the top 10%/5% of France population easily. That just means the rest of the population is poor, not that you should accept less. This is called a fallacy of relative privation. So what if you have to subsist on ramen and can't afford a place to live with less than an hour and a half of commute. Think of all those starving children in…

I make $42K in Sweden (not in IT), and it's comfortably high middle class. My wife doesn't even work full time and it's still enough for us to live comfortably within our means (own a house, two cars, one kid, etc.) If I'd been making $60K my wife could stop working. At $80K she wouldn't have to work and we'd still be moving into "new BMW every three years" kind of money. $80K goes a lot further in Europe than it doe…

Are you able to buy real estate in a decent location? Because if you can't, you're not "high middle class". Housing is not a luxury.

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

#683

Post by pingyong »

Galanwe wrote: post #550
rayiner wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, please, bear in mind that you cannot directly compare US and EU salaries. Your 80k€ gross in e.g. France should be the equivalent of $150k for a US worker; if you account for the same level of medical care and retirement savings. Not much of a difference after you realise this. What makes you think that? As to retirement savings, American retirement payments replace 70% of working income on average, versus 60…

You are completely missing the point here. Not only are you trying to argue against things that I did not say, but you are also comparing things that cannot. What Europeans call "gross" salary is NOT what Americans call "gross" salary. And you are mixing them together, which is exactly what my comment was trying to prevent. > the comparison of 80k euros being less than $150k, because retirement savings will come out…

Hmm, this is certainly interesting, but if I do the calculation for Germany for example, 80,000€ "gross" income comes out to a cost of about 96,600€.

https://www.nettolohn.de/rechner/gehaltsrechner-fuer-arbeitg...

Certainly relevant, but there's still a decent gap between 96,600€ ($108,165) and $150,000.

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

#684

Post by mkohlmyr »

Galanwe wrote: post #550
rayiner wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, please, bear in mind that you cannot directly compare US and EU salaries. Your 80k€ gross in e.g. France should be the equivalent of $150k for a US worker; if you account for the same level of medical care and retirement savings. Not much of a difference after you realise this. What makes you think that? As to retirement savings, American retirement payments replace 70% of working income on average, versus 60…

You are completely missing the point here. Not only are you trying to argue against things that I did not say, but you are also comparing things that cannot. What Europeans call "gross" salary is NOT what Americans call "gross" salary. And you are mixing them together, which is exactly what my comment was trying to prevent. > the comparison of 80k euros being less than $150k, because retirement savings will come out…

I don't know anyone who calls take-home (net) pay gross salary in Europe. I have lived and worked in multiple countries.

And the actual gross is definitely displayed on the payslips.

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

#685

Post by vharish »

brycesbeard wrote: post #609
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’ve been speaking with my girlfriends friends, about the paucity of eligible men in the SFBA. Most of them ask me to introduce them to a nice person. Looks aren’t as important, but having a decent job is. Maybe it’s the age, but I found simply being kind and knowing your target market (women who like kind guys, who are everywhere, and are often smoking hot) works. Late 30s is a good time to date. I had the same issu…

Haha.. this is now taking an interesting turn.

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

#686

Post by watwut »

olalonde wrote: post #660
watwut wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe in addition to be good looking and earning money, that dude also was not looking for trophy wife and had different preferences. Dude sounds like catch.

I'm not talking about a specific man and physical attractiveness is just one of many aspects. In aggregate, it seems reasonable to believe that the gender imbalance causes men to lower their standards. > Dude sounds like catch. That's sort of the point.

The interesting think for me is that all discussions about relationships on hn boils down to money and looks (gym for guys, I guess makeup and diet for girls).

And the idea of match is "willing to let me pay for her". There is no other standard for suitable partner ever mentioned. No expectation of shared values or similar livestyle (except valuing looks). No expectation of mutual support.

And the experts on what women want are people who "dated" over dozens of people last year - meaning none of them trying for long term stable relationship.

And everytime I read those discussions I kind of think I would not want to date them either. Mostly because they primary think in hierarchies instead of relationships and because I would not want a guy that would use his money as leverage over me.

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

#687

Post by burntoutfire »

tuananh wrote: post #531
Aeolun wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can fire people in Europe if they are slackers. Why is this considered a bad thing? I’d suggest that working with capable colleagues is a great joy. I do agree on the pay though. For some reason the US has ludicrous salaries. Every time I go to a conference in the US I feel like a pauper by comparison. Especially hurts when talking to a junior engineer you can basically dance circles around that’s paid more than…

> and the knowledge that my CEO is making at most 4 or 5 times as much as me. why do you prefer that? just curious

The salaries of CEOs of European corporations are nowhere near as extravagant as in the US, but still they're closer to 25-50x salary of a senior dev (quick googling returned salaries for European CEOs in the $3-6m range)

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

#688

Post by ZuckMuckerberg »

badpun wrote: post #642
throwaway8291 wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The max I negotiated in Europe was $125000, an ok start up salary was maybe $80000 and I am currently - with lots of non-money benefits at around $70000. What makes me most sad is that fostering the web tracking industry - tech + marketing - is so lucrative. I have such a hard time understanding this world - it does not make much sense any more. This lying and scheming around collecting all your data and activity for…

> The max I negotiated in Europe was $125000, an ok start up salary was maybe $80000 and I am currently - with lots of non-money benefits at around $70000. I'm currently at $160k (as a contractor, assuming 5 weeks of per year). Could have had more, but I'm currently in low cost of living country (former soviet block), so any move would be offset by increase in taxes and costs of living. You can make good money in Eur…

Datapoint: I'm currently making £145K a year in the British office of a FAANG company as an E4 engineer 2½ years after graduating college.

I'm able to work 10–18 most days, but I do have to have some results eventually. I know of people in this office who got dismissed for not having good enough impact.

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

#689

Post by jamisteven »

xenihn wrote: post #621
clomond wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solving the dating problem was not the question. > "How does one become more interesting" Sure, you can change your environment to be more *relatively interesting. But that was also not the core of the question as I understand it. Rather, providing a method or tips to be more OBJECTIVELY interesting today than your yesterdays self is something useful in any kind of 'dating market'.

How to become more interesting (as a guy in the bay area): - Make (significantly) more money (than most other guys in the bay area) - Be more attractive (than most other guys in the bay area) Making $120k in the bay area obviously isn't impressive. Neither is being fit without being on gear. It's all about the other guys around you. Both quality and quantity. These things would make you interesting in other parts of…

So shallow, where do I start.

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

#690

Post by glangdale »

_jgdh wrote: post #591
apatters wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is a strange response, mostly a wilful misreading of what I wrote. But yes, having your "life in order" isn't actually all that shit-hot, and yes, "expecting to be able to date" if you're not very interesting is actually "too much entitlement".

Because last time I checked, "expecting to be able to date" involves the decisions of other people and you're not really generally entitled for other people to do much more than treat you with decency and respect. Not, necessarily, want to jump your bones. Sorry.

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