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?

#741

Post by Galanwe » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 2:16 PM UTC

pingyong wrote: post #683

Galanwe wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I admit I did the computation 80kE ~= $150k from the top of my head, it’s not super accurate and will depend on countries and the status of the employee (different status imply different employer deductions).

In France for instance, people will insist on having the “cadre” status, which require more employer contribution and also has implications on how their liabilities toward the company are judged. This should raise the bar to $150k.

Edit:

I did the computation for France and end up with 130k EUR super gross for a 80k EUR gross. So that would be an equivalent of $145k. Not far from my guess.

I used the french government calculator to compute the exact values: https://www.economie.gouv.fr/entreprises/simulateur-cout-emb...

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

#742

Post by christophilus » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 2:17 PM UTC

Galanwe wrote: post #338

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This blows my mind that in the US one can make such insane money in tech while still being a slacker and retire early with a dream house bought and paid for while in Europe devs are slaving away through SCRUM powered meat grinders burning themselves out for a 3% salary increase on a pitiful 40-80k/year, no stock options, without any hope of early retirement or owning a decent home without a 30 year loan or financial…

> in Europe devs are slaving away through SCRUM powered meat grinders burning themselves out for a 3% salary increase on a pitiful 40-80k/year There is so much wrong in this sentence. First, there is no more “meat grinders” in the US than in Europe. I worked at Microsoft and Criteo in Europe, and the slacking there seems to be on par with what OP describes. You mention 40/80k per year being pitiful? This kind of remu…

> Your 80k€ gross in e.g. France should be the equivalent of $150k for a US worker

I hear this a lot, but if you're earning $150K in the US, you almost certainly have 100% medical coverage. At least, I do, and everyone I know does. The US medical system is broken, but it's OK for high-income earners. It's the low-to-middle income folks who are really hurt by it.

> retirement savings

Again, if you're earning $150K in the US, you probably have a nice 401K and stock options. If you're smart with your money, you can probably retire in 10 years. Again, anecdotal, but I know many who've done just that.

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

#743

Post by theodric » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 2:18 PM UTC

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…

American who has spent 16 years in Europe (Ireland, Netherlands, Switzerland).

> $80K goes a lot further in Europe than it does in the US.

I would like to see evidence supporting this assertion. Luxury meats are about the only thing I can think of that are more expensive stateside.

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

#744

Post by vectorEQ » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 2:20 PM UTC

if the learning/enjoyment/motivation curve flattens you have choices.

either accept it and settle at an employer, or change jobs. often this happens around 5-6 years in if not sooner.

its ok to settle at an employer and just be happy wiht your life. if it sucks the life out of you i'd suggest finding a new challenge. with a resume of longer term employment at a big corporate like google , finding a new challenge should be doable.

perhaps you enjoy a startup, its a lot more dynamic and versatile, though often pays less atleast initially. personally i hate that, and try to challenge myself in my current work rather than looking for different jobs. but then again i don't have issues with my job being a bit boring / stale as i try to find things outside of work to fufill me which can also help a lot to fight depression / stress etc.

in the end you sound like you need some thing you are passionate about to work on to feel good about yourself, this is normal, but it doesn't have to be your job which gives you this.

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

#745

Post by usefulcat » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 2:32 PM UTC

Clearly you're not very interested in the work you're now doing at google. So the question is, is it this particular job that you're not interested in, or is it that you're just not that interested in programming? Probably the best way to find out is to try a different job.

P.S. -- there would be no need to 'keep yourself accountable' if you were genuinely interested in what you were doing.

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

#746

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 2:32 PM UTC

jhrmnn wrote: post #740

mkohlmyr wrote: post #684

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Let me try to reformulate OP's comment. In many European countries, there are three deduction levels: (1) the net salary, after all taxes and health and social care deductions, (2) the gross salary, after all mandatory employer contributions to the health and social care systems (3) the total cost of an employee to the employer (the English equivalent of the term used in Czechia would be "super-gross" salary). OP's p…

Gross salary usually refers to #2 in the US, to, and, contrary to the upthread suggestion, just as in Europe, there is an “employer portion” (which in the US includes some of retirement and retirement healthcare, but not current healthcare—that is, specifically, federally half of the tax for Social Security and Medicare,—plus, a portion of the cost of federal and state unemployment insurance) which is not included in gross salary because it is paid out of employer taxes rather than employee taxes. There are also sometimes employer-provided benefits that while part of total compensation are not part of gross salary , and may or may not be part of taxable income; some portion of employer-provided healthcare cost is frequently part of this, and, though this is almost entirely a public-sector concern now, some portion of employer pension costs also frequently would be part of this, where a pension exists at all (adding these employer taxes and benefits to gross salary isn't the total cost to the employer of the employee either, as there is overhead and other employer costs for employment that that still excludes.)

It is true that the spread between #2 and #3 (when limited only to the required taxes and any benefits not part of salary, which seems to be the intention) is typically greater in Europe than the US, as the supported social services are greater.

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

#747

Post by solarengineer » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 2:33 PM UTC

thrownaway954 wrote: post #613

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." THIS all the way. When we are young, we think that we will be remembered by the company that we worked for and the people that we worked with. The sad truth is that in 99.9999% none of those people will rememb…

There can be a thousand reasons to do die, but we need just one reason to live.

Since you clearly wanted to do something worthwhile with your life, do check www.drawdown.org.

Do write to me if you want to talk ( sriramNRN at gmail ) . I can share a few worthwhile things that I've picked up to do for the rest of my life.

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

#748

Post by bob33212 » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 2:34 PM UTC

rl3 wrote: post #235

reactspa wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

E.g.: I'm a jeans & t-shirt kinda guy. However, I now dress a little more formally (business casual) because it leads to better outcomes. I've not gotten around to wearing suits even though that would be even better. A little more strategic: I usually wear at least one item of clothing with my employer's logo visible on it. (Gives off a "corporate citizen" vibe.) A far cry from the recent past when I'd carry a laptop…

What if you're at an overly-corporate place being the jeans & t-shirt person? Throughout modern history tech founders used this to great effect against suits. My theory is that radically different dress from the norm (whether dressing up or down) can be advantageous provided you remain utterly confident and bring value to the table.

Taleb talks about this in Anti-fragile. Rock Stars can wear whatever they want and it doesn't hurt them in their career. In contrast a lawyer or accountant could seriously hurt their career showing up to work with an unusual outfit on.

In the Software world you can have it both ways. Showing up in sweatpants and a vulgar t-shirt may cause people to think you are so good that you don't have to care. But also to think that you will never be in management

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

#749

Post by JohnBooty » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 2:36 PM UTC

Bahamut wrote: post #524

streetcat1 wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do. However, they can do 10X work only in deep work env, I.e. private office, no email, no meeting, etc. Once you put the 10X eng in regular work settings, he will quickly become 1X or 0.1X

There are different ways of making teams more productive than doing just technical work. For my own anecdote, I often can fix a lot of bugs/feature requests that come by in I also spend the most time in meetings of any IC on my team - reducing how many ICs are in meetings frees up their time to learn and grow. I often float ideas to people for approaches to problems and designing apps/systems/features - I’ll also let…

I'm a believer in everything you just said!

It takes a very healthy work environment (and attentive management) for this kind of work to be noticed and rewarded. Unfortunately it's not often the case.

I have tried to take this approach many times and a lot of companies/managers absolutely do not value it.

Broadly speaking, it only works if management is really involved in the day-to-day (more like hour to hour, really) process of what you're doing. Then it is easy for them to see that you are lifting up those around you and elevating the team as a whole. Without this involvement, a "mentor" and "leader" winds up looking simply like "a guy who doesn't ship enough" to management.

At my last job, management was very... absentee. There was a shortage of management and this was a bottleneck. They relied on metrics too heavily (stories shipped, etc) and didn't understand the actual processes... who was mentoring and elevating others, and who was "highly productive" but was also leaving an absolute trail of technical debt in their wake.

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

#750

Post by kungtotte » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 2:37 PM UTC

theodric wrote: post #743

kungtotte wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

American who has spent 16 years in Europe (Ireland, Netherlands, Switzerland). > $80K goes a lot further in Europe than it does in the US. I would like to see evidence supporting this assertion. Luxury meats are about the only thing I can think of that are more expensive stateside.

We pay $100 per month for daycare which is open 6:30 to 18:30 if we need it for that long.

School costs us nothing out of pocket.

Our grand total out of pocket medical costs for our kid thus far (turns 4 in March) is around $500. Including any medication we've ever bought for him. Half of that $500 went to spending Monday through Friday at the hospital when he was born, in a hotel style room with three meals a day included for the both of us.

We didn't need private health insurance for that, nor have it provided by either employer.

We also received 480 paid parental leave days to be split between us (90 reserved for her, 90 for me, the remaining 300 at our discretion).

That's some evidence right there. I have no numbers from the countries you mentioned though. The difference there could be smaller.