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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?

#811

Post by sqrt17 »

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,…

Brave Browser has micropayments for exactly this Ads-vs-Micropayments rationale

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

#812

Post by genS3 »

grugagag wrote: post #792
genS3 wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree. Having lived through both systems and countries with similar salaries than the one you mention. France is a scam. Europe is a scam. Companie are not entitled to anything they make you either enter some traditional companies with very little benefits (definitly no 401k, discounted movie tickets at best) or they make you enter startup world giving you shitting fictional "stocks" that definitely won't m…

It's curious that you say that, I searched for comparisons between New York and Paris[0],[1] and NY comes on top. Are this inaccurate? I'm genuinely curious [0]: https://www.expatica.com/fr/housing/buying/buying-property-i... [1]: https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living/comparison/paris/n...

Have a look I picked similar sized appartments 44sqm: LIC (10min ride from midtown) for 600k$ a : https://streeteasy.com/building/5th-street-lofts-5sl/6d

PARIS 15 (family neighboorhood - the furthest one from the city center - 20min) for 600k$: https://www.seloger.com/annonces/achat/appartement/paris-15e...

and I can find much much cheaper in Queens if I move 10min further in something older.

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

#813

Post by designium »

I had a different experience than you had when I was working in Google Brazil. I was the first AdWords Product Specialist in the office - also, the office only had 50 people; it really felt like a startup in 2006.

At the bottom of my heart, I always wanted to build my own startup or work with startup so eventually I left Google.

Now, during that time, I did my work as many other Googlers would do but the difference is that I was in a position to access huge amount of training materials, design docs, 3rd party research materials, etc. In my "spare" time, I just went through and read, absorbed as much as I could; so at the end, I did learn a lot but outside from my usual scope of work.

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

#814

Post by veggieburglar »

wpietri wrote: post #415
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 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…

I agree with you 100% and have to say that the replies on this particular thread are some of the most toxic I’ve ever read here on HN, and completely indicative of both what you describe as well as my own observations from living here in the Bay for pretty much my entire life.

I live in the South Bay, don’t work in tech, make well under $100k a year, live comfortably and have had no issues dating. I’m a local, white and over six feet tall, so that probably helps, but I’m certainly nothing special looks wise.

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

#815

Post by zellyn »

I was at Google for five years, and by the end of it, I'd reached a similar place as you. Alas, my leaving Google was precipitated by us deciding to move, not a well-thought or self-directed intentional impulse on my part. But it turned out to be the best thing ever. For some reason or other, I had the interview day of my life at Square, and got offered a position where they expected a lot from me. It has been wonderful, and I should have switched companies sooner.

Leading up to that, part of my path out of the doldrums was (a) therapy, and (b) going through the list of technical subjects that seemed out -of-reach-wizardly (writing a compiler, writing an emulator), and chipping away at them one plush, cushy Google bus ride at a time until they were working. But the change of scenery — and especially of expectation — was invigorating.

A few miscellaneous comments (“advice is a form of nostalgia”…):

- the feeling that you're only idling at 10% mental capacity will kill you slowly.

- you might want to investigate the idea that you're procrastinating because of anxiety or depression, rather than the reverse

- assuming you're giving programming interviews, and using borg/bigtable/cns/etc/etc/etc day-to-day, you'll be amazed at how much knowledge you've picked up in 6 years. You probably have a practical fluency with distributed and sharded capacity design that most interviewees lack. Depends on where inside Google you landed…

- just preparing for and attempting the interviews at “companies with a higher hiring bar than Google” will probably wake you up a bit. Good luck!

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

#816

Post by isthispermanent »

JohnBooty wrote: post #770
neuronic wrote: post #756

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watch VR when it (or rather if) it takes off. Then ads will truly be squeezed into our eyeballs in the most literal sense.

It's never taking off on the scale of the internet itself. It just doesn't pass any kind of common-sense test. People don't really want to spend large portions of their lives wearing goofy headsets, seeing things nobody else can see. Even if (when) we shrink the screens down to the size and weight of regular eyeglasses, I don't see it. It is not compatible with anything else... you have to completely cease all other…

This is my gut feeling too.

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

#817

Post by X6S1x6Okd1st »

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 climb outside, I backpack, I was the first person in my college to do study abroad at a specific smaller uni, I became a beginner in breakdancing (good enough to do some moves at a party, not to perform), I've learned to scuba dive, I've learned to AT ski, I participate in a book club that has roughly a 50/50 gender balance (important for hearing view points and books you might not have), I've spent literally years fixing my dog's horrific separation anxiety, I taught another dog I cared for to close the door behind them, I cross dress about once a year. I can cook.

All of this makes for better conversation on a date, or to get a date than what you do for work or how much you make.

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

#818

Post by ihiulll »

zellyn wrote: post #815

I was at Google for five years, and by the end of it, I'd reached a similar place as you. Alas, my leaving Google was precipitated by us deciding to move, not a well-thought or self-directed intentional impulse on my part. But it turned out to be the best thing ever. For some reason or other, I had the interview day of my life at Square, and got offered a position where they expected a lot from me. It has been wonder…

Your conception of what women are looking for in a man might not hew as closely to reality as you think.

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

#819

Post by ihiulll »

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 as grueling, ("challenging" is too friendly). I honestly think I would have been happier staying at Google, farting around, and being social. I agree with a lot of the comments here. However it's a catch-22, because the me that exists now wouldn't choose to go back and overall I think this has been good for me – and not just because of the, er, _character building_ aspect of it.

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.

If you leave, just jump right in. I didn't study anything, I just picked it up as I went along. If you were able to follow Steve Yegge's advice and Get That Job At Google, then I'm sure you're a smart cookie and can fake it til you make it.

BasicaIly I'm saying you can be happy either way. If you leave, know what you're getting yourself into. If you stay, don't waste this time but use it on yourself.

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

#820

Post by zellyn »

ihiulll wrote: post #818
zellyn wrote: post #815

I was at Google for five years, and by the end of it, I'd reached a similar place as you. Alas, my leaving Google was precipitated by us deciding to move, not a well-thought or self-directed intentional impulse on my part. But it turned out to be the best thing ever. For some reason or other, I had the interview day of my life at Square, and got offered a position where they expected a lot from me. It has been wonder…

Your conception of what women are looking for in a man might not hew as closely to reality as you think.

While you may be correct, I think you commented on the wrong thread
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