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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?

#871

Post by redisman »

apersona wrote: post #606
Aeolun wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think 10x engineers do not actually exist, but maybe 0.1x engineers do, and when a 1x engineer is in such an environment they may seem like 10x by comparison.

I think both 0.1x engineers and 10x engineers exist. 0.1x engineer: one of my friends works at a certain government contractor. One of her coworkers had difficulty understanding short circuiting in evaluating boolean statements, everything he writes she needs to fix, he thinks XML is a programming language, and it's just a huge mess amongst a huge list of other complaints. 10x engineer: Actually, he's still in underg…

> 2) I imagine most companies don't even need a 10x engineer to build the product they need.

So true. 99% of businesses are CRUD and "complex-because-of-humans" business logic very rarely needs someone like Michael Abrash as a chief scientist to get the job done.

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

#872

Post by glangdale »

philosopher1234 wrote: post #693
glangdale wrote: post #690

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mo…

Why do you need to be “hot shit” in order to date? Why isn’t being able to provide for your SO emotionally/physically/financially sufficient? By your standards I’m not hot shit but my girlfriend loves me so I’m wondering why I should even care what you think?

It's weird you keep cropping up on this thread interpreting me saying "women are not going to flock to you just because you meet some basic criteria so it is foolish to start behaving that you are entitled to this" as "obviously, philosopher1234 cannot possibly have a girlfriend, q.e.d".

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

#873

Post by glangdale »

krageon wrote: post #712
glangdale wrote: post #692

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, first of all, lose that sense of entitlement. It's hard to think of much that's less appealing than petulance. It's also a pretty great way to blind yourself to what 'league' you're actually in. A number of my tech friends have wasted an extraordinary amount of time chasing women absurdly out of their league because they've been convinced that "having a decent job", "being well-spoken" and "eating with their mo…

> lose that sense of entitlement When you are told you need to meet specific criteria to achieve a goal, it's not entitlement to expect those criteria to lead to that goal. When trying to get people to listen to what you are saying, try not to start with a put-down.

You're saying that "if someone tells you some entitled garbage, and you believe it, it's not entitled garbage?". So essentially it's not entitlement because someone else told you?

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

#874

Post by darkerside »

dunkelheit wrote: post #681
darkerside wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Actually, it was the parent post that created the context I was responding in. I totally agree with you.

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

#875

Post by jomkr »

blaser-waffle wrote: post #857
apohn wrote: post #772

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing to me to learn that you can help other teams solve problems at Google. Every big company I've worked for (none of them FAANG), helping another team is a recipe for disaster. You will get your hand slapped, punished, blamed, and basically make your life much worse. Each team is super insulated and tries their best to hide behind their management chain because of this. It's great that you can feel bored an…

> Every big company I've worked for (none of them FAANG), helping another team is a recipe for disaster. You will get your hand slapped, punished, blamed, and basically make your life much worse. This. More work, much of which won't improve your review or bottom line. You get a stack rank from your boss and your team, not the guys two offices over. Then, if your upgrades screw up its on you. Apropos of a a saying I'm…

At Amazon you literally can't get promoted to Senior Engineer (SDE3) without showing influence outside your team.

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

#876

Post by PhaedrusV »

reactspa wrote: post #224
abledon wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which scott adams books? loserthink?

Start with "How to fail...", then "Win Bigly", then "Loserthink". "How to fail..." is the most important IMHO. Also, read up on this: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/

Second "How to fail.." and "Gervais"; didn't find "Win Bigly" or "Loserthink" very useful.

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

#877

Post by glangdale »

maximente wrote: post #826
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…

wow, i'm just sitting here imagining there are 150 applicants to 100 jobs and reading a response like this. "you need to work harder - a lot of people are just not that talented to employers - why aren't you outcompeting the others?" this seems straight up victim blaming. if there are 150 applicants and 100 jobs, there are 50 people who miss out. waging war to "one up" those other 149 (or 99 i guess) is certainly an…

Hacker News is full of advice for people attempting to get successful outcomes in situations where there are 20,000 applicants to 100 jobs, so I'm amazed that a discussion of how you can improve your outcomes under a 150:100 ratio is now "victim blaming".

Also, newsflash: not getting attention from the gender(s) of your choice doesn't make you a "victim". We're back to the entitlement thing, I guess.

But yes, moving out of the Bay Area will help. However, I'd hazard a guess that unless someone moves to somewhere where a six-figure salary makes them a minor princeling, your problems may follow them. Because a boring dude in SF or the Bay is still a boring guy in Des Moines or Scranton.

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

#878

Post by chimeracoder »

wpietri wrote: post #534
80386 wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Major gay cities aren't necessarily major lesbian cities. The Castro happened because the military discharged gay men from the Pacific theater and a lot of them ended up there - was there a comparable dynamic for lesbians? I don't know of one. And I don't think Atlanta is very significant to gay men.

Exactly. Surprisingly, I can't find any statistics. But San Francisco now has zero lesbian bars, and quite a number of popular gay bars. This is a good article on the contrast in community resources: https://hoodline.com/2016/07/is-there-a-place-for-lesbians-i...

> Exactly. Surprisingly, I can't find any statistics. But San Francisco now has zero lesbian bars, and quite a number of popular gay bars.

Your statement that "a city that has a large group of gay men doesn't necessarily have a large group of lesbians" is accurate, but this is a bad piece of evidence to cite in favor of it. Almost all cities with large LGBTQ+ populations have far more bars and clubs targeted at gay men than at lesbians.

San Francisco had a few lesbian bars a few years ago, all of which have since closed. That pattern - lesbian nightlife disappearing - is pretty consistent across other cities that have large LGBTQ+ populations.

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

#880

Post by pyuser583 »

cantrevealname wrote: post #358
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…

> 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…

My own observations of the Bay Area dating culture is that:

1. Lots of people in their early to mid 20s who aren’t interested settling down.

2. Lots of people who are career focused and not interested in settling down.

3. Lots of people who are students and not interested in settling down.

4. Lots of people who are already settled down. Long term, stable relationships are very common. Marriage, less so, but not uncommon.

5. A higher than average population who will have their parents arrange a marriage back in India.

Honest the whole social situation feels like an extension of college - not much opportunity for match making.

People don’t move to the Bay Area to find a spouse. They move there for career opportunities.

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