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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?

#991

Post by wazoox »

jaynetics wrote: post #894
wazoox wrote: post #776

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Average net salary in France hovers at 2300€/month, median net salary is ~1800€/month. At ~3200€/month you're straight in the high 10% from official statistics.

Anything I found suggested slightly higher values, but maybe official stats can only be found by googling in French? Either way, I think all the GPs were talking about gross values. So if 1800 net is, say, 2800 gross, that is 35k/yr. In that case 40k is fairly close to the median and probably not in the top 25%.

Indeed. :)

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

#992

Post by thedaemon »

MiroF wrote: post #976
thedaemon wrote: post #955

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just horrible with acronyms because I work in IT and the health industry, previous the security industry. They all have acronyms and the same acronyms. So they all mean different things to different people. Acronyms are a lazy person writing and you have to be "in the know" to know what they stand for. 100 years from now, no one will be able to understand them.

"communicate so that everything you say can be understood 100 years from now" seems like a terrible standard to hold conversation to. What is "IT", by the way?

Information Technology.

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

#993

Post by bgdkbtv »

shantly wrote: post #476
bgdkbtv wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you expand on this?

Leadership positions like that mean doing a whole other set of stuff that feels like "not-work" if work has always meant personally, directly moving a product forward. Those meetings you always hated because they killed your productivity? Now they are your productivity. Sitting at your desk and can't think of a single thing to do that anyone's likely to care about? Try not to look like you're relaxing, but relax. You…

I feel like that is me, and I feel like that would be a perfect job for me. I am, too, at a point where I am as productive as my peers with just about 10% of effort.

Thanks for your elaboration, opened my eyes on the situation.

In your experience, would this be a good time to start your own business, like a SaaS?

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

#994

Post by marcus_holmes »

markholmes wrote: post #981
marcus_holmes wrote: post #663

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was there. Now in my 50's with an amazing life. I'm grateful every day to my alcoholic, depressed 40-odd-year-old self who didn't kill himself. I could not have seen from there how happy I am now, and I could not have predicted the adventures I went (am going!) through to get here. Hang in there, buddy. Just keep breathing. It will change.

Happy to hear you're doing well. Coincidentally, you and I have very similar names.

I used to have access to the UK electoral list. In about 2003 there were 32 "Marcus Holmes" in the list. I also had their addresses. I was contemplating inviting them all to a get-together ;)

I spoke to the guy who owns marcusholmes.com when I got my domain (marcusholmes.biz). Nice chap. American, of course.

Maybe we should have a convention or something. Because we're obviously related. Sherlock was our great-great-uncle (at least, that's what I tell people).

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

#995

Post by kossmoboleat »

Some of the advice from David Graeber's book "Bullshit Jobs" seems appropriate. Although you seem to still fulfill a useful function at Google, I found myself using some of the same strategies too.

Being conscious of the demotivating aspects of a job that has too low expectations is described very well in this book.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs

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

#996

Post by davefbb »

I started out somewhat similarly - but in my case I just wasn't very good right out of school so I started focusing more on my social life. What changed it for me was having a job where my boss fucked up and was fired, and me being given his role. I learned that having people count on me was the best motivator for me. (And having people not really care that much one way or the other about what I'm doing is, to this day, an excellent DEmotivator for me.) I eventually went on to work for a startup that grew really quickly (yes, THAT one) and was given an enormous amount of responsibility - something that, by that time, I would never have dreamed of shirking.

I'm not sure how this might apply to your situation, but hope it will give you some helpful perspective. You can take the exact same slothful person and put them in different circumstances and end up with a stellar worker - the game-changer for me for me was to be accountable, in a big, meaningful way, to someone besides just myself. If this resonates, maybe you could volunteer your tech skills to a small nonprofit or something, and see if you feel more engaged with that work.

BTW, I think it's possible to have a great home life and a great career, but THAT takes REAL work.

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

#997

Post by heavenlyblue »

NeverFade wrote: post #458
tomxor wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know some women in the Bay, working in areas like recruiting and marketing, who are dating VCs and CEOs exclusively and consider dating "plain engineers" to be beneath them. That sounds more like bullets dodged than a loss (for the engineers that is).

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…

>> If you arrived at some magical island where it was just you and hundreds of women, and 50% of those were supermodels, would you ever date an average girl

I would start acting like an asshole because that would be the only way of keeping most of them from making advances on me all the time.

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

#998

Post by heavenlyblue »

zelly wrote: post #990
NeverFade wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the typical clean cut, well-spoken, hard working, respectful, male SWE in the Bay Area making $120K+ a year in his 20s or 30s, who should be a magnet for women, turns out to be living in one of worst places because of male-female ratios among singles (and some other cultural factors). Yes, it's quite simple: there are many more men in the Bay than women, so women have their pick, and they can afford to raise th…

Idk, $120k is still a lot. You are still begging the question that money even matters. There's an elephant in the room: Basically men have vastly overestimated the importance of wealth. A chart of the importance of wealth would drop off a cliff as you go from third-world conditions to a non-starvation civilization. Then it approaches zero as you get to NYC/SF where literally everyone is rich or else they wouldn't be…

>> Guys who get mail order brides

Are not usually exactly the winners in life.

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

#999

Post by failuser »

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…

Universities have dozens to hundreds applications per available seat, good jobs have more. So competition here is relatively moderate.

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

#1000

Post by groby_b »

lostgame wrote: post #565
quartus wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (although we should certainly adjust for the large gay male population) Just curious, why wouldn't there be an equivalently large lesbian female population?

I dunno if we are just rare, or simply not as vocal or active about being out as gay males, on average - but firsthand I’ve seen a lot more gay guys than I’ve seen fellow lesbians. (Much to my dismay...)

There are dozens of us ;)
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