81–90 of 147 posts
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> It would be a massive waste of my training to be working in an unrelated field This is an example of what I'm talking about. What's more of a waste of your training? To be work in a career field only 60% overlapping with your training, or to be unemployed (with 0% overlap) ?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Prasher
:(
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At one point early in my software career I was between jobs for a few months. I have construction skills, so I worked doing demolition and then framing an addition for a friend at $10/hr. To quote Pulp Fiction "The night of the fight, you may feel a slight sting. That's pride fucking with you. Fuck pride. Pride only hurts, it never helps." Over a couple of weeks I made a few thousand dollars, paid the mortgage, and g…
But pride did help Butch in Pulp Fiction. He got to win the fight, keep his pride and keep the money(or even bet the other way and make bank? can't recall now). Personally, I agree with your point of view. There is, however, something to be said for people that never settle and by force of will reshape the world around them to conform to their expectations.
Two years of unemployment should be enough to indicate that force of will sometimes isn't enough.
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At one point early in my software career I was between jobs for a few months. I have construction skills, so I worked doing demolition and then framing an addition for a friend at $10/hr. To quote Pulp Fiction "The night of the fight, you may feel a slight sting. That's pride fucking with you. Fuck pride. Pride only hurts, it never helps." Over a couple of weeks I made a few thousand dollars, paid the mortgage, and g…
I'm about 4 years into my career as a software dev, but you know what I did before that? Worked a shitty manual labor job at a warehouse with shitty 13-hour days and not a lot of pay. I rarely got to see my friends who were more successful starting their own careers. But what I did have is money to pay my rent and free time to continue learning and honing my skills. Yeah it really sucked working in that warehouse and…
It seems to me that pride really was your motivation... and there's nothing wrong with it.
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But pride did help Butch in Pulp Fiction. He got to win the fight, keep his pride and keep the money(or even bet the other way and make bank? can't recall now). Personally, I agree with your point of view. There is, however, something to be said for people that never settle and by force of will reshape the world around them to conform to their expectations.
> There is, however, something to be said for people that never settle and by force of will reshape the world around them to conform to their expectations. Two years of unemployment should be enough to indicate that force of will sometimes isn't enough.
If you refuse to try a strategy for 2 years, that's not evidence the strategy won't work.
I've met a lot of people who "couldn't" find a job. What they usually mean is "they can't find a job in the area they want, in the industry they want, doing the kind of work they want, at the salary they want, working for someone else." This is a highly overconstrained search. If / when people loosen one or more of these constraints, they're opportunities open right up. Like everyone, I prefer to get exactly what I w…
This guy seems to fall into that category: "There have been times where I’ve wondered if I should just get a temporary service or manual labor job...I would be too humiliated... It would be exceptionally difficult to work eight hours a day hoping with all my might that a neighbor or friend wouldn’t swing by to see me working the cash register or pumping gas." This is a definitive example of the prideful worker effect…
I've got no doubt that it would be really difficult to take a low-pay, low-skill job after working on the other end of the spectrum for decades. But after two years of no employment, it seems like the appropriate action. Two years of working as a cashier or a janitor or just about anything else looks better on a resume than two years of no employment.
But I'm also aware of the fact that I'm fortunate to have an extremely good job and I would spend a lot of time looking for a similar job before showing up at Papa John's with my resume.
> That’s when the distraction starts. I promise myself, just a quick glance at Twitter to see what’s going on in the world, and then I look up and it’s 1:15 in the afternoon. Twitter is my heroin — it’s endless content, and if I’m bored by one tweet, I just go on to the next one. I think the danger of unlimited news is understated. The addiction is as bad as other forms of drugs. Ok, maybe not as bad as heroin, but I…
I think you're right. Earlier this year, I read about the book Deep Work in a comment thread on HN. I bought the book and read it pretty quickly (it's an easy read) and it really resonated with me. The author, Cal Newport wrote a piece a couple of days ago on digital minimalism that I think the author of the vox article should read: http://calnewport.com/blog/2016/12/18/on-digital-minimalism/ My interpretation is tha…
And still. Despite knowing the issue, we are here commenting on HN. :)
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But pride did help Butch in Pulp Fiction. He got to win the fight, keep his pride and keep the money(or even bet the other way and make bank? can't recall now). Personally, I agree with your point of view. There is, however, something to be said for people that never settle and by force of will reshape the world around them to conform to their expectations.
There is something called survivorship bias. IT means that the selection that you happen to see is the selection that is visible, because it accidentally survived. Steve Jobs is great an inspiring, because he did X and Y and Z and never compromised his standards. You know what? You happen to know of Steve Jobs because everything worked out well for him. There may very well be 20,000 other people who refused to compro…
But... you have to be careful to stay in reality. Otherwise you end up tilting at the mills.
You have to reach out to everyone you know for a job. You have to accept people's pity and take whatever you can get.
If you don't have marketable skills, you need to switch to a low-ethics industry - It's less competitive. Find the jobs are considered wrong or unethical and which no one else wants to do - Those pay the best.
When I was going through a hard time, I worked for a gambling company and made a ton of money. Making money feels good.
My philosophy is that if you're a poor person with no savings, you shouldn't worry about how your work affects society; it's not your responsibility - Let those who are wealthy worry about that; they are the only ones who actually CAN do something about that. You do whatever it takes to get the money into your bank account. If society gets worse, then you have to get worse with it.
If society degrades to the point that people are killing each other, you have to be prepared to fight for your survival.
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> There is, however, something to be said for people that never settle and by force of will reshape the world around them to conform to their expectations. Two years of unemployment should be enough to indicate that force of will sometimes isn't enough.
This guy openly admits that he isn't expending any force of will. He's sitting at home all day reading twitter while refusing to work jobs that he thinks might lower his social status. If you refuse to try a strategy for 2 years, that's not evidence the strategy won't work.
What he should be trying is a new strategy, not pouring more force of will into this one.
There is nothing embarrassing about manual work. When I was 17, at one point, I sold toilet paper, on the street, in a third world country, to get some cash for my PC. Various jobs netted me half the cash for my PC over 6 months. My parents could scrape for the rest. 486dx-120mhz. Right now I'm in a comfortable seniority, renting a townhouse ( Toronto is too expensive to buy) and having a family. The c++ projects kee…
One thing manual work taught me is how to really work. It also taught me that I don't want to do manual work for my entire life, so it ended up being great motivation.