241–250 of 335 posts
Or, as a recently bought out/retired colleague remarked, "My job now consists of being home all day and trying not to piss off my wife" - a much harder endeavor than any engineering project I can think of.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I buy it. Relationships are hard and marriages are harder, even for partners trying to make things work. It was shocking to me that my friends who are married also have their own struggles. In hindsight, it is normal. I used to think, "well, those guys should have a better marriage", and now I realize how difficult it actually is, and how widespread. The parents from Rick & Morty? Yeah. My wife and I had tried a lot…
Not sure I follow. Your reply reads like "marriage is yet another job, you must invest the proper amount of hours in it". If so, I disagree. If not, what were you trying to say? And apologies if I misread your comment. In general, I agree with the notion that relationships need "work" -- but in my case the "work" is basically not allowing certain relationship entropy events to ever happen (or to never last more than…
I don't equate work with a job. By "work", I mean that you have to put effort into the marriage. A marriage is not the same as a romance, and should also not be conflated with love.
That you and your wife are honest with each other and make an effort at not going to bed angry with each other is aligned with what I was expressing.
On the brutal honesty thing: it sounds like it works well for you and your wife, and that is great. It doesn't work so well with my wife and I becuase we suck at crucial conversations and we are now just learning how to have them. One key thing about the teachings in crucial conversations is to recognizing the false dichotomy of speaking truth and having a good relationship. It is possible to do both. It sounds like you and your wife are already doing both.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I buy it. Relationships are hard and marriages are harder, even for partners trying to make things work. It was shocking to me that my friends who are married also have their own struggles. In hindsight, it is normal. I used to think, "well, those guys should have a better marriage", and now I realize how difficult it actually is, and how widespread. The parents from Rick & Morty? Yeah. My wife and I had tried a lot…
Absolutely this. Crucial conversations should be mandatory reading for anyone entering into marriage. Fantastic book. And not just for marriage either, just good life skill on how to approach tricky subjects. Go read it. Honestly :)
There seems to be conflation in this article between two very different groups. Group A is folks who are acquired and have outsized grants that say vest over N years (N between 2 and 4). It turns out the acquisition was probably a mistake, but the acquiring company made it (and won't own up to it). That's what's described in the Facebook and Microsoft examples. This is the classic "rest and vest" scenario (Note: an a…
At Microsoft, we called a lot of these people in Group B, "volunteers". They were with the company through the glory years and had great wealth. They just wanted to come to work every day because they liked saying that they worked at MS. The best response given when I asked one why they still worked, "Why would I spend time at home? Have you met my wife and kids?"
I am not sure whether I should fear sorry for the kids or for the father. Having father that jokes about not liking you must sux.
Ok, thanks for sharing this. I made this observation for the last 3 years myself, not as an employee even, but as a contractor. I had three positions at two companies, all paying quite high (150k$/year). I changed the positions because the workload was so low that I had an hour of work a day, then pretending I was doing work for the rest of the day which I can't stand for more than a few months. Now I changed again i…
It's not just SV that has this phenomenon. I worked at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab from 1988 to 2000. I had risen to the rank of Senior Member of the Technical Staff, the second-highest rung on the technical career ladder. Beyond that there is the rank of Principal, which is very hard to attain. It's essentially the equivalent of getting tenure. It requires peer review. Most engineers never attain it, and I was not o…
You don't want to know how many of your taxpayer dollars went to pay me for helping to shepherd purchase orders through the JPL bureaucracy. :-(
It's not just SV that has this phenomenon. I worked at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab from 1988 to 2000. I had risen to the rank of Senior Member of the Technical Staff, the second-highest rung on the technical career ladder. Beyond that there is the rank of Principal, which is very hard to attain. It's essentially the equivalent of getting tenure. It requires peer review. Most engineers never attain it, and I was not o…
Every time I hear how someone had to threaten to leave to get recognition/raise he deserves, the believe in meritocracy dies a little in me :).
> So I basically spent the next three years getting paid for doing nothing, and getting pretty depressed about it. It's actually not fun to feel like a parasite, at least it wasn't for me.
It is no fun for most people, through there are exceptions. It might sound like weird analogy, but similar depression happen to women who stayed at home. The feeling like parasite is one of contributing reason I think all the wanting to go to work. (I haven't had experience with long term work where I do nothing, only a bit of experience with the other.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
At Microsoft, we called a lot of these people in Group B, "volunteers". They were with the company through the glory years and had great wealth. They just wanted to come to work every day because they liked saying that they worked at MS. The best response given when I asked one why they still worked, "Why would I spend time at home? Have you met my wife and kids?"
> The best response given when I asked one why they still worked, "Why would I spend time at home? Have you met my wife and kids?" I am not sure whether I should fear sorry for the kids or for the father. Having father that jokes about not liking you must sux.
There seems to be conflation in this article between two very different groups. Group A is folks who are acquired and have outsized grants that say vest over N years (N between 2 and 4). It turns out the acquisition was probably a mistake, but the acquiring company made it (and won't own up to it). That's what's described in the Facebook and Microsoft examples. This is the classic "rest and vest" scenario (Note: an a…
Jesus, yes. What kind of sociopath thinks that someone who works normal hours and gets the job done is a problem? I work to live, I don't live to work.