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Ask HN: What to do if you hate working for someone else and arent an entrepreneur?

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Re: Ask HN: What to do if you hate working for someone else and arent an entrepreneur?

#21

Post by paulmatthijs »

There’s a thing between being entrepeneurship and working for a company: freelancing. It’s for those that feel no attachment to a company, but do have a very developed skill set or trade.

In our free market economy, there will always be a system where someone hires you to create value, which costs less than it makes them, in the end. If you want a bigger slice of that pie, you need to make it a viable business case. Hiring a top freelancer to create value, without the hassle for the employer, is worth a markup. Being scarce helps too.

To me, it sounds like your main issue is that you feel you don’t get enough of that added value you bring. If normal compensation schemes don’t cut it for you, you surely must be able to ask a major hourly rate as a freelancer, or a royalty.

Re: Ask HN: What to do if you hate working for someone else and arent an entrepreneur?

#22

Post by cellis »

Well, unless you win the lottery or get an inheritance, you have to work for someone else, in the US at least. There's no way around that. So in that case, you should try to find a job that you loathe the least. I suppose there are other options, like begging -- but that's still working to convince people to give you money, or welfare / disability -- again, same issue. No matter what the arrangement, until the end of your days you will have to justify your consumption of resources to your fellow humans.

I'm reminded by 2 quotes that may be of use to you. The first, by Paul Graham, who founded this forum:

"Startups are not magic. They don't change the laws of wealth creation. They just represent a point at the far end of the curve. There is a conservation law at work here: if you want to make a million dollars, you have to endure a million dollars' worth of pain. For example, one way to make a million dollars would be to work for the Post Office your whole life, and save every penny of your salary. Imagine the stress of working for the Post Office for fifty years. In a startup you compress all this stress into three or four years. You do tend to get a certain bulk discount if you buy the economy-size pain, but you can't evade the fundamental conservation law. If starting a startup were easy, everyone would do it."

And the second, by Mr. Money Mustache:

"In real life (even New York City real life), you get paid for getting really difficult shit done, better than anybody else can do it."

Re: Ask HN: What to do if you hate working for someone else and arent an entrepreneur?

#23

Post by staunch »

makotech222 wrote: post #4

Congratulations, you have discovered socialism. Most people find extreme injustice in seeing the value of their labor being stolen by the capitalist class. Socialism is an economic system that does away with the employer-employee distinction and allows all workers to take ownership of their own labor. In practice, this means the democratization of the workplace, and the end to the autocratic workplace. Edit: To actua…

Socialism is only a valid answer if you don't understand technology. If you think there's a fixed pie and we have to forcibly break it into rations so that everyone gets at least something.

But technology offers a much better solution, which is grow the pie large enough that everyone has as much as they want. There are no physical limitations to this concept. The universe is rich with everything we need for billions of years. Karl Marx didn't understand asteroid mining.

And it turns out that unchecked capitalism is shit but it's just the right kind of manure for the garden of technology to bear its fruit of panacea.

Re: Ask HN: What to do if you hate working for someone else and arent an entrepreneur?

#24

Post by ryanwaggoner »

makotech222 wrote: post #4

Congratulations, you have discovered socialism. Most people find extreme injustice in seeing the value of their labor being stolen by the capitalist class. Socialism is an economic system that does away with the employer-employee distinction and allows all workers to take ownership of their own labor. In practice, this means the democratization of the workplace, and the end to the autocratic workplace. Edit: To actua…

Most people find extreme injustice in seeing the value of their labor being stolen by the capitalist class.

Nonsense. Most people don’t think their labor is stolen or find extreme injustice in getting paid for their labor. You need to get outside your bubble.

Re: Ask HN: What to do if you hate working for someone else and arent an entrepreneur?

#25

Post by weirdstuff »

outside1234 wrote: post #14
makotech222 wrote: post #4

Congratulations, you have discovered socialism. Most people find extreme injustice in seeing the value of their labor being stolen by the capitalist class. Socialism is an economic system that does away with the employer-employee distinction and allows all workers to take ownership of their own labor. In practice, this means the democratization of the workplace, and the end to the autocratic workplace. Edit: To actua…

Anyone who thinks this is a great idea should take a trip to Cuba. Seriously. I had the same affliction and about 8 days into Cuba I was totally cured.

Cuba is a cherry-picked example and is misleading.

Other socialist countries that are doing better: China; Denmark; Finland; Netherlands; Canada; Sweden; Norway; Ireland.

Don't forget Cuba has been forced into economic isolation by the US. And places like Venezuela and Detroit were overly dependent on too few industries and are plagued by massive wealth inequality.

You can also find persistent systemic poverty in capitalism: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0185084916...

Re: Ask HN: What to do if you hate working for someone else and arent an entrepreneur?

#26

Post by jressey »

gesman wrote: post #2

Your words: "hate", "resent", "stressing", "hard time", etc... Change you thinking pattern, start thinking about what you love. What do you love to do? Then start doing it. "Love" is a key. You can start right now.

While I agree with this, it's really only easy to recognize this after you've figured it out. I also want to emphasize I'm in a position now with equity do not adhere to the philosophy below.

Focus on enjoying the people you work with and spend less energy thinking about your work. Stressing over work is a fool's game unless you have skin in it.

I had a pretty low point in my career and I simply changed my focus to collecting as much money from the wealthy bosses as I could while providing as little value as I could. After all, that's what they're trying to do on the other side of the relationship.

Now again, what I have said is easy to grok and enact once you've had some success. I don't advise this attitude for folks just entering the industry, but after 5-10 years you'd be amazed at just how valuable you are, even when not really working too hard.

Re: Ask HN: What to do if you hate working for someone else and arent an entrepreneur?

#27

Post by hateduser2 »

I don't know why people take it on its face that hating their job is something that is fixed, and not changeable. What if rather than seek a different lifestyle, you try to learn to love your job and be ok with working under others? Why does everyone assume your feelings as they are are ok, in the sense that they shouldn't be worked on and navigated. Does everyone here just work off their first impression, for instance, that they wouldn't consider their feelings the problem on occasion?

Re: Ask HN: What to do if you hate working for someone else and arent an entrepreneur?

#28

Post by M1ntos123 »

makotech222 wrote: post #4

Congratulations, you have discovered socialism. Most people find extreme injustice in seeing the value of their labor being stolen by the capitalist class. Socialism is an economic system that does away with the employer-employee distinction and allows all workers to take ownership of their own labor. In practice, this means the democratization of the workplace, and the end to the autocratic workplace. Edit: To actua…

This is not socialism.

Imagine being not able to work. Imagine getting a percentage of your pay while staying home after that needed surgury (which was free, paid by all of us who can still work). This is socialism.

Re: Ask HN: What to do if you hate working for someone else and arent an entrepreneur?

#29

Post by andrepd »

makotech222 wrote: post #4

Congratulations, you have discovered socialism. Most people find extreme injustice in seeing the value of their labor being stolen by the capitalist class. Socialism is an economic system that does away with the employer-employee distinction and allows all workers to take ownership of their own labor. In practice, this means the democratization of the workplace, and the end to the autocratic workplace. Edit: To actua…

Absolutely.

>I resent spending 48 weeks a year in an office and stressing over issues that will only make the company's owners richer but won't change much for me. I say don't change much because a 2-3% raise once in a while is nice, but it's nothing in comparison to the thousands/millions extra it will make the company, while the only result for me is that I get to keep my job and do more of that.

Who wouldn't resent it? Who wouldn't resent the fruits of their labour being reaped by someone else? Who actually thinks it is fair that you work hard to make your boss millions?

We need to radically rethink our current system of wealth distribution. Propaganda and US intervention have succeeded in preventing socialism from taking off anywhere in the first world or succeeding anywhere at all. How else can the majority of people tolerate feudalism in the 21st century?

Re: Ask HN: What to do if you hate working for someone else and arent an entrepreneur?

#30

Post by dmichulke »

makotech222 wrote: post #4

Congratulations, you have discovered socialism. Most people find extreme injustice in seeing the value of their labor being stolen by the capitalist class. Socialism is an economic system that does away with the employer-employee distinction and allows all workers to take ownership of their own labor. In practice, this means the democratization of the workplace, and the end to the autocratic workplace. Edit: To actua…

You can build your socialist enterprise in any capitalist system, it's not like it's forbidden as long as you pay your bills.
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