321–330 of 448 posts
Work has become a strange thing. I see people foregoing their best years stuck in an office, in the hope they can enjoy their later years. What utter nonsense. I'm not sure what the right answer is, but society has got something very wrong, as our work culture seems to surgically remove the wonder and enjoyment from our days. Hardly surprising that it drives people to ill health. Glad I broke out of that cycle a long…
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With the right financial planning, it can be done. But, if you've already taken on 20K in student loans and 5 year cell phone contract, it's gonna be much much harder. That's why we need to start teach financial education really early: like K-12. Food and water can be quite cheap: the grocery stores are filled with healthy foods you can get for less than 1$ per lb in most of the US: corn, whole wheat flour, bananas,…
> That's why we need to start teach financial education really early: like K-12 What you are suggesting would lead to a generation that saves more and consumes less. When GDP seems to be the only success metric that matters, I often wonder if such education is omitted intentionally.
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If you are so fortunate to only have to work a 9to5, there is no excuse to waste these years. How many musicians do you know that play in clubs? Most are working two restaurant jobs, renting a room, and scraping money together to buy strings, just for the chance to entertain a crowd for little or no pay. It's all perspective, really.
“Only” work 9 to 5? Don’t forget your commute. And you’ll still need your wife to get the kids to school and pick them up. Hope you earn enough for that and she’s happy st home. And you should help out with dinner and the lunches and homework. And when you get the kids to bed it’s 8 and you’re exhausted. Enjoy your weekend.
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I chose not to have kids. Was a great call becauses kids are like 1,000,000 each (when you factor in investment returns).
Unfortunately if everyone took this route, we'd encounter a whole new stack of problems.
I wonder if part of this is due to the ever-increasing push towards creating metrics for every aspect of human behavior. It’s not uncommon when applying for a job that you take a “personality test” that measures not just technical knowledge, but also scores you on traditionally “soft” traits like assertiveness vs. agreeableness, with the hiring manager getting a readout of where you fall relative to the “ideal” range…
All you have to do with an office job is actually use your gym membership and not eat take out every day.
There is no downtime anymore. You can never truly get away from work in an age of 4g connectivity everywhere. I'm doing a bit of consulting with a startup at the moment, and one of our team members recently disappeared off on vacation. Good for him, I thought. Two days later, he popped back up on the company slack, working away from his tropical beach. To be clear, this is not a case of digital nomadding. This is 10…
>20 years ago, there was an expectation that when you left the office, you were unreachable except in an emergency. I don't see any hint of that expectation anymore. This is commonplace in Europe. Vacation is vacation, and largely this is respected.
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You don't have to be so extreme as to live off the land. If people would just love below their means and save, they wouldn't be in an absolute crisis the moment they lose their job.
How many of us are really in a position we can do that?
It is not office work's fault that most people don't take care of themselves to counteract sitting on their ass all day. All you have to do with an office job is actually use your gym membership and not eat take out every day.
And here I was, thinking it's not so simple as to just tell people what to do and everything will fall into place...
> I see a workplace that has become shockingly inhumane. A thousand times this. Very few of the lessons my parents taught me apply in the corporate world. Be honest and straight with people, assume good intent, take responsibility, etc. All that behavior will do is paint you as naive. Sure there's room for honesty and responsibility, but only when used appropriately (strategically). Strikes me as acutely inhumane eve…
> All that behavior will do is paint you as naive. Then you aren't doing it right. There is something exceedingly shocking about a brutal bluntness. Master this and you will forever change your perspective on job interviews, relationships, marriage, and leadership. You will know when you really nail it because people will begin to describe you as articulate or eloquent. Honesty is highly valued, which is counter-intu…
I'm doing that in my current company and I feel it will get me fired (which I don't mind that much). When asked why my development tasks are taking so long, I'm honestly pointing out the myriad of architecture/design and infrastructure/CI/CD fuckups I have to spend time dealing with every day (I work in a major bank). Of course, people responsible for setting up things this way are still running things, and don't want to hear about consequences of their previous decisions.