Why is everyone so busy? (2014) • Hacker News Board

Re: Why is everyone so busy? (2014)

#121

Post by Karrot_Kream » Sat, Apr 07, 2018, 7:30 PM UTC

SomewhatLikely wrote: post #52

As long as there are marginal gains to be made from working an extra hour I don't see this changing. Imagine if one country decided to change from a 40 hour work week to a 20 hour work week. If this decreases their GDP from producing less output, then they become economically weaker, their standard of living in terms of purchasing power is diminished, and the tax base is decreased. I think the biggest reason we don't…

This is fairly inconsistent with countries with riding inequality, such as the US. If anything, rising inequality shows that rather than there being a gradual curve of salary proportional to hours worked, there are tiers of salary and not much in the middle.

Re: Why is everyone so busy? (2014)

#122

Post by watwut » Sat, Apr 07, 2018, 8:02 PM UTC

pluto9 wrote: post #114

factsaresacred wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and I'm about to blow my brains out. Please don't. A. You'll mess up that screen you're paid to stare into ;) B. More seriously, if you ain't being facetious, switch jobs. But to your point: work is a drag. I don't care how free the food is or how comfortable your ergonomic keyboard feels. Deep down there's something dissatisfying about most corporate life. But at the same time it's never been easier to (try!) star…

> I don't care how free the food is I tend to see perks like "free food" as a red flag when I'm job hunting. In my experience, employers that go way above and beyond to make an office comfortable are doing it because they expect you to spend virtually all of your time there. Any office that has a game room or a cafeteria is extremely suspect. All I need is relative quiet, a reasonable meeting schedule, and decent equ…

As one blogger said, perks are cheaper then salary raise.

Re: Why is everyone so busy? (2014)

#123

Post by watwut » Sat, Apr 07, 2018, 8:06 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #42

brisance wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It is, based on all conventional historical sources, originating around the 15th century or so with the city states of Italy. The parent comment was speaking of “capitalism” as an euphemism for “wage slavery”, not in the classical sense of capitalism as defined by economics i.e. private ownership of the means of production. In that comment, payment for services i.e. wages is hardly “Western”, nor invented in the 15t…

> The parent comment was speaking of “capitalism” as an euphemism for “wage slavery” Well, the TFA speaks specifically about the "modern" form of "wage slavery" in Japan -- as tied to big corporations, office and factory jobs, consumer culture, etc, not generally about working to make a living by being paid a wage. Which is tied to capitalism. People didn't work like that before their contact with capitalism and when…

Japanese feudalism traditionally left very little freedom to citizens. Your occupation depended on cast you was born in. Samurai could not just take some other job and leave. Neither could peasant. The expectations on your loyalty and obeisance were super high. I am not sure they lost all that much with capitalism, maybe even gained.

Re: Why is everyone so busy? (2014)

#124

Post by watwut » Sat, Apr 07, 2018, 8:11 PM UTC

LandR wrote: post #28

My last job, I had so much more free time. I finished at 4 each day and sometimes took 3 hour lunches. Someone would text me in another city and ask if I could come through and meet them. I would often just walk out of work (it wasn't a problem) and go meet them. If it meant that I didn't get back to the office that day, so be it. There was lots of time spent with friends and family, it was great. My current job, I e…

There is a middle ground - when you work without taking 3 hour long lunches, but don't work 8AM to 3:30AM just to be back at 8AM.

Good luck.

Re: Why is everyone so busy? (2014)

#125

Post by prostoalex » Sat, Apr 07, 2018, 8:15 PM UTC

mmsimanga wrote: post #115

factsaresacred wrote: post #20

I recommend people watch Japan A story of love and hate ( http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x56bwzc ) which, aside from being a great look at Japan, epitomizes the absurdity of exchanging our time for a salary that increasingly fails to cover the cost to live and leaves us without free time. 30,000 Japanese kill themselves each year due to work related stress. Great quote from the doc: Naoki:"You (the West) game me th…

My take is that organisations after some time begin to mimic animal farm or emperor's clothes type behavior. CEO genuinely believes their contribution to a company they ran for five years yet has been around 50 years is worth hundreds of millions. I have no issues with founders taking that amount of money. Director of marketing doesn't want to be outdone, vice president ... This is why we are so busy and why companie…

Most boards would likely block any kind of cash compensation approaching eight or nine figures, and will strongly insist on stock options.

The headlines you see about 9-figure CEO compensation are mainly related to companies whose stock has outperformed. CEOs whose stock languished and didn’t amount to much compensation rarely make magazine covers.

Re: Why is everyone so busy? (2014)

#126

Post by watwut » Sat, Apr 07, 2018, 8:16 PM UTC

marak830 wrote: post #43

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #26

This "must be busy" mindset and 50+ hour work weeks is so utterly alien and wrong to me, and I'm glad I feel this way. I would never let a job get in the way of family and social experiences, in the way of my life . Relaxation and leisure time is absolutely non-negotiable for me, I would never give up on a concert or culinary experience or anything else for something as mundane as work. I think this mindset has also…

I am the same as you, alas I cannot afford not to work the hours I do (for which I have copped quite a bit of flack on HN about). I do wonder why people who can afford to spend time with their family and not work 60-70 hours per week, actually do. I can only imagine it would be that they really enjoy their work that much, or their in a culture such as here in Japan where you stay until the boss leaves - or else. (Not…

After you spent some time working that much, you forget what to do when you are not working. You will forget how to socialize out of work, you will not know activities you might like, you will loose friends and family will be alienated and used to live without you (you being suddenly at home will be distracting to them).

You come home and it is empty and lonely - you can watch tv or play game, but it likely feels pointless. Staying long in work allows you to drown the pointless feeling, at least you can feel good about yourself.

Re: Why is everyone so busy? (2014)

#127

Post by pluto9 » Sat, Apr 07, 2018, 8:17 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #122

pluto9 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't care how free the food is I tend to see perks like "free food" as a red flag when I'm job hunting. In my experience, employers that go way above and beyond to make an office comfortable are doing it because they expect you to spend virtually all of your time there. Any office that has a game room or a cafeteria is extremely suspect. All I need is relative quiet, a reasonable meeting schedule, and decent equ…

As one blogger said, perks are cheaper then salary raise.

Exactly. I once had a manager who tried to incentivize my team to work overtime for two months to hit an unrealistic deadline set by the sales department. The incentive was that we would have a pizza party IF we hit the deadline. Monetary compensation was never even discussed.

Re: Why is everyone so busy? (2014)

#128

Post by prostoalex » Sat, Apr 07, 2018, 8:20 PM UTC

hliyan wrote: post #53

I'm of the opinion that the root of the problem is inflation (but I'm open to correction). My thinking is that we're constantly being pushed to work harder because no business today can reach a successful steady-state -- it must keep growing. The reason businesses must keep growing is that investors demand it. Investors demand it because they believe that wealth sitting around not making more wealth is a waste. Infla…

> it must keep growing. The reason businesses must keep growing is that investors demand it.

That's true of growth investors, but rarely represents the entire investment community.

Bond investors (whose market is an order of magnitude larger than stocks) want fixed yield - they could care less if the business grows or languishes during that time, as long as the coupon checks keep coming. Real estate investors (whose playing field is also orders of magnitudes larger than public equities market) also usually sign up for a preferred fixed yield, growth being secondary.

Even within the equities markets not everybody is a growth investor, with a lot of people buying for value or dividend yield.

Re: Why is everyone so busy? (2014)

#129

Post by arca_vorago » Sat, Apr 07, 2018, 8:28 PM UTC

Honestly it's about ownership of homes and debt levels. If you aren't in massive debt and you own your home, small efforts can easily pay off other costs and you can live a comfortable life. If you lose your job but you own your house and have a small amount of savings (most don't), at least you won't get evicted...

And because wages are so artificially depressed by the suprarich, it takes two jobs to support a life far too often. Noam Chomsky talks about how at the beginning of the industrial revolution the people were skeptical of the 6-9 job that payed a pittance as essentially not much better than chattel slavery, the only difference being you got to go home at night.

This is about class warfare, this is about the oligarchs fucking us all constantly and consistently while we do nothing because the people we expect to do something (the government) are corrupted, blackmailed, coerced, and lobbied into the ground until they break to the oligarchs will (which is why there is truly only one party at the moment, the oligarchs party).

Add on top of that the unconstitutional private banking conglomerate known as the fed and the 16th amendment, and you have a recipe for runaway inflation, devaluation of purchasing power, and increases in poverty, homelessness, and work hours needed to support the cost of living per area.

Jackson was a piece of shit when it came to the natives, but that far too often overshadows the importance of his effort to fight the banks. (Also, him beating the brits with marines, sailors, militiamen and pirates is a movie I want to make someday.)

Shades of Smedley Butler if you ask me. Anyone remember that? Oh yeah, they don't teach you in public school that a bunch of facist corporate oligarch banker types tried to attempt a coup on the American government via a Marine Corps general who double-crossed them and reported it all to congress all in ~1933? Oh yeah, they blacked out the names until John Spivak published them.

(https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/McCormack%E2%80%93Dickstein_C...)

(http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/53/spivak-NewMasses.pd...)

Re: Why is everyone so busy? (2014)

#130

Post by pokemongoaway » Sat, Apr 07, 2018, 8:36 PM UTC

hliyan wrote: post #53

I'm of the opinion that the root of the problem is inflation (but I'm open to correction). My thinking is that we're constantly being pushed to work harder because no business today can reach a successful steady-state -- it must keep growing. The reason businesses must keep growing is that investors demand it. Investors demand it because they believe that wealth sitting around not making more wealth is a waste. Infla…

What if it is actually people just not realizing what stability is because they've never experienced it? If you're further away from understanding stability from experience - say for example emotionally, or life-style, or health-wise - then how could you know it when you see it manifesting in a company?