I started an agency working with non-profits and social enterprises purely because working in advertising had been blackening my soul.
Ask HN: Is your work meaningful?
71–80 of 86 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is your work meaningful?
#72I used to think it wasn't. My jobs were, no matter how it was dressed up, trying to earn a massive retailer an extra percent or two on their already massive earnings over doing anything that impacted the consumer positively. Since I started working for myself, I find it meaningful if only because I get to actually BUILD stuff. But after all of the advertising I've done, I'd like for my next full-time job to be a net…
Why do you think you will have another full-time job? Why not pursue working for yourself and building things as a continuous lifestyle? That's not me trying to be snide or anything, I'm in your exact position right now and whilst I can see a circumstance in which I end up in a full time job again, the goal is to make this the way I engage with the world and make money going forward.
I am pursuing that currently and would love to do so indefinitely. Maybe I'm just pessimistic and assume that it might take a try or two before I get it right?
I'm also not against joining a team that's building something really cool.
Re: Ask HN: Is your work meaningful?
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not "meaningful", is merely necessary.
Well, meaning has scale, and on the human scale, what OP describes is extremely meaningful. On the local scale, raising good kids can do good things for the community. On the county level, things get fuzzy. It's probably better that his family is well looked after and tax money goes to the state. Net positive? Probably. On a planetary scale? Universal Scale? Of course it doesn't matter, but what would be the point of…
Upvoted. And on the bigger scales, I have detailed views on what matters and why (because of a belief in God, with a long list of reasons for it all :) I wrote or linked to a bit of it here but there is more if interested:
Re: Ask HN: Is your work meaningful?
#74I find meaningfulness in my job but I do not find my job meaningful. Once upon a time, we were doing great work and were actually able to touch the edges of the whole "change the world" mantra that is thrown around so carelessly in technology startup/company culture. Today, we have outgrown ourselves and have failed to maintain a relationship with our core purpose in the process. Most of our new efforts fail to deliver any of their promised utility to their intended customers. We're in the healthcare space; That's why I originally came here.
There is a legacy app that I'm occasionally tasked to maintain or extend. It's still chugging along in production and it's actually touching real humans and providing a very useful and pragmatic service to the thousands of people that use it daily. That thing has kept me around but I'm starting to focus increasingly more on my own life and making my own meaning, now that this place that I used to love is showing signs of abuse.
Re: Ask HN: Is your work meaningful?
#75Nope. I work in equity research and am lucky enough to be on the team that I'm on, but it doesn't seem meaningful or worthwhile. I generate investment ideas through industry, company-specific, and technology-specific research and then publish these ideas in reports for my client base. Most of my job is then debating investors on specific technology investments or trends. Sell-side finance (e.g. investment bank) is br…
Isn't equity research a training ground for working on the buy side where the money is made? And isn't the work very interesting? (at least for the first 8 hours)
It is a pathway into buyside research analyst seats, and I have a number of colleagues who attempt that path. I just don’t see that as something I’m interested in doing. There’s less opportunity to move into areas like private equity, which tends to recruit from banking, though I firmly believe networking effectively can change the odds. In terms of compensation, sell side research associates tend to work 60+ hour weeks for total comp around $120-$170k depending on where you’re at. Senior research analysts may tend towards $250k-$1mn+ depending on sector, seniority, following, and relationships with potential banking clients (though I need to stress this side of the business is highly regulated). On the buyside comp skews higher, and those that perform at good shops make good money, but it’s far more competitive now. I’ve seen a number of buy siders move into industry or back to the sell side recently as their funds cut headcount. There’s also almost no end of young and hungry bankers looking to move to the buyside and grind. Pressures include lower fee investment vehicles putting pressure on all sidies of the industry, as well as problems including widespread hedge fund underperformance.
Re: Ask HN: Is your work meaningful?
#76No
Re: Ask HN: Is your work meaningful?
#77I work because I must provide for my family. That's enough meaning for me.
Would you provide for your family at any cost? Forget about meaning. What if your work is causing harm to some people or a lot of people? Like the wall street or Cambridge Analytica or Palantir?
Re: Ask HN: Is your work meaningful?
#78I work because I must provide for my family. That's enough meaning for me.
Same, I help writing systems to 'optimise advertisement effectiveness' == encourage consumerism and maybe creative negative value for society. It sucks but I have to support my family and extended family as the main bread earner. On the other hands, I often donate to wikipedia, supporting local FOSS communities and mentoring young students. Currently helping my friend with his air pollution measurement station projec…
> It sucks but I have to support my family and extended family as the main bread earner.
May be you can find a different work which may pay a bit less but doesn’t create negative value for the society?
Re: Ask HN: Is your work meaningful?
#79I work because I must provide for my family. That's enough meaning for me.
Would you provide for your family at any cost? Forget about meaning. What if your work is causing harm to some people or a lot of people? Like the wall street or Cambridge Analytica or Palantir?
Are you pitching a TV show? Because where I live, no one has to choose between certain death and working on cool tech for corrupt spooks except in TV shows.
Providing my family, doesn't have "any cost". It costs at least 50K€/year around here and, if my LinkedIn feed and the official stats concerning my domain of expertise are to be believed, I could slam the door any day and start at another tech company within a week.
But, assuming we are in a TV show, yes. I would gladly harm tens of thousands of unnamed, faceless nobodies and please tens of thousands of others if it helped me keep my loved ones out of the gutter. Especially if it meant playing with the cool tech at Palantir :-)
Re: Ask HN: Is your work meaningful?
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you think you will have another full-time job? Why not pursue working for yourself and building things as a continuous lifestyle? That's not me trying to be snide or anything, I'm in your exact position right now and whilst I can see a circumstance in which I end up in a full time job again, the goal is to make this the way I engage with the world and make money going forward.
I am pursuing that currently and would love to do so indefinitely. Maybe I'm just pessimistic and assume that it might take a try or two before I get it right? I'm also not against joining a team that's building something really cool.
That's fair enough. I'm definitely prepared for it to take a couple of goes as well. Best of luck!