Why I hate the weekends (2017) • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I hate the weekends (2017)

#91

Post by quickthrower2 » Sat, Feb 16, 2019, 10:37 PM UTC

I find the typical work in developer jobs very fatiguing. It involves reading through loads of old code that other people have written over the years, trying to figure out how it all hangs together and where I inject my change in. For some reason that does my head in.

Greenfield work is a lot less tiring, but much more rare in my experience. It's also a career path of it's own and hard to get on. I.e. you need greenfield experience to get a coveted greenfield job role.

I am considering getting into tutoring/teaching programming and I might find that a lot less tiring, covering the basics X times rather than wrangling the spaghetti code day in and day out.

Re: Why I hate the weekends (2017)

#92

Post by whatshisface » Sat, Feb 16, 2019, 10:39 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #74

GuardianCaveman wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So by your logic you can work 80 hours a week but because you’re inside an office and not a barn you lose you’re right to want a better work life balance? Where is the cut off for not being able to complain or is it like a spectrum? 20k wage with kids is bad you say what about 30k with 1 kid? Is that too easy? Cop in a good neighborhood? How good does the neighborhood have to be before you can’t complain anymore? You…

> Where is the cut off for not being able to complain or is it like a spectrum? Wherever the cut-off happens to be, software developers are far past it.

As an 1800s sweatshop boss, the idea that anyone other than a dying child in a third world country would try to negotiate for better conditions is appalling to me. 40 hour work week? They should be glad they don't have malaria.

Re: Why I hate the weekends (2017)

#93

Post by pjc50 » Sat, Feb 16, 2019, 10:40 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #74

GuardianCaveman wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So by your logic you can work 80 hours a week but because you’re inside an office and not a barn you lose you’re right to want a better work life balance? Where is the cut off for not being able to complain or is it like a spectrum? 20k wage with kids is bad you say what about 30k with 1 kid? Is that too easy? Cop in a good neighborhood? How good does the neighborhood have to be before you can’t complain anymore? You…

> Where is the cut off for not being able to complain or is it like a spectrum? Wherever the cut-off happens to be, software developers are far past it.

Everyone is entitled to talk about their subjective experience. Nobody has to listen to it. And it feels a little rude to go all Four Yorkshiremen on people and tell them they don't really have it hard.

.. unless they're recommending some action be taken, of course. And this blog post isn't. It's not a demand for policy, it's just talking about life.

Re: Why I hate the weekends (2017)

#94

Post by Consultant32452 » Sat, Feb 16, 2019, 10:41 PM UTC

glangdale wrote: post #85

Consultant32452 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Global 1% is about $34k. $100k gets you to the 14th percentile in the US. $150k gets you to the 94th percentile. If you're a developer in the first world, you're incredibly rich and privileged not just by historical standards, but by real world modern standards.

Global 1% is a daft standard for, well, anything. Most of those $34k in a first world country are going to be spend chasing goods that are incredibly expensive by both historical and real world modern standards (positional goods and goods subject to Baumol's cost disease). This leads to a bizarre narrative (especially roping in 'historical standards') - "hey, your health care may be dire, your education is haphazard,…

You're comparing what's real to a fantasy you have in your mind. I'm comparing what's real to what's real. There's room for both. Utopian fantasy is nice because it helps us think about the future we want to build. But I don't understand why there seems to be no gratitude for where we are.

Re: Why I hate the weekends (2017)

#95

Post by tastyfreeze » Sat, Feb 16, 2019, 10:41 PM UTC

rb808 wrote: post #36

Honestly I hate these self-absorbed, live-is-tough posts by Software Developers doing creative work in a nice air conditioned office. Get a real job, try milking a few hundred cows at 6am, work as a cop in a bad city, or outside in construction when its freezing or scorching hot. Not to mention doing it on a 20k wage with a few kids. I get it, figuring out how to get our software working can require a lot of thinking…

What exactly is a real job? Does a job have to physically difficult to be considered real? Why is a mentally taxing job any less real than a physically taxing one?

Even meaningless work can be a real job. Some people enjoy working their asses off in the hot sun. Some enjoy sitting at a desk hacking code. Just because one job isnt like another doesn't mean it is less real.

Re: Why I hate the weekends (2017)

#96

Post by Consultant32452 » Sat, Feb 16, 2019, 10:43 PM UTC

andrepd wrote: post #89

Consultant32452 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno, I find it off putting when the 1% complain about how tough their lives are. It would be more palatable if it were surrounded by intense gratitude they are afforded off the backs of the less fortunate who are doing the grinding work of keeping the world functioning. But the gratitude is practically nonexistent.

You can have gratitude for what you have and strive for improvements.

Which do you think makes it to the front page most around here, gratitude or complaints? Do you think the people posting to and reading HN tend to be on the more privileged or less privileged ends of the economic/health/education/well being spectrum?

Re: Why I hate the weekends (2017)

#97

Post by Waterluvian » Sat, Feb 16, 2019, 10:48 PM UTC

"It's Monday, the dreadful countdown has started. You're already thinking about the end of the week, and it barely started. As the days go by, you are fixated on Friday 5pm."

I felt this doing data entry for $20/hr at Elections Ontario. My single most effective co-op term because it really motivated me to get into a career I love and bust my ass to never work a day in my life again.

Re: Why I hate the weekends (2017)

#98

Post by coldtea » Sat, Feb 16, 2019, 10:48 PM UTC

>Our lives are high maintenance. We need to maintain our relationships with our spouses, friends and family. We need to take care of ourselves with exercise, hygiene and so on. Our houses need to be kept clean and our fridge full of food. And to be able to do all that, we need work to make a wage so we can pay for what keeps us alive.

Nothing that a short stint in the developing world doing a non-desk job for a month or so can't help put perspective on...

Re: Why I hate the weekends (2017)

#99

Post by coldtea » Sat, Feb 16, 2019, 10:50 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #93

rayiner wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where is the cut off for not being able to complain or is it like a spectrum? Wherever the cut-off happens to be, software developers are far past it.

Everyone is entitled to talk about their subjective experience. Nobody has to listen to it. And it feels a little rude to go all Four Yorkshiremen on people and tell them they don't really have it hard. .. unless they're recommending some action be taken, of course. And this blog post isn't. It's not a demand for policy, it's just talking about life.

>Everyone is entitled to talk about their subjective experience.

Maybe that's part of the problem. Not that everyone is entitled to talk about their subjective experience, but that everyone feels entitled to talk about their subjective experience -- and many are socially blind and comically out of touch when doing so. That's where memes like "first world problems" came from...

Everybody should be able to talk about their subjective experience. But many should have the social awareness, grace, and decency, not to.

Those who disagree still laugh and sneer at the richer 0.1% people when they say something comically out of touch with everyday life. But they just can't fathom that they themselves can be a richer 1% of people for a huge majority, and that their complaints can sound comically out of touch to most.

It's not like there aren't real problems to complain about that are shared among people and don't make someone look like self-absorbed (health issues, family issues, divorce, financial trouble, trauma, and so on).

Re: Why I hate the weekends (2017)

#100

Post by alohomora2 » Sat, Feb 16, 2019, 10:50 PM UTC

This has already been solved thousands of years ago and it’s called Shabbat, one day of the week of true, strict rest. No doing the laundry, no cooking, no driving the car. In general, no creative activities which modify the world in some way.