Ask where do you see yourself in a few years, are you gonna achieve that by slacking like that? Can you leverage work and doing great work help you get there? Is slacking off worth the time wasted?
Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?
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Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?
#282Earlier quoted context omitted.
You didn’t read his whole post. They’re bored. Their value to google is high enough to keep them employed but the job is beneath their capabilities. The failing for google is not providing this person a path to do more or at least understanding their ambition to do more.
Their value to google is high enough to keep them employed but the job is beneath their capabilities. That's what we call "the perfect job." It pays the bills, but leaves you the maximum amount of (mental|emotional|psychological|spiritual|whatever) energy to work on the things that really interest you ... outside of work. Of course different people will approach this differently, but I don't want my job to be interes…
For me personally, being bored at work actually leaves me more tired at home afterwards. I'm working on something so boring at work now and I can't handle it. It's just going to kill me very slowly over the course of the next month.
Now for your second point, I completely agree--I don't want to feel like my job is my worth or joy in life, and it isn't. But at the same time, I wouldn't take a job at an assembly line even if it paid $1M a year.
Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?
#283You remind me myself a few years ago: a talented, but bored slacker who didn't see any point in investing any energy into that project. Turns out I was right: the project didn't go anywhere after I left and investing any extra time would be a clueless thing to do. So what's changed since then? Have I found meaning in work? No! I've become a professional slacker who knows all these psychological tricks, knows what bod…
Can you elaborate on the pyschological tricks and how you pull it off? How do you come off as a high performer?
I'd refer you to the small book called the gervais principle.
Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
Software engineering just isn't that hard. Tedious yes, but not remotely difficult. We've been fed the narrative of economic success that many folks have forgotten what personal success looks like. You can be successful in your career and still feel like a failure. Therapy is the answer here. You have to un-brainwash yourself from the notion that your job is your life and figure out what really matters to you. Then f…
> Software engineering just isn't that hard 1) I agree that this is often true! Code can be pretty boring. That doesn’t mean there are no interesting problems that you can tackle with programming. It just means most people work on incredibly boring stuff and think that’s all there is and totally fine. Find something that’s a better use of your time. 2) There is more and less difficult software engineering. If yours i…
If you want to do this, and you can consistently find interesting work, then go for it! What I mean by "these jobs aren't hard" is that one person is easy to replace, and you are not guaranteed a job in the future just because you have one now. There are always high periods and low periods in a person's career, and you have to mentally / emotionally prepare for those.
Tech has a nasty age bias once you hit 40, and I've seen people fall apart when they get laid off and finding a new job is hard for reasons that aren't exactly fair. Finding meaning in your life outside your job is how you keep sane when economic circumstances aren't working in your favor.
Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?
#285You don't realize how good you have it: 1. you work for a company that is an excellent resume booster outside of the valley. I'm from central texas and most everyone I know in tech has worked at Dell and once complained how boring it was to work at Dell. The moment they decided to move away from Austin their Dell experience made them very hot commodities to non-Austin tech companies. Every day you stay at Google the…
> Every day you stay at Google the more valuable you become. Ehhh, to a point. Straight out of college and then (e.g.) 10 or 15 years at the same company says a lot about a person.
If this is a negative it is probably fairly specific to tech. In most industries a long tenure at a single company would been seen as positive.
Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?
#286Earlier quoted context omitted.
E.g.: I'm a jeans & t-shirt kinda guy. However, I now dress a little more formally (business casual) because it leads to better outcomes. I've not gotten around to wearing suits even though that would be even better. A little more strategic: I usually wear at least one item of clothing with my employer's logo visible on it. (Gives off a "corporate citizen" vibe.) A far cry from the recent past when I'd carry a laptop…
Lol... You had to read a book to realize that dressing nicely and repping your company might be a good idea?
lol, yeah. Partly because at my workplace jeans & t-shirts are common, and repping the employer is seen by some as "being a kiss-ass".
Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
Software engineering just isn't that hard. Tedious yes, but not remotely difficult. We've been fed the narrative of economic success that many folks have forgotten what personal success looks like. You can be successful in your career and still feel like a failure. Therapy is the answer here. You have to un-brainwash yourself from the notion that your job is your life and figure out what really matters to you. Then f…
> Therapy is the answer here. You have to un-brainwash yourself from the notion that your job is your life and figure out what really matters to you. Then focus on that, and use your job to fill the boring hours in between. You’re going to spend more time at work than doing almost anything else during those years of your life where you work. Why not do something meaningful with those hours if you can? And if OP can g…
I think you absolutely can find meaning at work, but it cannot replace the meaning you find outside of work. You can tolerate doing a meaningless job if you have other things in your life to sustain you, but you can't guarantee your work will always be meaningful. Finding meaning outside work is resiliency.
Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, that’s not generally true in Europe. It depends solely on the company. During the first 12 weeks of fatherhood, I worked two days instead of five and my perceived productivity stayed the same. As an expert slacker and procrastinator, you can slack in many places. Salaries in IT are generally very good in all European countries and if you manage your salary well, you’ll buy a house when you’re in the mid-thirties.…
Which country and domain are you in?
Finance IT with a history in multiple German-speaking regions.
Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
Facebook hires tons of zero passion 10am-4pm engineers. It might not be deliberate slacking but it’s definitely not hard working.
I'm not sure which team you are talking about because many people here in Ads are working 9-9-6.
“The best minds of my generation...”
Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?
#290Earlier quoted context omitted.
This blows my mind that in the US one can make such insane money in tech while still being a slacker and retire early with a dream house bought and paid for while in Europe devs are slaving away through SCRUM powered meat grinders burning themselves out for a 3% salary increase on a pitiful 40-80k/year, no stock options, without any hope of early retirement or owning a decent home without a 30 year loan or financial…
EU salaries have more to do with their tax structure than anything else.
Not really. US taxes aren't that much lower than Europe.
The reason is supply/demand. There's the lack of VC funding and also due to the market size, European tech companies don't generate nearly as much value as the US ones and the few ones that do don't have any meaningful competition so there's no need to pay high salaries.
Take the US defense sector alone. That's generating so many high paying tech and consultancy jobs that EU employees couldn't even dream of.