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Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

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Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#311

Post by hans1729 »

Chris2048 wrote: post #303
hans1729 wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've thought about this a lot, it's my goto "one day I'll write a book about this". I frame the problem slightly different (heh): Different disciplines, branching out, will (or so says my hypothesis) discover the same topologies, but express them differently due to different scopes (perspective, dimensionality, DSLs [...]). What I'm thinking about is: how can we parametrize the manifestations of these scopes, and, ub…

Systems thinking? Category theory?

I actually ordered "Systems thinking" after someone in the thread mentioned it, Milewskis series on category theory is on my todo!

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#313

Post by chiph »

lowercased wrote: post #195
spinlock_ wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding the "ejector seat savings account", do I receive something like unemployment benefits when I quit my in the United States? If yes, does it matter whether I quit or was fired? Sorry if that question sounds naive, but from what I read here on HN I'm often not quite sure how the system works in the US.

generally speaking, if you quit or were fired you would not be eligible for any unemployment assistance. it's different state to state, but quit is your decision, and 'fired' is usually for something negative/bad. I've been 'laid off' - terminated but it was reported as no fault of mine - and received unemployment assistance - this has happened to me twice. the 'ejector seat savings' the GP was referring to just mean…

I'm pretty sure you have to pay income tax on any unemployment benefits. And the state/county doesn't withhold tax, so that next April 15th you might get an unpleasant bill.

Having 3-9 months of fixed expenses money in the bank is pretty liberating. You know it's there and available, so your attitude at work becomes less about "OMG how am I going to pay my bills if I lose this job" and more about actually accomplishing something.

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#314

Post by majewsky »

pmiller2 wrote: post #225
fxtentacle wrote: post #146

How much feel good and drinking relationships matter in upper management. And on the downside, how little facts weight in when compared to a manager's gut feeling. Enthusiastically presenting a (factually wrong) solution can be a winning strategy. In high school, I thought I was a math genius because all of my solutions were judged as correct. Turns out, I was just a good presenter and nobody made any effort to check…

The bit about math homework reminds me of how I started getting better grades in grad school as immediately after I started doing homework in LaTeX. It’s not that I got any smarter, and I don’t think my work improved significantly as a result of using LaTeX. IMO, it was just that my papers literally looked more convincing when they were typeset like preprints rather than handwritten.

I like to think that companies respond to my inquiries much quicker and more diligently since I started sending them out as LaTeX-formatted letters.

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#315

Post by bitanarch »

The most important skill for a senior engineer (or, really, any job in a large organization) is... Political skills.

What projects / technologies / customers / designs are considered important? Who are the potential allies? Who are potential obstacles? What are their motivations? What is the best plan of action the benefits the group? How to get everyone's alignment?

Never hire anyone who's bad at communication. The bottleneck in a large organization is always politics. Whether you can attract skillful engineers to begin with is also a question of communications and politics.

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#316

Post by mannykannot »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #298
shantly wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In other words, while I considered what the accountant guy did to be a rather low-effort incomplete job, he did exactly what was expected of him by the bank and what I needed to get my deal done. The degree to which everything runs on this sort of system is kind of horrifying, once you're exposed to enough things like this for that to sink in. Relatedly, I guess my contribution to the broader thread would be: Almos…

>The degree to which everything runs on this sort of system is kind of horrifying, once you're exposed to enough things like this for that to sink in. So? It clearly works. People want everything to be high quality master craftsman type work but almost nothing is and it almost never matters. People like to think that the auditors are going over the papers with a magnifying glass and that their landscaper is applying…

It works right up until it doesn't: see 737 Max, mortgage crisis...

Perhaps the best thing that can be said for pro-forma processes is that they usually put people on notice that they may be held accountable for their actions -- though, of course, that is not always the case.

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#317

Post by loh »

Waterluvian wrote: post #137

Life is fleeting. Most of us here are 1/3 or more of the way done. Divest yourself as much as possible from your job. Find other sources of identity. You don't need that fancy car or to buy a boat as much as you need that ejector seat savings account. And when you realise that conditions have evolved to a point where you're not having fun anymore (and they always eventually do), eject yourself and go spend far more t…

Life is definitely fleeting, but we (or most of us) have to work in order to live. The key is finding work to do which doesn't feel like work, but the difficult part to this (for many people but not all) is making enough of an income to live comfortably. In this case, I would say it is perfectly okay and probably a good thing if your identity and your work are one.

It is crazy to me to think that so many people spend such a large percentage of their lives doing something (usually just for money) and don't consider it to be who they are, especially if they hate the work that they do. Your work is a huge part of who you are. It affects everything about your life. It isn't something you should do just to do it or because you feel like you have to. It's a path that people should choose carefully.

For way too long I latched onto the first opportunity or idea that came along. I'm 32 now and find myself constantly wondering how much different (maybe better, maybe worse) things could have been if I had taken a step back and considered more possibilities for the future. Now multiple times per day I try to consider where each decision might lead, no matter how big or small of a decision, ranging from hours from now to years from now to thousands of years from now. This mindset is less stressful/neurotic than it sounds, and I would suggest more people try this approach. Good, well thought-out decisions lead to a better future (for everyone). Imagine that.

That doesn't mean that you shouldn't take risks. Sometimes a risky path is the best possible path to take. The potential rewards should always be worth the risk, so that is something to always be considered. You usually learn a lot more in a shorter period of time this way.

Family is the most important thing in life. Material things don't matter. Sure, nice things are certainly nice to have and it can make life more enjoyable, but if you have no one you love to use these things with and spend your time with, life feels pretty empty.

Spend your time wisely, and try to do things that, when you look back on your life on your deathbed, you think to yourself, "I am so glad I made that decision."

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#318

Post by tpxl »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #298
shantly wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In other words, while I considered what the accountant guy did to be a rather low-effort incomplete job, he did exactly what was expected of him by the bank and what I needed to get my deal done. The degree to which everything runs on this sort of system is kind of horrifying, once you're exposed to enough things like this for that to sink in. Relatedly, I guess my contribution to the broader thread would be: Almos…

>The degree to which everything runs on this sort of system is kind of horrifying, once you're exposed to enough things like this for that to sink in. So? It clearly works. People want everything to be high quality master craftsman type work but almost nothing is and it almost never matters. People like to think that the auditors are going over the papers with a magnifying glass and that their landscaper is applying…

> It clearly works.

Clearly it doesn't and when it does, it's despite this, not because of it.

The economic crisis of 2008/9 could have easily been prevented.

Misinformation about WMDs led to useless wars.

The war on drugs is a huge waste of resources because why?

Ticking checkboxes is a big cause of our problems.

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#319

Post by sebcat »

andykx wrote: post #14
seanhunter wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I took it to mean that smart people sometimes have low-status jobs, and conversely people in high-status jobs are not always smart. That's definitely something I have personally experienced given my career has taken me from working as a building labourer and factory worker through to being a C-suite exec, with stops through the trading side of investment banking and Silicon Valley on the way. It's a huge mistake to l…

As the years go by, I find myself craving a job with a physical labor component to it. A friend of mine studied enology (wine making) at Cornell and his job is about 50% business management and 50% wine making. Some days he has to wear a suit to work, other days he comes home in a wine stained smock. It seems like a good balance.

My SO and I recently bought a house with a garden and some trees (pine, spruce, poplar, beech, one apple tree), at the outskirts of a village, close to the woods.

Working on the house has so far given me a lot of satisfaction (also some stress and shorter days). Any work we do on the house is work done for us. We can't do everything ourselves. We hired an electrician (a friend) to do some electrical work and got a company to do floor grinding in one of the rooms. Her father helped us oiling the floor, my father helped us when we redid the insulation in a part of the house (still ongoing). We planted some garlic and some raspberries. We're going to plant some strawberries soon (not really the right season, but we got them for free).

Working on your own house and garden could be an alternative to a career change if you feel the need to work with your hands.

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