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Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status

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Re: Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status

#71

Post by ecshafer »

bluedays wrote: post #8

Yeah, 33 years old, haven't accomplished much, went into school to start a degree in programming, still low status and can't find a job anywhere. I'm not sure willingness is the word for this. All I feel is bitterness. I'm not sure if this is me being reflective because it's my birthday today or what, but I'm so fucking sick of working so hard to get nowhere.

FWIW Junior level jobs are by far the hardest jobs to get. They are the fewest openings, with the most applicants. And tech companies basically all use the same leetcode white boarding interviews that aren't representative of actually working. My unsolicited advice would be: Continue working on improving, apply to jobs where-ever you can, try to get experience somewhere (work with a professor, make your own startup, go on fiverr, anything).

Re: Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status

#72

Post by mrleiter »

bluedays wrote: post #8

Yeah, 33 years old, haven't accomplished much, went into school to start a degree in programming, still low status and can't find a job anywhere. I'm not sure willingness is the word for this. All I feel is bitterness. I'm not sure if this is me being reflective because it's my birthday today or what, but I'm so fucking sick of working so hard to get nowhere.

Happy birthday mate! :) hope you will find success soon, whatever it may mean to you.

Re: Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status

#73

Post by draw_down »

drchiu wrote: post #61

I wished I learned earlier in my life that hard work and success don't come hand-in-hand. There are a lot of hard working people in the world who never get to reap any reward from their labour. At least for me, recognizing that success is nice, but not getting too hung up on it (or expecting it) and to enjoy the labour itself (and find fulfillment in it) helps.

Hmm, I agree with your first observation. But that always just made me want to be one of the people who are successful but don’t work very hard.

Re: Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status

#74

Post by spicymaki »

roenxi wrote: post #7

The more-correct observation is that any well-understood or easy path to becoming high status will be shut down. Most people are not high status, and want to be. It follows that the path has to be either risky, or difficult to comprehend. If hard work were enough, we'd all be in charge. Lots of hard workers out there.

What about just pure chance? To be born in to the right family, in the right country, to be in the correct field, to have the right idea at the right time. Perhaps the correct path is just luck.

We are all rolling the dice here. Just be yourself and do what you find interesting. If it pays off great, if it doesn't that is okay too.

Re: Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status

#75

Post by rileymat2 »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #17
purple-again wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love perpetual motion machines. Absolutely fascinated by them. I am quick to dump on flat earthers and antivaxxers and understand the science against perpetual motion just as well. That said, given a strong UBI or a grant of a billion dollars I would GLEEFULLY spend the rest of my life working on trying to build a perpetual motion machine. Sometimes we just have to remember that if we are honest with ourselves we a…

Aren't you actually asking for a grant to be an installation artist working in the field of pretty moving machines. I don't think society should fund research into the flatness of the earth or perpetual motion, but I do think there is plenty of scope for making beautiful things. Especially if you explain it gleefully when you unveil your latest :-)

Although impossible, I wonder if striving for perpetual motion could lead to discoveries to create very efficient machines? So may be worth funding.

Re: Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status

#77

Post by xnyan »

bluedays wrote: post #8

Yeah, 33 years old, haven't accomplished much, went into school to start a degree in programming, still low status and can't find a job anywhere. I'm not sure willingness is the word for this. All I feel is bitterness. I'm not sure if this is me being reflective because it's my birthday today or what, but I'm so fucking sick of working so hard to get nowhere.

Very similar situation as you (at least on the surface). My only advice that has actually worked is network, network, network. I have a degree in Russian language, and now I'm a javascript dev. It only happened because 1) I can teach myself/back to school for programming and 2) I met and made friends with someone who knew someone who was hiring a entry-level dev.

2 was really the hard part, can't lie. It was years of effort, and I have no formula for it besides make and keep as many friends as you can. It kind of sucks for an introvert to do this, but growing your network of friends and acquaintances is the single most important thing I have done for my career.

Re: Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status

#78

Post by curiousllama »

chadash wrote: post #63

Only a small fraction of people with high net worths, say $50M+, are coming from founding venture backed startups. Many of the wealthiest people I've met do things like manufacture purses for Walmart, or towels for TJ Maxx, or sell network equipment to cable companies. Stuff that isn't sexy or visible, but with large markets that can get you into the very well off range (but that limit you from being a multi-billiona…

Agree. "Silly or insignificant" is the wrong angle.

"Pushing a boulder up a hill" is my preferred framing. Better to talk about difficulty, uncertainty, and boredom. All those things will make you low status - choosing to be sisyphus isn't glamorous - but that's also where you find valuable niches. Not in the silly.

Re: Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status

#79

Post by dalbasal »

bartread wrote: post #68

I'm not sure I'd equate "low status" with "working on something silly or insignificant" (real or perceived). These things seem unrelated. It's entirely possible to be low status and working on something incredibly important. E.g., driving a lorry to collect rubbish and recycling: nobody thinks of that as a high status job but imagine what happens if people stop doing it, and see if you can then still convince yoursel…

>> I'm not sure I'd equate "low status" with "working on something silly or insignificant"

Their not identical, but one does interact with another. In the context of an individual (not a global or social context), heterodox choices tend to be the less status oriented choices.

It's tone deaf because it relates to breakthrough success, and heterodox chance taking is tends to be a privileged prerogative. That doesn't make it untrue.

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