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Ask HN: What tech job would let me get away with the least real work possible?

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Re: Ask HN: What tech job would let me get away with the least real work possible?

#181

Post by SamWhited »

I've been thinking about starting a co-op with a few people recently (get a front end person, a backend person, maybe someone who knows CMS's and can do website things, someone who knows marketing, a writer, a designer, and an ops person) and taking on freelance work. We wouldn't all be needed for all projects, we'd all try to bring in leads, and it would generate good part time work for everyone.

On the side if we did this I thought I'd go work at REI or the local climbing gym or something. Just some place that I don't absolutely hate being where I can make a guaranteed 10-20 hours of terrible wages to pad out the dry spells where we don't have freelance work.

I think if this could be properly balanced I could only work the equivalent of a few full time days out of the week, but also I've never done it so maybe it will just be impossible and consume all my time for no pay.

Re: Ask HN: What tech job would let me get away with the least real work possible?

#182

Post by forinti »

muzani wrote: post #5

I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. I've actually tried to hire dispassionate people before. One was an assembly line style UI job with no future - the API was solid, the UI was designed by someone else. It just needed someone who could glue the parts, and repeat the same job forever, with minor API updates every now and then. Another was a teaching job. Beginner HTML/CSS/Node.js. Come in 35 hours a week, act…

The positive side of dispassionate people is that they won't write a new framework just to solve some tiny little task.

Re: Ask HN: What tech job would let me get away with the least real work possible?

#184

Post by ceilingcorner »

lr4444lr wrote: post #178

Government work. Definitely government work. Ideally in some municipal office managing internal applications. Now that said, don't come crying to us if in 10 years when people get downsized that you cannot find a job elsewhere since the industry has moved on when really it's your skills that atrophied.

Getting back up to speed is doable in a matter of months though. You can’t say the same thing for most industries.

Re: Ask HN: What tech job would let me get away with the least real work possible?

#186

Post by skocznymroczny »

chrisbuc wrote: post #66
muzani wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone here could just pick up a job as a clerk and then use AI and mturk to do all the work.

Amusing read from way back - guy outsourced his own job and watched cat videos. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/01/16/169528579...

His daily schedule is very similar to my work schedule...

...except I don't outsource my work

Re: Ask HN: What tech job would let me get away with the least real work possible?

#188

Post by candu »

busymom0 wrote: post #145
lmueongoqx wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised once again by the nice and helpful community on HN. I anticipated most comments would be people telling me to get my head out of my ass and get to work. I hope you find a way to chill through life.

I think you question is very sincere and VERY UNIQUE for this community because every other question is asking for the exact opposite. That's why there are a lot of interesting replies as well as a lot of interest in the question itself. Is your hobby/"passions (which are not monetizable)" expensive? And are you 100% certain they are not monetizable? In today's world, I have yet to see something which is not monetiza…

YMMV, but I've also found that treating all side projects as potential businesses sort of...takes the intangible quality of magic / fun / joy out of those side projects for me.

For OP: it's OK to not want to monetize everything you do, even if those things might potentially be monetizable (which most things are, as the parent comment mentioned) - past some point, the incremental value of really, truly enjoying more of your time can have way more value than even fairly large amounts of additional money.

Where that point lies exactly is a matter of debate, and probably depends greatly on how you place value on intangible experiences vs. tangible things. From experience, many people in the tech industry are well past this point but don't realize it, largely because we have a cognitive bias towards comparison with those around us. (Also, the above framing suggests strongly that we can learn to change where that point is for ourselves.)

Re: Ask HN: What tech job would let me get away with the least real work possible?

#190

Post by orthoxerox »

shireboy wrote: post #155

I might suggest a slightly different approach. “Early Retirement Extreme” proposes that if you save 80% of your income in a few broad index funds (search bogglehead), learn to live on the 20%, then you can get to where you are financially independent and retire in 5 years. I can’t say I’m personally there yet, but it sounds like you are more motivated and maybe less obligations. Get cheap ass housing, eat cheap, bike…

This means I will have to live the rest of my life on the 20% budget, doesn't it?
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