Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bored People Quit

randsinrepose.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–156 of 156 posts

Re: Bored People Quit

#151

Post by qntm »

paulbaumgart wrote: post #143
rcfox wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just use \!

Good call. Though for multi-word messages, you'd have to do something like: growlnotify -m "$(echo Great\! Success\!)"

For arbitrary messages:

    sub escape {
        my $arg = shift;
        $arg =~ s/([^a-zA-Z0-9_])/\\$1/g;
        return $arg;
    }

Re: Bored People Quit

#152

Post by Swannie »

phaedrus wrote: post #97
newobj wrote: post #37

Wow. This article knows me better than I know myself. I've always wondered if that slow creep-in of boredom was a personal failing of mine. Whether it is or not, it's at least nice to know that this a known phenomenon, that someone else has managed to describe to a t. Reading this has actually really empowered me. I really had a lot of shame in feeling bored and bent over backwards to hide it until I quit in a boredb…

Careful I admitted I was bored doing purchase orders of parts (supposed to be an engineering position) in a previous job and the manager went nuts, got in multiple shouting matches with me ("this project is the most interesting work that's come along in a while and yoooou're bored! I'm shocked, just shocked"). Hah. Wrong thing to say to me - if what I was doing then was supposedly better than their baseline normal, s…

Indeed. One project I had a boring task with nebulous requirements, and said as much: "I find this hard to know when I'm done, and progress is slow. What's next when I am finished". The response? "More of the same!" said with a s* eating grin. :-(

At this point I pushed harder for my internal transfer. I later found out this line manager was "let go". (He'd basically taken all the interesting work for himself, the whole team productivity was bad when I moved.).

Re: Bored People Quit

#153

Post by metaprinter »

edw519 wrote: post #5

Axiom: Boring work can never compete with Hacker News. Axiom: Hacker News can never compete with interesting work. Theorem: The interestingness of my work is inversely related to my Hacker News participation. Supporting data: Today I'm regression testing. I'll be here all day, folks. Idea: Employers, monitor your logs for Hacker News. Occasional spikes probably indicate boring, but necessary tasks. Chronic use probab…

currently reading this bored off my ass on my phone. my development computer is being used to give a presentation! i'm outta here in 2 weeks folks.

Re: Bored People Quit

#154

Post by dredmorbius »

1337p337 wrote: post #49

I had a boss that took the opposite approach. Whenever I started to lose productivity, he'd put me on work he knew I'd hate, telling me I'd get to do more interesting things when I showed him I could be productive. So I started working on side projects at the office just to keep my mind from going and became less and less productive until I quit. He was a talented engineer himself and a good friend. We ended up worki…

I could have written this post.

I'm increasingly picky about who I'll work for (as a direct report), missed this one.

All the more pity as it is/was a great company with a great and respected product.

I've also had very good management (recognized my skills, focused on them, steered me away from the boring crap mostly, Got What I Needed To Do The Job[tm] (permissions, software, hardware, people, information, consultants). And when the shit hit the fan with the company and all contractors were cut, didn't raise my stress levels by drawing out the drama -- it was a clean, fast, surgical cut (there had been FT/Perm cuts before, and most of the executive suite left a month or so later). One of the best bosses I've had, and he /wasn't/ overtly technical.

Re: Bored People Quit

#156

Post by flipper »

This article sums me up. When I started in my current job I had a really smart guy for a manager who was interested in hearing new ideas from his people and generally championed them. A couple of years ago we got bought out and I got a new IT manager with no real interest in technology or my job. Every idea I've had was ignored or shot down in flames. Unfortunately his attitude was symptomatic of senior management in our company.

I got disillusioned and got a reputation for being sullen and uncommunicative. I realized that even if I invented a perpetual motion machine he wouldn't be impressed (or even know what one was). So what was the point?

The happy ending is I got headhunted last week by my previous employer. My boss doesn't seem too worried about me leaving so I'm sure now I'm doing the right thing.

Post reply on HN