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

Ask HN: Feeling guilty for doing the bare minimum at work

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 415 posts

Re: Ask HN: Feeling guilty for doing the bare minimum at work

#251

Post by throwaway6734 »

uh_uh wrote: post #175
masukomi wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's not about not getting excited. It's the result of being "not excited". Neurotypicals can work on things that are uninteresting to them. ADHD people can sit there yelling at themselves to "do the thing" that they _know_ they need to do and still be completely incapable of starting regardless of how "easy" it is to actually do it once something forces them to actually start. this video does a good job of explainin…

> ADHD people can sit there yelling at themselves to "do the thing" that they _know_ they need to do and still be completely incapable of starting regardless of how "easy" it is to actually do it once something forces them to actually start. I also do this. Even worse: the easier and hence duller the task seems, the more difficult it is to get started on it. Once I do start on it and finish 5 minutes later, I need a…

>I also often zone out during meetings to the point I haven't got a clue what people are talking about

I've found that having a pen and some notepaper for doodling and writing whatever a speaker is saying is helpful to stay engaged

Re: Ask HN: Feeling guilty for doing the bare minimum at work

#252

Post by bigbillheck »

bigbillheck wrote: post #108
humbleMouse wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Not working enough? Just take meth!”

ADHD is not meth in the same way grain alcohol is not wood alcohol.

It's only now, several hours later, that I realize I meant to have written 'adderall'. Good grief.

Re: Ask HN: Feeling guilty for doing the bare minimum at work

#253

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

mylons wrote: post #88
cm2012 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did an HN poll, how many hours per day do you work including meetings and etc, and the answer was a normal distribution around 6 hours a day. https://imgur.com/qdSltlM The left axis is years of seniority.

i don't think you have enough data to be linking this as if it has meaning. N=104 is not a large sample size.

N=104 is a fine sample size for some things - especially given how much comfort you have for error.

This isn't a great study in general, because, realistically, there isn't a large range for the work hours. And the majority of them were grouped into one bucket => 4-8 hours.

That's the biggest problem.

The second biggest is that - presumably - not all of the respondents work 5 days per week.

The third is that - without a large sample size - your margin of error is going to cover a pretty big chunk. If your finding is 6 hours +/- 1 hour, 95% CI - that's pretty unsurprising.

You need a large sample size because there are ~115M workers in the US. What are the odds these 104 people are a decent representation of all ~115M voters??

If there's only 10,000 people this applies to that read HackerNews, then - if you fixed everything else - your CI wouldn't be super low.

Re: Ask HN: Feeling guilty for doing the bare minimum at work

#254

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

dekhn wrote: post #18

by the end of my employment at Google, I was working about 2 hours a day (and getting Meets Expectations at L6, which is OK but not great). While I'd be online and available to respond to chat for 8 hours, I only exerted about 2 hours and most of that was just explaining to executives just how bad our fleet was. Before that I had worked at least 6 hours a day. And I assumed that to be "right" i should be working at l…

> At first I felt guilty and then I realized in my career that working harder isn't going to make any difference in terms of $, career security, or opportunity to work on cooler stuff.

At least in FAANG, you mostly get paid for what your employer thinks you can do, in theory. Not for what you actually do, in practice.

If you're only self-interested - you're much better off spending all your time learning valuable skills and checking boxes to get promoted, and then job hopping - and doing nothing valuable for your employer again and again...

You're not going to move up if you spend all your burning through your backlog of work items, and you'll get next-to-no monetary reward or meaningful recognition.

Re: Ask HN: Feeling guilty for doing the bare minimum at work

#255

Post by astrange »

TrackerFF wrote: post #214
uh_uh wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it just rational not to get excited about boring stuff that is rewarded by a fix monetary ceiling? Economically it completely makes sense: why put more energy into something that yields the same result either way? Or maybe I have ADHD too.

With ADHD, for many it's nigh on impossible to get focused, no mater how high the stakes are - to the point where it seems extremely irresponsible and downright irrational to normal observers. Imagine that almost everything in your life, is the equivalent of starting on a test/exam 2 hours before the deadline, even though you've had a week or two to finish it.

The problem with ADHD is that it applies to everything in your life, not just work. You're equally unable to do chores, hobbies, have fun, or even finish watching a TV series. Actually, they're even harder to do than work because there's no pressure on you to keep up with it.

Re: Ask HN: Feeling guilty for doing the bare minimum at work

#256

Post by astrange »

Sophistifunk wrote: post #236
kdkdkskdn wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah seriously, what's the secret? I'm 32 and I was diagnosed when I was 20 but the drugs make me anorexic and mute my personality and knowing I have ADHD has not proven particularly useful, especially given that I already knew my tendencies and behaviors and had long since developing coping strategies The only way my life changed when I was diagnosed was that I got paid for the study I had signed up for, which requi…

Try changing medication, although they're nearly all slightly different forms of amph, the differences are significant. For me, ritalin is just headaches, modafinil is less effective but wonderfully free of most side-effects, and dex is the most useful thing I can legally get. Unfortunately modafinil is almost 10x the price of dex in Australia if you don't have narcolepsy, and the drug that I suspect would benefit me…

There isn't any methamphetamine in Adderall! As far as I know the IR version isn't much more effective than dexedrine.

Vyvanse is the form that works best for me, but the crash can ruin any of my evening plans since I lose all motivation or sometimes just need a nap.

Strattera also works very well for some people and is easy to get.

Re: Ask HN: Feeling guilty for doing the bare minimum at work

#257

Post by messe »

Aeolun wrote: post #234
garciasn wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lexapro made me feel like I was on the come up for LSD or MDMA for the first two weeks I took it. It was, for lack of better explanation, as if I were plugged into an electric socket. After the first two weeks or so, things evened out and I felt much more normal but all of the good things Lexapro brought to me remained. This, from my understanding, is normal and you simply did not give your body/mind enough time to a…

I don’t think Lexapro did anything to me other than reduce my anxiety. Certainly no side effects in the first few weeks. I started at the lowest possible dose though. I was also told that the effects only trigger after 2-3 weeks, so to not stop during the first.

Same here. I was on Lexapro for quite some time, and Prozac a few years later. Both (alongside therapy) reduced my anxiety, and helped greatly with my depression. I've since moved off both, and I've been in a quite good place mentally for over a year now.

Neither helped with attention and focus though. I still get distracted by the next thing easily. Although I've never had a diagnosis of ADD or ADHD, I've suspected it for a while now, as it had been suggested off-handedly by a former therapist back in college. This article might be the push I need to get some confirmation.

It hasn't impacted my professional life, but my hobbies have certainly fallen by the wayside because of my difficulties with attention.

Re: Ask HN: Feeling guilty for doing the bare minimum at work

#258

Post by failwhaleshark »

borski wrote: post #150

Read up a bit on ADHD. That 'hyperfocus' that occurs either with deadlines or on a passion project is a symptom, as is the inability to get excited about projects you simply don't want to do - especially given your otherwise positive reviews and your ability to clear your mind and hyperfocus near a deadline, it's something to consider. I was diagnosed at 33, and it changed my life infinitely for the better. YMMV, and…

Currently, I cannot read even one page of a book much less an entire book. I also get bored of people and interests easily.

Which type? I have ADHD-PI diag at 38, but it maybe a direct consequence of low testosterone.

It's interesting that the major parts of my body are very masculine while others aren't as much as they were. And, it's not Klinefelter's or a karyotype issue. Attractive members of my preferred gender for adult activities are frequently "shouting" overt interest nonverbally that doesn't register to me as anything other than a potential threat. My instincts should be of curiosity, delight, and novelty.

Starting on clomid tomorrow because the memory, concentration, alertness, and fluid/crystalized intelligences became disabled to the point where I cannot work. I may also have to take hCG too. An endocrinologist has to research the primary cause because it could be an HPG tumor or something else, because the low T issue is absurd.

Re: Ask HN: Feeling guilty for doing the bare minimum at work

#259

Post by jasonmp85 »

notdarkyet wrote: post #23

If you are venting this, you know its an issue. Maybe the theory you should post instead of an excuse is that you are lazy and the skill you perfected is hiding that you don't do anything.

Who cares? The implicit idea behind employment is that the employer always pays less than they think you are worth.

There is no shame or immorality in occasionally bringing down output enough that you sometimes find where that crossover point is. Or, surprisingly, perhaps you find there _is_ no crossover point?

At any rate, stick with it while you can stay sane, then jump ship to something new and exciting. Done.

Post reply on HN