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I just don’t want to be busy anymore

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Re: I just don’t want to be busy anymore

#341

Post by Lammy »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #109

One thing that helped me is not to care so much about my employer's goals. It's almost heretical. But once you embrace this mindset, it does wonders. Or at least, it has for me so far. I think a lot of us want to be proud of the work we do, and we feel that if we slack off, then we shouldn't be proud. But it's the other way around. I think the slackers have it right. You're probably not going to get rich from working…

> In that context, why do so many of us take on so many unnecessary responsibilities?

Honestly I think it’s a wonderful reflection of humans’ innate empathy and drive to help each other, the Stanford Prison Experiment shown to be junk science over and over and over.

We humans are unfortunately exploited by humanoid entities (corporations) who turn humans’ one truly-limited resource (attention) into something that’s also non-human. Everybody has heard the idiom that “time = money”, but have you ever stopped to think how fucked up it sounds when you apply the transitive property of equality to get “money = time”?

Re: I just don’t want to be busy anymore

#342

Post by elevenoh »

danjac wrote: post #261
SubuSS wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know of so many folks in fang and my current job who’d disagree that you can’t get rich from a day job. Most of them got there by not being cynical about their employer’s goals and working with the team to make those happen. I guess I’ve been incredibly lucky and probably am in a nice west coast dream bubble, but my bubble vision means I definitely don’t buy that am a rare unicorn. I don’t think I would feel happy…

What's the Big Dream at FAANG these days? What "greater goal" is there at Facebook in 2021? Or Amazon? I mean sure, if you want to switch off your moral compass and make lots of money, go you, I guess, but it sounds almost cultish at this point to still believe that there's a higher purpose to working for these companies.

I know a few FAANGs looking for 'greater goal' who left in the past 2 years to work for crypto or biotech companies.

Re: I just don’t want to be busy anymore

#343

Post by Lammy »

danjac wrote: post #261
SubuSS wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know of so many folks in fang and my current job who’d disagree that you can’t get rich from a day job. Most of them got there by not being cynical about their employer’s goals and working with the team to make those happen. I guess I’ve been incredibly lucky and probably am in a nice west coast dream bubble, but my bubble vision means I definitely don’t buy that am a rare unicorn. I don’t think I would feel happy…

What's the Big Dream at FAANG these days? What "greater goal" is there at Facebook in 2021? Or Amazon? I mean sure, if you want to switch off your moral compass and make lots of money, go you, I guess, but it sounds almost cultish at this point to still believe that there's a higher purpose to working for these companies.

Probably “Discretionary Equity”, a small-to-The-Company but large-to-the-Individual extra grant of restricted stock units given (in secret) to people whose contributions literally make-or-break the business. Think “invent HHVM”.

Re: I just don’t want to be busy anymore

#344

Post by antupis »

nvarsj wrote: post #309
antupis wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2M is 140k$ yearly with 7% return. You could live very comfortably almost every where.

If you can manage a consistent 7% return then you should be running a hedge fund.

1. you personal savings are more volatile tolerant than big pension funds. SP500 annual avg growth is 10% so you can almost achieve that 7% if you deploy 50/50 split to sp500 index + 30 year t-bonds. 2. It is magnitude more easier to deploy 2 million dollars to market than 2 billion dollars.

Re: I just don’t want to be busy anymore

#345

Post by maccard »

emrah wrote: post #323
idontwantthis wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making $300k and not financially comfortable starting a family?

Welcome to SV

If you think you can't live on 300k with a family in the bay area, then you need a serious reality check.

On a $300k income, even with one earner, you can comfortably afford a $1m+ home (of which there are plenty of single family homes available in many parts of the bay area), and while yes the COL for things like groceries/eating out is higher than in Austin TX, it's not high enough to seriously claim that it's not liveable

Re: I just don’t want to be busy anymore

#346

Post by dmontero »

We are too often caught up in the inertia of our life, telling ourselves lies like 'the future will be better', 'just a little more', 'what are they gonna think about me if...', 'this salary raise is very important'.

Once you step out and remind yourself your time in this world is limited, a list of priorities will start to take shape, based on the following questions:

1. which cause is worth it for you to spend your effort and money?

2. which activities bring you pleasure and joy?

3. which are the reasonable sacrifices to fullfill 1 and 2?

There is no universal answer to those questions but everything starts with slowing down, gaining perspective and diving in

Re: I just don’t want to be busy anymore

#347

Post by mark_l_watson »

WalterBright wrote: post #318
sillysaurusx wrote: post #109

One thing that helped me is not to care so much about my employer's goals. It's almost heretical. But once you embrace this mindset, it does wonders. Or at least, it has for me so far. I think a lot of us want to be proud of the work we do, and we feel that if we slack off, then we shouldn't be proud. But it's the other way around. I think the slackers have it right. You're probably not going to get rich from working…

> You're probably not going to get rich from working a day job. If you make a middle class salary, underspend your income by at least 10%, max out your 401k and IRA, invest in stocks, and start doing this in your 20s, yes, the odds are pretty good you will.

+1 and I would add try to own income rental properties by first buying an inexpensive house, not a huge expensive home; as soon as you can buy another inexpensive home and rent the first. Much better to own two modest homes and rent one than to own just one high maintenance cost huge home.

Re: I just don’t want to be busy anymore

#350

Post by bigbizisverywyz »

5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #298
sillysaurusx wrote: post #109

One thing that helped me is not to care so much about my employer's goals. It's almost heretical. But once you embrace this mindset, it does wonders. Or at least, it has for me so far. I think a lot of us want to be proud of the work we do, and we feel that if we slack off, then we shouldn't be proud. But it's the other way around. I think the slackers have it right. You're probably not going to get rich from working…

I totally agree. Don't be "pro-active" be "re-active" - is my way of putting it. Frankly, most orgs will not reward pro-activity, in fact you can even be punished for it, since if a problem is not yet known by stakeholders then why are you solving it. There have been times in my career where I spotted issues from other teams on preview or staging servers and helped to fix it. Then I later got blamed (or dragged into…

Although this does make you sound a bit like Wally from Dilbert, but done in the right amount I think it does make sense as taking on too much is the quickest way to never getting anything 'done'.
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