101–110 of 229 posts
But if you are a big company it that can burn through people, it might be better to hire the motivated as they tend to put in free extra hours, where as a hard workers tend to quit at quittin time and go do something else.
Carmack hit the nail on the head again. In high school, I had lots of incredibly smart friends who all turned their nose up at the idea of learning how to program. The only person I knew who seemed interested was a sophomore who was retaking his freshman math class. Despite that, I humored him and taught him the basics of Linux one afternoon. The next week when I saw the kid, he was talking about an FTP server he had…
Interesting. Can you elaborate on the last sentence you wrote? Where is it from?
The confluence of these two notions is at a sort of induced early blooming in potential workers and thinkers, where simply being chosen for extrinsic support and attention is a better predictor of outcomes than actual or initial ability. That scares people because it doesn't just fly in the face of meritocracy, but questions it at a fundamental level.
The problem with this phrasing is it implies that motivation is an inherent aspect of individuals. Nobody is a do-er. Motivation is impacted by a variety of factors.
I am increasingly of the opinion that there is little difference between doing and learning. In fact I would argue that anyone who thinks you can learn without doing is simply wrong.
So then you'd default to always pick the educated person since to you they are by definition a doer?
Theory is great, and opens a lot of possibilities. But until you pull out the soldering iron, or the compiler, or the hammer and saw, and make mistakes, you can't really say you know a thing. At best, you know how to start.
You can try this yourself -- the next time you're feeling demotivated, start with the smallest amount of tiny measurable action. If you can't get out of bed, move your fingers, shake your head, work your way up to standing up, walking, leaving your house, and very slowly building momentum.
If you're procrastinating about work, start with opening up a terminal, launch your editor, write one tiny snippet of code that just compiles, add another snippet, build momentum.
You'll find yourself making excuses, telling yourself that none of this matters, or that you're too tired, or that you're not in the mood. Accept the thoughts and push through the actions.
Very quickly, as the dopamine hits from these tiny successes arrive, you'll find your attitude changing, and this turns into a feedback loop where you end up performing more actions, further improving your mood and attitude.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> That's because the educated don't want to just "do" , they want to be successful at it. I've actually observed the opposite. For a non-insignificant number of people, it seems like their university degree is seen primarily as a piece of paper that allows them to demand a high wage while actively avoiding mental or physical exertion.
To be fair, a lot of folks get degrees in part to avoid the sorts of jobs that require physical exertion, which have traditionally been low-skill jobs. I'm not so sure it is true much anymore, considering that a business degree often gets your a retail management job. A fair amount of those store managers unload the truck along with others.
The only problem if there is one IMO is that everyone is so encouraged/socially pressured into university, that even in the absence of any intellectual curiosity or merit in a particular field they must go. So of course certain programmes or universities get saddled with poor 'retail management' (or worse!) metrics.
There is a stigma against not pursuing undergraduate study (ever increasingly far down the socio-economic ladder) and also against having working to lower-middle class jobs with a degree! We can't have it both ways! If so many people should be post-nominally lettered, then naturally so many jobs should be staffed by graduates.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everyone knows why they applied, but for the benefit of employers, we have created a society in which it is not acceptable to say "I'm only here for the money, I literally do not care about your company."
Imagine there are two applicants who are equal in every way, just that one genuinely likes the job and has the same goals as the company, and the other is just there for the money. It's not hard to see why anyone would prefer the first candidate. That's the one who is motivated and will go above and beyond if required. As a secondary effect, applicants of course notice that they are more likely to be hired if they ju…
I've seen people motivate this by saying that not faking it shows you lack social skills. In the end the customer is never wrong, and when you are selling your time the customer is your manager so keep that smile up! (I hate this culture, but I adapted just like everyone else)