It is easier to educate a Do-er than to motivate the educated • Hacker News Board

Re: It is easier to educate a Do-er than to motivate the educated

#191

Post by killtimeatwork » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 8:07 AM UTC

wongarsu wrote: post #96

theyx wrote: post #85

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…

> genuinely likes the job and has the same goals as the company

It's impossible, unless he holds a large portion of the shares of the company. One of the goals of the company is to replace the guy with someone cheaper or find a way to no need him at all.

Re: It is easier to educate a Do-er than to motivate the educated

#192

Post by AriaMinaei » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 8:30 AM UTC

Alternative take is that education has been anti-maker/anti-doer and it has been so for a long time.

The constructionist movement is trying to change that. To make making be the education.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructionism_(learning_theo...

Re: It is easier to educate a Do-er than to motivate the educated

#193

Post by dageshi » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 8:36 AM UTC

kharak wrote: post #188

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to shake my head when reading some of the replies the parent poster is getting. It is sobering to see so many who have no love for their profession and are trapped into staying solely for money; that's a recipe for an unhappy existence, as can be seen from the bitterness evident in their words.

I personally don't care about tech and take no enjoyment out of programming. I've tried to force myself for years to do side projects and find something in here that is enjoyable. Nothing is. How much I wish I could simply alter my motivation, but no one is the master of his muse. I don't hate programming. They money is good. Everything else I could do, would come with a serious slash to my salary. And that's just so…

This is probably running into a different issue, which is most people have a finite amount of programming (or intense concentration work) in them per day. For me that's 3-4 hours, for most creative people that number is pretty similar. Beyond that you get vastly diminishing returns and worse trying to do a "side project" involves a massive context shift that is mentally exhausting in of itself.

Once I accepted that after 3-4 hours (well realistically about 6 when you factor in breaks) I'm effectively done for the day my stress levels went way down.

Re: It is easier to educate a Do-er than to motivate the educated

#194

Post by Cthulhu_ » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 9:00 AM UTC

I like this punchy summary, it's been in the back of my head in a more wordy fashion for a long time now when it comes to hiring. I used to do technical interviews (nowhere near the scale and diligence of the big players though), and I tended to gloss over a lot of details, that is, there wasn't so much a "scoring checklist", instead I looked for traits like curiosity and enthusiasm. Our technical assessment included working with XML and JSON; early on (early-to-mid 2010's) a lot of people said "I've never worked with JSON before", later on it was "I've never worked with XML before".

Some just gave up before finishing the assignment and didn't show up to the interview at all.

I think the most interesting hire we did from our technical interviews was someone who solved in a modern version of J2EE, years after Spring had become the 'de facto' standard as a response to J2EE itself. But Spring became that thing it swore to destroy, and the J2EE solution looked pretty elegant.

Re: It is easier to educate a Do-er than to motivate the educated

#195

Post by ngc248 » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 10:21 AM UTC

jonwilsonmn wrote: post #58

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, hey, hey! You're stepping on my turf, there! Everyone knows that it's our (old people) job to say "It can't be done!" Younger folks are supposed to be "boundary pushers," because they don't know that it can't be done. They keep trying, until they give birth to beautiful unicorns. Has nothing to do with education, and everything to do with age and [lack of] experience. Disrupt! FTW! At least, that's what they tel…

Giving birth to a unicorn sounds painful.

The horn on the baby is fully formed and while coming "out", a majority of the time it kills the mother and in turn dies without proper care. Only a very small percentage of unicorn mothers survive and in turn the babies. This is why unicorns are rare ;)

Re: It is easier to educate a Do-er than to motivate the educated

#196

Post by Avicebron » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 10:21 AM UTC

Terretta wrote: post #166

Avicebron wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's silly, I didn't equate interest in computers with Asperger's, that would be ridiculous, it's just that people like to flaunt some amount of being on a spectrum as a badge of pride, true or not. I'm not saying it's not fun to flaunt it, but, remember, if your two sigma's below average on the physical list your out of luck, times change, power/money changes EDIT: most human beings feel weird as a kid. That's nat…

> tired of people signaling themselves as … this fetishization of being "weird", "aspergy", "autistic", that's so tired and sad … people like to flaunt some amount of being on a spectrum as a badge of pride … doesn't make you any cooler — Avicebron (4 hours ago) > Not all people want a deeply personal relationship with their co-workers, many would even find being forced to engage in that intrusive. Unfortunately once…

your point being?

Re: It is easier to educate a Do-er than to motivate the educated

#197

Post by stared » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 10:35 AM UTC

"We learned quickly that the most important predictor of success is determination. At first we thought it might be intelligence. [...] There are plenty of people as smart as Bill Gates who achieve nothing." by Paul Graham

http://www.paulgraham.com/determination.html

Re: It is easier to educate a Do-er than to motivate the educated

#198

Post by ck425 » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 10:42 AM UTC

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #142

toomuchtodo wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people wouldn't be at their jobs if they weren't paid to do them. Many people don't do what they do out of love for the work. "On the whole, American workers are generally satisfied with their jobs. Even so, a significant share (30%) view the work they do as “just a job to get them by,” rather than a career or a steppingstone to a career. Views about work are sharply divided along socio-economic lines, and the s…

Sure, that's true for the general population but I don't think that applies here. While software isn't quite as demanding as say law or medicine, it still takes quite a bit of effort and skill to become truly proficient in our profession. Anyone talented enough to succeed at building software is also talented enough to succeed at other well paying professions; it cannot be said that we didn't choose the profession we…

Why doesn't apply here? Just because you have the intelligence and access to education to become a well paid professional doesn't mean there's a career out there that you're going to love. And as another poster also pointed out that it's not all or nothing, there's a lot of middle ground. You can have actively chose this career without 'loving' it.

Personally I find understanding how software and technology works really interesting (I enjoy understanding how 'things' work in general). I also find programming tasks reasonable engaging, if very frustrating at times. They're not my favourite type of problem solving but it's fun. So Software is a reasonably interesting profession and it comes with good money, plenty of opportunity and lot of flexibility.

That said if I had enough money to retire I'd happily leave it and stop programming. My curiosity is largely satisfied and there are other things I'd rather spend my time doing, such as acting, running or studying one of the countless other subjects that interests me. But it's hard to impossible to make a good living doing those things so I keep working as a software engineer and do those things in my spare time. And that's fine. As I say it's moderately interesting and definitely better than most of the alternatives. And I do take pride and interest in my work. But I don't love it and while my career is up there on my priority list it's never going to be top.

Re: It is easier to educate a Do-er than to motivate the educated

#199

Post by HPsquared » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 11:07 AM UTC

User23 wrote: post #147

n8cpdx wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't make sense. There are loads of people (myself included) who are intrinsically motivated to do good work. And not just in the tech industry. Look at all the volunteer opportunities, unpajd city boards, etc that people get themselves involved in. People can be motivated by wanting to make a difference. And yes, some software companies do in fact make products and services that make a difference in people's…

> Look at all the volunteer opportunities, unpajd city boards, etc that people get themselves involved in. Positions such as these often pay in increased social status. Just because the compensation is intangible doesn’t mean it’s not real. Working at an animal shelter may well raise your status with potential partners. Working on a city advisory board will definitely get you noticed and can be a stepping board towar…

The same often applies at work though. Someone who is known as the top 'x' in their company/field gains social status among that peer group, if they're interested in that sort of thing. After all you spend a lot of time with work colleagues when you're at work.

Re: It is easier to educate a Do-er than to motivate the educated

#200

Post by DoingIsLearning » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 11:23 AM UTC

javajosh wrote: post #65

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.

> there is little difference between doing and learning

Indeed, doing is learning. :)