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I have no idea where to start. Dropping out of the work force sounds scary. I couldn't support my family for very long if I tried. I wish New Zealand paid as well as I hear the US does.
This guy seems smart and ambitious but has a very romantic/naive mindset. A job is an exchange of services, never get it confused with your own mission or "dream".
Sounds like the job just treated devs as replaceable, identical "units", but the author comes across as an individual. The management would hate any sign of life from the "units".
It's pretty common in outsourcing companies. Even in a lot of product based companies tbh. I had to push quite a bit to get people to stop referring to SWEs as "resources"..
Are you hearing that literally? Would you share an example sentence?
This guy seems smart and ambitious but has a very romantic/naive mindset. A job is an exchange of services, never get it confused with your own mission or "dream".
I disagree heavily with this. Lots of people make a living doing what they love/building a better world. Just because we normalized selling our attention to the highest fiscal bidder, doesn’t mean that the highest fiscal bid is actually valuable in terms of life quality. Nobody looks back and says “eh, I wish I’d have worked more at [soulless job]”. I think your perspective is extreme dystopian, and it makes me sad t…
I personally don't have the constraint that i need to give everything to my job and it needs to give back, so i agree with the GP and don't see it as dystopian, just one of the many ways of living.
Others legitimately do have this constraint and probably have to simplify elsewhere (not have kids is something I've seen a lot).
> I imagine building solutions to problems I see in my surroundings. For some irrational reason, I feel a desire to give back to society. I think there is nothing irrational about this. Look up “purpose economy”. Grinding away your life in the interests of some company that basically just wants to achieve financial gains is not satisfying at all, we’re just normalizing it because it’s lucrative and we live in a world…
it's not irrational. Unless you ignore the lower needs on the Maslow's hierarchy of needs and spend your efforts on the higher needs.
The lower needs are basic - sustenance and safety etc. If someone is wealthy enough to meet these needs with time and resources to spare, then it makes a lot of sense to spend the extra resources on the higher needs.
But it is irrational to try to fulfil a higher need, when you don't already have the lower needs fulfilled first.
This guy seems smart and ambitious but has a very romantic/naive mindset. A job is an exchange of services, never get it confused with your own mission or "dream".
I’m not saying you shouldn’t do anything extra-curricular, but as a wage earning citizen you are already doing a good bit of your fair share just by earning money and handing it over as tax revenue.
(Where I am sure this falls down, for many people, is that their local and federal government is useless at moving the needle on any kind of issues for social good. Hands up if you live in a nation with both aircraft carriers and child poverty!)
I left my job when covid started and I do not intend to return into the workforce ever. I run some small projects and make a bit of money on it, although it is much less than what I did with the 9-5 job I have more money now than before. That's because Working has a cost: - living in an expensive area with high rents - transportation to the company - Eating out (No time to cook) - Taxes! - Health (Sitting around so m…
the thing is, if you could already live off your own wealth and assets, then yea, this is great. But what of those who do not own enough assets to support themselves without a paying job?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
...there’s a deeper reason... so many people don’t have hobbies: We’re afraid of being bad at them. If you’re a jogger, it is no longer enough to cruise around the block; you’re training for the next marathon... When your identity is linked to your hobby — you’re a yogi, a surfer, a rock climber — you’d better be good at it, or else who are you? Lost here is the gentle pursuit of a modest competence, the doing of som…
> When your identity is linked to your hobby [...] > Lost here is the gentle pursuit of a modest competence, the doing of something just because you enjoy it, not because you are good at it... Isn't this the issue, though? If "you are what you do", because you link your identity to that, and what you do isn't "good", I can see how than can cause some issues. To take your example, if you're taking up jogging, so you c…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
...there’s a deeper reason... so many people don’t have hobbies: We’re afraid of being bad at them. If you’re a jogger, it is no longer enough to cruise around the block; you’re training for the next marathon... When your identity is linked to your hobby — you’re a yogi, a surfer, a rock climber — you’d better be good at it, or else who are you? Lost here is the gentle pursuit of a modest competence, the doing of som…
> When your identity is linked to your hobby [...] > Lost here is the gentle pursuit of a modest competence, the doing of something just because you enjoy it, not because you are good at it... Isn't this the issue, though? If "you are what you do", because you link your identity to that, and what you do isn't "good", I can see how than can cause some issues. To take your example, if you're taking up jogging, so you c…
Social affirmation is a common desire. It's not wrong to want social affirmation though. The problem only comes when you either never achieve anything worthy of affirmation, leading you to feel useless, or you fake things to get social affirmation (such as those weird "animal rescue" videos, which turns out to be the owner abusing their animals and filming a rescue for likes etc).
I say, people who desire social affirmation should introspect, and see if they are doing something they like doing or it is entirely only affirmation they want.
> I imagine building solutions to problems I see in my surroundings. For some irrational reason, I feel a desire to give back to society. I think there is nothing irrational about this. Look up “purpose economy”. Grinding away your life in the interests of some company that basically just wants to achieve financial gains is not satisfying at all, we’re just normalizing it because it’s lucrative and we live in a world…
> I think there is nothing irrational about this. it's not irrational. Unless you ignore the lower needs on the Maslow's hierarchy of needs and spend your efforts on the higher needs. The lower needs are basic - sustenance and safety etc. If someone is wealthy enough to meet these needs with time and resources to spare, then it makes a lot of sense to spend the extra resources on the higher needs. But it is irrationa…