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Maybe you should do less 'work'

johnwhiles.com

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Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'

#221

Post by cool_dude85 »

caffeine wrote: post #135

You are the boss of a company of one. Your company sells labor to the labor market, it makes investments in assets, it borrows funds, etc. It’s your job to decide how that company is run. It’s your job to decide what investments that company needs to make to get good returns. It’s also your job to interpret the contracts your company enters into and decide what is acceptable, and to appropriately risk-manage legal ha…

Wait, I can think of myself as a company selling my labor power on the labor market? Interesting thought experiment, let's see where it goes.

I sell this commodity on the market, to whom? Business owners, I guess. And this is a weird one: I actually have to sell this commodity on the market, if I want to eat and live and all. So does almost everyone else. But the buyers have other options, so I guess everyone on the sell side basically has to undercut each other til there's no more profit left on our side. What does it mean if I'm not profiting, I sell my labor at the cost of production? Best I can hope for is find an inefficiency and hope to eke out a little bit myself until I can afford to be a buyer? Maybe the whole thing doesn't quite work.

Yeah, I'd say internalizing the, uh, implications of this setup is pretty much a requirement for being a grown adult.

Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'

#222

Post by KptMarchewa »

s_dev wrote: post #150
caffeine wrote: post #135

You are the boss of a company of one. Your company sells labor to the labor market, it makes investments in assets, it borrows funds, etc. It’s your job to decide how that company is run. It’s your job to decide what investments that company needs to make to get good returns. It’s also your job to interpret the contracts your company enters into and decide what is acceptable, and to appropriately risk-manage legal ha…

>You are the boss of a company of one. This is a poor analogy and and an analogy that isn't needed (what exactly have you simplified for the reader here -- the concept of self-determination?). Not sure why you think that every person is basically a temporarily embarrassed CEO of a minuscule company and then to grandstand on that as if anyone who doesn't subscribe hasn't hit the same threshold of maturity.

>the concept of self-determination

The concept of opportunity cost.

Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'

#223

Post by nautilius »

beaconstudios wrote: post #211
danielvaughn wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're severely misreading the original comment, and to be frank, your interpretation is pretty juvenile. Nowhere does the person say that we are robots.

the parent is critiquing the argument that we are all homo economicus - an agent whose primary function is to operate within the market at maximum efficiency to optimise for profit. The counterargument is that no, we aren't, and optimising for market exploitation is both an effort in frustration and anathema to human wellbeing. The GP is encouraging us to act like robots by living our lives in accordance with market…

Caffeine doesn't say that anywhere, though. Quite the opposite.

Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'

#224

Post by creaghpatr »

someguydave wrote: post #58
Forgeties79 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I feel like we could take it a step further. Most people are not going to put in five real hours of work every day either. Which makes the eight hour workday in some ways all the more ridiculous. 20 hours a week is pretty much the ceiling in my experience beyond big crunch times, special events, etc. If people really stepped back and thought about how much time they spend screwing around at work I think they…

I think the norm of an 8 hour workday for salaried employees has more to do with excluding the possibility of your salaried “executives” taking on second jobs than it has to do with productivity. In other words I think that the 40 hour work week is often structured more as a kind of quasi-indentured servitude than as a factory production shift.

There is also the alignment of schedules requirement for meetings, especially at higher levels. 8 hrs of productive work may not be required but calendar availability is to a certain extent, especially for higher-level roles.

Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'

#225

Post by vkou »

lliamander wrote: post #214
caffeine wrote: post #135

You are the boss of a company of one. Your company sells labor to the labor market, it makes investments in assets, it borrows funds, etc. It’s your job to decide how that company is run. It’s your job to decide what investments that company needs to make to get good returns. It’s also your job to interpret the contracts your company enters into and decide what is acceptable, and to appropriately risk-manage legal ha…

The amount of bad faith interpretation and just missing the point in response to this solid bit of career advice is just astounding.

There'd probably be a lot less bad faith interpretation if it didn't end with a double-zinger of 'And once you reduce your life to a neo-liberal economic model, is when you will finally grow up and become an adult'.

That last part in particular poisons the rest. Sure, it could be interpreted in good faith, but as it's so damn condescending - why put the work in?

Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'

#226

Post by beaconstudios »

KptMarchewa wrote: post #218
beaconstudios wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the parent is critiquing the argument that we are all homo economicus - an agent whose primary function is to operate within the market at maximum efficiency to optimise for profit. The counterargument is that no, we aren't, and optimising for market exploitation is both an effort in frustration and anathema to human wellbeing. The GP is encouraging us to act like robots by living our lives in accordance with market…

OP did not say that you have to optimize for profit. However, they said that we have to optimize for something. In other words, there's opportunity cost to everything we do.

> You are the boss of a company of one. Your company sells labor to the labor market, it makes investments in assets, it borrows funds, etc. It’s your job to decide how that company is run. It’s your job to decide what investments that company needs to make to get good returns.

> It’s also your job to interpret the contracts your company enters into and decide what is acceptable, and to appropriately risk-manage legal hazard, reputational hazard, etc.

This is an argument that you have the responsibility alone to optimise your behaviour in the market. Yes, your utility function could be oriented towards something other than profit, but OP specifically oriented their argument towards getting "good returns".

While this is the direction that neoliberal capitalism pushes you in, what with the social alienation and commodification of everything in life, but that's because it's not aligned with human wellbeing. Your self-image should not be one of a company optimising its market behaviour; this precludes socialising, spending time in nature, exercising for reasons beyond increased economic productivity. It reduces human existence down to rational behaviour in a market.

To present an alternative, because criticism in a vacuum isn't very effective: I personally think that you should optimise your involvement in the economy, so that you are minimally involved in the economy, so that you can spend your precious little time on earth doing things that actually matter to you - whether that's social relationships, hobbies, communities, whatever. The market is something to be avoided, not exploited. To do this effectively you have to understand the market, sure, but it's the same way an accountant for an enterprise company has to deeply understand tax law in order to avoid paying taxes.

If that's also what OP was arguing for then that's a whole other thing, but that's not the impression I got at all with the whole "you are a company, start acting like one" spiel.

Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'

#227

Post by danielvaughn »

beaconstudios wrote: post #211
danielvaughn wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're severely misreading the original comment, and to be frank, your interpretation is pretty juvenile. Nowhere does the person say that we are robots.

the parent is critiquing the argument that we are all homo economicus - an agent whose primary function is to operate within the market at maximum efficiency to optimise for profit. The counterargument is that no, we aren't, and optimising for market exploitation is both an effort in frustration and anathema to human wellbeing. The GP is encouraging us to act like robots by living our lives in accordance with market…

I'm not sure if this is a new trend, or if I've only just begun noticing it over the last decade. People seem to have completely lost the ability to infer the meaning of words if it lies beyond face value. What a trite, shallow interpretation.

Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'

#228

Post by 0des »

slowmovintarget wrote: post #104
0des wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

on this topic, I would like to add this: The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition (2nd Edition) by Frederick P. Brooks ISBN 13: 9780201835953 ISBN 10: 0201835959 https://www.biblio.com/9780201835953

I read that twenty years ago, and it is still relevant.

Just curious, do you have any other recommendations that are more or less timeless?

Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'

#229

Post by Dudeman112 »

adwn wrote: post #138
adamsmith143 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These concerns, in many forms, have been present for years, however we were once instilled with the instinct to overcome, but now frailty is more valued because even in failure you can not criticize those who are less able. Actually I think you are totally off base here. I know in my cohort of age 30+ millennials there is a strong sense of doom. Many people have the attitude of "why should I have kids when they'll…

> boomerisms Kind of ironic, given that "boomers" lived under the 4 decades long threat of total nuclear war. Frankly, as an instance of those "age 30+ millenials", that would instill a far stronger sense of doom in me than the rather gradual, rather benign (compared to WW3 between the US and the USSR) effects of climate change.

>rather benign (compared to WW3 between the US and the USSR) effects of climate change.

There's nothing benign coming of the acidity/temperature/luminosity levels of oceans going so out of whack that planktons start dying.

Changing nuclear Armageddon for food scarcity Armageddon doesn't make it any less of an existential threat.

Last I heard Mr Putin was playing games with the nuclear shitshow a few days ago, to boot.

Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'

#230

Post by BobbyJo »

Toine wrote: post #185
caffeine wrote: post #135

You are the boss of a company of one. Your company sells labor to the labor market, it makes investments in assets, it borrows funds, etc. It’s your job to decide how that company is run. It’s your job to decide what investments that company needs to make to get good returns. It’s also your job to interpret the contracts your company enters into and decide what is acceptable, and to appropriately risk-manage legal ha…

From a certain extreme perspective, there is some truth to what you're saying, but wow, this is so one-sided, extreme, partial and damaging. What decades of neo liberal brainwashing has done to people. This is so sad, really. We are NOT companies, we're not robots only driven by free will, we don't live in an economy. We are hardcore social animals with huge biological & affective needs, this is scientifically proven…

> We are NOT companies, we're not robots only driven by free will, we don't live in an economy. We are hardcore social animals with huge biological & affective needs, this is scientifically proven.

We are companies. You can be a company of one and not a robot. Being a company of one doesn't imply giving up free will or somehow not being meat and bone. That's nothing to do with the statement he's making.

I hope every young person reads it and take it seriously, because it's reality. No one can manage your time, your money, your mental health, like you. No one will.

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