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Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

adamconrad.dev

321–330 of 447 posts

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#321

It's wild to me that his way of figuring out what companies to apply for was to make a list of the top-paying ones and just pick the top 10 highest-paying. Is that a common strategy? No thought about product, industry, impact on the world, just $$$. It looks like it worked out for them though, since I guess they got like a million dollar offer, so maybe I'm the one approaching this the wrong way?

If you view a job as just a job, and find meaning in other things in life, optimizing for TC seems incredibly rational. The problem is some people doing that don't actually find meaning in anything but money.

Yeah and this is a perfectly healthy and normal view to have, which really should be the default considering that it really is what the definition of a job is. What is strange is to actually assign other vague emotional needs to a job which doesn't say anything about that in the definition. Which choice will be the more successful here is pretty obvious to me. Any time you start by re-defining something according to your own fantasies, you will probably be disappointed.

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#322
post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s not selling your soul. It’s called being disillusioned with your impact on the world, a feeling that more and more people are feeling. Not even this, it's just seeing a job exactly and only for what it is. As opposed to having some pompous judgemental false self-image of "helping the world" when in reality you are way too lazy and selfish to actually do that, like most other people. It's a common leftist agend…

The most fantastic teacher in the world will make less money than most software developers. This they’re mediocre? Your logic is gross, and idiotic.

The real reason why teachers make "little" money, is because their job is repetitive.

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#323
post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you planning to do with all that financial independence? If the answer is, "Live a meaningful and satisfying life." then... some people seek out work that gives them some of that while they are earning money. Obviously, the idea that work can provide all of the meaning in your life is a toxic meme that leads to people being exploited. But the idea that work should provide no meaning is equally toxic. You're…

> only meaning gives you a reason to get out of bed in the morning. The sooner you start finding avenues for that in your life, the sooner you'll realize you don't need to focus completely on some distant exit strategy like financial independence. The problem is that meaning is undefined and this leads you down a rabbit hole of trying to figure out what is the meaning of life, which will make you very disappointed an…

> It's much easier to just go for the highest paying job

Only a few people can win that lottery. Then again, I suppose finding work that is personally satisfying and pays well enough is also like winning a lottery.

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#324
post #42

It's wild to me that his way of figuring out what companies to apply for was to make a list of the top-paying ones and just pick the top 10 highest-paying. Is that a common strategy? No thought about product, industry, impact on the world, just $$$. It looks like it worked out for them though, since I guess they got like a million dollar offer, so maybe I'm the one approaching this the wrong way?

99% of people in tech aren't changing the world. They are building accounting and metrics and shopping and add platforms to get marginal increases to marginal revenue so some business can make a bit more money than they were making before. I'm honest that I trade my time for money. There are many times when I'll prioritize other things like working with people I like or not working with people I dislike, the same thi…

I think it would be correct to say 99% of people. Only tech is suddenly under this type of scrutiny, and if you generalise like this over whole companies and whole fields of work, you can pretty quickly come to the conclusion that everything is evil.

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#325

It's wild to me that his way of figuring out what companies to apply for was to make a list of the top-paying ones and just pick the top 10 highest-paying. Is that a common strategy? No thought about product, industry, impact on the world, just $$$. It looks like it worked out for them though, since I guess they got like a million dollar offer, so maybe I'm the one approaching this the wrong way?

I'm a sysadmin (or these days "cloud engineer"/"devops person"), and to a large extent I've never cared what the company I work for does.

I like networks, multiple servers, interesting deployments. The actual stuff that is being executed upon those systems is a little interesting, but also a little irrelevant.

There are fields I'd never touch, and technologies which are more interesting to me, but when it comes to looking for a job I'll just google "sysadmin helsinki" and apply to those companies that come top - or to places that friends have recommended.

So honestly? Ordering companies by salary seems like a reasonable enough approach to me.

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#326
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me about the Gervais model.

Reading that series of posts has literally made me more than a $100k. I should probably buy Venkatesh a coffee or something.

$100K by being a more savvy operator within office politics?

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#327
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A very well-paid tool that can probably retire in a few years and never have to work again.

I feel like I'm the only person left who actually likes working and being productive with other people. I actually like programming and solving problems with other people. There's been a huge shift since COVID to embrace not working hard, but to me life isn't as interesting when you're spending 40 hours a week just kinda wasting your time, trying to get away with putting in the least amount of effort possible. Having…

Yes, you like it when you are lucky to end up with people you work well with, but it only lasts until that one guy leaves and that other guy starts. Now you don't like it anymore. Wouldn't it be kind of the same thing but just more flexible, if you could do the same group work programming for open source for example? It would be very similar work but now on your own terms.

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#328
post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s not selling your soul. It’s called being disillusioned with your impact on the world, a feeling that more and more people are feeling. Not even this, it's just seeing a job exactly and only for what it is. As opposed to having some pompous judgemental false self-image of "helping the world" when in reality you are way too lazy and selfish to actually do that, like most other people. It's a common leftist agend…

The most fantastic teacher in the world will make less money than most software developers. This they’re mediocre? Your logic is gross, and idiotic.

Of course they are.

Let's ignore there is not much value coming out of education and that people mostly succeed despite having to go through the grind of an antiquated education methodology (which is the only way to certain professions). Let's ignore that better teachers can actually go to private education and get a higher salary.

Software developers can create software solutions that automatically do the work of tons of people (think about how much time is saved by an online checkout vs maintaining a physical store with employees). It's obvious that software is a great way for companies that want to multiply their revenue and that's the most efficient way to generate value for society at scale.

It's therefore obvious that people capable of delivering that solution have more value compared to a teacher.

You may not like Amazon, but people derive benefits from Amazon all the time. They can get stuff directly at home in a day. They can pay online without even seeing a store.

That's a lot of units of small value for the general public being created by the Amazon employees and Amazon itself.

You may not like where society is going, but people choose with their own wallets what they want or not. This is pure democracy.

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#329
post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> only meaning gives you a reason to get out of bed in the morning. The sooner you start finding avenues for that in your life, the sooner you'll realize you don't need to focus completely on some distant exit strategy like financial independence. The problem is that meaning is undefined and this leads you down a rabbit hole of trying to figure out what is the meaning of life, which will make you very disappointed an…

> It's much easier to just go for the highest paying job Only a few people can win that lottery. Then again, I suppose finding work that is personally satisfying and pays well enough is also like winning a lottery.

I mean: the highest job that you can possibly get, not the highest paying job in the world, obviously. And, it's not a lottery.

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#330
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just "huge mmm" but also huge "American problems only"

The massive amounts of money available for software professionals is an American problem I hope to some day have.

Of course colleges are admission free, insurance prices are fairly reasonable, property taxes are nonexistent, public infrastructure is top notch, car dependence is cool (and to own/pay for more than one car). Non problems really
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