The Toxic Grind • Hacker News Board

Re: The Toxic Grind

#51

Post by UnpossibleJim » Mon, Jun 06, 2022, 4:02 PM UTC

throwaway9980 wrote: post #6

Hitting my mid-40’s with a reasonably successful multi decade career in tech and I’ve recently realized that some gigantic percentage (plurality, maybe majority) of all the hard work has gone into competing against the people around me for opportunities. Not into actual value creation for others, not in service of others, purely focused on beating out other people for the chances. I’m not sure how to reorient myself.…

I've worked for two companies who went public (the dream, right?) after becoming fairly successful and then were driven into the ground and sold off in pieces due to being horribly mismanaged by dispassionate, replacement management (should've sold sooner). I look back over the ~15 years of those happenings and I'm not sure that, in the long run, any valuation happens in the corporate culture. It all seems to be a game of Monopoly, set about by players with enough money to buy their way in, or lucky enough to leverage their way in on very rare occasions.

I can't tell you what will work for you, but I've decided for me that real change happens in small sections in myself and in people. It looks small and incremental, and the world seems large but sometimes that's enough... well, it is for me and that's one of the changes I've made to me... most of the time. It doesn't seem to be working as well, lately with all of the chaos in the world. I'm working on it, though =)

Re: The Toxic Grind

#52

Post by incanus77 » Mon, Jun 06, 2022, 4:02 PM UTC

czbond wrote: post #22

It's like article author has never watched a nature documentary where gorillas kill other gorillas for territory (or most other species similar). Humans are bell curve like all other species. Nature rewards either strength, physical advantage, or mental advantage.... and there is constant competition. That's just the way it works in human nature.... humans are wired that way. You either participate, don't, or find a…

That assumes a zero-sum game in all cases. It is not.

Re: The Toxic Grind

#53

Post by michaelt » Mon, Jun 06, 2022, 4:02 PM UTC

fullshark wrote: post #2

There are some things that are zero sum or reasonably approximated by a zero sum game, and they are increasingly the tickets to multigenerational prosperity, namely real estate, promotions, job offers, and college admission slots. If you are a start up, your market can realistically only support X companies each getting a piece of the pie. I contend that the rat race exists not because of collective delusion but beca…

> There are some things that are zero sum or reasonably approximated by a zero sum game [...] promotions, job offers

Almost everyone in the tech industry is constantly bemoaning how many open many open positions they have and how hard it is to hire people.

Doesn't seem very zero-sum to me - unless you want to become CTO at Facebook or something.

Re: The Toxic Grind

#54

Post by coalpha » Mon, Jun 06, 2022, 4:02 PM UTC

czbond wrote: post #22

It's like article author has never watched a nature documentary where gorillas kill other gorillas for territory (or most other species similar). Humans are bell curve like all other species. Nature rewards either strength, physical advantage, or mental advantage.... and there is constant competition. That's just the way it works in human nature.... humans are wired that way. You either participate, don't, or find a…

Just because it happens in nature, doesn't mean it's good. I don't really understand the "gets his skull crushed" part. Is that supposed to mean something like "If you continue to feel bad in a way that interrupts 'the grind' you will be crushed so stop feeling bad"? That mindset doesn't sound like something that most people can or should participate in. It sounds toxic.

Grinding hard is being sold to people as some kind of normal that everyone should participate in. And people buy into it, myself included. Maybe I'm not a so-called Silverback and I think this article (short essay?) is trying to validate that it's OK.

In the end, I do agree with "either participate, don't, or find a different way" but I think it might be a tad dismissive to call this "griping" unworthwhile. In order to push back against the culture of grinding, we gotta start somewhere, even if it's by "griping".

Re: The Toxic Grind

#55

Post by rightbyte » Mon, Jun 06, 2022, 4:03 PM UTC

chasd00 wrote: post #43

czbond wrote: post #22

It's like article author has never watched a nature documentary where gorillas kill other gorillas for territory (or most other species similar). Humans are bell curve like all other species. Nature rewards either strength, physical advantage, or mental advantage.... and there is constant competition. That's just the way it works in human nature.... humans are wired that way. You either participate, don't, or find a…

i don't know why you were downvoted. I mentioned basically the same in another comment, you can't just turn off competition between humans. Competition is a fundamental component of all known life. You can opt out but then complaining that the rest of humanity has not chose to opt out isn't really fair.

I think the argument is that "grinders" are doing themselves a disservice? I.e. a competitive strategy would be to make your competitors burn out and cheer the chrunch culture while you yourself slack off.

Re: The Toxic Grind

#56

Post by captainbland » Mon, Jun 06, 2022, 4:03 PM UTC

krembanan wrote: post #26

I've always been confused by this, as most studies show around 5~ hours a day is the maximum your brain can do work that requires deep focus (programming etc). So what are these people doing where they can work 10+ hours days? You will see seriously diminishing (and often negative) results when overworking. You'll end up waking up the next morning cleaning up and fixing bugs from your overworked brain.

A lot of people who claim to be like this seem to tweet a suspiciously large amount.

Re: The Toxic Grind

#57

Post by vorpalhex » Mon, Jun 06, 2022, 4:04 PM UTC

This is a case of fighting strawmen.

Nobody is actually promoting to work from when you wake till late at night to make a dollar. Even if you go fully into hustle culture the goal isn't to drink on a yacht - it's to accomplish important self goals like writing a screen play or publishing a book.

Re: The Toxic Grind

#58

Post by Arainach » Mon, Jun 06, 2022, 4:06 PM UTC

krembanan wrote: post #14

throwaway9980 wrote: post #6

Hitting my mid-40’s with a reasonably successful multi decade career in tech and I’ve recently realized that some gigantic percentage (plurality, maybe majority) of all the hard work has gone into competing against the people around me for opportunities. Not into actual value creation for others, not in service of others, purely focused on beating out other people for the chances. I’m not sure how to reorient myself.…

What exactly do you mean by this?

>Most people in tech changes jobs after 2 years

[[Citation Needed]]

This isn't true in the industry at large. To the degree it's true among the HN demographic it's true early in careers. People don't do that forever. If you have a family, you like the stability of a place and don't want to have to spend all of your nights and weekends grinding Leetcode and networking. Once you're in a senior position, it takes time to build the connections and reputation inside a company to be effective, and constantly moving is a disadvantage. Even if you're done being promoted, many people reach a point where they're earning enough to support their lifestyle and have other priorities. I have plenty of friends at companies like Microsoft, Google, and smaller boring companies HN doesn't care about that absolutely could switch jobs for another 20-40% in comp but would have to work twice as many hours a week to do so, and that's a bad trade.

Re: The Toxic Grind

#59

Post by czbond » Mon, Jun 06, 2022, 4:07 PM UTC

rightbyte wrote: post #55

chasd00 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i don't know why you were downvoted. I mentioned basically the same in another comment, you can't just turn off competition between humans. Competition is a fundamental component of all known life. You can opt out but then complaining that the rest of humanity has not chose to opt out isn't really fair.

I think the argument is that "grinders" are doing themselves a disservice? I.e. a competitive strategy would be to make your competitors burn out and cheer the chrunch culture while you yourself slack off.

The competitive strategy idea does work - except for there is a singular you/me and endless competition (humans looking to advance themselves)

Re: The Toxic Grind

#60

Post by czbond » Mon, Jun 06, 2022, 4:09 PM UTC

incanus77 wrote: post #52

czbond wrote: post #22

It's like article author has never watched a nature documentary where gorillas kill other gorillas for territory (or most other species similar). Humans are bell curve like all other species. Nature rewards either strength, physical advantage, or mental advantage.... and there is constant competition. That's just the way it works in human nature.... humans are wired that way. You either participate, don't, or find a…

That assumes a zero-sum game in all cases. It is not.

I don't disagree that 'it' isn't a zero-sum game. I'm a proponent of 'humane capitalism' (term I made up) ..... which dials back the sociopathic nature of capitalism to be a society multiplier, rather than resource hoarder.

An example - although people disagree with Musks's methods, an alternate version of Tesla/SpaceX that treats employees more well rounded like, would be a great model. Advancing society, and helping those involved in creating it.