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Forgotten Employee (2002)

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Re: Forgotten Employee (2002)

#21

Post by colechristensen »

shubhamjain wrote: post #13
iamjackg wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious: how long were your breaks? I've had two rather long (>6 months) breaks in my career, and I've enjoyed them immensely and have been very productive: finished personal projects, made music, YouTube videos, learned new skills. However, both times it took at least a couple months of passive life before I could do anything productive at all: I just slept, cooked, read, played video games, and scrolled Reddit.…

My break was almost 5-6 months. It's not like I didn't do anything. I revamped my website, shipped a puzzle game, wrote articles. But I had months where I basically didn't do anything. And it was hard to climb out of the stretch of unproductivity. The main issue was that I didn't have any concrete goals. And while theoretically I could have done anything, my mind was digressing everywhere and ended up doing nothing.…

I think it’s basically that a lifetime of being told what to do with your time atrophied your ability to direct your time when you had control.

I have experienced similar things over shorter periods.

Re: Forgotten Employee (2002)

#23

Post by antisthenes »

shubhamjain wrote: post #3

I read it a while back. The story is probably fiction, but I have no trouble believing there must be shitload of people who must have worked an arrangement like that for themselves—taking paychecks without work. What surprises me is that almost always these people don't use their free time to do something productive—like picking up a hobby or up-skilling, they squander most of it. Ex: a programmer who outsourced his…

> What surprises me is that almost always these people don't use their free time to do something productive—like picking up a hobby or up-skilling, they squander most of it.

Do you actually have any data on this, or is this pure conjecture? You seem to have a sample size of 1, and perhaps 2, if you include the fictional story. Both indirect sources.

> But when we do get total freedom, we hardly remain as productive as we imagined ourselves to be.

Speak for yourself. Please don't lump us into your behavior types.

> I realized maybe 9-5 isn't as bad as it sounds and early retirement isn't as good.

For you, perhaps.

Re: Forgotten Employee (2002)

#25

Post by vikingerik »

shubhamjain wrote: post #13
iamjackg wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious: how long were your breaks? I've had two rather long (>6 months) breaks in my career, and I've enjoyed them immensely and have been very productive: finished personal projects, made music, YouTube videos, learned new skills. However, both times it took at least a couple months of passive life before I could do anything productive at all: I just slept, cooked, read, played video games, and scrolled Reddit.…

My break was almost 5-6 months. It's not like I didn't do anything. I revamped my website, shipped a puzzle game, wrote articles. But I had months where I basically didn't do anything. And it was hard to climb out of the stretch of unproductivity. The main issue was that I didn't have any concrete goals. And while theoretically I could have done anything, my mind was digressing everywhere and ended up doing nothing.…

What were you actually doing during the periods of nothing? Just internet browsing, watching TV, sleeping? Any offline non-tech hobbies?

Re: Forgotten Employee (2002)

#26

Post by JoeAltmaier »

shubhamjain wrote: post #3

I read it a while back. The story is probably fiction, but I have no trouble believing there must be shitload of people who must have worked an arrangement like that for themselves—taking paychecks without work. What surprises me is that almost always these people don't use their free time to do something productive—like picking up a hobby or up-skilling, they squander most of it. Ex: a programmer who outsourced his…

Saw a comic recently (xkcd? old one?) where a person was visited by a muse, who said "Working hard and slacking are not the only two things there are in life"

Reminded me to make plans for some of my personal time, not just piss it away.

Re: Forgotten Employee (2002)

#27

Post by BlargMcLarg »

shubhamjain wrote: post #3

I read it a while back. The story is probably fiction, but I have no trouble believing there must be shitload of people who must have worked an arrangement like that for themselves—taking paychecks without work. What surprises me is that almost always these people don't use their free time to do something productive—like picking up a hobby or up-skilling, they squander most of it. Ex: a programmer who outsourced his…

Is it really that strange people would squander it?

Look how kids are raised. The majority of them have decisions made for them all the way to the grave, no wonder so many 'squander' their free time. It takes most people years to deprogram themselves to a significant point. First year is mostly recovering from something akin to burnout.

Re: Forgotten Employee (2002)

#29

Post by kragen »

In Argentina the term is "ñoqui", which means "gnocchi". There's a tradition of eating gnocchi on the 29th of the month, and "ñoquis" traditionally showed up at the office only on the 29th of the month to receive their paycheck. Nowadays I assume most of them do direct deposit, but I don't know any ñoquis personally, so I can't ask.

Normally ñoquis are a result of corruption, though, not bureaucratic mixups. The boss is in on the plan; the point is to funnel an apparently legitimate flow of money to someone in exchange for some kind of favor that has nothing to do with the job they are supposedly hired for. (Hoping this isn't a spoiler: that does eventually happen in the story.)

Re: Forgotten Employee (2002)

#30

Post by scarby2 »

colechristensen wrote: post #21
shubhamjain wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My break was almost 5-6 months. It's not like I didn't do anything. I revamped my website, shipped a puzzle game, wrote articles. But I had months where I basically didn't do anything. And it was hard to climb out of the stretch of unproductivity. The main issue was that I didn't have any concrete goals. And while theoretically I could have done anything, my mind was digressing everywhere and ended up doing nothing.…

I think it’s basically that a lifetime of being told what to do with your time atrophied your ability to direct your time when you had control. I have experienced similar things over shorter periods.

> I think it’s basically that a lifetime of being told what to do with your time atrophied your ability to direct your time when you had control.

I also think humans need to do nothing occasionally and that it's actually extremely valuable. If you look at the entirety of human history this whole 5 days of work 48 weeks of the year is very new. For most of human history we would have had intense bursts of activity (hunting, harvesting, planting etc.) followed by quite a bit of nothing. I think even as recently as the middle ages the average person was working about 150 days a year (though often in bursts from sun-up to sun-down 6 days a week until the work was done).

I took a year off of work, i traveled some, spent time with my now ex-wife, kept up on the latest skills and did a couple personal projects. But most of the time i rested, had a lie-in every morning, worked on my cooking skills, and played video games.

At some point i aim to do a similar thing again and spend a year slowly re-modeling a house (this has the dual benefit of being fun, gaining me new skills and not being anything close to a year of full time labor)

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