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I hired 5 people to sit behind me and make me productive for a month

simonberens.me

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Re: I hired 5 people to sit behind me and make me productive for a month

#211

Post by mensetmanusman »

SunghoYahng wrote: post #91

What a great idea. I've been grappling with low productivity for 20 years, trying various solutions without success. I would love to emulate your approach, but don't have the means at present. Regardless, I'm eager to observe the outcome of your experiment, with hopes of replicating it in the future. Don't pay attention to detractors, as tackling productivity is a critical concern and worthy of pursuing with determin…

Make the same Craigslist add but with $2/hr as a salary and increase it until you get applicants.

Re: I hired 5 people to sit behind me and make me productive for a month

#212

Post by webgoat »

vl wrote: post #178
isoprophlex wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I miss updates on n-gate.com They'd have a field day with this.

First rule of n-gate you can’t talk about it on HN. Now we both broke the rule. But honestly, his last updates stopped being fun. It became just too repetitive.

It became the Uber for hackernews hateposting

Re: I hired 5 people to sit behind me and make me productive for a month

#214

Post by robocat »

zht wrote: post #201
joxel wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude you literally called people who disagree mediocre and respond to people saying you’re a dick with an email like reply. Do you think you’re a good person?

You’re responding to a chatgpt comment

Yep: Fake=77.40% on https://openai-openai-detector.hf.space/

Re: I hired 5 people to sit behind me and make me productive for a month

#215

Post by rogers12 »

da39a3ee wrote: post #19

I hope this is satire. If it is not, then the author is a disgusting narcissist with no understanding of people or of human dignity. It's very depressing that HN readers are genuinely responding with approval and encouragement.

I see a few comments responding with sputtering outrage. Could you explain why you experience such a reaction?

Re: I hired 5 people to sit behind me and make me productive for a month

#216

Post by Apocryphon »

t-writescode wrote: post #196
fragmede wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh no! The person I'm watching wanted to be watched! Wait, what?

I feel like this perspective is missing the point. A lot of what we see on the internet nowadays is pornography. It has no point at all except to be a spectacle and to generate conversation and views and to keep the person watching - thereby getting ads, thereby getting money. I see a lot of this on TikTok nowadays; and, if my YouTube feed were less curated, I'd probably see it there, too. It's the food videos where…

Yeah, I think the moralism or existentialism or whatever of “what is real and what is a performance or simulation?” aside, something that is taught as part of an exaggerated performance inherently makes it less objective. It’s fine as entertainment, but questionable as education.

Re: I hired 5 people to sit behind me and make me productive for a month

#217

Post by Apocryphon »

theonething wrote: post #198
viraptor wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Therapy would take away productive time :) I'm not sure if that's a joke, or not. But if you sincerely mean it - I put it away for years and now I feel like an idiot for wasting a lot of my time fighting rather than actually addressing my issues. This would've been the most productive time investment I could've done a decade earlier.

On the other hand, I've seen a handful of therapists, three of them for longer than six months and really, they've done zilch for me. A waste of money in hindsight. Reading helpful books and really applying the good ones (for me) has helped me more while costing way less, aka bibliotherapy [1] That's great that therapy worked so well for you, but don't make it out to be a panacea for everyone. [1] https://www.ncbi.nl…

It’s not a panacea but it’s probably worth at least trying before dismissing it out of hand. Much like going to see any doctor.

Re: I hired 5 people to sit behind me and make me productive for a month

#218

Post by boneitis »

tomdekan wrote: post #155
Mustache wrote: post #117

I'm not sure why there so many negative comments. I work from home for myself and I can say not having a boss to report to makes it easier to get bogged down in non productive tasks. When I used to go to an office and had a manager there was always that external pressure to get things done. I have to constantly remind myself to be productive and not spend time on time wasting websites so I can see how just knowing so…

I agree. The amount of negativity on this post is bizarre. If you don’t like something informative that someone has written, ignore it. I really enjoyed the post and found it useful.

Yes, I also find the overall cold reception unfortunate.

I'm enthusiastic about the topic and appreciated TFA, and I felt like most the people ripping on it here were just a couple steps away from turning their (IMO) unconstructive criticisms to constructive ones.

And yes, as it has been pointed out: a lot of the parameters had him practically crossing over into hiring servants, and I felt like it deeply undermined some aspects of the experiment, although I guess the main goal was just to strictly see increased work output as a fun experiment.

I would have found the experiment more interesting if the warm bodies were hired a little more strictly for accountability purposes in helping the author stay on task not only for work but also with tending to the basic Maslow tasks, especially in the area of home-cooked meals (or just sticking with ordering out/delivery if that is what they usually do). I've only recently acquired the space and wherewithal to be able to do this for myself, and it is a HUGE timesink.

Re: I hired 5 people to sit behind me and make me productive for a month

#219

Post by w-ll »

cactusplant7374 wrote: post #205
tacotacotaco wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I’m too cynical but it just seems performative. It seems like any number of YouTube videos where some financially well off influencer spends their money doing something awkward to attract views. And it worked. Here we are gawking at the latest stunt. Like and subscribe. Don’t forget to smash that bell. Check out my patreon for access to my Discord.

This is a guy that has a "Date Me" link on his website that links to a google form. He seems quite unique.

Liz from "Sneakers" gonna reply.

Re: I hired 5 people to sit behind me and make me productive for a month

#220

Post by Apocryphon »

phphphphp wrote: post #61
sberens wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel it's hard to achieve consistency with coworking; I never had enough overlap with a friend's schedule to make a meaningful impact on my productivity. I actually made a tool (before the experiment) to try to coordinate coworking between a group of people, but it never took off.

Pick any WeWork in a populated city and you'll find people there 24/7 and at least a few of them as will be kooky enough to engage in this performative nonsense (I say that mostly without judgement). Or pick any office building, really, because they'll have 24/7 security who do nothing but sit and watch movies or listen to podcasts. There's an entire world of people bored out of their damn minds in boring office buil…

Or just work in a public or university library if a cafe is too noisy or disruptive.
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