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

simonberens.me

281–290 of 346 posts

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

#281
post #92

I honestly cannot believe this. The porn part, the make me a smoothie request, dating dinners. This guy seriously paid people to sit behind him and didn't even think about them stealing his $1000 monitors until after the fact? He didn't try blocking any non productive sites? No productivity software? No pomadoro technique-esq focus methods? This guy should have paid $88/hour for therapy if we are being honest here

The scant photos in the blog post are not convincing enough for me. I'm calling it fake.

I don't care either way actually, it was weird, fun to read and kind of thought-provoking

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

#282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why does he feel the need to be 'productive' for 16 hours a day? Yeah after reading the post I’m like this guy must be a founder to value productivity so highly… NOPE, just works at Meta! EDIT: Oh wait, he DID also start a company, during the experiment in fact, but of course it’s in stealth mode! Can’t make this stuff up…

Facebook will catch wind of this and add him to the next layoffs spreadsheet, for sure.

I am not sure. Zuckerberg might align with his personality and keep him.

The question is, how good is his actual work and would it be bad or good PR for Meta to keep him around.

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

#284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would think so. Also doesn’t Meta own everything you create when you work there? I know other companies of that size do. And if so, then creating a company is breach and technically the IP of that company now belongs to Meta too.

>Also doesn’t Meta own everything you create when you work there? I've heard stories like this but I can't imagine this would be enforceable unless the "IP" was very obviously related to his work at Meta. What other companies are you thinking of, and do you have any stories of this happening to someone?

they don't, because stuff like this does not exist. Unless you are outright stealing like that convicted uber/google guy, or building a direct competitor, nobody cares what you do, at least in the location of the TFA.

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

#285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

isn't the complaint that people are not willing or able to delineate who or what it's actually useful for? it seems like it could save some people a lot of time and disappointment.

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

#286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook will catch wind of this and add him to the next layoffs spreadsheet, for sure.

I am not sure. Zuckerberg might align with his personality and keep him. The question is, how good is his actual work and would it be bad or good PR for Meta to keep him around.

indeed... Zuckerberg will read this post and order him a Metaverse avatar that watches porn and trash-talks him while he works : )

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

#287
post #273

I honestly cannot believe this. The porn part, the make me a smoothie request, dating dinners. This guy seriously paid people to sit behind him and didn't even think about them stealing his $1000 monitors until after the fact? He didn't try blocking any non productive sites? No productivity software? No pomadoro technique-esq focus methods? This guy should have paid $88/hour for therapy if we are being honest here

I’m certain she wasn’t actually watching porn. It’s a pretty common joke answer to say “porn” when someone asks what you’re browsing and you don’t want to share. The fact that the author seems to take it as genuine adds to the bizarre nature of this blog post though!

yep. An awkward terrible joke to cover up whatever she was doing - social media, messaging, or looking up her employer

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

#288

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…

Most people would agree that having somebody keeping you accountable in the same room does tend to increase productivity in the short term. Long term, not being micromanaged has a positive mental impact. Regardless, I think most people are rather reading between the lines, since there's some weirdness to hiring (from Craigslist) a "productivity manager" who watches you, does house chores and cooks for you. This is ba…

> Long term, not being micromanaged has a positive mental impact

that's kind of a royal luxury because the things that need to get done today don't care about that.

For me personally I found that the longer i live on this planet, the more I'm drowning in a million stupid bureaucratic things like startup taxes, dealing with tenants, dmv, financial paperwork, etc etc. Maybe good problems to have, but whatever, all this still requires lots of diligent work. Taxes don't care if you are in the mood to do them, you just need to get the hell up and do them on time, correctly, otherwise you don't even qualify as a functioning human. So if there is some person there who gently nudges me to stay on track with all the inevitable, snowballing stupid daily crap, I'd count that as a win and I don't care if they mock it as a "proxy mom" if it's actually productive.

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

#289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's got a 'Date Me' button on his website which takes you to a Google Form where you can apply to be his girlfriend. I can't decide if this makes the blog post more or less believable. Could it be that he's just a satirical character and doesn't really exist?

The "apply to date me" form is something I've seen done in the past by female influencers (or whatever it's called when the line between influencer and sugarbaby is blurred). Everyone's hustling these days. The money flow seems to still go in the same old direction where man flaunts wealth and woman flaunts beauty (not saying this to be sexist; I wish it weren't so, but here we are). It's crude and distasteful and tr…

> animal display bullshit

That's worked for thousands of years, or millions if you count all the species where males "dance" or flaunt their physical appearance to attract a female partner.

I have a hard time to see how something that we have done for millions of years can be bullshit. Seems to me rejecting it is more bullshit.

That said, from your comment I don't understand if you are pro or against the "Date me" form. What I'm saying is the DJ saying "hey babe, check out my records" or the guy dressing well for a date is exactly how Nature intended it to work, not by sending someone a questionnaire.

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

#290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's got a 'Date Me' button on his website which takes you to a Google Form where you can apply to be his girlfriend. I can't decide if this makes the blog post more or less believable. Could it be that he's just a satirical character and doesn't really exist?

holy fuck it's smart

I mean... to each their own.
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