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Self-employed, self-exhausted

theisolationjournals.substack.com

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Re: Self-employed, self-exhausted

#21

Post by JKCalhoun »

safety1st wrote: post #6

> I used to think that once I made it ... stashed away some savings to weather a health crisis or creative drought ... I’d finally feel free to slow down ... Instead, accomplishment—and the sense of “arrival” I imagined would come with it—proved elusive. I mean, yes? You do indeed need an emergency fund, and the theory, which various retirement vehicles are designed to support, is you set up your affairs to permanent…

> At some point my age and that number will meet in the middle.

Hopefully.

The author mentions: "The leukemia diagnosis and relapses certainly intensified the urgency I feel around work…"

Re: Self-employed, self-exhausted

#22

Post by JKCalhoun »

pelagicAustral wrote: post #3

How did this climbed to hard into the first position is out of my reach, truth is, without so much effort around me I feel like I've outdone myself in a dream, so powerful and clean, that I even shadow myself into irrelevance. /s This whole post is so self-serving and iconoclastic it kind of feels like satire, and if it was, it would be gold, but it's not.... I mean, I don't think it is... The post ends with a "read…

> I would pay Carmack to write about Doom all day long

That just shows that each of us have different tastes.

You can keep yourself pretty busy if engaging in wondering how every post makes it to the front page of HN.

Re: Self-employed, self-exhausted

#23

Post by JKCalhoun »

plainOldText wrote: post #8
AkashKaStudio wrote: post #2

The amount of em—dashes in there exhausted me lol

We used to infer one’s mind from their writing. Nowadays? I’m surprised people are too lazy to even remove them dashes. Well, in fact it might actually be a good thing for one can spot when something was AI generated much easier. I feel like original writing is pretty much dead these days. We’re all best selling authors now.

I've been (over) using em-dashes ever since I discovered them. I have no intention of changing.

Curiously, I find in editing my dad's auto-biography that a certain generation went crazy over-inserting commas — wherever they think you might want to pause to take a breath or something. To my eye (ear?) the result is a staccato sentence.

But the truth is I know nothing about grammar rules — I slept through sentence diagramming in elementary school.

Re: Self-employed, self-exhausted

#24

Post by JKCalhoun »

drooby wrote: post #20
SethMurphy wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have started using —ahem— em dashes more regularly so people think I am as smart —well clever at least— as AI.

It's not just about using well placed em dashes — it's about creating a sense of awe and enlightenment.

I agree. I could drop using em-dashes. I feel though like the narrative feels broken up. It stops and starts too frequently.

Re: Self-employed, self-exhausted

#25

Post by PopAlongKid »

brabel wrote: post #4

I live in Sweden where taking 5 weeks off in the summer is the rule. Never got used to it, I take just 2 or 3 and leave the rest of mu vacations for the winter… but I almost never take the full 5 weeks and end up accumulating it over the years. I think I have over 12 weeks pending even after already having taken 3 weeks in July. I just get too bored and start coding anyway, so why not just work and get paid for doing…

> I almost never take the full 5 weeks and end up accumulating it over the years.

Companies should have a policy to limit accumulation of unused vacation, such as 3 weeks maximum. The problem with unlimited accumulation is that it essentially allows the employee to assign themselves paid overtime[0] without any business reason or management oversight. For example, if the company policy is to have you work 49 weeks and take paid time off 3 weeks a year, but instead you work 51 weeks and carry forward 2 weeks vacation, you have just assigned yourself 2 weeks of overtime.

I used to work for a large corporation that finally implemented such a policy to address exactly what this person has done: 12 weeks of paid overtime that no one asked for and that the company probably hasn't budgeted for.

[0]I don't mean overtime in the sense of time-and-a-half pay or anything like that, rather overtime in the sense of working more paid hours than you were hired for.

Re: Self-employed, self-exhausted

#26

Post by MichaelRo »

brabel wrote: post #4

I live in Sweden where taking 5 weeks off in the summer is the rule. Never got used to it, I take just 2 or 3 and leave the rest of mu vacations for the winter… but I almost never take the full 5 weeks and end up accumulating it over the years. I think I have over 12 weeks pending even after already having taken 3 weeks in July. I just get too bored and start coding anyway, so why not just work and get paid for doing…

In Romania I also have some 5 weeks of vacation, but never take more than two at a time. Two in the summer, two in the winter (Christmas - New Year period) and the rest, sprinkled throughout the year, either for errands or bridge days. Like when there's a holiday on Thursday, I'd take Friday off as well.

Honestly two weeks at a time seems enough and conversely, being absent at work for three-four weeks or more, seems excessive to me. I also have stuff to maintain and new developments to meet a schedule promised to customers, two weeks plus or minus isn't affecting those but I couldn't leave for a month and meet the schedule without killing myself with overtime, effectively negating the whole idea of unwinding during vacation.

But ... speaking of Sweden, one colleague is taking 3 months off. Indeed, Sweden is something else :)

Re: Self-employed, self-exhausted

#27

Post by dakiol »

slyfox125 wrote: post #10

Life isn't inherently easy - or fair. For most, it is much easier today because of the efforts of those who came before us. We are lucky for those efforts because they afford us moderation and comfort that are not guaranteed. To expect results without hard work is presumptuous and pretentious, of which this author has in spades.

It’s a bit trickier than that imho because Hard work doesn’t guarantee results either. And since, as you said, life isn’t fair, we are faced to… randomness. True story, working hard/intelligently does buy us some tickets to a decent life, but it’s not 100% jackpot. I know plenty of people that worked hard, they studied things that are not in demand, and so they are work in whatever they can with shitty salaries. I worked as hard as them, but studied (by luck I guess) something with demand (software engineering), and so I can afford some more niceties in life. And I know people who didn’t work as hard as others, and live a better life than many. So, it’s more complicated than “work hard”.

Re: Self-employed, self-exhausted

#28

Post by TrackerFF »

brabel wrote: post #4

I live in Sweden where taking 5 weeks off in the summer is the rule. Never got used to it, I take just 2 or 3 and leave the rest of mu vacations for the winter… but I almost never take the full 5 weeks and end up accumulating it over the years. I think I have over 12 weeks pending even after already having taken 3 weeks in July. I just get too bored and start coding anyway, so why not just work and get paid for doing…

I'm from Norway, and we have 25 days a year, which also comes out to 5 weeks. I had 7 extra day transferred from last year, so 32 days this year. This year was the first I took out 4 weeks of summer vacation, but usually 3 is enough for me. Travel is fun, but after 2-3 weeks of traveling I start to get a big exhausted, and want to focus on hobbies, house work, or similar stuff.

My routine has been: 1 week vacation during spring/Easter, 3 weeks in summer, 1 week fall or Christmas vacation.

On the other hand, I've also worked in other countries where there's much less focus on vacation. I like our balanced view very much.

Re: Self-employed, self-exhausted

#29

Post by dakiol »

safety1st wrote: post #6

> I used to think that once I made it ... stashed away some savings to weather a health crisis or creative drought ... I’d finally feel free to slow down ... Instead, accomplishment—and the sense of “arrival” I imagined would come with it—proved elusive. I mean, yes? You do indeed need an emergency fund, and the theory, which various retirement vehicles are designed to support, is you set up your affairs to permanent…

I used to think like that too (because it seems like rational thinking and nobody around me could prove me wrong). But as I get older I start to think about the things I’m putting “aside” for when I have time when I’m retired. Doesn’t sound as good as before anymore. I still save for the future, but I don’t delay things anymore because I may not make it (accidents happen), or the people I love may not make it, or some other things can happen in between. You never know. So yeah, I’m trying not to put aside things for the future anymore, even if that means not saving as much as I could.

Re: Self-employed, self-exhausted

#30

Post by hattmall »

anonzzzies wrote: post #17
brabel wrote: post #4

I live in Sweden where taking 5 weeks off in the summer is the rule. Never got used to it, I take just 2 or 3 and leave the rest of mu vacations for the winter… but I almost never take the full 5 weeks and end up accumulating it over the years. I think I have over 12 weeks pending even after already having taken 3 weeks in July. I just get too bored and start coding anyway, so why not just work and get paid for doing…

From the Netherlands and not having had to work since I sold my first company at 25 (over 25 years ago), I cannot do more than a week vacation before getting annoyed and bored. I like building stuff: programming, welding, soldering, guitar playing, cooking. But I have no patience for doing one thing: normally I code myself and vibe with multiple claude codes on the boil, my electric guitar is on my lap, there is eith…

"Working" but not having to worry about money certainly doesn't sound very exhausting.
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