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If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)

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Re: If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)

#61

Post by zwnow »

cardanome wrote: post #38

I do something similar for development of me as a human being. I ask myself how can I improve, what kind of person do I want to be, how can I help make the world a better place. My "career" is just a means to an end to put food on the table. Also being in my 30s I think I have mostly maxed it out anyway. Sure I might increase my wage a little bit but all in all as for being an IC it is a good as it gets. Sure there i…

> In the end my work just makes someone else richer, it doesn't have any meaning.

This is something I struggle with a lot. I left companies before, because the job felt meaningless and making some rich guy richer doesn't sound meaningful to me. I am trying to come up with a business idea I can work on on the side, that actually is supposed to make the world a better place, but I am struggling to find anything I have enough experience in to pursue.

I am leaning towards activism now, because that is probably the most achievable thing to do for me. Just building info sites nobody reads, trying to make non tech people aware about how Amazon, Google and so on makes life worse for everyone. Or how anti privacy laws are probably a bad idea.

But that does not feel fruitful either. My everyday life is consumed by the desire of having some kind of impact, making the world better.

Re: If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)

#62

Post by haritha-j »

Swizec wrote: post #6

My favorite lens on this comes from Hamming: > It is well known the drunken sailor whos taggers to the left or right n independent random steps will, on the average, end up about sqrt(n) steps from the origin. But if there is a pretty girl in one direction, then his steps will tend to go in that direction and he will go a distance proportional to n. In a lifetime of many, many independent choices, small and large, a…

It's a lovely metaphor, but I find myself at odds with the logic. What you sacrifice with vision I think is flexibility to respond to serendipity.

Re: If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)

#64

Post by runlaszlorun »

ErigmolCt wrote: post #31
Swizec wrote: post #6

My favorite lens on this comes from Hamming: > It is well known the drunken sailor whos taggers to the left or right n independent random steps will, on the average, end up about sqrt(n) steps from the origin. But if there is a pretty girl in one direction, then his steps will tend to go in that direction and he will go a distance proportional to n. In a lifetime of many, many independent choices, small and large, a…

The vision doesn't have to be accurate, it just has to be directional

Taken out of context, this line seems like a valid description of our ethos these days lol.

Re: If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)

#65

Post by onion2k »

Swizec wrote: post #6

My favorite lens on this comes from Hamming: > It is well known the drunken sailor whos taggers to the left or right n independent random steps will, on the average, end up about sqrt(n) steps from the origin. But if there is a pretty girl in one direction, then his steps will tend to go in that direction and he will go a distance proportional to n. In a lifetime of many, many independent choices, small and large, a…

That's really nice, but the point where the vision is should move too. You learn as you progress. What you enjoy changes. The entire industry moves. Being focused on the goal you defined 30 years ago is almost certainly wrong for most people.

Re: If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)

#66

Post by bboozzoo »

integralid wrote: post #36
paganel wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Statements like this one come for a position of privilege, which is to be expected on a forum like this one targeting techies who are most probably solidly middle-class, but just wanted to point that out. More exactly, most of the (normal) people are NOT in the position of designing their lives, believing otherwise is, again, tainted by said position of privilege.

You either misunderstood or we disagree fundamentally. Everyone can and should design their life. Of course richer people have a lot more choices, and poorer people a lot more constraints, but everyone can make informed choices. Believing "most of the normal people" have no agency is condescending.

Oh they have agency. They also have bills to pay, families to take care of and many other obligations that folks of privilege do not need to be bothered with. It is immediately obvious how privileged we are compared to many others who are not a liberty of designing their lives or careers.

Re: If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)

#68

Post by nicbou »

keiferski wrote: post #27

The main thing missing from this IMO is an element of chance or randomness, the ability to incorporate “unknown unknowns” into your life. The most interesting people I’ve come across have had a variety of jobs, many of which they knew absolutely nothing about when starting out. There is a genuine value add when you’ve worked beyond the same white collar profession your entire working career. In other words, the probl…

In Quebec we have a sort of college between high school and university where you are forced to take "bullshit classes" along with the stuff you chose to study. Mine included philosophy, Spanish, photography, canoeing, and a few others. At the time it felt like a diversion, but it was a welcome introduction to something other than computer science.

In my first year of university, a senior grabbed me by the shoulders and told me that I _have_ to try an internship or semester abroad. One thing led to another and I have just celebrated 10 years in Germany. It led to my current career, which is not at all what I studied.

To answer your question, I think that it requires a certain curiosity, and an appetite for experimentation. I feel like the system is teaching kids the opposite of that.

Re: If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)

#69

Post by georgeburdell »

ramon156 wrote: post #4
hwhehwhehegwggw wrote: post #2

I would take it one step up and say if you don't design your life intentionally your career will.

Juniors fall into this pitfall so quick. Our newest hire actually set boundaries early on and I was pleasantly surprised

Disagree. This kind of comment is furtively pulling up the ladder behind you. Do as I say not as I do. Junior is the time to learn as much as possible and take risky bets (and suffer accordingly). When I was in a junior in a factory, the night shift knew me well. Nowadays, I've pared it back to 50 or so hours per week, because I now have a family, which is fine but it came at the cost of basically zero time to learn or do things other than what my manager asks.

Re: If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)

#70

Post by etothepii »

Deliberate planning is great but serendipity is important too. Some of the richest people I know made most of their wealth as a consequence of being in a position to act* when opportunities presented themselves.

My guess is that it's important not to be overly focused on the intermediate goals and the more debt you have the less able you feel to take risks.

*it may be more appropriate to say start than act as in the two cases that immediately come to mind they were both 10+ year journeys.

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