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We Have Luxurious Jobs but We Are Not Aware of It

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Re: We Have Luxurious Jobs but We Are Not Aware of It

#201

Post by seizethecheese »

pmichaud wrote: post #179

There are definitely amazing, luxurious aspects of programming. Something came into view for me recently though, that I never realized before: When I graduated from high school, I started my own little (tutoring) company, and did software from after that, so I never had the experience of a "normal", hourly job, like retail or coal mining or whatever. Recently I had an opportunity to do a job like that and the mood st…

Hmm, so you took one job and feel like that is enough of a basis for making conclusions?

- Have you tried being a commercial dishwasher? I have. That's 8 straight hours of monotonous, yet highly demanding work attention-wise. $9/hr.

- Have you been a line cook? I have. That's 8 straight hours of monotonous, physical work plus a pretty painful burn at least once a day. $10/hr.

Okay, fine I take your point that programming requires heavy dedication to skill. Have you ever worked in accounting? My fiancee works as an accountant and is constantly pushed to work over 70 hrs per week and her job is extremely demanding. (She's the only one at her company that can figure out certain processes, hence the long hours and pressure. She currently is doing the work of 4 people.) $20/ hr.

I'm sorry, but calling your $100/hr occupation as a programmer a "coal mine of its own sort" is beyond absurd, and downright foolish.

Re: We Have Luxurious Jobs but We Are Not Aware of It

#202

Post by beachstartup »

logfromblammo wrote: post #180
beachstartup wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the problem with going to bars is that everyone who hits on me is not really my type. most of the 'offers' i get are from fatties and uglies or losers, and would not result in a relationship even even if i decided to sleep with them. these people simply increase the noise at the bar and don't add value to anyone. oh my god it's just like, so annoying, you know? faux outrage

Ok, that's almost there. Now instead of sitting at a bar, sit at a public park while reading a book. And instead of being propositioned by ugly people, let's say that they are pimps, each trying to get you to stand on their street corner. Also, you have a big, fat wedding ring, and a huge sign around your neck saying "NO PIMPS". Also, you don't know this, since you ignore them as much as you can, but the pimps' custo…

are you seriously comparing receiving emails and voicemails from shitty recruiters to the pimping of prostitutes ...

i think you're proving my point more than refuting it.

Re: We Have Luxurious Jobs but We Are Not Aware of It

#203

Post by meowface »

alex_young wrote: post #109
ForHackernews wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hint: Don't live in California. There are plenty of well-paid software jobs in places like Boston, Chicago, Northern Virginia, Atlanta, Florida, Austin, etc. They might not have the glut of "hot" startups that Silicon Valley does, but they have much more reasonable cost of living.

Another perspective: What you get as a developer in the bay area is way better than other US cities. I've lived in a couple of those places over the course of a decade and a half, and I can tell you that while the cost of living is lower there, so also is the pay. Significantly lower. You figure in the relative scarcity of jobs, and you're looking at making a lot less, limited carrier mobility, and real stress when l…

So clearly you should get a remote job at a company in SF, and live elsewhere. :)

Re: We Have Luxurious Jobs but We Are Not Aware of It

#204

Post by Hannan »

odonnellryan wrote: post #176
guptaneil wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The days you don't feel like getting out of bed. The days everything in your project goes wrong. The days you think your idea is actually worthless and you're a fraud. The days you dread your investors asking for a status update. The days Murphy's Law is a bitch. The days you have a bug that just makes no sense. The days your client is being an ass and you have no desire to deal with them. The days your boss is in a…

Oh yeah, I've had them - I wasn't being patronizing. I just believe, due to the problem-solving behavior of engineers/techs/programmers, we tend to tunnel-vision instead of looking at the big picture. If the big picture is going wrong, it's a problem. Now, a lot of bad days add up to a bad big picture, but if you're planning right, and you have a bit of luck, a few bad days will eventually get washed away, no matter…

I think Spolsky's description[1] of working at the bakery explains best how it works for me. My bad days don't seem to be anything catastrophic going wrong, just a multitude of tiny frustrations. Basically the opposite for the good days.

[1] http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000057....

Re: We Have Luxurious Jobs but We Are Not Aware of It

#205

Post by njharman »

When I'm depressed/sad/whining and people ask "what's wrong" or "how am I doing". They laugh when I reply with variation of "Good, I'm not being genocided". But that is my serious reply. Like this article states, no matter how "crappy" I imagine my (MUC, white, male, american) life to be, If I rationally examine it It is magnitudes better than 90+% of the people on the planet. Thinking about the people struggling to find drinking water or not be killed by their neighbors puts things in perspective.

Re: We Have Luxurious Jobs but We Are Not Aware of It

#206

Post by dylandrop »

pmichaud wrote: post #179

There are definitely amazing, luxurious aspects of programming. Something came into view for me recently though, that I never realized before: When I graduated from high school, I started my own little (tutoring) company, and did software from after that, so I never had the experience of a "normal", hourly job, like retail or coal mining or whatever. Recently I had an opportunity to do a job like that and the mood st…

> Yes, it's luxury in many ways. But it's also a coal mine of its own sort.

Except you won't die from sitting home in your pajamas.

You will, however, be very to die for a multitude of reasons in a coal mine.

I'm a programmer. Yes, my brain is engaged constantly. But that's fun to me. It's not like I rue the day I became a programmer and I had to perform the terrible labor of sitting around with friends/acquaintances, sip free coffee, and make web apps. However, if you're in a sweatshop, forced to work many hours a day and likely suffer a variety injuries, you aren't doing as well.

Re: We Have Luxurious Jobs but We Are Not Aware of It

#207

Post by tracker1 »

mcantelon wrote: post #122
spindritf wrote: post #5

Yes, working from home is great. It is a luxury. Working at your own pace is also nice. But working "on the Internet" means you're also comparing yourself to the best, brightest, and driven. Then it seems like you're achieving maybe 10% of what you seemingly could be, because you're setting your own goals based on what you see out there. It's like getting stuck in traffic. You can point out that I'm sitting in climat…

This is called relative deprivation ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_deprivation ) and Malcolm Gladwell's book "David and Goliath" has some interesting examples of its destructive power, such as when bright students enroll in STEM courses in top-tier schools, but end up dropping out from STEM because the amount of students smarter than them discourages them.

I think it comes down to discovering your role... I'm not the best at any one thing I've ever done. I'm generally very good, and tend to have a greater combination of depth and breadth of knowledge than my peers... but any one thing, not nearly the best.

That's a hard lesson to learn, and accept... I think my goal in life is to accept my circumstance with contentment, whatever that is at any given time.

Re: We Have Luxurious Jobs but We Are Not Aware of It

#208

Post by Natsu »

zhemao wrote: post #183
pmichaud wrote: post #179

There are definitely amazing, luxurious aspects of programming. Something came into view for me recently though, that I never realized before: When I graduated from high school, I started my own little (tutoring) company, and did software from after that, so I never had the experience of a "normal", hourly job, like retail or coal mining or whatever. Recently I had an opportunity to do a job like that and the mood st…

What kind of job was it, retail? Even that job is probably a luxury compared to, say, manufacturing. I don't think you'd have that much down time if you were working in a factory. You wouldn't be thinking a lot, since it's repetitive manual labor, but I'm sure you'd be pretty tired at the end of the day (physically, not mentally).

It depends very much on the job. I'm currently working from home and loving it, but I know far too much about jobs that suck. Factory work can look very much like Lucy from I Love Lucy working at the chocolate factory, for example. It may not be very mentally engaging, but 12 hours (or more) of that are enough to wear down anybody, especially when you get busy seasons with no weekends.

Re: We Have Luxurious Jobs but We Are Not Aware of It

#209

Post by mgkimsal »

chc wrote: post #193
mgkimsal wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"and when I charge you $125 for an hour of my time, you got more than that value, because I was working, firing on all cylinders." No, I don't. I might. But what you value your time at is different from the value I can derive from using your time.

Unless pmichaud is contracting for you, you don't seem to fall into the precondition of "when I charge you $125 for an hour of my time." He presumably sells to people who value his time that highly and doesn't sell do people who think his price is unworkable, so it is almost tautologically true.

"presumably" - didn't really come across in his post.

He(?) seems to justify the $125 "because I was working, firing on all cylinders".

I don't care what your effort is. I don't particularly care if it takes you all your effort, or if you can do it in your sleep. The justification is the value delivered, not the effort expended.

He probably does sell to those sorts of people, but again, I doubt they care what effort he's putting in to it. And again, the written justification was "I'm firing on all cylinders". Some people firing on all cylinders manage to pull in $10/hr. Others pull in $10k/day firing on all cylinders. Your effort doesn't matter to someone - what value they can derive from your deliverable is all that matters.

Re: We Have Luxurious Jobs but We Are Not Aware of It

#210

Post by mgkimsal »

acoleman616 wrote: post #199
mgkimsal wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"and when I charge you $125 for an hour of my time, you got more than that value, because I was working, firing on all cylinders." No, I don't. I might. But what you value your time at is different from the value I can derive from using your time.

You're right. If he's doing his job right, you should be getting MORE than ($125 * # hrs) in value in return.

See my post above. But it's really only partially his(?) job. I can 'do my job' right, but if the other party fails to derive value from what I deliver (incompetence, whatever), then it wasn't worth it to them, regardless of how well I did or how much effort I put in. PART (a big part) of my job is to qualify people up front to make sure I'm as unlikely as possible to be wasting each party's time.
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