What Doesn't Seem Like Work? • Hacker News Board

Re: What Doesn't Seem Like Work?

#241

Post by kalyan02 » Sat, Jan 17, 2015, 1:47 PM UTC

delluminatus wrote: post #4

Personally, I experienced this with programming. When I learned to program in high school, it never struck me as a chore; it was always just interesting and I enjoyed it. However, I think the only reason I was able to enjoy learning programming was because of how adept I already was with computers as a "power user", because it gave me the physical skills and conceptual underpinnings required to appreciate the field.…

> The only way to know if you love drawing at a competent level is to reach that level. In a sense it begs the question: how can you tell if you will enjoy doing something until you have the ability to actually do it?

I have had such a realisation few years back, which I neither was able to put into concrete words, nor did I take it seriously, until I have read yours.

Growing up, I used to love drawing as a child, but later I started to become indifferent towards it and my skill started waning leading me to wonder if I simply disliked it or was just not so good at it. Unbeknownst to me I started practicing in hopes of becoming good enough at it to be able to do better programmer art work for my games. I became reasonably good at it and only then was I able to reason out that my indifference was because programming interested and intrigued me far more than drawing ever had.

Re: What Doesn't Seem Like Work?

#242

Post by TeMPOraL » Sat, Jan 17, 2015, 1:55 PM UTC

jlees wrote: post #187

TeMPOraL wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What if the idea of work itself is what you dislike? It's that for me, and I'd very much like to know how to handle it. The very same task done 'just because I like to' turns from ecstatic moments of crazy productivity to total misery and physical feelings of sickness when it becomes a job or an obligation. And it's not even on a System2 level. I'd really like to like work. I just can't force my body and subconscio…

Maybe traditional work just isn't the answer. Or maybe a task you kind of like doing but can't find the will to finish on your own becomes a really awesome job, and your 'just because I want to' stuff remains a passionate hobby. Coding gives you a lot of literacy beyond simply writing code to build systems; perhaps those skills could be applied in a slightly different direction, from SRE to teaching to writing a book…

Thanks for the tips! I'm growing to consider different directions; I tend to default to writing code when looking for an income source as it's a thing that I'm proficient at and can do pretty effortlessly.

The other thing I might consider is teaching. I did a few gigs teaching basics of graphics tools to various people and though stressful at times, they went pretty well. I have a knack for explaining things, and I generally like people and talking with them. Tutoring also pays pretty well.

Re: What Doesn't Seem Like Work?

#243

Post by myth_buster » Sat, Jan 17, 2015, 2:07 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #18

cryptoz wrote: post #5

This dichotomy, and the realization that it can fuel smart people to use their abilities to do amazing things in the world, is what upsets me most about the startup ecosystem. I'm a programmer. Writing weather software doesn't seem like work to me. However, since going through a startup accelerator, I'm supposed to all these things that are very much "work" - and it gets me down. Things that are important, for sure,…

I knew some folks at Google who were very content to stay an engineer at the bottom of the org chart and watch the people they mentored get promoted above them, because they understood that what made them happy was writing code and solving tough technical problems, not managing people or playing political games. I always respected them for that. Same reason that Steve Wozniak was always far more of a hero to me than…

I respect Woz for doing that but I think his case is a bit different since he was the co-founder of the company. If you stay at lower rugs, then doesn't it limit your technical decision making power? Or does one need to be indifferent to the philosophical aspect of that and be content with programming?

Re: What Doesn't Seem Like Work?

#244

Post by TeMPOraL » Sat, Jan 17, 2015, 2:15 PM UTC

allendoerfer wrote: post #186

buckbova wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The text of each chapter was just some advice about solving them. He said that as soon as he got a new textbook he'd immediately work out all the problems I literally did the opposite of this. I went so far as to make deals with my teachers that if I got an A on every test, I wouldn't have to do any work outside of class. Maybe I figured it to be a challenge, maybe I was plain lazy. Whatever it was, that didn't pre…

Thank you for letting me feel represented. For me it always was about getting how the system works not the actual lesson. From that angle it is hard to be bad at anything at high-school level. Either you got it how school works and were good or you did not and were bad. For me there was no in-between and all the "people have different talents"-stuff. For me it was about a combination of people skills, short-term memo…

> It is kind of childish, but I still need the "beating-the-system"-incentive to learn complex stuff.

I can relate. I had a few experiences like that in college.

I once got a bit depressed and skipped a lot of classes; when I finally dragged myself to a numerical methods class I was told that I might be unlikely to pass it at all given all my absence. For some reason this made me so interested in the topic itself that I spent ton of time learning and internalizing the concepts, aced all the assignments and in the end I put the PhD that taught our lab classes in a very awkward position - he wanted to give me the best possible mark but he couldn't given my initial absence and the established rules (he actually did stick to the rules he set and gave me a reduced grade, for which I highly respected him and later choose him as my BSc advisor). Funnily, the momentum I gained actually transferred to other classes so I pretty much aced everything that year.

I had a lot of other situations of the kind of "what do you mean this language doesn't even have functions? I'll hack it until it gains them." leading to the most crazy final project submitted; or "what do you mean I can't ace this class? I still have 24 hours left to do a project!". As long as I was feeling that I'm beating the system in a most overkill way possible, taking the doomsday scenario and sticking it back to the faces of naysayers, no task seemed like a chore. I was in perfect state of flow.

Sadly nowdays it's very rare that I find myself in such scenarios. But when I do, I literally don't need to sleep at night.

Re: What Doesn't Seem Like Work?

#245

Post by chippy » Sat, Jan 17, 2015, 2:18 PM UTC

afarrell wrote: post #57

rabbyte wrote: post #11

Is it common for programmers to dislike debugging? I'm stunned. I never considered the possibility, it's always been something I enjoyed. I don't believe it impacts you either way in terms of capability but I imagine it impacts your desire to continue.

I enjoy debugging when I feel like I have some grasp on things. I hate it when I don't know where to look and don't have a good mental concept of the program in general.

I actually like the lost feeling. Debugging is a learning experience for me, on the whole, it's investigating, tweaking, probing and testing.

But one of the main things with debugging is identifying the actual bug. Once the bug is identified the challenge is partly gone, or changes.

Re: What Doesn't Seem Like Work?

#246

Post by asadlionpk » Sat, Jan 17, 2015, 2:25 PM UTC

benihana wrote: post #26

cryptoz wrote: post #5

This dichotomy, and the realization that it can fuel smart people to use their abilities to do amazing things in the world, is what upsets me most about the startup ecosystem. I'm a programmer. Writing weather software doesn't seem like work to me. However, since going through a startup accelerator, I'm supposed to all these things that are very much "work" - and it gets me down. Things that are important, for sure,…

Simple solution: go work for someone else and let them worry about all the infrastructure so you can write code.

No then he would be writing code for something he doesn't like.

Re: What Doesn't Seem Like Work?

#247

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jan 17, 2015, 2:31 PM UTC

benihana wrote: post #26

cryptoz wrote: post #5

This dichotomy, and the realization that it can fuel smart people to use their abilities to do amazing things in the world, is what upsets me most about the startup ecosystem. I'm a programmer. Writing weather software doesn't seem like work to me. However, since going through a startup accelerator, I'm supposed to all these things that are very much "work" - and it gets me down. Things that are important, for sure,…

Simple solution: go work for someone else and let them worry about all the infrastructure so you can write code.

[deleted]

Re: What Doesn't Seem Like Work?

#248

Post by TeMPOraL » Sat, Jan 17, 2015, 2:31 PM UTC

MarkPNeyer wrote: post #58

ta75757 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As (failed) physics major, it sounds so strange to hear someone claim to be good at math but not physics. To me physics is 98% math. It's a few empirical facts from experiments and then bucketloads of math.

i was a physics major, too. the student in our year who was best at math had trouble with the "hand wavy" stuff we'd do. "well, this term is basically zero, so we'll just remove it" and then she'd pull her hair in frustration, like "how can you just do that? how is it still valid?" it wasn't enough to tell her "well it still gives us the valid results" - she had to be able to interpret every portion of an expression…

I feel that the right approach (at least it worked for me) is to tell the matematician - "see, this term is very close to zero for all practical inputs we can see in real life (proof of which will be left as an exercise for you), so - as you can see from the structure of the equation - we can safely drop it without introducing any significant error to the end result. Yes, the result will be a little bit less accurate; no, no one will notice. And if you happen to encounter a high-energy (or whatever) problem, you can always go back and use the full equation". Explicitly accepting that each handwave introduces errors and imprecision but that sometimes those errors are below what we can measure (or care about) should be acceptable enough for a math-minded person.

Re: What Doesn't Seem Like Work?

#249

Post by TeMPOraL » Sat, Jan 17, 2015, 2:41 PM UTC

cgag wrote: post #176

stegosaurus wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an addition to this, I've struggled a lot with the concept of working for pay and only recently could I really begin to explain why. Some people would probably call it 'entitlement', but I'm not really sure that's an accurate description. As an employee, your role is essentially a permanent state of brown nosing. First of all you must convince a rich person/company that you are worthy. Then you must convince them…

I feel this way so strongly. "Why do you want to work for us?" Because I have to sell my labor to pay my landlord for a place to sleep. I'm passionate about a few things, but none of them include being told what to do, then having someone take a large cut out of the value I produce. Edit: I'm currently researching alternatives to traditional corporations, like worker owned cooperatives. If you or anyone reading this…

> I feel this way so strongly. "Why do you want to work for us?" Because I have to sell my labor to pay my landlord for a place to sleep.

Yes, exactly. I personally don't have a problem with being subordinate and receive tasks to do. But if asked that question, my answer would be just like yours. "No, I'm not coming to your place because I care about things you do (I probably won't even know what you do until day 1 of my employment anyway). I need to slave my life away somewhere to provide food and shelter for myself and people dependent on me, and your company just happened to ask me to accept you as my slave master. I have tons of my own projects and ideas that are million time more interesting than what you want me to do here, but money doesn't grow on trees.".

But of course I can't tell that to a potential boss. I need to dodge the question with "I'm a passionate programmer who loves spending time coding stuff, and I'm looking for interesting projects, which your company seems to have". Or something.

I'm increasingly thinking that maybe I should find some mundane computer work, automate the hell out of it without telling anyone, and use all the free time I gained by this to do my own projects. That way company gets the service it wants, I get paid for it and don't feel sick all the time. Win-win.

Re: What Doesn't Seem Like Work?

#250

Post by stevenspins » Sat, Jan 17, 2015, 2:42 PM UTC

Some programmers are philosophers and mathematicians: they like to consider things from first principles, read a lot, and build up systems in their head. They make huge breakthroughs because they question fundamental assumptions. But sometimes they over-model things and ignore how the world actually works, in favor of "elegant" ideas. They may not like debugging because it is often dealing with other people's broken assumptions (i.e. legacy code), and not any real fundamental idea.