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The days are long but the decades are short

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: The days are long but the decades are short

#161

Post by chm »

astrocat wrote: post #68

> On work: it’s difficult to do a great job on work you don’t care about. And it’s hard to be totally happy/fulfilled in life if you don’t like what you do for your work I get that this is aimed at the startup crowd, but I've always felt that this sentiment is pretty privileged. We, the elite, get to cherry pick our work and do what we like. But I bet 9/10 people will never feel they have this luxury, and 8/10 will b…

I absolutely agree. But even in the elite some take whatever job they can. Not everybody can be a Doctor, Lawyer, Pharmacist, Psychologist, etc.

Getting an education doesn't mean you can cherry pick jobs.

Edit to add a saying popular in my family: "Ubi amatur non laboratur, aut si laboratur, labor amatur."

Re: The days are long but the decades are short

#162

Post by VLM »

MrZongle2 wrote: post #25
sz4kerto wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having a child relativizes everything else and makes life so much easier because you don't need to figure out the meaning of your life anymore and you don't even need to be successful, neither personally nor professionally. This does not mean you won't be or you can't be, it just does not matter that much anymore. And this is friggin' liberating.

Father of two here. It's true that having a child forces any responsible adult into revisiting their priorities, and some things that seemed important before parenthood suddenly aren't . I don't think it eliminates a desire to be successful: I think that it changes the parameters by which you determine success. And having a child throw up/mess on your nice clothes and shower the inside of your nice car with food and…

As another example along your axis of revisited priorities, everyone wants healthy kids. No kids are always healthy. Some immensely less so than others of course, etc etc. Success is the kids are healthy today.

Can deal with the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune against yourself as an adult by time/getting used to it, and just becoming old school tough. Which don't work for parenting a sick kid.

I think that is a good example of re prioritization.

Re: The days are long but the decades are short

#163

Post by stephengillie »

mathattack wrote: post #72
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #33

I was 5 minutes late to work every morning, because of taking my son to school in the neighborhood where our new house was being built. I didn't want him to have to move schools in the middle of the year. Boss said "This won't do. You'll have to examine your priorities." I thought about it all day, that night. Next morning I got to work (5 minutes late), went in his office, said "I examined my priorities. Work is #12…

I can absolutely see this at an investment bank, or at a job where physical presence is mandatory (such as a security guard, a teacher, or a bank teller). In a creative job like software, it's absurd. Especially when so many places say, "Come when you want".

A major reason for a lack of WFH is due to a manager's inability to manage WFH - these are people that have only been taught how to keep people on task, and have to physically view your body in order to know what you are thinking and doing.

Many of us are well acquainted with the indirect communication from ticket systems, email, and other sources of social noise. We're used to managers who can take a collection of tickets and email, and deduce what their reports are doing. But many people are unable to do this, or untrained.

And since they are taught to be suspicious that you're stealing from the company (as all mediocre managers are) they mistrust the tickets, email, and other documentation you create.

Re: The days are long but the decades are short

#164

Post by codingdave »

lukasm wrote: post #52

"Aim to be the best in the world at whatever you do professionally. " "Become the best at one specific thing. Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things. The first strategy is difficult to the point of near impossibility. Few people will ever play in the NBA or make a platinum album. I don’t recommend anyone even try." ref http://pmarchive.com/guide_to_career_planning_part2.html

Those two quotes are not incompatible.

Re: The days are long but the decades are short

#166

Post by lukasm »

lojack wrote: post #121
lukasm wrote: post #52

"Aim to be the best in the world at whatever you do professionally. " "Become the best at one specific thing. Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things. The first strategy is difficult to the point of near impossibility. Few people will ever play in the NBA or make a platinum album. I don’t recommend anyone even try." ref http://pmarchive.com/guide_to_career_planning_part2.html

> Become the best at one specific thing. I don't necessarily think that's even close to impossible. You can always increase the specificity of a skill to the point where it's possible to become the best at it. If you want an example, it's near impossible for most people to become the best programmer (there can only be one), but go to github and pick a random library and pick the most active contributor to that librar…

The danger is then your domain of knowledge is irrelevant.

Re: The days are long but the decades are short

#168

Post by jonny_eh »

vonmoltke wrote: post #157
mathattack wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can absolutely see this at an investment bank, or at a job where physical presence is mandatory (such as a security guard, a teacher, or a bank teller). In a creative job like software, it's absurd. Especially when so many places say, "Come when you want".

Then why bother with an office at all? We have discussions here about remote work and private offices disrupting team communication, but if your team isn't all in the office at the same time I don't see how that is any better.

Physical presence is still valuable. But strict times for creative jobs are less so.

Re: The days are long but the decades are short

#169

Post by rifung »

vonmoltke wrote: post #157
mathattack wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can absolutely see this at an investment bank, or at a job where physical presence is mandatory (such as a security guard, a teacher, or a bank teller). In a creative job like software, it's absurd. Especially when so many places say, "Come when you want".

Then why bother with an office at all? We have discussions here about remote work and private offices disrupting team communication, but if your team isn't all in the office at the same time I don't see how that is any better.

I like coming in the office to be honest. I prefer face to face communication and also usually am much more productive at work than at home. I think it's just easier to get into the mood when I'm at my desk at work.

Also, even though not everyone comes in at the same time usually there are "core hours" where everyone is expected to be in the office. At my last job this was from 10-3. I don't think it's too unreasonable for a team to be able to find some time when everyone can be in the office, especially when it's only a few hours long.

Of course, this could all be simulated as well if people had work environments. Still, I find face to face interaction much better than trying to communicate online, even with video chat. Maybe it's just about finding the right software to help, but I find being able to talk at the white board invaluable.

Re: The days are long but the decades are short

#170

Post by pyrrhotech »

A lot of the points can be boiled down to "work very hard". But what if you simply are the type of person who doesn't like working? Another point is do what makes you happy. For some lucky folks, work makes them happy, but there's a lot of us who don't like it. And no, it's not just a specific job. A lot of us are just kinda lazy to be perfectly honest. The things I enjoy most are running, eating fine meals, quality times having beers with friends, traveling, reading and playing video games. I do work so I can support myself so that I can do those other things, but I certainly wouldn't work if I didn't have to (and I've worked and saved long enough that I'm fairly wealthy and won't have to for very much longer).

I think one of the reasons is that I don't care about social status or material possessions or competing at who can make the best chat app or anything like that, and work just feels like a grind to me. Sure, some of it is better than other parts, but in the end, I'd always rather be doing something else. I also am not usually impressed with other peoples' career achievements, and getting a promotion or a better job doesn't give me any sort of feeling of accomplishment or 'high', just, well I guess I'm a few years closer to being wealthy enough to get out of this bullshit.

A lot of people will look down on me for this, but I'm ok with that as I'm not trying to win a popularity contest. I just don't think "work hard" is necessarily the best advice to all people. I do think work is important as it's a means of contributing to society, and in the end, I'm glad I did my part, but after I have enough to "get out", I'll have satisfied my conscience to spend the rest of my days having good times and doing things that really make me happy.

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