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The Frustration with Productivity Culture

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Re: The Frustration with Productivity Culture

#101

Post by tcoff91 »

ehnto wrote: post #55
tcoff91 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go work for some bigco that is coasting on a great market position of a SaaS project and you can definitely find software jobs where you can work about 30hrs a week, make around 130-180k a year, and chill hard. Only problem is that after a while you'll get really complacent and your skills may suffer. If there are layoffs and you have to find another job, you might be in trouble.

You shouldn't worry about falling out of the technology rat race. Everyone's stack is different, you would be lucky to time learning a technology with a particular job opportunity that is using it. You may as well just research it the weekend before the interview and be upfront about your ability to learn it. You can't know every technology and in 5 years you will probably be applying for jobs with tech that doesn't…

I'm not at all talking about knowing the latest tech when I say your skills may suffer. I'm just saying that in my experience, sometimes in a chill job your fundamentals as a developer can suffer. You can literally get worse at programming if you aren't challenged.

However, if you are an internally motivated and driven person, you can take that extra time and energy you get from the chill job and learn all kinds of things and become a much better engineer. The situation is whatever you make of it.

Re: The Frustration with Productivity Culture

#102

Post by tcoff91 »

foxfluff wrote: post #89
tcoff91 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go work for some bigco that is coasting on a great market position of a SaaS project and you can definitely find software jobs where you can work about 30hrs a week, make around 130-180k a year, and chill hard. Only problem is that after a while you'll get really complacent and your skills may suffer. If there are layoffs and you have to find another job, you might be in trouble.

Well I think my skills suffer more because of work: after a day of "being productive" at work, I no longer have the time and energy to explore and learn new stuff, which is how I gained and expanded my skills in the first place.

Yes, the extra time you get from the chill job can go either way. It's whatever you make of it. If you use the time to learn, you can definitely learn more at a chill job than at a hard job.

Re: The Frustration with Productivity Culture

#103

Post by q_andrew »

krisoft wrote: post #11
q_andrew wrote: post #2

The line about asking individual knowledge workers to optimize their own work hits me hard. I'm the only programmer in the office I work at. My boss has started telling people that they should take an hour every week to stop and think about how a small process can be done better/faster. The problem is that the longest and most important part of what they do isn't some manual task, but a mental process (they are digit…

I don’t know what your digital artist coworkers produce, but unless it is pure l'art pour l'art they can think about ways how to streamline processes outside of their art. How do they receive their “brief”? How is the work batched? Does it ever happen that they are asked to produce something which then gets thrown away and wasted for reasons the company could better control? Are there any missunderstandings? If the a…

This makes a lot of sense. I guess I just wondered if people end up degrading the quality of their work to maximize speed instead of inspecting their process which is another part of the artistic flow. Everything you've said here is a good refutation of my original comment.

Re: The Frustration with Productivity Culture

#104

Post by hammyhavoc »

Barrin92 wrote: post #16

The problem with the entire productivity culture is just how industrialized, bureaucratic and formulaic it is. You read the piece by Newport and there is Henry Ford, the assembly line, 'knowledge work', growth, and so on. Words that don't show up once: freedom, exploration, curiosity, creativity (that does show up once in quotes technically). Everything that makes life interesting is discontinuous and surprising and…

I think a lot of people confuse 'productivity' and 'organization'. A considerably large number of people lack organizational skills, especially so when working remotely, or running their own business—it's a lot of hats to wear.

Re: The Frustration with Productivity Culture

#105

Post by Gollapalli »

limaoscarjuliet wrote: post #72
weq wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The kings and queeens have turned into the captailists and relgious zealots who espouse ideals of productivity and growth in order to secure your obedience and trap you in debt and gives you no choice but to continue on or give up everything. By chasing the money you commit yourself playing within the confines of this system. I instead chase my passion and ive found an employeer who is happy to make those same tradeo…

> The kings and queeens have turned into the captailists and relgious zealots who espouse ideals of productivity and growth [...] Advocatus Diaboli here. One has to be careful not to forget benefits of the hard work over millenia which we all enjoy: shelter, electricity, food in the fridge, medicine in the cabinet, transportation right outside of the house we live in. Countless people worked hard to get to this point…

There have always been elites. There will always be elites. The question is, can we afford the rent overhead of our current elites in return for the stability they provide? If not, then a new elite will seize the opportunity and replace them. I'd wager the dissatisfaction with "productivity and growth" is an expression of frustration with a high rent-overhead from a rent-seeking elite, which has ceased to do what made them the elite in the first place.

Re: The Frustration with Productivity Culture

#106

Post by Gollapalli »

mrpopo wrote: post #86
robertlagrant wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly! In 200 years it'll be "why did they try all that cold fusion creation when you can just go to the dollar store and buy a self-contained gateway to an exploding sun to charge your Tesla for the next 1000 years?"

I think the first paradigm change will be "why did they let humans drive cars??"

"safety uber alles" is a sure way for your society to stagnate, at the civilizational level, and a sure way to hate your life at the personal level.

Re: The Frustration with Productivity Culture

#107

Post by Gollapalli »

killtimeatwork wrote: post #92
danjac wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of extended family and friends, the ones with the most personal wealth by retirement got there not by being more creative, or inventive, or productive, or by studying and acquiring skills and knowledge, or starting and growing a business, but by inheriting, buying, renting and flipping properties at the right time. I don't know much about macroeconomics or economics in general, but it seems that's how you climb in th…

> seems that's how you climb in the Western world these days. Or perhaps - used to climb. Property prices can't rise sharply forever. Not if you want real people to buy them too, not just the speculators. Real people have real limits on what they can afford, and, if priced out, you're just left with speculators and a speculative bubble, which won't go on forever.

Well if they can't buy, rent to them! Rent-seeking in a nutshell. The value of a property becomes determined by "can you rent it for more than your mortgage?" and "how much credit can you get?".

Obviously, that's going to break down eventually, and it will be a mess when it does.

Re: The Frustration with Productivity Culture

#108

Post by robertlagrant »

Gollapalli wrote: post #106
mrpopo wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the first paradigm change will be "why did they let humans drive cars??"

"safety uber alles" is a sure way for your society to stagnate, at the civilizational level, and a sure way to hate your life at the personal level.

That's quite the non sequitur.

Re: The Frustration with Productivity Culture

#109

Post by limaoscarjuliet »

fogihujy wrote: post #75
limaoscarjuliet wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The kings and queeens have turned into the captailists and relgious zealots who espouse ideals of productivity and growth [...] Advocatus Diaboli here. One has to be careful not to forget benefits of the hard work over millenia which we all enjoy: shelter, electricity, food in the fridge, medicine in the cabinet, transportation right outside of the house we live in. Countless people worked hard to get to this point…

Also, have our society evolved into one that we actually want? I would expect the answer to vary greatly, depending on whom you ask.

And, if not, should we stop now? Perhaps break-through is around the corner?

Re: The Frustration with Productivity Culture

#110

Post by fogihujy »

limaoscarjuliet wrote: post #109
fogihujy wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, have our society evolved into one that we actually want? I would expect the answer to vary greatly, depending on whom you ask.

And, if not, should we stop now? Perhaps break-through is around the corner?

It's almost as if this wasn't a one-sided issue that could be solved by a few anonymous comments on a discussion forum aimed at a crowd that are relatively privileged compared to most of the World's population.

Jests aside, these are all valid points, and it's sad that the current political climate has become so polarized that it's difficult to have a reasonable discussion about this. Going from one extreme to the other won't necessarily result in a net improvement.

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