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Fuck being productive

dostoynikov.bearblog.dev

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Re: Fuck being productive

#111

Post by escapedmoose »

88913527 wrote: post #104
briffle wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like all those Microsoft developers, who worked long hours, made their company $15B in profit last quarter (and $5B in stock buybacks) and are now not getting any raises?

At-will employment isn't a valid reason to not care about what you do. The armchair theory is the emotional investment would still lead to promotions, higher raises, etc than someone who otherwise wouldn't be. The macroeconomic climate is orthogonal. For example, suppose that by caring, they got promoted to a new job that will make them a more competitive candidate in the job market. Now that person can more easily l…

I posted this elsewhere but it’s relevant here:

It seems employers/supervisors can sniff out when you really care about something, so they use that as leverage to take advantage: heap on more responsibilities without accompanying pay increase, cut benefits, delay raises and promotions, etc. I really wish that weren’t the case, but as a person who’s passionate about my work, I’ve encountered it at every employer so far. Because of that, my career mobility has come entirely from job-hopping (which I’m not a fan of, but I need to pay the bills).

I’m not in SV so maybe the situation is different there

Re: Fuck being productive

#112

Post by cstrahan »

escapedmoose wrote: post #105
fswd wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny, if you say this duringg an interview "Why do you want the job?" "Money" you won't get hired. So it becomes a performance artist act.

That seems a little disingenuous. Of course they know you’re there primarily for money, so that’s not really the question they’re asking. They’re really asking “why are you looking for money from us and not someone else?” You can be cynical and call that “performance” or be realistic and recognize it as communication shorthand.

Are you assuming “money” isn’t also the answer to this implied question?

Re: Fuck being productive

#113

Post by j7ake »

badpun wrote: post #61
xenocratus wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't care about the products we build for someone else (why should I?) I mean, this obviously depends on the kind of product - is it some biotech to make someone's life better, or is it a gambling website tuned to suck the most out of whales? As engineers we're much better placed than most people to do something meaningful with our work, and sticking with a job where you don't see that value is a pity. But if yo…

> As you say, there's little choice in whether you have to do it (unless you win the lottery or something) With some frugality and smart money management, you can retire in 5-10 years if you're on a dev salary.

This means delaying starting a family, and those previous years 10 years is vital for fertility as well, which discriminates against women.

Re: Fuck being productive

#114

Post by jacobyoder »

Jach wrote: post #102
nly wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frugality is an understatement on that timeline. To retire in 10 years you're going to have to be able to live comfortably on something like 1/3rd of your take home pay. No employer is going to pay you 3x what your nearest peer is willing to live on.

It's relatively easy for software devs to live comfortably on $50k and make $150k+.

Can confirm. Have done this for the last several years. Wife stopped working a few years back due to an injury (but no disability or other income for better or worse), so I've been the sole breadwinner the last few years. I've typically been bringing in between $150k and $220k (gross), and we've spent most of the last ... 7-8 years not doing or buying much. Min obligations each month are now around $3000/month (mortgage, utilities, food, insurance), so there's been a bunch of savings.

I can't retire and never have to work again, but I'm slowing down a bit, and spending more time not earning money (gym, reading, travel, etc).

On second though, if I absolutely needed to, we could probably 'retire' tomorrow, and do a bit more belt-tightening - savings/investments would last probably another 10-12 years without any major changes to lifestyle, then could collect social security. But that's... not something I want to do. I like doing most of what I'm doing, and am just being a bit choosier about what I do now.

EDIT: no kids, semi-rural southern US.

EDIT 2: Moderately high, but irregular, income from consulting/contract dev/tech work. Not W2.

Re: Fuck being productive

#115

Post by jillesvangurp »

Work at work, enjoy life outside of work. Have real weekends and evenings and use them to reset your brain. Allowing your brain to reset is an essential part of being productive. Your short term memory gets in the way of solving problems sometimes. And your brain actually does useful things while you sleep. I've lost count of how solutions to seemingly tricky issues just pop in my head after a good night sleep or after a long weekend.

And you can learn on the job. No need to do that outside work hours. And trying to learn stuff when you are tired after a long day is hard. It makes you more tired, you learn slower, it's frustrating, and you are setting yourself up for being less productive the next day because of it.

Make time for learning stuff, demand time for it even and put it in your calendar or just sneak it in. Get your boss to support you.

Try working smarter, not harder. If it feels like monkey work automate it. It's more fun and you get more productive by doing less. Frees up some time to do more interesting things.

If your work is not interesting to you, you are in the wrong job anyway. But assuming it is, you should make the most of it in terms of making it rewarding (and not just in the money sense).

Re: Fuck being productive

#116

Post by simontheowl »

I had similar thoughts for a while. What helped me was instead of aiming to make all of the time outside work productive (3-4 hours) just aim for under an hour. For me, 40 min of producitivity per day outside of work makes me feel accomplished. You can actually get a lot done in that span of time like do some exercise, practice an instrument, read an article... (pick one per day and cycle through the week). Not much immediate gratification, but over the years it adds up to a tonn of personal development. Plus with a 40-min window you don't feel guilt about abandoning your other family duties etc.

Re: Fuck being productive

#117

Post by nebulousthree »

tobbe2064 wrote: post #80
dostoynikov wrote: post #10

I'm the one who posted that post on bearblog and I want to make something clear. My working hours are from 7:30-17:30. But transportation takes an hour in the morning and an hour(at least) in the evening. So I added that two hours too because those two hours are no use to me. I can't do anything in those transportation hours. I might not have made this part clear, sorry for that. But yeah, I know that working time is…

Dude, you are a thinking like an idiot. Spend some time with your wife FFS. Who cares about being productive or playing fucking video games. Your wife ranked at the bottom of you list next to generic friend. You need to reconsider whats actually valuable to you. You need some soul searching

Try being a little more understanding. Psychological prisons are almost never obvious to oneself. It takes time, especially dead time, to recognize the impact of our words and behaviours on ourselves and the people we surround ourselves with. Perhaps this post was the first major step for this person after much internal deliberation.

Re: Fuck being productive

#118

Post by escapedmoose »

cstrahan wrote: post #112
escapedmoose wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems a little disingenuous. Of course they know you’re there primarily for money, so that’s not really the question they’re asking. They’re really asking “why are you looking for money from us and not someone else?” You can be cynical and call that “performance” or be realistic and recognize it as communication shorthand.

Are you assuming “money” isn’t also the answer to this implied question?

Haha maybe that’s the answer for you personally. I wouldn’t take more money for a worse job (generally), so I guess I am assuming money isn’t also the second answer

Re: Fuck being productive

#119

Post by wahnfrieden »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #115

Work at work, enjoy life outside of work. Have real weekends and evenings and use them to reset your brain. Allowing your brain to reset is an essential part of being productive. Your short term memory gets in the way of solving problems sometimes. And your brain actually does useful things while you sleep. I've lost count of how solutions to seemingly tricky issues just pop in my head after a good night sleep or aft…

Sounds like massive cope. If we don’t like work perhaps we can change it without waiting on favors to be handed down to us. Your boss won’t help unless market conditions force their hand.

The work conditions you mentioned (free weekday nights and the weekend) were fought for by organized workers and are very new, why stop there?

I don't think we'll even keep those conditions if that's what we're satisfied with. We already see that in tech with Slack, uncompensated on-call, salaried overtime expectations set during hiring or onboarding, the expectation that prospective hires spend their free time on training projects, etc

Re: Fuck being productive

#120

Post by slt2021 »

cstrahan wrote: post #112
escapedmoose wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems a little disingenuous. Of course they know you’re there primarily for money, so that’s not really the question they’re asking. They’re really asking “why are you looking for money from us and not someone else?” You can be cynical and call that “performance” or be realistic and recognize it as communication shorthand.

Are you assuming “money” isn’t also the answer to this implied question?

if money is the only reason, you can get money elsewhere.

it ties back to theory of employee motivation, money being only external motivator. For high performance, employee needs also internal motivation (drive).

employees with internal motivation are miles ahead and more productive than without one.

this is why well paid and pampered Gogle engineers are less productive than some open-source enthusiasts

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