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Fuck being productive

dostoynikov.bearblog.dev

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Re: Fuck being productive

#121

Post by hotpotamus »

kortilla wrote: post #60
sBqQu3U0wH wrote: post #15

Honestly, I do feel somewhat similar. I work a normal 8-hour day and I am not obsessed with productivity nor I am some kind of anti-work activist, but it just feels like such a waste of time. The only reason I go to work is for money. I don't care about the products we build for someone else (why should I?), nor the technologies used (each of which brings its own challenges and frustrations). If I didn't need to go t…

> I don't care about the products we build for someone else (why should I?) This mindset is how you kneecap your career. You’ve pigeonholed yourself into the foot soldier category when it becomes immediately obvious to managers that you aren’t thinking about what’s actually good for the company. You may already know this, but it needs to be explicitly called out that taking that approach to your business relationship…

Here's the managers in "Office Space" telling the employees to always think of what's good for the company.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0NNVm5ajMQ

Re: Fuck being productive

#122

Post by nly »

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+.

Maybe in the US. Maybe.

Here in the UK, after tax, $50K/yr doesn't even cover my mortgage, and I live in a house that over 100 years ago, according to the 1911 census, supported a family of 5 on a carriage drivers single income.

I earn a top 1% salary as a dev and retirement will still be 20-25 years away for me under ideal conditions - i.e. a 40% savings rate.

Re: Fuck being productive

#123

Post by Jach »

zikduruqe wrote: post #55
sBqQu3U0wH wrote: post #15

Honestly, I do feel somewhat similar. I work a normal 8-hour day and I am not obsessed with productivity nor I am some kind of anti-work activist, but it just feels like such a waste of time. The only reason I go to work is for money. I don't care about the products we build for someone else (why should I?), nor the technologies used (each of which brings its own challenges and frustrations). If I didn't need to go t…

>The only reason I go to work is for money. Don't forget healthcare being tied directly to being employed. If it was not for that, people could purse their passions versus what they have to do just because.

Tell that to the tons of working people out there without workplace sponsored group health insurance. But it's "only" on the order of $200-300/mo for a basic individual plan, and depending on tax income you can get some or all of that back when you file your returns. If you're interested in reasoning from horror stories, might as well ignore FTE group insurance plans too since those don't necessarily protect against life ruining expenses either. If anything, employers should be more on board with sponsoring trips to Mexico/India/other places with quality no-waiting healthcare on the cheaper side of things.

As for people pursuing their passions if only X... there are many people who for various reasons do not have to work and who don't work, it's not a hard sell to extrapolate that the behavior of more people joining that class would be much the same as people already in it. For most of them, most of their time is not spent on Star Trek-ish ideals of bettering humanity/themselves or on passion projects.

Re: Fuck being productive

#124

Post by leesec »

You're saying we shouldn't spend literally all of our waking hours like productive robots and actually spend some time enjoying life? I'm just hearing this now for the first time.

Re: Fuck being productive

#125

Post by jmkni »

When I was younger, I tried to spend as much of my free time as possible learning things that would enhance my career. New programming languages, frameworks, etc, things like that.

Eventually I realised that doing what is basically your job in your free time is fucking exhausting.

Nowadays I try to spend that time learning things which won’t enhance my career. Gardening, cooking, woodwork, much less stressful and more fulfilling imo

Re: Fuck being productive

#126

Post by yboris »

We need 4DWW - Four Day Work Week. This would give all of us the much-needed day to catch up on administrative stuff, so we can have our weekends back for relaxing. We will have time for side projects again.

Fight for 4DWW !!!

Re: Fuck being productive

#127

Post by badpun »

nly wrote: post #122
Jach wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Maybe in the US. Maybe. Here in the UK, after tax, $50K/yr doesn't even cover my mortgage, and I live in a house that over 100 years ago, according to the 1911 census, supported a family of 5 on a carriage drivers single income. I earn a top 1% salary as a dev and retirement will still be 20-25 years away for me under ideal conditions - i.e. a 40% savings rate.

I'm guessing a bus driver in 1911 was kind of a high skill job, sort of like software development is now. How many people could drive a car back then, let alone a bus?

Re: Fuck being productive

#128

Post by zwieback »

FredPret wrote: post #77
zwieback wrote: post #20

Yeah, just wait till you're in your fifties and feel like you're also running out of time to do things! For example: "how many more growing seasons do I have to try this or that tomato" or "should I learn Spanish?". On the plus side kids are out of your hair.

As an adult second-language learner, my advice is not to even bother learning a second language unless you have to, or would love to. You can get proficient quickly, but much of the language's beauty will lie in the subtleties which will take decades of effort to learn. And there's the accent, which you'll never lose. The best time to learn a language is between 0 and 10 y.o.

I'm German and have lived in the US for the past 30 years, still have traces of an accent. I don't care, though, having a Germlish accent in Spanish wouldn't stop me from chatting up all the Spanish speakers around me.

Re: Fuck being productive

#129

Post by missedthecue »

fswd wrote: post #90
sBqQu3U0wH wrote: post #15

Honestly, I do feel somewhat similar. I work a normal 8-hour day and I am not obsessed with productivity nor I am some kind of anti-work activist, but it just feels like such a waste of time. The only reason I go to work is for money. I don't care about the products we build for someone else (why should I?), nor the technologies used (each of which brings its own challenges and frustrations). If I didn't need to go t…

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.

Generally, employers want to screen out apathy, which isn't conducive to creativity, productivity, ingenuity, and worst of all, is contagious.

I agree that asking that question in an interview probably isn't the best method of screening out apathy, but that's why they ask it. I don't actually know what the best method is.

Re: Fuck being productive

#130

Post by atentaten »

georgeecollins wrote: post #89

Here's my free advice on the internet (aka worth nothing). Don't be productive, be accumulative. If every day you do one thing that makes thing easier going forward, gives you another option, makes a job easier in the long term, adds a skill, gets you a reference or a connection, pay a dividend or royalty, etc.. in the long run you will be fine.

This one has revealed the secret.
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