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Fuck being productive

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Re: Fuck being productive

#131

Post by zwieback »

mrguyorama wrote: post #98
myth_drannon wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Robert De Niro just had his 7th and he is 79. So not everything is lost if you didn't have a chance in you 40's...

Ah yes we are all as wealthy and have the same resources as a famous hollywood actor. The physical act of creating a child is so easy many people do it by accident. Raising a child is an enormous task.

Vaguely related anecdote, an acquaintance was playing with his kids at a playground in Central Park and ended up chatting with DeNiro on a parkbench for an hour. My buddy had no idea who he was talking to, which apparently was refreshing enough for DeNiro that he proposed setting up a playdate (which didn't happen though).

Re: Fuck being productive

#132

Post by badpun »

nly wrote: post #81
badpun wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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.

> 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.

That's very easy if you don't have kids - just don't get on a hedonic threadmill (and, if you're already on it, start gradually getting off). I'm not a parent myself, so won't speak about the "with kids" situation.

Re: Fuck being productive

#133

Post by missedthecue »

sesteel wrote: post #45
scaramanga wrote: post #4

Dude, you are absolutely not being productive in the 12 hours of indentured servitude. You need to find a new job. The people at your current job aren't your friends. They've let you arrange to give away a full 50% your life (most of what's left must be occupied by sleep, pissing, shitting, eating, and paying bills). Not a single person in your life has said anything or tried to get you out of the office earlier? You…

This deserves to be upvoted more. Trading your life for financial gain has diminishing returns. You'd think everybody's goal would to be free of servitude.

The point where the diminishing returns start happening is actually quite high however. Especially if you don't earn a US salary.

Re: Fuck being productive

#134

Post by quijoteuniv »

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…

Have you considered the posibility of doing a rewarding job (other than money). I think is possible sometimes, often it might be less money involved, but imagine that your work allows you to work in what you enjoy and in your free time, er r …you just rest or do more of what you enjoy.

Re: Fuck being productive

#135

Post by nly »

badpun wrote: post #127
nly wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Omnibus (i.e. carriage) driver.

Re: Fuck being productive

#136

Post by Rimintil »

Very few of us in society do work that truly matters. Work is like a colouring book: A complete waste of your time (though work might be less fun, YMMV).

It would be lovely to give up the charade of the importance of work.

Re: Fuck being productive

#137

Post by AndrewKemendo »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #119
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 al…

100% this

The idea that work is “over there” and life is “over here” is not only unique historically, it’s also the reason workers have no power. By failing to demand that companies and organizations adjust to us and telling them “this is how we are going to live and companies need to fit into that” then we tacitly let them collude to keep labor power down.

If you are alienated from your work, and accept and lean into that alienation, then you have no personal drive to make work serve you and your community rather than you serving it.

It’s a race to the bottom of alienation and the paved path of capitalism is basically scraping the bottom at this point.

Re: Fuck being productive

#138

Post by ksd482 »

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 am a software engineer.

I struggled to find meaning in my work for the first few years of my career. I used to lie (unknowingly) to myself "I love my job", "I am passionate about my job", "It's my passion" and I was always disappointed.

That is until one day, after many years and barring many details, I decided to tell myself that "I push buttons on a company laptop in exchange for money and I happen to somewhat like it from time to time". I immediately became better at my job as it improved my mental health. I started seeing my work for what it was.

As for "passion", I started looking elsewhere for it and eventually found it. I can't make living from it, but that's another story.

Re: Fuck being productive

#139

Post by Rimintil »

throwaway22032 wrote: post #7

Your week has 112 hours of waking time. If you spend 50% of that at work, you have spent 50% of it at work. Probably the most productive 50%. The entire point of working for someone else is to attain enough money that you don't need to any more and you can treat it as more of an optional thing. If you're not doing that then unless you really enjoy your job burnout is inevitable.

> The entire point of working for someone else is to attain enough money that you don't need to any more and you can treat it as more of an optional thing.

If that were the singular goal/point, then most people should simply give up working entirely because they'll never reach it. They're working their own version of the sunk cost fallacy.

Re: Fuck being productive

#140

Post by bojan »

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. I don't care about the products we build for someone else (why should I?)

You should care a bit, because ultimately whatever we produce ends up directly or indirectly used by other human beings. That is at least my motivation to care about the product - thinking about that person on the other side that will be directly affected in their daily life by the choices I make.

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