There is a sort of Irony in this post, which I think most people intuitively feel. That is of the leader complaining that his followers are no good at following. This is of course, a classic sign of weak leaderhsip. Not poor follower-ship.
The Hacker News Generation (Afraid of Hard Work)
151–160 of 226 posts
Re: The Hacker News Generation (Afraid of Hard Work)
#152I feel sorry for the author of this post - he actually believes hard, boring work is the only way to accomplish anything. I've done both hard, boring work, and easy, efficient and enjoyable work. The easy work was both more enjoyable, more profitable and far better for my life as a whole. Life is not fair, there are no points awarded for working harder or being more diligent - there are only 'points' awarded for acco…
Seriously. This article is just useless flamebait, unworthy even of the slightest praise. It fails to comprehend any of the complexities of circumstance, time, or humanity, yet claims to have a point above them all. This is the mark of a single-minded spoiled child without worldly experience, who has fallen into some success after a short stint of hard work and doesn't understand his place in the stochastic processes…
Well said, I agree.
and its always comforting to see former co-workers. shout-out ;)
Re: The Hacker News Generation (Afraid of Hard Work)
#153Whenever I read something like this, about the virtue of work ethic, and the vice of laziness I always think back to the phrase on those Auschwitz gates:
Arbeit macht frei
Working hard on something you're passionate is good. Working hard on an important far out goal is good (whether you enjoy it or not). Simply working hard in and of itself is not something I'd consider a virtue. In fact it may be a sign of stupidity.
Re: The Hacker News Generation (Afraid of Hard Work)
#154[deleted]
Re: The Hacker News Generation (Afraid of Hard Work)
#155Phrases like, "The myth of burn out" and "Burn out is just a rationalization for giving up early" give me great pause. Burn out is real . It is dangerous, and even an overwhelming, driving passion for your work, your creation, can lead to disaster. Ed Catmull recounted this story about the production of Toy Story 2 [1]: "So we came back, John [Lasseter] told the story crew to take a good rest over the holidays, and c…
This was in June, so it's summer, and the father was supposed to drop the baby off at daycare, but forgot; don't know why... but came and left the baby in the car, and came into work. As an aside... There was a Pulitzer Prize winning article about the phenomenon of parents forgetting their children in the backseat and leaving them to die in the heat. The main take-away is that it can happen to anyone. It isn't a matt…
That's pretty terrifying.
Seems like a good candidate for an "internet of things" solution in the future, eg. a baby seat with a weight sensor, thermometer and 3G data connection (or optionally, some tie in to OnStar, Sync or just the alarm system on a modern bluetooth-capable car) that could alert you and/or automatically pull down the electric windows in a panic mode.
Granted, you'd have to be careful to ensure you don't create a solution people form a false sense of security around since the communications or electronics could fail, but it seems like overall this might save some babies.
Re: The Hacker News Generation (Afraid of Hard Work)
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is priceless. And then: It doesn’t matter how brilliant you started out or how much faster you exited the gates than everyone else, those who consistently get up every morning and direct their energies along a single path, no matter how boring it may be, will eventually pass you on each of the many roads you haphazardly travel. That's not how life works. You can direct all your efforts to bending cutlery, but yo…
> The author may be a great programmer Really? He reads like a motivational speaker. What's he shipped? Where's his repo?
> What's he shipped? Where's his repo?
If you have not noticed, most (90%) of programmers do not work on open-source projects or toy projects hosted on Github. There are great programmers who have never published a single line of code.
Re: The Hacker News Generation (Afraid of Hard Work)
#157I feel sorry for the author of this post - he actually believes hard, boring work is the only way to accomplish anything. I've done both hard, boring work, and easy, efficient and enjoyable work. The easy work was both more enjoyable, more profitable and far better for my life as a whole. Life is not fair, there are no points awarded for working harder or being more diligent - there are only 'points' awarded for acco…
I find as I've gotten older that it's tempting to write off the next generation as lazy, having bad taste in music, bad sense of style, etc. We all heard our grandparents saying these things to us, yet we don't recognize the annoying, condescending attitude coming from our own mouths as we get older!
That being said, I do think that hard work will almost always take you places, unless you are working "dumb" (as opposed to working smart). You might create something in 6 hours and then sell that idea to google for a billion dollars. The problem comes into play if you actually bank your future on that. Most 6-hour creations, when you look at the history, is the 100th idea or the 100th variation of an idea. So it is somewhat of a false perception that you can create a billion dollar product in an afternoon without putting in any labor before or after.
Re: The Hacker News Generation (Afraid of Hard Work)
#158Hi John Snmez,
I am one of those you talk about: I've left my job at the most awesomest start up in the world to create my company. I believe I've failed, failed to stay in those companies, failed to get value out of my employments, even if my 6-years carrer got me into world class places, even though I was the last guy in the office every day and I never look at HN at work. I admit working hard isn't even enough, one need to work hard and good. But hey, who should guide me into working "good"? I've left, because I didn't learn that where I was.
Hence my question: Could you please provide the criteria to distinguish between slackness/"leaving to pursue an opportunity that you love" and the right thing to do/"leaving to spend the right time to learn more and avoid productivity pressure"?
Re: The Hacker News Generation (Afraid of Hard Work)
#159Uh, the Nietzsche quote has a slightly different connotation when you give it a wider context: When seeking work for the sake of the pay, almost all men are alike at present in civilized countries. To all of them work is a means, and not itself the end; on which account they are not very select in the choice of the work, provided it yields an abundant profit. But there are rarer men who would rather die than work wit…
Do you know which translation/edition the article's version of the quote is from? I've looked through 3 so far, can't find it in this exact wording. Not trying to nitpick, just annoyed I can't find it. The tone and meaning of the English translations changed a couple of times drastically.
Re: The Hacker News Generation (Afraid of Hard Work)
#160Sorry, but this post reeks a little too much of "I spent my youth in a boring shit job and so should everybody else".
Where's the problem if someone decides that he doesn't want to keep working in a boring job?