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Fuck being productive

dostoynikov.bearblog.dev

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Re: Fuck being productive

#171

Post by slothtrop »

quijoteuniv wrote: post #162
slothtrop wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've expended an inordinate amount of effort trying to get a rewarding job, more-so than at any of the jobs themselves. It's not a given. If you've taken a career trajectory that employers find don't match the pattern they are most familiar with and place a premium on, you will have a doubly hard time, as you're competing with those who haven't. Free time is what there is for me, and though I don't think of it in "pr…

What I am saying is that entertaining the idea, that there might be a job out there that you actually enjoy, might help you find it. At the end of the day is a transaction and is better to learn to make good deals for oneself, and also accept if one can only take a bad deal at the moment. I always tried to make the best out of the bad deals with different degree of success.

> What I am saying is that entertaining the idea, that there might be a job out there that you actually enjoy, might help you find it.

Pretty sure competing for them necessitates that one might suppose they exist.

Re: Fuck being productive

#172

Post by cableshaft »

mulmen wrote: post #155
appleaday1 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada is kind of slowly imploding. It's going through a lot of crisis currently. Housing is one of the biggest ones, for example I am a housing activist and trying to do something actively about the housing crisis happening in Canada.

Can you give an example of what actually happened up there? And what you are doing? I hear rumors (China!) but you seem much more knowledgeable on the topic. I live down in Seattle so I'm curious how similar the situations are.

I don't live in Canada, but Toronto has an average housing cost of $1.1 million dollars (USD)[1], which is almost as much as San Francisco (at $1.3 million dollars)[2].

Meanwhile the average salary in Toronto is $52k USD per year[3], versus San Francisco's average salary of $109k[4].

So that might give you some idea.

[1]: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-home-sales-1....

[2]: https://www.zillow.com/home-values/20330/san-francisco-ca/

[3]: https://www.payscale.com/research/CA/Location=Toronto-Ontari...

[4]: https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Location=San-Francisco-...

Re: Fuck being productive

#173

Post by [deleted] »

gdsdfe wrote: post #148
ksd482 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 li…

where did you find your passion? just curious

[deleted]

Re: Fuck being productive

#174

Post by UncleOxidant »

appleaday1 wrote: post #82
UncleOxidant wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to agree, but then I wonder if people in places like Canada (which has universal healthcare) tend to pursue their passions more than those of us in the US?

Canada is kind of slowly imploding. It's going through a lot of crisis currently. Housing is one of the biggest ones, for example I am a housing activist and trying to do something actively about the housing crisis happening in Canada.

Much of the world seems to have a housing crisis right now. I recall a few weeks ago there was discussion here about the housing crisis in Ireland. I'd say we have something of a housing crisis in many parts of the US as well. Not enough housing was built during and in the aftermath of the great recession - that seems to be how we've arrived at this problem. Housing is hugely expensive both to buy and to rent. It's taking a large bite out of budgets - that's the crisis. Something's gotta give.

Re: Fuck being productive

#175

Post by jillesvangurp »

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…

If you are a good, productive engineer, your boss will bend over backwards to not lose you. Or they should be. Your negotiation power is a lot stronger than you think. Plenty of jobs out there and it never hurts to remind them that they are replacable.

I've enjoyed the work conditions I mention throughout my career. I'm 48 now. But of course I work in a part of the world where this stuff was sorted out decades ago. 40 hour work weeks, 26 days of vacation per year, etc. Here in Germany, many companies even have policies that state people should not be sending emails or replying to those in their spare time. Such a simple thing. Easy to implement too. Just don't reply outside of work hours.

Of course, I'm a startup CTO so I have none of that because I work for myself. But I still take my weekends and evenings because I'm simply less productive and creative when I'm tired and stressed out which is a different way of saying I'm useless when I'm like that. I need my brain to work properly to be effective. So I use my time wisely. And working on weekends or evenings simply isn't a good use of my time. So, I rarely do that.

Being a wage slave is a choice. If you don't like your life, change it. Lots of people are not capable of reflecting on what they do or why they do it and afraid to change or challenge things. They just do the same thing day after day because that just is what they do; no matter how much it sucks. Change starts with you wanting things to change and then acting to make that happen.

Re: Fuck being productive

#176

Post by tilne »

gdsdfe wrote: post #148
ksd482 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 li…

where did you find your passion? just curious

On the advice of a commenter in a different HN thread I recently read Cal Newport’s book, “So Good They Can’t Ignore You.” The main premise is that passion results from valuable skills built via hard work over years of deliberate practice. Only after you have those valuable skills, the book argues, do you have the leverage to dictate your life in a way many people find necessary for satisfaction. Passion follows from there.

The book is a fun read, but that’s basically the entire takeaway. And I find it to be a compelling argument.

Passion does need to be found, but it seems logical that your skills will lead you to the passion, rather than the other way around.

Re: Fuck being productive

#177

Post by PM_me_your_math »

You have working hours and you have non-working hours. I don't see the upside in punishing yourself for not working during non-working hours. Those hours are for you. The proper way to look at this is 'be productive during the time you've allotted.'

Re: Fuck being productive

#178

Post by dostoynikov »

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

I'm already spending time with my wife. I didn't create that list in a particular order. We have a quite supportive relationship and I'm quite thankful for it. Maybe I might have sounded over-depressed in the article.

Re: Fuck being productive

#179

Post by ZephyrBlu »

nly wrote: post #160
ZephyrBlu wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's a top 1% salary in the UK?

This will give you an idea. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/percentile-points-f... In US terms somewhere around $240K USD, before tax.

Sounds like you have a really expensive lifestyle man.

Even most US devs don’t make $240k USD.

Re: Fuck being productive

#180

Post by dostoynikov »

isoprophlex wrote: post #85
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…

What is your timezone, and area of expertise? Maybe you can try getting into a remote gig, with less crazy working hours? We use a lot of offshore labor at $CORPO_OVERLORD, at somewhat more normal work hours. Best of luck, hang tight..!

I live in Turkey and expertise in Japanese translation. Tho, I'm self-studying web development via The Odin Project. But my progress is quite slow due to my work-life balance. I haven't heard of $CORPO_OVERLORD before, tho. What kind company is it?
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