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Fuck being productive

dostoynikov.bearblog.dev

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Re: Fuck being productive

#181

Post by mrguyorama »

mattpallissard wrote: post #109
mrguyorama wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Ah yes we are all as wealthy and have the same resources as a famous hollywood actor. People from all walks of life have been raising children since, well, forever. Rich, poor, smart, dumb; nearly everyone figures it out.

Pretending that all those people have had equal success, or that poorer parents don't have a significantly worse time of it than more affluent groups is not helpful.

There is A LOT of child neglect here in the states, and plenty of children literally do not make it out alive.

Re: Fuck being productive

#182

Post by Ardon »

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.

The North American development pattern is unsustainable. It costs more money than to maintain than could possibly be paid for by property taxes. It's wildly inefficient in basically every way.

We've been okay for a while since we use the influx of cash from new developments to support our existing maintenance obligations, but that adds new maintenance in the future.

It's functionally a Ponzi scheme, and now it's starting to unravel. It'll happen in the U.S. too, just slower since the U.S. is bigger.

Re: Fuck being productive

#183

Post by ragnot »

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 is fantastic advice. Another way to think of it: "The days are long but the decades are short"

Re: Fuck being productive

#184

Post by BossingAround »

nightski wrote: post #106
k8sToGo wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Europe and I still have to go to work.

Not only that, software salaries in Europe tend to be far lower on average.

I've seen this argument over and over again, as if "more expensive to employ" directly causes "lower salaries". I don't think the two are directly tied. If it costs you $150k to pay $90k employee salary, for example, that doesn't explain why there are $300k+ employees in the Valley (while that amount of money is kind of preposterous in Europe, though I'm sure some have it as well).

In my mind, it's rather a combination of:

1) European employees not willing to work much more than 8h a day (whereas US folks tend to work themselves to the bone)

2) European employees living in cheaper countries (so the HR has a ready-made BS answer to "why do I earn less than my US counterparts)

3) What I believe is a bit of disrespect towards non-US employees. If the company's based in the US, the upper management's going to be US, and I often feel like the attitude is somewhat "your education must have been worse than the US one, so you'll probably be worse than US engineers" kind of a deal. This is, of course, very subtle; I've personally never felt that from my immediate co-workers, but the salary policies seem to be geared this way.

Of course, being more expensive to employ doesn't help. I'm sure it's one of the contributing factors too. But, as a European, I feel like it's far from being in the top 5 reasons for the salary discrepancies.

Re: Fuck being productive

#185

Post by BossingAround »

commandlinefan wrote: post #46

If that's your thing, I'm totally cool with it - if you need to watch TV or play video games to decompress, that's fine. I personally get really anxious when I'm "wasting" time and would rather learn something (math, computers, music, something) or do something (housework, yardwork, something) with my "spare" time and I can't help but notice that me not spending time doing what other people consider "leisure" activit…

> I personally get really anxious when I'm "wasting" time and would rather learn something

What happens when you get to such a state where you simply cannot NOT waste time? E.g. your job becomes so soul-sucking that you have no mental energy left? Might you be then the author of the post? Hmm.

Re: Fuck being productive

#187

Post by jacobr1 »

notyourwork wrote: post #87
danny_taco wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main reason we all work for someone else is for money but there is something to be said about the things we build at work and not caring about them. This is something that took me a long time to realize but you need to stop thinking about software as a field and start thinking of it as a skill set. From there figure out what interests you. Wildlife, economics, vehicles, etc. or whatever, and then use your skill s…

Big +1, work on something that bothers you in your personal life or something that interests you in your personal life. It will always undoubtedly be more fulfilling compared to simply "working for the man."

One risk I've heard of second hand. If you work on your personal-interests or hobbies ... then that might cease to be fun and just become "work." I've not had that experience (I've always found the projects in my career interesting even if they have non-fun overhead at times) but it is something my wife and others have reported.

Re: Fuck being productive

#188

Post by birdyrooster »

dougmwne wrote: post #32
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…

And then for this person to feel all this emotional pain over using their meager free hours training themselves to be even more profitably exploited. Our prisons really are created in our own minds.

Some people need to go to school, get certifications, do extracurricular activities, work unfulfilling jobs… just to give themselves permission to try for a better position. I have never understood this need for this rigor. It’s upsetting watching my friends fall distantly behind me because they won’t accept the risk of failing interviews or jobs (especially those with no children and have a significant savings). I have been fired multiple times and failed many interviews, and it was all worth it. I can sense their frustration with the “luck” I have had but it was all about taking those risks early on.

Re: Fuck being productive

#189

Post by incahoots »

danny_taco wrote: post #79
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 main reason we all work for someone else is for money but there is something to be said about the things we build at work and not caring about them. This is something that took me a long time to realize but you need to stop thinking about software as a field and start thinking of it as a skill set. From there figure out what interests you. Wildlife, economics, vehicles, etc. or whatever, and then use your skill s…

I think what you've laid out here is invaluable. My skill-set is mostly geared towards sysadmin work, and I loathed working for corporate places, being on-call, dealing with immediate emergencies (which were all superficial), stressed over attending bullshit meetings.

I saw my local library was looking for a sysadmin, it did come with a pay cut, but damn if it isn't a quarter of the responsibilities, fulfilling work, no direct manager, pension, decent healthcare, and I write my own schedule.

No one questions what I do and I have full freedom to come and go without needing to "check-in" with a c-suite.

Will I get rich working this gig, absolutely not but the sense of accomplishment knowing my skill-set is helping the community directly, and those less fortunate fills the pay gap I never thought it could.

It doesn't hurt that it shortened my commute and I do so by bicycle now.

Much much happier now.

Re: Fuck being productive

#190

Post by incahoots »

jacobr1 wrote: post #187
notyourwork wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big +1, work on something that bothers you in your personal life or something that interests you in your personal life. It will always undoubtedly be more fulfilling compared to simply "working for the man."

One risk I've heard of second hand. If you work on your personal-interests or hobbies ... then that might cease to be fun and just become "work." I've not had that experience (I've always found the projects in my career interesting even if they have non-fun overhead at times) but it is something my wife and others have reported.

Finding the perfect balance is the tricky part. I do I.T. consulting on the side, but I am not stringing myself out for a customer. Its one of the expectations when I offer my services.

No I will not be on call, no your computer turning on isn't a emergency and I will not drop everything to hit the power button.

If they don't like the terms, they're more than welcome to pay double my asking and pay a monthly retainer.

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