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The Hacker News Generation (Afraid of Hard Work)

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Re: The Hacker News Generation (Afraid of Hard Work)

#181
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I like this a lot. Seems genuinely useful.

A simple version might be something that beeps like a seatbelt-detector if there is weight in back seat but not in front.

Re: The Hacker News Generation (Afraid of Hard Work)

#182
It's rare I've been so ticked of at an article.

First off, this guy has no conception of burn out.

I work as a consultant. Just the last 12 months in my tiny part of the woods, I've seen several people break down at work and go home crying, two under-30 founders getting hospitalized for heart conditions(!) and the worst: A 40 year-old managing director falling dead from a simple flu infection. Family said the doctors explanation was a severely compromised immune system, most likely due to overwork.

This is not isolated cases, I'd bet most people with just a modicum of perception and commercial experience, will have seen this time and time again.

This guy says that when he wastes 2-3 hours on surfing the net, he feels more burnt out. And it's really just a mental attitude. Your little ups and downs during the working day/week, has nothing what so ever to do with stress and burn out.

If it weren't for his extremely condescending tone and know-it-all attitude, I'd have given him a pass as some young, social media wannabe.

But to go out and exclaim "just power through, it's all in your head" is not just uninformed or stupid advice. It's downright dangerous, and it has to be addressed. I hope anybody, especially young, reading this piece of garbage, thinks twice before they adapt the "rah rah" attitude of this strongly opinionated but completely narrow minded programmer.

For his other point about the "hard workers" toiling away at the same things for years on end, always surpassing more fickle personalities in the end. Well, I think anybody who's worked at big corp will know a whole bunch of lifers, soon-to-be-retired greybeards / middle managers who, despite 40 years at the helm, still only have a third of the influence, autonomy and income of the young and driven business consultant.

Yeah hard work is a requirement to go somewhere. But unless you just want to climb a ladder that others have put in front of you, don't let anybody call you a lazy, entitled brat for not buckling down for 5-10 years at a time.

Re: The Hacker News Generation (Afraid of Hard Work)

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suggest you research the definition of the word "may", and consider the quoted phrase in the context of the sentence you extracted it from.

I suggest that you research the idiom, "he may be X, but Y." If I say "He may be tall, but he's ugly"[1] his height is not in question. Semantically, it means that one of his features may make him effective at something, but another feature (or aspect of the situation) offsets that effectiveness. [1] ...read in the voice of Redd Foxx.

> If I say "He may be tall, but he's ugly"[1] his height is not in question.

The idiom may, depending on context, imply acceptance of the proposition that is preceded by "may", but more generally (whether or not that is the case) it means that that proposition's truth is irrelevant, and that the important thing is the subsequent proposition.

Re: The Hacker News Generation (Afraid of Hard Work)

#184
post #89

Phrases 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…

[deleted]

Re: The Hacker News Generation (Afraid of Hard Work)

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I like this a lot. Seems genuinely useful. A simple version might be something that beeps like a seatbelt-detector if there is weight in back seat but not in front.

You'd have to calibrate it to ignore the weight of the car seat, since people leave them in place. Seems like great idea though.

Re: The Hacker News Generation (Afraid of Hard Work)

#186
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Maybe loren quit because he wasn't being fulfilled." This is the thing that strikes me the most. I'm fairly young still and have begun working at a company as a programmer. I've been there for about five months and can already say that this isn't where my passion lies. There's nothing wrong with trying to figure out where you really want to go in life and trying to achieve it. Not everyone gets it right on the fir…

I'm getting along in (coder) years, and I'll just throw this bit of advice and then yell at you to get off my lawn. I've cycled through "this isn't my passion" about 5 times in 15 years. And what I'm learning, very late, is that it can take about that long to understand the true nature of "passion," and years to develop enough facility, experience and comfort with a particular skill or vocation before you actually un…

Thanks for the advice. I should have been more specific with my complaint. Programming is a lot of fun, and I'm majoring in CS. The problem I'm running in to is that my job is boring, plain and simple. The work is uninteresting and I haven't made any close friends yet there. Most of that is probably my fault, but at the same time I can't imagine myself working there in ten years, much less next year. Mostly because I feel like I'm wasting my life there and could potentially be doing something more valuable and interesting.

I'll keep this in mind though, it strikes me as really good advice.

Re: The Hacker News Generation (Afraid of Hard Work)

#187
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Maybe loren quit because he wasn't being fulfilled." This is the thing that strikes me the most. I'm fairly young still and have begun working at a company as a programmer. I've been there for about five months and can already say that this isn't where my passion lies. There's nothing wrong with trying to figure out where you really want to go in life and trying to achieve it. Not everyone gets it right on the fir…

Don't just look at your current work. Look to your superiors and/or your elders in the company; are they doing work you would like to be doing? As a new-hire, you often don't get to do the most interesting work.

My elders all do the same flavor of tasks that I do, just more entrenched with knowledge because they've been there for a while. It looks like the two career paths for me there if I stick around are either going to be management or the same thing I'm doing now, plus some experiential knowledge.

Re: The Hacker News Generation (Afraid of Hard Work)

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Burnout in tech circles is like Depression in the population in general. 90% of people who say they have it really don't and the people who say it doesn't exist have no idea what in the world they are talking about. But for those who have it, it is un-mistakenly terrible. I put in 80+ hour work weeks for 4 years straight at my last job and it got to a point where I was physically breaking down and developed a slew of…

I'm still a student, but I pulled through something similar (trying to get into college), and I thought harder work would get me there. After a couple of months of sleeping 4 hours a day, and way too much coffee and ramen (some cram nights, I'd down 4 cans of nescafé,2 starbucks mocha's and 4 redbulls just to stay working, along with a bowl of cheap ramen to top it off), I started getting frequent colds, eye infectio…

This is happening to me right now. I struggle to find amid ground from working too hard and staying up till 4 am and working too little. Can you spare some advice?

Re: The Hacker News Generation (Afraid of Hard Work)

#189
I had a project manager we were interviewing decline a 2nd interview because he read some reviews on glassdoor that indicated he might have to work hard. Just the idea that there was a chance he might have to put in time on a night or weekend scared him off. Now granted this was the culture years ago and maybe in other groups but he didnt even bother to ask about it just took the reviews from ex bitter employees (does anyone else but bitter people leave feedback on that site?) as gospel. I guess its better he took himself out of the running. He has also been unemployed for several months.

Re: The Hacker News Generation (Afraid of Hard Work)

#190
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Seems to me like you're treating the symptoms and not the cause.

(Not that there's anything wrong with insurance).

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