What Doesn't Seem Like Work? • Hacker News Board

Re: What Doesn't Seem Like Work?

#181

Post by levlandau » Sat, Jan 17, 2015, 5:25 AM UTC

delluminatus wrote: post #4

Personally, I experienced this with programming. When I learned to program in high school, it never struck me as a chore; it was always just interesting and I enjoyed it. However, I think the only reason I was able to enjoy learning programming was because of how adept I already was with computers as a "power user", because it gave me the physical skills and conceptual underpinnings required to appreciate the field.…

This is a great point. These things are never black and white. I suppose you could argue that the pain of developing a new skill could be enjoyable to you and this is how you identify things that don't feel like work. I generally find this to be true (to a degree) for things i truly enjoy and/or have accumulated the most ability in.

Re: What Doesn't Seem Like Work?

#182

Post by DavidWanjiru » Sat, Jan 17, 2015, 5:27 AM UTC

tim333 wrote: post #140

ta75757 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As (failed) physics major, it sounds so strange to hear someone claim to be good at math but not physics. To me physics is 98% math. It's a few empirical facts from experiments and then bucketloads of math.

There's a lot of physics that isn't maths - more visualising how stuff works. Feynman's quite interesting talking about it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obCjODeoLVw

I remember in high school when I was in Form 3 (the penultimate high school class in Kenya, typically at age 16, give or take, more give than take), we were taught about wave interference and the double slit experiment. As a thought exercise, our physics teacher verbally explained various scenarios and asked us what would be observed. In one such scenario, alternating dark and bright lines would be observed, and I was the only one in my class who could visualize it. He took to calling me The Thinker henceforth.

Tl;dr? That whole visualizing thing in physics? IKR?

Re: What Doesn't Seem Like Work?

#183

Post by heurist » Sat, Jan 17, 2015, 5:29 AM UTC

stegosaurus wrote: post #154

stegosaurus wrote: post #75

What if the idea of work itself is what you dislike? There are plenty of activities I can enjoy, and some, quite a few of them in fact, are profitable. Once you shoe-horn them into the power dynamic situation of a traditional job (with the bureaucracy that entails unless you're dealing with Actual People as opposed to corporations), suddenly a lot of the luster disappears. As a ridiculous example - I enjoy reading. I…

As an addition to this, I've struggled a lot with the concept of working for pay and only recently could I really begin to explain why. Some people would probably call it 'entitlement', but I'm not really sure that's an accurate description. As an employee, your role is essentially a permanent state of brown nosing. First of all you must convince a rich person/company that you are worthy. Then you must convince them…

I'm with you. The only options I've thought of are independent employment or escaping society, both come with significant tradeoffs and neither are simple to accomplish, especially without personal guidance... I guess you could find a job you're overqualified for too, make things easy at least even if you don't get to own your time. I'm not sure that would be fulfilling either.

Re: What Doesn't Seem Like Work?

#184

Post by nichochar » Sat, Jan 17, 2015, 5:35 AM UTC

ta75757 wrote: post #42

dxbydt wrote: post #38

This excerpt - "what he really liked was solving problems. The text of each chapter was just some advice about solving them. He said that as soon as he got a new textbook he'd immediately work out all the problems—to the slight annoyance of his teacher, since the class was supposed to work through the book gradually." is literally me. I did that. Every year at my school I did exactly that. Once I actually turned in m…

As (failed) physics major, it sounds so strange to hear someone claim to be good at math but not physics. To me physics is 98% math. It's a few empirical facts from experiments and then bucketloads of math.

I disagree so much!

Math in physics (at least most of the physics I have done, which covers classical 19th century stuff mostly) is just a tool, if you can take a shortcut, take it! If you can approximate and cheat, do it! What matters in physics is the path from observation to modeling. Math is but a tool.

Now I agree that the math gets rather solid, but it's nothing compared to real math at an equivalent level.

I think my experience is particular because in France where I studied, you study both in parallel very intensively. So the math in physics always kind of seems trivial to you... But still my best physics teacher taught me that it was way more about the "feel and model" than the "exactly prove" that mathematics consists in.

Gosh I miss those days :)

Re: What Doesn't Seem Like Work?

#185

Post by jlees » Sat, Jan 17, 2015, 5:38 AM UTC

ashark wrote: post #110

stegosaurus wrote: post #75

What if the idea of work itself is what you dislike? There are plenty of activities I can enjoy, and some, quite a few of them in fact, are profitable. Once you shoe-horn them into the power dynamic situation of a traditional job (with the bureaucracy that entails unless you're dealing with Actual People as opposed to corporations), suddenly a lot of the luster disappears. As a ridiculous example - I enjoy reading. I…

Anytime I read one of those "just do what you're passionate about!" posts, or job postings that read like "we're looking for people who are passionate about [thing that literally no-one has ever been passionate about]" I try to think whether there's anything whatsoever that I'd enjoy (let alone stay passionate about) doing (at least) 40 hours a week, 49ish weeks a year. I haven't thought of anything yet. Left to my o…

> "we're looking for people who are passionate about [thing that literally no-one has ever been passionate about]"

I heard this framed pretty well last night by someone who worked for a video ads company. "We don't look for people who are bursting with passion to work on mobile video advertising. If someone came to us and said that we'd think they were pretty crazy. What we do want is people who are interested in solving interesting technical problems, and mobile video advertising just happens to have a lot of those."

Re: What Doesn't Seem Like Work?

#186

Post by allendoerfer » Sat, Jan 17, 2015, 5:40 AM UTC

buckbova wrote: post #90

dxbydt wrote: post #38

This excerpt - "what he really liked was solving problems. The text of each chapter was just some advice about solving them. He said that as soon as he got a new textbook he'd immediately work out all the problems—to the slight annoyance of his teacher, since the class was supposed to work through the book gradually." is literally me. I did that. Every year at my school I did exactly that. Once I actually turned in m…

> The text of each chapter was just some advice about solving them. He said that as soon as he got a new textbook he'd immediately work out all the problems I literally did the opposite of this. I went so far as to make deals with my teachers that if I got an A on every test, I wouldn't have to do any work outside of class. Maybe I figured it to be a challenge, maybe I was plain lazy. Whatever it was, that didn't pre…

Thank you for letting me feel represented.

For me it always was about getting how the system works not the actual lesson. From that angle it is hard to be bad at anything at high-school level. Either you got it how school works and were good or you did not and were bad. For me there was no in-between and all the "people have different talents"-stuff. For me it was about a combination of people skills, short-term memory and keen perception.

I took it to the extreme though and optimized for the amount of free-time, which forced me to change schools.

> Maybe I figured it to be a challenge, maybe I was plain lazy. Whatever it was, that didn't prepare me for college.

Exactly this. I study CS, in the end I lack the discipline to force me to do stuff I am not interested in. Taking tests without visiting the classes and learning for 3 days does still work for smaller conceptual classes, for math or practical ones not so much. It is kind of childish, but I still need the "beating-the-system"-incentive to learn complex stuff. Math always sounds mildly interesting to me and I get the concepts quickly, but i lack the discipline to really internalize it for a few months, especially bottom-up. For me it is easier to come from the other side, for example digging through scikit-learn and learning the math after I already got the big picture.

Re: What Doesn't Seem Like Work?

#187

Post by jlees » Sat, Jan 17, 2015, 5:41 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #136

stegosaurus wrote: post #75

What if the idea of work itself is what you dislike? There are plenty of activities I can enjoy, and some, quite a few of them in fact, are profitable. Once you shoe-horn them into the power dynamic situation of a traditional job (with the bureaucracy that entails unless you're dealing with Actual People as opposed to corporations), suddenly a lot of the luster disappears. As a ridiculous example - I enjoy reading. I…

> What if the idea of work itself is what you dislike? It's that for me, and I'd very much like to know how to handle it. The very same task done 'just because I like to' turns from ecstatic moments of crazy productivity to total misery and physical feelings of sickness when it becomes a job or an obligation. And it's not even on a System2 level. I'd really like to like work. I just can't force my body and subconscio…

Maybe traditional work just isn't the answer. Or maybe a task you kind of like doing but can't find the will to finish on your own becomes a really awesome job, and your 'just because I want to' stuff remains a passionate hobby.

Coding gives you a lot of literacy beyond simply writing code to build systems; perhaps those skills could be applied in a slightly different direction, from SRE to teaching to writing a book (personally, writing's one of the things that turns into a chore when it's for money, but you might be different!).

Re: What Doesn't Seem Like Work?

#188

Post by jlees » Sat, Jan 17, 2015, 5:41 AM UTC

dxbydt wrote: post #38

This excerpt - "what he really liked was solving problems. The text of each chapter was just some advice about solving them. He said that as soon as he got a new textbook he'd immediately work out all the problems—to the slight annoyance of his teacher, since the class was supposed to work through the book gradually." is literally me. I did that. Every year at my school I did exactly that. Once I actually turned in m…

If you love math but are not so keen on software engineering, maybe data science could be an interesting alternative.

Re: What Doesn't Seem Like Work?

#189

Post by mahmud » Sat, Jan 17, 2015, 5:42 AM UTC

blahedo wrote: post #72

I am surprised at how casually he dropped this in there: "When I was in college I used to write papers for my friends. It was quite interesting to write a paper for a class I wasn't taking. Plus they were always so relieved." Yikes. Really?

I did it a few times for exchange students who struggled with English. I made sure they understood the concepts and could explain them to me in Arabic. It was a mix of editing, translation, and tutoring.

Re: What Doesn't Seem Like Work?

#190

Post by allendoerfer » Sat, Jan 17, 2015, 5:53 AM UTC

stegosaurus wrote: post #154

stegosaurus wrote: post #75

What if the idea of work itself is what you dislike? There are plenty of activities I can enjoy, and some, quite a few of them in fact, are profitable. Once you shoe-horn them into the power dynamic situation of a traditional job (with the bureaucracy that entails unless you're dealing with Actual People as opposed to corporations), suddenly a lot of the luster disappears. As a ridiculous example - I enjoy reading. I…

As an addition to this, I've struggled a lot with the concept of working for pay and only recently could I really begin to explain why. Some people would probably call it 'entitlement', but I'm not really sure that's an accurate description. As an employee, your role is essentially a permanent state of brown nosing. First of all you must convince a rich person/company that you are worthy. Then you must convince them…

It gets even harder for me, when I calmly and rationally think, that I am more intelligent or could do things better than my older - age plays a role, too - boss.

To sound less arrogant I normally explain my dislike of employed working by arguing, that my work amasses capital for others, who receive interest on it, followed by a sermon about how people do not get exponential growth.