You don't hate weekends, you hate capitalism.
Why I hate the weekends (2017)
191–200 of 353 posts
Re: Why I hate the weekends (2017)
#192As others mention here and there in the comments: you can get a 3-day weekend at many tech jobs. It's just a matter of asking, and asking in the right way.
E.g. this guy I interviewed has been working 4 days a week for 15 years: https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/01/08/part-time-programmer...
I've personally not worked 40 hour weeks since 2012, because, too much stuff to do, especially with a family.
If you don't have negotiation experience, well, I started out a terrible negotiator and eventually figured out how, so you can too. And if you'd like to skip over all the mistakes and research I did and just know what it takes to negotiate a shorter workweek as a programmer, I've written a book that can help you: https://codewithoutrules.com/3dayweekend/
Re: Why I hate the weekends (2017)
#193I solved most of this for myself purely by relocating closer to work. If you have an hour commute (hour to, hour from), that's 40 hours/month sitting in traffic being unproductive. That's an entire 3 months worth of full-time work in a year. Just eliminating a long commute gives you back a lot of time during the regular week that's currently being completely wasted. Now I mostly just work remotely.
Re: Why I hate the weekends (2017)
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Everyone is entitled to talk about their subjective experience. Maybe that's part of the problem. Not that everyone is entitled to talk about their subjective experience, but that everyone feels entitled to talk about their subjective experience -- and many are socially blind and comically out of touch when doing so. That's where memes like "first world problems" came from... Everybody should be able to talk about…
I don't know why you have this misguided idea that being a software developer is as big of a jump from the median as being in the richest 0.1% is from being a software developer. Having started at the very bottom of the economic ladder, I can tell you that it's really not that different. 60+ hour weeks can really mess with your health, no matter what you're doing. I definitely have different injuries than I had when…
Misguided? Someone who is earning >80K is in richest 1% of the world population.
Re: Why I hate the weekends (2017)
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You need to save a few million dollars to retire with $40-$80k in investment income. You need a lot less than a few million dollars if you're willing to live at a more reasonable retirement income. I mean, you won't have to commute anymore, or buy all those services that did things you never had time for, or pay for daycare, or live in an overpriced city, etc. Hell if you move to a country with a lower cost of livi…
A conservative "safe withdrawal rate" is about 3.5%, so you need around $1.1M invested in index funds in order to have $40k income per year. I'm living in Thailand, and $40k goes a long way. Many people would be happy with this lifestyle, but it's not quite enough for me, and I wouldn't want to spend the rest of my life here. I'd much rather have $80-100k and live somewhere like Toronto. But to each their own.
I'm in Japan. Last year I remitted $16k. My residence is paid for and I spent an additional $12k cash. In total, I live on 28k / year. Add in a residence if I had to rent, down where I am it's $500/mo for a 3 br "home". It's really a shanty by western standards but enough for me. On 34k if you rented, one can live comfortably in Southern Japan. Of course, this is not possible without a valid visa. I have lived in Midwest, California, Washington and visited most of US. I would still choose to live here than anywhere else. I think most Americans who have not done enough travel do not seriously consider living outside of their country (if they had the chance) just due to a mindset that America is the best place to be (hint: it's not).
Re: Why I hate the weekends (2017)
#196What I don't understand here: Why can't we just work less ? I know it's not trivial, but it can't be impossible either. I doubt he would starve if he got a part-time dev job (are those easy to find? I have no idea). I agree wholeheartedly with all that he said. I think a life of work-home-work without breathing is almost meaningless unless you can have possibly unreasonable amounts of fun and freedom in the job (few…
Hiring is actually a tremendous burden for most small/mid sized business with all of the compliance and regulatory stuff. Its far cheaper to hire one person for 40 hours/week than 2 people for 20, even if their pay is half.
Re: Why I hate the weekends (2017)
#197You don't hate weekends, you hate capitalism.
For those unfamiliar, this is a riff on an anticapitalist slogan: "You don't hate Mondays, you hate capitalism". If you're baffled as to why someone would say this, you might consider Marx's theory of alienation [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_alienation
Re: Why I hate the weekends (2017)
#198I used to think I had no spare time. Now I have 2 kids under 3. It turns out I used to have a TON of time in comparison.
Re: Why I hate the weekends (2017)
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know why you have this misguided idea that being a software developer is as big of a jump from the median as being in the richest 0.1% is from being a software developer. Having started at the very bottom of the economic ladder, I can tell you that it's really not that different. 60+ hour weeks can really mess with your health, no matter what you're doing. I definitely have different injuries than I had when…
Misguided? Someone who is earning >80K is in richest 1% of the world population.
In the United States, the median household income is over 60k. Income is not the same thing as wealth.
I will say that there is a significant reduction in stress and jump in wellbeing between 30k and 40k. Beyond that, there is very little actual difference. As my income increases, all it does is reduce my time until retirement.
Re: Why I hate the weekends (2017)
#200Today I just wasted the second half of the day doing nothing at all; just watching mind-numbing videos on Youtube. I had been working on a side project most weekends for the last 10 years and been particularly busy in the last year so I forgot what it felt like to just waste time. Wasting time feels great. In this cut-throat competitive industry, it does feel like a luxury through. As a software engineer, I can't aff…
> As a software engineer, I can't afford to not be on the cutting edge. I have the feeling that if I stopped working for just 6 months, my career would be over.
Stop following hype and focus on practical business solutions. You'll have no problem finding work after doing so.
You need to remember that things like Wordpress solve the majority of business needs and skills related to it are in demand next time you feel like you need to keep a constant pulse on what's popular to the HN crowd.