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Maybe you should do less 'work'

johnwhiles.com

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Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'

#211

Post by beaconstudios »

danielvaughn wrote: post #188
Toine wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a certain extreme perspective, there is some truth to what you're saying, but wow, this is so one-sided, extreme, partial and damaging. What decades of neo liberal brainwashing has done to people. This is so sad, really. We are NOT companies, we're not robots only driven by free will, we don't live in an economy. We are hardcore social animals with huge biological & affective needs, this is scientifically proven…

I think you're severely misreading the original comment, and to be frank, your interpretation is pretty juvenile. Nowhere does the person say that we are robots.

the parent is critiquing the argument that we are all homo economicus - an agent whose primary function is to operate within the market at maximum efficiency to optimise for profit. The counterargument is that no, we aren't, and optimising for market exploitation is both an effort in frustration and anathema to human wellbeing. The GP is encouraging us to act like robots by living our lives in accordance with market calculations, not human actualisation and need-fulfilment.

It's an ideological position, and a harmful one at that. We aren't all totally independent actors competing in a ruthless market to maximise profits.

Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'

#212

Post by ftlio »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #204
Toine wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a certain extreme perspective, there is some truth to what you're saying, but wow, this is so one-sided, extreme, partial and damaging. What decades of neo liberal brainwashing has done to people. This is so sad, really. We are NOT companies, we're not robots only driven by free will, we don't live in an economy. We are hardcore social animals with huge biological & affective needs, this is scientifically proven…

Different perspectives for looking at the same thing provide different benefits, and they can be held simultaneously. For example, getting married to someone involves love and commitment and all that jazz, but I also like to advise also looking at it as a business, especially if you have or are going to have children. It is no different in that the two parents (and maybe even other adults in a multi family household)…

Yes, the idea that you can't hold "the neoliberal view" of your household, and "the communist view" and the "romantic view", and the "spiritual view" all together for all their benefits and tradeoffs seems worse to me than even subscribing to one holistically without this imperative.

I've had this called out as absolutely faux pas if not totally asinine by people who are deep into philosophy, but I'm doing great, a lot better than some of them born with silver spoons.

Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'

#213

Post by giantg2 »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #136
toomuchtodo wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Find better bosses and employers. They are out there.

I have different advice. Focus less on what your bosses want and more on what you want. Doing what your boss wants is a cost you pay, do as little of that as possible so that you can do the things that you want. This is an exchange in a market. If Best Buy wants $500 for that new TV, would you go in and offer them $750 for it? If Wal-Mart will sell you the same TV for $400, consider going there isntead.

I agree.

A fun side story is when I got a new manager a while back. In our first one-on-one, he told me that he has connections through the company and can use them to get me promoted to another team if I make him happy. I get that making the boss happy is part of a job, but that should be accomplished by doing good work. This direct proposition just felt too quid pro quo and had a stink to it, in my opinion.

Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'

#214

Post by lliamander »

caffeine wrote: post #135

You are the boss of a company of one. Your company sells labor to the labor market, it makes investments in assets, it borrows funds, etc. It’s your job to decide how that company is run. It’s your job to decide what investments that company needs to make to get good returns. It’s also your job to interpret the contracts your company enters into and decide what is acceptable, and to appropriately risk-manage legal ha…

The amount of bad faith interpretation and just missing the point in response to this solid bit of career advice is just astounding.

Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'

#215

Post by UncleOxidant »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #59
jokoon wrote: post #54

Beyond those arguments, it's also important to remind that we should work between 20 or 30 hours per week, not more. It's about health, being able to rest, do leisure, physical activity, see friends, date, etc. There are things to learn about the antiwork mentality. Not saying everyone should quit their job, but still, it would be nice if everyone could be able to negotiate with their employees. I have often been cal…

While I'll likely continue working my whole life, one thing I would like is some time off to think about my relationship with work and where I should be focusing my energy. Some kind of UBI or other anti-work outcome seems like it could actually provide space for that. I haven't had more than a 2 week lapse in work for 2 decades... and if I did I'd probably be extremely anxious the whole time. When health insurance a…

> When health insurance and housing rely so heavily on work (speaking from the perspective of an American), not working feels terrifying.

It seems as though the American system is intentionally setup so that we feel this way. We go through some cycles where capital is in greater control (the Gilded Age, and our current age from about the 80s till Covid)) and then the pendulum swings the other direction for a while and labor gets more of an upper hand - The Progressive era in the early 20th Century, During the Great Depression, COVID (referring to the Great Resignation and the rise in wages that has accompanied it). Let's hope we can continue with labor having a seat at the table again, but given our electoral college system and how our Senate work (Wyoming's less than 1 million population gets the same representation as CAs 39 million + filibuster) I'm not optimistic that this will last long.

Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'

#216

Post by AitchEmArsey »

0des wrote: post #32
tnzk wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doing my tasks diligently and in a timely manner affords me more time to relax, review what I have created, and enjoy it rather than drag myself to the next task. This looks like what exactly the author says in the article to me

To a high performer the tone of this article is a shot across the bow.

Depends on your definition of high performer.

If you prize delivering short-term value by chugging through the task pile faster than other people can, then sure this article is not aligned with your ideals.

That is not what I would call high performance; I would much rather be someone who can take a razor/lawnmower to that pile of tasks and do exactly the subset (down to potentially none at all) which delivers the most marginal value for the units of time I think are warranted for the project as a whole - then repeat until the goals are met.

Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'

#217

Post by ausbah »

caffeine wrote: post #135

You are the boss of a company of one. Your company sells labor to the labor market, it makes investments in assets, it borrows funds, etc. It’s your job to decide how that company is run. It’s your job to decide what investments that company needs to make to get good returns. It’s also your job to interpret the contracts your company enters into and decide what is acceptable, and to appropriately risk-manage legal ha…

people aren't perfectly rational individualistic economic agents. no one operates like this and expecting anyone to do so is psychotic and dehumanizing

this reads like a teenager, or ironically someone who never mentally moved past the point of being a teenager, who just read Atlas Shrugged for the first time

Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'

#218

Post by KptMarchewa »

beaconstudios wrote: post #211
danielvaughn wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're severely misreading the original comment, and to be frank, your interpretation is pretty juvenile. Nowhere does the person say that we are robots.

the parent is critiquing the argument that we are all homo economicus - an agent whose primary function is to operate within the market at maximum efficiency to optimise for profit. The counterargument is that no, we aren't, and optimising for market exploitation is both an effort in frustration and anathema to human wellbeing. The GP is encouraging us to act like robots by living our lives in accordance with market…

OP did not say that you have to optimize for profit. However, they said that we have to optimize for something. In other words, there's opportunity cost to everything we do.

Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'

#219

Post by caffeine »

Toine wrote: post #185
caffeine wrote: post #135

You are the boss of a company of one. Your company sells labor to the labor market, it makes investments in assets, it borrows funds, etc. It’s your job to decide how that company is run. It’s your job to decide what investments that company needs to make to get good returns. It’s also your job to interpret the contracts your company enters into and decide what is acceptable, and to appropriately risk-manage legal ha…

From a certain extreme perspective, there is some truth to what you're saying, but wow, this is so one-sided, extreme, partial and damaging. What decades of neo liberal brainwashing has done to people. This is so sad, really. We are NOT companies, we're not robots only driven by free will, we don't live in an economy. We are hardcore social animals with huge biological & affective needs, this is scientifically proven…

> We are hardcore social animals with huge biological & affective needs, this is scientifically proven.

Totally agree.

> We are NOT companies

Actually, we are humans. However, when it comes to our economic activity, we are also a company. Both things can be true at once.

> this is so one-sided, extreme, partial and damaging. What decades of neo liberal brainwashing has done to people.

Woah. Anything you specifically disagree with?

I put it in economic terms to address the article, but if you replace “company of one” with “life” and “returns” with “outcomes”, the message is largely the same..

Edit:

I think you disagreed so hard because you think I’m saying “you’re only an adult if you think everything is about money and personal gain.”

But what I was trying to say was “you’re an adult once you realise you’re it; you can fail; and it’s nobody else’s job to make sure you don’t” - which I didn’t think was such a controversial point..

Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'

#220

Post by dxbydt »

caffeine wrote: post #135

You are the boss of a company of one. Your company sells labor to the labor market, it makes investments in assets, it borrows funds, etc. It’s your job to decide how that company is run. It’s your job to decide what investments that company needs to make to get good returns. It’s also your job to interpret the contracts your company enters into and decide what is acceptable, and to appropriately risk-manage legal ha…

ffs.

Humans have lived on the planet for 200000 years. This way of organizing people as a company interacting with the labor market with assets & investments & risk management...is at best a 100 years old. Its like a drop in the ocean of time.

That said, when I was taking courses in Finance as a young 20 something, I came up with this same exact analogy & took it to its logical end - I conceived a stock exchange called the Human Stock Exchange, where every human being was a human stock ticker, and if you liked the performance of your colleagues you would buy their human stock so their human stock price would go up. You could sell short the poorly performing colleagues on your team...its a pretty toxic concept, if you think through it.

Ofcourse, since its such a toxic idea, given the extremely virtuous nature of our benign species, this toxic idea must already exist & thrive. See for instance Will Smith's stock taking a beating after what happened yesterday - https://www.hsx.com/security/view/WSMIT

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