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Fuck being productive

dostoynikov.bearblog.dev

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Re: Fuck being productive

#211

Post by ZephyrBlu »

tuscen wrote: post #204
ZephyrBlu wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you have a really expensive lifestyle man. Even most US devs don’t make $240k USD.

He said he's in the UK. So his net income is somewhere around 120k USD. It's big money, but not that much.

When I calculate the post-tax income for $240k USD in SF it comes out to $155k: https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-tax-calculator#SLKSX....

$120k is also an underestimate given that the top tax bracket in the UK is only 45%. If you apply that, you get $132k (Still an underestimate). $132k is roughly in the same ballpark as $155k.

It's not like the difference between the same income in the US and UK is 50%, and even if you were on $120k USD net that's the same as the median gross income of a SWE in the US.

I don't understand where "not that much" is coming from.

Re: Fuck being productive

#212

Post by deprecative »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #175
wahnfrieden wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like massive cope. If we don’t like work perhaps we can change it without waiting on favors to be handed down to us. Your boss won’t help unless market conditions force their hand. The work conditions you mentioned (free weekday nights and the weekend) were fought for by organized workers and are very new, why stop there? I don't think we'll even keep those conditions if that's what we're satisfied with. We al…

If you are a good, productive engineer, your boss will bend over backwards to not lose you. Or they should be. Your negotiation power is a lot stronger than you think. Plenty of jobs out there and it never hurts to remind them that they are replacable. I've enjoyed the work conditions I mention throughout my career. I'm 48 now. But of course I work in a part of the world where this stuff was sorted out decades ago. 4…

> Being a wage slave is a choice. If you don't like your life, change it.

It's incredibly unfortunate that instead of using a shred of empathy to see that your situation isn't the situation of nearly everyone else in the industry, or alive for that matter. "If you don't like your life, change it" screams "I have no idea what I am talking about" because you're failing to see that situations elsewhere are different.

Take a software job in the US. You're working a minimum of 45 hours per week for 40 hours pay. If you have to work overtime you do so for free. If you get sick you have a mandated PTO allowance of 0. You might get two weeks. Your salary will be somewhere in the ballpark of $70k. Is that good? Yes. Is it enough? No. Not even close. If you change employer or region is any of that going to change? No. It won't.

So, what's left? Easy: be born into wealth and retire on it. Just change your life, bro.

Re: Fuck being productive

#213

Post by midasuni »

nly wrote: post #147
badpun wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To retire in 10 years you're going to have to be able to live comfortably on something like 1/3rd of your take home pay. That's very easy if you don't have kids - just don't get on a hedonic threadmill (and, if you're already on it, start gradually getting off). I'm not a parent myself, so won't speak about the "with kids" situation.

Rent isnt a "hedonic treadmill". Neither is food or energy. These are the 3 areas seeing the most inflation right now. Rents in London are up 20% in a year, food almost the same, and energy ...well, everyone knows what has happened to energy. The average Londoner is paying almost 40% of their take home pay on rent, so saving 2/3rds is already impossible. Even as one of the lucky ones earning a top 1% salary, I _still…

The problem isn’t as much the pay - I’d pay increases then so will rent (or housing costs)

The problem in the U.K and especially london is that demand for housing outstrips supply. This denies opportunities to most of the country as the only way for young green people to live in london is to live rent free with parents who paid two years worth of wages for a 3 bed semi 40 years ago, for a house now 10 times wage

Re: Fuck being productive

#214

Post by InstantMessage »

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.

Your comment reminded me of a great post from Joel Spolsky:

https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/

"...you have to move forward every day. Sooner or later you will win."

Re: Fuck being productive

#215

Post by xkcd1963 »

For some people the work gives them energy, or work itself is what motivates them. If you can find a job like that, you won't feel the need to fill gaps with needless productivity.

Re: Fuck being productive

#217

Post by dudul »

tasuki wrote: post #193
zwieback wrote: post #20

Yeah, just wait till you're in your fifties and feel like you're also running out of time to do things! For example: "how many more growing seasons do I have to try this or that tomato" or "should I learn Spanish?". On the plus side kids are out of your hair.

> On the plus side kids are out of your hair. That almost sounds like you did not really enjoy raising your kids? I find that's a taboo thing to say, and if that's what you meant, I appreciate you saying so.

So it's either having kids is 100% amazing all the time or you hated having them?

Like most things in life, there is a middle ground you know.

Re: Fuck being productive

#218

Post by tuscen »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #211
tuscen wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He said he's in the UK. So his net income is somewhere around 120k USD. It's big money, but not that much.

When I calculate the post-tax income for $240k USD in SF it comes out to $155k: https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-tax-calculator#SLKSX... . $120k is also an underestimate given that the top tax bracket in the UK is only 45%. If you apply that, you get $132k (Still an underestimate). $132k is roughly in the same ballpark as $155k. It's not like the difference between the same income in the US and UK is 50%, and…

It's coming from housing prices in London and SF. Also energy prices in the UK the last few years grew considerably. I agree it's a lot of money, but given how much it costs to buy a house or an apartment in London and SF I'd say it's not that much if you want to retire early. I used London and SF in these examples because it's hard to find jobs with that much compensation outside them. And this is all without considering kids. You'll probably want them to have a good education and not struggle all their life from student loan debt so you better save some of your income for them.

Re: Fuck being productive

#219

Post by deprecative »

isoprophlex wrote: post #75

> Working hours are 07:30-17:30 That's not a job my dudeperson, that's a gulag

Work being 10 hours isn't that far off. In the US you work, generally, 9 to 9 1/2 or so a day. I'd call them approximately comparable. Sure, it's a little egregious but not that far beyond "normal" for me as an American.

Re: Fuck being productive

#220

Post by pelagicAustral »

foobarian wrote: post #83
pelagicAustral wrote: post #49

I'm incredibly lucky in that I live 5 minutes away from the office. I work 7.5 hours a day, Monday to Friday. Every day I got a ton of time to dedicate to things I like... and yet, many times I feel drained from crunching code every day... It's been like 8 months since I worked on a personal project... lately all I do is play Breath of the Wild... But I feel pretty good about it, I think I relate to this fuck-being-p…

Could be BotW is the problem. I was so much happier when I switched to Genshin Impact :-D

Looks pretty good. Wiki page is impressive, especially the Controversies section. I wish they had a Switch version.
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