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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)

#211

Post by [deleted] »

munificent wrote: post #99
Arjuna wrote: 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…

> 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. Several years ago, I almost did the same thing with my infant daughter. Put her car seat in the back seat. Got in. Started driving. On auto-pilot started heading towards the office. It was only when she happened to make a sound (she o…

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

#212

Post by dredwerker »

For a different view on working hard, take a look at In Praise of Idleness By Bertrand Russell " I think that there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial countries is quite different from what always has been preached."

http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html

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

#213

Post by PhasmaFelis »

TL;DR: In the society we live in, you are expected to spend a good chunk of your waking hours wading in shit. We have gotten together and decided that wading in shit is virtuous and builds character, and if you don't like wading through shit and try to avoid it or do less of it, you are objectively a bad person. Wanting to spend more time with your family and friends or pursuing hobbies and interests (other than wading in shit) is a sign of laziness and malformed character; so are outlandish malingerer's claims like "burnout" or "clinical depression". Your entire educational curriculum is designed by people who enjoy wading in shit and expect that you will too. If, upon graduation into the real world, you find that you do not enjoy wading in shit, we will shake our heads sadly and wonder how we failed to inculcate you with a seemly affection for shit-wading. If you are lucky enough to enjoy wading in shit, you are a superior species of human and deserve to be smug about it.

(Not addressed: The unthinkably heretical notion that we, in the first stirrings of post-scarcity, might perhaps look to and work toward a future where people don't have to wade in shit if they don't want to.)

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

#214

Post by enjo »

Ygg2 wrote: post #111
AJ007 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whats the timeline for real burnout? I describe burnout is any time an individuals focus drops to the point that their work quality potentially becomes damaging rather than adding value.

That's not burnout. Real burnout is more closer to having to leave software development field for farming, because you can't function as a developer anymore. Tbh for me the fear of burnout is enough to leave a job. I don't want to hate/ be unable to program anymore.

This is right. The guy I'm reference, many months later, is still on hiatus. The recovery here is obscenely long and hard.

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

#215

Post by nileshtrivedi »

Every generation (and employers who want to hire young people for cheap) considers the next one "lazy and arrogant" while the fact is that life really is becoming easier across the board. In my opinion, the author is confusing "boring work".

There is two kinds of boring work. One is where you are still committed to the end goal but some things just have to be done in order to achieve it. There's no arguing about this and I think even the new generation recognizes the value of it and the value of going through the "dip" and finishing things.

The other is when you become disinterested in the end goal itself. Leaving this kind of boring work is a good thing. It's a shame to continue working on uninspiring projects especially when there are so many other opportunities. Life is too short for that. Adding some whitespace to one's life is how you move on to better opportunities.

This article comes out as attacking the second category as well. For example, he compares this to "the vapid life of a vagabond merrily traveling from pleasure to pleasure in life ever thirsting, but never being quenched, every tasting, but never consuming.".

Vagabonds have vapid lives? That's a bit presumptuous. "Not all who wander are lost."

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

#216

Post by yesbabyyes »

ludicast wrote: post #181
georgemcbay wrote: post #155

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.

Or even beeps when the seat belt is fastened, while the engine is off.

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

#217

Post by swah »

nostrademons wrote: post #114
brianmcconnell wrote: post #88

I agree 100% with the author about the spoiled brat mentality of this generation of developers. I personally prefer to hire older developers because a) they tend to be steady producers, and b) they have the maturity to understand that sometimes work sucks and c) provided managers don't treat them like shit, they tend to stick around. The flip side of the deal is I am not going to work them to death or make unreasonab…

It's perfectly fine for you to hire older developers, particularly if you're writing reporting software for a utility grid monitoring company. A younger developer probably isn't going to want to do that job anyway. The reason we have a market economy in the first place is so that people can find the work the matches their interests and abilities best, and then get paid well for doing it to the best of their abilities…

Why a younger developer wouldn't want to write reporting software for a grid monitoring company? Sounds more interesting than webapps.

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

#218

Post by Iftheshoefits »

brianmcconnell wrote: post #88

I agree 100% with the author about the spoiled brat mentality of this generation of developers. I personally prefer to hire older developers because a) they tend to be steady producers, and b) they have the maturity to understand that sometimes work sucks and c) provided managers don't treat them like shit, they tend to stick around. The flip side of the deal is I am not going to work them to death or make unreasonab…

My experience with "enterprise" development ("writing reporting software", or "CRUD replacement for Excel Spreadsheet X") is that those companies don't actually pay decent salaries, even for the mundane, trivial development work required. They might "pay the mortgage" in some one-horse town in the midwest or deep south, but in places where most people live they won't.

What's more, those settings are usually filled with toxic garbage like cliques of people who've been there 5, 10, 20 years and play gossip or petty politics games, middle-managers who view their subordinates as enemies (competition) or scapegoats (when said middle-managers fail to deliver because of their own inability to lead a team), and departments who treat developers like unskilled labor or some sort of awkward add-on to the IT department. Middle- and upper-management at these places are some of the most spoiled self-entitled pricks I've ever encountered. They are also frequently the most unjustifiably arrogant, incompetent hypocrites in the organization.

Sure, somebody has to do the work in those settings. More power to the people who can. That doesn't mean they're better people (or worse) than those who can't stomach that kind of work or putting up with the spoiled-brat, unjustifiably arrogant faux-authority of petty jerk managers. It takes real maturity--not the fake, arbitrary kind you suggest in (b)--to understand that.

This isn't to pooh-pooh your points (a) and (c) about older workers; being an older worker (in IT terms; I'm mid-30s) I see what inexperience (which is most often associated with youth) means in terms of output, focus, and durability. But neither one fits in with your larger narrative necessarily.

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

#219

Post by gboudrias »

aaronem wrote: post #51
gboudrias wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is priceless. And then: It doesn’t matter how brilliant you started out or how much faster you exited the gates than everyone else, those who consistently get up every morning and direct their energies along a single path, no matter how boring it may be, will eventually pass you on each of the many roads you haphazardly travel. That's not how life works. You can direct all your efforts to bending cutlery, but yo…

> The author may be a great programmer Really? He reads like a motivational speaker. What's he shipped? Where's his repo?

I have no idea, it's what he claims. Based on his terrible philosophy skills, I didn't think there would be any other reason to pay attention to him.

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

#220

Post by solistice »

Helianthus wrote: post #207
moistgorilla wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

solistice gave you advice that runs the danger of telling you to work harder at burning yourself out. Given that I'm also giving advice, take that with a grain of salt. "Make small changes," he suggests. If you're really on the burnout train, your life is out of control because of your internal pressure to work. You want to be overworking yourself. Some of that internal pressure is because of external pressure that y…

Oooops, my bad. Should have focused more on the balance aspect really.

I get what you mean by the internal pressure to work thing. You get anxious when you're not working, and that anxiety starts to nag on your psyche. I've gotten some good results with redefining work for myself, from "what breaks me" to "what compounds for results", but it isn't the perfect solution to the problem. Then, I subdivide mentally between work i should do and work I enjoy. The former category includes writing pieces of code I have to finish or studying for exams (I try to keep that kind of work relatively efficient and hard hitting), and the latter category includes things such as drawing or dancing, skills which are useful and relaxing at the same time.

Alas, it's what works for me.

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