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Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

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Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#261

Post by sokoloff »

neilkakkar wrote: post #258
muzani wrote: post #114

Everything is a system. The economy, society, relationships, nature, traffic. You don't need math to reverse engineer a system. You just need to pay attention to it. You can say the right words to make a date happy. You can figure out which lane is the fastest route, better than Google Maps can. You don't need an app or data - your brain is a wonderful data processing machine. Don't be angry at the people who are ben…

> "You can figure out which lane is the fastest route, better than Google Maps can." Why do you think so? Given Google Maps has real time information about cars on both routes, I'd think it does a better job of aggregating this data than my intuition.

Original post is unclear.

I can figure out which lane of traffic on a given route is faster (which is something that Google Maps doesn't even attempt to do as far as I can tell). I agree that Maps/Waze can figure a better real-time route than I can, especially in unusual situations.

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#262

Post by anotheryou »

muzani wrote: post #114

Everything is a system. The economy, society, relationships, nature, traffic. You don't need math to reverse engineer a system. You just need to pay attention to it. You can say the right words to make a date happy. You can figure out which lane is the fastest route, better than Google Maps can. You don't need an app or data - your brain is a wonderful data processing machine. Don't be angry at the people who are ben…

how do you think about politics and capitalism than?

can the system still be simplified enough to grasp it well enough to change it?

where would an individual who has grasped it find the power to change anything? capitalism seems super stable for now

one of the most sad thoughts I heard: if you try to change the system to the better you might keep it from hitting the wall and actually stabilize it

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#263

Post by pge »

tempsy wrote: post #11

Little correlation between effort and reward My biggest payday came from a junior role at a startup I got extremely lucky at

and that luck plays a much bigger role in success than most people think (we prefer to think our success is the result of effort and skill)

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#264

Post by arendtio »

Antoninus wrote: post #96

I'm a developer like many people here. One thing that people who don't program don't realize is that its a laborious job. It seems like its a fun job with lots of 'hanging out' but its more like 4-5 hours a day / 5 days week looking at a text editor and a terminal trying to focus and not be distracted. At the end of the day, I'm exhausted

IMHO, there are two problems:

1. You are expected to work 8 hours, while your body/brain is just made for 4 hours of extensive mental work. Afterward, concentration and productivity plunge.

2. Office cultures are rarely made for Deep Work. Instead, you are expected to participate in meetings, communication and presentations.

I think both problems are somewhat solvable, but in many companies, the office culture doesn't make it easy to fit in while solving those factors.

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#265

Post by codingmess »

You know how there are so many shitty technologies - frameworks, programming languages, that are obviously bad, and your chosen tech stack is obviously so much better?

With all likelihood, the same thing exists in other areas of work, too. For example medicine.

So if you walk into the wrong clinic, they may give you the "PHP treatment", or treat your infection with "NodeJS, running on a Windows 7 server". (I mean not actual programming languages, but the medical treatment with a similar level of issues and opinions).

I find that a scary thought.

(Edit: not to bash PHP or JS. I personally like JavaScript and I've heard PHP has gotten a lot better. Just examples for controversial technologies).

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#266

Post by shantly »

gonzo41 wrote: post #173
jsjw7sbw wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having worked with filling shelves, that job felt sometimes a lot more complex than my development job nowadays. The store I worked for didn't in general allow anything extra to be stored in the warehouse. This lead to the filling load sometimes having excess products that you had to fit somewhere. I really enjoyed making space by moving and rearranging products on the shelves. The products came in wrapped in big rol…

I used to have a job in the back warehouse of a white goods store. I was moving around fridges all day long. It was a really good job. The best part was I couldn't take any fridges home with me in the evenings. I'd get home and my fridge would be already where it's meant to be. Also no one wanted me to do a fridge moving side project in the evenings.

Good work if you can get it, but all the interview questions plumbing the obscurest depths of Newtonian physics are pretty tough.

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#267

Post by franze »

Just spent 6 months in London at a hypergrowth Fintech as VP Growth. Learned a damn lot about failure, hiring, the new SaaS workflows, training the next generation and ambition. Summarized it here https://link.medium.com/jJfvmCq2e3 Hope somebody finds it valuable.

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#268

Post by pryelluw »

muzani wrote: post #114

Everything is a system. The economy, society, relationships, nature, traffic. You don't need math to reverse engineer a system. You just need to pay attention to it. You can say the right words to make a date happy. You can figure out which lane is the fastest route, better than Google Maps can. You don't need an app or data - your brain is a wonderful data processing machine. Don't be angry at the people who are ben…

To a poet everything rhymes.

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#270

Post by cygned »

r0rbit wrote: post #232
cygned wrote: post #107

I am of the opinion that the software industry could improve by closer looking at the industry of producing physical goods. I have yet to conduct further research, but if you glance at it; Agile has been an idea since the 1940s over there; factors like longevity, safety, security directly influence quality of the product and its creation process. Also, greatly standardized methodologies, procedures, metrics (think: 6…

Ever tried 'The Phoenix Project'? It's a good read that implies this idea

Thanks, will do.
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