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Excuse me but why are you eating so many frogs

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Re: Excuse me but why are you eating so many frogs

#281

Post by 6stringmerc »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #273
6stringmerc wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend recently got what he thought was a great gig with an engineering firm - turned out it was more of a cult - rah rah sessions, after work bowling, softball - and they weren’t shy about shunning anybody who didn’t want all in right away. He got bullied and saw others bullied too - we figure it’s why they prefer to intern pipeline and hire and retain - a lot easier to brainwash when young. I mean it’s not a bad…

> He got bullied and saw others bullied too > I mean it’s not a bad company These two statements cannot exist together when discussing the same organization.

One department is all he can speak to so the others might be unicorns and elf burps.

Re: Excuse me but why are you eating so many frogs

#283

Post by m463 »

akiselev wrote: post #31

This is a great article but the best part is an off hand link to a book review of A Square Meal: A Culinary History of the Great Depression [1] which includes choice quotes like > The writer George Jean Nathan claimed that before the 1920s, there existed only eight basic sandwich types: Swiss cheese, ham, sardine, liverwurst, egg, corned beef, roast beef, and tongue (yes). But by 1926, he “claimed that he had counted…

> writer George Jean Nathan claimed ... before 1920s ... eight basic sandwich types ... by 1926, he claimed that he had counted 946...

Can't help but think people wrote to tell him he was wrong.

Re: Excuse me but why are you eating so many frogs

#284

Post by foobiekr »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #156
istinetz wrote: post #37

I strongly disagree with the author. What brings me pleasure is playing strategic computer games. I was addicted to playing dota. I was playing 12-16 hours a day, which left no place for socializing, career, family, even basic self-maintenance suffered. Anything meaningful, art, self-improvement was cut. It's a disgraceful, shameful life. The meaning of life is not the blind pursuit of pleasure. We are humans precise…

I think addiction is it's own thing -- which is not about a lack of pleasure either. The main thing I think is missing from the OP (which I liked very much) is discussion of the concept of meaning . (and perhaps social connection). I think what most "frog-eaters" are missing is meaning, not pleasure. People will gladly do hard things that seem meaningful. I think addiction is primarily about a lack of meaning (and so…

There is no actual meaning, though. Just what you can pretend is meaningful for awhile.

Re: Excuse me but why are you eating so many frogs

#285

Post by trelane »

wizofaus wrote: post #270
0xbadcafebee wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before the internet existed you could just say things confidently and nobody could check if you were right. Nowadays you check the internet and there's 100 blog posts backing up the lie. What a time to be alive.

And for each of those blog posts, several others refuting them.

and that's before we get to the comments

Re: Excuse me but why are you eating so many frogs

#286

Post by drivers99 »

travisjungroth wrote: post #226
jaqalopes wrote: post #199

I love and agree with this article, but I do want to defend the Pomodoro method. In brief, if you already don't enjoy what you are doing for work, applying a new time management strategy to that work will not increase your enjoyment. However, I have personally thrived using the Pomodoro method to help keep myself on track and hitting goals for the work I do enjoy. In this light, moreover, I don't think the analogy to…

Like 15 years ago, before pomodoro was popular (or at least I didn't know about it) my sister asked if I knew a good time schedule for studying. She was in senior year of high school, I was in flight school. My answer of "about 15 seconds reading then a 10 second break" was not what she expected. It's what I was using and worked pretty well. I enjoyed that work very much. I was basically memorizing the book. No way t…

> Do not do this daily! This is like a once-a-year thing.

Why's that? (I'm intrigued by this idea.)

Re: Excuse me but why are you eating so many frogs

#287

Post by MetaWhirledPeas »

istinetz wrote: post #171
jrochkind1 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think addiction is it's own thing -- which is not about a lack of pleasure either. The main thing I think is missing from the OP (which I liked very much) is discussion of the concept of meaning . (and perhaps social connection). I think what most "frog-eaters" are missing is meaning, not pleasure. People will gladly do hard things that seem meaningful. I think addiction is primarily about a lack of meaning (and so…

>I think OP is really talking about a lack of meaning, control, and social connection in our lives. That is indeed a much more defensible thesis. But to do anything meaningful, you need to eat a bunch of frogs - to build a rocket, you need to call and compare suppliers, manage accounting, etc. If you avoided all of that annoying stuff, you would find yourself, years later, with very pretty blueprints and no rocket.

> That is indeed a much more defensible thesis. But to do anything meaningful, you need to eat a bunch of frogs - to build a rocket, you need to call and compare suppliers, manage accounting, etc. If you avoided all of that annoying stuff, you would find yourself, years later, with very pretty blueprints and no rocket.

I do think there's a certain audience that needs to hear that, specifically the do-nothing crowd or someone (like your former self perhaps) whose life is dominated by bad habits. I think the article is addressing the other side of the pendulum. There are plenty of people who are not addicted to some sort of obvious time waste, but they are addicted to self-flagellation.

Re: Excuse me but why are you eating so many frogs

#288

Post by elihu »

bsenftner wrote: post #94
db48x wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet he had read The Screwtape Letters though.

Any claimed author who's not read The Screwtape Letters has no business writing modern literature.

There are too many good books in the world for having read them all to be any kind of a reasonably attainable barrier to entry for authors.

Re: Excuse me but why are you eating so many frogs

#289

Post by freetime2 »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #237
6stringmerc wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend recently got what he thought was a great gig with an engineering firm - turned out it was more of a cult - rah rah sessions, after work bowling, softball - and they weren’t shy about shunning anybody who didn’t want all in right away. He got bullied and saw others bullied too - we figure it’s why they prefer to intern pipeline and hire and retain - a lot easier to brainwash when young. I mean it’s not a bad…

This was exactly my experience at Goldman Sachs. Sorry, I should be posting under a throw-away, but let's be real for a moment. That place was nothing but a cult. Yes, they make lots of money, but you need to sell your soul. I never worked in a place with so many sheep (non-believers but scared to speak-up) and assholes (believers, only because they profit / climb the corporate ladder) _at the same time_. Fortunately…

I don't doubt that you need to sell your soul to work for Goldman, but those two examples don't seem particularly striking to me.

> We had multiple "partners" (super senior, old-school MDs) tell us: "At Goldman, there is not publically available org chart." Fucking dead wrong. I raised my hand at each of those bullshit meetings and said, "I'm sorry, but this is incorrect. There is a website where you can view and search the org chart." (It was amazing -- no lie/joke.) Each PMD was so "surprised" to learn this. Not sure if real, or encouraging people to do face-to-face networking.

It's a big company - it seems entirely plausible to me that it could have been an honest mistake and he just didn't know that it existed. And the goal of having an organization where people are free to collaborate with others outside of their org, and employees at all levels are able to voice their opinions, seems like a valid aspiration to fight for... even if in reality it doesn't work that way.

> Second, they showed all these weird propaganda videos about how Goldman is closely tied with the US gov't, especially during World War 2. So weird, creepy, and out of date! Many senior partners leave Goldman and enter US politics. In American English, they call it "the revolving door" (between private industry and politics). Many democracies have this problem. But why celebrate it? Fuct! The whole thing felt so sleazy. Why is this important to non-US citizens? Many people looked bored and only read their mobile phones during these 90 minute(!) videos.

It's not uncommon to show "propaganda" videos to new hires when they join a company - to try to motivate them by showing them the impact that their work can have on the world. And yes they do often come across as a bit creepy. It's also not uncommon for companies that have been around for a while to be proud of their history - which probably explains the WW2 references. I also don't think there's anything inherently wrong about working closely with the government - the US government provides a lot of useful services for its citizens after all. Corruption of course is another matter entirely... but I can only assume the video was not promoting corruption.

Surely you must have seen worse things than this in your time at Goldman Sachs?

Re: Excuse me but why are you eating so many frogs

#290

Post by cossatot »

effingwewt wrote: post #242
brudgers wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, there are only two story types. + Someone goes on a journey. + A stranger comes to town.

That's just one story from two perspectives though?

It’s the Langrangian vs Eulerian specification of fiction
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