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Career Asymtotes

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Re: Career Asymtotes

#31

Post by cortesoft »

ajkjk wrote: post #26
cortesoft wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know that you know this isn’t true. You are telling me the only thing keeping a guy in a wheelchair out of the NBA is motivation? As for astronauts, NASA has a height limit of 193cm to be on a flight crew, so no amount of motivation is going to let a 6’6” guy be an astronaut. These are the easy and obvious counters to your assertion that motivation is all it takes to be anything, but it is even true at most things.…

the storyline by which "person under the flight limit becomes astronaut" is something like: they become famous and renowned and respected for some kind of science at which they are an expert; in the next twenty years spaceflight changes tremendously; the rules change; they end up on the shortlist for a flight colonizing Mars because they deserve it and rules are made up anyway. So "success" looks like "changing the w…

> Why not? The future can be anything.

I don’t think the ability to come up with an implausible scenario where a person could become the thing that seems impossible is the same thing as saying “if you have enough motivation, you can become anything you want”. Both scenarios you described require a lot of things to happen that you are not in control of; space flight changing significantly and colonizing mars aren’t something you can work at.

Also, the height limit isn’t just a made up rule, it is so you can fit in the spaceship.

For the wheelchair basketball player, they can’t just work hard and suddenly the NBA lets people on with bionic legs. That would require a major rule shift, which again is not something you can change through hard work and motivation.

Look, I get why we want to persist the myth that you can accomplish anything though hard work. You CAN accomplish a lot, and probably more than you think, through dedication and hard work, but you definitely can’t if you don’t believe you can. So, we tell ourselves (and others) that you can be anything if you work hard so as to encourage people to try for things they might not try for because they don’t realize they can accomplish the thing if they work hard. It makes some sense to try to delude yourself into thinking you can do anything in order to prevent the situation where you actually could have accomplished the thing you wanted to do, but you didn’t try because you didn’t think you could.

So I get it, but really, if you think it through… there are things out of your control that will factor into whether you can accomplish your goal or not, and you have to be prepared for that, too.

Re: Career Asymtotes

#32

Post by brian_cunnie »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #29
almostgotcaught wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Measuring oneself as an engineer by the title of the salary band you're in is a disservice. It's really not that deep - people do this because both a title and salary are effectively money you can bank and that's the only thing that matters - we don't work grueling, stressful, tedious, jobs just the sake of "a hard day's work". > Not when I was promoted from Senior Engineer to Staff Engineer, but rather the after-h…

You're coming at the employer relationship from a fundamentally different place than the parent comment you're responding to. I'm assuming their age because of when Pivotal Labs was a thing, but there was a period from about the late 90s to the early 2010s where many people in the valley believed in an ideal of ascetic tech monks where we did this for the love of the work and not purely for status or money. It's not…

> ascetic tech monks where we did this for the love of the work and not purely for status or money

And this is not limited to 2010s! My father worked as a software engineer in Poland in the 1960s, and the communist party had a problem: every profession had at least one member of the communist party except the programming profession. But the Polish programmers weren't interested in joining, not even with the perks of a bigger apartment or cars. Finally they got one programmer to join the communist party, but he wasn't interested in programming, and only became a programmer so he could join the communist party & get the perks.

Re: Career Asymtotes

#33

Post by almostgotcaught »

brian_cunnie wrote: post #30
almostgotcaught wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not even just talking about the case where someone's worked in the tech industry long enough with a low enough expense lifestyle that money literally does not matter to them anymore... This is the most out of touch (and also irrelevant) take you can have. I work in FAANG in the bay. The people around me are solid upper middle class but mortgages, day care, regular cars, medical bills, aging parents, college tuition…

> not a single person has ever said to me "I'm doing this for the love of it". I'm doing this for the love of it. Maybe "love" is too strong a word, but I certainly "like" what I'm doing, and I "like" computers, and I have a computer side project that I "like" doing and don't get paid for. Heck, when I was a summer student at IBM I couldn't believe they were paying me for something that was so fun!

congrats you're an extremely privileged and exceptional person. basketball players also generally love their jobs but they happen to be on average 6'7" so i'm not sure how either your experience theirs apply to me and the people i work with.

Re: Career Asymtotes

#34

Post by stego-tech »

I consider myself lucky that I got to witness this blog post peter out in real life with a parental figure of mine, and thus internalize what sort of career track I’d like to have/work toward.

For me? I’d like to be a CIO someday - and believe I can get there, albeit for a smaller firm where outcomes are more important than politics, which rules out basically all of the Fortune 500. I’m fine if I don’t reach that point, though, as everything outside of work is ultimately more important - relationships, hobbies, enjoying this fleeting existence. Work is a means to an end, and so my skills are means to the end of a better career. I don’t think in terms of salary bands or titles, I look at my career in terms of skills and opportunities.

The traditional career is dead, is my (meandering) point. This article gives some sorely needed wake-up calls that we need to think bigger and more holistically than mere promotion cycles if we want to find our personal success.

Re: Career Asymtotes

#35

Post by Nevermark »

almostgotcaught wrote: post #28
Nevermark wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Note I could've said "when I discovered XYZ mathematical principle" but I didn't because they're both equally as arbitrary Wow. I cannot relate to someone who only (mostly) view's their own accomplishments as bargaining chips for money/prestige. Even accomplishments that could have widespread benefit to others. But I accept productive people can operate in different ways.

> Even accomplishments that could have widespread benefit to others. Which ones would those be? The ones where you optimized some process so your company could make 10MM more annually? I'm not a doctor/teacher/public defender. I write code that my company sells. I'm not benefitting anyone except myself and my company.

> discovered XYZ mathematical principle

As I noted, I wasn't critiquing you.

> I'm not benefitting anyone except myself and my company.

I don't know what you do, and all good work should be rewarded, but in most work third parties, such as customers or others benefit from work well done.

But I strongly share your opinion that good work should be matched with proportional compensation.

I had a similar problem. I was compensated well for what I could achieve, as a partner to a company, but after many good years, asymptotically prevented from achieving anything. The irony of being bought out of a contract for a price that reflected how much I could no longer achieve in those circumstances wasn't lost on me.

Re: Career Asymtotes

#36

Post by ClaraForm »

almostgotcaught wrote: post #33
brian_cunnie wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not a single person has ever said to me "I'm doing this for the love of it". I'm doing this for the love of it. Maybe "love" is too strong a word, but I certainly "like" what I'm doing, and I "like" computers, and I have a computer side project that I "like" doing and don't get paid for. Heck, when I was a summer student at IBM I couldn't believe they were paying me for something that was so fun!

congrats you're an extremely privileged and exceptional person. basketball players also generally love their jobs but they happen to be on average 6'7" so i'm not sure how either your experience theirs apply to me and the people i work with.

You’re getting awfully close to being rude. There’s no reason to try to go around imposing your perspective when it’s just you venting about feeling stuck. We all feel stuck from time to time, the solution is generally to wait it out until something that genuinely excites you comes along and you ask to hop on that opportunity. That’s possible in all work cultures, including egalitarian flat organizations.

Re: Career Asymtotes

#37

Post by cheepin »

Supermancho wrote: post #6

Don't confuse arbitrary career ranking (which varies org to org) with earning potential. I have a relatively low effort remote job with fantastic compensation in a very large company. The responsibility is low, the opportunities to move about are many and often appear. I get job offers all the time and think: Yeah, it's more money, but will it be better conditions? This is the longest I've ever worked at a company (o…

That’s a pretty solid endorsement. Where do you work?

Re: Career Asymtotes

#38

Post by marssaxman »

almostgotcaught wrote: post #25
dmoy wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> are effectively money you can bank and that's the only thing that matters We may have to agree to disagree here. Not even just talking about the case where someone's worked in the tech industry long enough with a low enough expense lifestyle that money literally does not matter to them anymore ... A lot of people will work specific jobs not because they're trying to optimize for the most possible money.

> Not even just talking about the case where someone's worked in the tech industry long enough with a low enough expense lifestyle that money literally does not matter to them anymore... This is the most out of touch (and also irrelevant) take you can have. I work in FAANG in the bay. The people around me are solid upper middle class but mortgages, day care, regular cars, medical bills, aging parents, college tuition…

I'm doing this for the love of it. I never meant to make it a career, originally; I just spent so much time at it when I was young that it became a career, whether I liked it or not. I've never sought to maximize my compensation; I just need to get paid enough that I can comfortably keep doing the work, because the work is what I want to do.

Yes, I have a family and a mortgage and bills, blah blah blah. All this is adaptable.

Lest you simply dismiss me, I will say that I have worked at two FAANG companies and another tech giant which was larger than any of them; but my ambition is measured in terms of technical impact, not money.

Re: Career Asymtotes

#39

Post by 1970-01-01 »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #19
1970-01-01 wrote: post #16

I think this is the first time I disagree with everything said. A properly motivated man can be whatever they want. Astronaut is absolutely within reach, along with anything else, with the exception of POTUS if you weren't born on US soil. Do not conflate your lack of 110% motivation to a cause/goal/solution as lies.

I am 5 foot four and was born with a limp, do you think if I tried really hard I could have been a pro basketball player? The entire idea that anyone can do anything they put their mind to is a lie. There are all sorts of path dependencies that limit what people can do.

Yes. There are literally thousands of sports doctors and coaches willing to work with you. Nothing is stopping you but your high horse. Work with what you have and just do it.

Re: Career Asymtotes

#40

Post by hollerith »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #39
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am 5 foot four and was born with a limp, do you think if I tried really hard I could have been a pro basketball player? The entire idea that anyone can do anything they put their mind to is a lie. There are all sorts of path dependencies that limit what people can do.

Yes. There are literally thousands of sports doctors and coaches willing to work with you. Nothing is stopping you but your high horse. Work with what you have and just do it.

I hope you are being sarcastic (even though that is unlikely).
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