Earlier quoted context omitted.
The real issue is pay for performance.
No amount of money is going to help you if you're consistently working 80+ ours a week over a long period of time.
Not even 1 Million a year? 10 million a year? It is only fair.
I Knew a Programmer Who Went Completely Insane
321–330 of 336 posts
Re: I Knew a Programmer Who Went Completely Insane
#322Earlier quoted context omitted.
No amount of money is going to help you if you're consistently working 80+ ours a week over a long period of time.
Not even 1 Million a year? 10 million a year? It is only fair.
No, not even $100 million or $1b a year.
There's a point at which health becomes more important than money. If someone is working so hard that the stress is taking such a toll that their marriage is at risk, they end up in a mental hospital, and/or are considering suicide, money ceases to become a consideration.
The most important thing for employers to consider in this sense is the wellbeing of their employees - this comes above everything else. If someone is healthy and happy, they can do a lot. If someone is stressed and unhappy, they're going to produce little.
And at the end of the day, the best way to improve performance is to ensure a proper work/life balance. It's about working smarter, not harder.
Re: I Knew a Programmer Who Went Completely Insane
#323Its so unfortunate to hear things like this. I knew of a person who was so stressed out by programming in similar situations that he went through a complete career revamp. He changed to law school and went on to work in government. He seems happier.
This makes me wonder if the kind of burnout described by OP has anything particular to do with the profession of programming. We periodically have posts on HN by lawyers who got so burned out by their day jobs that they did a career revamp to become developers...
yeah, I wonder too. I think most people need change and its not uncommon to see people with two careers. But perhaps jobs that are highly specific in the way you get to your output are more so that way. For eg. engineers work on beautiful problems and come up with awesome solutions. But when they are forced to churn out code, its shitty and tough and repetitive process. Same for lawyers who do corp law vs. litigation. I do Product Marketing and because its such a varied job (particularly at a startup) I don't really feel a burn out. Then again, I am only 3 years into working...
Re: I Knew a Programmer Who Went Completely Insane
#324Earlier quoted context omitted.
You have fought the hydra bravely, and I commend you for that. May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. What do you suppose we do? For the long-term, here's the financial structure for the solution that I see: http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/03/26/gervais-macle... . Essentially, I think VC-istan and MegaCorps are both dead ends when it comes to genuine technical excellence (whic…
Not to derail the thread, but nation-states are about as obsolete as operating systems.
not to derail your derailing, but "nation state" has a specific definition that I think is different than what you are referring to. China, India and the US are not nation states. Neither is Belgium. Japan is the largest.
> The state is a political and geopolitical entity; the nation is a cultural and/or ethnic entity. The term "nation state" implies that the two geographically coincide.
Re: I Knew a Programmer Who Went Completely Insane
#325It's not only programmers. Its managers as well. Its anyone who subsumes their job to be their identity! At my old company (big corporation) management shuffles happen every 9 months to a year. One manager went from having 45 people working under him to 0. The guy had a nervous breakdown as well. I heard he swam in one of our large number of fish tanks. That could be a bad rumor though. Anyway he was admitted and all…
> So try to not be a bottom level programmer for long - either become a tech lead or a manager asap. What if I want to escape the stress, but want my colleagues to escape it too? We can't all be managers.
There are is a (well-backed by arguments) viewpoint that, in order for the capitalism in its current form to work, some portion of the population just needs to get screwed.
Re: I Knew a Programmer Who Went Completely Insane
#326Yea...i do feel depression sometimes with my work...Also to add to few points mentioned here, I am also end up doing others work when they just stuck the team work...its frustating when u end up doing others work...
But I am always in control..used to play FIFA to control my emotions until my fingers having pain issues...now i watch some movies daily...
Re: I Knew a Programmer Who Went Completely Insane
#327Earlier quoted context omitted.
It sounds like a lot of what bothers you about VC startups is that they've become a way for megacorps to outsource risky marketing experiments (aka "convex work") and buy the winners while discarding the losers. But through the usual avenues of corruption it's become a rigged game where the sociopaths inside the megacorps are working with their sociopath friends in the VCs and actually picking winners instead of only…
> Is there a such thing as a corruption-repellent, paychopath-kryptonite system, and if so, what is it? Yes. Make the goal of your organisation a social good, and not making money.
Won't work. To play devil's advocate: 'let's see if we can make some money alongside the social good; maybe getting a bit grey.' Then: 'It's only a "stated goal" to make social good, but this is an organization, organizations are made to wield power and make money, so let's make money!'
Re: I Knew a Programmer Who Went Completely Insane
#328Earlier quoted context omitted.
You have fought the hydra bravely, and I commend you for that. May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. What do you suppose we do? For the long-term, here's the financial structure for the solution that I see: http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/03/26/gervais-macle... . Essentially, I think VC-istan and MegaCorps are both dead ends when it comes to genuine technical excellence (whic…
Not to derail the thread, but nation-states are about as obsolete as operating systems.
Interesting topic. There were early operating systems that served as an infrastructure for user's programs, they trusted the user, etc.., as nation-states basically trust their citizens to trust the government. But then too much malicious os simply unsafe software got written (as developmen became easier; life of citizen demanded much less care for the state) and the OS began morphing into restrictive and oppressive systems like OSX and Win8. As these restrictions inflicted real inconveniences on the well-behaved individuals, and voilà, the government's no longer trusted and has to be fought with.
AFAIK, in software world the way to deal with this situation is to build a new level of infrastructure abstraction to deal with oppressive OSes (ie webapps) and let the old system slowly die out because its services aren't really needed.
Wonder what will become the political analog of the Web.
Oh wait, the Web will itself evolve to become oppressive, no new analogs needed.
Hegel would be happy, now that's dialectics in action.
Re: I Knew a Programmer Who Went Completely Insane
#329Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not to derail the thread, but nation-states are about as obsolete as operating systems.
not to derail your derailing, but "nation state" has a specific definition that I think is different than what you are referring to. China, India and the US are not nation states. Neither is Belgium. Japan is the largest. > The state is a political and geopolitical entity; the nation is a cultural and/or ethnic entity. The term "nation state" implies that the two geographically coincide. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…
No, I'm referring to nation-states in specific. If you asked me for three major examples of why multinational empire-states are a Bad Idea, I would point to China, India, and the United States.
Though their are arguments to be made that China is a Han nation-state that simply forces everyone else to go along with what the ruling clique of Han want.
Re: I Knew a Programmer Who Went Completely Insane
#330Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not to derail the thread, but nation-states are about as obsolete as operating systems.
Interesting topic. There were early operating systems that served as an infrastructure for user's programs, they trusted the user, etc.., as nation-states basically trust their citizens to trust the government. But then too much malicious os simply unsafe software got written (as developmen became easier; life of citizen demanded much less care for the state) and the OS began morphing into restrictive and oppressive…
Wait, web-apps didn't evolve to get past "oppressive" operating systems. They evolved because centralized IT departments and centralized application deployment were easier than providing adequate deployment support and keeping data closed for desktop applications. They're technologically inferior in almost every other way.