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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?

#341

Post by geggam »

GhostKnight wrote: post #304
shantly wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In other words, while I considered what the accountant guy did to be a rather low-effort incomplete job, he did exactly what was expected of him by the bank and what I needed to get my deal done. The degree to which everything runs on this sort of system is kind of horrifying, once you're exposed to enough things like this for that to sink in. Relatedly, I guess my contribution to the broader thread would be: Almos…

your closing is absolutely true as the majority of all of us "fake it till we make it"

This sort of fake it till you make it incorporates passing the hot potato as well. Someone will get left holding it and burn.

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

#342

Post by jnty »

nkrisc wrote: post #327

How important it is to be able to inhabit another person's viewpoint and see things from their perspective. So much time and effort is saved in doing so. Much of my job has become translating and mediating between stakeholders going around in circles, because each one believes their viewpoint represents the entirety of the issue. They can not understand one another because they assume the other understands everything…

This was the first thing I thought of when I read this question. So often I find myself and people around me basically assuming that the folks on the other side of the phone are idiots. Well, chances are they're thinking the same. You only need 15 minutes to disagree, but it takes much more time and effort to humbly understand a stranger's worldview and motivations. However, once you do, you're much more likely to deliver something you're both happy with at the end.

I think this is a significant part of the value of face-to-face meetings - it's much easier to 'get' someone when you observe and speak to them and their colleagues. At the very least, the connection you get makes it harder to subconsciously write them off as an idiot!

Of course, occasionally you come across people who really are very unsuited for the task at hand and end up talking total rubbish. But it's still worth taking the time to be sure - it's probably not as obvious to you as it is to other people, and you'll find yourself having to justify your assessment more often than you expect, particularly to decision-makers.

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

#344

Post by geggam »

growlist wrote: post #273
PavlovsCat wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the reason the world is burning. Instead of running from where you don't see it, run to attack where you do see it. It's better to fail as a good person than to succeed as a charlatan, and a bit of money can't plaster over the faculties of the mind drying up, among that the ability to resist charlatans in other contexts, including the political. "Business sophistry" is simply sophistry, brownnosing your boss…

The forces of chaos certainly seem to be in the ascendant in the West. A British woman makes thousands a month taking her clothes off online and selling her bathwater to perverts etc., yet if I call this out I'm liable to being labelled a dinosaur, misogynistic, hateful, etc. etc. In today's society possessing what were once considered traditional morals is liable to leave one at best socially isolated and at worst d…

Remember when a man of discriminating taste was considered good for society ?

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

#345

Post by MiracleUser »

tatar wrote: post #278
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…

Very well put. What I noticed is that every discipline invents their own lingo to describe the systems in play at the ethos of their discipline and they often manifest as some sort of law, principle or concept. What I'm really curious about learning is to see if there's some sort of overarching discipline that focuses on these sort of systems as a meta and finds improvement points or market opportunities based on a g…

Operations Research is related to this. I majored in Information & Systems Engineering which is analogous. The focus is on business, manufacturing, and operational systems and a section of the study is modelling a system and using RNG to simulate chaos / disorder

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

#347

Post by davnicwil »

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…

> Don't be angry at the people who are benefiting from a system, or at the system itself. Most just end up that way, the same way a river meanders towards the sea

This is absolutely brilliant, going to favourite it and steal your quote!

The only thing I'd contribute is to also think about the system from your perspective, wherever you've ended up. Zoom out. Think about how you got here.

How much of it is truly deliberate and chosen, how much is the default path of least resistance? How much did you create, how much did you accept and learn from others? How much is earned, how much is luck? What do you want to change, what can you change? Are you able to help others change? Are you able to help others by changing the system itself?

Things how they happen to be now aren't necessarily how they ought to be. Indeed probably as a rule they aren't. It's not the natural order of things just because it's been that way all your life, or you've been a part of it all your life. At any moment, you have the ability to put your head up, think critically about things, act deliberately and independently, and change yourself and the system around you for the better.

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

#349

Post by tudorpavel »

CrackpotGonzo wrote: post #272
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…

This is a great point. I read Thinking in Systems a few years ago and it changed how I observe and try to influence (or not) existing systems. Highly recommend. https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-Donella-H-Meadows/dp...

I recently read "An Introduction to General Systems Thinking" by Gerald M. Weinberg [0], which may or may not be in the same vain. These concepts are hard to wrap my mind around but they are appealing. I'll try your recommendation too, thanks!

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-General-Systems-Thinking...

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

#350

Post by knightofmars »

fxtentacle wrote: post #146

How much feel good and drinking relationships matter in upper management. And on the downside, how little facts weight in when compared to a manager's gut feeling. Enthusiastically presenting a (factually wrong) solution can be a winning strategy. In high school, I thought I was a math genius because all of my solutions were judged as correct. Turns out, I was just a good presenter and nobody made any effort to check…

> ...how little facts weight in when compared to a manager's gut feeling.

Yes.

https://ideas.ted.com/why-do-so-many-incompetent-men-become-...

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