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Career advice for people with bad luck

chiefofstuff.substack.com

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Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#341

Post by TeMPOraL »

bitxbitxbitcoin wrote: post #294
Reedx wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To dismiss as dangerous is silly. Here are the 12 rules. Rule 1: Stand up straight with your shoulders back Rule 2: Treat yourself like you would someone you are responsible for helping Rule 3: Make friends with people who want the best for you Rule 4: Compare yourself with who you were yesterday, not with who someone else is today Rule 5: Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them Rule 6: Set y…

Rule 12 caveat 1: If it lets you.

Rule 12 caveat 2: And wash or disinfect your hands immediately afterwards, because Lord only knows what that cat is carrying on its fur.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#342

Post by DrNuke »

mdorazio wrote: post #67

I really want to see more articles like this on HN. However, this is really "career advice for people at struggling companies." The luck part doesn't get discussed in the way I expected. To me, bad luck is things like: - You're in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ex. you graduated in 2008-2010/now or your business sector got wiped out by COVID - Despite your best efforts at networking, you simply never meet that ma…

Not taking it personal helps, though... we cast our net daily and see what emerges?

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#343

Post by ghaff »

rsanek wrote: post #225
throw4failure wrote: post #29

This seems like a good thread in which to try to solicit some advice, since it's at least tangentially related. I was terminated from my last job. In my opinion it was due to my chronic and major depression that I have since been seeking extensive treatment (medication, several months rent in therapy) for. I say "in my opinion" because I really can't rule out that I'm just a lazy, crappy developer who is trying to us…

Just wanted to chime in and say, 6 months is actually not a big deal at all. Listening to people who say it is will only serve to add stress to your job search. I took a year and a half off to travel when I was 26 and nobody cared. You can explain it in any way you want to but I certainly wouldn't mention getting fired or specifics about your personal medical history. Good luck.

I would think nothing of someone taking 6 months off. The only reason I've never done it myself on my own volition is that a good opportunity has never presented itself. Aside from one time I was laid off, I've had a job offer in hand before leaving an employer. And that one time I didn't, I got a quick job offer in the middle of the dot-com blowup so it certainly wasn't a good time to travel the world.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#344

Post by saagarjha »

bad_luck_tw wrote: post #165
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

comment looks fine to me?

It was dead for about 10 minutes after I posted it, I think it tripped up some spam/troll filter for new accounts. It's fine now though, but I can't edit the original comment and remove the last line.

Yes, new accounts tend to have their comments appear as dead until they are vouched for. For constructive posts this usually happens quickly.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#345

Post by protonimitate »

LarryDarrell wrote: post #198
mdorazio wrote: post #67

I really want to see more articles like this on HN. However, this is really "career advice for people at struggling companies." The luck part doesn't get discussed in the way I expected. To me, bad luck is things like: - You're in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ex. you graduated in 2008-2010/now or your business sector got wiped out by COVID - Despite your best efforts at networking, you simply never meet that ma…

I suspect it's because there isn't much advice to give. My answer, having checked a few of your boxes... Your lifetime wages are going to be lower than many of your peers. This is unlikely to change. Adjust your worldview accordingly. Don't assume any debt that relies on increasing future earnings to be comfortable. By all means, keep trying, but stay level headed. Success for most is not always right around the corn…

Great advice.

I see a lot of people in tech with inflated ideas of what success means, and they're almost all tied strictly to salary/net worth.

Yeah, having money is nice, but if that's all you base happiness/idea of success on, its going to be a bumpy road.

>There are a lot of self-conscious IT people in the midwest making $70k/year feeling like failures

I understand how this can point of view can develop, but one of the things I'm most grateful for in life is struggling through a slew of minimum-wage jobs out of college before transitioning into tech. That first bump to "tech salary" literally doubled my income over night and it was only 70k in a high COL east coast city. I learned how to live poor, and discovered I could still have a meaningful life while being broke.

Although I still pursue career advancement, it's not just for money. And if it were to all disappear over night (which is the case for a lot of people right now), I'm comforted by the fact that I've already had it "that bad".

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#347

Post by yingw787 »

I've been reading the Incerto series by Nassim Taleb and he talks quite frequently about nonlinearities and their outsize impact.

He mentions how a friend of his saw how during the Gulf War, everybody had planned for the war to increase the price of oil. So his friend bet against everybody else. Turns out, everybody was stockpiling oil due to the war, and given how short it was, there was an oil glut afterwards. His friend turned $300,000 into $18M.

It's difficult to work for a FAANG and become wealthy, as in move between socioeconomic classes. You have to play politics and become fragile in your building of human relationships, which can fall apart much more quickly than your competence as a software engineer (barring a brain aneurysm or a TBI, where you have much more pressing problems).

If you bet that the stock market would absolutely tank by end of March, and acted on that impulse financially, you would be wealthy today. Renaissance Technologies rose 39% and is having one of their best years ever. It's not secret, exclusive knowledge. I started taking health precautions two weeks before the crash. I didn't act financially, because I honestly didn't think of it, and because I don't like the principle of shorting the market and betting against my country and my people.

My takeaway isn't go on wallstreetbets and attempt to yolo my way through life. My takeaway is people who bet on linearities are much more similar than you think. $300K, $70K, does it really matter? In the grand scheme of things, you're still a peon either way. You're a middle class guy, with little influence on Capitol Hill and less access to PPE and ventilators, high taxes, one primary income stream, and still trade time for money instead of building capital and having money work for you.

So if you feel down, keep a good head on your shoulders, don't despair, and consume as much information as you can on a regular basis. If you want to, look for ways to benefit from nonlinearities. And if you do make it, be a humanist and don't forget to give back to the people who raised you and taught you and care for you.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#348

Post by mywittyname »

taurath wrote: post #333
blululu wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Read some philosophy. Buy a reliable used car. As the proud owner of a 2004 Toyota Corolla and a 2011 Philosophy Minor, this line made my day. Honestly it is just plain good advice.

How many miles does your Philosophy Minor have on it? I've heard they're not very reliable

Isn't philosophy kind of like CS minus the computers? I remember my sister talking about how much she hated her philosophy class and what she described was essentially discrete math-lite.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#349

Post by solidasparagus »

the_af wrote: post #285
michaelbrave wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like having priorities that go beyond making money or having career success. Nothing wrong with that, but it may be something to make peace with.

Yes, of course. To elaborate, most people (outside the HN bubble) have these priorities, they are good priorities to have, and these people work in tech. Therefore, advice starting with "move to SV" applies only to an extremely small subset of programmers worldwide, and as such, is not very helpful. If the career advice is "ditch everything in your life, become magically younger, live in a country you don't like, dit…

In a discussion about career advice, saying "move to where the most and best paying jobs are" is absolutely good advice. It may not work for everyone, but that advice applies to far more people than 'an extremely small subset'. It applies outside of tech too.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#350

Post by taurath »

Reedx wrote: post #289
askdfjng wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

JBP's 12 Rules for Life is dangerous advice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtwP6AbbAUc

To dismiss as dangerous is silly. Here are the 12 rules. Rule 1: Stand up straight with your shoulders back Rule 2: Treat yourself like you would someone you are responsible for helping Rule 3: Make friends with people who want the best for you Rule 4: Compare yourself with who you were yesterday, not with who someone else is today Rule 5: Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them Rule 6: Set y…

Its interesting how wildly different in scope they are, as if its designed more to keep your attention than have meaningful advice.

1-4 are "respect yourself".

5 is.... I think legitimate bad advice as worded, but I'm sure as expounded it makes more sense. Maybe its designed as a hook (the "wtf" that drives views).

6-8 are general advice you'd find anywhere

9-11 are how to effectively deal with other people without saying the word "empathy"

12 is kinda spurious

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