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Career advice for people with bad luck

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Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#351

Post by z3t4 »

dakna wrote: post #191
bad_luck_tw wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something similar happened to me during this outbreak. Got my CS degree from a no-name university in a third world country a few years back, got a job in one of those software sweatshops getting paid peanuts, moved to a new one an year later where I worked my ass off to learn things and generally be a good developer, but here too I was paid a pittance, mostly due to my education and previous job. I hated working here…

You probably already know that, but sometimes it helps to hear it again: The world is a competitive place, and a lot of success factors are outside of your control. (timing, pre-existing resources, sheer luck) What you can control is exactly what you are already doing: Work really hard and make the best of what you have. Come up with a good long term plan and execute it. Do life decisions that help with that plan. Th…

Many people think that if they work really hard it will pay off. But its the other other way, first you discover that something pays off, then you can start to work hard to get even better. So it should really say work smart.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#352

Post by nexus2045 »

askdfjng wrote: post #251
chosenbreed37 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Read some philosophy. Buy a reliable used car. Look inward for contentment. Try therapy if your shitty childhood and shitty parents made inward a hard place to look. I'd recommend the following: 1. Meditations - Marcus Aurelius 2. 12 Rules for Life - Jordan B Peterson 3. Letters from a self made merchant - John Graham

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

Nah you're just on the wrong side of the internet, and formed an opinion based on a misguided recommendation algorithm.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#353

Post by Pamar »

mywittyname wrote: post #348
taurath wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is interesting. Can you expand it a bit, please?

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#354

Post by travisjungroth »

giantg2 wrote: post #273
travisjungroth wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering the expected value of your publicly traded stocks at 0 is not good advice. If you actually believe that, then it would make sense to trade all of your holdings for a dollar.

I think you ignored the last sentence of my previous comment :)

I didn’t ignore it. It’s just in conflict with your first sentence. I’m not sure if you’re talking about EV in technical terms, or a more lose “count on it way”, but neither makes sense to discount to 0. Like if you’re 50 and have a million dollars in stocks for retirement, you should put an expected value of 0 on that? Seems silly to me.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#355

Post by Arete314159 »

edraferi wrote: post #320
Arete314159 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can speak to one of your points! I got dealt a bad hand in terms of health issues. However, a few years before I developed my health issues, I happened to have a long talk with a guy who had advanced MS. He told me that after his diagnosis, he tried to sock away as much money as possible and go for higher-paying jobs, as he knew that one day he'd become fully disabled and have to live on disability. Also, disabilit…

Very cool! Congratulations on your exceptionally clear-eyed approach to a major life challenge! I’m sure this sounds sarcastic, but I’m genuinely impressed. It takes a lot of mental discipline to examine long term trends, make a correct projection, identify an appropriate course of action and then implement it even when its disruptive to your personal life. I hope it worked well for you, and that you are living your…

Thanks! Yes, it is especially challenging because my health problems are in the unfortunate category: extremely disabling + poorly understood. So until I found specialists I got a lot of "Well everyone gets 'tired' sometimes" gaslighting from medical professionals.

In other words I had to prepare for total disability being in my future, while also being told that nothing was wrong with me in my present by some doctors (not all, fortunately).

So psychologically the greatest part of the challenge was to prepare for an extreme event (disability) while being told that nothing was wrong. I just had to listen to my body and hear when it told me I wasn't going to be able to work full time until retirement age, and then plan accordingly.

So far, mostly due to the grace of God, I have turned out all right, thank you for your kind words. Getting approved for disability was brutal but I did eventually get approved.

Side note: Unfortunately / fortunately, dealing with medical gaslighting for all these years helped my BS detector spot the issues in the "just the flu" narrative this year way ahead of the curve, and prepare appropriately. Sadly.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#356

Post by PiersPlowman »

protonimitate wrote: post #345
LarryDarrell wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You gotta dig deep first if you want to build a skyscraper, as I always heard.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#357

Post by BenjiWiebe »

celestialcheese wrote: post #283
TurkishPoptart wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love my 2001 Corolla. It's got 164k miles on it (had about 140 when I bought it), and I hope to get another 100k out of it!

Same here - except 220k. Still running great, but looking for a new-to-me car because i'm tired of driving it.

I have two cars. 03 VW Jetta TDI with 270k miles and an 09 Nissan Altima with 260k miles. Though I do get plenty of chances to try my hand at being a mechanic.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#358

Post by xupybd »

lovich wrote: post #332
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…

Most of these seem fine to good, but number 5 is kind of just removing agency from children entirely. Its the same mindset of people who kick their kids out for being gay

Possibly but this is more to counter letting your kids go wild such that as they grow up you don't like to around them. By ining them how to behave well you equip them will the tools to interact in society.

Of course if you are a horrible person you might dislike them for their good behaviours. But if you're a horrible person chances are you'll mess up your kids with or without that rule.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#359

Post by harimau777 »

Loughla wrote: post #81
harimau777 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its fairly likely that your previous employer has a policy that your previous employer will just confirm that you worked there. In that case, it shouldn't be too much of an issue. There are services which you can pay to call up a previous employer pretending to be a new employer doing a background/reference check on you. They will then report back on what they say. In the case that they do say something negative, one…

This is not meant to be hateful, but what an awfully long and needlessly complicated process just to prove that you didn't learn anything from being fired. Having hired hundreds of people over my career, being fired is not an automatic exclusion, but we would be 100% looking for growth in the person sitting across the table from us. Your process shows no growth.

I'm not sure that I follow. If a previous employer is telling callers things that are keeping you from getting a new job, then I'm not sure what that has to do with personal growth. Especially if you were fired unjustly.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#360

Post by rhizome »

wwweston wrote: post #293
chosenbreed37 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Read some philosophy. Buy a reliable used car. Look inward for contentment. Try therapy if your shitty childhood and shitty parents made inward a hard place to look. I'd recommend the following: 1. Meditations - Marcus Aurelius 2. 12 Rules for Life - Jordan B Peterson 3. Letters from a self made merchant - John Graham

> 2. 12 Rules for Life - Jordan B Peterson A note on this, since mentioning Peterson tends to spark controversy: I think I think the people who get the best out of Peterson don't treat him as a guru issuing rules written in stone tablets (in spite of the implication of the book title) but as a provoker of attention/reflection. This is probably generally true of anyone, but especially worth considering here. I also te…

>but as a provoker of attention/reflection.

Smart business choice, this is how you capitalize on ambiguity. Sarcasm as a business model.

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