The problem is that this changes dynamically in function of opportunity and ambition, or its composed form: opportunity to expand ambition.
Maybe you should do less 'work'
361–370 of 431 posts
Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'
#362Earlier quoted context omitted.
>More taxes are a result of earning more and not really from working more although they are usually related Even the mythical 10x engineer is not really getting paid 10x more than their same level peers so no not really. So this even furthers the argument. Why bother having 10x the output if you only see a smidge of that productivity as increased income?
We're not talking about being more productive in the same number of hours. If you earn $2000 you pay more taxes than if you earn $1000, even if you work double the hours to earn $2000. So you still get rewarded for your extra time.
That's not how most jobs work, you get paid a salary, some people still work 60hr weeks and do not get paid more than their peers.
Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'
#363There was a time during the first shut down when my company decided to reduce peoples hours and also reduce their salaries instead of laying off more employees. I end up working 20 hours a week (instead of my normal 35) with a reduced salary (and I was even able to collect partial California unemployment benefits for the remainder of the reduced hours under a special program called Workshare). Honestly it was amazing…
> Working less than 40 is nice but once you get down to 20 you have whole DAYS where you can do whatever you want
I spent around 10 years working about 20 hours a week doing freelance work.
It's good until it's not. Basically, yes you do have a lot of time and often times you can decide to be done at noon if you'd like. Taking entire days off is also possible unless it's expected to do something in a timely fashion such as meet with someone or produce results by XYZ day. I found in practice it wasn't possible to really drop off the grid for continuous 4 day weekends.
I came to the conclusion this lifestyle is only really worth it when you have more money than you would likely ever have if you worked this schedule for a long time. For example, if you only worked 3 days a week but had millions of dollars then this would be super interesting because you could go and do fun things all the time. Having $5,000 a month to spend guilt free to do whatever would be amazing if it didn't cut into any type of retirement fund because you're already set.
But if you're working for half a salary chances are you don't have millions of dollars tucked away unless remarkable things have happened to you. So what you really end up doing is finishing at noon some days and then procrastinating on everything while you do nothing productive or fun because you've done everything you could with your budget 100 times over after years of this lifestyle. At least that's what happened to me. Your mileage may vary.
I realized I'm happier when I feel like I'm maximizing my time. That doesn't mean always working but it means feeling like I'm making enough to where when I want to take off 2 weeks a few times a year to do something really fun it's fully enjoyed. Then I fill in the gaps between trips doing assorted fun but not crazy things. With 40 hours of payments this becomes less of a financial burden. Only problem now is having less time to do them.
Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'
#364Earlier quoted context omitted.
>You said that as a means of supporting your larger point which is that capitalism is flawed. I am arguing that unfairness (as I defined it) is the whole essence of capitalism, which is very different from saying it's an unwanted byproduct of it. We want unfairness. Thank you for the clarification. No we don't want unfairness. Wealth inequality is universally a very bad thing. Nobody wants this, you'd have to be insa…
> Wealth inequality is universally a very bad thing. This is a moral absolutist take. We clearly don't agree on "bad" vs. "good" because some of the best (from my perspective) things were/are done in capitalist countries, such as the creation of NASA, rollercoasters, the Internet, innovative surgeries, and life-saving medical treatments for chronic conditions. > Wealth is distributed unfairly with people who contribu…
>This is a moral absolutist take.
No it's the take by vote. You ask a normal person whether they think it's good they will give you a normal answer. You ask a billionaire, the billionaire will give you the same answer but secretly lobby against you.
It's not moral absolutist. Every economist thinks it's bad. Generally they are okay with a little bit as a necessity but the level at where it's at now is too much.
>Measuring contributions is not a trivial task, even philosophically. How much does my CEO contribute versus the work of us workers? That isn't something that can be measured, so any conception of the answer to that is going to be a matter of opinion. So I'm going to say "[citation needed]" on that one, and arguably there's a "[philosophical justification needed]" as well.
I never said it was trivial nor did I say it could be easily measured. But on a grand scale we know it's occurring. It's very trivial to see. Most CEO's don't deserve the salary they get, this is also trivial to see.
>First, that definitely is not true, especially if you believe that a portion of people in the system are overpaid.
You're way too pedantic. Of course I'm referring to a generality. 99% of people are fucked over. Very few people are overpaid.
>But secondly, if you are getting "fucked over," you should leave and join a different company that does not fuck you over.
All companies try to fuck you over. I just join the company that fucks me the least. I'm still getting fucked. That's what typically occurs. What you're referring to is different.
You're referring to Baumol's cost disease for wage competition, which is typically not what occurs. No overall economy is governed by this but you do see it happening in small bubbles or certain industries. I would say software in the bay area has this phenomenon occurring in the slight. Wages here are higher then the rest of the world BUT wages are generally not high enough to the point where most engineers aren't getting fucked.
>You are again stating this as though it's supposed to be taken as a given that it's bad. Acquiring capital and growing capital are two totally different roles and it's impossible to compare their true value to society. We need both, and it's not clear that acquiring capital (providing it) is less valuable.
It is bad, but let me clarify, ownership of human capital or other things that own human capital by proxy is the thing that is bad.
Just because things are hard to quantify doesn't mean we can't use our intuition to make a judgement. It should be self evident and obvious that ownership of human capital is bad but a necessary evil.
Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'
#365Beyond those arguments, it's also important to remind that we should work between 20 or 30 hours per week, not more. It's about health, being able to rest, do leisure, physical activity, see friends, date, etc. There are things to learn about the antiwork mentality. Not saying everyone should quit their job, but still, it would be nice if everyone could be able to negotiate with their employees. I have often been cal…
While I'll likely continue working my whole life, one thing I would like is some time off to think about my relationship with work and where I should be focusing my energy. Some kind of UBI or other anti-work outcome seems like it could actually provide space for that. I haven't had more than a 2 week lapse in work for 2 decades... and if I did I'd probably be extremely anxious the whole time. When health insurance a…
If you can find space for it then I recommend it. It let me restructure my relationship with work internally, and it doesn't necessarily matter what my job is now, I have a healthier outlook on how I should approach it.
That's particularly helpful in the times where you don't like your job, but want to be happy anyway. Unfortunately I think that's a personal journey, so I can't really offer any advice on how that could work for you except to say, you need the time to figure it out.
Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'
#366There was a time during the first shut down when my company decided to reduce peoples hours and also reduce their salaries instead of laying off more employees. I end up working 20 hours a week (instead of my normal 35) with a reduced salary (and I was even able to collect partial California unemployment benefits for the remainder of the reduced hours under a special program called Workshare). Honestly it was amazing…
> Working less than 40 is nice but once you get down to 20 you have whole DAYS where you can do whatever you want I spent around 10 years working about 20 hours a week doing freelance work. It's good until it's not. Basically, yes you do have a lot of time and often times you can decide to be done at noon if you'd like. Taking entire days off is also possible unless it's expected to do something in a timely fashion s…
> Taking entire days off is also possible unless it's expected to do something in a timely fashion such as meet with someone or produce results by XYZ day. I found in practice it wasn't possible to really drop off the grid for continuous 4 day weekends.
I've tried to hire part-time employees or 4-day workweek employees in the past. You described essentially the #1 roadblock.
It actually works okay as long as you have a steady stream of non-urgent, totally isolated, async-okay work for them to do. Most companies run out of that type of work fairly quickly and prefer full-time employees who can work together with their teammates. It actually becomes a constant annoyance for the rest of the team if the 1 person working part-time is only sporadically available, so they now have to shape their workweeks around that person's availability.
> For example, if you only worked 3 days a week but had millions of dollars then this would be super interesting because you could go and do fun things all the time. Having $5,000 a month to spend guilt free to do whatever would be amazing if it didn't cut into any type of retirement fund because you're already set.
Without going into too many details, I can actually speak to this. It's another scenario that's amazing at first, but (I really hate to say this) gets old over time.
The problem for me was that few other people were available to do things during the week. I grew close to some friends with similarly erratic schedules (professional nurses often work 3x12 schedules, for example), but it's a small population. I enjoy doing a lot of things alone, but being able to do them with friends would be more fun.
I also started feeling like I was missing out on interesting engineering problems that my friends were working on. Once you have the means to be selective about the jobs you take and money can be a secondary concern (to a degree) you have the option of joining a lot of very interesting companies and working with very interesting people.
Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'
#367Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well i'm not talking hours, to be clear. Just some idea that we're all equal. Ie, if a hypothetical society depends on addicts working more than "lazy people" (in the parents words) then it feels to me we're set up for failure.
If you're after parasites, lazy software developers aren't the low hanging fruit. People who pull in multiple thousands a month plus from dividends, bonds, rental and stock portfolios are where the real fat is. Weirdly American culture has twisted these people into paragons of success while the people who do all the really tough and necessary work are paid poor wages, made to feel like shit about it at the same time…
> People who pull in multiple thousands a month plus from dividends, bonds, rental and stock portfolios are where the real fat is.
those people risked capital to obtain that income. There's this idea that capital is "lazy" and people who risk it doesn't deserve the rewards that come with such risks.
Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'
#368Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree. A fun side story is when I got a new manager a while back. In our first one-on-one, he told me that he has connections through the company and can use them to get me promoted to another team if I make him happy. I get that making the boss happy is part of a job, but that should be accomplished by doing good work. This direct proposition just felt too quid pro quo and had a stink to it, in my opinion.
Was your new manager new to being a manager? I could see that kind of offer coming from an operator, but I could just as much see it coming from someone lacking confidence trying to project a miscalculated sense of authority.
They were a manager for a long time before that.
Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'
#369Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're after parasites, lazy software developers aren't the low hanging fruit. People who pull in multiple thousands a month plus from dividends, bonds, rental and stock portfolios are where the real fat is. Weirdly American culture has twisted these people into paragons of success while the people who do all the really tough and necessary work are paid poor wages, made to feel like shit about it at the same time…
> People who pull in multiple thousands a month plus from dividends, bonds, rental and stock portfolios are where the real fat is. those people risked capital to obtain that income. There's this idea that capital is "lazy" and people who risk it doesn't deserve the rewards that come with such risks.
> There's this idea that capital is "lazy" and people who risk it doesn't deserve the rewards that come with such risks.
No, you are confusing capital with work: you can tell by looking at which of the two is subjected to much higher taxation, which is the concrete evidence that society judges the people doing it as less deserving of retaining the rewards that come with it than the less-taxed activity.
Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'
#370Earlier quoted context omitted.
Find better bosses and employers. They are out there.
How does one go about this? You interview your boss in the interview process and get a feel for what type of preson he is and then go with that gut feeling yes/no when your current boss leaves and you get a new boss that you don't like. Quit and go back to step 1. Does anyone operate like this? doesn't seem very practical or foolproof.
Not for me. I get a new boss on average every 9 months, just because they rotate/transfer so frequently.