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Fuck being productive

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Re: Fuck being productive

#371

Post by m_rpn »

lisasays wrote: post #339
m_rpn wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion the problem is this: company wants you to "show you are performing at an higher level" before giving you higher pay or a promotion, but this can take years in a mid to big sized company, and even performing at 200% your peers doesn't guarantee you get what you deserve, since most of the promotions in structured companies are not tied to performance whatsoever, but to networking and being supporters of y…

Agreed - this idea that one gets "quickly" promoted, if it all; or even that management wants you to perform "at a higher level" (that is, to be sticking your nose in their beeswax) -- is at odds with widely observable reality.

And also many times one doesn't even want to get promoted, we just want more money and less hassle!

Managers don't fear, we don't want to steal your jobs, just make us get what we want and everybody will live an happy and long life XD. It's that simple.

Re: Fuck being productive

#372

Post by Shocka1 »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #325
phone8675309 wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people never watched Dirty Jobs and you can see it in posts like the grandparent. Having a job you clock into, giving your best effort at that job, stopping work at 5 PM, and then going home and do the things you're passionate about that don't pay the bills is the way that the vast majority of people live. It's only the rich and deluded that think that this isn't the reality for most people, and that's because t…

Honestly this is something I find working as a software developer in offices... Many of my peers have never worked shitty jobs. I've worked fast food, I've worked retail (during the launch of the Wii, even, which was an insane time), I've detailed cars, I've worked in a call center. That's just what I had to do to avoid being buried under student debt. I think a lot of people working in offices never had this experie…

I agree wholeheartedly, and maybe a bit to the extreme. Worked in pizza shops and factory jobs in and out of HS until I figured out I really didn't want to do that type of stuff the rest of my life. So I enlisted in the 2000s and carried a rifle for five years, one of those for a year in the ME. It was terrible, but it paid for a CS Bachelor/Masters and gave me a perspective on how shitty things really can be.

I am completely aware of my viewpoint being extreme and keep myself in check when someone presents something that I would consider a first world problem. But make no mistake, many people in the US and Western world should be counting their blessings much more often.

Re: Fuck being productive

#373

Post by lurking_swe »

deprecative wrote: post #348
lurking_swe wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you’re a SWE working 45 hours a week? You can do better, even in the US. I suggest focusing on company culture when interviewing if you care about this kind of stuff. I’ve worked at 3 companies in my career so far, and worked about 40 hours a week at each of them. i was not born into wealth…neither were (most) of my coworkers. I won’t even ask about the $70k salary. I made that much at my first gig after college. Sou…

You really can't do much better as a SWE in the US. Even when you're not sitting at your computer typing in all that super slick code you're still working. Company culture is the same within the US from place to place unless you want some ultra fundamentalist loon for a boss? The base salary for Entry Level Developer ranges from $67,415 to $84,398 with the average base salary of $75,125. > Sounds like your employer i…

No, 40 hours includes lunch breaks. :) My bosses have all been non-jerks too, which is important. I’m probably lucky…but part of me just laughs during these types of conversations. we (software engineers) are more privileged than 90% of workers in america. Feels a bit like a harvard student complaining how hard their life is. It’s just a pointless discussion IMO.

Anyway ya’ll bitter as hell lol. Wish you all a pleasant day.

Re: Fuck being productive

#374

Post by the_only_law »

danny_taco wrote: post #79
sBqQu3U0wH wrote: post #15

Honestly, I do feel somewhat similar. I work a normal 8-hour day and I am not obsessed with productivity nor I am some kind of anti-work activist, but it just feels like such a waste of time. The only reason I go to work is for money. I don't care about the products we build for someone else (why should I?), nor the technologies used (each of which brings its own challenges and frustrations). If I didn't need to go t…

The main reason we all work for someone else is for money but there is something to be said about the things we build at work and not caring about them. This is something that took me a long time to realize but you need to stop thinking about software as a field and start thinking of it as a skill set. From there figure out what interests you. Wildlife, economics, vehicles, etc. or whatever, and then use your skill s…

> From there figure out what interests you. Wildlife, economics, vehicles, etc. or whatever, and then use your skill set to work on what field of your choosing.

Unfortunately the wildlife, economics and vehicle companies won’t hire me because I’m not an established domain expert in wildlife, economics or vehicles.

To be a bit more concrete I’ve actually applied to jobs in some of the industries you’ve noted recently, particularly wildlife. I applied for a job that seemed pretty cut and dry: Doing mostly .NET CRUD work for an application supporting [wildlife domain]. It didn’t pay well but it genuinely seemed like a domain I would like and Delma technical view the job was a perfect match for my resume. The application had several binary yes/no questions I had to fill Out mostly along the lines of “Do you have experience in X”. For 90% of the questions my answer was yes. But there was one question basically asking “Do you have experience writing software for our hyper specific domain”. I suppose I could have lied and said yes, though that just meant I’d be rejected after wasting my time and the organization’s time, so I answered truthfully “no”. I was rejected not long later and while it’s impossible to know the exact reason I have my suspicions.

Re: Fuck being productive

#375

Post by ksd482 »

gdsdfe wrote: post #148
ksd482 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a software engineer. I struggled to find meaning in my work for the first few years of my career. I used to lie (unknowingly) to myself "I love my job", "I am passionate about my job", "It's my passion" and I was always disappointed. That is until one day, after many years and barring many details, I decided to tell myself that "I push buttons on a company laptop in exchange for money and I happen to somewhat li…

where did you find your passion? just curious

Mathematics. Learning and doing pure (proof based) Mathematics. I was really good at it in high school and college, and it was the only thing I truly enjoyed.

So I got curious, picked up a book from undergrad curriculum and started learning myself. Got more curious, and I enrolled in a Masters program and got a Masters.

I don't have much time these days, but eventually I will get back to it and continue learning more. Perhaps one day, after I have retired or scaled down in my current job, I will pursue a PhD in it.

If you are curious about how I was able to accurately pinpoint "Mathematics" as my passion, then read on...

I was very disappointed by the lack of "scienciness" in software engineering. It wasn't even true engineering in my eyes as in, there were no calculations I needed to do, no statistics to keep in mind. It was just pure coding until something works. That wasn't intelecutally satisfying to me.

So I signed up for Andrew Ng's "Machine Learning" course. I really enjoyed it because he is an excellent teacher. But during the course I noticed something peculiar. I would skim through the reading material about AI/ML but would SLOW DOWN during the Math part of it. I would obsess about the PDEs, think deeply about them, even try to prove/derive them which was totally unnecessary for the purpose of the course and learning AI/ML's applications.

Combine this with my conversations with my colleague about AI/ML. He is really passionate about AI/ML and its applications and how to use it to solve real world problems. As far as I am concerned, I don't care about that at all. I ONLY care about the underlying mathematical objects used in it. He would talk about using an prebuilt library or a model and to just apply it to solve something and it would make him happy. Not me. I want to talk about what degree of the PDEs being used. What theorem is used to prove a certain equation.

This is when I realized that I didn't care about applications all that much. This was further validated when I got curious about the undergrad curriculum and picked up the book "The book of proof", and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I LOVED proving theorem and staring at the mathematical symbols on my notepad/whiteboard/chalkboard (yes, eventually I got a HUGE chalkboard installed in my study).

And, that is how I met Mathematics.

Thank you for reading :)

Re: Fuck being productive

#376

Post by wahnfrieden »

lurking_swe wrote: post #373
deprecative wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really can't do much better as a SWE in the US. Even when you're not sitting at your computer typing in all that super slick code you're still working. Company culture is the same within the US from place to place unless you want some ultra fundamentalist loon for a boss? The base salary for Entry Level Developer ranges from $67,415 to $84,398 with the average base salary of $75,125. > Sounds like your employer i…

No, 40 hours includes lunch breaks. :) My bosses have all been non-jerks too, which is important. I’m probably lucky…but part of me just laughs during these types of conversations. we (software engineers) are more privileged than 90% of workers in america. Feels a bit like a harvard student complaining how hard their life is. It’s just a pointless discussion IMO. Anyway ya’ll bitter as hell lol. Wish you all a pleasa…

we're all in this together as workers, even if some of us are lucky to have higher pay than others. you're missing the point. yes tech workers have cushy lives.

Re: Fuck being productive

#377

Post by cstrahan »

slt2021 wrote: post #120
cstrahan wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you assuming “money” isn’t also the answer to this implied question?

if money is the only reason, you can get money elsewhere. it ties back to theory of employee motivation, money being only external motivator. For high performance, employee needs also internal motivation (drive). employees with internal motivation are miles ahead and more productive than without one. this is why well paid and pampered Gogle engineers are less productive than some open-source enthusiasts

> employees with internal motivation are miles ahead and more productive than without one.

Isn’t that invariant with respect to (prospective) employer?

I naturally feel motivated to do a good job and earn the respect of my coworkers, and the satisfaction and pride that comes with a job well done. In addition to my work output, the title I hold and the salary I’ve earned are evidence to my friends, family and romantic interests of my drive to generate value and the expertise I’ve tirelessly worked towards developing. This further motivates me do good work.

I don’t see why “internal motivation” would vary between employers. Could you give examples of attributes that contribute to your own level of motivation?

Re: Fuck being productive

#378

Post by cstrahan »

escapedmoose wrote: post #118
cstrahan wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you assuming “money” isn’t also the answer to this implied question?

Haha maybe that’s the answer for you personally. I wouldn’t take more money for a worse job (generally), so I guess I am assuming money isn’t also the second answer

By the time I have offers in hand I’ve deemed each company to be worth working for, so there is no matter of one job being “worse” than the other — they are all acceptable. If there was something I disliked I would have terminated the hiring process.

I guess if someone has a fixation on some particular technology or industry then that could be a distinguishing factor. But I’m motivated solely by the capacity for me to make a positive impact and be appreciated. However, any company that isn’t completely dysfunctional will (at least, from the outside, appear to) check that checkbox.

Maybe I have just had good luck with my interviews so far and I am thus taking (at the point in time that I’m choosing between competing offers) some critical thing that usually varies between employers for granted. I dunno.

Re: Fuck being productive

#379

Post by lannisterstark »

thghtihadanacct wrote: post #319
incahoots wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what you've laid out here is invaluable. My skill-set is mostly geared towards sysadmin work, and I loathed working for corporate places, being on-call, dealing with immediate emergencies (which were all superficial), stressed over attending bullshit meetings. I saw my local library was looking for a sysadmin, it did come with a pay cut, but damn if it isn't a quarter of the responsibilities, fulfilling work,…

I traded private for public service over a decade ago and I will never go back regardless of much more pay there is. My product is now the service to my community and pay is straight up compensation for my time and effort. No demands of loyalty, no dangling stock options, no C levels idiots with bright ideas ... just bureaucracy and a semi clear mandate. Its still work and id cut way back if I became wealthy but prof…

>My product is now the service to my community

is it though? Your product now is service to a government that may or may not just bomb brown villages for fun.

Re: Fuck being productive

#380

Post by kortilla »

afwf1 wrote: post #362
kortilla wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Right, and it's always, always, always on the employee side -- is what you're basically saying. No it’s not. Jumping to negative conclusions and engaging in bad faith definitely is a way to get passed over though. There are lots of reasons, both managerial issues and employee issues, for someone to get passed over despite having the right mindset. My point wasn’t that it’s a guaranteed path to getting promotions. My…

> If they don’t, there is usually some other issue (difficultly to work with) explicitly holding them back. > There are lots of reasons, both managerial issues and employee issues, for someone to get passed over despite having the right mindset. You're contradicting yourself. Not surprising, lying is one way people get promoted and turn others into clock punchers.

I’m not, you’re suffering from the inability to logically reason about what I’m saying because of your “us vs them” mentality.

Managerial issues are “explicitly” holding someone back. I didn’t say the issues were with the employee.

> Not surprising, lying is one way people get promoted

Don’t be an asshole. That’s another “explicit” issue that will make it difficult for you to get promoted.

To be clear, my point is that being a clock puncher is an extremely effective way to limit your own career. Giving a shit is not a guarantee to get promotions, but it is requisite baring other very unlikely circumstances.

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