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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

#391

Post by jimbokun »

ghaff wrote: post #129
paulcole wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you seriously believe that anyone who is reasonably intelligent can just waltz into a high paying job at Apple or Google by sending them a resume People who have waltzed into a high paying job at Apple or Google by sending them a resume believe exactly this. It’s one of the many problems with any sort of unsolicited financial/job seeking advice. Actually the problem with advice of any sort. It’s almost 100% wron…

I'm just very aware of how lucky I've been on a couple of different occasions (ADDED: Specifically from an employment perspective). During the dot-com bubble bursting, my company was having big layoffs and I landed a new job based on an informal lunch meeting with someone I knew that I had literally a couple of days after being laid off. (Some other leads I was investigating in parallel prior to getting an offer prod…

> "have a network that knows you do good work and is in a position to hire you."

Which is an extremely important insight.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#392

Post by danbolt »

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

If we're doing YouTube critique of JP, it should at least include ContraPoints' bath scene. Otherwise it kind feels a bit toothless.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#393

Post by danbolt »

friendlybus wrote: post #385
lovich wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It really isn’t the same mindset as intolerance. Why would it remove agency? Do you dislike children? It’s about setting a boundary where it is most productive, children who are not socialised by the age of four hit problems in later life. Parents and kids who go to war help no one.

I think it comes from that the rule is titled "Do not let your children do anything that...". The language states to restrict the child's agency if you disagree with it.

I was fortunate enough to grow up with good parents, but there were times where they were misguided and myself disobeying them helped us both in the long run.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#394

Post by mettamage »

burntoutfire wrote: post #340
mettamage wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a Dutchie, and I can't speak about the EU market as a whole, but as any European that travels around a bit, I have the following ranking in terms of lifestyle/pay: 1. Switzerland (90k or higher + mountains if you're willing to drive a bit) 2. Luxembourg (I just remember you get paid quite a bit) 3. Berlin (alright pay, low living costs, amazing city) 4. England + Scandinavia + The Netherlands (didn't look into Sc…

> Countries that I wouldn't want to go to: > 1. Eastern Europe 3-4k EUR net (after taxes) is pretty normal salary for senior enterprise dev in big cities in Poland. That's perhaps a bit less than in say Berlin (although I'm not too sure of that, given high taxes in Germany), but the costs of living are so much lower.

Fair point! Thanks for pointing it out. My knowledge on Eastern Europe is pretty bad.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#395

Post by [deleted] »

OliverJones wrote: post #388

Lots of great insight here into the weltanschauung of scrambling startups. This one especially: "It’s the nature of boards that they ignore (externally) problems until their hand is forced." Translation: if the execs are doing a bad job, the board WILL NOT INTERVENE. Nobody on the board wants to take over for an inept manager. If you're waiting for them to do that ... don't wait any more.

[deleted]

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#396

Post by jimbokun »

Pamar wrote: post #353
mywittyname wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

This was my undergraduate degree, many years ago:

https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/philosophy/undergraduate/logic-...

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#397

Post by friendlybus »

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…

Some things are outside your control, luck by definition is outside your control.

- Your business sector will come back post COVID.

- You can’t control other people

- Control who is dependent on you, and fix your health best you can.

- You can mitigate macro level risks. These techniques come at a cost.

- You can get magic paper at the wrong age, but it costs. Or find other ways in.

Frankly this discussion about luck is incredibly weak. You didn’t get everything you wanted, some things you can control and others you can’t. Appealing to luck might encourage some people to plaster over your mistakes and inability to eat loss with money and submission.

There is no advice to give because you have framed the conversation around what your heart wants and thrown any rational decision making possible into submission to luck.

You aren’t a victim of luck, it is by definition something nobody ever escapes and is a subset of randomness. An easy out for the unhappy. You are still ultimately responsible for your life, even the bits you can’t control. You make your own luck.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#398

Post by triceratops »

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…

Rule 6 taken together with the maxim "Nobody's perfect" means a world where nobody can criticize anything, ever. Doesn't sound ideal to me.

Rule 10 is self-contradictory, since it doesn't specify what "precise in your speech" means.

Rule 11 is oddly-specific (why just skateboarding and not any other risky activity?), and reads like it's thrown in there to look "cool" ("how do you do fellow kids?" meme).

Rule 12 is vapid fluff. It's also potentially dangerous, since a unknown stray cat may carry rabies, or be fearful of humans and claw you up bad.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#399

Post by _davebennett »

designium wrote: post #231
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…

Most opinions and suggestions are based on the "standard path of success". If we use beauty contest as an analogy of success, only one will be the winner and all losers. In case of North American perspective, success looks like this: - Have good academic credentials - Have good big corporation names on your resume - Have good connections - Have nice car - Have nice house - Have kids, partner, etc. - Travel a lot when…

This is so true! I wish more people would recognize it

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#400

Post by friendlybus »

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…

He was always like that. His work with the UN and legal work had rough edges. The fame has made him bigger not different.

His lectures go more in depth and are not trying to hit a peak of condensed information. As much as Peterson likes nietschze, he can’t write like nietschze, with highly condensed sentences. Peterson has always been better in the long form.

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