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Quitting the rat race

seanbarry.dev

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Re: Quitting the rat race

#391

Post by tjrDL6MjB2Zwwa »

bumby wrote: post #383
tjrDL6MjB2Zwwa wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quote in it's full context > A lot of those on here, I don’t listen to their input on what successs is. > I will never be happy until I am climbing to the highest potential I can get to. No one is going to talk me into being otherwise. What's being discussed is the definition of _success_, not happiness. And in fact, what the poster said is, this is what makes me happy and I'm not interested in anyone convincing…

You’re missing the even broader context. The article is explicitly discussing “happiness” and why the author isn’t happy despite being “successful” by traditional measures. Further, some of the issue is with the imprecise definition of “happy”. The modern use of the term can be used interchangeably. What causes someone to be hedonically happy may make them eudaimonically unhappy. So IMO it’s completely warranted to h…

It's exactly that imprecision that means the person making the statement gets to tell you what it means for them, and they're not unreasonable for being very explicit in telling you that you will not convince them that their definition is more appropriate.

Furthermore,

on a purely mechanical level, what you're doing here is trying to escalate scope specifically so you don't have to give the point. Just give the point.

Re: Quitting the rat race

#392

Post by bumby »

tjrDL6MjB2Zwwa wrote: post #391
bumby wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re missing the even broader context. The article is explicitly discussing “happiness” and why the author isn’t happy despite being “successful” by traditional measures. Further, some of the issue is with the imprecise definition of “happy”. The modern use of the term can be used interchangeably. What causes someone to be hedonically happy may make them eudaimonically unhappy. So IMO it’s completely warranted to h…

It's exactly that imprecision that means the person making the statement gets to tell you what it means for them, and they're not unreasonable for being very explicit in telling you that you will not convince them that their definition is more appropriate. Furthermore, on a purely mechanical level, what you're doing here is trying to escalate scope specifically so you don't have to give the point. Just give the point…

Everything I've said is pretty clearly within the scope of the featured article or the HN guidelines. You seem to be conflating what I'm saying with something that's more argumentative.

What I'm not saying: The OP is wrong about how they go about defining happiness or what they do to achieve that goal.

What I am saying: They are misusing HN if they are so close-minded as to be unwilling to engage in discussion, or swayed by counter-arguments.

It's a red flag when somebody says they can't be convinced, particularly on a subjective topic.

Obviously, a subjective measure like happiness is up to the individual to define. I'm not disagreeing with that and I don't think any of my posts give that impression unless someone is already using a hard-focused lens to read too much into them. My point was pretty clearly stated multiple times but it seems people are primed to argue. The HN guidelines clearly state one of the intents of the forum is to foster curious conversation. If somebody makes a post that "they can't be convinced" they are no longer interested in a discussion and they are therefore misusing HN. I would make the same case if they were claiming "Red is best color and I can't be convinced otherwise." In that case, maybe HN isn't the place for you on this topic. If you want to just plug your ears and talk at someone, there's plenty of places on the internet to do that. It would be akin to someone saying "This classroom was built for learning" and I show up with my arms crossed and say I refuse to learn. Well, ok, nobody is saying you can't take that stance. But they can say you're misusing the forum provided.

Re: Quitting the rat race

#393

Post by p0pcult »

notch656c wrote: post #353
defterGoose wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy God it's not like being mentally present, raising kids, or just doing chores around the house is valuable to your family. /s Such a toxic, capitalistic, misandronistic mindset.

For half the assets + 20-25% of a top engineers salary (court imposed child support) you can hire an au pair to do your bitch work for half the week and still probably have money left over to buy dinner for a fuck-boy/girl on the side. Probably can even find a new person to stay with and take advantage of dual income life while availing yourself of the 20-25% income stream of the high earner. Economically I don't see…

>bitch work

this doesn't seem necessary or accurate

Re: Quitting the rat race

#394

Post by shinycode »

alecbz wrote: post #97
shinycode wrote: post #13

Feels like you just need some long holidays

IME long breaks do very little to help with burnout like this. All you're doing is giving yourself a brief reprieve from an environment that drains your energy. You'll build up a bit of the energy over the break, but as soon as you come back you'll start getting drained again, possibly even worse than before because of the contrast of having to be back in that environment. Breaks are important but if your environment…

yes you’re right, in case of burnout nothing replaces a deep change

Re: Quitting the rat race

#395

Post by simonebrunozzi »

seanbarry wrote: post #314

Author here. I posted this late last night (BST) and I’m shocked to wake and see it was so heavily read and discussed. Thank you everyone! The post received some justifiable criticism for making it sound like I’m about to disappear in to the mountains to live like a hermit in a poorly thought out, idealistic middle finger to society. In reality the change I’m making is to move to a much smaller place where I still ha…

Enjoy your time off. Keep us posted. I hope you'll find something more fulfilling when you will feel the urge to get back at earning money.

My only humble suggestion is to write a journal of your experience being "off the rat race". And maybe share some of it.

Good luck.

Re: Quitting the rat race

#396

Post by krisroadruck »

red-iron-pine wrote: post #387
krisroadruck wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a counter-point, I spent about 5 years pretty miserable between 3 different jobs - my complaints where the same at each organization. The profit motive was being put above all else, including employee well being, an actually high-quality service, and in some cases baseline ethics. People were constantly pressured into working more than they should, both in the short term (too many hours per week) and in the long t…

I'll counter this counter-point: I started my own consulting (and later, hosting) business and they've been a slog. The parent comment glossed over "the hard bits of actually getting it off the ground and getting those first few customers" -- it's really hard. Five years in now things are going okay, but it took a while to get back to the came total comp I had pre-starting-my-own-biz, and even now the level of work i…

My anecdote was about finding what's important to you and making a change to that specifically. For me it was a bigger focus on quality of life and quality of product, not compensation. Sounds like compensation is more important for you so my path would not be your path. As to the hard bits - I'll be covering that in response to another commentor who asked how I got started.

Agreed on accounting & legal - though this is easier now than ever with services like Bench.co - which I set up on day 1 right after spinning up the business entity & bank account.

Re: Quitting the rat race

#397

Post by krisroadruck »

ornornor wrote: post #338
krisroadruck wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a counter-point, I spent about 5 years pretty miserable between 3 different jobs - my complaints where the same at each organization. The profit motive was being put above all else, including employee well being, an actually high-quality service, and in some cases baseline ethics. People were constantly pressured into working more than they should, both in the short term (too many hours per week) and in the long t…

Had a very similar experience to you and have often dreamt about building my own company that would work the way I want it to. But how do you get started? I have tried a few times and every time I got discouraged and it didn’t pan out. It’s just overwhelming, and I don’t know where to start. Then I’m doubting my abilities and thinking whether I really want to work like a dog for very little pay for months/years to st…

I'll try to answer this as fairly as I can by starting with the things that lined up to make it possible for me:

- I've been working in my industry for over 12 years and have amassed a decent sized network and twitter following along the way

- I don't have kids, so my costs are lower, and my time is my own.

- My wife makes good money and was supportive of me taking a hit to pay while I got things going (I didn't draw any money from the biz for the first 6 months, enabled by the next thing on the list)

- I had a close friend be willing to give me an essentially risk free, low interest loan of $30K to get things going. Enough to cover me for those 6 months. Loan was structured to be forgivable if business failed in the first 2 years, 5 year terms @ 5%, with no payments or interest accrual in the first year. Obviously a loan like this is a rarity, but if you are sitting on some savings that could be a good stand-in.

- I ran a business once before many years ago and learned a lot of the hard lessons that time (taxes/accounting/entity structure/hiring)

- I do digital marketing & WordPress dev - which means the service I sell is also a skillset most founders need (ability to market their service, set up a website). I'm also pretty comfortable selling to both a technical and non-technical audience, and I'm comfortable pitching directly to and managing the expectations of C-suite folks.

All of that combined is a pretty great place to "start from zero". Success wasn't guaranteed but I certainly wasn't going about things the hard way.

Anyway to get first few customers I started being pretty active in places where people who might need my services gathered - Slack communities, subreddits, et cetera. I tried to give insightful advice where good answers could be given in a few paragraphs. I offered to look at peoples issues directly or to solve really small problems for free + an ask to consider me for larger projects or retainer work, or to just say nice things if someone was asking for the types of services I offered.

I also pitched 2 customers who normally would have been below my going rate/retainer size as basically a "I need some case studies, someone has to go first, you'll get a bit of a deal if it's you". Once I had those first 2 customers as a base and a nice referral pipeline as a result of them and the presence in those communities I was able to grow from there.

When I had around 4-5 steady retainer clients and a bit of padding in the business account (about 4ish months in?) I started hiring help. I had a lot of previous experience hiring and working with international teams so I leveraged that to save some cash early on by hiring in the Philippines, Romania & South Africa. By the end of year 1 we were a team of 4 (myself included). Total revenue was around $200K, of which I managed to pay myself around $60K before taxes.

At the end of year 2 there is about 8 of us now including our first full time US hire. Year two was just shy of $600K in revenue and I was able to get myself back into 6-figure territory compensation wise, give everyone raises + Christmas bonuses, and still keep several months of runway in the business account. I don't expect the biz to make me a multi-millionaire any time soon (and that's not the point anyway), but things feel pretty stable at this point and growth remains strong. Results probably not typical.

Re: Quitting the rat race

#398

Post by tjrDL6MjB2Zwwa »

bumby wrote: post #392
tjrDL6MjB2Zwwa wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's exactly that imprecision that means the person making the statement gets to tell you what it means for them, and they're not unreasonable for being very explicit in telling you that you will not convince them that their definition is more appropriate. Furthermore, on a purely mechanical level, what you're doing here is trying to escalate scope specifically so you don't have to give the point. Just give the point…

Everything I've said is pretty clearly within the scope of the featured article or the HN guidelines. You seem to be conflating what I'm saying with something that's more argumentative. What I'm not saying: The OP is wrong about how they go about defining happiness or what they do to achieve that goal. What I am saying: They are misusing HN if they are so close-minded as to be unwilling to engage in discussion, or sw…

One has to wonder if I've been going back and forth with ChatGPT.

People talk about having a feeling of uncanny valley when reading some of the things ChatGPT says and I must say, this must be what it feels like.

And if you're not open to the possibility that I'm speaking with ChatGPT it's because you're misusing HN.

Re: Quitting the rat race

#399

Post by krisroadruck »

awareness_rofl wrote: post #333
krisroadruck wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a counter-point, I spent about 5 years pretty miserable between 3 different jobs - my complaints where the same at each organization. The profit motive was being put above all else, including employee well being, an actually high-quality service, and in some cases baseline ethics. People were constantly pressured into working more than they should, both in the short term (too many hours per week) and in the long t…

Are you hiring graduates? Looking for exactly this type of environment to grow and do good work.

I won't say I'm not, but I will say it's probably a bad fit if you are in the US and a developer. It's a marketing agency that also does some custom WordPress development. For US based developers it's a combination of doesn't pay awesome + PHP rather than the latest shiny thing. Our hiring focus is mostly either outside of the US, or if in the US on people who've already gotten their bag from elsewhere and are more interested in chill work than a big paycheck. We win them over not with total compensation but with things like ability to only work 20 hours a week or leeway to rabbit hole down some interesting bit of code or try out a new marketing tactic that goes well beyond what the customers budget would normally allow, merely because it scratches an itch.

Re: Quitting the rat race

#400

Post by krisroadruck »

biinui wrote: post #326
krisroadruck wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a counter-point, I spent about 5 years pretty miserable between 3 different jobs - my complaints where the same at each organization. The profit motive was being put above all else, including employee well being, an actually high-quality service, and in some cases baseline ethics. People were constantly pressured into working more than they should, both in the short term (too many hours per week) and in the long t…

Sorry if this is inappropriate. Are you hiring native Android+iOS developer? :)

Not inappropriate - but no not currently. We're a Marketing agency that also does custom WordPress dev. We're working towards diversifying a bit by also launching some internally owned monetized content sites or small software products (such as a useful paid plugin for WordPress) but that's about it at the moment.
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