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The Hacker News Generation (Afraid of Hard Work)

simpleprogrammer.com

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Re: The Hacker News Generation (Afraid of Hard Work)

#41

Post by Smudge »

Somehow this article manages to be both wise and presumptuous.

The points he makes speak from experience. It's a perspective that is too often ignored by younger generations: You can't always quit a job when the work gets boring -- sometimes you just have to push through the tedium if you want to be the best at what you do. This is a widely applicable bit of advice.

But the way this message is presented -- to chastise loren, the 20-something who quit AirBnB because he "got bored" -- is just plain arrogant.

In his post, loren went on to describe an environment where he was slowly pushed-out of the decision-making process. Where he went from being a passionately engaged team member to being a comfortably-paid code monkey. This was not just about getting bored -- his role in the company was changing, and his attempts to reverse the changes had little effect.

Sure, he could suck it up and adapt to the new role, becoming the best code monkey he could be. But maybe that didn't line up with his personal goals. Maybe loren quit because he wasn't being fulfilled.

Seems like a pretty smart reason to leave, if you ask me.

Lastly:

> "Burn out is just a rationalization for giving up early."

No, no it's not. This is a very dangerous line of thinking. If burn out to you means getting tired of mind-numbing tedium, you haven't experienced burn out. Actual burn out can be a very valid reason to "give up", or at the very least take an extended vacation. You can't just push through the physical symptoms of extreme stress and exhaustion, at least not without causing even more harm.

Re: The Hacker News Generation (Afraid of Hard Work)

#42

Post by scotch_drinker »

That guy put a lot of hard, boring work into bolding random pieces of text and interspersing tangentially related pictures throughout his article. It's ironic that he disparages the "sly and witty comments" on Hacker News while going out of his way to doll up a fluff piece about fluff comments on HN.

Re: The Hacker News Generation (Afraid of Hard Work)

#43

Post by Artistry121 »

websitescenes wrote: post #36
Artistry121 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This hasn't been my experience. For me and my classmates graduating college all have jobs in traditional companies much like my parents and (some) of their parents had. In fact many of us are going to make more inflation adjusted dollars out of college than our parents did. It may be true in certain parts of the country but mobility for young people should be high anyways. For those around me it's not whether or not…

Not like this in El Paso at all. Degrees are practically worth nothing.

I guess I misspoke then. The Metroplex and Houston area at least are booming. Dallas is growing at insane rates.

Re: The Hacker News Generation (Afraid of Hard Work)

#44

Post by frozenport »

Rertrand Russell acknowledged that only a fraction of people need to do real work. As we move towards a more efficient society we will see this manifested, in that the only people working will be doing it `for the fun of it`. I'd take a burnt out hacker over the business major whose only interest is playing xbox any day. I think we forget how lazy 90% of our generation really is.

Re: The Hacker News Generation (Afraid of Hard Work)

#45

Post by nostromo »

RyanZAG wrote: post #18

I feel sorry for the author of this post - he actually believes hard, boring work is the only way to accomplish anything. I've done both hard, boring work, and easy, efficient and enjoyable work. The easy work was both more enjoyable, more profitable and far better for my life as a whole. Life is not fair, there are no points awarded for working harder or being more diligent - there are only 'points' awarded for acco…

It's not a dichotomy.

You can work hard. You can work smart. You can also do both.

Re: The Hacker News Generation (Afraid of Hard Work)

#46

Post by gavanwoolery »

RyanZAG wrote: post #18

I feel sorry for the author of this post - he actually believes hard, boring work is the only way to accomplish anything. I've done both hard, boring work, and easy, efficient and enjoyable work. The easy work was both more enjoyable, more profitable and far better for my life as a whole. Life is not fair, there are no points awarded for working harder or being more diligent - there are only 'points' awarded for acco…

Likewise, I have done every permutation of hard/easy->fun/boring work - I've found that many jobs are "as hard as you want them to be." 99 percent of the time there is a preexisting solution or library, which ironically many people are either too lazy to integrate, or think they can invent a better wheel.

I've actually found that some of the most successful people are the people who attack "easy" problems and do it well. If you look at games like Minecraft, Spelunky, Hotline Miami, Super Meat Boy - they were all relatively simple to implement (at least their initial implementations).

That said, the author has plenty of valid points if you dig around the article. The majority of young people do fail because they have not yet failed enough (i.e. "put in the hard work"). I think that most inexperienced people fail because they have not learned the right problems to attack, or how to attack the right problems properly (I've been guilty of both, multiple times over).

Re: The Hacker News Generation (Afraid of Hard Work)

#47

Post by jsonmez »

Smudge wrote: post #41

Somehow this article manages to be both wise and presumptuous. The points he makes speak from experience. It's a perspective that is too often ignored by younger generations: You can't always quit a job when the work gets boring -- sometimes you just have to push through the tedium if you want to be the best at what you do. This is a widely applicable bit of advice. But the way this message is presented -- to chastis…

My point is only that if you quit a thing, don't do it without something else lined up, it is just foolish. Doesn't matter if it is your own business or another job, but you don't just say, "I don't like this, so I'm not going to do it anymore."

Re: The Hacker News Generation (Afraid of Hard Work)

#48

Post by shubb »

Smudge wrote: post #41

Somehow this article manages to be both wise and presumptuous. The points he makes speak from experience. It's a perspective that is too often ignored by younger generations: You can't always quit a job when the work gets boring -- sometimes you just have to push through the tedium if you want to be the best at what you do. This is a widely applicable bit of advice. But the way this message is presented -- to chastis…

Having followed what Loren is doing now (Penflip), I think he made the right choice. It may go big, it may not, but it is a great execution of a nice concept, and has a lot of potential.

I don't think you can call the guy lazy. He just decided to work real hard on something else.

Re: The Hacker News Generation (Afraid of Hard Work)

#50

Post by lelandbatey »

The author really hasn't said what's actually wrong. He's hating against something he's not even done us the courtesy of defining (in any kind of a substantive way). Once again, we've got a classic "kids these days are so lazy" post without any real content.

    "The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority;
    they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.
    Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer
    rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before
    company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize
    their teachers."

    -- Socrates
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