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Hire me and pay what you want, just give me interesting work

truzzi.me

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Re: Hire me and pay what you want, just give me interesting work

#401

Post by journey_16162 »

I work on my own project mostly, at the expense of not earning almost anything. (I freelance to earn money and spend minimum time, to have most time for the project).

Some of the work is exciting, some of it is boring, but I like it on average. Though it's much different when there's a goal in mind (to finish your own project). It's still good in a way, because I think, ok, I will work 2 weeks on that boring stuff and can't wait until it gets more interesting, then it gets interesting and I have my reward, back to the boring stuff. I find that this chase of seeing completion creates the passion even for the boring stuff.

Of course I don't want to keep it up endlessly. I will either try to turn this project into a product and see how it goes, or I will open source it and get a full time job (freelancing is a bad strategy for building a business by the way. If I could go back in time I would never start freelancing, but get a full time job and make savings if I wanted to start my own business).

I will second what others have said, start something yourself in your free time. Get a boring job that doesn't require much time if you don't care about the pay. I think there was a popular thread about that recently.

Or maybe change your industry, i.e. game dev. From what I have heard, the pay is low, precisely because there are a lot of people who want to do it just because they are passionate.

Re: Hire me and pay what you want, just give me interesting work

#403

Post by veltas »

ctvo wrote: post #63

Without a need for money, I need to rely on this person's ability to be a professional out of the goodness of their heart. Nothing in that post or their previous work says I can rely on that. Frankly nothing in the post or their history shows they have the ability to deliver value that outweights the headache of planning, managing, and integrating them into an existing team knowing how fickle the relationship can be.…

There is an interesting question about whether they will contribute valuable work, knowing that they probably won't be that professional as you say. When I don't care about quality I can often produce really good results early but that might not be conventional or that maintainable. Maybe it's healthy diversity in approach for a company, better at writing interesting prototypes than a final product?

Re: Hire me and pay what you want, just give me interesting work

#404

Post by wpietri »

fsckboy wrote: post #393
wpietri wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't read this as a signal he won't do the work. From his talk about the stuff he enjoys doing, I don't doubt it includes things that feel work-like. He just wants the work to be meaningful. That seems reasonable to me, and that's how I am. As long as there's some point to the work, I'm happy to do the tedious stuff all day long. I recently user-tested a job posting for a high-meaning job. [1] Some people were ver…

> He just wants the work to be meaningful. well, he just slid down to "more unreasonable" with that clarification :) I can understand a "great coder doesn't want to write documentation" broadcast message, but if you want meaningful work to your standards, it's really on you to find the companies doing it and apply to them. I would extend the common good advice to employees to this applicant: Offer to your manager sol…

Then it sounds like you're in the second category I describe above, not the first.

Personally, I'd be unlikely to hire somebody in the "great coder who won't write documentation" category. But I'm happy to help a mission-oriented person find the right thing for them, even if it's not with me. Right now I'm also going to a great deal of effort to find the right people for a role.

And I don't particularly ache for helpful employees. What I want are people who care enough about the problems to think deeply about them and find approaches to solving them that I might never have come up with. And then are intrinsically motivated to see them through. If in that process they come to me with problems, that's great. Solving employee problems so they can get stuff done? That's my job.

Re: Hire me and pay what you want, just give me interesting work

#405

Post by AlwaysRock »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #394
AlwaysRock wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take a boring stable 40 hour a week job over a fun job that somewhat frequently requires 50+ hours. Time is the only thing I cant get back. Money really is just a number after a certain point.

For me, interesting and fulfilling work is hardly work at all. 50 hours of fulfilling work essentially kills two birds with one stone (intellectually fulfilling, and pays my income), as opposed 40 hours at a job that I don't care for, but at least it's only 40 hours and pays alright, and then I have to try and sate my mind alongside everything else I want to do outside my working hours. There's nothing worse than bei…

Right. I guess I'd be in the same boat if I found something truly interesting. I've had interesting projects but I find that the fun parts of most projects are short. Worse most companies are not going to be able to provide you with something fulfilling for very long.

Re: Hire me and pay what you want, just give me interesting work

#406

Post by mcjkrw »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #25

Anything is interesting if you engage with it. And being bored is a state of mind. It's a fallacy to say "that's boring". The bored-ness is in your head, not in the task.

For me if something is super boring, I will try to perceive it as a "free zen meditation session". Just do the boring stuff, but also try to work on my posture, breathing and so on, and engage.

I'm far from perfect with it, but it has changed the way I perceive work forever.

Re: Hire me and pay what you want, just give me interesting work

#407

Post by stevebmark »

dang wrote: post #157
stevebmark wrote: post #132

This is written by a child who won't take responsibility for helping build and guide the company and do the "boring" work required by all jobs to keep things running smoothly, and leave when they get "bored."

Please make your substantive points without putdowns or swipes. Those degrade discussion quality and are not what this site is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: we've had to warn you about this multiple times in the past. Fortunately it looks like you've mostly fixed this. If you'd please stay on the desired side of the line, we'd be grateful.

This wasn't intended to be a troll, I thought that was the point of sharing this article, showing someone's immature perspective on work.

Re: Hire me and pay what you want, just give me interesting work

#408

Post by mlazos »

cletus wrote: post #160

So there are two issues with this: 1. If I were looking to hire someone and read this, I would immediately be turned off. Why? Because part of being an engineer (or any employee really) is doing a bunch of stuff people don't enjoy doing. This includes: - Writing documentation - Writing tests - Fixing bugs - Talking to partners about a change/launch - Talking to lawyers - etc So I would be wondering: if you're signali…

This is such a bad faith argument that’s putting words in the author’s mouth. We all just want to be motivated to come to work everyday and be working on a product that we find interesting. I hope everyone understands everything can’t be a toy project (I think people do understand this) and even if something is interesting or meaningful it will still involve some level of “bullshit work” - the stuff you’ve listed. Every job has a bullshit to fun ratio and I think the author wants a fun part that he’s interested in and a ratio that’s acceptable. Nobody expects that ratio to be zero.
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