Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Career advice for people with bad luck

chiefofstuff.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

441–450 of 511 posts

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#441

Post by omniscient_oce »

maemilius wrote: post #243
omniscient_oce wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may like the Japanese phrase 一期一会 (ichi-go-ichi-e). To me it means that you should cherish each relationship and encounter, regardless of whether you know it will last a long time or not. You may never get the chance to experience that particular relationship again. I actually learnt this word firsthand from a man that it applies to, an middle-aged Japanese guy who was volunteering with kids near where I live. We…

My mom has a similar saying: "People enter your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime." The idea is the same: you should cherish the relationships you have - while you have them - and let them go when they're over.

I really like that one too. Cheers

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#442

Post by kaydub »

pmiller2 wrote: post #369
protonimitate wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great advice. I see a lot of people in tech with inflated ideas of what success means, and they're almost all tied strictly to salary/net worth. Yeah, having money is nice, but if that's all you base happiness/idea of success on, its going to be a bumpy road. >There are a lot of self-conscious IT people in the midwest making $70k/year feeling like failures I understand how this can point of view can develop, but one…

> Yeah, having money is nice, As someone who was broke for many years and now is less broke (cash is flowing, there's money in my accounts, but I'm deeply in negative net worth due to student debt), I think you're understating the issue, vastly. Simply put, money is freedom. If you have it, you can do things people who don't have it can't. If you have enough of it, you can do just about anything. And, I'm not necessa…

Check out Man's Search for Meaning.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#443

Post by yowlingcat »

omniscient_oce wrote: post #85
ashtonkem wrote: post #2

> The company is not your family. Some of the people in the company are your friends in the current context. It’s like your dorm in college. Hopefully some of them will still be your friends after. But don’t stay because you’re comfortable. This one hit hard. It’s amazing how many of the close work friends I had over the years were only close because of the shitty circumstances we endured together. Once that was gone…

You may like the Japanese phrase 一期一会 (ichi-go-ichi-e). To me it means that you should cherish each relationship and encounter, regardless of whether you know it will last a long time or not. You may never get the chance to experience that particular relationship again. I actually learnt this word firsthand from a man that it applies to, an middle-aged Japanese guy who was volunteering with kids near where I live. We…

I really needed to read this right now. A few weeks ago, I received news that a friend from college had passed on. It hit me hard. I kept reading, and re-reading our last messages to one another, and kicked myself for not putting more energy into keeping up the correspondence, because now I'll never get another chance again.

While this was on a different level from other relationships that have faded away, it made me think about those ones as well, especially pertaining to work. A few companies ago, I was at a rocket ship of a startup and had some friendships that were as intimate and fun as any that I had since college. I sorely missed losing out on that camaraderie. I knew that professionally, it was the time to move on. But, it didn't make it any easier to leave the friends I had there behind. And it hurt to see folks that I thought I'd retain as close friends not end up that way after I left.

Luckily, after there (as with previous companies), I really lucked out and still managed to retain a couple friendships that I remain grateful for, now more than ever. I now realize this is just the way it is. I felt the same way at the end of college, and at the end of every job I've had. Sometimes, I need a reminder that it's okay for the friendships I've had to be in the past. It doesn't mean there was anything wrong with them. If they were going to hold place in the present rather than the past, then it would be that way. But that they are not does not mean they need to be critiqued, or analyzed, or critiqued. Perhaps, as you remind me, they just need to be thought of, reminisced of, and cherished and appreciated for what they were.

Thank you.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#444

Post by sysbin »

KerryJones wrote: post #440
FabHK wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: Luck (broadly seen, including your genetic disposition and where you’ve been born - you might not call it luck, but it’s certainly not something you’ve chosen or earned) plays a much bigger role than most people think it does. Source and book recommendation: Robert H. Frank: Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691167404/su... > In re…

I totally agree with your sentiment, but I wouldn't consider it a counter point. I said luck isn't as _random_ as some people think it is. You're saying it plays a much bigger role than most people think it does. These are not mutually exclusive. It might even emphasize the point -- because it plays a bigger role than most suppose, it is important to understand how to best take advantage of poor (or superior) circums…

I doubt the person you’re replying to made a counter point and what’s being written about is really just semantics (when someone references luck instead of just acknowledging determinism).

The knowledge that’s statistically likely to benefit someone that’s poor, may not work from unfortunate circumstances and that happen precisely when it will hurt the situation. That happens as everyone has a fairly unique life.

We also have to rely on if someone misfortune at birth (in some way), happens to be “lucky enough” to encounter the knowledge to hopefully benefit them or as I should say fate decided to allow it.

Some people do everything right contrary to a person doing the opposite and life can reward whoever the unique conditions happened to favor for each person.

Everything is decided at birth if we were to break everything down into cause & effect.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#445

Post by edraferi »

kaitai wrote: post #386
edraferi wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, religions are happy to hand out pre-baked sets of objectives. Live a life like X. Stay away from Y. Put your money in Z. If you have trouble deciding what direction you want to go, religion can point you somewhere and surround you with a community that will encourage you to keep moving that way. For some people, that’s really valuable. You see this especially with people who’s prior independent expe…

I've actually taken an essentially opposite view, interestingly enough. As a younger person I read widely, rebelled in a very thoughtful way against my religion (in my opinion! haha!), took things very seriously, tried to really understand both atheism and other religions, etc. I think all of that was important. Through life experiences I've come to appreciate, strangely, the rituals of religion and the not-making-se…

Thanks for the thoughtful reply! I’m glad you’ve found a fulfilling spiritual practice and community. I hope they are supporting you in this difficult time.

> I find it useful to consider the pre-baked objectives as a sort of rough draft I can push against, but more importantly, I've discarded the world view and taken the concrete. For Christianity, that's bread, wine, the holidays, the rhythm, the community, the directive to support charities generously.

That’s pretty interesting to me. I certainly agree that the rituals and community are the best part of organized religion. I’ve enjoyed them in the past and I miss them now. I actually considered returning to the church when I had a young family for exactly these reasons.

I just can’t untangle the practical from the philosophical. The community is great in and of itself, but it exists explicitly to advance a particular set of beliefs. It’s hard to take the community without the beliefs. At least, I haven’t been able to do it successfully. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say I could have, but I would have felt like a fraud. I think that would limit my ability to integrate.

> This may also be worth thinking about with respect to healthy eating, exercise, etc. Don't get sucked into a cult, but if signing up for (now-virtual) CrossFit or Pilates classes, or following Starting Strength, gets you doing something, it's a concrete physical ritual that can stay with you even as you change :)

Absolutely. The principal applies to many places. Employers, even. Many start ups want you to drink the kool-ade, own the vision, play ping pong... you can opt out of that and just do the engineering and paycheck!

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#446

Post by rovolo »

friendlybus wrote: post #383
adamsea wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dunno about Jordan Peterson. Some of his advice may be OK but he's also profoundly weird / not very self-reflective .... only eats meat? Meat cures all? IMHO the Socratic Dialogues, as basically the foundational text of all Western Philosophy, and being pretty friendly and approachable, are the right place to begin. Helps you figure out how to figure it out for yourself. You can make your own calls from there.

He went on an elimination diet because his family has some nasty immune problems. It’s mundane, I don’t get the controversy.

It's controversial because it sounds pseudo-scientific. Why would removing all vegetables from his diet help with an autoimmune disorder? His daughter's blog called "Don’t Eat That" had the tagline "The food pyramid is a lie, fat is good for you, and many (if not most) health problems are treatable with diet alone." (though, it does now say "Do not take this as medical advice. I am not a doctor. This is my story and this is what worked for me.")

https://web.archive.org/web/20180320101920/http://mikhailape...

His other health choices don't really help his case. He went to Russia to get weened off of an addiction because "North American hospitals had misdiagnosed him". The Russian doctors are "not influenced by pharmaceutical companies to treat the side-effects of one drug with more drugs," and they “have the guts to medically detox someone from benzodiazepines.”"

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#447

Post by throw4failure »

pmiller2 wrote: post #403
chadash wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I interview people regularly and if I see someone with technical talent, then I'll proceed. Chances are I'm not looking up your references until I'm pretty sure I want to hire you, so up until that point, it's on you to impress me with your technical knowledge. Brush up on the fundamentals. Maybe read cracking the coding interview. And if possible, spend some time working on an open source project, preferably an exis…

If CTCI is your idea of "brushing up on fundamentals," you're doing it wrong.

What kind of approach would you suggest? Genuinely curious :)

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#448

Post by friendlybus »

rovolo wrote: post #446
friendlybus wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He went on an elimination diet because his family has some nasty immune problems. It’s mundane, I don’t get the controversy.

It's controversial because it sounds pseudo-scientific. Why would removing all vegetables from his diet help with an autoimmune disorder? His daughter's blog called "Don’t Eat That" had the tagline "The food pyramid is a lie, fat is good for you, and many (if not most) health problems are treatable with diet alone." (though, it does now say "Do not take this as medical advice. I am not a doctor. This is my story and…

I have my own problems with his daughter’s profiting off his back. I don’t see what you posted there as more click bait than anything else.

Many research bodies and authorities on health have flipped the food pyramid around. The CSRIO supports a low carb diet over the traditional carb heavy food pyramid. She’s just repeating what the experts have said. That part is the opposite of pseudoscience, and it’s lazy parroting.

Jordan has reactions to foods we don’t normally have a problem with, as does his daughter. They share methods that work for them and hold up the idea of eliminating everything and then working foods back in as they prove to be okay for them.

There’s been countless documentaries about the effect of big pharmaceutical money on the likelihood of certain drugs being prescribed by doctors and the money the docs make. It’s standard fare in America, no judgement about that from me.

Apart from a few eccentric behaviours and saying dumb things occasionally like his comments on godel, Jordan states the obvious in an inflammatory way and people are surprised when he’s actually rational under the flames. Zzz.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#449

Post by dennis_jeeves »

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…

> - You don't have a resilient financial and mental safety net in the form of good friends/family early in your career that enables you to take risks, or you got dealt a bad hand in the form of things like dependents or health issues and simply can't afford to take risks

The 'friends' part is something that I think can be potentially fixed. 'Friends' who can truly support you AND who are worthy of being supported in times of need are rare. But I think if one searches hard enough and find reasonable people to from an alliance with (without necessarily being friends) this problem can reduced. But it is needle in a hay stack endeavor. Most people in my observation are not worthy of receiving help ( for example they do not save enough money when they earn, so cannot be trusted to have the financial disciple to pay back) or conversely they are not in a position to help ( to cite the same example because they have not been saving enough money, they don't have enough money to lend to you).

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#450

Post by giantg2 »

travisjungroth wrote: post #354
giantg2 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you ignored the last sentence of my previous comment :)

I didn’t ignore it. It’s just in conflict with your first sentence. I’m not sure if you’re talking about EV in technical terms, or a more lose “count on it way”, but neither makes sense to discount to 0. Like if you’re 50 and have a million dollars in stocks for retirement, you should put an expected value of 0 on that? Seems silly to me.

Fair point. My unstated perspective was from investing in a single stock without stop-loss orders using an informal 'don't count on it' definition. Yes, depending on the stock and many other factors - it probably shouldn't be zero. Same should be said of the equity package in the parent comment depending upon the circumstances and terms.
Post reply on HN