61–70 of 150 posts
I'd never thought of it this way explicitly, but it makes sense.
I was quite surprised how different work was from school. There are a few specific considerations I never really see discussed: - In school you can fail the entire class, (ie, all the students) which is less true at work. At work, you're just hiring your "section" of the bell curve, and insofar as being "successful" means "doing well at your job and not getting fired" then a C or D student can potentially be happily…
Seconding all this. I'm worry that somewhere out there there are kids hearing adults go "high school has to do [shitty thing] to get you ready for the 'real world', which is even harder!" (LOL no it fucking isn't) or "enjoy it, these are the best days of your life, adult life is so much harder" (what the actual shit are they smoking? Harder stuff than weed, for sure) I had a relatively good high school experience, an…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have the same experience, but would like to clarify that almost everything on this list is mostly only true of middle class employment. You absolutely can "fail" if you are on the bottom rung of the political-economic ladder -- this looks like a life in and out of prison, homelessness, despair, and an early death. You don't get endless chances from your landlord or your parole officer. If your area of weakness is "…
That's a fair point. My first job was retail, and I was accidentally late for a shift _once_ and I got put on probation for weeks and wasn't even allowed to take sick leave during the probationary period. The better the job the less you're treated like trash. People float all sorts of explanations for why this would be, but I think fundamentally people just don't know how to move away from class hierarchy. I think it…
I was quite surprised how different work was from school. There are a few specific considerations I never really see discussed: - In school you can fail the entire class, (ie, all the students) which is less true at work. At work, you're just hiring your "section" of the bell curve, and insofar as being "successful" means "doing well at your job and not getting fired" then a C or D student can potentially be happily…
Seconding all this. I'm worry that somewhere out there there are kids hearing adults go "high school has to do [shitty thing] to get you ready for the 'real world', which is even harder!" (LOL no it fucking isn't) or "enjoy it, these are the best days of your life, adult life is so much harder" (what the actual shit are they smoking? Harder stuff than weed, for sure) I had a relatively good high school experience, an…
This is probably not universally true. It certainly matches my life experience, but I have to admit that a life that gets easier and easier as time goes on is something that relatively few privileged people experience.
For me, school was a prison full of torturing peers, strict teachers with no flexibility, and ultra-high-stakes tests that to a large extent determined your future. Whereas work is a paradise and a breeze in comparison. And as life goes on, I make more money, can optimize my way further and further up Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and things get better and better. This is an ultra privileged scenario though, and we have to admit that.
For many (most?) people, school was lower stakes and less pressure. You fail a test? No problem. You get a B or C on your report card? Not the end of the world. You don't get into Harvard? I wasn't trying anyway... Then you start adulting, and the pressure is on! You gotta gets some kind of job now and make some money every week so you can avoid homelessness and starvation. You've got a boss on your ass and threatening to fire you (or worse) every day. Your family can't help you anymore, and you're on your own to figure out the world. I know a lot of people who just can't deal with adulthood and hate it, and wish they were back in high school.
> If you have to, blame stupidity not malice > No one is out to get you; they’re just out to get through the week. The author seems to be too naive. I don't have first-hand experience, but just hearing my friends who work at a certain company talking about what's happening, I know how terrible some people can be. And that's a widespread issue (otherwise I would not hear about similar things happening to people in dif…
Yes, there are shitty people at work who take action out of malice and actually are out to get you, but in my experience, that's a small minority of the time. It's fundamental attribution error.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I want to disagree with 2, but OTOH it's also so easy to do that I've just accidentally done it my whole life. 20 year programming career and I've never engaged with math beyond approximately Algebra II, in the real world. Hell, I go years at a time not needing anything trickier than Algebra I. Nearly all of the math I actually use I learned in the 6th grade or earlier, overwhelmingly elementary school arithmetic—mos…
You're probably using math without knowing it. Debugging through a piece of code is the same as finding a hole in a proof. "This method HAS to return the right value because C. C is always true because B. B is true because A. Ohh... but A isn't true if the record passed in is for a legacy user with no org manager. The method needs to be changed to work for inputs that don't satisfy the current assumptions." It's not…
I was quite surprised how different work was from school. There are a few specific considerations I never really see discussed: - In school you can fail the entire class, (ie, all the students) which is less true at work. At work, you're just hiring your "section" of the bell curve, and insofar as being "successful" means "doing well at your job and not getting fired" then a C or D student can potentially be happily…
I have the same experience, but would like to clarify that almost everything on this list is mostly only true of middle class employment. You absolutely can "fail" if you are on the bottom rung of the political-economic ladder -- this looks like a life in and out of prison, homelessness, despair, and an early death. You don't get endless chances from your landlord or your parole officer. If your area of weakness is "…
Personally, I worked in food service for a decade (mostly as a line cook of some sort) and most of these rules still applied, maybe to a slightly lesser degree.
Even with dishwashing, if you have some way of dishwashing that halves utility costs, someone would listen to you.
The answer might also be “who cares, get back to work” but that’s also true of a lot of middle-class employment. Your manager won’t give a shit if you think the expense reporting system sucks. Amazon’s famous for “disagree and commit” which is just a corporate way of saying the same thing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're probably using math without knowing it. Debugging through a piece of code is the same as finding a hole in a proof. "This method HAS to return the right value because C. C is always true because B. B is true because A. Ohh... but A isn't true if the record passed in is for a legacy user with no org manager. The method needs to be changed to work for inputs that don't satisfy the current assumptions." It's not…
I sit here, pondering whether that type of logic is math or philosophy. Most likely, it is the intersection of the two. Of course, spending even a few minutes pondering such things tells me that I personally need to avoid the math and embrace the philosophy.
I am much later in my career than the audience I assume this is intended for, but I have struggled to mentor junior colleagues on many of the major bullet points here so succinctly.
This should be recommended reading for new college grads entering a more traditional (I.e. non-startup) work environment. Definitely keeping a bookmark of this for that reason.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I sit here, pondering whether that type of logic is math or philosophy. Most likely, it is the intersection of the two. Of course, spending even a few minutes pondering such things tells me that I personally need to avoid the math and embrace the philosophy.
Philosophy includes the study of mathematical reasoning, but you don't get practice at it while you're studying it. It's like taking a music theory class versus learning to play an instrument.