Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help • Hacker News Board

Re: Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help

#611

Post by tug0fwar » Tue, May 05, 2020, 2:30 PM UTC

eloff wrote: post #606

fuball63 wrote: post #596

This is just my personal approach to being disillusioned with tech, but I think about it a lot so I thought I'd share. I think one of the most dangerous cliches we are taught when we are young is "do what you love, and you'll never work a day in your life". It sets up the expectation that your passion and your job should be tightly coupled, and if they aren't, there's something flawed with you. Having a job where you…

Job progression up the ladder is mostly inferior to lateral progression to a new company. That's partly why people stay such a short time in a role. You'll get no loyalty, humanity, or recognition from the company. Give them the minimum to keep them happy and keep your job and focus the rest of your energy on something that will benefit you.

If you are inclined to give your minimum at something you spend time on everyday, it essentially means you shouldn't have started it in the first place.

Unless you are forced to do work you don't enjoy (work is what brings food to the table etc.), you should obviously find better work. Also, even if you are stuck, try to get out of it as soon as possible.

Choosing to do work you don't care about is simply bad decision making due to lack of understanding. In the long run it may even reduce the quality of your life.

Re: Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help

#612

Post by camelite » Tue, May 05, 2020, 2:31 PM UTC

xiaolingxiao wrote: post #39

I have also experience close to burnout and recovered multiple times, in the process I have lost very precious relationships, and entire years were spent in darkness. I also have friends who have been in tech for close to ten years, and are close to burning out though they would never admit to such. This is the nature of the beast, all things that appear glamorous on the outside ( Hollywood, Finance, Tech, many nonpr…

"the silent majority of the defeated"

That's great writing.

Re: Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help

#613

Post by valand » Tue, May 05, 2020, 2:32 PM UTC

kabacha wrote: post #530

valand wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because pop-technology is void of any sort of spirit, culture or enthusiasm. It's all buzzwords, sale pitches and wheel reinventing put in a new wrapper and walled gardens. This is sad but true, though. Those buzzwords are marketing techniques, and those riding the trains of trends and buzzwords are the one getting the spotlight because human naturally follow blings and other human attentions are indeed power. It's…

Hacking (as per original MIT definition) means doing something clever or novel because of the love of the medium not to satisfy some sort of demand or business opportunity. It's in the spirit of "look at this cool thing you can do". I'm sure you're familiar with free(libre) software already and "libre hacking" is just that - some relatively useless fun programs or tools that people share under libre license. My favor…

I'm more familiar with hacking than libre

I often go for itch.io. Half of it are these kind of code as an art stuff. Hidden gem.

Re: Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help

#614

Post by internettourett » Tue, May 05, 2020, 2:35 PM UTC

fuball63 wrote: post #596

This is just my personal approach to being disillusioned with tech, but I think about it a lot so I thought I'd share. I think one of the most dangerous cliches we are taught when we are young is "do what you love, and you'll never work a day in your life". It sets up the expectation that your passion and your job should be tightly coupled, and if they aren't, there's something flawed with you. Having a job where you…

Cliches, expectations, passion

Steps, you say, the snake asked... without understanding...

um Terms like 'goal' or 'front' even unintentionally used may lead to a want in terms of an ethical norm. 'People are driven by goals and success' and that maybe lead to the conclusion 'peopleshould be striving' and even to the thought 'people have to work and therefore to laze didn't meet the character of humans ethically' (sry, for my bad english) ^^

Re: Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help

#615

Post by fjeifisjf » Tue, May 05, 2020, 2:36 PM UTC

Thorentis wrote: post #233

TomMckenny wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All accurate and objective and good for everyone to know early rather than late. Moving a bit further from the specifics, it's worth noting that this is not a natural state of affairs. Humans evolved to be in groups of about 30-100 people who they knew their whole lives and thus making catastrophic deception nearly impossible. Likewise vast sums of wealth did not exist nor total social and fiscal isolation surrounded…

I agree with the OP comment, and also with this one. It is important to understand two things in coping with the state of the world in my opinion. 1) The reality is you need to find validation and fulfilment outside of work, because in our current society you are just a drone. 2) Don't be depressed because it seems like this is how it's always been. It hasn't. Our work culture is broken. People never used to be so fa…

I take issue with this drone nonsense. If you are helping people for money you are doing good with your life. If you are comfortable at work and not being physically or emotionally abused, there's absolutely nothing wrong with being a "drone". Not everyone should be a celebrity changing the world in their own big way. Imagine if the whole world was being constantly reshaped in 7 billion ways!

Re: Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help

#616

Post by Swizec » Tue, May 05, 2020, 2:36 PM UTC

eloff wrote: post #606

fuball63 wrote: post #596

This is just my personal approach to being disillusioned with tech, but I think about it a lot so I thought I'd share. I think one of the most dangerous cliches we are taught when we are young is "do what you love, and you'll never work a day in your life". It sets up the expectation that your passion and your job should be tightly coupled, and if they aren't, there's something flawed with you. Having a job where you…

Job progression up the ladder is mostly inferior to lateral progression to a new company. That's partly why people stay such a short time in a role. You'll get no loyalty, humanity, or recognition from the company. Give them the minimum to keep them happy and keep your job and focus the rest of your energy on something that will benefit you.

The grass is greener where you water it.

Re: Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help

#617

Post by chrismeller » Tue, May 05, 2020, 2:39 PM UTC

tug0fwar wrote: post #611

eloff wrote: post #606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Job progression up the ladder is mostly inferior to lateral progression to a new company. That's partly why people stay such a short time in a role. You'll get no loyalty, humanity, or recognition from the company. Give them the minimum to keep them happy and keep your job and focus the rest of your energy on something that will benefit you.

If you are inclined to give your minimum at something you spend time on everyday, it essentially means you shouldn't have started it in the first place. Unless you are forced to do work you don't enjoy (work is what brings food to the table etc.), you should obviously find better work. Also, even if you are stuck, try to get out of it as soon as possible. Choosing to do work you don't care about is simply bad decisio…

I wouldn’t even say in the long run. I mean even at 22 if you hate your job so much that you’re going to the bar every night (been there), that isn’t a long term detriment, it’s an immediate one. Maybe you can excuse it and avoid thinking about it at that age because “everyone does it”, but that is exactly the kind of thinking that gets you into trouble with pretty much anything.

Re: Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help

#618

Post by fjeifisjf » Tue, May 05, 2020, 2:41 PM UTC

seer wrote: post #372

Thorentis wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the OP comment, and also with this one. It is important to understand two things in coping with the state of the world in my opinion. 1) The reality is you need to find validation and fulfilment outside of work, because in our current society you are just a drone. 2) Don't be depressed because it seems like this is how it's always been. It hasn't. Our work culture is broken. People never used to be so fa…

Anecdotally, the best professional experience in my 15+ career in tech was one startup. There the founders were very into doing “work-life harmony” instead of “work-life balance”. They made a point to have their friends meet your friends and each colleagues’s friends. Our partners and spouses knew each other. There was a big push to make sure your work is not simply something that you work and leave in the office, bu…

That sounds like a work cult. We're all these families still your friends after leaving the company?

Re: Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help

#619

Post by ratww » Tue, May 05, 2020, 2:43 PM UTC

kovac wrote: post #527

kristopolous wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it wasn't! That's the whole point. What some people consider to be "good engineering" is a different set of standards , a different set of qualifiers . Let's go back to 2012. I was yet again doing web stuff. We had this hodgepodge of jasmine, junit, eslint and selenium and couldn't commit unless it all passed But the tests broke more then the code itself, because it was . So more time was spent on fixing and babys…

What's strange is I can also give you examples of how testing code bugs that had been there for more than 3 years (security related mind you) and a company whose release branch didn't compile on my day one because a guy who doesn't believe in any software development process and committed directly to the release branch. I don't mean, dogmatically follow unit tests (actually my statement wasn't predicated on unit test…

The thing that the parent poster is trying to point out is that our fancy programmer tools, processes, ceremonies and tests are worse than useless if they get in the way of actual work and make you miserable and unproductive. People leave jobs because of this. People burn out because of this. Companies lose money because of lack of productivity.

This is what this whole thread is about.

If tests are "taking the fun away", like you said, they're shit. Simple as that. Tests are a productivity tool, they're supposed to make your job easier by providing faster feedback. If manual test is faster than automated test, your automated tests are shit. If they're causing developers to write the bare minimum of tests it will only generate a false sense of security. This is even worse than saying "ok we don't have tests, let's be careful and test manually".

It's like that stupid saying that bad documentation is "better than nothing". It's funny how people change their minds when they spend four hours or more on a stupid rabbit hole because of outdated documentation.

On the other hand, one of the best jobs I ever had was maintaining shitty web apps written without source control, tests, documentation, patterns. Thousands of lines of code. Some of them didn't even have source code: I had to decompile the production server DLLs. I don't have any coder friend that got burned out by "bad code". Not having autonomy to improve the bad code, on the other hand, made a lot of them change jobs.

Re: Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help

#620

Post by fjeifisjf » Tue, May 05, 2020, 2:45 PM UTC

101404 wrote: post #558

KineticLensman wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is why the working-from-home trend that I hope COVID will kick-off is going to be a good thing. While we may still be working for the same companies, having a tighter integration between work and home is actually good for our mental health. Alternatively, it extends the reach of companies further into the home environment, and may exacerbate the existing trend for people not to switch off, which in turn makes…

True. I am hoping for a trend where it becomes normal that a kid interrupts some business meeting, or you talk to your coworker or CEO in a video chat while they are cooking or folding clothes or something. Almost as if you were talking to real people.

Ask a parent (usually mother) what happens if they try to bring a kid to their (non coronavirus era) office because they don't have anyone else to care for the kid that day. Almost always completely unacceptable, for reasons ranging from arbitrary fake professionalism to lack of interest in setting up a support structure and expecting employees to sacrifice their personal lives for the company.

I can only hope this "fake macho work persona" bubble-burst carries forward into post-covid.