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Digital consumption keeps me from getting better at my job

sibervepunk.com

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Re: Digital consumption keeps me from getting better at my job

#71

Post by tkiolp4 »

Aurornis wrote: post #54
fellowniusmonk wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree with everything you've said, brain train for the actual job by doing the actual job and immersing in it as thoroughly and consistently as you can, do things others find boring or difficult. In case the author IS young, I would also add this: Stay away from startups with capricious, absentee or already wealthy founders, find the most productive, stable environment you can. If you work in an environment w…

> If you work in an environment where personal production and job security are orthogonal you might find yourself getting rug pulled where effort/contribution are fully decoupled from reward. This is a great point. When you find yourself in a workplace where job security is based more on vibes than production it creates a false sense of security. You think your personal productivity doesn't matter and that you can vi…

> It's good to work at companies where productivity is tied to personal performance, even if measuring productivty is far from perfect.

Not in my opinion. These kind of companies ask you to give 100% of yourself every single day. This may sound normal and natural to everyone, but I don’t like it. I cannot work in an environment in which they ask me to be a high performer, and anything else is “below expectations”. It’s just not worth it.

Much better to have job (in)security detached from productivity: in any case, companies are not to be trusted, and one should be ready to switch at any moment.

Re: Digital consumption keeps me from getting better at my job

#72

Post by pixl97 »

bityard wrote: post #47
kevinsync wrote: post #27

>> Since graduating from undergraduate studies (which marks exactly one year as I write this post) Author sounds young .. yes, absolutely try to consume less and create more, it's way more life-affirming than the opposite configuration, but: Getting better at your job, like everything else in life, is just a function of time. Show up, and then show up consistently. Put in the time. Be patient. Lead with an open mind…

Couldn't agree more. Laziness, lack of skill, poor communication, and unexplained delays are so much the norm that people who need something done are willing to pay top dollar just for the mediocre folks. I'm thinking mechanics and home repair contractors as the most obvious example but there are white collar equivalents too. I'm trying to teach my kids that these days, if you are working for someone else, literally…

You also need to teach your kids to book it the moment their employer does not reward them for professionally doing their work well.

Re: Digital consumption keeps me from getting better at my job

#73

Post by fc417fc802 »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #70
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When jobs security is decoupled from productivity, the winds of the company can and do change frequently. But that is always the case, and the "productivity=security" environment is artificial and unnatural. The large forces beyond your control dominate the world, and the whole companies get hit by redundancies because the market changed, AI ate some section of the market, or the banks were too busy playing with mo…

This seems like a tautology, by definition forces on a global scale are far beyond the average person. If they weren’t, then they would cease to significantly affect things on such a scale.

[dead]

Re: Digital consumption keeps me from getting better at my job

#75

Post by iamthejuan »

kevinsync wrote: post #27

>> Since graduating from undergraduate studies (which marks exactly one year as I write this post) Author sounds young .. yes, absolutely try to consume less and create more, it's way more life-affirming than the opposite configuration, but: Getting better at your job, like everything else in life, is just a function of time. Show up, and then show up consistently. Put in the time. Be patient. Lead with an open mind…

Thank you! I am gonna save this.

Re: Digital consumption keeps me from getting better at my job

#78

Post by dasil003 »

tkiolp4 wrote: post #71
Aurornis wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you work in an environment where personal production and job security are orthogonal you might find yourself getting rug pulled where effort/contribution are fully decoupled from reward. This is a great point. When you find yourself in a workplace where job security is based more on vibes than production it creates a false sense of security. You think your personal productivity doesn't matter and that you can vi…

> It's good to work at companies where productivity is tied to personal performance, even if measuring productivty is far from perfect. Not in my opinion. These kind of companies ask you to give 100% of yourself every single day. This may sound normal and natural to everyone, but I don’t like it. I cannot work in an environment in which they ask me to be a high performer, and anything else is “below expectations”. It…

> Not in my opinion. These kind of companies ask you to give 100% of yourself every single day.

No, I understand can understand how someone would come away with that conclusion based on common patterns in the industry, but I think you're conflating two things.

First, companies want teams that deliver value. If evaluation is based more on vibes than actual output, that's a management failure. Its nuanced, because bad vibes can really hurt teams a lot, so it's not that vibes don't matter, but if the source of the vibes is that management is clueless and doesn't understand the pain points on the front lines, then that's the bigger issue. As a junior engineer it can be hard to distinguish, but just understand that good management exists and is out there, it's not all pointy hairs (even if the language is sometimes the same, after all pointy hairs have to cargo cult off of someone).

Second is how much a company asks of you. Once you rise up the ranks in any sizable company you'll realize an incredible amount of effort is wasted just due to the overhead of coordinating many individuals. In these types of environments it's more about focusing on the right things rather than overall effort. As Steve Jobs said, "It doesn't make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to to , We hire smart people so they can tell us what to do". Entire teams can be net negative because no one calls out the elephant in the room. While it's true, that if you are successful in a high performance org, more will be asked of you, it's also true that good leaders value solid contributors even when they set some boundaries.

So there are really two strategies in a large org: one is to do the bare minimum and keep your head down, in that case avoiding high performing orgs is probably a good idea. But at the end of the day your entire job and career is at the mercy of the beancounters waking up one day and realizing you are dead weight. Alternatively, you can adopt a growth mentality, do your best every day, and see where it takes you. The latter path does mean you might need to set some boundaries and say no to people at times. Sure it's awkward, but in the grand scheme of things this builds a stronger network and sets you up for long-term success far better than playing defense because you see the employer-employee relationship as fundamentally adversarial. I think that worldview makes sense from a physical labor workforce, but it's really self-defeating for software engineers because at the end of the day our output is what our code does (hence every IC is "managing" the tech output), not how much time we put in creating it.

Re: Digital consumption keeps me from getting better at my job

#79

Post by TheRealQueequeg »

skydhash wrote: post #39
photochemsyn wrote: post #24

The problem with fast consumption is it's shallow, and the only way around it I've found is the 1:3 rule. For every ten minutes of information consumption, you'll need at least another thirty minutes of tinkering about with your hands, keyboard, pencil and paper, etc. to have any chance of really absorbing and understanding that information. However, this is much harder and more demanding of your concentration and fo…

Reflection is key. Books consumption (mostly digital) for me is always done in three phases. The first is just reading, no note, with only slight highlighting. Then after reflecting (or trying to explain) the ideas, I go back and try to do a summary. The third part is connecting those ideas to others from different books, or using them practically. Consumption without reflection or doing is mostly entertainment, like…

>Consumption without reflection or doing is mostly entertainment, like you would do with a novel or a movie.

Maybe you do do this and were making a sweeping claim-understandble. But if not, try inspecting the themes and topics brought up by the novels you read and movies you watch?

Almost all media has something of value to dissect and discuss if you are willing to do so.

Your last sentence reminds me of when I shat on the first Transformers movies as a teenager thinking they were nothing more than trite Hollywood cash grabs but, my professor nudged me to think about the movie again beyond my assumptions and ego.

Re: Digital consumption keeps me from getting better at my job

#80

Post by [deleted] »

tkiolp4 wrote: post #71
Aurornis wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you work in an environment where personal production and job security are orthogonal you might find yourself getting rug pulled where effort/contribution are fully decoupled from reward. This is a great point. When you find yourself in a workplace where job security is based more on vibes than production it creates a false sense of security. You think your personal productivity doesn't matter and that you can vi…

> It's good to work at companies where productivity is tied to personal performance, even if measuring productivty is far from perfect. Not in my opinion. These kind of companies ask you to give 100% of yourself every single day. This may sound normal and natural to everyone, but I don’t like it. I cannot work in an environment in which they ask me to be a high performer, and anything else is “below expectations”. It…

[deleted]
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