Fuck You Sunday

499 341 6 years ago

JEzra100• 6 years ago

“You don’t hate Mondays, you hate capitalism”

I don't know why you were downvoted for this. It's utterly true. The birds and the trees don't hate Mondays. Babies don't hate Mondays. It's a learned behavior.

peterwwillis3• 6 years ago

Sure, but it has nothing to do with Capitalism (other than Capitalism giving us two days off a week rather than 0). I'm sure the good people of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union didn't enjoy going to work again after a few days off.

throwaway38235• 6 years ago

I don't know why you were downvoted for this

On HN everybody is a temporarily embarrassed billionaire.

See "Internalised capitalism" - when you feel guilty for resting:

https://preview.redd.it/5smjp4d0dzr51.jpg?width=743&auto=web...

Let's see how many downvotes I get

anonytrary• 6 years ago

That's a bit of a stretch. I think the more accurate phrase is “You don’t hate Mondays, you probably just hate your job”.

chiefofgxbxl• 6 years ago

I was just speaking to a friend about this a few hours ago -- there's always some feeling of guilt that creeps up on me on Sunday evening, like I'm questioning if I spent the weekend well. But honestly, I don't think I would avoid that feeling if the weekend went completely unproductive, productive, or a combination of that. I've come to accept this, and I know I only need to stave off this feeling for a few hours per week.

murftown• 6 years ago

I can relate to the feeling of anxiety when the all-too-short weekend is drawing to a close. Glad you put this up! Hope it helps you feel a little more in control and able to do something creative. It makes sense that you chose to just get something out there without worrying about the details or polishing up the rough edges.

Happy Sunday! :)

greatNespresso5• 6 years ago

Thanks a lot, happy sunday too !

0823498723498723• 6 years ago

Bon Dimanche ! (am I late for last sunday or just early for next?)

bobobob420• 6 years ago

Treat every day like it’s monday or Friday and forget the notions of weekends except as a vessel to do more things

cortesoft2• 6 years ago

I tried this, but for some reason daycare wouldn't let me drop off my kids this morning.

divbzero• 6 years ago

Awesome. Now iterate and keep shipping and you’ll go a long long way. (^W Hacker News)

nikanj• 6 years ago

I think it’s an absolutely insane idea that you’re supposed to use five days of the week working, and then the remaining two working on something else. Weekends are for resting and recovery.

ed25519FUUU• 6 years ago

And building relationships with people not computers.

o_class_star6• 6 years ago

It used to be six and a half. It became five because a bunch of people were smart enough to figure out their bosses weren't their friends, and fought for a shorter workweek (also reducing unemployment and increasing the value of each worker). We've gotten lazy, collectively speaking, and the bosses have crept it back up to five-plus-some-extras.

Five is still ridiculous, though. There's so much waste in the system these days; the world would run fine on a three-day week.

It's time for working people to get fighting again.

CameronNemo3• 6 years ago

I would be fine working six and a half days per week. Given a full work day was considered to be 2 hours.

nradov• 6 years ago

It used to be six and a half until higher farm yields and productivity gains from automation produced enough surplus to even allow for less. From the dawn of urban civilization until well into the industrial revolution there was barely enough food to keep the population alive. Even if the bosses had been nicer about it that wouldn't have kept people from starving.

Yes I am aware that early hunter gatherers worked fewer hours per week and generally had better diets. But that lifestyle wasn't sustainable after the human population expanded.

eyelidlessness4• 6 years ago

This, but I want to emphasize: “fought” is literal here, at least in terms of employers’ response. The reality is that the notion that we even get to decide whether to rest on weekends or labor is entirely owed to the fact that people who came before us got literally killed to pave the way.

ilaksh• 6 years ago

The basic idea is that many people can't really get ahead on their salary. And people like me are wasting most of their energy building wealth for other people.

So building a product or service seems like a primary way to get control of my life and stop putting all of my effort to benefit someone else.

The weekend is usually the only opportunity to do it.

If I could quit my job and have someone give me a bunch of seed money for my project then I would. That's not going to happen. I don't have the connections or charisma and even if I had it, they are just research ideas right now.

So for me it's very sane to spend time on the weekends working on my project and I do feel guilty when I don't put enough time into it. Because I just know that I need to build my own thing if I am going to have financial security.

nullsense3• 6 years ago

Probably team up with someone with connections and charisma else you build it and they just don't come and nor are you the kind of person to go out and get them to come and the whole thing goes nowhere and your productive weekends were all just a waste.

Source: experience

quaffapint• 6 years ago

I was just thinking about this yesterday. During the week I do my 9-5 and my mind is mostly numb after that. Enough for some exploratory stuff, but hard to get a lot of 'real' grind work done.

Then it's Friday night and you think how great it is that the weekend is here to get stuff done. Saturday arrives and if you're a home owner like me it's full of house and yard work (which in itself is fine, just time consuming).

So what you have left is Sunday. Relax in the morning with a cup of coffee and watch a relaxing show with the wife. The rest of the day is ahead, and based on how relatable this article is you know where that goes. Welcome to Sunday night and the cycle continues.

o_class_star6• 6 years ago

If you're trying to "break out" instead of "just existing" (although there's nothing wrong with the latter; we put too much demands on ourselves) the winning play, for most, is to get up as early as you can stand. Most people's best hours are from 1 to 4 hours after waking, and it's a shame to give those to a boss.

eyelidlessness4• 6 years ago

I relate to this (and upvoted), but it’s worth acknowledging that some people have more energy in evenings or even the dark of night. The key, if you’re trying to best utilize your time:

1. Your point: don’t give your most productive time to someone who uses you as a resource.

2. Try to structure your schedule so that you can best utilize your most effective energy without it being solely devoted to the obligations outside of being a profit center for someone else.

behnamoh3• 6 years ago

So somebody made a simple page about how they feel about Sunday without even putting in some effort to give solutions or details, and it should hit the HN front page? Seems like a simple Tell HN would suffice.

o_class_star6• 6 years ago

He has more product here than 75% of YC-funded startups have on Demo Day.

behnamoh3• 6 years ago

Doesn't matter. I'm talking about the lack of content in this webpage, regardless of who created it.

Minor49er2• 6 years ago

I think that's the point. The author has no solutions and is simply expressing frustration at a situation that many people can relate to.

NewOrderNow• 6 years ago

But somehow was able to get a job? Who are these people who have the creativity to get a job, but none to work on a project.

I will never understanding this perspective of being in a great position and not having to worry about money while being apathetic toward the entire situation.

duckfruit• 6 years ago

Not everything has to have a purpose. If you're looking for solutions or life hacks, there are millions of SEO-d to death pages and self proclaimed gurus out there that peddle such things.

Personally I utterly relate to what the author is trying to express - so I heave a wry chuckle and after a momentary rush of kinship with the author sitting at his keyboard thousands of miles away, I move on. And what is HN if not a community of individuals sharing a connection.

greatNespresso5• 6 years ago

It's your comment that made me realize this hit the frontpage so thanks a lot

malwarebytess• 6 years ago

Show HN: Drunk Posting.

Call me a Hedonist but the point of life is to enjoy it. If you spend your time with people who make you happy your weekend is a success at minimum.

CameronNemo3• 6 years ago

If you spend your time with people who make you happy your weekend is a success at minimum.

I wish I had friends.

gen_greyface• 6 years ago

Hello, Friend.

dluan• 6 years ago

most of my best ideas for the side projects and perfect tech stack combos come late at night, when i am procrastinating to even sleep.

in chinese it's called 報復性熬夜, which translates to something like "retaliatory staying up late", it's a phenomena happening more in china where people just get stuck scrolling on social media because of the feeling that they want to use or own all of the free time they have left, and then it gets squandered and you hate yourself in the morning.

bill gates used to say that he valued engineers who turn procrastination into an art.

taxcoder• 6 years ago

This whole comment. It's nice to know that I am not the only one. There's even a name for it!

thelazydogsback• 6 years ago

https://www.wired.com/story/stop-doomscrolling/

angled• 6 years ago

aka making yourself redundant through better tech and processes; and / or laziness as a Good Thing.

toomanybeersies2• 6 years ago

My ultimate goal as a software developer is to make myself redundant.

Not a great goal financially, but there's always another job out there. Until there isn't, and at that point we'll either be living in a utopia or the robots will have exterminated us.

lucb1e• 6 years ago

This is me right now. Work starts in 4.7 hours. Retaliatory is an interesting word to apply to this behaviour, I hadn't thought of it like that but it's kind of true: I am struggling with the bounds of my weekend (or spare time in general) and trying to make the most of it while the clock ticks down. I'm not scrolling a feed exactly, but I logically know that I should be sleeping so it's also not good use of my time. Thanks for sharing this.

nicbou7• 6 years ago

Idleness is important. You get your best thinking done in the shower because there is little else to do there. We got really good at filling that time with music, podcasts and feeds, but we should leave some of it to process our thoughts and let new ideas in.

I miss walking to work for those 20 minutes of reflection before and after my shift.

Now I ride motorcycles. That gives me hours to think.

0823498723498723• 6 years ago

Learned from my VC: "if you ever spend more than 20 minutes in the shower, it's time to change jobs." But these days I no longer shower in the mornings, but in the evenings, so...

randomdude4022• 6 years ago

Getting a motorcycle and riding around without a GPS in my face or earbuds has been amazing for getting away from screens and tech.

I highly recommend it.

An unexpected side effect is a new small group of friends who don't give a shit about tech, but share an interest in sampling food from faraway restaurants and getting there using as few highways as possible.

peterwwillis3• 6 years ago

Is there a term for Techie FOMO?

Fear Of Not Capitalizing? FONC

interestica3• 6 years ago

Can you make "FUNC" work? Seems apt.

nullsense3• 6 years ago

Fear of Under-Capitalizing

Minor49er2• 6 years ago

The book "Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life" by Adam Phillips is a bit dry, but helped me to overcome a lot of my feelings of FOMO. Around the same time I read that, I also purged all of my social media accounts. My anxiety has gone down since then.

titanomachy2• 6 years ago

I've felt this way before. The only thing that's worked is to either take a bunch of time off, or change jobs.

I don't really try to do "productive side projects" on weekends; mostly I read books, go outside, play music, spend time with friends and family, etc. But if my 9-5 job doesn't scratch the itch of "using my hard-earned talents for a constructive purpose", then the inexorable approach of Sunday night brings with it a deep feeling of dread: freedom to pursue things I enjoy is coming to an end, mandatory drudgery is fast approaching.

sevensor• 6 years ago

The author of the page we're discussing recommends unproductive side projects and presents us with one. This is worth emulating. Productive side projects are just more work, and sometimes you're tired of work. A good unproductive side project gives you something fun to think about all the time. If your mind wanders at work, this gives it a good place to go. It only works if you're having fun though.

nicbou7• 6 years ago

I go for time well spent, which encompasses productive activities, but also the activities you listed.

If I could spend the rest of my life having similar days, then it was a good day. That metric allows for more than just productive work.

titanomachy2• 6 years ago

I like that metric. I've definitely done projects in the past, just haven't had an inspiration in a while.

radicalriddler• 6 years ago

I decided to build a website that scraped data from wikipedia to tell me whether Kim Jong-Un was still alive. It contains a very basic index.html, a python script to scrape wikipedia on a cron hourly, and store the result in a file, which my flask app serves to the index.html.

I served my index.html on netlify which setup https, but I wasn't able to get an nginx server up and running to setup a https connection to the server, so the browser is complaining. Alas, it was a fun Friday night project. Coffee and Python, a solid duo.

kabdib• 6 years ago

I've been sitting on a nice domain name (no specifics...) and it's been a "someday, I'm going to build this simple idea" application.

A few days ago, someone offered to buy the domain. Not for much money, but still, it's a kick in the pants.

I'm going to build that thing. Probably take me a few weeks, it'll scratch the itch, and it might even be useful. I've spent a couple hours fleshing out some user interaction and it looks like it'll be fun.

What else are rainy days for?

interestica3• 6 years ago

Can we form a club? For co-motivation (read: guilt).

Algomancer2• 6 years ago

I would like to second this.

Techasura• 6 years ago

Absolutely tired of weekends.

sillysaurusx2• 6 years ago

I have been fortunate enough to be able to focus on nothing but AI for the past year or so. I don't talk about it as much as I'd like, because it feels like talking about the mansion you got to live in for a year, among people who don't have mansions.

I just try to work as hard as possible every day and hope it benefits others in the end, somehow.

There are some lessons that might be worth sharing, though, so maybe I should talk about it anyway. When I was much younger, a sharp programmer in #gamedev on Afternet – a sort of guru figure named Washu – was talking with me, which is to say I was rambling to him in the way teenagers do about hopes, dreams, life, all the ways you want to change the world, etc. I was saying things like, "If only I didn't have to work. I would do so much. It feels like my potential is being drained."

He replied, "If you're not productive at work, you won't be productive outside of work."

That always stayed with me, partly because it made me mad. Who does he think he is? He doesn't know me or my situation at all. And yet, over the last decade-and-change, it's been an inescapable truth. I left that job a couple years later with $15k in the bank, exhausted, and thoroughly not looking forward to the next one. So I sat down, finally free of job, and started to change the world...

... by playing dota. All day, every day.

Now, I wouldn't trade those days for anything. It was necessary soul-searching, and it prepared me for this last year, where I was able to be productive. But you must understand: unless you're disciplined, you need to focus on simply being happy at work, before you can be happy outside of work.

There's a very good chance that you're making yourself unhappier than you need to be, because instead of simply choosing to be happy (which is often, but not always, a choice), you are choosing to be unhappy (by dreading that alarm).

The flipside is, once you're ready, you really can do so much more, when you get to focus for multiple days on problems of your choosing. Or multiple weeks.

I don't know if anyone needed to hear that, but... just remember, you can choose your mindset, even though you can't choose your emotions. Mindset != emotion, and emotions tend to follow mindset in the long run.

StavrosK• 6 years ago

I entirely disagree, I've had jobs where I was very unproductive at work (because I didn't care for the subject matter) and quite prolific outside it.

pram• 6 years ago

I don't necessarily agree with that axiom. I'm far more productive in my hobbies (art) than my actual IT job. Theres no correlation between my performance or enthusiasm for my real work and other stuff, unless my work is just making me extremely miserable. In that case it's closer to suffering from depression than a lack of 'productivity'

dnautics• 6 years ago

That axiom is not necessarily true. You could be unproductive at work due to crappy managers and crazy productive outside of work. Maybe that's a sign you should be starting a company? Or at least I hope it is.

didibus• 6 years ago

I think you're talking about something slightly different to what I felt reading the article.

I think there are two reasons to say fuck Sunday, one is dreading the work day that's coming up because it stresses you out and you hate it. Which I think is what you're talking about.

And the other, which I feel the website is talking about, is dreading the fact that the weekend is over and you haven't done any of the things you wanted to use the weekend for, such as working on your personal projects, hitting the gym, getting that cabinet in order, finally putting a budget together, etc. Which comes to you with a feeling of guilt and having wasted the weekend and your time.

You can obviously have both feelings at ounce, but I think you can also only suffer from one of these. I for example enjoy my work, but I have that latter feeling which is that none of my other goals are being worked on and met.

sillysaurusx2• 6 years ago

Excellent point. Parents, especially, I admire. There was a dev at S2 who somehow had two kids, attended university to finish up his degree, and worked at S2. As far as I know, he had a very happy family life and was a great dad. It was almost frightening seeing just how much a disciplined and motivated person can do with the time they’re given.

The other aspect I wanted to share, if it helps at all, is... it’s truly fine to waste your weekend, or to be unproductive and do nothing. There’s so much stigma attached to that, and almost every system in a capitalistic society would have you believe it’s a terrible sin or that you’re less of a person.

But I get that your point is more along the lines of “I just wish I had time for everything I wanted to do.” For whatever it’s worth, the feeling doesn’t go away. I feel guilty about not being as focused as I could have been yesterday, for example, and it’s hard to shake the idea that 24 hours are simply too few.

I should probably stop here, since the obvious reply is “yeah, that sure sounds like an awful problem to have, with all that time available to you. /s” which is entirely valid.

But! You can get it for yourself, depending on what you can exchange for it. In truth, my laptop’s internal keyboard has been dead for four years or so. I just bring an external everywhere, since it’s $500 to fix.

Unfortunately parents don’t have the luxury of simply choosing to save up money and then take a year off work, because the cost of family often scales with time. So, those of you who have children and still manage to do a lot of other things: you’re real heroes in my eyes. Fuck Sunday!

maerF0x0• 6 years ago

Yeah, fuck sunday! You inspired me to make something too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzkO4ODjqnA

greatNespresso5• 6 years ago

I love go, congrats on putting up that video

Touche• 6 years ago

I'm seriously worried about this generation's inability to stop scrolling their social feeds nonstop. You don't have to start a company in your free time. You don't have to create things or contribute to the world. But please enjoy your lives. Read a book. Do some gardening. Learn to bake. Watch junk TV. Do anything other than constantly comparing yourself to what acquaintances are doing this second.

xavierlint• 6 years ago

Watch junk TV

Agreed with you until this point. At least the junk TV I know also involves (be it consciously or not) comparing yourself, this time with celebrities instead of acquaintances.

lethologica• 6 years ago

I see it as a bit of a feedback loop. I think that If you're the kind of person who is stuck in the mentality of having to be efficient and productive with every single second you have, then you're more prone to be the sort of person to try and keep up with the Jonses. But, if you're able to disconnect and to have a healthy work life balance then you're less likely to compare yourself to what you see.

kleer001• 6 years ago

A more good-faith definition of junk TV might be "television with an emphasis on entertainment and a notable lack of educational content". No need for trash celebrities.

rdiddly2• 6 years ago

For me it has to be the right kind of junk. There's junk, like in a junkyard, and then there's a toxic waste dump. Stick with the junkyard. The stronger a show's resemblance to your current reality, the more likely you'll find someone in it with whom to compare yourself. So right off the bat, so-called "reality" TV is off the table. Anything where you're able to forget about "you" and be transported into someone else's world, is good. That takes good writing, i.e. yes, an actual script. Old stuff works too - anything so old that you can't possibly imagine yourself in that milieu, that helps. We watch old Columbo episodes from the 70s on network TV on Sunday nights. Granted we are then bombarded with ads for Sono Bello, Consumer Cellular, and every drug on the market (and then ads for the lawyers suing the makers of last year's drugs), and anything else an advertiser has deemed likely to appeal to the demographic that cares about Columbo or the 70s... and all those ads in themselves are an assault on your self-esteem, so just mute that shit or do chores.

Mostly though it just takes time to build a life, and a you, that you love enough that you win most of those comparisons to celebrities. Think about how most celebs are basically slaves in various ways: slaves to public opinion, to the Hollywood social hierarchy, to the crappy contracts under which most of them are laboring, and especially to the fear of not being famous/loved/accepted tomorrow, of being replaced by one of the thousands of others who (maybe just as tragically) would jump at the chance to have that person's shitty contract and precarious perch on the ladder of fame. Slaves to the empty holes in their souls that they have been filling with the quest for fame probably their whole lives. Ah, but to the extent that you spend time on social media, seeking approval from strangers, you are (or your avatar is) kind of a micro-celebrity and would tend to be plagued by all those same problems! So yeah, that ruins it. All the more reason to get the hell off of there, ideally permanently!

esperent3• 6 years ago

Depends what you class as junk I guess. I'd say there's junk like sitcoms and the latest marvel tv series or whatever, you don't learn anything from it but you can relax and have a good time, and then there's absolute trash reality tv about celebrities and making fun of poor people. Junk tv is fine in reasonable amounts. Trash tv is on the same level as social media.

Aeolun2• 6 years ago

I’m seriously worried about my own ability to do those things. I’d throw my smartphone away, but there’s so many things that currently expect you to have one that it’s frankly impossible.

Polylactic_acid• 6 years ago

One interesting idea I have seen is getting a smartwatch with 4g and then leaving the phone at home. The watch is good enough to send an important text or take a phone call but its not good enough to scroll social media.

nicbou7• 6 years ago

Deinstall the social apps, stay logged out of their web version, aggressively disable notifications, and turn off data unless you need it.

nobody9999• 6 years ago

I completely agree.

In fact, it's useful to consider that many, if not most people do the job that they do not because they enjoy it or find it fulfilling, but because if they don't, they and/or their family will starve in the street.

If you have a job/career that's intellectually stimulating and personally satisfying, you already have it much better than a whole lot of other people.

And if that's the case for you, celebrate that!

While it may seem like if you aren't spending every waking moment focused on being able to write the most beautiful or performant code, or trying to found the next unicorn, that you're wasting your life.

And depending on who you are, that may be enough.

But I guarantee you, that when you're lying on your deathbed, you won't be thinking about how many patches you submitted to open source projects, how optimized your code is, or how numerous and helpful your StackExchange posts were.

It might surprise you to know that a very large number of people's primary interests/focus have absolutely nothing to do with how they support themselves.

In fact, there's a whole big world out there that has absolutely nothing to do with technology.

I'm not trying to tell anyone what they should or shouldn't do, but as someone whose identity was strongly tied to my career for decades, while it was certainly worth it in many respects, my world could have been much richer and fuller if I'd taken the time to metaphorically stop and smell the roses.

So if you feel like you need to be "always on" and permanently focused on the next professional challenge/opportunity, maybe you could step back once in a while and consider not just what's good for you professionally, or will make you more competitive in the marketplace, but what gives you joy as a person.

For a lot of us, that's building technology. And that's a good thing.

But technology isn't the entire universe, and if you limit your focus and interests really narrowly, you're going to miss out on the beauty and the worthy challenges in the wider world.

Even more, having those non-work related interests/experiences can, give one a broader perspective on your professional life that makes you better and more useful/productive/engaged in your professional life.

I suggest taking Bill Shatner's advice[0] as a metaphor. Or don't. It's your life and that's (as it's always been) up to you.

[0] https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xmagzq

acwan93• 6 years ago

It’s also the need to monetize everything in your life. The “hustle” life, glorifying entrepreneurship, and the need to “advance your personal brand” were big statements made when I was in college. This was right when LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter were hitting exponential growth (Facebook already had many years earlier).

Either it’s because I personally experienced the Great Recession, the launch of social media and the iPhone, and my worldview expanded greatly as one does in undergrad all at once, or it really is a new phenomenon that your employer has no loyalty to you, so one must rely on their own. With social media, these themes are just further perpetuated and there’s a pressure to start companies.

I’ve already worked my ass off at my day job, and just want my hobbies to not turn into side projects or “side hustles”. I don’t intend on starting companies based on them.

nicbou7• 6 years ago

Not just monetize but package. For a while, I measured experience in terms of likes, upvotes and views. Being there wasn't enough. I had to check in and prove that I have fun. Curating my online life put a lot of pressure on me, even when money wasn't involved.

qwertox• 6 years ago

Great. I just hope the author has no OCD, because there is a typo on that page ("shoudl"), which means that this side project turned into something with consequences.

justusthane2• 6 years ago

I think the typo reinforces the message: don't worry about it being perfect; just do something.

cortesoft2• 6 years ago

I love Monday's.... finally get a chance to do intellectual work.

Weekends are spent chasing the kids from the time I wake up until I go to sleep.

om12• 6 years ago

Love it - this is so relatable. Having so much time to myself recently has really made me reflect on my job and its impact on my personal life.

I have managed to keep up some of my hobbies and relationships during isolation, but it is certainly much more difficult when I don't feel engaged or valued at work.

lvturner2• 6 years ago

I really, really hate the expectancy of software developers to have side projects at home.

Do we ask lawyers what free cases they take over the weekend?

Doctors about the diagnoses they make for fun on Saturdays?

Teachers about their open source lesson plans?

I'm sure many of the above DO these things.

Worst yet its often phrased in the interview as "do you have any hobbies?"

Yeah - I do, I spent the weekend figuring out how to replace parts on my car. Why wasn't I writing the next Linux? Because I get enough screen time at work.

ryandrake• 6 years ago

Reminds me of this one, currently making the rounds: https://youtu.be/vQJ8IjklA4U

xkcd-sucks• 6 years ago

Teachers,at least in my part of the USA, do tons of work off the clock and it's not even a side project, just work.

Next, having the right non-coding hobbies to portray yourself as an upwardly mobile urban creative: Climbing is in, hunting is out, that sort of thing

andy_ppp• 6 years ago

So do programmers, especially younger inexperienced devs who feel pressure to perform beyond their current skill level.

BenoitEssiambre• 6 years ago

Doctors I know frequently work weekends and nights between long days of more work.

swiley• 6 years ago

Lawyers are expected to do a certain amount of free work.

compiler-guy• 6 years ago

Maybe in some places, but this is not universal across the US. Source: My entire social circle are lawyers. Most do almost no pro bono work. And the continuing education requirements are basically a joke.

ljhsiung• 6 years ago

When I ask the question, I do it out of genuine curiosity. I like my potential coworkers (since that's kinda half the point of interviews-- see if he/she is a feasible coworker) to be easy to talk with.

I've had interviews where we talked about Tiger King.

Though I do agree, this is the minority. I feel that, especially in the cybersecurity world, it's an expectation that you should have several CVEs or public bug bounty writeups under your belt, things which oftentimes take tens of hours of time outside of work.

paulryanrogers• 6 years ago

It seems the creep is real. Yet with an aging body, a family to love, and a house to fix even getting a few uninterrupted hours with any consistency is ... a big ask.

teddyh• 6 years ago

When I ask the question, I do it out of genuine curiosity. I like my potential coworkers (since that's kinda half the point of interviews-- see if he/she is a feasible coworker) to be easy to talk with.

Don’t. You seem to be utterly blind to the enormous power imbalance in an interview setting. If you were to ask people what their sexual preferences were, or what their political opinions were, people would feel compelled to answer. Don’t behave as if you don’t have any power and are just talking informally; you’re not.

You have a huge amount of power in that relationship, and if you will be their boss after they are hired, this will continue to be true. Wield this power responsibly, don’t pretend you don’t have it.

esperent3• 6 years ago

Doctors are a terrible comparison - the ones I know work insane hours and are often in the hospital 60+ hours a week.

shiftpgdn• 6 years ago

Lots of software developers are expected to do 60 hour weeks too. There are also thousands of lifestyle doctors that just work a few days a week.

learc83• 6 years ago

That completely depends on the specialty. I know plenty who work around 30 hours a week.

rellekio• 6 years ago

I chalk up this feeling to the God is dead mentality. Except here its all interesting ideas are done.

It's more of a question of work and why we do so. Most are left burn out at the end of their week.

After all it's a job, because someone has to pay you to do it.

Programming is just the process of abstraction and automation of work. At what point does it end?

Axsuul• 6 years ago

One notable difference is that software developers are in the category of "builders" while the other professions you mentioned aren't generally accepted as such.

thinkingemote• 6 years ago

Software developers can also fit in with the creative architect category and (esp here) entrepreneurial business starter.

hombre_fatal• 6 years ago

I'd liken us more to craftspeople like a carpenter.

While I certainly don't think software developers should be expected to make software their freetime hobby with a menagerie of weekend sideprojects, this forum acts like it's an unfair demand on a carpenter that you see something they've built before you hire them.

I also can't say I expect much from a software developer who hasn't at least had interest in personal projects during some interval of their life. Like a carpenter who has never made something unless they were getting paid for it.

segmondy9• 6 years ago

Here's how I look at it, if you're a musician, you probably play at home sometime. If you're a mathematician, you probably solve some maths at home. If you're a writer, you probably write at home. Most people that can practice their craft do so at home. I don't expect a hunter or a fisherman to hunt or fish at home. But a chef? A chef might have an idea for a meal and experiment at home. So a software developer that doesn't practice their craft at home is very suspect. I don't expect a side project, just practice, but very often, we have an idea that does turn into a side project. I don't expect this side project to make money, to have a website, to have a beautiful code, to be in github, but if you can't tell me anything that you have worked on just for the hell of it in the past year, I will be very and highly suspicious of how good you are.

ignoramous• 6 years ago

A lot of really really good engineers I knew at AWS had no side projects. They were absolute masters at their job. May be AWS is a small sample size, and sure engineers with side-projects were better than average, but to say others were not as good...nope, doesn't go with my observation at all.

ipiz0618• 6 years ago

This is true. To think of it, some lawyers probably work for free in the weekends for the poor; some doctors probably read about medical breakthroughs (and inevitable solve family cases) at home, and teachers too. I don't see anything wrong with either approach to coding, be it treating it strictly as work or as a hobby. But if someone expects good code, best practices, 100% test coverage, etc. in a side project - that's going too far.

TheSpiceIsLife3• 6 years ago

38 hours a week at work practicing your profession isn't good enough for you.

I'm a welder by trade. Occasionally I do a spot of welding at home, but the 38 to 60 hours a week I've spent twenty years doing has made me a vastly better metal fabricator than the few side projects I've done.

But I can rant endlessly to you about my other interests, some of which tie in nicely to a wider-perspective-of-life than just metal fabrication, and it's those other interests that have proven to set me apart from the pack and advanced my career way more.

Could you just ask a person what fun or interesting or challenging things they've worked on, whether in their paid line of work or as a side-project, and leave aside your value judgements about what they do outside of work.

Core point: stop thinking your experience generalises to the whole population.

acheron• 6 years ago

Let me guess, you're single and 24 years old.

You know what I do at home "just for the hell of it"? I play with my kids.

vbordo• 6 years ago

A key difference overlooked in this perspective is that the professions you've listed don't actively probe about a candidates work outside of the hiring/talent discovery context. Their skill is judged by what they've produced that's directly relevant to the evaluation process. Comparing programmers to such a diverse array of disciplines requires a more detailed analysis.

A percentage of the software industry has a bias against programmers who don't code in their spare time because it's extremely difficult to evaluate technical talent. We lean on quality filters like number of hours spent on side projects that have sparse evidence to support their efficacy. While I'm skeptical that a general set of metrics exist we can use to perfectly evaluate technical skill across the industry, we can certainly do better.

geodel2• 6 years ago

I agree. Further since Software / IT industry is huge I would identify at least 2 categories for workers there. One mainly enterprisey CRUD peddlers, or just setting up and customizing large packaged software etc. They often work at large consultancies. For them this is just job that pays good. These folks don't even understand there is something called side/personal projects.

Second category who work on large custom build applications, likely enjoy good software craftsmanship. They got chance to be part of challenging projects. They think of getting even better jobs or just plan to write some personal projects which may even be useful at work.

Now when it comes to hiring I do not know if hiring folks / HR really identify these 2 categories. To me it seems every application is evaluated as software developer without analyzing context on what kind of work is done at what kind of companies.

II2II• 6 years ago

Most people that can practice their craft do so at home.

Just because some do doesn't mean most do, at least in any significant manner. Just because some don't doesn't mean that they are letting their life outside of work go idle. People are allowed to have other interests (e.g. hobbies) and other responsibilities (e.g family). That doesn't mean that they are suspect or not good. It may mean other things, like they are a better rounded individual.

ranit• 6 years ago

Off topic: Are there more professional hunters than hunters than hunt for hobby? Curious how did you pick hunters profession to compare to software engineering.

nitrogen• 6 years ago

But a chef?

The only (sous) chef I know hates cooking outside of work.

AA-BA-94-2A-56• 6 years ago

This is an absurd expectation, and not healthy at all for individuals or the industry.

watwut• 6 years ago

if you're a musician, you probably play at home sometime. If you're a mathematician, you probably solve some maths at home.

Musician does not spend 8 hours a day playing music at work and then plays at home in addition to it. Playing music at home is not addition to full time work.

Same with mathematician, actually. I know, because I have them in my family. They do math for work, whether at work or at home. And they do have non-math hobbies.

Writer is not writing 8-5 in work just to come home for hobby writing. Writer either writes for job or has non-writing job.

A chef might have an idea for a meal and experiment at home.

100% not. Chefs work long hours and when they come home, they want partner to cook.

ashtonkem3• 6 years ago

Of course, there’s actually evidence that focusing on your craft too much makes you myopic and less creative. There is some indication that academics who have artistic pursuits actually produce more papers than their peers, for example.

Beyond that, you are not a machine. Stop arranging your life so that you’ll be the best programmer possible and go do things that are just fun and not connected with your career. It’s good for you, trust me. 40 hours a week is enough for work, go enjoy living.

MaxBarraclough• 6 years ago

Surgeons and nuclear engineers are able to be highly competent without work-related home projects.

fxtentacle• 6 years ago

A lot of companies want you to sign those horrible contracts where everything that you do in your free time automatically becomes company property.

In that case, I'd say "No I categorically do not do side projects because I do not want FAANG X to own them" is a perfectly reasonable answer.

If you somehow manage to avoid signing that clause, then suddenly your side projects become potential competition for your employer, so they might get you into awkward discussions with your manager, especially so if your side project turns out useful or valuable. So having your own side project might require a level of people skills that programmers highly dedicated to their craft will likely not have.

I know people who dread "their" side projects because it just feels like additional unpaid work to them. I also know people who keep their side projects a secret from their employer.

If you select for people with corporate side projects, you're likely selecting for future employees with bad people skills.

ehnto6• 6 years ago

So a software developer that doesn't practice their craft at home is very suspect.

I am ecstatic that I get to pour my craft into paid work. I have written my best code in the context of employment. Over the years, of course I have had side projects. But in the last two years I have worked on nothing but paid projects that have all let me grow and explore as a developer.

Musicians are not a great analogue because they aren't getting paid to music for 8+ hours a day already. Of course they have to practice at home. But I get plenty of practice coding while I am getting paid, I don't always need a side project.

pelliphant• 6 years ago

Why?

I started working fulltime as a coder maybe 3 years ago. Before that I coded a lot on my free time, but since I started doing it fulltime at work, I did less on my spare time, and now it's basically no coding at all on my spare time.

I can understand that an employer wants someone who practices their work-related skills on their free time, but is it really that important?

If you want productive employees, isn't it even more important that they eat healthy, exercise and sleep well?

Just counting amount of hours/week spent on coding sounds like quantity over quality to me...

FridgeSeal• 6 years ago

I’m not sure if you know many cooks/chefs but all the ones I know, literally the last thing they want to do after getting home is not spending time cooking.

loco5niner• 6 years ago

From what I hear, most chefs don't do 'real' cooking at home cause they are tired of cooking all time.

mxcrossb• 6 years ago

Is it just me or have attitudes shifted dramatically on this? When I was a college student, I remember professor’s scaring us with stories of intellectual property disputes between companies and their workers over side project. Not to mention liability issues. But now every company wants to hear about your side project during interviews?

dragonwriter• 6 years ago

Do we ask lawyers what free cases they take over the weekend?

Lawyers have both continuing education and pro bono work expectations, both of which are frequently also bar membership requirements (with some common exemptions, IIRC, for the pro bono requirement in jurisdictions where it generally applies.)

Of course, because they are binding requirements and because lawyers as a norm (and, when not working as regular employees of their direct client, usually a legal requirement) work for other lawyers, this is usually accommodated within working arrangements. But software developers don't have industrial guilds or self-regulation, so they don't have the same kind of power to get accommodation for the need for doing things outside of their current narrow job duties accommodated within most working arrangements. But that doesn't lessen the need for it.

Doctors about the diagnoses they make for fun on Saturdays?

Doctors are much like lawyers, including both the binding nature of continuing professional education requirements and, and least broadly, the reasons why it gets accommodated in their working arrangements.

Teachers about their open source lesson plans?

No, but, teachers also have mandatory continuing education requirements as licensing conditions outside of what they are immediately teaching. And they tend to have strong unions and legal requirements to point to to get these accommodated in their working arrangements.

Software developers have, as a whole, implicitly opted for immediate pay over other advantageous working conditions, including accommodations for continuing education, but it is no less relevant to their ability to develop and perform. Possibly moreso than the other fields; tooling and practices in software development evolving more rapidly than many other intellectual professions.

strken• 6 years ago

Teachers often work nights and weekends. They'll be doing anything from helping with extracurriculars, to looking after kids on excursions, to marking and writing reports, to for-profit tutoring, to planning lessons. A science teacher will stay up to date with what's happening in their speciality, and might have semi-related hobbies like birdwatching, or archaeology.

It's a little harder to pin down than side projects, but the activity is still there.

andrewstuart2• 6 years ago

I've heard this analogy many times and it doesn't hold - it's absolutely true that lots of professions - including some of those mentioned - need to work outside hours to be at the top of their field.

My brother is a surgeon. And before that, a doctor.

And yes he worked all the hours in the day and still does and always has.

He has never stopped studying - he has constantly studied his whole school and working life.

Being really good at something takes hard work.

And also it makes total sense that employers seek out those people for whom it's more than just a job - because those people tend to have a higher level of expertise. You might not like that but the logic is reasonable.

amw-zero• 6 years ago

Lawyers and doctors are such a hysterical example here because they work a notorious amount. Especially when coming out of school.

austincheney2• 6 years ago

Many lawyers and doctors do work on the weekends and they have continuing education requirements. Your comment suggests you have no idea what lawyers and doctors do.

lvturner2• 6 years ago

You missed the point - it's not about the work - many developers work weekends and continuously educate themselves.

I do plenty of coding activities in my spare time, my library is filled with technical books, some work related, others that I bought out of interest in a given technology - but I don't think there should be an expectation to have a published game, a large website making a few hundreds of bucks a week or a massively successful open sourced project.

cgrealy• 6 years ago

Yep and lawyers and doctors are two professions with notoriously awful work/life balance.

I have no desire to see that attitude become any further entrenched in software development.

blueridge• 6 years ago

This is how I feel about writing. I write for work all day, every day: strategy documents, internal and public help articles, hundreds of long-form emails to customers, not to mention the critical commentary that goes in to design and spec reviews. I love to write, and there's a part of me that wishes I could write more for myself. But by the end of the week, I've got no energy for words, and the last thing I want to do is SIT and write.

userbinator• 6 years ago

My side projects include servicing the car, restoring old appliances, general other repair work around the house... and also working on software that's often related to that stuff.

mobjack• 6 years ago

I didn't get the memo that you had to have programming specific hobbies for interviews.

I usually just say something to make me seem well rounded if asked about my hobbies.

mitchdoogle• 6 years ago

I've never seen it as an expectation that employers place on employees, but rather something that software developers place on themselves. The nature of the profession is that one person, by themselves, can create a great piece of software with enough time and effort. Or maybe people just want to get around to putting something into practice that they did a tutorial on a while ago. Or maybe they want to learn a new skill altogether. All these possibilities lay in front of the software developer, just a few clicks away, and it can make you feel like you have to do something.

ck4252• 6 years ago

The problem, as this thread shows, is that often software engineers start putting the expectation onto each other, which causes issues.

Agentlien• 6 years ago

I fully endorse this sentiment, but I've recently had an opposite experience.

At my previous job the anti-competitive clause was strong enough to include anything which uses the same skillset as your day job, even if it's a non-commercial side project. I originally thought it was fine, since I hadn't managed to find time and motivation to work on my dream project, anyway over the previous four years.

Five years in, however, I had an epiphany which meant I just couldn't ignore the urge to work on it and finally see it through. I ended up changing jobs largely to be allowed to work on it.

It's been difficult, finding time and motivation, especially since I will always prioritize spending time with my kids above any other activity. But I've managed to find time a bit, mainly in the evenings if I happen to have energy over.

sumanthvepa2• 6 years ago

Re. Doctors. I know my dentist actively does clinical research. His day job just involves seeing patients, doing root canals (in my case), but weekends are about research, he's published a bunch papers. His eyes light up every time I'm in the chair, and we have an enjoyable discussion about NumPy, R and the statistical techniques he's using, and the medical papers he's been reading (Well.. naturally with me unable to speak in the dentist's chair, he gets to do most of the talking.) I'm a lay person, so I cannot judge his skill level, but it's obvious he loves his job. His hospital obviously supports his work.

megablast• 6 years ago

I can’t believe that someone can create software, and doesn’t have an interest in some sort of software project.

Like an android developer or iOS dev who has never written an app.

Yes, it would be like a chef who never cooks. A nurse who doesn’t apply her own bandages.

TacoSteemers2• 6 years ago

Applying bandages is not as much work as developing most (hobby) software is, especially if the software comes with some expectation of support.

tasuki• 6 years ago

I really, really hate the expectancy of software developers to have side projects at home.

I have some side projects, and employers have rarely asked about them or cared at all.

Worst yet its often phrased in the interview as "do you have any hobbies?"

I think you're projecting here. Perhaps they just want to know about your hobbies?

yoz-y• 6 years ago

When I did interviews and asked about side projects I’m looking for another topic related to craft to talk about. If you don’t have one fair enough, but in that case I would expect that for school stuff you can elaborate more than “we did a thing in Java”.

For questions about hobbies it’s the same. You need something to talk about to gauge fit into the team.

grep_name• 6 years ago

I really, really hate the expectancy of software developers to have side projects at home.

I feel exactly the same way, but there is an incredible amount of hostility to this website in this thread imo. I almost made a similar blog post to start my blog off this year (which I still haven't gotten around to doing), and I did a similar thing with a web domain I bought as a joke while drinking. After years of development, it was actually exhilarating to work on something that I have no deadlines for and can use as an outlet to explore technologies I never got to use but always wondered about. I get the same energy from this website.

I hate the expectancy of software devs to work on their own projects as a resume builder, but this site seems to be _specifically not about that_. On the contrary, it seems to me like the author is re-learning how approach something that they may have forgotten that they even like to do in a casual way, which I think is nice. In fact, when working on side projects I care about these days, I get annoyed by my friends constantly trying to figure out how I'm going to spin it as work experience.

justusthane2• 6 years ago

This reminds me of another site I recently found. A decidedly different tone, but a similar goal I think: https://sundaysites.cafe/

I haven't been able to participate in a session yet, but I have used some of the prompts to create a few "for fun" sites of my own: https://sundaysites.justus.ws/

It's fun to make things just for the sake of making them.

greatNespresso5• 6 years ago

I love the concept, thanks for sharing

euske• 6 years ago

I really hope that this doesn't end up with being somehow a "cool" website.

Screw professionalism. Stay crappy and amateurish.

with love

r-bryan• 6 years ago

As a mentor for a high school robotics club, I have learned the freeing joy of tinkering, as opposed to the engineering I have done my whole career. It's great to work with foamcore, X-acto knife, glue gun, little motors and electronics, and create something crappy and amateurish and _successful_.

thomasfromcdnjs• 6 years ago

My secret tip for getting side projects completed is red wine aha

person_of_color• 6 years ago

I would love to start a micro-SaaS but I can’t think of any good ideas.

Algomancer2• 6 years ago

If I didn't know better, these could be my words. Extremely relatable.

I'd love an community of people fighting against this feeling, especially one that isn't filled with 'gurus'. I am not sure that can exist.

jariel2• 6 years ago

This misses the point of Sunday though.

fendy3002• 6 years ago

It's kinda sad to see people that have incorrect expectations. It all stem from some geeks that love to code in their free time (my younger self too), then suddenly many employers or colleagues expect everyone to do the same. Then suddenly many programmers hate sunday.

eyelidlessness4• 6 years ago

On HN, a simple show of affection and emotional recognition for something personal someone shared is a Bad Contribution. Y’all this is ridiculous.

gitgud• 6 years ago

Relatable, so here's my advice for side-projects (take it or leave it):

- Build what you're interested in, not what other people on the social feeds are doing.

- Things that were built for fun can end up making money. So why not aim to build for fun first!

- Build pointless things! (like this). They're great to express yourself and they're much easier to finish and release (less pressure).

- You don't need to finish anything!! But if you really want to finish that side-project, try a pointless project to boost your morale.

- Divide and conquer - Large side-projects can be overwhelming. Divide that MMO game into smaller projects which are easier to finish.

Maybe this is all pretty evident to most people... but it doesn't hurt to see it written explicitly.

egypturnash• 6 years ago

I spent today walking around a gorgeous park I didn't know existed in a city I've lived in for almost thirty years total, then hung out in a cafe discussing the interpretation of a favorite piece of fiction online, and drawing a goofy Halloween image.

Sunday is what you make of it. Get the hell out of the house and you're less likely to sit on your ass scrolling all the endless scrolls. It helps if you forgot to charge your phone last night so you have barely enough battery for stuff you actually need, too.

nicbou7• 6 years ago

When the weather allows it, I love to pack an "adventure" backpack and ride my bicycle to interesting places. I carry a notebook, some pens, a water bottle, snacks, warm clothes, and other things that might help on my journey. I'll stop for coffee, museums, interesting scenery, sketching, etc.

These little adventures give me time to relax, reflect, do some exercise and explore my city. It's thoroughly satisfying.

bobsmooth• 6 years ago

I work 3, 12 hour days with 4 days off. If you can get it, it's amazing.

hannofcart• 6 years ago

Do you do 3 days at a stretch, or is it punctuated with your off days?

cmauniada• 6 years ago

how? What does your schedule look like?

zmix• 6 years ago

To the person, somewhere near Paris: Congratulations! :-)

greatNespresso5• 6 years ago

Thanks a LOT

andrewstuart2• 6 years ago

There seems to be alot of people who "want to build something" but don't. What's that about - I don't really get it?

I work hard on my software ideas.

I can absolutely understand if you simply don't have time - work/kids/family/friends/health etc.

But if you do have time and instead procrastinate - that's a mystery to me. I'd like to say "just do the work" but I think that would be missing the point somehow.

I made a definite decision a while back I'd rather do something with my life than play endless hours of computer games or TV/Netflix watching. I absolutely do watch TV and play computer games but it's at the very end of the day when my brain won't do any more productive work.

dvtrn• 6 years ago

Cognitive load is a bitch when someone is staring down the barrel of burnout. Kids or not.

raindropm2• 6 years ago

This right here. When you overloaded with a lots of things, it will take toll on your body and mind eventually. You know what's good, but you just can't bring yourself to 'just' do it. It's not fun at all.

I personally found radical change help in this case.

themacguffinman• 6 years ago

Aside from tiredness, in my experience procrastination is primarily about fear. On a very deep level, I'm scared of feelings and realities that I know I'll have to confront by doing the work. Feelings like "I don't know how to do this" and "what I've made actually sucks and was a huge waste of time".

dang• 6 years ago

Please don't fuck with Show HN like that. The rules are here: https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html. Note the part that says "Off topic".

(I've taken "Show HN" out of the title now.)

ericmcer• 6 years ago

I’m taking a month off work and it is amazing. I was sitting quietly thinking about how not doing anything important frees you up to just be a good person. Listen to a friends story? sacrifice sleep or a workout to do someone a favor? It’s easy once you remove that constant feeling of needing to be somewhere or be doing something. It sucks that work forces us to not only make the most of our working hours, but also our free ones.

superasn• 6 years ago

I think creating a side project just because all the cool kids are making money doing it can make you exasperated.

It looks like when the reason for doing it is not to solve your own or anybody else's problem, your focus becomes more and more about technology, competition, process, etc.

Otoh when you're alleviating the pain, your focus is always to get it done as quickly as possible no matter how many corners you need to cut.

So yes it's time to take a step back and figure out what your goals are and if they align with whatever it is you're doing with your time.

austincheney2• 6 years ago

I work on side projects as an escape of competence because all the cool kids complain about how hard life is and cry about unnecessary framework bullshit.

zinckiwi• 6 years ago

We need to talk about your side projects.

- Really? I... I did forty hours of my actual job this week. I, also...

Well, okay. Forty is the minimum, okay?

- Okay.

Now, you know it's up to you whether or not you want to just do the bare minimum. Or... well, like Brian, for example, has three side projects, okay. And a terrific smile.

- Okay. So you... you want me to work more?

Look. Joanna.

- Yeah.

Companies can get software engineers anywhere, okay? They look to side projects for the atmosphere and the attitude. Okay? That's what side projects are about. It's about fun.

- Yeah. Okay. So more then, yeah?

Look, we want you to express yourself, okay? Now if you feel that the bare minimum is enough, then okay. But some people choose to work on side projects and we encourage that, okay? You do want to express yourself, don't you?

- Yeah, yeah.

Okay. Great. Great. That's all I ask.

mjevans• 6 years ago

If anyone does NOT get this reference... please watch

Office Space https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0151804/

seer3• 6 years ago

Thanks for the reference, I personally didn’t do the connection.

But wanted to mention that its so cool that offices no longer look like that, at least where I live.

It used to be similar, even worse as a post soviet country. But it’s now so soo much better.

I haven’t seen most of the puns and sarcastic observations from that movie in quite a while.

Now we have different problems of course, but it all seems a bit more sensible now, as if we as a society have grown up a bit.

pmiller2• 6 years ago

That reminds me: I have literally written a TPS report before. In my case, it stood for "Test Plan & Strategy," and I made sure to use the new cover sheet, so it all worked out.

KingFelix• 6 years ago

So good!

xivzgrev• 6 years ago

Lol, love this movie.

Btw did anyone ever say a side project had to be coding? Maybe you like to paint, or do dances on Tiktok, or read mystery thrillers.

pavel_lishin• 6 years ago

No one ever says a project has to be, at all. They just frown and look disappointed when you say no.

seppin• 6 years ago

You don't have to be "productive" with every minute of your life.

nocman2• 6 years ago

I got a fevah ...

... and the only prescription

... is MORE BLING!!!!!!

:-D

seer3• 6 years ago

That’s why I’m such a huge proponent of company sponsored open source.

You wrap your infra/core functionality into an os project, and keep the businessy things in the private repo.

You get to work on it during your work hours. It inevitably ends up much better documented and tested code than the usual company developed tooling. And you get to keep it when you leave.

No need to spend time on it at home if you don’t want to.

And the company benefits as well as it now has much better internal codebase, people might consider maintaining it even after they’ve left the company, and it acts like a pr/recruitment hook.

m4634• 6 years ago

So I'd like to know which companies support this -- and do not support this.

I know some companies are famously leave-water-at-home-we-drink-koolaid-here cough! (apple) cough!

madeofpalk2• 6 years ago

That’s why I’m such a huge proponent of company sponsored open source.

The flip side of this (and I don't think it's what your advocating for, btw), is companies like Gatsby who's entire product is "open source", and when they have a deficiency in it they ask/expect you to submit PR to fix it, but then will immediately turn around and sell that on to others.

No thanks, im not going to write code and give it to you, to fix your broken product, for you to make money off it.

m4634• 6 years ago

Daddy's little tax deduction... er... side project.

Also, doing a view source it's funny that "minimal CSS" is sort of like my "minimal python", which includes at least 10 lines of magic preamble devoted to import and argparse that I sprinkle in every script I write.

bryanrasmussen2• 6 years ago

how do you do the tax deduction part? Probably this is American specific, I don't think I can deduct time on a side project here in Denmark but tell me anyway, maybe I can translate the ideas.

hrishios• 6 years ago

You know the Nazis had side projects that they made the Jews do.

(Please get the reference or this just sounds weird out of context)

tartoran3• 6 years ago

Some of us (in the US) were spared today, tomorrow Veterans' day is being observed (it was today actually) and the office is closed. But yes, that's how it usually goes, after the short respite it starts over and it goes like that the whole year with a 2-3 weeks break. But I should consider myself lucky even if I don't like this ballance, others either work 7/7 or 0/7.

mattcdrake• 6 years ago

Veteran's Day is November 11th, just FYI.

tartoran3• 6 years ago

Thank you for the correction. But I'm still off tomorrow so this weekend felt a bit more generous than usual.

sl1ck731• 6 years ago

Columbus Day :)

tartoran3• 6 years ago

Yes. Big blunder on my part!

raindropm2• 6 years ago

Hey...This is great.

I have this kind of 'fuck everything' moment from time to time. It's satisfying but not last long because the lack of further plan. Still miles better than scrolling through reddit or reading gurus advices all days without taking any action though.

I know I should make this 'spur of anger' a routine, but seriously, fuck routine for once, too.

IntemerateApe• 6 years ago

Comedian Steve Hughs on Work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIJrsAIhoEo

flowctrl• 6 years ago

Fuck that.

So many better things to do or think about on your time off. Read a good book. Climb a mountain. Hang out with friends/family. You know, live.

cloudhead• 6 years ago

Look, if you're happy working for Initech for the rest of your life, then no, you probably don't need side projects.

sai_c5• 6 years ago

Here's my take on it (and why I don't do side projects anymore).

Roughly:

As musician you grab your instrument and play. As a writer you pick pen and paper and write. As a chef you slice your stuff and cook.

Me, starting with an idea:

- Turn on computer. Oh no, updates galore. Ok fine.

- Those updates broke my IDE/dependencies/network driver etc. Let's fix that as well.

- Let's research a gazillion libs to see which one can help with my idea. Ah, none of them. So let's first implement this (for the actual problem) irrelevant, but elaborate base module.

- Meanwhile: more updates.

- Grrr. I should have picked another language. Or no, let's start again with new shiny, because it's better suited (also not BLUB programmer).

- My wife got the updates too. Guess what I have to fix now because I'm into computers.

- Damn, hours passed and I achieved nothing valuable so far. Back to work. Wait what? Work?.

- Screw that, I'm spending the time with my son playing electric guitar.

So, there you have it.

Edit: Corrected typos.

codersteve• 6 years ago

This should be at the top. This is why at home I read about tech and at work I execute tech. There's reading and then there's doing. Reading should be considered a side project when you work full time executing.

sai_c5• 6 years ago

   Reading should be considered a side project when you work full time executing.

Full ACK. I wish I were only asked ONCE in an interview "Which blogs/sites do you read for technical education and what was the most interesting article you read last year?".

rikroots2• 6 years ago

As a writer you pick pen and paper and write

I wish it was that easy. Idea generation; research; plot outlines; character sketches; continuity; deliberate discontinuity; word choice; dialogue flow; action scene planning ...

Editing the first draft is so much easier than writing it.

sai_c5• 6 years ago

Yes, but:

- Was there ever a moment like "Oh no, I should rewrite my story in german, because I could better express the ideas"?

- Have you ever left your pen on the desk, coming back the other day, just to find out it does not work if you write the letters z and I?

- After fixing said pen, you wife asks you to do the same with hers because she needs to write a notification for the kids?

- Coming back and after finding out what exactly you want to write, seeing that you can't buy paper anymore that works with that stupid pen, so you have to make your own?

Actually I was waiting for a writer to respond this ;-). All the problems you mentioned above are key points relevant to your idea/product. In my view, the things I listed are just annoying, irrelevant distractions.

agustif2• 6 years ago

OMG, so I actually pushed to gh my latest sunnday project with that repo name.

It's yet another ( unfinished ) template using my TypeScript fav stack.

I managed to make AcccountsJS work in nextjs API which was an awesome feeling after weeks of struggling with it lol. at the end I managed to provide my TypeORM connection in a differeent way using conneecctionManager instead of createConnection, which didn't work nicely with Next's HMR

Now I need to get the fontend apollo parts...

Anyway just in case someeone is interested: https://github.com/agustif/sunday/

AccountsJS Boilerplate template with TypeScript, NextJS, Apollo and GraphQL.

Also under the hood TypeORM and Postgres for the ORM and DB.

Working on the frontend now, gonna use bumbag.style for UI frontend.

co001de• 6 years ago

This looks like something I would have totally dismissed 2 years ago and something that I would write myself in 2 years from now...

s0l1dsnak3123• 6 years ago

Remember folks: you don't hate Mondays, you hate capitalism.

conductr• 6 years ago

Reading all of the opinions on side projects is interesting. Particularly those of you who think rather negatively of it (or the expectation of it). And probably rightfully so. When I was picking my major/profession, I liked coding as a hobby and thought hard about going the CS route. Even just taking a few 100 level courses turned me off because it wasn’t fun. I even took on a small consulting gig and didn’t enjoy building things to someone else’s spec. Or working on things that I subjectively found boring. I realized coding was my hobby and making it my profession would take away the joy. Some 20 years later, I work in finance. I don’t love it. It pays the bills. I don’t keep up with finance, markets, etc. in my off time but I still code as a hobby and enjoy my side projects. No chance I’d be happy as a software engineer. It’s dizzying seeing how much has changed in past 20 years and how much you have to keep up with. I have the flexibility to ignore things that don’t interest me (eg. I have no interest in the cloud or learning 500 products offering of AWS). I don’t know if that helps you feel better or worse, but it’s at least one alternative reality to the one some of you are living.

PhilosAccnting• 6 years ago

Torvalds' Just For Fun really inspired me. You should be having fun doing it.

Of course, fun is definitely relative. But, I believe that hacker-geeks find lots of fun building stuff.

In fact, I'll be bold enough to propose that if someone is having trouble with a side project, they might not be having enough fun doing it for it to be justifiable, and may need to do some soul-searching to find out whether they should continue with it.

Fuck You Sunday

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