Maybe you should do less 'work'

https://www.johnwhiles.com/posts/work.html

by jwhiles • 4 years ago

605 417 4 years ago

Can confirm this will not get you promoted, it will just get you more work. You are more valuable as a peon than management if you are this good at your job. Always act dumber than your boss.

digianarchist• 4 years ago

I worked pretty hard at getting promoted at my last job which unfortunately didn't happen. In the end I did the cost/benefit analysis of the amount of extra work I was doing compared to the 15% raise that I would get from being promoted.

In the end I moved companies and got a raise of about 35%. I'm back to doing the same amount of work I was doing before I tried to get promoted.

bluefirebrand2• 4 years ago

This is honestly a really big sickness within our industry and it seems to be everywhere.

I don't think I will ever work towards a promotion again.

grumple• 4 years ago

Can confirm this will not get you promoted, it will just get you more work. You are more valuable as a peon than management if you are this good at your job. Always act dumber than your boss

I've been promoted at every job I've had by working both smart and hard, but never exceeding 40 hours except in very rare exceptional circumstances. Devs have higher IC roles to fill so that helps. But now I get to be miserable as a manager. Be careful what you wish for. And please, be smarter than me so I feel good about you taking my place when I leave.

That said, I don't think many people are productive for more than 20 hours a week for sustained periods and we should all work less.

hallway_monitor• 4 years ago

See also: 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene, highly recommended.

Fertilio• 4 years ago

"You should try and spend your time in ways that will benefit you and your employer."

This doesn't mean to work 4h a day on a 40h week contract and playing gets.the rest of it.

And I think people doing that, are blocking their own carriers.

I make double what I made 6 years ago and can cut back to 50% with a still good salary.

If I would not have used my te properly I would be stuck in a job I probably don't like because I'm not really contributing or really feeling appreciated because for what?

Is my boss happy enough with me can't feel good.

Getting kudos because your stuff makes it easier for others or adds value or runs smoothly gives confidence and pride.

At least I like my work and tx to my attitude and skills I have more freedom not less.

jacknews2• 4 years ago

One problem with this argument is of course that what is really expected of you, ultimately, is at least what the other guys are delivering, not just a certain amount of work a week.

CiPHPerCoder• 4 years ago

Enter the prisoner's dilemma

jacknews2• 4 years ago

LOL, I'm not sure that actual game theory game applies directly, but the name is perhaps apt, a bit like how "salary" is similar to "slavery".

bluefirebrand2• 4 years ago

And the worst part of this is that it winds up being a popularity contest. If your manager doesn't like you, they won't weigh your productivity the same way they weigh their favorite's.

Even if you are delivering as much or more than others, you also have to be liked.

0des10• 4 years ago

Getting my task completed at my own pace makes me feel good. Often that is fast and on time. In my heart, when I touch the keyboard, I feel like a greyhound dog with a little Bob Ross afro - it can be a race, a competition, but it is also an expression of my art.

This article makes me feel bad because in the authors world, people like me are relegated to worker bee monkies trying to please the bossman due to pathology or some such delusion. I work this way because it pleases me. Doing my tasks diligently and in a timely manner affords me more time to relax, review what I have created, and enjoy it rather than drag myself to the next task.

A bit off topic but as of late there is this creeping normalization of intentionally subpar or less optimized results I'm noticing in our industry but also general society.

When did we become so not only complacent but also discouraging of any genuine effort? It is as if everyone is so aloof that if you show any effort or appreciation of your craft that you're societally acknowledging your own serfdom or that you're serving "the man".

freedom2099• 4 years ago

That is not at all what the article was about! It was never stated that you should be late or take too much time in doing tasks… it was about using more wisely your time (if the sizing claimed the task needed 5 days to be done and you are done in 2 maybe you could have spent more time thinking about the design or if everything is ok try to using the extra time to generate value in other ways instead of rushing towards the next task)

vlovich1232• 4 years ago

Who establishes that sizing? I’ve yet to see anyone who can accurately estimate their own tasks let alone someone who can estimate that for others.

In agile, I think a great time for reflection is between sprints.

Also, I’m super fast but I’ll instead take frequent small breaks in the middle of work (read hacker news, write up documentation etc). There are other times to reflect than between tasks.

giantg218• 4 years ago

Sounded more like if you get it done early, wait until the due date to hand it in. Them use the extra time for other stuff.

TacticalCoder• 4 years ago

A bit off topic but as of late there is this creeping normalization of intentionally subpar or less optimized results I'm noticing in our industry but also general society.
When did we become so not only complacent but also discouraging of any genuine effort?

And these same people are going to expect nothing short of the best of the best from surgeons / plane pilots / car manufacturers / etc.

So they can slack of... But doctors are expected to do the work!

falcolas2• 4 years ago

surgeons / plane pilots

All of whom have downtime and at least one (if not more) backup. Software developers typically don't (strict adherents to pair programming aside). They also spend company hours getting better at their craft, building professional ties. Just like the article suggests software developers do.

adamsmith1436• 4 years ago

Sure but most engineers aren't working on anything with near that level of importance.

Like sorry but another bugfix on Youtube or the Uber app really pales in comparison to a Triple Bypass or safely landing a plane with 200 passengers during a high crosswind for example.

tonyedgecombe4• 4 years ago

And these same people are going to expect nothing short of the best of the best from surgeons / plane pilots / car manufacturers / etc.

Going under the knife of a surgeon at the end of a 12 hour shift would worry me. I'd like think the pilot of any plane I was on was well rested as well.

avgcorrection3• 4 years ago

You obviously didn’t read the article since the author’s point is to work better/smarter, not to work less. For example to improve your skillset rather than to frantically jump from task to task.

Not very conscientious of you to comment without having read the submission.

tnzk• 4 years ago

Doing my tasks diligently and in a timely manner affords me more time to relax, review what I have created, and enjoy it rather than drag myself to the next task.

This looks like what exactly the author says in the article to me

0des10• 4 years ago

To a high performer the tone of this article is a shot across the bow.

Buttons840• 4 years ago

When did we become so not only complacent but also discouraging of any genuine effort? It is as if everyone is so aloof that if you show any effort or appreciation of your craft that you're societally acknowledging your own serfdom or that you're serving "the man".

People perceive (perception being more important than reality in this case) growing inequality, and see that society as a whole isn't moving toward any goals they care about, so they just grift as be they can, coast and collect their paychecks. Society used to dream of a future of abundance and robot house-maids, now we picture the future being scarcity and catastrophic climate change and nuclear fallout. Am I wrong? Please tell me I'm wrong. I want to hear what future dreams society is persuing other than moving money around and making investment portfolios grow.

0des10• 4 years ago

You're wrong. These concerns, in many forms, have been present for years, however we were once instilled with the instinct to overcome, but now frailty is more valued because even in failure you can not criticize those who are less able. Those appearing less able while still managing to overcome, even when due to random chance, results in more peer accolades and ironic fanfare in the face of adversity or some other disadvantage. The privilege industrial complex continues.

Am I kidding? Please tell me I'm kidding.

Apocryphon8• 4 years ago

When did we become so not only complacent but also discouraging of any genuine effort?

Overcorrection for burnout and other consequences of poor WLB. And because WFH has distilled many white collar remote jobs to their essence shorn of the trappings of the office, causing people to reflect on what work really means.

0des10• 4 years ago

Curious if there would be a book about this in the future when some time has passed

krinchan2• 4 years ago

It sounds like you're misinterpreting the article or you did not read it.

When did we become so not only complacent but also discouraging of any genuine effort? It is as if everyone is so aloof that if you show any effort or appreciation of your craft that you're societally[sic] acknowledging your own serfdom or that you're serving "the man".

In my decades long experience in corporate programming, when people accuse everyone around them of not putting in enough effort one of two things are happening.

The first, which is very rare, is that you are truly in a dead end job with a toxic work environment. If this is the environment you're in and you aren't looking for the first exit and interviewing constantly, frankly, you deserve to stay there and suffer. You may succeed in the short term but only because you'd have to dig 6 feet into the ground to find the bar. Your managers only see you as a resource to exploit before you burn out and fall to the same level as your co-workers.

The second, and this is the most common, is that you are sprinting constantly and have yet to develop any sense of work/life balance. In essence, you're convinced the world itself is insane and you are the only one truly "working". You are on the path to burnout and the people who are "aloof" are actually trying to help you find a path to long term work over decades.

Mind you, maybe you just work in bursts. You find a high pay/high pressure cooker of a job, throw yourself into it till you just can't, and then take a year long sabbatical. I don't know you, but I've seen these sentences so many times and 90% of the time it's the same unawareness and inexperience with maintaining a sustainable level of work.

I'm not trying to attack you here. I am trying to impress upon you that I was once of the same opinion as you. Through the years I've become more open to the idea that that Good Work Ethic is mostly a product of Capitalist Propagandizing (TM) starting as early as primary school.

Even though I maintain and am praised consistently for my "work ethic", I am keenly aware of the constant pressure to produce more value for a vanishingly smaller share of that value. That awareness makes me able to make better decisions about how much and for how long to disturb the equilibrium of work/not-work, and how much time a task takes at both a sustainable pace and at a "crunch" pace.

Burn out and the more obvious visible symptoms take years to set in, and then it takes almost as long to counteract, if you can at all. Some people burn out permanently and never truly recover. It's just better to not get to that point at all.

The ways around this are individual, because what is sustainable is individual. One co-worker works roughly 4 10 hour days and is available-but-not-working on Fridays. Another is very strict about having a 3 day weekend every month. One often works lightly during the week and then works Saturday when they can have more heads down time.

TL;DR: If you feel that everyone around you is telling you you're working too hard, you probably need to assess the sustainability of your level of work. You may or may not need to make changes, but (again, in my experience across tens of years and companies) you almost certainly need to put in place long term plans if you're running net-negative on your burn out battery.

burntoutfire2• 4 years ago

On the other hand, there truly are people who can sustainably work 60+ hours weeks for decades. Some of the Internet celebrity developers, like John Carmack or Jon Blow, are like that. However, they mostly work on their own thing, which must help a lot with sustaining motivation.

avgcorrection3• 4 years ago

This article makes me feel bad because in the authors world, people like me are relegated to worker bee monkies trying to please the bossman due to pathology or some such delusion.

Is this a new kind of brag? Maybe an “offense brag”? This article makes me, a very conscientious and productive person, feel offended because it tells me that I should chill out a little. (Except that’s not what it says; more on that later.)

Doing my tasks diligently and in a timely manner affords me more time to relax, review what I have created, and enjoy it rather than drag myself to the next task.

From the article:

If you can meet these expectations in fewer hours than you are supposed to work, then you shouldn't just find more to do. Instead you should do something different.

Completing tasks in a speedy manner makes it so that you don’t have to rush to the next task. Seems in line with the article.

When did we become so not only complacent but also discouraging of any genuine effort?

From the article:

""" If you optimally fill your time at work doing 'work' work, then this means that you are likely:

- Not developing other skills

- Not building your network inside the company as well as you could

- Probably working less efficiently than you could

- Unable to respond to new or changing demands without working longer hours or stopping something else that you think you need to do. See the ongoing supply chain crisis for why you should have some slack in your system. """

Two of those points are about working on other things than whatever narrow task that you are assigned. So apparently it’s not about being complacent at all.

Don’t fret. This is HN. We are all A-type, elite white collar workers at this place.

CipherThrowaway• 4 years ago

The theme of the article is not that you should be less productive, it's that stepping back and slowing down can make you more productive. For example you could have saved yourself some offense if you had taken the time to consider the author's point before reacting.

AlwaysRock3• 4 years ago

I did not read the article how you read it. It seems to me you are doing exactly what the author is suggesting. You are doing your work and then taking time to do other things.

The author isnt saying dont give a shit. They are saying when you finish your work you don't have to ding a bell and say, "NEXT TASK PLEASE" right away. There are other aspects of work that are important too.

agumonkey• 4 years ago

The artistic side of programming is very often put aside. To the point I felt like a narcissistic alien.

I wonder how prevalent this notion is in the industry. It often feels we're cogs in a pipeline.

muse900• 4 years ago

Personal experience has taught me that there is a MAXIMUM amount of COMP that you will receive as an employee, no matter how much hard work you put into your company.

So basically what is happening, is that you are working hard for some achievements, that someone else is going to benefit off.

giantg218• 4 years ago

And that max level is specific to each individual based largely on things out of their control, like politics.

Edit: why downvote?

matheusmoreira2• 4 years ago

Yes. Compensation is best measured as hourly rate: $/h. Working too hard just decreases that ratio because work hours increase while money stays constant.

jhgb2• 4 years ago

Working too hard just decreases that ratio because work hours increase while money stays constant

I assume this may hold for the US, but not for many other countries. For example in my country the hourly rate for overtime hours is higher by law. Your hourly compensation decrease while working longer would only decrease if you were an external contractor paid a fixed amount of money for completion of a specific task.

epolanski2• 4 years ago

Personal experience has taught me that there is a MAXIMUM amount of COMP that you will receive as an employee, no matter how much hard work you put into your company.

Sure, but putting more craft and care and study in your tasks benefits you a lot too.

e.g. I have spent two weeks on an airbnb-like image gallery, could've completed the task in four days, used the time to become black belt in images in the browser, which makes ME a considerably better and more prepared professional. The way I see it I'm getting paid for educating and specializing myself. AND it benefits my current employer and our customers.

Meanwhile my colleagues rush into the next task don't rip any of these benefits.

csee• 4 years ago

The % of value that you create which you keep as COMP decreases as your value creation increases.

giantg218• 4 years ago

I'm glad they talk a good bit about perceptions. That's really what it comes down to at the end of the day. Who cares if you're doing a lot of work or a little work if nobody sees it.

I don't know what's expected of me, at least not in an objective way. They apparently want me to go faster. One thing they are looking at is if I'm finishing early and asking for more work. So they are using that as an indicator, which is contrary to this article's advice.

I wish I had time to learn new skills. The work is so disjointed that you can never become an expert in one technology. Just constantly bouncing between systems, stacks, and languages. It's a mess. I have no desire to learn a new technology right now just because I know I will never get the chance to use it or become good with it.

pm905• 4 years ago

Sounds like you need a vacation : )

giantg218• 4 years ago

I have a toddler - vacations don't really exist at this stage of life.

Plus the past two years have seen me using most of that time for family medical issues. This year I'll be using about 1/4 of my time off for my wife to go on vacations.

SpodGaju• 4 years ago

Maybe the most important reason: If you are a salaried employee, the more work you do only cheapens your labor. And it cheapens the labor f your fellow employees.

cowanon4757• 4 years ago

This is very solid advice. Once you become so productive that you don't need all of your working hours to do your job, you should spend that time on skill acquisition - either learning about something adjacent that you don't do daily or learn something that will be required for the next level (if that is your goal)

This is the only sane way I have found to progress in a tech career. The daily and weekly learning really adds up too - in my experience this is the difference someone who has 10 years of experience and someone who has "2 years repeated 5 times"

ArcMex3• 4 years ago

This is the only sane way I have found to progress in a tech career. The daily and weekly learning really adds up too - in my experience this is the difference someone who has 10 years of experience and someone who has "2 years repeated 5 times"

I agree. Thankfully, my culture does not shun 2-3 year job spells on your resume. Typically, this is what I do. When I learn enough to do my boss's job, I leave. I am now at a point of running my own, small consultancy service. Only need a few more clients to finally quit my day job for good.

teaearlgraycold• 4 years ago

This is why I roll my eyes out of their sockets when I hear a recruiter or job description that mentions years of experience as a qualification.

thenerdhead3• 4 years ago

I think for people who don’t agree with the article, perhaps seeking jobs that are outcome based are ideal. For those that are output based, I think it’s totally reasonable to cut back strategically.

giantg218• 4 years ago

Why the difference? Most places that talk about outcomes are really measuring outputs, just with more secret sauce in how it's measured (still based on the perception of the bosses).

thenerdhead3• 4 years ago

Most places that measure outputs are not driving business results, they are measuring the wrong things and even promoting the wrong people.

Outputs = Productivity. How much stuff you do.

Outcomes = Efficiency. How much useful stuff you do.

Don't aim to get more stuff done (productivity), rather aim to have less stuff to do (focus / efficiency). Do more with less. Frequent activity & context switching is hardly tied to achievement.

ArcMex3• 4 years ago

It's funny, ever since I dedicated the morning to normal duties and afternoons to growth and development, I deliver results faster. Could be that I only use 4 hours to do all my work so I plan better and action faster.

thenerdhead3• 4 years ago

Yeah exactly. Knowledge work is much less about the actual work we do. We're regularly on the clock having our brains work whether we like it or not. This focused and diffused time is crucial to be effective.

almost_usual2• 4 years ago

I think most engineers who always search for tasks and work long hours are dealing with some form of anxiety or imposter syndrome.

If management hasn’t brought up any performance issues and you’re anxious about your job you need to talk to someone. You’re on the road to burnout.

pm905• 4 years ago

Managers and senior engineers should be responsible for making them feel better in these situations. Having a support group of peers is also really helpful.

If you reach Senior level ranks and continue to suffer from these feelings though…

almost_usual2• 4 years ago

If you reach Senior level ranks and continue to suffer from these feelings though…

They need to consult a therapist because they’re likely dealing with anxiety disorder.

If someone truly enjoys working 12 hours a day and weekends constantly then I suppose it’s fine.

mtberatwork• 4 years ago

A note on burnout: once you have had one burnout, the next one comes on faster and with less triggers needed.

incomingpain• 4 years ago

From my read, the title doesn't seem accurate at all.

You should try and spend your time in ways that will benefit you and your employer.

The title says to do less work, but in reality seems you're still doing as much work but rather developing those other skills. Really just improving yourself.

My 2 previous jobs were MSP. Like all MSPs, you wont control your schedule. someone else decides that you only need 30 minutes of your time to work on ticket X. It doesn't matter if that ticket requires you to drive 45 minutes away and then 45 minutes back. You will get chewed out for not completing the work in the allotted time.

You will be required to do all the self-improvement on your own time and own dime.

My current job though is awesome. I have been afforded the time during work to work on open source python projects that are beneficial to the team.

For example, I had recommended we get solarwinds. less than a year later the solarwinds supply chain thing dropped. we dropped solarwinds. I decided screw it. I rebuilt the functionality we wanted in django. Prior to this job I didnt know python. Now I have multiple useful python projects.

I can certainly confirm that this approach has been much better.

ascar• 4 years ago

This reads a bit like deliberately aiming for Parkinson's law. "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion."

However, I agree to some extent. I'm especially opposed to the concept that there should be 8 productive hours in a day. I sincerely believe that this is for most people not possible in creative knowledge work, which includes software engineering. So, if you have 5 productive hours of engineering and finished your goal and are in line with expectations, there shouldn't be a need to drain yourself to keep going, but rather spending your extra time on something else like job-related learning is a great way to prevent mental fatigue.

This is especially true as there can be very different "energy distribution" between people. One person can achieve in 4 productive hours what another can in 8. But one works in productive bursts and the other in sustained effort. The first can't just sustain or expand that burst to 8 hours.

pm905• 4 years ago

100% agree.

Let’s be clear though: you may need 4 hrs but sometimes you may need 12. Creative professions can be that way. Reaching an understanding that both can happen and accepting that fact is important.

To a certain extent, it’s just recognizing the reality of what actually happens today anyway, rather than trying to fit into the 8hour workday concept.

Forgeties792• 4 years ago

Honestly I feel like we could take it a step further. Most people are not going to put in five real hours of work every day either. Which makes the eight hour workday in some ways all the more ridiculous.

20 hours a week is pretty much the ceiling in my experience beyond big crunch times, special events, etc. If people really stepped back and thought about how much time they spend screwing around at work I think they’d be surprised, like how many people were surprised to discover how many hours they spend on social media apps when screen time tracking was introduced in phones.

I worked in the film industry for several years on the Hollywood side before switching over to commercial. 12 to 14 hour workdays were pretty much the norm. When I flipped over to the more commercial side, our workdays typically ended at 8 to 10 hours. And let me tell you, the commercial productions were exponentially more efficient. We got more done per day by a large margin, no matter the scale or complexity compared to the films I worked on. When you know there is less of a threat threat of the company extending the hours, you tend to get things done in the time allotted.

someguydave• 4 years ago

I think the norm of an 8 hour workday for salaried employees has more to do with excluding the possibility of your salaried “executives” taking on second jobs than it has to do with productivity.

In other words I think that the 40 hour work week is often structured more as a kind of quasi-indentured servitude than as a factory production shift.

burntoutfire2• 4 years ago

rather spending your extra time on something else like job-related learning is a great way to prevent mental fatigue.

Learning be as draining (or more) as work! Figuring out and internalising new stuff takes a lot of mental power. I don't know why people propose it as some lightweight way to fill the time.

Forgeties792• 4 years ago

I’d rather learn something useful that keeps me sharp then pretend I’m working.

ArcMex3• 4 years ago

Being in tech has the advantage of me being knowledgeable enough to pursue tools and languages of interest that will benefit both my business and day job.

That is what I did. I learned web development and used those skills to do projects at work and for my clients on weekends.

Later on, I learned project management. Used those skills at my day job and made a consultancy killing as a PM for hire.

I feel privleged to have been in this position. So, yes, I do advocate for spending time increasing your value at work. But that time should also work for you outside of that day job.

alexashka4• 4 years ago

100% this, but let me add the why:

Most people don't want to do good work, they just want to get paid and fuck off. It is really hard to grok this because it is just so disappointing and demotivating.

Most people lie constantly, to appear as if they want to do work, as if they give a fuck - they are lying to your face.

Once you realize this much, once you come to terms with what most people are - the rest will fall into place.

Until you grok this, these sorts of posts will seem like cynical takes, like someone who doesn't want to work hard, who wants to be a free loader. No, these sorts of posts are cautionary tales that society is filled with free loaders and liars, so you need to tread with caution and know how to deal with these 'people'.

deltaonefour13• 4 years ago

From the other side of the coin. Your employer is free loading off of you. You are paid a fraction of the amount of money that your work actually generates. If your work generates 100 dollars... you're paid 10.

So essentially your employer is fucking you and any other attitude other than to treat the situation for what it is, is delusional.

Don't call us 'people'. You're the one that doesn't get it.

Now I'm not saying you need to freeload. But I do what I'm paid to do because this is a business transaction that favors the employer. After I'm paid, I fuck off, because I just got shafted by my employer and I owe him nothing until he can pay me again. My work is only good to the point where my employer is willing to continue paying me.

alexashka4• 4 years ago

I don't employ anyone. I'm not coming from a place of a disgruntled employer complaining about the workers being 'lazy' or whatever.

I'm coming from a place of what the blog talks about - someone who came in starry eyed doing good work, only to find out you won't get paid 3x for doing 3x the work relative to everyone else, but instead they'll try to get you to do 4x the work for a 10% yearly bonus, until you drop dead of exhaustion.

Oh, and your co-workers will hate your guts and try to undermine you. Nice system, right?

That's the dynamic I'm addressing - if you're enthusiastic and starry eyed and think people are out there wanting to change the world for the better or at least take a modicum of pride in their work - be very careful, the real world is not like that, at all.

ironmagma10• 4 years ago

You are paid a fraction of the amount of money that your work actually generates

There are organizations that don't do this. They are called nonprofits. Why don't people just work for nonprofits all the time? Because they are less stable and there is less upward mobility. So there's something that is actually bought by this extractive capitalism, and we sign up for it when we sign up to work at for-profit companies.

It's hard to call it freeloading off of me, when I benefit from this arrangement.

horse90• 4 years ago

I cannot disagree with the author given that modern companies are little more than an aggregation of short-term individuals each with her own agenda many of whom would happily backstab you in order to advance it.

deltaonefour13• 4 years ago

The problem is, the idiot who pushes himself to 100% sets a standard that the rest become expected to follow.

nonrandomstring2• 4 years ago

I'd like to rewrite this as "Why you should maybe not work so hard for someone else". Intrinsically motivated people (you'll know what I mean is you are one too) know no bounds to the ecstasy of work. Struggling toward a self-defined end is like flying in the clouds. In "flow", work is no longer work at all.

It is labour relations within a late-capitalist system of dehumanising exploitation, over-systematisation and rampant financialisation that turns life's greatest joy of having skills and purpose into farcical performance art, into an inefficient, resentment-fuelled spectacle of self-harm.

egypturnash• 4 years ago

I am self-employed and I love doing what I get paid to do but there are many other things I like to do as well. I work hard enough to pay my bills and really not much harder.

nonrandomstring2• 4 years ago

That "zero surplus" living sounds like a nice balance. As I get older, and especially with kids around, it's what I aspire to more.

TameAntelope5• 4 years ago

I agree with the content of the article, but I don’t agree with the premise that these things aren’t also “work”.

Engineers tend to obsess over, “focused work” like it’s the only way to be productive, and anything that’s not “focused work” is wasted time. That is a surefire way to burn out.

Instead, finding ways to “riff” on your job by doing work with longer time horizons of payoff keeps your job fun.

It’s all “work”. Maybe the title ought to be, “Stop obsessing over focused work.”

giantg218• 4 years ago

Well, the bosses usually only care about work the helps produce value. They might like the fact that you know some new tech that they can use in their latest assignment, but they weren't giving you credit while you were learning it the year before just for fun.

toomuchtodo2• 4 years ago

Find better bosses and employers. They are out there.

TameAntelope5• 4 years ago

"Learn about new tech" is only one of a great many other things.

Cultivating your relationships professionally is also "work", as is talking to your customers, reviewing and discussing code, writing about and showing others what you've built, keeping your resume and interview skills sharp, staring up at the ceiling and thinking about work, etc.

6gvONxR4sf7o• 4 years ago

I think for going from junior to senior, this is true, but for going from senior beyond, it’s the opposite.

Mvandenbergh• 4 years ago

That might be true for what your direct boss writes on your annual performance review but what do his peers and his bosses think? What do other potential collaborators, bosses, and investors in your local area or your industry think?

I think engineers can become obsessed with MinMaxing the wrong, purely local optimum without thinking: "what work-adjacent things might lead to a CTO role in five years?" and this is often quite a different question than "what makes Mr Shankly happy in this quarter's performance review?". Yeah, if your immediate boss thinks you're useless and sacks you then your overall profile might not help much but being an invisible cog in the their team will only improve the esteem that they hold you in and not your larger professional reputation.

Did "the bosses" reach their own positions by closing the most tickets every month? I kind of doubt it and it is worth distinguishing what makes you useful to them vs puts you on the path to join them. If that seems overly careerist, well fire up Jira and get another bug sorted after dinner.

Aeolun• 4 years ago

There are a lot of things you can learn that do both?

IAmNotAFix• 4 years ago

That is a surefire way to burn out.

Any source on that? I agree with the assessment about engineers (althought it's a generalization), but I always thought it was because their "focused work" is what they actually like doing. In my experience work was most stressful when it strayed the most from focused work.

TameAntelope5• 4 years ago

Can you elaborate a bit on what kind of "source" you'd like to see? I'm trying to imagine what could possibly satisfy this request and I'm coming up blank.

Generally, slapping "Source?" in a reply to a comment is a lot less helpful and productive than you might initially think.

zozbot234• 4 years ago

If you can maintain a state of focus and actively like your work, you are likely near peak productivity and quite far from possible burnout. Just don't push beyond your reasonable limits or you might end up giving yourself a heart attack.

rconti2• 4 years ago

For me, I think it was related to conflating my value as am employee to being able to efficiently and effectively complete tasks to a high standard in a short amount of time. It felt like if I wasn't producing enough tangible results fast enough, I wasn't doing a "good enough job". It didn't really matter if it was a day/week/month where I was absolutely crushing it, or a time period where I was having a hard time focusing; the end goal was the same. The internal satisfaction, if you can call it that, was accomplishing tasks. It wasn't (usually) to the point of overwork or burnout.

But the problem was, I never considered my own growth. It never felt like a good use of time to take on more challenging projects because I wouldn't get the same sense of accomplishment. It would be hard, I wouldn't have much to show for myself for a few weeks, and so on.

Obviously this is all subconscious, you don't realize you're choosing things you're good at, or an expert on. Expertise feels nice! And, to be fair, not everyone's employers give them the freedom to choose/learn/grow that many of us enjoy.

tunnuz• 4 years ago

This is very relatable to me. Since you’re using the past tense, would you be happy to share what helped you get out of that mindset?

Qub3d• 4 years ago

I think the article author agrees with you. That's why they put 'work' in quotes.

It is useful for their argument to split 'work' and 'not work' along these lines because they are trying to reach readers that honestly do believe that any time not actively writing code for a jira ticket isn't work.

bentobean2• 4 years ago

There are times at which developers must give 110% effort in order to address critical business needs, unexpected outages, emergency pivots, etc… But in order for people to rise to such occasions, they must have some excess capacity from which to pull.

TL;DR - If you run the engine at redline all the time, you’re destined for a blowout.

jokoon2• 4 years ago

Beyond those arguments, it's also important to remind that we should work between 20 or 30 hours per week, not more.

It's about health, being able to rest, do leisure, physical activity, see friends, date, etc.

There are things to learn about the antiwork mentality. Not saying everyone should quit their job, but still, it would be nice if everyone could be able to negotiate with their employees.

I have often been called a parasite, and honestly, it comforts me in realizing that I should not compete with people who turn work into a competition. Those people will generate enough taxes and labor for lazy people like me, and it's okay.

lijogdfljk6• 4 years ago

Those people will generate enough taxes and labor for lazy people like me, and it's okay.

Feels odd to me to make a statement like this. Is it in jest?

In my view everyone should pull the same minimum. Not have some people work more to offset other people working less.

micromacrofoot2• 4 years ago

Do you think everyone pulling the same minimum will ever happen? I don't, and it might be important to come to terms with that concept... otherwise I imagine you'd harbor some malice towards people who don't.

Cerium• 4 years ago

If you are pretty good at your work that minimum might only take 20 hours?

tonyedgecombe4• 4 years ago

Do you think we should have some cap on wages as well, to keep things fare on the other side of the equation?

ehnto5• 4 years ago

Others will always excel or do more because they feel that's valuable, so though I agree with you, I don't think it could ever work that way.

Some people work harder because they want to see their team succeed, some people do it because it's a status game to them, some people do it because they've got nothing better to do.

micromacrofoot2• 4 years ago

While I'll likely continue working my whole life, one thing I would like is some time off to think about my relationship with work and where I should be focusing my energy. Some kind of UBI or other anti-work outcome seems like it could actually provide space for that. I haven't had more than a 2 week lapse in work for 2 decades... and if I did I'd probably be extremely anxious the whole time.

When health insurance and housing rely so heavily on work (speaking from the perspective of an American), not working feels terrifying.

UncleOxidant• 4 years ago

When health insurance and housing rely so heavily on work (speaking from the perspective of an American), not working feels terrifying.

It seems as though the American system is intentionally setup so that we feel this way. We go through some cycles where capital is in greater control (the Gilded Age, and our current age from about the 80s till Covid)) and then the pendulum swings the other direction for a while and labor gets more of an upper hand - The Progressive era in the early 20th Century, During the Great Depression, COVID (referring to the Great Resignation and the rise in wages that has accompanied it). Let's hope we can continue with labor having a seat at the table again, but given our electoral college system and how our Senate work (Wyoming's less than 1 million population gets the same representation as CAs 39 million + filibuster) I'm not optimistic that this will last long.

ehnto5• 4 years ago

If you can find space for it then I recommend it. It let me restructure my relationship with work internally, and it doesn't necessarily matter what my job is now, I have a healthier outlook on how I should approach it.

That's particularly helpful in the times where you don't like your job, but want to be happy anyway. Unfortunately I think that's a personal journey, so I can't really offer any advice on how that could work for you except to say, you need the time to figure it out.

LunaSea• 4 years ago

Those people will generate enough taxes and labor for lazy people like me, and it's okay.

Sorry, but it's definitely not ok.

cinntaile6• 4 years ago

More taxes are a result of earning more and not really from working more although they are usually related, so they still get compensated for that "extra" work.

alexk3072• 4 years ago

Why not? Everyone has to be maximally productive at all times?

Spivak• 4 years ago

Eh, I think the point is that there are some who are so far gone into the "live to work" mentality that there's really no point in trying to convince them otherwise. The only option is radical acceptance and taking as a silver lining that they will probably produce higher than average output which benefits you ever so marginally.

TuringTest3• 4 years ago

Actually it is, and only a very strict and damaging protestant work ethic would tell you otherwise.

Oh, you meant that those poor workaholics shouldn't exhaust themselves by overexerting over too much work? With that I can agree. But taxing those producing the most so as not to leave behind those who have received fewer gifts, inheritance or good contacts? That's how you build a civilization. If only because those producing the most are also those receiving the most from their peers upfront.

DoneWithAllThat• 4 years ago

“Should”? Based on what? This phrasing implies some law of nature like diffraction of light or the nitrogen cycle, but it’s just an opinion that you don’t even bother to try to justify. It’s feel-good nonsense with no basis in reality, or for that matter, history.

bentobean2• 4 years ago

"You didn't tell him how long it would really take, did you?" - Montgomery Scott

photochemsyn• 4 years ago

Most people work within some kind of incorporated structure, as employees or contractors on hourly wages or salaries. Unless they're also invested in the corporate structure, i.e. they're the providers of capital, they'll see no real benefit from the success of the business other than avoiding losing their job when the business crashes.

The solution is pretty obvious, and is fairly common in Germany at least: employees and investors must be viewed as equivalent stakeholders. This means worker organizations should have as many voting seats on corporate boards as the investor organizations providing the capital do. It's not one or the other - generally speaking, no workers means no business, and no capital also means no business. The result would be that profits get distributed equally to workers (as bonuses on top of wages/salary) and investors.

Otherwise it's the same problem as communist countries had: why work hard and be productive if you get the same reward for it as someone who sits around doing little or nothing? In response upper management will trot out lines like 'we're all a family here' and 'you should enjoy the pride and satisfaction of a job well done' and similar nonsense.

decebalus12• 4 years ago

One should definitely not be working hard. You need to minimize work and maximize income. The more you work, the less you actually make per-hour invested, if the income does not grow proportionally to surpass the current ratio. Unless you're in a good strategic position which ensures you will get huge benefits by working hard (think large stake in the company), working hard is a losing game.

A company will pay you the bare minimum it can get away with, taking into considerations all sort of parameters (such as risk of attrition) so naturally, your optimal behavior should be to work as little as possible to not get fired. Use the extra time to invest in yourself or just enjoy life.

mrozbarry• 4 years ago

I work at a software consultancy, and here are my hot tips around this:

- Take breaks between tasks. Your flow should mostly allow 5-10 minute breaks often (like once an hour or so) without anything or anybody blowing up.

- It's healthy that your client (or bosses) will always want more work, especially if you and your team do good work.

- Always instill in your client (or bosses) that work will get done when it's done. They are paying you to know how long something _should_ take, and to identify obstacles that could make something take longer, as well as the time you need to plan/prepare to keep you and your team sane.

- Your best working state is when you're relaxed. People have told me they work best under pressure, and I really refuse this to ever be true. You can certainly work under pressure, and even work fast, but I honestly believe your best work is the work that you enjoy and care for, not just the work you spit out fast.

- You can have fun doing just about any task if it's not stressful. Sure, there are a lot boring tasks in software, like waiting for compiles, or doing slow-moving dev-ops work, but if there is a clear path with no major obstacles, it really won't be that bad.

The biggest thing for me is having me and my team take breaks often. It's a good time to reflect on the work that's been done, think about a problem, or just take your mind off a larger problem for a few minutes. Depending on the industry, your client, your boss, etc., your mileage is going to vary, but as a software consultant, it is your job to advise on what time you need to get something done right.

So I guess I agree with the article. Not that you shouldn't regularly give 100%, but you should always be buffered so in high stress, high stakes, you and your team have capacity to go above and beyond the usual, but your average work load isn't maxing you out all the time.

theguyovrthere• 4 years ago

"People have told me they work best under pressure"

What I have learned about this phrase is "I work best when I am hyper focused on a singular <event, issue, project, task> and that is usually associated with being "under pressure" that causes us to slide into a state of hyper focused thinking.

oo0shiny• 4 years ago

This is common in people with ADHD. Focus is an issue unless there's a stimulus provided: either joy or fear. Which is why those of us with ADHD will either hyper-focus on only what they enjoy unless there's the pressure of a deadline to kick-start the motivation to focus.

xyzzy213• 4 years ago

This is quite correct. Never assume YOU KNOW what people expect of you WITHOUT EXPLICITLY ASKING for details.

For me, when I was a young buck, I assumed they wanted the perfection that I EXPECTED. Turns out 99% of the time, I was grossly overestimated what and how much others expected or wanted from my efforts. So I developed the habit of asking lots of questions about what would satisfy them (boss, customers, peers, employees, etc.) for just about any task, project, effort, etc. It also meant (often) that I had to work far less and with less stress.

NEVER ASSUME. Always ask what would be sufficient and then ONLY do what is sufficient. The advantage is they get what they want and you can get schedules, deliverables, etc. right and on-time which makes everyone happier than overdelivering and being late at the same time.

someelephant• 4 years ago

Work addicts will have a hard time following this advice unless they get the same dopamine boost from other tasks like networking. Unlikely to happen until they accept they have a problem.

ramesh31• 4 years ago

The key is doing visible work. This is why being a frontend dev is so rewarding at times. I can spend weeks cranking out some heavy algorithmic/data structure code that does some incredibly important data manipulation that our app fundamentally relies on, but it won't get as much kudos as a 10 line, 5 minute CSS fix that made someone's workflow easier.

Dave3of5• 4 years ago

Don't need to read the article just the headline I'm on it already !

pier25• 4 years ago

Obviously I don't practise any of what I talk about here, and diligently ensure that I spend all my time at work delivering business value.

Obviously!

;)

informal007• 4 years ago

Except you like your work

sna1l• 4 years ago

I think the main point this article is missing is that having to work extremely hard (10-12 hrs+) usually implies there is something structurally wrong with the team. Your team is criminally understaffed, you aren't getting enough time to fix tech debt, etc. While understaffed, there are times that you just have to work hard to keep things together, but if you don't surface these issues up the chain then you will for sure burn out.

caffeine7• 4 years ago

You are the boss of a company of one. Your company sells labor to the labor market, it makes investments in assets, it borrows funds, etc.

It’s your job to decide how that company is run. It’s your job to decide what investments that company needs to make to get good returns.

It’s also your job to interpret the contracts your company enters into and decide what is acceptable, and to appropriately risk-manage legal hazard, reputational hazard, etc.

There is nobody else to run this company. It does not have a right to a good outcome. A lot of companies fail. Your company of one WILL fail if you make poor decisions.

When you truly internalise that last fact is when you become an adult.

(Edit: clarified that the last paragraph refers to the previous one specifically)

powvans• 4 years ago

I think this is a great way to look at things and would just like to add that when you have a spouse and children, aka additional stakeholders, it's not exactly a business of one.

srveale• 4 years ago

When truly internalise that fact is when you become an adult.

Implying that everyone who runs a company is mature and makes responsible decisions, which is not true.

mc32• 4 years ago

Not all companies survive. Some companies, like people survive despite odd choices due to corruption, etc.

s_dev2• 4 years ago

You are the boss of a company of one.

This is a poor analogy and and an analogy that isn't needed (what exactly have you simplified for the reader here -- the concept of self-determination?). Not sure why you think that every person is basically a temporarily embarrassed CEO of a minuscule company and then to grandstand on that as if anyone who doesn't subscribe hasn't hit the same threshold of maturity.

Jensson2• 4 years ago

every person is basically a temporarily embarrassed CEO

That wasn't the point. The point is that businesses are people, so people are businesses. And while regular businesses can be run by a separate CEO, the business of your own person can only be run by yourself, so you got to learn to think like a real CEO to run the business of your person, even though this business will never have more than one member.

decebalus12• 4 years ago

I think it's a great analogy. It's a shift in mindset, don't take it literally, the point isn't that you're a temporarily embarrassed CEO.. the point is that for example when you interview for a position, don't think about it in terms of getting a job, but in terms of a business transaction (ie you also interview the company) or, when you're constantly in crunch mode, ask yourself whether or not your 'company' is being taken for a ride under an unfair contract.

You trade time, health, mental energy for money and health insurance (and/or reputation or whatever you get from your job). That's pretty much it. We (well, most of us) live in free countries, so if the business transaction does not benefit you, you're free to take your 'business' elsewhere.

KptMarchewa3• 4 years ago

the concept of self-determination

The concept of opportunity cost.

verisimi• 4 years ago

When you truly internalise that fact is when you become an adult.

When you truly internalise that life is about making money, that you need to make a good return for your stakeholders (aka family), etc is the day when you have been fully assimilated into the borg.

adenozine3• 4 years ago

Do you have kids?

This makes no sense from my perspective.

I could literally put myself through anything that I needed to, if it meant the safety or well-being of my children. It's not a company, it's a primal force from thousands of years of primordial reinforcement. I'd manage with less capital, so that my kids have a chance at college. I'd manage with less chance of promotion, so that my kids can have my presence at important functions. I'd manage with anything that arose, if it meant something better for them.

I think it's important to understand, and deeply internalize the personal responsibility that adult life brings and the extent to which our decisions influence the things that end up happening, but this analogy of yours borders on psychosis if taken to it's literal end.

A little deeper still, and I think what you're really pointing at is the boundary that decisions can't cross, that certain things are out of our control. Risk management can come into play, but ultimately risk can never be negated. You can only shift it. You can evade the risk of being run over by a bus by never leaving home, but maybe that raises the risk of dying in a house fire, or by being poisoned by lead paint, etc. These aren't "company decisions" they're just a byproduct of life in the natural realm.

I sincerely hope that you don't actually conduct this thinking deep into your lifestyle, perceiving things as though one big company spreadsheet of assets and liabilities.

Much love, friend.

allisdust• 4 years ago

To expand the analogy further, your children are the shareholders of course and your partner is the board (:

bobkazamakis• 4 years ago

I don't see how changing the perspective of selling labor to ...selling labor really jumps the gap into psychosis.

Jensson2• 4 years ago

I could literally put myself through anything that I needed to, if it meant the safety or well-being of my children

Right, the main difference is that nepotism is bad in a regular company but in a personal company it is the opposite, not practicing nepotism makes you look bad.

Aside from this the difference isn't that big.

nostrademons• 4 years ago

It's the same calculus, it's just the kids need to figure into it once you have them.

I made a number of choices differently once I had kids. I folded up a startup and took steady employment at a company with good work/life balance. I bought a house in a good school district rather than renting and taking the risk that rising rents would force them away from their grandparents. I make a choice to drop the work at 4:30 so I can go walk to pick the older one up from pre-school rather than get an extra 20 minutes of work in.

But all of these are still choices - they're weighing the things important to me and deciding that I'm going to allocate my labor and capital in different ways. Once you start getting into the economics of pricelessness, when you must do this for your kids or you're a bad parent, bad things often happen. You lose the ability to make rational trade-offs, and your kids often sense that and never learn the ability to make rational trade-offs.

lliamander8• 4 years ago

It's metaphor about how to manage your career, nothing more.

The point of the metaphor is to not depend upon your current employer to manage your career for you. If you do, they will inevitably manage your career to suit their own interests, not yours.

I follow the parent poster's advice in part because I have kids. I manage my career to serve my personal success so that I can care for those who depend upon me.

Not all of life is one big spreadsheet of assets and liabilities; just those things that are relevant to my career growth.

kawfey• 4 years ago

completely off topic - user:adenozine replied to user:caffeine. What a coincidence lol. (Caffeine keeps us alert and awake because it blocks adenosine)

caffeine7• 4 years ago

Do you have kids?

Yes.

I sincerely hope that you don't actually conduct this thinking deep into your lifestyle

I think what I said holds true about your economic decisions (which the article I’m commenting on is about).

I don’t believe you have to (or even really can) view your entire life through an economic lens. I didn’t mean to imply you are ONLY a company and nothing else.

I did mean the last bit that nobody else is going to make sure you don’t have a bad outcome as applying to life generally.

libraryatnight• 4 years ago

Having kids enhances his analogy, as it increases the need for your "company" to make good decisions. Ultimately the GP's message is an empowering one. You have value, you have agency, you can leverage these things to improve your situation (and by extension your family's situation). People are getting stuck on taking the post literally.

sanderjd2• 4 years ago

I'd manage with anything that arose, if it meant something better for them.

You had me up until this one. It is not (in my view) necessary to optimize monotonically toward anything that makes life better for my children. All the stuff you said before that, I would certainly do if the alternative was deprivation for my children, but having secured their basic well-being, making things even better for them is only one consideration among others. As an extreme, if I had enough money in the bank to secure them shelter, food, education, and enjoyment, I would not then take or continue in a job I hate in order to pad out a big trust fund.

I fear this is a pedantic point I'm making as I suspect this sort of going above and beyond is not what you meant, but it was my reaction to the end of that first paragraph.

shuntress• 4 years ago

I notice you forgot to mention mutually beneficial collaborations, soft skills, and "intangibles". Through unofficial back channel communication between my company and yours I would like to suggest you work on refining your metaphor to include these things more prominently.

Also maybe don't focus so much on _"Personal Responsibility"_.

Toine• 4 years ago

From a certain extreme perspective, there is some truth to what you're saying, but wow, this is so one-sided, extreme, partial and damaging. What decades of neo liberal brainwashing has done to people.

This is so sad, really. We are NOT companies, we're not robots only driven by free will, we don't live in an economy. We are hardcore social animals with huge biological & affective needs, this is scientifically proven.

I hope young people don't read this and blindly believe it.

danielvaughn3• 4 years ago

I think you're severely misreading the original comment, and to be frank, your interpretation is pretty juvenile. Nowhere does the person say that we are robots.

lotsofpulp• 4 years ago

Different perspectives for looking at the same thing provide different benefits, and they can be held simultaneously. For example, getting married to someone involves love and commitment and all that jazz, but I also like to advise also looking at it as a business, especially if you have or are going to have children. It is no different in that the two parents (and maybe even other adults in a multi family household) need to manage tasks, inventory, money, etc.

That does not mean you should treat your family or yourself exactly as a business, but there are some aspects that are beneficial if managed in that manner.

caffeine7• 4 years ago

We are hardcore social animals with huge biological & affective needs, this is scientifically proven.

Totally agree.

We are NOT companies

Actually, we are humans. However, when it comes to our economic activity, we are also a company. Both things can be true at once.

this is so one-sided, extreme, partial and damaging. What decades of neo liberal brainwashing has done to people.

Woah. Anything you specifically disagree with?

I put it in economic terms to address the article, but if you replace “company of one” with “life” and “returns” with “outcomes”, the message is largely the same..

Edit:

I think you disagreed so hard because you think I’m saying “you’re only an adult if you think everything is about money and personal gain.”

But what I was trying to say was “you’re an adult once you realise you’re it; you can fail; and it’s nobody else’s job to make sure you don’t” - which I didn’t think was such a controversial point..

BobbyJo6• 4 years ago

We are NOT companies, we're not robots only driven by free will, we don't live in an economy. We are hardcore social animals with huge biological & affective needs, this is scientifically proven.

We are companies. You can be a company of one and not a robot. Being a company of one doesn't imply giving up free will or somehow not being meat and bone. That's nothing to do with the statement he's making.

I hope every young person reads it and take it seriously, because it's reality. No one can manage your time, your money, your mental health, like you. No one will.

knubie• 4 years ago

We are NOT companies, we're not robots only driven by free will, we don't live in an economy.

It’s just an analogy. A different way of looking at the decisions you make throughout your life.

jka4• 4 years ago

This is so sad, really. We are NOT companies

That's true, although, in a way, I think it's reasonable for the parent commentor to want to identify as a corporation if that's what they feel like.

Are there preferred pronouns for corporate identities? Perhaps people would display a personal stock ticker symbol instead?

sanderjd2• 4 years ago

The parent comment didn't say that the "company of one" is all that you are. It is a useful concept for the part of a person's life that entails their career, and it's also critical to recognize that a career is only one of a number of the important facets of a life.

So I agree with you that it's a very partial treatment, but I didn't read it as attempting to be totalizing.

lr4444lr• 4 years ago

It's harsh, but the conclusion of what he's saying is also very liberating, namely, that in your interactions with your employer, there is no "social animal" on the other side of the table caring about your needs, so learn its language to protect yourself and take responsibility over preserving your own humanity.

KolenCh• 4 years ago

This comment is a very emotional, irrational response to a very logical analysis. What a contrast.

The kind of response is also very childish (, not in the sense I am insulting you as childish, but actually just some kind of reaction that would comes from a child. Eg emotion and incoherent thoughts.)

The “decades of brainwashing” comes out of nowhere and essentially projecting a political view to a logical argument. If you think the argument is wrong, argue with facts not branding it as something and attract that thing in general.

“We are NOT companies”. Again sounds like an argument made by a poor politician (I mean good politician wouldn’t fall into this kind of fallacy.) Clearly it was an analogy to illustrate a fact. I mean what’s this argument arguing against? What’s “are” means in this context? In Chinese there’s an idiom 白馬非馬 comes from a similar fallacy: is black horse a horse? Is white horse a black horse? Therefore white horse is not a horse.

“We don’t live in an economy”: what? What kind of brainwashing would results in that conclusion?

“We are … social animals” and then quote “scientifically proven”. What’s the point? “We are just a bunch of carbon and stuffs worth collectively not more than a few bucks.” This is scientifically proven too. We should all quote random facts to argues against some view we don’t like.

This is so sad, really. I hope any people would exercise more logic and stops politicize things and argue based on hatred, not on HN at least.

leonroy• 4 years ago

This is so sad, really. We are NOT companies, we're not robots only driven by free will, we don't live in an economy. We are hardcore social animals with huge biological & affective needs, this is scientifically proven.

I think you're taking the OP's comments out of context. They did not say that we are not social animals, etc. they made an allegorical comparison likening a person and their value in the marketplace to a company. That does not mean a person does not have value as a human being, as a member of the community, as a friend, partner, parent etc.

I think the comparison is apt when weighing up our careers - which is what the actual article is about - that is of course my own humble opinion, but you're implying meaning which I don't see in the OP's comment.

FredPret• 4 years ago

It’s actually harsher than that. A company that fails typically doesn’t kill the owners.

But as the CEO of you, you can easily get yourself killed in a couple of minutes of bad calls.

The laws of physics are the only laws.

lliamander8• 4 years ago

The amount of bad faith interpretation and just missing the point in response to this solid bit of career advice is just astounding.

vkou2• 4 years ago

There'd probably be a lot less bad faith interpretation if it didn't end with a double-zinger of 'And once you reduce your life to a neo-liberal economic model, is when you will finally grow up and become an adult'.

That last part in particular poisons the rest. Sure, it could be interpreted in good faith, but as it's so damn condescending - why put the work in?

52-6F-624• 4 years ago

I'm equally wary of the hubris in declaring one has defined all of the required variables for living well.

A review of ages of history would tell that nobody ever nails it down that fully. Everything has its price, including a bank account that never goes red.

bavell• 4 years ago

It's pretty incredible that such a benign statement caused so much ruckus! The misunderstanding is palpable.

ausbah• 4 years ago

people aren't perfectly rational individualistic economic agents. no one operates like this and expecting anyone to do so is psychotic and dehumanizing

this reads like a teenager, or ironically someone who never mentally moved past the point of being a teenager, who just read Atlas Shrugged for the first time

dxbydt• 4 years ago

ffs.

Humans have lived on the planet for 200000 years. This way of organizing people as a company interacting with the labor market with assets & investments & risk management...is at best a 100 years old. Its like a drop in the ocean of time.

That said, when I was taking courses in Finance as a young 20 something, I came up with this same exact analogy & took it to its logical end - I conceived a stock exchange called the Human Stock Exchange, where every human being was a human stock ticker, and if you liked the performance of your colleagues you would buy their human stock so their human stock price would go up. You could sell short the poorly performing colleagues on your team...its a pretty toxic concept, if you think through it.

Ofcourse, since its such a toxic idea, given the extremely virtuous nature of our benign species, this toxic idea must already exist & thrive. See for instance Will Smith's stock taking a beating after what happened yesterday - https://www.hsx.com/security/view/WSMIT

bsedlm• 4 years ago

I conceived a stock exchange called the Human Stock Exchange, where every human being was a human stock ticker,

I've had a very vague (somewhat similar) idea that I'm stil trying to articulate well.

something like what you said but the stock is run on a blockchain

then every person can emit their own stock which can get traded around.

at some point, the emitter person must (somehow) be made to respond for what they emitted.

naturally, some people will be reliable (and their emited credits will have high value) and others will constantly flop and default so nobody will be interested in having lots of their credit.

so far, this "idea" (which is just barely a sketch) poses more problems than solutions (maybe it's a bit of a barely-baked idea looking for a problem?) but it's fun to think about what else we could possibly do that nobody's thoght to do yet.

ozim2• 4 years ago

What is your idea of how people were living for most of that history?

You think being human stock ticker is worse than:

living on average 25 years, starving most of your life, having high chance of being literal slave not figurative, being ostracized and killed for any silly reason by local community, being dumped into trash or simply killed if local community found you were not useful or weak

So if you take it into perspective of 200000 years - being human ticker is actually really nice and comfortable.

cool_dude85• 4 years ago

Wait, I can think of myself as a company selling my labor power on the labor market? Interesting thought experiment, let's see where it goes.

I sell this commodity on the market, to whom? Business owners, I guess. And this is a weird one: I actually have to sell this commodity on the market, if I want to eat and live and all. So does almost everyone else. But the buyers have other options, so I guess everyone on the sell side basically has to undercut each other til there's no more profit left on our side. What does it mean if I'm not profiting, I sell my labor at the cost of production? Best I can hope for is find an inefficiency and hope to eke out a little bit myself until I can afford to be a buyer? Maybe the whole thing doesn't quite work.

Yeah, I'd say internalizing the, uh, implications of this setup is pretty much a requirement for being a grown adult.

lliamander8• 4 years ago

But the buyers have other options

That's not always an assumption that holds. Many "buyers of labor" in the tech sector right now are very limited on their options, whereas the "labor sellers" have many options.

Best I can hope for is find an inefficiency and hope to eke out a little bit myself until I can afford to be a buyer?

You will always be a buyer of some things and a seller of others. "Spending" your time to invest in rare and valuable skills that you can "sell" on the labor market can net you very nice returns.

zormino• 4 years ago

Wow people are not liking this for some reason. This way of thinking about selling your labour in a market is exactly why it's called the labour market. People selling labour need to understand how the market works in order to participate in the most advantageous way for their own situationq. Nothing said here detracts from the fact that the calculus of how you go about this changes with your priorities, for example having children might lower your risk tolerance when deciding where to sell your labour, so maybe the 'company of one' way of naming it doesn't fit, but the concept is solid. It isn't meant to gut you of your humanity, just provide a thought framework to make sure you are competing in the market fairly.

AlwaysRock3• 4 years ago

Companies === People. People === Companies. Understood.

weregiraffe• 4 years ago

When you truly internalise that last fact is when you become an adult.

When you truly internalise that last fact is when you truly internalize capitalism. Congratulations. There will be no prize.

mathattack• 4 years ago

I was trying to disagree with you on the point of becoming an adult, and I couldn’t come up with one.

screye• 4 years ago

There is are 2 assumptions here, that needs to stated more loudly.

1: "Companies maximize profits. Humans maximize utility. Profits != utility"

2: "Profits are absolute. Utility is perceived."

Utility is an under-defined combination of components on Maslow's pyramid. Even more vexing, is the realization that these components vary from concrete (health, food, shelter) to hedonistically moving targets (social acclaim, money, material wants) to merely perceived (self-actualization). The term: "under-defined combination" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Because some utilities are uncomparable. 'Time spent with your children' cannot be quantified in corresponding wealth or social acclaim. Till date, I am yet to find a better compact representation (meme) of the human condition than Maslow's pyramid.

However, to a more technical audience I prefer the 'RL agent' analogy. A human is an RL agent in a weakly observed universe. The utility function it weakly defined, expected outcomes vary from true outcomes and you can only control your action space. As any RL researcher will tell you; an agent tries to maximize their utility. However, they must periodically update the utility function itself and the manner in which the world is observed. This directly applies to humans. Every once in a while, use previous experiences to re-evaluate your perception of the world. Reflect on the very foundational drivers of your goals with this new perception in mind. Find new goals. In between these iterations, a person focuses on reaching whatever their current perception of the goal is, until the next iteration.

This RL model is incredibly effective. If each iteration leads to massive changes in goals, then 'regularize' or use 'RMSE' on your utility function. If each iteration sees too little change and your utility isn't good enough; then you're stuck in a local minima. Increase your learning rate and lean more on exploration (try something new) instead of exploitation (staying your course).

mesozoic• 4 years ago

Or as Jay-Z puts it "I'm not a business man. I'm a business, man."

ls-lah_33• 4 years ago

You are the boss of a company of one

Nitpick, but companies have limited liability, natural persons do not. It's for that reason that I would probably never get hired if I actually was an employee of a "company of one" (formed me for example). Companies would obviously prefer to contract with me directly, not my company.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_liability

Decabytes• 4 years ago

I'm convinced that the only people who actually make what they are worth (at least in my industry) are people who either contract or start their own business. During my grad school years, my PI contracted with other companies for a minimum of $300 an hour, but I've seen others in the industry with higher rates. The higher up you go in our company go from being able to reimburse a couple thousand dollars in travel, to capping out at over 8 figures. The way I see it, being self employed is the only way for most people to achieve these types of numbers. Now I don't have aspirations to ever work at those levels, I'm more focused on being debt free in the next ten years so I don't have to work such a high powered job, and I can retire early. But when I see compensation numbers like that, it certainly makes me think twice about picking up more than my fare share of work just to generate good will within the company.

tonyedgecombe4• 4 years ago

Most business owners earn about the same as if they worked for someone else. It's only the top decile where the numbers start to differ.

http://reactionwheel.net/2019/01/schumpeter-on-strategy.html

xwdv• 4 years ago

If you want to work hard because it’s some kind of virtue, pick up a second job in tech. Juggling two full time remote jobs will give you all the work you need for twice the income.

rsweeney21• 4 years ago

The short term reward of feeling good about completing a feature or fixing a bug is intoxicating. Even learning a new skill can quickly make you feel better about yourself. It's easy to justify that spending excess time on things like this because it has a clear ROI - you become a better developer, you get paid more, you feel smarter.

Just be careful to also invest in things that have a more distant ROI. Family, kids, health, friends, community service, mental health, spirituality - whatever it is that you value.

If you are unfamiliar with what else there is out there that can bring happiness, I'd suggest reading "How will you measure your life?" by Clayton Christensen. He's the same guy that wrote the "Innovators Dilemma".

dmje• 4 years ago

Um, because life is more important than work? Because your kids will only be young once and they don't give a sh*t about your CV? Because you could be dead tomorrow? Because there is lots apart from work that gives you love, satisfaction and pleasure? Because you don't need to be insanely wealthy? ...and a gazillion other reasons.

vhiremath4• 4 years ago

Ok. Great. You have established you're exceptionally talented and can do it all. Now the question is whether you should do it all, and only you can answer that question. :)

kkfx• 4 years ago

The point IMVHO should, must be: did you work to live or did you live to work? Work is needed, not just because of the actual society but because even with the most advanced automation we need countless of thing that demand manual/brain work, that's is. But we live to live, not to work.

So we should and must work to obtain what we need and want, a certain safety etc, more than that is illogical. Some might like their work so doing it is a pleasure and for them work hard means being satisfied and that's perfectly fine, however there is still a need to craft a life, because while we live in a society we need a family, friends, kids etc not just colleagues and services.

The above, at philosophical level for the whole society have issues, for instance since we have evolved enough to reduce natural selection by a big extent we need to learn to regulate our reproduction to satisfy both individual desire and social needs in resources terms, like avoiding being too much to been able to live or too little to make the species on the brink of extinction but that's an a bit loose thing for individuals, just well studied incentives or disincentives likely suffice leaving individuals with significant willingness free to decide. Family and friend however are still a need, arriving at 80 alone at home and then go to a old people's home is not that nice for most, for instance. Being able to organize a party with people we like is part of our life, we are social animals and reduce themselves to "make a neighbor party" it's not good either. The rest is life.

nanochad• 4 years ago

If you can meet these expectations in fewer hours than you are supposed to work, then you shouldn't just find more to do. Instead you should do something different.

This one really struck home for me. I will often quickly finish a task like refactoring a class heirarchy, then I will spend another 3 hours looking at it and the surrounding code to check for any unoptimal usages. But it always turns out to be a waste of time, because we have much bigger things on the backlog. Thanks for reminding me.

honkycat• 4 years ago

Lately I have been using the metaphor of "keeping the temperature low" at work to describe how I am approaching my work.

You see, in the past, I would work on all cylinders constantly worried about how I was performing and trying to get work done as fast as possible.

I would let the temperature rise and rise until I was boiling over.

And I would get a lot of work done! However:

1. This is unsustainable. It stressed me out and left no slack room for me to take on additional work.

2. It was annoying to work with me because I was constantly stressed out about nothing.

I was judging myself for not working hard enough, while working harder than anyone else around me. And what comes naturally from judging yourself is judging others. And it was a viscous cycle.

Any more my priority is to take regular breaks, meditate, create space for myself to find compassion and love for the people around me, and overall just try and be a positive calming force in the company.

And people love it! I am complemented for my maturity and sensitivity and leadership abilities.

jmfldn• 4 years ago

"Any more my priority is to take regular breaks, meditate, create space for myself to find compassion and love for the people around me, and overall just try and be a positive calming force in the company"

This is great, and very wise too. Great for you and great for everyone around you. People who generate peaceful relations and harmonious cohesion within a team (or society) are like force multipliers for the quality of that team or society. I work on a team where this is somewhat the case and where I try to embody this (imperfectly... but I try!) and it makes for a productive team, harmonious and strong communication and general happiness.

AlwaysRock3• 4 years ago

I've been in jobs where was less was expected of me than I was capable of delivering and, more often than not, jobs where more was expected of me than I was capable of delivering, at least for any considerable length of time without burnout.

Both were difficult. I like to think that if I had one of the lower effort needed jobs now that I would find other useful things to do like the author mentioned. At the time I mostly read books or played video games with other staff when I was done with my work. It was nice but a bit frustrating because I would go home and feel like I had already read and/or played video games so I didnt have fun things to do after work.

Absolutely a problem from the top of the hierarchy of needs but still a problem.

gigaflop• 4 years ago

I like to think that I "sell" myself assuming 80% capacity, in order to avoid spending too much time operating at the bleeding edge with all pistons engaged. Nobody can deliver at 100% for an extended period of time without suffering some consequence.

So long as I have just as many 60% days as I do 100%, and average out near the benchmark of 80%, then I have fulfilled the expectations that have been set, and I can be comfortable shutting the lid of my laptop at 1700 sharp.

I'm currently working in downtime(which I expect to continue for some more time), and have been spending my time trying to build something for internal use that also counts for my self-education goals. There's definitely a temptation to goof off and read, play games, or watch movies, but I'd rather be 5% efficient at figuring out how to get Azure to cooperate than 'opt out' and take unofficial personal time. I want to be able to show that I can independently produce value, and increase the value of my 80% for when raises come around.

swamp40• 4 years ago

  >> *Obviously I don't practise any of what I talk about here*

da39a3ee• 4 years ago

(a) You should you whatever makes you happy. If that's work then ok, but see (b)

(b) If doing "work" is what makes you happy, then when you are doing work on your own time, I'd suggest trying to stretch yourself. Try to do something which seems difficult, or radical. Allow yourself to fantasize that you're going to become famous by doing this thing whatever it is.

mwattsun• 4 years ago

What do I mean by working as hard as possible? I mean someone who can finish all the work that is expected of them in less than the total time that they are meant to spend working and then asks for more, similar, work to do.

I was surprised the author didn't use the term 'workaholic' but I'm older so maybe it's an older term. Google trends does show a steady decline in the use of the term [1]

Oxford defines a workaholic as "a person who compulsively works hard and long hours." There are too many reasons for this compulsion to go into in a comment...

[1] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=w...

jlengrand• 4 years ago

100% hard agree.

One thing that I'd like to add as well. If you're an employee, getting 120% of the same job done will 99% of the time NOT get you promoted faster.

The folks who get promoted typically do because they're visible in several places.

Do 100% of your job, and then do 20% of something else. Blog, Mentor, do POCs, network, .... Find your own way.

It's maybe unfair, I know, but I've seen so many frustrated folks seeing other get promoted while "they were the ones going the extra mile for their project".

Plus, if you do things visible outside, you can sell that much easier to whoever employer comes next than "I've pushed out more features than my colleagues".

bspear• 4 years ago

Extra credit at school means something tangible. Extra credit at work rarely does.

I think this message applies especially to people working in big tech and/or people working primarily on salary, not equity.

When you have equity in a startup though, each person doing more of their best work can actually make a massive difference to the trajectory of the business. And if you're working on a promising business, working better and faster is the highest ROI thing that can be done.

So it all depends.

argc• 4 years ago

I haven’t figured out how to not work all the time, but I’d like to. More likely though I’m just going to quit without a job lined up long enough to recover from burnout and go back to things I love, until I need to work again.

therealdrag0• 4 years ago

I think having other commitments is the only real way to work less. Make evening plans and weekend plans with other people for example.

Melatonic• 4 years ago

There was a time during the first shut down when my company decided to reduce peoples hours and also reduce their salaries instead of laying off more employees. I end up working 20 hours a week (instead of my normal 35) with a reduced salary (and I was even able to collect partial California unemployment benefits for the remainder of the reduced hours under a special program called Workshare).

Honestly it was amazing - made me really want to find a job that was less pay but also that low in hours. Working less than 40 is nice but once you get down to 20 you have whole DAYS where you can do whatever you want. You sometimes start work at noon or end at noon and then have the remainder of your weekday to yourself or in the company of others. It was an odd experience seeing my neighbours and friends going through so much stress and pandemic related BS while I was (temporarily at least) having revelations about how much I wanted to work in life. Fortunately and unfortunately it was very short lived.

npsimons2• 4 years ago

made me really want to find a job that was less pay but also that low in hours

This was a very large factor in why I quit - old job wouldn't let me cut back hours, even at reduced pay, even framing it as "leave without pay", so I had no choice but to quit to get my time back, and I had enough money.

As it is, I'm content staying in that "learning and broadening" mode, even though I'm 20-ish years in on my career.

I don't think I'll go back, unless I absolutely have to, or a project catches my interest, but even then, no amount of money is going to convince me to work so many hours or ever in an office again (another reason I quit was they wanted us back in the office, despite my being much more effective working from home).

shoo4• 4 years ago

old job wouldn't let me cut back hours, even at reduced pay, even framing it as "leave without pay",

I was curious what your role was, at what the incentives might have been for your old job to refuse this.

In your about page I see:

Previously a programmer in the DoD world

speculation: were you working for a contractor that needed to bill your time out by the hour to the government? So if you weren't working maximum billable hours, they weren't making maximum profit margin on your hours, compared to someone else who would?

shoo4• 4 years ago

Some companies have flexible work policies that give employees the option of switching to part time. My current employer (megacorp, not tech) has such a policy documented internally, not really widely advertised. I read about it, discussed it with manager, I framed it as "it doesn't make sense for me to work full time any more. I'm still open to doing part time. Can we switch to part time, per company policy?". Manager agreed, I negotiated with managers of project I was allocated to, to let them lock in the 3 days a week they wanted me at work, provided it left me with a contiguous 4 day weekend.

I've been part time for over a year now, 4 day weekends every week. It is pretty great. I don't do anything much productive with my days off, but that's okay. I worked full time for about a decade prior to this point.

Perhaps part of this is having negotiating power to frame the switch to part time not as a request, but instead implicitly framing it as "we need to figure out a part time arrangement or I'll need to find another employer that does", rather than requesting a switch to part time. Part of the negotiating power is being good enough at what you do for your skills to be in demand, and having resources or alternatives to fall back on if company is not willing to agree to a part time arrangement.

ketzo• 4 years ago

I appreciate that you acknowledge the negotiating power required to make that kind of a move.

That sounds like a great move for you, and I'm really curious about your experience. Do you find that you're more "out of the loop"? Naively, I would expect you to become a lot more of a satellite employee, less involved in any decisionmaking. How has that gone?

johnnyanmac• 4 years ago

Part of the negotiating power is being good enough at what you do for your skills to be in demand, and having resources or alternatives to fall back on if company is not willing to agree to a part time arrangement.

but that's the thing: there aren't many jobs past entry level that even give such an option for part time. Consulting is the closest factor but even than can have some strict time requirements (too strict at times).

So for (I wager) 90+% of people, the only fallback is "I can quit and never work a day in my life again" sorts of situations. That or you are playing some high stakes career haggling should the employer decide to try and train a replacement that will work full tim.

nickjj2• 4 years ago

Working less than 40 is nice but once you get down to 20 you have whole DAYS where you can do whatever you want

I spent around 10 years working about 20 hours a week doing freelance work.

It's good until it's not. Basically, yes you do have a lot of time and often times you can decide to be done at noon if you'd like. Taking entire days off is also possible unless it's expected to do something in a timely fashion such as meet with someone or produce results by XYZ day. I found in practice it wasn't possible to really drop off the grid for continuous 4 day weekends.

I came to the conclusion this lifestyle is only really worth it when you have more money than you would likely ever have if you worked this schedule for a long time. For example, if you only worked 3 days a week but had millions of dollars then this would be super interesting because you could go and do fun things all the time. Having $5,000 a month to spend guilt free to do whatever would be amazing if it didn't cut into any type of retirement fund because you're already set.

But if you're working for half a salary chances are you don't have millions of dollars tucked away unless remarkable things have happened to you. So what you really end up doing is finishing at noon some days and then procrastinating on everything while you do nothing productive or fun because you've done everything you could with your budget 100 times over after years of this lifestyle. At least that's what happened to me. Your mileage may vary.

I realized I'm happier when I feel like I'm maximizing my time. That doesn't mean always working but it means feeling like I'm making enough to where when I want to take off 2 weeks a few times a year to do something really fun it's fully enjoyed. Then I fill in the gaps between trips doing assorted fun but not crazy things. With 40 hours of payments this becomes less of a financial burden. Only problem now is having less time to do them.

PragmaticPulp2• 4 years ago

Taking entire days off is also possible unless it's expected to do something in a timely fashion such as meet with someone or produce results by XYZ day. I found in practice it wasn't possible to really drop off the grid for continuous 4 day weekends.

I've tried to hire part-time employees or 4-day workweek employees in the past. You described essentially the #1 roadblock.

It actually works okay as long as you have a steady stream of non-urgent, totally isolated, async-okay work for them to do. Most companies run out of that type of work fairly quickly and prefer full-time employees who can work together with their teammates. It actually becomes a constant annoyance for the rest of the team if the 1 person working part-time is only sporadically available, so they now have to shape their workweeks around that person's availability.

For example, if you only worked 3 days a week but had millions of dollars then this would be super interesting because you could go and do fun things all the time. Having $5,000 a month to spend guilt free to do whatever would be amazing if it didn't cut into any type of retirement fund because you're already set.

Without going into too many details, I can actually speak to this. It's another scenario that's amazing at first, but (I really hate to say this) gets old over time.

The problem for me was that few other people were available to do things during the week. I grew close to some friends with similarly erratic schedules (professional nurses often work 3x12 schedules, for example), but it's a small population. I enjoy doing a lot of things alone, but being able to do them with friends would be more fun.

I also started feeling like I was missing out on interesting engineering problems that my friends were working on. Once you have the means to be selective about the jobs you take and money can be a secondary concern (to a degree) you have the option of joining a lot of very interesting companies and working with very interesting people.

wildmanx3• 4 years ago

So what you really end up doing is finishing at noon some days and then procrastinating on everything while you do nothing productive or fun because you've done everything you could with your budget 100 times over after years of this lifestyle.

This indicates that you are tying "free time" closely with "spending money" by doing some costly activity. Perhaps that's the issue right there.

Just sitting in the sunshine at a lake with a book, or with a cappuccino in a cozy coffee place downtown chatting with friends, neither costs significant money. Or go running or biking or swimming or rock climbing. Or hack a cool side project in Haskell, whatever floats your boat.

I'm not sure what you are aiming for to do with your free time, but if anything that doesn't cost significant money you book as "just procrastinating" instead of enjoying the free time, then that's the issue here.

j7ake• 4 years ago

This sounds great. Ideally for me is that I am able to choose stretches of the year where I work 50% and stretches where I work 100%, and small number of weeks where I work 150%.

drekipus• 4 years ago

I really resonate with this post; I don't want to say I there's something I "struggle" with but I do feel the need to be able to balance my time a bit more.

I'm often a very productive member of my team, I love challenges, and I love digging into things and coming out the other side and feeling accomplished; My manager gets me onto things and asks when they might be done by, and I feel complied to deliver more in shorter time frames.

It's not so much that I feel "pressured" by expectations; but more I feel "involved" - my failures are the teams failures, my success is the team's success. and I want my team/product/company to succeed, so I spend my effort contributing to that.

However, this does swamp out time for my personal things that I want to do; I am wanting to learn lisp, and have some of my own personal projects that I want to play around with, in a multitude of technologies; I don't have spare time outside of work, so it's really on work time that I want to be able to experiment with these things. as the author puts it - "it doesn't offer any immediate value to me or the company, ... but I think generally made me fitter smarter and more productive"..

So for me, the balancing act, is to assert time to reflect/recharge in other spheres of technology, while also feeling the communal duty of our team to get the company going.

gdubs• 4 years ago

Leverage, as a principle, is so important. I always try to keep the 80/20 rule in mind. But perhaps most simply put, if you're working harder and harder and not seeing results, then you're probably focusing on the wrong things. There's a natural up-and-down to projects where you'll feel like things are going great, then terrible, then ok... But then there's times where it doesn't matter how much effort you put in, that boulder just isn't gonna budge. It's vital to step back and figure out whether your efforts should be refocused. Otherwise, it's a recipe for burnout.

a-dub• 4 years ago

i've always believed: avoid doing work on computers, use computers to do work instead.

my father's generation called this: work smarter, not harder.

wise computer people call this: be lazy.

industrialization of software work runs counter to this, it's your real job to defeat it.

sebastianconcpt• 4 years ago

The problem is that this changes dynamically in function of opportunity and ambition, or its composed form: opportunity to expand ambition.

mnsc• 4 years ago

"And that's why money isn't nearly as important as SLACK. You can print or burn money, but you can't manufacture SLACK. It is The Final Commodity. So They want it _all_."

The Book p. 94

shoo4• 4 years ago

https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2017/09/30/slack/

Slack. The absence of binding constraints on behavior.
Poor is the person without Slack. Lack of Slack compounds and traps. Slack means margin for error. You can relax. Slack allows pursuing opportunities. You can explore. You can trade. Slack prevents desperation. You can avoid bad trades and wait for better spots. You can be efficient. Slack permits planning for the long term. You can invest. Slack enables doing things for your own amusement. You can play games. You can have fun.

Maybe you should do less 'work'

Related Stories