What busy professionals and the working poor have in common

http://chrisyeh.blogspot.com/2013/07/what-busy-professionals-and-working.html

by chrisyeh • 13 years ago

33 58 13 years ago

chrisyeh.blogspot.com

mikeweiss• 13 years ago

This is ridiculous

One thing I keep coming back to is meditation. I believe it has improved my productivity by being more in the moment, getting distracted less easily and being more accountable with my mental bandwith.

Now if I could just curb my hackernews addiction...

BetaCygni2• 13 years ago

It's a type of meditation that allows your mind to wander. Simultaneously you pick up interesting bits of information and you practice your written communication skills by writing clear and concise replies.

bayesianhorse2• 13 years ago

If some activity satisfies some short term need, it's probably not meditation...

jmduke• 13 years ago

Most busy professionals view the working poor who struggle from paycheck to paycheck with barely veiled contempt. These holier-than-thou Whole Foods shoppers marvel at the poor decisions of the poor, whether in consumption of fast food, using payday loans, or worst of all, buying lottery tickets.

Er, is this a Silicon Valley thing?

seanwoods• 13 years ago

I blame the companies providing these services more than the consumers who sign up for them.

joshdance• 13 years ago

The companies providing the service could argue that they are improving people's lives. Fast food give adequate calories fast. Payday loans give needed money fast. Of course both are not beneficial long term and have huge side effects, but you can't blame them. Except for lotteries. Lotteries you can blame the providers.

Which is the government.

TelmoMenezes• 13 years ago

Big macs aren't the healthiest food choice by far, but expensive whisky isn't that healthy either. You see a whole lot more posturing against the former than the latter. Why? Status signalling.

untog• 13 years ago

It's also one of those situations where it actually does make sense for the government to intervene. A 2L bottle of Coke is cheaper than 2L of milk. Is it really any surprise when people buy the Coke instead?

bluedino2• 13 years ago

But an $8 jar of almond butter makes perfect sense

lotsofcows• 13 years ago

Wherever it is, I'm very glad I don't live there.

Also, assuming the author does live there it seems a little hypocritical that he's criticising other's life choices.

lliamander• 13 years ago

Also, assuming the author does live there it seems a little hypocritical that he's criticising other's life choices

I believe it would only be hypocritical if he were also making those choices and not owning up to it. Saying "I make good choices, you make bad" (not what I think the author is actually saying) is not, in itself, hypocritcal.

ghaspland• 13 years ago

Not that I know of.

"holier-than-thou Whole Foods shoppers" is just hyperbolic language designed to drive blog readership.

Qantourisc• 13 years ago

I often envy them ! (The employed ones.)

chrisyeh2• 13 years ago

Sadly, a lot of folks in Silicon Valley believe in a form of social Darwinism. "If you can't code, it's your own damn fault."

It's actually caused a lot of tension in the city of San Francisco.

rayiner4• 13 years ago

My wife's step-dad is a surgeon, and an excellent one. Very methodical and careful, as you'd expect a surgeon to be. But his home life is often quite chaotic. E.g. instead of paying his electric bill on time, he just writes a big check every six months and hopes it works out. The lack of mental bandwidth is definitely a real phenomenon.

da02• 13 years ago

Do you have any more anecdotes like this? From him or from other people?

rayiner4• 13 years ago

I personally find all the decisions I have to make outside of work exhausting. I loved having a cafeteria at work because I had like a handful of lunch choices instead of the frankly crippling array of choices available in midtown manhattan.

bluedino2• 13 years ago

It's very common to see doctors or professors who are very accomplished and intelligent but their car looks like something you'd see on Hoarders. They can be very, very eccentric and their personal habits can appear very strenge.

pasbesoin• 13 years ago

A suggestion.

1. Create a separate, limited funds checking account explicitly for bill paying and the like. Replenish it periodically, as needed, but use it to keep larger balances out of reach.

2. Set up automatic payments against the limited funds account.

A significant one-time effort, but lower-bandwidth afterwards.

Alternatively, simply hire a part-time bookkeeper and/or accountant. Of course, this is also bandwidth-intensive, up front, and also demands attention to combat potential fraud.

rayiner4• 13 years ago

I probably can't justify a part-time accountant, but I'd love to pay someone say $500/month to come in, pay my household bills, make sure my car is registered, etc.

simmons• 13 years ago

This reminds me of Paul Graham's essay "Good and Bad Procrastination." [1] Maybe he's a type-C procrastinator.

[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/procrastination.html

dmd149• 13 years ago

I agree with your points, however, the major differences is what each spends their 60 hour work weeks on.

The busy professional works on activities that has social prestige (even if it is a lot of useless meetings and e-mail) and ultimately, these activities build career capital which can be leveraged. Not to mention, they pay a lot more.

The working poor may also work 60 hour weeks, but their work does not carry social prestige, build career capital, or pay particularly well. Ultimately, their work can not really be leveraged into opportunities to focus on the big picture.

Again, I agree from a cognitive processing view that yes, both the working poor and the busy professional partake in activities that distract from higher value work, but the latter has much more opportunity to give himself breathing room to focus.

Good post!

alanctgardner22• 13 years ago

the latter has much more opportunity to give himself breathing room to focus

At first this just seemed like a kind of self-congratulatory post: 'Yes, sure, cognitive bandwidth is a finite limit that affects kings and beggars alike, but at least I'm accomplishing something with my life.' But then you pulled out this whopper.

Do you honestly think that someone who is concerned about feeding their children or paying their rent has more free time and bandwidth? Working professionals have their own, imagined stresses associated with pumping up their own importance, but these are much higher up Maslow's heirarchy than basic physical needs.

gjm11• 13 years ago

I think the comment you're replying to says exactly the reverse of what you think it does.

1. Not "... but at least I'm accomplishing something in my life" but "... but the busy professionals have an important advantage: the stuff they're frantically doing is valued by other people, so that it gets them more money and more social status".

2. It's the busy professional, not the overworked underpaid poor person, that the comment says has "more opportunity to give himself breathing room to focus".

ronaldx• 13 years ago

I am not sure but I think you are trying to say:

We should not forget that professionals have a lot more advantages than the working poor.

Comparing them in this way is useful, but may hide the serious problems and lack of opportunity that the working poor suffer: professionals inflict this problem on themselves where the working poor have limited choices.

bryanlarsen• 13 years ago

Very few poor people work 60 hour work weeks. Many of them would love to work 60 hour weeks but are stuck working 31 hour weeks. They'd love to grab two 31 hour jobs, but of course they don't know their hours until just before they work them so it's impossible to actually work 2 part time jobs.

The reason they have reduced cognitive bandwidth is because their mind is occupied worrying about money instead of relaxing during down time.

And for many poor people, those 31 hour jobs are jobs that should be mentally relaxing. To a rich person, sweeping the floor is a job that lets you zone out and rest your brain. But if you're stressed about something, it just gives your mind more time to dwell on it.

notacoward• 13 years ago

The ones who really get screwed are the ones who do work 60 hours per week but not at one job (so they don't get benefits from any). Unfortunately, they're not so very few.

imperialdrive• 13 years ago

I enjoyed reading this article (and am excited to read future comments) because it resonates almost exactly with my current lifestyle and way of thinking.

This happened to me ~8 years ago. Solution was to spend 5k on a solo trip, all economy/hostel accommodations with a single backpack, walking around Europe (Poland, Budapest, Portugal) with a quick trip to Japan. Inner peace levels and happiness went up 10x what a 20k bonus ever provided me. It also helps to realize how small we are, how truly big an impact we can make by via technology, and that every single person you love, respect, run into will eventually die in some misery, with regret that brings tears to their eyes no matter how well they lived. So enjoy yourself, but don't take it too easy.

I'm a solutions engineer for tech startups which is generally very fun, challenging work, but tech really is like heroin (wasn't there a HN link about it?) and needs to be kept in-line.

If you anyone wants suggestions re. Europe travel, I'd be happy to share.

mr_luc• 13 years ago

Agree re: 'keeping tech in its place' in life.

I've got an interesting solution (described a bit in my hn profile). I work a few months in the states with clients each year, do a bit more work remote, but slightly over the majority of each year I'm not working, and instead I live in my house in Pacific-coast south america. When I do work remote, it's mostly via screen and emacs over a 10k/s connection with occasional 20-minute commutes for videoconferencing/screen-sharing (although that's changing now that a neighbor and I have gone halves on a microwave setup).

I've been doing this for the past 7 years, and I love it. Each year, I'm excited twice: about flying back down to South America/seeing my friends again/glassy, heavy, warm-water surf ... and about going back to 'civilization'/seeing family/coffee/morning scrums/open-plan offices/Aeron chairs/slaying giants.

This year I split my workload between being remote 2 months and in the states about the same, and it's been a blast.

precisioncoder• 13 years ago

Didn't see an email in your profile so thought I'd reply here. I'd love to get some advice about travel in Europe and travel to Japan. I'm living in Austria and want to see this place while I have unrestricted travel =D

adambard• 13 years ago

I as well would like to subscribe to imperialdrive's newsletter.

bauer• 13 years ago

What's the best way to contact you? I'd like to go on a similar trip in 2014 and I'd like to get your suggestions.

photorized2• 13 years ago

Re: What they've discovered is that shortages lead people to make poor decisions. That's because the brain can only process so much.

That's a real problem. Interestingly, I've experienced the opposite while working on several things in parallel - not having "enough time" forces you to make decisions instantly.

RougeFemme2• 13 years ago

But in retrospect, is it possible you would have made "better" (however you may define that) decisions if you had time to think about the decisions rather than making them instantly?

Also, a lot of people delay important decision-making when they lack time - or simply never make a much-needed decision at all, thus staying trapped, financially, professionally, personally. . .

photorized2• 13 years ago

I tend to over-analyze... So, my quick gut decisions are usually better.

nonce42• 13 years ago

"...marvel at the poor decisions of the poor" - I've always wondered if rich marvel at the bad decisions of the middle class in the same way. And what they see as the big mistakes keeping them from being rich. E.g. the problem with the middle class is they just don't understand the importance of entrepreneurship / capital gains / ???

RougeFemme2• 13 years ago

I think they do. There are always people on higher rungs of the socio-economic ladder looking down at those on the lower runs and marveling about why they can't pull themselves up. Sometimes they are looking at people only one rung below.

I think rich people also marvel at the failure of the middle-class to not go to the right schools, make the right connections, marry into the right families, not take "full advantage of the tax code" (e.g., for Americans - bank offshore).

kstenerud• 13 years ago

And the thing is, they are right.

Although you're probably not wealthy enough to go to the right schools, you may be able to get in via scholarships.

Although a middle class pool of good connections is limited, there are ways for a creative person to seek out better ones, often by something as simple as changing their environment.

Tax code knowledge is useful and valuable, and can be learned if you're willing to put the time and effort into it.

My point is, if you wish to elevate yourself, you must first study those whose ranks you wish to join. Learn how they acquire, and, more importantly, keep their wealth and power, and find ways to do so yourself, even if you have to be scrappy to do it. The whole startup thing does just that in the business world.

There will always be things you are simply blocked from doing. Instead of focusing on how unfair that is, focus on the things you CAN do, even if it requires greater effort or a more creative approach than someone more privileged would need.

VLM4• 13 years ago

If I had to summarize the outlook toward the middle class of the rich people I've known over my lifetime, it would be more or less not understanding relationships between time and money. In about 50 zillion interpretations of it. Basically the middle class folks not understanding there is a relationship at all, other than obviously for hourly laborers.

This is aside from obvious cultural differences WRT the type of status symbols and such.

zodiac• 13 years ago

What exactly is the relationship between time and money you're referring to? Is it the time value of money? Honestly curious.

happimess• 13 years ago

The tone of the first paragraph was jarring. "Most professionals" are classist, judgmental pieces of shit? What?

tenpoundhammer• 13 years ago

I have noticed this trend at many work places. Often the people who appear to be working the "hardest", are the people that have spun their work lives into a tapestry of chaos. Their schedules and workload are so intensely unmanaged that the only thing they manage to do is commit to more things.

Unfortunately this sort of behavior is often encouraged by higher ups, because it looks like you are doing a lot. However, I think it's obvious that spending a lot of time in the office doesn't equate to getting a lot done.

What busy professionals and the working poor have in common

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