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Comment by yummyfajitas | Hacker News Reader

This guy seems to fall into that category:

"There have been times where I’ve wondered if I should just get a temporary service or manual labor job...I would be too humiliated... It would be exceptionally difficult to work eight hours a day hoping with all my might that a neighbor or friend wouldn’t swing by to see me working the cash register or pumping gas."

This is a definitive example of the prideful worker effect. It's kind of crazy how our modern culture substitutes "can't" for "won't".

Meanwhile, this guy says he doesn't have skills with modern technologies and he spends 4 hours/day ("a quick glance at Twitter to see what’s going on in the world, and then I look up and it’s 1:15") procrastinating rather than learning those technologies. Hardly a surprise that no one wants to hire him, I certainly never would.

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At one point early in my software career I was between jobs for a few months.

I have construction skills, so I worked doing demolition and then framing an addition for a friend at $10/hr.

To quote Pulp Fiction

"The night of the fight, you may feel a slight sting. That's pride fucking with you. Fuck pride. Pride only hurts, it never helps."

Over a couple of weeks I made a few thousand dollars, paid the mortgage, and got some exercise.

...and, besides, there's nothing embarrassing about using your hands and your back.

I'm about 4 years into my career as a software dev, but you know what I did before that? Worked a shitty manual labor job at a warehouse with shitty 13-hour days and not a lot of pay.

I rarely got to see my friends who were more successful starting their own careers. But what I did have is money to pay my rent and free time to continue learning and honing my skills.

Yeah it really sucked working in that warehouse and it was embarrassing a little bit. I used that as motivation. Fuck pride indeed.

>I used that as motivation.

This. I worked overnight stocking shelves in a grocery store for awhile. It sucked, but I did a good job while I looked for different work. Then I waited tables for awhile after that. All the jobs I have had have taught me various things, but the main one was motivation to not have to do those jobs.

"Yeah it really sucked working in that warehouse and it was embarrassing a little bit. I used that as motivation. Fuck pride indeed"

It seems to me that pride really was your motivation... and there's nothing wrong with it.

But pride did help Butch in Pulp Fiction. He got to win the fight, keep his pride and keep the money(or even bet the other way and make bank? can't recall now).

Personally, I agree with your point of view. There is, however, something to be said for people that never settle and by force of will reshape the world around them to conform to their expectations.

There is something called survivorship bias. IT means that the selection that you happen to see is the selection that is visible, because it accidentally survived.

Steve Jobs is great an inspiring, because he did X and Y and Z and never compromised his standards.

You know what? You happen to know of Steve Jobs because everything worked out well for him.

There may very well be 20,000 other people who refused to compromise their standards...and perhaps that strategy really sucks and the other 20,000 of them went bankrupt and are working at used car lots now.

"Never settling" sounds great.

I'm not 100% convinced that it is.

Agreed. Generally I believe in shooting high, because how do you know where the limits are if you don't hit them?

But... you have to be careful to stay in reality. Otherwise you end up tilting at the mills.

> There is, however, something to be said for people that never settle and by force of will reshape the world around them to conform to their expectations.

If by force of will I wanted to work at Google for example, I would take steps to improve my chances of making that happen. This story is not about force of will at all, but someone with low self discipline and possibly depressed (clinical depression could be a factor here and he should look into it).

He complains about lack of something to do. There is plenty to do starting with making a schedule listing things to learn for the day that will improve his chances getting the job he wants. I'm sure potential employers are looking at him asking the same questions people here are asking. You've been unemployed for 2 years and have learned what?

> There is, however, something to be said for people that never settle and by force of will reshape the world around them to conform to their expectations.

Two years of unemployment should be enough to indicate that force of will sometimes isn't enough.

This guy openly admits that he isn't expending any force of will. He's sitting at home all day reading twitter while refusing to work jobs that he thinks might lower his social status.

If you refuse to try a strategy for 2 years, that's not evidence the strategy won't work.

I'm not sure what "strategy" you're referring to. If the strategy is to "never settle and by force of will reshape the world around them to conform to their expectations", then it sounds like he's been trying that strategy. Hundreds of applications, multiple all-day interviews. That actually does seem like he's trying, or at least he's tried in the past.

What he should be trying is a new strategy, not pouring more force of will into this one.

I think I misunderstood your comment and was responding to a different point. Sorry.

No worries.

That being said, the prideful worker effect is very real though. I remember when my mom told me how her nightshifts in the sausage factory as a student made her more humble - and I thought "what a waste - I'm going to step in high and then get really rich so I don't have to do this!".

Six years and three failed university degrees later, I started in night shifts myself in customer support because I had no other option and some guy from a mailing list had a heart for someone broke and desperate.

Fast forward another seven years and I'm not just CTO of a profitable company, but also pretty thankful of all my experience in customer support, if only for a good chunk of humility. It's really hard to overcome your initial feelings about such a "downgrade" in socioeconomic status for a chance on a new beginning/industry though, don't know if I would have dared that after 40.

> I remember when my mom told me how her nightshifts in the sausage factory as a student made her more humble

I was lucky to avoid having to work in the service industry - aside from occasionally having to work the floor at a retailer when we finished unloading/loading a truck early - but my wife worked as a server for a good long while, and we both agree that we will absolutely encourage our children to work jobs like those - aside from earning money, it teaches empathy and how to deal with difficult situations.

Congrats from working up from the bottom, busting your ass, and achieving your dreams.

That's an inspiring story.

Even a half-time minimum wage job in Santa Clara county would bring in $11K/year. That's not a lot of money, but it would help tremendously if they're so strapped for cash that they are having trouble buying food occasionally. $11K/year would also pay for quite a bit of retraining.

I've got no doubt that it would be really difficult to take a low-pay, low-skill job after working on the other end of the spectrum for decades. But after two years of no employment, it seems like the appropriate action. Two years of working as a cashier or a janitor or just about anything else looks better on a resume than two years of no employment.

But I'm also aware of the fact that I'm fortunate to have an extremely good job and I would spend a lot of time looking for a similar job before showing up at Papa John's with my resume.

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