Comment by hellisothers | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hellisothers | Hacker News Reader

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I wrote a whole reply echoing another reply about how this article isn’t about maximizing money or status (though most of these articles are about that), that this article is just about staying competitive. But then I really thought about what you wrote and I think you’re saying that is besides the point, if you have good work life balance and really value that then it’s essentially maybe ok to give up some competitive edge. Here I will caution you, that is a trap which I think the article is trying to get at. I am one of those people who stayed too long at a job where I was losing my competitive edge because I felt like I had a great work-life balance! And work was fun! But one day I realized I’m actually being asked to eat a lot of crap so to speak that I hadn’t really noticed before and once I started to look for the exit it was obvious it was going to be harder than it should be because I had stagnated. Moral of my story (and this article), is stay competitive, you don’t have to crush it, but don’t lean back too far either.

that this article is just about staying competitive.

Moral of my story (and this article), is stay competitive, you don’t have to crush it, but don’t lean back too far either.

There are a large number of people, including smart and successful and accomplished people, who work to live, not live to work.

For the people who live to work (myself included), it's a good reminder to stay competitive and avoid complacency. But you have to understand yourself and what you're looking for. And that's what I think the real moral of the story is: understand what you want, what makes you happy, and what gives you meaning and purpose. Then make sure you're working towards that. Too many people forget to do the first thing and skip straight to the second because they inherit the answer from their environment without questioning it.

For lots of people the answer to that question is not career related.

But my dear friend, the economy doesn’t give two fucks about what you want. It is making part time door dash delivery drivers and Uber drivers out of college educated people. It’s making Classics majors into web developers via bootcamps, it’s hiring out in India, and it’s making the tech you know today sound literally stupid on your resume within 3 years. You’re also in a ageist industry, so there’s time working against you too.

What you or I want is no longer a question afforded to us sadly.

But my dear friend, the economy doesn’t give two fucks about what you want.

Indeed the economy doesn't, but, my dear friend, that's not the point.

You're not the economy, and you can't escape the shell you were born in (yet). You only get to choose which game you play. So, my dear friend, if you're going to lose the game anyway, at least pick a game you actually want to play.

Your comment reminds me of the line from Dead Poets Society:

_We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for._

PS: how good was that movie?! So Good!

It's a noble sentiment, but poetry means different things to different people. Personally, I get a much bigger kick out of a well written snippet of Lisp code than I do from your typical sonnet.

Here's a poem I wrote back in high school in reaction to the famous quote, "Poetry is the art of creating imaginary gardens with real toads", which I was taught was by Emily Dickinson but turns out to actually be by Marianne Moore. In any case...

    A poem is a thought that tried
    In vain, just once, before it died
    To reach the page's
    Right hand side

;-)

Thank you for that beautiful sentiment.

  They're only words, and always spoken 
  much too late  to stay
  -- only for a moment,
  then they take the breath away

It’s good but someone well attuned please quote some poetry that speaks of the viciousness of a brick wall met by toil.

That’s when you got to get real.

The romanticism of good faith and idealism is romantic, but a lot of good expression is rooted in despair. I see despair in that anecdote, the desperate plea of ‘don’t you see what I feel?’. We have to infer that such an unstated thing needed to be dramatically expressed, for no other reason than catharsis. Which leads us to the conclusion that, yes, there is a story of sadness here.

This good quote can be interpreted better by realizing that those two groups are not mutually exclusive. There is sufficient poetry, beauty, romance, and love in medicine, law, business, and engineering.

I just finished watching Manolis Kellis explain [0] how computational biology is transforming our understanding of the human genome and changing how we treat diseases. Who will argue that this is not a gripping story of how humanity has risen in it's ability to understand how the world works and consequently to control it. This exciting adventure has both passion in the seekers and beauty in what they have found. And of course there are endless songs (e.g., [1][2]) already written about this noble pursuit.

[0] "Decoding a Genomic Revolution: Manolis Kellis at TEDxCambridge" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlVZ0ORtpPM [1] "The Molecular Shape of You (Ed Sheeran Parody)" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8FAJXPBdOg [2] "A Capella Science - Rolling in the Higgs (Adele Parody)" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtItBX1l1VY

What you or I want is no longer a question afforded to us sadly.

I'm genuinely curious: Are there periods of history where people could choose what to go into without it having a large effect on their income or quality of life? From my point of view, it seems like our standard of living is at an all-time high and our freedom to choose what we do with our lives is unprecedented. But I'd be open to being shown empirical evidence to the contrary.

The whole economy since the beginning of time unless you are wealthy.

Remember the 50s in America? That lasted forever right? You don’t need empirical evidence for this, the hard data is there on a variety of industries.

If you believe we’re immune to these forces you’ve got another thing coming.

If you play your cards right then you still get to call the shots. When I was young I worked my butt off- I went to the right schools, got the right jobs, built the right skills, and most importantly, built a network. Now I’m in my 30s and have the flexibility I sacrificed earlier. This year I decided to switch jobs and literally updated one line on my resume. I figured out what I want (work-life balance, good money but not necessarily the most prestigious company) and managed to get a new job paying more than the job I left behind.

If you want to reach the top of your field then sure, you always have to be hustling. But for the rest of us we are lucky to be in a field where there is a degree of comfort and flexibility.

You sound defeated. You mention a number of movements in the industry, then draw the conclusion that these are so strong, for all of us, that we no longer have any say.

Are you depressed?

Sounds like you need to switch jobs.

I can only quote the Red Queen: "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place."

One needs to stay competent, if not competitive, to stay employable, even for moderately advanced and moderately-paid positions. There's no chance to learn the craft and expect it to stay the same for a lifetime.

>One needs to stay competent, if not competitive, to stay employable

if you are reasonably competent you can get a boring coding job at a large firm that pays probably twice the average national salary.

Software development pays so well compared to other sectors and is so starved for workers pretty much always, and unemployment is basically nonexistent, I think like the author you might confuse "working hat hip startup XY and making 200k" with being employable and living comfortably

But the value of "staying competitive" is to better earn money and status. It's less greedy than maximizing money/status, but it's on the same line of pursuit.

The parent's point is that there are more aspects in life than work that you can improve on (eating healthier would be one of them). And as long as your work can sustain your life, you are free to choose to work on something else.

Of course, you can choose to focus even more on working, too, if you please.

> But the value of "staying competitive" is to better earn money and status.

My hair is increasingly gray, and I'm a person who has always been motivated by challenge, and never by money. The notion of poverty is somewhat terrifying to me, because I'm keenly aware of my motivations. "Find a job" is not a satisfying challenge.

I'm nowhere near retirement -- by which I mean, if my income tracks with inflation, I'll be able to comfortably retire about 5 years before I expect to die of cancer.

I can't trust my company. I can't trust them to stay afloat. I can't trust them to retain me if their funding droops again.

I live very economically; my biggest luxury expenditures are food and I could easily cut those. I really don't give a shit about money, but I have a kid and that's a big expense.

So unemployment is scary. Staying competitive brings peace of mind, and it's a game that I can challenge myself with; that I get satisfaction from.

> But the value of "staying competitive" is to better earn money and status. It's less greedy than maximizing money/status, but it's on the same line of pursuit.

No, the point is to be able to get another job if you lose your current one.

And the point of a job?

The value of staying competitive is also to be employable even after you have turned 50.

> But the value of "staying competitive" is to better earn money and status.

Perhaps you are projecting your own beliefs?

Plenty of people choose careers for other reasons e.g. that give them personal satisfaction, or a career that revolves around their belief system.

The article still applies even if their career goals are neither status nor money.

Well, there's something to be said about staying competitive if you're in a job you're concerned about losing. Having the ability to get laid off and pick up another job within a few weeks does bring with it a certain amount of safety that complacency might not bring.

I perceive staying competitive as being paid fairly for your work (within some reasonable margin). If you are becoming less and less useful to the company/industry, but your salary is getting higher over the years, your risk of being laid off increases significantly. However, I can't help but mention that if you nurture certain political skills and you are already have some management responsibilities, you can stay "forever" in some big corp even though you are not very useful...

It could also mean working less hard for the same amount of money/status.

I don't know about that, in my experience careers are built on political skills as much as actual ability to do your job. Then there is the obvious problem that winning the rat race makes it pretty clear that you are a rat. I prefer to leave all that to the budding sociopaths.

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