Don’t Do for Money What Others Do for Love
medium.com
medium.com
If I work a well-paying tech job, I can save enough money that I don't have to go in to any job. My alternative isn't another job; it's no job at all. Then, if I love software engineering, I can engineer software on my own free of the constraints of the market. That saved money also provides potential happiness, probably in a more reliable way.
> Consider the job that you would do if you could no longer do your current work, or the job that would bring the most delight to your daily life. Does that job pay less? For most people, the answer to that question is also yes.
These first two are basically three different questions. If I could no longer do my current job, I'd hunt for similar jobs that pay more. If I could no longer do this type of work, it wouldn't be a good thing, and I'd try to find another high-paying career I'd be decent at. The job that would bring the most delight to my daily life isn't a job at all, and it's very weird to weave in the capitalistic assumption that life is determined by a job without also accepting the truth that in a capitalist society, money is actually the best way to bring yourself delight.
Stop paying me tomorrow? Good luck with that even if I didn't need the paycheck. But I enjoy it well enough and have plenty of time for other activities. Would I prefer even more time? Yes. But the status quo is a reasonable one for me.
I am not saying that this justifies the crazy high pay of CEOs but it's a tough job.
http://time.com/money/4790237/ceo-pay-salary-compensation-in...
> American CEOs got an 8.5-percent raise last year, taking in a median of $11.5 million in salary, stock, and other compensation.
On which note, I don't think it's an accident that some subdomains of programming have really happy people making good money. Sure, it's work they love, but optimizing compilers or whatever else appeals to few enough people that it's a great fit for anyone who does like it.
Seeking out a career in a kitchen, the entertainment business or any other "tournament profession" is high-risk and likely to leave you with few skills the market will reward.
On the other hand, getting a Ph.D. in life sciences seems like a pretty fool-proof path to the upper-middle class. Sure, you may not be a Nobel Prize winner, but I'd imagine in the worst case, you'd be pretty employable by pharma companies.
The other examples are a bit weirder. The people who love to fly recreationally typically aren't the ones manning the red-eye, or ferrying air freight from Shenzen. In most cases, they're "Post-economic" if they can afford to learn.
Likewise, I'm not sure anyone goes into the forest service for money.
Anyway, the author makes a good point, but muddles it with poor examples.
That's part of it. But a lot of people (on both sides) are also just naive about the value of said exposure. When I was a consultant I was asked for freebies all the time. Sometimes speaking at a conference was legitimate for the "portfolio" but it was mostly just asking me to work for free.
There is a lot more that could be said on this topic, particularly markets with winner-take-most dynamics or positional elements, markets that are outside equilibrium, and markets with rent-seeking behaviors.
I like doing photography and used to do it somewhat more seriously (and did make beer money off of it in school which was nice). But I had no illusions that I was likely to become a well-known globe-trotting nature or documentary photographer--or perhaps that I would even enjoy that as a full-time profession.
I haven't heard of a star lawyer, or star doctor, or star programmer that the general public knows.
Ehh, I'm not sure I would agree with that. Sure, for the most part the really successful ones pivot to become something else (typically to become politicians, media personalities, and/or CEOs), but their original profession remains a core part of their identity.
Off the top of my head, most people (older than 25, say) know who Johnnie Cochran was. Ben Carson was pretty famous even before he entered politics.
And despite whatever he is now, Zuckerberg is still pretty much the poster boy for programmer-turned-CEO. Heh, there's an entire movie about what a star programmer he was.
I don't think Zuck would list his job as being a programmer. He lists his job as being a CEO. Same as Taylor Swift lists her job as being a singer/songwriter. When someone dreams to create a successful social network and become a CEO like Zuck, it's just as delusional as writing a hit song and becoming a music star like Swift.
I doubt we'll agree on this, so I'll agree to disagree and just leave it at this:
I think he is. He was instrumental in programming the early and core product of Facebook. Facebook wouldn't have become the monolith it is today without his ability to program the very early versions.
Being a star programmer doesn't necessarily mean tackling self-driving vehicles or the linux kernel, and it can very much blend into what looks like traditional business decisions: Deciding what to build, what to allow/disallow, etc.
Pop music is actually pretty similar in this regard: It's not well-known as a technically difficult or especially avant-garde form of music, and being a pop star is often not about the music as much as it is about everything else surrounding the music (branding, marketing, etc.).
Still, we consider pop stars to be star musicians. Even when they don't write their own music!
For money, do what others hate.
But you can do what others love and get compensated if you're better than amateurs (those who labor for love) and in an industry where your customers can discern quality, care about it, and can afford it.
1. Mining engineer or technician in a remote region like Northern Canada.
2. Electrician, plumber, or other skilled trade for the oil industry.
3. Real estate agent in a reasonably well off area. Some may argue that this isn't low prestige, but I'd counter that jobs where men have to get hair plugs to stay competitive as they age isn't high prestige even if the work itself is genteel.
4. Taking clothes off for money (stripping, porn, prostitution, etc).
Hence it appears to be a matter of quality and demand somewhat negating the premise of the article.
I am not sure if the author ever talked to a cook or a baker.
Note this does not mean they'd be happier.
Quick story: My best friend in culinary school already had a BA in education when she got into the field. She went the hotel route, got a masters in Hospitality and now manages food/bev at a large Boston hospital. She loves food and cooking, but she also realizes that it's a job first and that she can always do her fun stuff at home.
Working as a cook/chef can be a great career, but most people have no clue what the industry actually looks like when they start to gravitate towards it. I don't think this is unique to that industry, just something most career chefs recognize as part of what keeps the industry full of new bright eyed idiots to burn out after a few months and pay low wages.
Restaurants don't pay anything because the learning curve is low enough that you can just train line cooks on the job. And chefs tend to just be smart dudes who could deal with lifestyle long enough to get into manager roles. Most normal, sane people don't work as cooks because they wouldn't be willing to put up with the physical/mental stress for so little pay. It's a refuge of maniacs and the desperate.
More typically they do it by monopolizing distribution, not driving down costs, although craft beer probably will not do well in a protracted recession as consumers tighten their belts.
The job that I want has nothing to do with what I'm doing at the job. It's a collection of things that make my lifestyle of choice possible, and job requirements that allow me to feel comfortable that I'm performing well and not likely to get fired. At the same time, I understand there's going to be plenty of times where I'm competing with some Ash Ketchum type (to be, the very best, like no one ever was) who REALLY cares about the job on a different level. That's fine. If they want the eager guy, they'll take him. If they think my skills work better, they'll pick me. Get a marketable set of skills, truly understand what they are, and then you'll be fine with jobs.
What's going on with these type of jobs is actually mostly just simple supply and demand. Supply of labor at a given price is increased by the perceived desirability of the work but that ignores both the demand side and the qualifications / requirements on the job. These help explain the examples that don't fit the overly simplified story in the article. Brad Pitt or Gordon Ramsay for example do quite well for monetary compensation in fields listed here because they are not easily substitutable. Doctors are still quite well paid despite the prestige and "helping people" job satisfaction because supply is restricted by licensing requirements.
Sadly, the latter is the most prevalent.
I have a hunch that the clear syntax and relative simplicity of web programming is what drives a certain kind of developer to long for complexity and turn something simple into this: `user.public? && (current_user.try(:test) ? user.test? : !user.test?)`
Moreover, when it becomes tedious, it's almost always a result of poor tools, bad decisions or developers doing manually what should have been automated.
I'm also pretty sure if there were no intellectual challenge involved I wouldn't see so many unnormalized databases.
There are two factors that influence the supply. The article discusses that a job that everybody loves is going to have a higher supply of people seeking that job. But it also matters how many people can actually perform the job. Programming is one of those examples where it takes a certain amount of skill and dedication that some people just don't have.
If you like programming, you're among the lucky few. If you like the kind of problems on leetcode, you're among luckier few of the lucky few.
Its not important, but I happen to agree with most of it.. :)
tl;dr - any job that has teenagers dreaming of doing it is almost definitely a terrible career choice. You'll be trying to get paid for a job that others want to do for free. Of course, they tell themselves it's only until the get established, but there's always another crop of chumps finishing school.
I say this as the spouse of someone who dreamed of working in museums and is now bitterly disappointed at how museums/heritage/academia treat its people. Sure, they could have known ahead of time, but we all make mistakes.
Funny enough, I have a pretty good gig at a video game company at the moment, but doing very not-video-game specific things. To be honest you can really tell that the people whose skills are focused on Unity and C# are more stressed out than the ones who know Python and AWS and can pretty much walk in to another job.
Lead Unity/C# developer, can confirm. Ecosystem full of teenagers eager to get into game development doesn't help with the stress either.
Unless you would do your current job even you weren't paid at all, then that is not really true. What we do, is negotiate the balance between discomfort and money. It might be a good deal for you personally, but you are still giving up some satisfaction.
When the writer of a piece tells me what to do like this, my first instinct is actually to close the tab.
It seems a dangerous gamble.
I love to code. I code for a living. If UBI was established, I would quit my job and code for free, because being told what to do is inherently frustrating.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/8aqs7q/whats_a_j...
EDIT: I'm an idiot. The author mentions this fact. I should really read the full article.