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Comment by otabdeveloper4 | Hacker News Reader

Professional tip: work isn't meant to be fun. (If it was fun then it wouldn't be called "work".)

Working at Apple was about as fun as I would expect a job to be when I started in 1995. It only got better the first decade working there (as I became more proficient and began to feel I knew what I was doing).

It started to suck though as the company inverted and became top-down again. Management experimented with "agile" development, required a certain percentage of code coverage with BS unit-tests, code reviews became a thing, teams started insisting on style guidelines....

I was just thinking today that I would not recommend to my daughters to go into the software industry. The Golden Age, as far as I'm concerned, came and went. It was long before Covid though.

I started work in the early 90's as well.

I'm genuinely curious: You don't think unit tests are a good thing? Or code reviews? Or style guidelines?

Or is it just a matter of how those things were implemented that rubs you the wrong way?

Every time. This refrain is so worn out. Here's another professional tip, since apparently they're all equally weighted: there's no reason why someone has to fritter away life, potential and shouldn't strive to find fulfillment and enjoyment in their trade. Sartre was probably right too--having the right people around makes all the difference, more so if you're knee-deep in the shit.

I've experienced both ends of the spectrum: the work is the easiest you could imagine, but excruciating only because of the handful of vile people I worked with, on the other hand I pushed myself up against my limit every day but it was worth it because we were in it together.

I’m most productive when I’m having fun. There’s always going to be not fun shit. Is on you to find the fun and on the employer to make it possible. Otherwise I’m unable to give my best.

What an odd statement. "Meant to be" ?

I often have fun at work, cracking a hard bug for me is fun and yet I would never go in if I weren't paid. And my employer thinks I provide value for them and pays for this indeed.

> work isn’t meant to be fun

that tired joke just reinforces the silly notion that individuals should just put up with things for money, and probably even be grateful for it.

laying it all out, that’s quite funny.

> silly notion that individuals should just put up with things for money

Well, yes. If you enjoy doing it then you'll do it for free. No need to pay you.

that’s silly.

why do it for free if someone needs the thing done and is willing to pay? they pay you for what they view as work, and you do what you view as play.

is that such a wild notion for you?

Indeed.

You get paid to deliver more value to someone than you cost them (or someone else might cost them!)

Whether or not you have fun has little to do with it.

you seem to miss that humans aren’t cogs, and a motivated human can perform better than a demotivated one.

having fun can actually increase value produced.

so, yes, it very much has something to do with it.

Work was fun for me (at least to some meaningful extent that it isn't anymore) for 20 years. You can't count on it to be fun and you're not entitled to it being fun, but rather than giving up there should also be accountability for the fact that it's terrible now when it doesn't have to be.

It doesn't have to be miserable either

it's called "work" because it earns a living. don't give up finding fun work, it exists.

This, although I hate the phrase “earn a living.” The right not to preventably and painfully die should be unconditional.

True, in a state of nature, we would all have to work to survive, but we also wouldn’t have to obey anyone’s so-called “property rights” either. We could just use our hunting spears on the people trying to block our access to resources. If society expects us to follow rules, as it needs us to do in some fashion, then it should offer basic protection.

> The right not to preventably and painfully die should be unconditional.

Take it up with the creator of the Universe, as those are the rules they've chosen - valueable things, such as food, heat or shelter, do not just materialize in front of people out of thin air. They need to be grown or made, and it requires work.

You clearly didn’t read my argument. What you describe is exactly how it works in a state of nature, but in a state of nature there are no rules. You don’t have to obey anyone’s so-called “property rights.” You can just spear the people you don’t like. I personally don’t want to live (would probably die) that way, but if society is going to impose rules on us, it needs to offer something better than the state of nature. Right now it really doesn’t; it has 100 times the resources but offers only artificial scarcity and make-work to keep the wagecucks in line.

Society is better because it offers you comfortable living in exchange for some work. In the state of nature you'd likely already be dead, so that's a huge improvement.

Also, how is the current scarcity artificial? Are we limiting the output somehow? Could we for example produce much more cheap food, but we don't, in order to keep the proles scared?

> Are we limiting the output somehow?

He is saying that we limit his inputs. He wants to, for example, be able to produce his own food as to not have to rely on deals made with other people to acquire food, but notes that society carefully controls who has control of the land that is able to support that production, leaving nowhere for him to do so, and leaving him at the mercy of being able to reach agreements with others – others who may not want to make an agreement with him – in order to eat.

He says that without a strong society he could push anyone standing in his way of the land aside (by brutal force, if necessary), but an entire society standing in his way is a force too great. As such, he believes that great force should provide suitable compensation for the restrictions it imposes (e.g. if you aren't permitted access to land to produce your own food, you should be guaranteed access to food by some other means).

The assumption that, in a lawless society scenario, he'd essentially win the fight over the land (against other people who also want it) is very optimistic.

He asserted a society, not necessarily a rule of law. Law formalizes a direction for society, but society can also function in a more ad-hoc manner. If an individual does not have any meaningful kind of society behind him, however, defending tens of thousands of acres like a farmer in a society can is likely impossible.

"You don’t have to obey anyone’s so-called “property rights.”"

You don't have to obey them now either, but don't come crying to us when someone kills you for trying to take it just like they would have if you tried to come in and take over some tribe's land in the past.

The only difference now is that you might get the luxury of just going to court or jail.

if you were a wolf and trespassed another pack's territory, they would kill you. there are rules and "property" in nature - where do you think ours came from ?

everyone understands the base rules. you aren’t doing anything more than rudely restating the current state of things.

if you don’t want a replicator, that’s fine. just get out of the way please. there’s work to be done.

The OP's stance was that the right for people to have essential stuff for free should be granted NOW, not in some hypothetical future scenario.

so as immediate is impossible, what’s the next step?

to grit one’s teeth?

I did not consider what's the next step, as that wasn't the subject of discussion.

so there is the gap.

you think them unrelated.

I just don't think there's anything in particular that we could we doing that we aren't doing already. It's not like the whole capitalist enterprise is not working towards maximizing efficiency across the board. This might eventually, at some people in the future, bring us genuine abundancy. The point is, we're working on it already.

” The right not to preventably and painfully die should be unconditional."

This is a silly statement. You might as well say Superman powers ought to be unconditional.

Whose rights get to be trampled to give you this unconditional right to do nothing while receiving "free" stuff? Anyone with your mindset is an out of touch elitist. SOMEONE will still have to provide you food, electricity, medical etc. So, what you're saying is you actually want a slave class that provides YOU the right to not "earn a living".

it's called communism, and it's not pretty - i grew up there

> work isn't meant to be fun

Neither is leisure. Doesn’t mean it can’t be.

Im pretty sure work isnt meant to be anything other than a way to earn money. So it can be fun there is nothing inherent in jt that prevents it from being so

The issue is that the modern work place markets itself as flexible and fun to blur the boundaries people should be able to maintain.

Many people have fun solving business problems and working toward goals. It is dopamine feedback loop. It a a win-win for the employee and company. When leadership starts throwing in roadblocks to achieving the goals or goes overboard with hours, it goes from fun to miserable. It is a simple concept, really.

This is one of those sentiments that needs to go away. It's so... Reaganomicsy.

Sorry, but I’ll choose to not be miserable in this life and I’ll instead look for the joys in my work rather than view it as some miserable grind 24/7.

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