Your job is not sexy | Hacker News Reader

Your job is not sexy

d.gould.in

48 pointsdgouldin33 comments

Your argument, as I understand it, is thus: you are indebted to those who helped you along the way, and so you should not be vain. Sexiness is vanity, therefore by thinking that your job is sexy, you are being insufficiently humble to those who helped you get where you are, and you will be the worse for it.

Three points: firstly, how is this at all specific to 'makers'? Absolutely everyone has been helped along the way to get to where they are. Thus by your argument, nobody has a sexy job.

Secondly, I don't buy that sexiness implies vanity. My present job is certainly not sexy, but I have had jobs in the past that would be considered sexy by many, and I don't think that made me (or any of my co-workers) vain, I just think it made me enjoy my job.

Thirdly, being a 'maker', if we understand the same things by that term, certainly IS sexy, in the literal sense of the term. Being able to create interesting, useful and fun things is a very attractive trait. Lots of girls are attracted to guys who can build stuff, and personally I find very few things hotter than hacker ladies. Can't speak for the gay view on that, but I don't see how it would be any different.

I would say the opposite. Be sexy. Revel in it. Go create.

I'm a maker and I don't agree with the moral judgment against sexiness, ambition, and creating freely without guilt.

I've met very few "entitled" or "narcissistic" people, but I've heard the term thrown around a lot, usually to refer to people who live a little too boldly for the comfort of onlookers, lacking the guilt complexes and constipated style of self-expression many of us inherited.

Also, making is sexy.

Wow, there's some projection there.

If you're genuinely creating something, at least 90% of 'normals' will appreciate that.

If people are calling you entitled or narcissistic, it's possible that, rather than you living too boldly and being such a genius they can't understand, you're actually kind of entitled and narcissistic.

You didn't read the OP?

I did, and generally agree that humility about achievement leads to the best results, a sense of entitlement to the worst. My only beef was 'our parents understood this'. WW2/depression generation, maybe, boomers, no way.

The comment I was responding to seemed to take serious offense at the OP, and I don't.

I don't take serious offense, I just disagree with the article. Taken at face value it seems to be warning makers not to feel to good about themselves. As a personal belief system about making, it sounds like a negative, unhealthy one. The tagline "Sexiness is vanity" gives that away. Imagine telling your daughter, "Don't feel sexy, that's narcissism that is. Exalts the individual and such. People who feel sexy are vain. Sexiness is poison, it's toxic; if you start to feel it, resist it." That's about half of what this article is trying to drive home, and I think it says as much at the OP as anything. That's ok though, it's a very personal post.

So did anyone else think of Right Said Fred's song when they read this?

Not often but it happens that I disagree with the question itself. What is 'sexy' anyway? I don't want to mate with my job, I don't think anyone does, but I enjoy my job immensely. I enjoy it because it challenges me in a dozen different ways and I'm constantly provided opportunities to learn new stuff or explore new systems. My job is fun and rewarding. Nothing in my job involves sex, the sex trade (well I suppose we work on keeping porn results out of regular searches), or my mating instinct.

Fundamentally operations is like plumbing, you find problems you fix them, you clean up the mess. But that is like saying being an aircraft pilot is just driving from point A to point B.

If you have to ask "Is this a sexy job?" then you are asking the wrong question, you should be saying "Is there anything else I'd rather be doing?" And if that answer is yes then I encourage you to go do that other thing and be even happier than you are right now.

We are not self-made.

Nobody is; anyone who thinks they are self-made most likely got the idea from someone else and didn't question it because it stroked their ego, giving us a perfect example of irony.

This is not to say that hard work and self-investment are worthless. But I do think the article hits on some very important points in the direction of not forgetting the past and how much we owe to those who came before us (at worst, to be able to learn from their mistakes).

One last thing though: sexy is relative. You may not think my job is sexy, but as we are all well aware, there is a fetish for everything.

I am a maker, I am self-made, I am not indebted, and my job is damn sexy. The fact that I stand in the shoulders of giants does not mean that I am not self-made. We all make our choices given the opportunities available, some of us choose some things, some of us choose others. Given that we make our choices and everybody around us is free to make their own choices, we are not indebted to anybody. We might be generous out of good will, but I refuse to accept any unearned guilt for my success, or any debt or duty that I did not incur. I love my job and I think it is damn sexy. If I didn't, I would do something else.

So everyone is self-made? What does that even mean anyway?

It means that we have free will, that we make our own choices which determine the rest of our lives, and that different people can make different choices and make different lives. As far as character it means that once you make a choice often enough you are more likely to make that choice, and it becomes your character, who you are.

Which should be the #1 comment for this article that's based on the currently popular of guilt, and pride in feeling guilty.

We build on own success - each one of us. Being successful is not making a debt to someone - and even more so to society. And being successful is sexy!

You got at least my mod point, and hopefully more will come, but IMHO we should be very worried that such misconceptions are getting so popular :-(

Thanks for the mod point, I completely agree with you. I find it very worrisome that such ideas are getting popular among developers. If you want to destroy a people, destroy their self esteem first. I for one, do not welcome my unearned guilt dispensing overlords.

Not being from the bay area can anyone on that side of the planet who survived the first bubble (2000) to today give an honest assessment on if attitudes really have changed[0]?

Around here (midwest) not much has seemed to change. I don't see nearly as many rockstars/brogrammers as articles I read seem to suggest.

[0] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/the-yuppie...

They do exist, but they are at varying degrees of smug and are not necessarily taking seriously. In my experience, those who are usually worth their salt don't go to extremes to broadcast it.

I agree. I think these things are two sides of the same coin. There's usually some kind publicity required to attain that status, and that ranges from some a little self promotion to braggadocio. Once there's a surplus wealth, power, or fame, most people tend to back off; that feeling of liability sinks in.

There are exceptions, but even among the flamboyant successful (say, Ellison, Branson) there seems to be a trend of lowering one's profile.

Sounds like someone doesn't like brogrammers.

Who is this article targeted at?

It was specifically prompted by the way I see people headed in software, particularly in the bay area. I used the general term maker though, as I think the same ideas apply to many disciplines.

Not unless you are a data scientist, apparently: http://hbr.org/2012/10/data-scientist-the-sexiest-job-of-the...

What I take from this post is that the author is seeing a growing ego problem, with makers using too much time and energy broadcasting their accomplishments instead of letting their work stand for itself.

However this ego problem has always existed in all industries, not just from makers. From finance types to the over-important auditor, the marketing intern and even in the service industry, ego's are abound.

What maybe the difference is that tech makers have never in history had easier more accessible methods to express their thoughts to a larger audience.

"We dig in the dirt so that out of the muck we can construct something we ourselves can find worthwhile, all the time knowing in our true hearts that we’re likely to be the only ones to ever find it beautiful" ... That's one of the reasons why being a maker is sexy. Plenty of startups have probably started this way...out of the muck, against all odds, against disbelief from the rest of the world, you can take something and make it work. Makers are pursued by a lot of companies. That's sexy...

Aka "You didn't build that!"

Not sure why this was down voted. I was thinking of that the whole time reading the article. And I feel the same way now - bologna! I don't know any small business owner who doesn't work crazy hard (including myself). It's one thing to feel pride because you were handed a trust fund, but I don't see a problem with looking at what you've achieve and feeling a sense of satisfaction.

And regarding all those people who I owe a debt. There certainly have been people who helped me along the way. But you know what, other people helped those people. And I have helped many others as well. So aren't we all even.

As a Christian I have no issues with humbleness. Believe me, I'm extremely grateful for all I have. But I'm not a fan of "no one is better then anyone else and you have more just because of luck".

It may be interesting to note that the author is a Libertarian, not a liberal.

The downvotes were probably because of the injection of nakedly partisan soundbite politics. Did it add to the discussion? Plenty of room to expand and actually discuss the matter, like you did.

As far as "you didn't build that", the context was "you didn't build that alone". Seems like you agree, in general. Nothing wrong with being satisfied with a job well done, but there is something wrong with growing up in the most advanced society in world history and thinking you're some sort of rugged pioneer.

>We are indebted.

I'm not sure how I feel about this statement; it(the article) almost has a communist vibe. It seems like a negative way to state that in order for the advancement of technology, we need to pass our skills and knowledge to others. Yea, I agree with the overall message of helping/being helped, but not the tone that it's being described.

Pick up a copy of Popular Mechanics from the 1960s. Makers were alive and well back then, and there was a lot of marketing effort put into making it sexy.

Do we need a dose of humility? Certainly. But we absolutely can, and should enjoy making great stuff.

So you're saying to be more humble, or is there more?

Humility breeds a state of mind which evidences itself through action. There's not really more, except that actual humility isn't something you can measure directly. So the advice "be more humble" isn't actionable. "Work to pay back the debt you owe" is.

Humility like arrogance are both wrong. Humility is unearned guilt, unearned self-doubt, and arrogance is unearned confidence, unearned pride. It's best to have a sober assessment of one self and act accordingly.

op forgets the most important point:

assumption is the mother of all fuckups. and the fuckup is what i just read.

protip: define "we" before you start wasting other peoples time

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