Comment by RyanZAG | Hacker News Reader

Comment by RyanZAG | Hacker News Reader

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Major upvotes to you - ignore these other comments, you're entirely correct.

A lot of these mundane jobs do need to be done, but a lot of people enjoy stable mundane jobs. Leave these kinds of jobs to them, they will actually thank you for it. If you're more interesting in accomplishing something, there are far more jobs that really need someone with some skill to come and do them - or, more realistically, find them.

I agree completely in the terribleness and lack of will in a statement like "That's life". No it most certainly is not. Life is entirely what you make of it and we are a long, long way from being forced to perform mundane tasks. If you can handle the stress of doing something new instead of doing something mundane - the door is always right over there. Walk through it and find your own path.

> A lot of these mundane jobs do need to be done, but a lot of people enjoy stable mundane jobs.

It took me way too long to accept this. I always thought those people just did not know better, or something.

I will never forget the QA department at a previous company and their ~200-step excel-based manual QA procedure. For me, that is basically a nightmare made reality. I tried to talk them into automating it, but they resisted that, almost angrily. They liked stepping through that 200-step spreadsheet.

I cannot understand it, at all, but I now accept it. People are different.

It could also be because they thought you were going automate them out of a job. People who aren't in the business of change don't like it as a general rule.

I actually took some pains to assure them I was not trying to do that. I offered to teach them the techniques I would use, which would actually have increased their market value. They just would not have a word of it. About 6 months later we were all laid off when the company folded.

I now hire spreadsheet testers on odesk for $10/hr. Upskill when you have the chance or die.

I think you may be confusing two different types of people. The idea, to me, of making $xxx,xxx while working 40 easy hours a week (manytimes fewer) and spending the rest of my time with money for my hobbies and lifestyle sounds great; I feel like I'm beating the system. Mundane tasks are the price you pay for that. There may also be people want to press that button 200 times, but they're a different group.

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