You'll never get what you want | Hacker News Reader

You'll never get what you want

blog.elliottkember.com

75 pointselliottkember11 comments

I'm currently living with 5 students. Of those 3 of them want to be "investment bankers". It makes me sad because they're all really smart, engaging guys and what they're actually saying to me is that they want to make-lots-of-money-regardless. If they said they wanted to go into corporate finance or commodities then that would be slightly different because at least it suggests that they've looked beyond the umbrella of "investment banking" and found an area might interest them.

Another thing that concerns me is the obsession that a lot of my friends have with a salary figure. Everything is looked at through the lens of money/year. I prefer to look at things slightly differently. Imagine taking the amount earned per year * freedom (measured in an arbitrary way between 0-10) * enjoyment (also measured in an arbitrary way between 0-10). Let's look at a couple of examples:

- My uncle is a big-shot merger lawyer in Bangkok. He really wanted to be sports journalist but that ambition was stamped out of him by his father after he graduated. He earns a lot but he barely sleeps, is unhappily divorced, and sees his son in the UK less than my dad does. He readily admits that he hates what he does but, because of his massive financial commitments to his ex-wife and 3 privately-educated children, is unable to quit. I often wonder how different his life would have been if he'd have stuck with his desire to write about sports. So, for my uncle, here are my calculations:

Salary = 1,000,000 Freedom = 0.2 Enjoyment = 0.05

1,000,000 * 0.2 * 0.05 = 10,000

- My dad is an eye surgeon and works from 9-5, Mondays to Fridays. He has been woken up in the night 3 times during his entire career as a surgeon and each time was an over-reaction by a junior doctor. He is happily married and has plenty of time to play his French horn, come kitesurfing with me, travel, read, help my little brother build a go-kart, spend time with my mother, learn Italian and tend to his vegetable patch. What's more, when he goes to work he praised constantly by his patients and he absolutely loves what he does. Here's how my dad figures in my mind:

Salary = 200,000 Freedom = 5 Enjoyment = 9

200,000 * 5 * 9 = 9,000,000

This is obviously a very simplistic model but at least it takes into account two things that my friends' calculations don't:

1.) A year is not just a unit for figuring out your salary. It's a massive chunk of your time and time itself is a lot more subtle than a means to calculate remuneration. The balance of how one's time is spent is what constitutes freedom.

2.) Enjoying what you do is essential. As Elliott's post reminds us: What's the point in doing something you hate?

If you're in a job that you enjoy but doesn't allow you to watch your own children grow up then, in my opinion, that is a terrible restriction on your freedom. Similarly, if you do something you hate purely to enjoy your free time (i.e. - "living for the weekend") then that can never be fulfilling.

I think that all of my friends would appreciate my assertions in principle but very few people I know are really putting such a mentality into practice. These are just the lessons I've learnt indirectly from two men that have featured pretty heavily in my life.

I think that anyone starting an awesome startup is doing something they love and has a thirst for freedom which is stronger than your average human. Those two forces combined with a great business model should mean that the salary doesn't even feature in a hacker's mind. What's more important is creating something incredible that has money or value flowing through it. I guess it couldn't be further from the mentality of a wannabe "investment banker".

I think your formula is nice but maybe could value could be subtracted at the end for loss of time through getting educated (loss of youth). I presume it took a lot of graft to become an eye surgeon, maybe more so than a merger lawyer (during the uni/qualifying phase).

That's an interesting one. I know that my dad really enjoyed the process of becoming a doctor but not the process of studying for medical exams. He loves surgery, thinking fast and helping people out. In his field of expertise it turns out that watch-makers' hands are far more useful than an extensive knowledge of the retina.

By way of contrast, my uncle loved studying English. Those were years well-spent in his mind.

There's different ways to interpret the article's main point; I see it as: chose a path, not a destination. If you enjoy coding, you'll eventually get somewhere. If you're trying to 'learn JavaScript in 21 days', you wont get anywhere, you're just missing the point.

I can testify to the power of his last point on both fronts. Yes, it is a business model in of itself and you would be amazed at the referral and word-of-mouth you receive for being a white knight to the recipient. An amazing way to build a business.

On the other front, heed his advice to NOT get into tech support though... or cross the line into client territory... that is when disaster can strike and tarnish the goodwill that you built.

Anyone else have experience with this?

With regards to the first point, how do I know how much to ask for? There are a lot of salary calculator tools out there, but I suspect they're only so accurate.

They will give you an opening offer most of the time. If they ask what you're looking for, just say that you're exploring the market and don't have a set figure yet. Here's a simple strategy for a first timer, especially if you want the job and don't have other offers on the table:

1. They will call and offer you the job, and tell you what the salary is. Say "thanks, I'm very interested, but will need a day to think it over."

2. Call them back the second day. Say "I'm very excited about this job, but I was really hoping for a higher salary."

3. Shut up and wait for them to reply. Leaving a space of silence is key. You've said your piece, it's their turn to reply--just wait for them to say something back.

4. They will usually come back with a higher offer. This got me a 10% increase in starting pay at one job--and I was absolutely going to take it either way.

There are lots of other things you can do if you have other offers, previous salaries, or industry comparisons. But this is a solid fallback plan, and anyone can handle it.

Honestly, I wouldn't put too much faith in this working. It's possible that I'm just really bad at this, but the last couple times I've been looking for work, I've never gotten a company to budge off their initial offer (even when I truthfully told them that I had 4 other offers on the table). In one case a company I turned down did come back with a higher offer a year later.

If they won't budge with other offers on the table and let you walk away, then nothing would have helped.

I think the key part is to not worry too much about the actual number. Seek out the right job, and the right people to work with. From experience I can say if you find yourself around smart people you'll learn more in the first 3 weeks of your job than in 3 years of study.

OP suggests that some people don't get what they want because they focus too much on what they want to be instead of what they want to do.

I suggest that they take it one step further and focus not so much on what they want to do as on what they want to deliver.

OP says it himself later in the post:

Fix other people’s problems.

Getting what you want becomes a byproduct the moment you stop worrying about yourself and begin focusing on what you're going to deliver to others. The things you need to do for others are (conveniently) the exact same things you need to do to get better at what you do and eventually, to get what you want. For someone on a mission the help others, the endless hours you need to put in at a keyboard may not seem like work at all.

Let your code be the star, not you. Let your user be the recipient, not you. The rest will take care of itself.

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